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Game Design Curriculum

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Re: Game Design Curriculum

#111

Post by scollet »

gcpwnd wrote: post #77
kumarvvr wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>useless Well, they are not exactly useless. Even discounting for educational games, pointless games like Borderlands / Grand Theft Auto have great value. That value lies in providing entertainment in an interactive way, something that was never possible for most of human existence. There is something magical about highly interactive games, like say Far Cry. GTA, etc, where the player knows his game, while being the…

You missed the point. He said games do not generate anything materially useful. His intend here was to trivialize the true value of games and still giving them the honor of being worthwhile. Read between the lines or just don't at all.

> Read between the lines or just don't at all.

Not OP, but I take umbridge with this last bit.

That aside, I fail to see how exercising grey matter and fine motor control is not materially useful.

Re: Game Design Curriculum

#112

Post by scollet »

mooman219 wrote: post #18

(Riot's less than stellar history aside) I see these takes on game design a lot, and they're interesting to see because everyone takes their own stance on how to construct a fun game from distinct smaller concepts. Yahtzee’s Dev Diary [0] talks a lot about loops (And I give it a watch recommendation), while at your average GDC talk you hear about the concept of pillars [1] and their role in shaping games. I'm interes…

Tried and true.

https://www.youtube.com/c/MarkBrownGMT

Re: Game Design Curriculum

#113

Post by runawaybottle »

krapp wrote: post #106
runawaybottle wrote: post #104

The problem I have with courses like this is it validates careers that lack integrity. Game design 101 starts with learning to program or do graphics. The same with software development. Unfortunately, we as an industry validated an entire class of people with jobs where they literally manage software (agile people) without building actual software for years. It doesn’t sit well with me, but life is not fair.

>Game design 101 starts with learning to program or do graphics. No it doesn't, any more than architecture 101 starts with bricklaying, or novel writing 101 starts with learning typesetting and printing.

These are mostly false analogies.

I don’t know enough about Architecture to point out the fundamentals that you should be making parallels to.

For novels, typesetting is an incredible false analogy. You need to learn how to communicate via writing on a technical level before you can write creatively (e.g stories).

Back to the shot at agile, I would not expect anyone that never dealt with deadlines or technical scoping to manage timelines for either of those things.

If someone doesn’t even know how to write a game loop, they are going to move on to game design?

If you look at a movie, some of your bad screenplay writing can be fixed via casting. Imagine not having any hands on experience with the process, but alas, you move on to movie director because you took movie directing 101. It’s insane, design is a holistic process that requires a lot of exposure.

Re: Game Design Curriculum

#114

Post by krapp »

runawaybottle wrote: post #113
krapp wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Game design 101 starts with learning to program or do graphics. No it doesn't, any more than architecture 101 starts with bricklaying, or novel writing 101 starts with learning typesetting and printing.

These are mostly false analogies. I don’t know enough about Architecture to point out the fundamentals that you should be making parallels to. For novels, typesetting is an incredible false analogy. You need to learn how to communicate via writing on a technical level before you can write creatively (e.g stories). Back to the shot at agile, I would not expect anyone that never dealt with deadlines or technical scopin…

>For novels, typesetting is an incredible false analogy. You need to learn how to communicate via writing on a technical level before you can write creatively (e.g stories).

Remember that the purpose of games is to communicate with the player, just as the purpose of a novel is to communicate with the reader. Novels do this through language, games do this through direction, design and assets, not the code. I think the analogy to typesetting is correct - writing the code that runs the game is a far lower level activity than writing the game itself.

>If someone doesn’t even know how to write a game loop, they are going to move on to game design?

If they do, it's only because a company doesn't want to hire outside of house. But one doesn't need to know how to write a game loop to know how to design a game, any more than one needs to know how to design a game in order to write a game loop. They're completely separate disciplines.

>It’s insane, design is a holistic process that requires a lot of exposure.

Not necessarily to programming. It can be useful, and sometimes with small studios or a single developer, it's unavoidable (but good design in those cases is usually the exception rather than the rule.)

Re: Game Design Curriculum

#115

Post by runawaybottle »

krapp wrote: post #114
runawaybottle wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are mostly false analogies. I don’t know enough about Architecture to point out the fundamentals that you should be making parallels to. For novels, typesetting is an incredible false analogy. You need to learn how to communicate via writing on a technical level before you can write creatively (e.g stories). Back to the shot at agile, I would not expect anyone that never dealt with deadlines or technical scopin…

>For novels, typesetting is an incredible false analogy. You need to learn how to communicate via writing on a technical level before you can write creatively (e.g stories). Remember that the purpose of games is to communicate with the player, just as the purpose of a novel is to communicate with the reader. Novels do this through language, games do this through direction, design and assets, not the code. I think the…

If that’s the case, then my friend, you live in a better world than I’ve come close to sniffing.

