Welcome back!

This will be my eighth post on my design blog. Today I will be going over the information that I learned in the eighth week of my Game Systems Design class. As I have said in my previous posts if you follow this blog, I would appreciate any feedback you may have. Anything at all, whether it is critiquing the design of my game or giving me inspiration/recommendations.

This week:

To start this post today, I am going to begin talking about Module III for the first time, this module is the last one that I will be going over in my blog. This final module is called Advanced Considerations: Deconstructing & Evaluating Designed Systems. The lesson we learned during the first week of this module is about friends and enemies. This basically means that I am going to discuss a little about multiplayer systems in video games.

I have no plans to implement any multiplayer to my game.

In this week's class, our professor asked us:

"How can/do SOCIAL LEARNING and GAME DESIGN interface?" - Professor Slota

Games have provided a structured environment for quickly learning complex behaviors. If you think about it video games help teach the player mechanics just in order to complete it. For example, a new game came out recently called Multiverses, this game is basically another 2D fighting game like Super Smash Bros. This type of fighting game is very competitive and only the best player is going to win. If you sink any amount of time into a game like Multiverses you will start to learn a lot of things just naturally while trying to win. You will learn; the characters, their abilities, the different maps you will fight on, different combos, how combos actually work, what combos are better, the weight systems of characters, characters that can get combo'd only at certain health percentages, etc. Just by playing the game at a semi-competitive level where you are trying to win you will start to just learn mechanics without even realizing it. Social simulation and computer-based role-playing games can help adults explore skills, methods, and concepts rapidly. This is how social learning can be associated with video game design.

Players can learn from:

1. Contextual information embedded in the mechanics of the game.
2. Through the risks, benefits, outcomes, costs, and rewards of alternative strategies that result from decision making.
3. Applying these newly learned tools or skills.

Different types of multiplayer systems in games:

• Collaborative Play
  • Players work together to surpass a common goal or challenge.
    • Example: Overcooked
      • "Working as a team, you and your fellow chefs must prepare, cook and serve up a variety of tasty orders before the baying customers storm out in a huff."
• Competitive Play
  • Players work against each other to overcome specific individual challenges.
    • Example: Chess
      • “The purpose of the game is to checkmate the opponent's king. This happens when the king is put into check and cannot get out of check.”
• Hybrid Play
  • Players work together and against one another for a variety of reasons.
    • Example: Among Us
      • “The goal of the Crewmates is to complete tasks to maintain and fix the spaceship, while the Impostor's goal is to sabotage the entire mission before the task gauge fills up.”

Single-Player vs. Multiplayer

Reasons that my game will be single-player only:

1. Single-player games offer more freedom, in my opinion. You don’t have to join other people, compromise on anything, or think about others.
2. No pressure to do well in single-player, players can enjoy at their own pace.
3. A player gets a chance to absorb the game’s theme with better meaning and storyline. As a solo player, you get to absorb the surroundings, understand the theme better, and live the experience of a character in a video game world.
4. More story focused than a multiplayer game.

"57% of gamers prefer single-player over multiplayer games, compared to 22% who prefer multiplayer games. While the overall preference for the single player mode holds true across all age segments, the degree to which the single player mode is preferred differs significantly with age." - Karol Severin (2022)

I have found myself having more fun playing single-player games recently and I think that this graph is a good indicator to as why. I can slow down and enjoy the game how it was meant to at my own pace. That is why for this specific game that I am making I have chosen to not implement multiplayer and keep the game as a single-player experience. I would like to focus on the story element of the game and I believe it will feel like a more immersive experience if the player is alone while traversing the environment I plan on producing.

Minor Update:

New Interactable

New Enemy

Thank you for reading my eighth post on my blog. In my next post, I will be going over module III one more time. I will go over all of the information from Week 9: Understanding Aesthetic as well as give more insight into the design of my game. Any feedback is greatly appreciated! Please leave a comment! Check out my last post here: https://www.gamedev.net/blogs/entry/2274052-design-notes-7-seventh-post-module-ii-week-7/