Ames' syllabi

1. Every successful game must keep players engaged throughout. If a game struggles to hold the player’s attention, it fails its primary purpose. Engagement means more than just hooking someone for a single play—it ensures they want to return repeatedly. For example, on page 5, part 1 in “The Kobold Guide to Game Design,” the difference between engaging and merely hooking is discussed. My favorite game, BLINK, exemplifies lasting engagement. It’s quick, replayable, and exciting, requiring few materials. I enjoyed playing BLINK at my golf course job while waiting for carts—its fast pace fit naturally into idle moments, and its replay value made it memorable.

When coming up with ideas, where do you find you start, with the metaphor or the mechanic? – I find myself on the mechanical side when coming up with ideas. I normally get inspired by something random I see and try to twist it into my own game or be the main attraction of the game. Once this idea or object is stuck in my head, I have to think about how to make a game around it. After I have figured out what I want from the idea, that’s when the skeleton of the game comes into play. 

The Kobold Guide to Game Design describes the three-act structure as beginning, middle, and end. The beginning of BLINK involves splitting the deck and explaining the rules: get rid of cards by matching colors and shapes. Conflict slowly rises as players become more competitive. The middle focuses on the struggle for victory when you try to keep up as the play speeds up. At the end, there’s a final push to victory as you race to place your last card, with the loser realizing the outcome. Pacing is quick once you understand the rules. The start is slower to find your rhythm, the middle becomes fast-paced, and the end requires precise actions as the game tightens. 

List the games you’ve played and currently play. – I have played Monopoly, Chutes and Ladders, Blink, UNO, War, Spoons, BS, Fluxx, The voting game, Life, Connect 4, Sorry, Rider, FIFA, Madden, Boggle, Hop Scotch, Tag, Shark and Minnows, Pig/Horse Basketball, Cross Bar Soccer, Tic Tac Toe, Cornhole, CanJam, BattleShip, Roblox, Among Us, Slither.io, Paper.io, Over the River soccer, Flying Changes Soccer, Go Fish, Kings in the Corner, Blitz, Would You Rather, Put a Finger Down, Minecraft, Blank Slates, and telestration.

Over the course of this semester, who would you like to collaborate with and why? – I would like to collaborate with Meredith because I think we would be able to come up with unique game ideas since we have different ways we go about finding an idea. But, when combined I think we could have an amazing game ideas and work well with each other.

1. In your opinion, what should every game have? Why do you like your favorite game?
   • Every game should have an aspect of surprise. Something the users don’t expect right away, with some build-up to it. My favorite game is Cards Against Humanity, which allows the user to shock other players with vulgar or weird answers. The element of surprise in the player’s control gives a game its wow and alluring factor.
2. List the games you’ve played and currently play.
   • Cards against Humanity
   • Fluxx
   • Apples to Apples
   • Minecraft
   • Exploding Kittens
   • Monopoly
   • Life
   • Fortnite
   • Roblox
   • Chess
   • Scrabble
   • Clue
   • Uno
   • Black Jack
   • Crapps
   • War 
   • Yattzee
   • Shoots and Ladders
   • Candy Land
   • Mario Cart
   • Super Mario
   • Chess
   • Rummi
   • Rock Paper Scissors
   • Tetris
   • Candyland
   • Temple Run
   • Just Dance
   • Go Fish
3. Can you apply the three-act structure to your favorite game? What is it’s pacing and how long do you find yourself in each act?
   • I would like to first say that, reading this part in the textbook, I couldn’t help but think of the game Clue. Now I am willing to give this game another shot with the right convincing, but I absolutely can’t stand that game. However, I seem to gravitate towards that game when doing the reading. I found the 3-act structure first in the establishing of the game and how everyone gets their own character, and you start asking the basic questions of who might have what object where when trying to establish the murder. Then, the second act in the middle is the struggle to remember who said what and trying not to repeat objects in rooms with the same person. Studying other players’ faces is another part of the struggle to tell if they’re lying or not. The final act, when all other possibilities are narrowed down and there are only so many turns left before someone is bound to guess it. The suspense comes from the right room and object, but they are struggling to figure out the person. Every person is frantic to get a turn in. Overall, the middle/second tends to be the longest, especially when playing with newbies to the game. I find myself in these acts for around 10 to 15 minutes, sometimes even 20, mainly because the first act doesn’t take all that long. 
4. When coming up with ideas, where do you start, with the metaphor or the mechanic?
   • When coming up with ideas, I think it can start either way. You can either have a story you want to tell, then come up with the mechanics, or vice versa. However, I will say coming up with the mechanics of a game vaguely might be the right start. Then, if you’re not sure how to proceed, move to the metaphor, and now that you have 2 vague aspects of the game, you can slowly fill in the rest. The metaphor and mechanic work together simultaneously, so if one doesn’t fit, the other needs to be tweaked.
5. Over the course of this semester, who would you like to collaborate with and why?
   • Over the course of this semester, I would like to collaborate with anyone in the class, really. I do think it would be interesting to work with other classmates with whom we have the least in common to create a game, and one with classmates I have the most in common with and who know each other really well. I would like to see this simply because of what other people bring to the table, as well as how we can make ideas flow within different situations, which would be parallel to what we’d work on in our own professional jobs.