> Alright, this is where my response becomes
> pseudo-intellectual (ie, I'm smart and thoughtful, but I
> never went to university lol):
>
From my experience, one is most likely to hear something pseudo-intellectual from someone who is the exact reverse of that-- someone who's spent a lot of time learning the trappings of intellectual discourse, and little else. =P
Your post, however, was a good read. I've thought about this stuff for a while too, partly because lately I've been making some games of my own.
> Games are not always supposed to be completely fun. Games
> are supposed to encompass as much of the whole of human
> experience as possible, and produce scenarios which
> stimulate the aspects of the human psyche which make a
> person feel like they've triumphed over some kind of
> adversity.
I don't think I'd put it quite that way in one respect-- realism isn't absolutely necessary, which is why something abstract like Tetris is still able to trigger the general challenge/reward emotional response. The instinct can be guided to work with novel challenges, and not just ones that reflect natural circumstance. Of course, realism can help further bring out the hunting/fighting instinct: After all, there's a reason it's so darn fun to shoot stuff. /wwwthreads/images/icons/wink.gif
> The adversity part is just as important as the
> feeling of triumph. The feeling of "fun" you get from
> playing a game involves a precarious balance of
> unpleasantness (say, beating a really hard boss whom you
> throw your controller across the room everytime you fail)
> and the resulting "release" from agony upon beating said
> boss that makes everything feel better. The "release" is the
> most important part.
Yeah, that's definitely the core of most games-- challenge and reward, tension and release, a way to satiate our instinctive desire to battle obstacles and odds. The same obstacle that makes us curse under our breath is also part of what keeps us coming back to a game, because we feel all the more need to conquer it. When friends tried out a game I made, I knew I'd done something right when they muttered about the time limit set for each level not being fair, yet kept on playing. =)
> Any time you've triumphed over
> adversity, in a video game, it triggers the same feeling of
> greatness that humans farther in the past would have had
> when they, say, killed a wild boar and obtained a hearty
> meal, and thus ensured survival for their tribe.
Which, if you think about it, means that an alien visitor descended from a long line of grazing herbivores would probably find our motivation for playing games (of nearly any kind-- boardgames, sports, cards, etc.) completely baffling. Of course, maybe such an alien species might never bother taking up the challenge of space exploration to begin with, being content to just keep munching grass placidly. =P
> Now, with
> that said, requiring the finding a save point is a way that
> really clever game designers can engineer a sense of
> "release from danger" that makes you feel great once you've
> succeeded. Otherwise, why wouldn't they allow you to save
> anywhere? Think about it. It's all part of the mindfucking
> design that goes into any good video game.
>
Yeah, it's a game designer's job to be the player's enemy. =)
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