(Thanks)

KG

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I stand by most of the rest of what I say, in particular:”everything that happens in the core loop” assumes, of course, that a game has a core loop, which need not be the case.

Again, our definitions may be at odds. To me having a core loop means the game is a game and not a screensaver.

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As a designer I find MDA useful, but it’s not a silver bullet and it doesn’t explain everything. Rather than feeling it fails me in this, though, this actually makes it a useful counterpoint to the experience-driven methodology of game design, where the aesthetics are technically all that matters because that’s where the player actually inhabits the game, cognitively and emotionally and otherwise.

It’s only when you triangulate between models that are descriptive along different axes that you get the real picture. Your ones and zeroes become thoughts and emotions. So really it’s not so strange at all that the souls of men are enchanted from their bodies with the guts of sheep.

… and with that I suppose I’ve thrown down the pretension gauntlet for all.

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My apologies to all those hurt in the process.

Oh, and the game: I stated what I saw in the screenshots, and frankly, the insufficiency in relying on them.

No, not the insufficiency: the complete and utter inadequacy.

Take the work of the late, revered Bruce Carver, founder of access software.

Bruce’s first three games were all big hits on the Commodore 64: Neutral Zone, Beach Head, Raid over Moscow. While Will Wright was mucking about with making fighter jets land, taxi, refuel and take off again in Raid on Bungeling Bay, Bruce Carver was cranking out Neutral Zone. Go to your library and pull up a copy of Compute! from 1983, and you’ll see an ad for Neutral Zone. The Ad is largely screenshots, and if you compare them to the other screenshots in the magazine (both ads and features), you’ll see that they’re _far_ superior to everything else. “Dang, that’s an asteroid there!” and “Wow, that’s a floating space station.”

Now consult (at your library, I’d presume) the game Neutral Zone: It’s a “use the joystick to blow up (very, very few) sprites” game across an extended left/right scrolling (hey those commands are free in 6502 assembly) background.

That guy showed that pretty screenshots would sell, and his first games were built around pretty screenshots. Then he got the money and the tech to work on his passion, the golf game.

So, yes, remembering my youth, I’m wary of screenshots. In any case, they are not nearly as capable of expressing the game experience as (unedited) video (and by the way, when we say “gameplay video”, everyone understands what we mean), or :gasp:, the gripping prose assessment of a good reviewer.

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Sorry if I’m missing something (or just being American), but why wouldn’t you say “mechanically” rather than “mechanistically?” It makes more sense to me…

If we’re going to be pedantic, we should probably be talking about mechanisms rather than mechanics.

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I stand by most of the rest of what I say, in particular:”everything that happens in the core loop” assumes, of course, that a game has a core loop, which need not be the case.

MDA is a design theory. It does not help us communicate the aesthetic experience of a game. Consider, for example, the award “Best New Game Mechanic”. Portals have been around found a while, and not just in Narbacular Drop. So are they talking there about the “mechanic” of portals, or the “aesthetic” experience they facilitate, as optimized by one implementation of that mechanic?

Also, MDA as expressed there is terribly internalistic. It ignores external factors such as platform and social setting, and controls available. The wiimote, for example, isn’t a “mechanic”; it’s an environmental factor not covered by the model. Yet it’s central to many of what MDA theory would call “mechanics”, but few of these “mechanics” get called such by most people – they still refer to “mechanics” in terms of the “rules of the simulation” as opposed to the game.
In his thought-provoking presentation, Mr. Blow cited Dan Radosh’s Halo3 review, notably the introduction, which makes the notorious internalist parallel to film (after decades of little growth, the 1930s saw a flourishing in development of the film art), without noting the very real technological developments that facilitated it (sound, electric-drive cameras, portable cameras).

Also, “content” is mentioned in passing, as “levels, assets, and so on.” Likewise, while “aesthetics” is discussed, if we are to take MDA seriously, “Aesthetics” would be the middle of five steps, ending with human mechanics, such as addictive processes (as rightly alluded to in Mr. Blow’s presentation).

In other words, MDA propounds the principles of a subalternate science. An architect designs a building to serve certain tasks (protect from cold and wind), and the dudes under the architect decide how to do it. The kinds of questions MDA seeks to resolve are “how can we best build a wall?”

“Okay”, you might say (but more likely “no way, idiot!”), “what’s wrong with talking about mechanics?” Nothing, other than we don’t judge mechanics in themselves. We judge the quality of their implementation and their affect on the whole system (and not merely their dynamic interaction with other mechanics) and the experience of the whole. In short, we play the game, not the mechanics.

And whenusing an adjective referring to mechanics, why not use “mechnically” as opposed to the appalling neologism “Mechanistically”? Is there a parallel use for “Dynamistically” and “Aestheticismically”?

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Focusing on “mechanism” compels us to assume an ontologically thick divide between “game” and “interface”, and, by extension, “platform”. Does a “game” exist independent of the ability to express it?

No, because the interface is defined by mechanics as well. It sounds like your definition of “mechanics” is narrower than others. Mechanics isn’t just what happens inside the black box of a simulation, it’s everything that happens in the core loop, which includes player input.

Read some of the MDA theory, mechanics is far more specific than “gameplay”, and it gains clarity from being distinguished from dynamics and aesthetics.

Terms only become buzzwords if they’re abstract enough to be amputated from their actual meaning, whereas designers can always point to fairly concrete things (insofar as mechanics are concrete) and say “mechanics”.

and I still haven’t seen any evidence that this game will bring us all as an industry into a an all new golden age

Good thing absolutely no-one has ever promised that of Braid.

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and being a fan of david hellman’s work i would buy this just for that, if i had an xbox.

“mechanistically” makes me think of the physical interaction between my hands and the interface that controls the game.

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Also Blow kind of really gets on my nerves and I still haven’t seen any evidence that this game will bring us all as an industry into a an all new golden age. Looks like Prince of Persia crossed with Mario fun but not life changing.

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