Understanding Games

Understanding Games is series of four games trying to raise awareness for the basic concepts of video games. The tutorial-style episodes deal with rules, motivation, learning and identification in video games. The player is guided through each episode by the narrators Bob and Bub, who explain core concepts of games to the player. The player can experience these concepts directly while playing the integrated games.

Game 1

Game 2

Game 3

Game 4

Understanding Games is a diploma thesis project I did at the University of Applied Sciences in Potsdam, Germany in communications design. The game design theory behind the four episodes is based on various books I’ve read during my research. If you are interested to read more about these topics I highly recommend you the following books.

I am also thinking about a way to somehow integrate these recommended readings into the episodes, so if you have an idea how to do this, please let me know.

Chen, Jenova: Flow in Games. http://jenovachen.com/flowingames/thesis.htm

Costikyan, Greg: I Have No Words & I Must Design. http://www.costik.com/nowords.html

Crawford, Chris: The Art of Computer Game Design. http://www.vancouver.wsu.edu/fac/peabody/game-b…

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly: Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York : HarperCollins.

Gee, James Paul: What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. New York : Palgrave Macmillan.

Gingold, Chaim: Miniature Gardens & Magic Crayons: Games, Spaces & Worlds. Georgia : Institute of Technology.

Huizinga, Johan: Homo Ludes: A Study of the Play Element in Culture. Boston : Beacon Press.

Johnson, Steven: Everything Bad Is Good for You. London : Penguin Books.

Juul, Jesper: Half-Real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds. Cambridge, Massachusetts : MIT Press.

Koster, Ralph: A Theory of Fun for Game Design. Scottsdale, Arizona : Paraglyph Press.

Linderoth, Jonas: Animated game pieces. Avatars as roles, tools and props. Aesthetics of Play Conference. University of Bergen. http://www.aestheticsofplay.org/linderoth.php

McCloud, Scott: Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. New York : Harper Perennial.

Salen, Katie; Zimmerman, Eric: Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals. Cambridge, Massachusetts : MIT Press.

Salen, Katie; Zimmerman, Eric: The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology. Cambridge, Massachusetts : MIT Press.

Homepage:

http://www.pixelate.de/