For thousands of years, people have studied celestial bodies and generated stories about them. Long before home-entertainment and modern life existed, I think of early people lying on their backs, watching the sky during the night and day, imagining and exchanging stories. I have had the chance to listen to many myths about the sun and the moon in different geographies. I have realised that most of them are actually very similar to each other; the Sun and the Moon are in love

My mind has been busy with the topic of the power of immersiveness in games. Obviously, technology is not the most important factor in immersiveness; we do not need bigger screens or better VR to achieve it. I have been questioning why certain games, books or films possess more of this power than the others. I have encountered the "Tolkien and Worldbuilding" essay by Catherine Butler, while I was researching about the art of world building for video games. Reading about the c

I searched for a recent study results for gaming habits of middle-aged women in London. Even though I have not yet encountered this specific data, I ended up with some insight on the general women preferences in gaming. "A similar conclusion can be drawn when we examine how gamers discover new games. On the surface, there are clear differences in the way men and women discover games. For female gamers, social circles are key, with 39% of them discovering a game through friend

In my first attempt reading this book, I was not very successful at pulling the information I needed from the text, and I thought it was dry and the presentation of ideas progressed too slowly. I gave a it second chance after a few weeks and decided to start reading from the chapter which had the information I needed the most, and went back to previous chapters if I was confused and required more explanation of a specific subject. This system worked much better. Now, I think

As a woman from the Middle East, politics has been a sensitive issue in my life, and making a political game will not be the most cheerful activity. I decided to do a superficial research and start gathering some random notes in order to prepare a base for brainstorming. My nation in NationStates: What are politics? Definitions according to Merriam-Webster Dictionary: the art or science: - of government - concerned with guiding or influencing governmental policy - concerned w

To get simplicity you have to put a high value on simplicity. Simplicity not just happen, it needs to be designed. To get it, you have to want it badly. Not everything that is there really needs to be there. You need to understand the matter. Be clear about what you are trying to do and about its values. You cannot design something well and simple right away. You need to think, design alternatives and possibilities, think more then choose between them. Everything needs to jus

Slot Machines and Coin-op Games | A Collector's Guide to One-Armed Bandits and Amusement Machines by Bill Kurtz, published in 1991 This post only contains the notes I have taken while reading the book. I read it as background research for Understanding Game Experience essay. The first penny arcades became popular with the Great Depression of the 1930s in North America. The machines served as a inexpensive way to escape problems. High-scoring players could gain small prizes su

NOTES Chapter 1 - A Casual Revolution "The casual revolution in the title of this book is a breakthrough moment in the history of video games. This is the moment in which the simplicity of early video games is being rediscovered, while new flexible designs are letting video games fit into the lives of players. Video games are being reinvented, and so is our image of those who play the games. This is the moment when we realise that everybody can be a video game player." "The v

NOTES (*Incomplete* - I continue reading.) Part 1 - Concepting: What games to make, who will play them and what impressions we will leave them with. A compelling game mechanic only makes sense in context. Transplant that mechanic into another game, and there is no guarantee that it will work. "When a game-maker does his job correctly, most of the moving parts are invisible, even when you break open the case." (page 3) We have 2 brains, the child brain and the adult brain. The

Chapter 1: Artificial conflict in games - they give us series of challenges to overcome. Gameplay exists in a simulated environment with its own rules (fantasy). Game players have meaningful choices. Their actions/choices mean something within the context. Games have results, quantifiable outcomes. Chapter 2 - How the brain works: Games are voluntary, free activity outside ordinary life. The Brain: -likes faces, and is good at drawing meaning from patterns, making assumptions