Week 01 - Into the Industry

Walking into designing play the first day I knew not much except a few words on what to expect. Initially I took this class only to complete the game design certificate offered but only moments into the first class did it pique my interest. That day we played ninja despite not knowing each other and used it "like a language" to understand each other and how each of our thought process works when we only have a short time to think. (Sicart et al. 18).  While I want to create video games, the principles learned here will be the building blocks for what I want to do in the future. I hope to learn about what it takes to make a game fun and playable - to make a world "through objects, with others, for others, and for [ourselves]" (Sicart et al. 17).  

Currently I do this small-scale in the form of playing TTRPG (Table-top Roleplaying Games) and various video games, many of which are RPGs. Dungeons and Dragons, the most recent TTRPG I have picked up, shows how rules can be "flexible and interpretive" without breaking the game by making the flexibility part of the game itself - by making each adventure unique (Sicart et al. 8). My favorite video games are made by a company named From Software, and within their difficult worlds I learn to adapt and form my own story. The difficulty though is famed, keeping the tension of the playstyle thinly on the balance between "rational pleasures of order and creation and the sweeping euphoria of destruction and rebirth" as it punishes you brutally for mistakes in combat but brings about the greatest bliss when a boss finally falls to your hand and newfound knowledge (Sicart et al. 9). In this class I hope to learn to create something similar through the building blocks that will be handed to us over the course of the semester.