Week 10: Excercises

4.2: Dramatic Games (p97)

• Detroit: Become Human - The game has a premise, story and a set of dynamic characters which created a compelling story. In addition, the game allows the players to pick the path of the story themselves, giving them a sense of control and that all of the choices they made becomes meaningful to them. The timed events within the game also added more tension to the game as well.
• Little Misfortune - Just like Detroit: Become Human, this game has a premise, story and a dynamic character which created a compelling story.  However, rarther than actually having a branching storyline, the game has only 2 endings and one linear storyline. However, the game still gives the players the illusion of control since they have the agency to choose between choices and see the result of those choices happening.
• The Last of Us - In addition to the premise, story and a set of dynamic characters, the game gives its players challenges in which the players require certain skills to surpass, as well as a clear objective in which gives the player a clear direction as to what to do withing the game. The game also drops the player right into the middle of the story (in media res) at the start of the game. This heightended the tension for the players, making the game more dramatic.
• The Walking Dead -  The game has a premise, story and a set of dynamic characters, all with a significance to the story, which created a compelling story. The game heavily depends on creating a dramatic feeling using the story and the choices in which the players have to pick between. These choices are significant in deciding the story that follows and how all the different characters will behave after the choices were made.
• Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice - This game has a premise, story and characters. Although the story and the characters may not be as elaborately explained and showed within the game like the previous examples, this game creates a dramatic feeling by giving the players numerous challenges with the diffulty gradually increasing. The challenges require the players to know certain skille and get better at them as the game goes on in order to complete the objectives. Once the challenge is surpassed, the players can feel a sense of satisfaction of completing a difficult task.

4.4: Goals and Feedback (p100)

• Tetris - The feedbacks include the sounds when the blocks snaps in and when they complete a row in which the point increases. In addition, the visual feedback of how the blocks snaps also tells the player how they should be moving and rotating the blocks within the limited space and time in order to form a row. The player will be able to tell that the more feedbacks of completing a row they get, the higher the score will be for them.
• The Walking Dead - Aside from the visual and audio feedbacks of killing a zombie, the facial expressions and the reactions of the characters after certain choices made by the player are also a type of feedbacks which communicate to the player what they should do next in the game. Since the main goal is to stay alive, the feedbacks from other characters are important in order for the player to plan how they should interact and form relationships between characters in a way that would be beneficial in staying alive.
• The Stanley Parable - The reactions from the narrator is the main feedback the game provides, along with the visual and sounds feedbacks from the actions that the player chooses to do in the game. As the player listens to the narrator, they can choose to follow what they say or not, and the feedback from the narrator will influence them in which direction to go towards or which action they should do next.

4.5: Player Types (p104)

• The Competitor - Hunt: Showdown
• The Explorer - Firewatch
• The Collector - Touken Ranbu
• The Achiever - Bloodborne
• The Joker - Untitled Goose Game
• The Artist - Monument Valley
• The Director - Until Dawn
• The Storyteller - Stardew Valley
• The Performer - Human: Fall Flat
• The Craftsman - Planet Coaster

I tend to be a mixture of  the collector, the explorer, the artist, and the storyteller. In addition, I sometimes become the joker, especially in multiplayer games.