Games Testing

 "Game Testing"

During making my game I never once thought about game testing, ever, thank god that this game isn't being distributed to the public otherwise, it would be a flop!!!. From reading the different types of game testing I realized that it's very similar to testing a new kids cereal or product. You bring your target audience into a room, I think it's called a control group testing. You basically bring a group of kids into a room, you put the product in front of them, without a name, or if it's yours, and you compare through reactions, facial expressions and more obvious signs of opinion.

From completing the reading I've learned that game testing can be very scary and off putting because you don't want a bunch of random kids or strangers just saying your game, that you spent hours creating is not good at all!!!.  So any form of testing is off putting but if you want a game to succeed you have to go through with it.

Image Source: Icon

When I thought about game testing I thought it would be as easy as putting some people in a room, then just letting them play until they wanted to stop, they completed the levels or they wanted to stop, I was wrong!!! The amount of different testing these gaming companies is insane, no wonder it takes years for games to be released. 

The testing that's involved are functionality testing to performance testing, and everything in between, each testing phase consists of something completely different, and you think it's impossible for them to build on or fix anything else. One of the main things to take away from the video is to start testing your game as soon as you have a functioning game, don't wait until all the coding and designing is done, it's too late to start then and you could end up having way more corrections you would have if you started testing when it becomes functional.  

Game Stories

 "Game Stories"

The reading this week was quite different from the previous weeks, as we didn't just read about game design or how gamers come up with ideas, or how long it takes to create a game. The reading this week was all about building a story and what makes a story whole, basically.

The point made is that a game is not a movie, the structure of a game, is not that of a movie, in the article they said that's what mistakes were made in the beginning of gaming, basing them off movies, and that didn't work out well. We're also told about the common misconceptions of creating your games story, that it's not dialog and story doesn't matter, which in my opinion is both right and wrong. I think some games are most fun when it's a free for all and you just go on a war path, others love games that you complete missions and level up and up, you get a sense of achievement from things like that.

Then we are taught about CONFLICT!!!, that's what story is, conflict. After reading, it's very clear it is, here it is, you have a hero, something bad has occurred in their life, they will do whatever to make it right or seek revenge. The hero, has to take risks, or the obstacles will be too much, the hero has to take a much greater risk to achieve his/her goal, you win or lose and the game is over.

Image Source: Flickr

This has helped me understand how to approach making another game, hopefully that doesn't happen, but I can use this to make the idea process much easier, I can even use this information when I'm making my digital video techniques video, which I should make a start on this week!!! Overall I found this reading more enjoyable and beneficial than the other, more so because I enjoyed something different.

Game Fun

 "Game Fun"

The reading set for this week was a lot better to read than previous weeks because of the topic, the topic of the reading was about fun in gaming, and to find out there is more than one type fun, that you create knowingly when designing the game and another type of fun that happens when you play the game.

In the set readings they talk about how fun is a byproduct of a well designed game, and that making a point to make your game a fun game is not the right strategy for the best results. I found the reading really informative and helpful because right now we've all started making our own games for this module, and reading about how to make your game fun at the beginning of the process can be very helpful and guide us in the right direction. 

Out of all the material I found the video the most helpful as it almost broke the big reading work down into a six minute segment, and it was easier for me to absorb the points he made, I think that's because I learn more when things are being said to me than have to read hundreds of small words. Something very interesting was said in the video which was that fun, comes from the ability to provide us with a rich possibility for learning.

Image Source: WikiCommons

Then he goes into talking about games and if they have any educational or informative concepts that we don't notice we're learning during gameplay, we are shown options of different games and what skills we can learn from them while also having fun too. Chess teaches us strategy and foresight, civilization games teach us systemic and resource management which would actually really be helpful right now and games like poker teaches us deception and how to read peoples lies. In the video these are "Type 1" games, which are all about making us think, use our brains. "Type 2" games are more about reflex skills.

Overall I enjoyed this weeks reading more than usual and the video summed everything up well and I was easily able to absorb what I needed to learn.