Re: Game Design Curriculum

#116

Post by tester756 »

bllguo wrote: post #30
abledon wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LoL is also an amazing spectator sport, the format is so fun to watch. OverWatch/CS-GO/Valorant/Fortnite etc... the FPS aspect is a harder to follow especially for people with slower eye movement. Lol on the other hand, its like watching Soccer/Golf/Football except the players also have magic/hi-tech abilities. The "depth" of the strategy is also sooo much more than an FPS. flex picks, lane swaps, lane freezing , met…

I've actually never seen this opinion before. The amount of background knowledge you need to understand a match LoL is so much higher than something like CS, which I think is definitely the easiest major esport to consume

I think that it's dependent on how depth you want to understand

If you're just curious about who's winning and who's doing "cool stuff" and killing enemies then you don't need years of experience

but if you want to understand all that decision making stuff then yea

Re: Game Design Curriculum

#117

Post by dkersten »

meddlin wrote: post #88
munificent wrote: post #43

Game design (whether computer or even board games) is a valuable topic to learn even if you never make a real game. If you make any kind of thing that people use, learning a little about how to think like a game designer can help you make things that are more rewarding and pleasant to use. One way to think of videogames is that they are useless software . Imagine a word processor that couldn't save or print files. Or…

I'm asking because you seem to speak with experience... Why do we make video games? I've been programming for 10 years, I love games; wanted to make them. But I went into infosec because it felt...justified? Like it's more noble? But that doesn't seem to make sense saying it out loud. But your points on understanding game design because of that human-software-machine connection, that just feels like it makes sense. I…

Why do we write books, make movies, music or art?

Re: Game Design Curriculum

#118

Post by dkersten »

roudaki wrote: post #95
ido wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do we paint? Sculpt? Write? Film? Play or compose music? Both art and entertainment are important.

No game is David's Michelangelo in talent or effect. When people say we need entertainment they are thinking in a sense of dessert like of course you deserve a dessert sometimes. But that is not how we got 67% obesity rates. And now with companies aggressively stealing attention and average person spending 5 hours a day on entertainment while reading one book a year you do feel little guilty for creating one more app…

I think you just haven't played the right games. There are some incredible games which, to me, have the same appeal as Michelangelo's David is to some (personally, to me, its just a sculpture, nothing too interesting -- my point is, the art that some people find meaningful and interesting is completely subjective and depends on the person).

Re: Game Design Curriculum

#119

Post by XCSme »

munificent wrote: post #43

Game design (whether computer or even board games) is a valuable topic to learn even if you never make a real game. If you make any kind of thing that people use, learning a little about how to think like a game designer can help you make things that are more rewarding and pleasant to use. One way to think of videogames is that they are useless software . Imagine a word processor that couldn't save or print files. Or…

Weren't there multiple studies showing that games gained experience is useful for the real world?

* Social - How many people have learned to trade and avoid scams IRL by playing RuneScape? No RuneScape player would have falled for the recent "double your BTC" Twitter scam. * Strategy- From all kinds of games (chess, strategy, fighting games, shooters, etc.) * Working in teams - MOBAs, Rocket League, Shooters. You start flaming your team, you lose. * Health - I know people that hate doing exercise, yet they played hundreds of hours of Table Tennis in VR and losing weight. * Self-esteem - Games allow people to clearly know when they are really good at something. They also make it easy to see progress. So, you might feel like you suck at everything IRL, but you find that one game that you are good at and then people even respect you for that and look up to you. * Mental health - Might be for escapism but also could help you express your anger or other feelings in a game instead of the real world This list could go on forever.

> They're self contained This is so, so wrong. I don't know if you are a gamer or not, but gaming communities are huge. Once you start playing a game, you will want to discuss it with others, learn from others, share your experience with others. Not only that, but through a game, the game developers communicate to you in a sense that no other experience can (books, movies). Yes, the "bits" that make up a game are self-contained as any other physical object, but the story behind them and what they express spreads way further than themselves. I think "real" software is a lot more self-contained, plus most of it is created to hinder value creation, not to actually create value.

Re: Game Design Curriculum

#120

Post by gamblor956 »

runawaybottle wrote: post #113
krapp wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Game design 101 starts with learning to program or do graphics. No it doesn't, any more than architecture 101 starts with bricklaying, or novel writing 101 starts with learning typesetting and printing.

These are mostly false analogies. I don’t know enough about Architecture to point out the fundamentals that you should be making parallels to. For novels, typesetting is an incredible false analogy. You need to learn how to communicate via writing on a technical level before you can write creatively (e.g stories). Back to the shot at agile, I would not expect anyone that never dealt with deadlines or technical scopin…

You can tell stories without writing.

That was how human history and "oral tradition" was passed down for thousands of years, even after the development of writing.

If anything, writing made telling stories harder because you had to start considering things other than just your words, like punctuation and spelling.

If you look at a movie, some of your bad screenplay writing can be fixed via casting. Imagine not having any hands on experience with the process, but alas, you move on to movie director because you took movie directing 101. It’s insane, design is a holistic process that requires a lot of exposure.

Most directors can't write screenplays, or even work the cameras they use to film their movies. And yet Hollywood has been doing just fine...

And for the record: there are plenty of game designers in the video game industry that can't program. They've collectively designed games that have sold tens of billions of dollars.

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