Castle Paradox

Joe Man · Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2008 2:50 pm Post subject:

Mods, please move this.

Thank you.
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"Everyone has 200,000 bad drawings in them, the sooner you get them out the better."
~Charles Martin Jones

Last edited by Joe Man on Fri Dec 13, 1957 1:21 am; edited 2,892 time in total

Moogle1 · Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2008 2:59 pm Post subject:

To where?
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Slime Salad :: Independent Game Design

Joe Man · Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2008 3:04 pm Post subject:

Alright, maybe I'm wrong, but this looks pretty obviously like an addition to the Game Difficulty Thread thread.
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"Everyone has 200,000 bad drawings in them, the sooner you get them out the better."
~Charles Martin Jones

Last edited by Joe Man on Fri Dec 13, 1957 1:21 am; edited 2,892 time in total

Moogle1 · Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2008 3:19 pm Post subject:

It'd be pretty tangential there at this point.
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Slime Salad :: Independent Game Design

Joe Man · Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2008 3:21 pm Post subject:

True. But it's not like this thread serves terribly much point but to draw attention to itself.

And I do pray that everyone ignores that and talks about something more interesting.
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"Everyone has 200,000 bad drawings in them, the sooner you get them out the better."
~Charles Martin Jones

Last edited by Joe Man on Fri Dec 13, 1957 1:21 am; edited 2,892 time in total

Jack · **the fool** Joined: 30 Jul 2004 Posts: 773

I should go so far as to sticky this; lest people forget.

That is, if I could figure out how.
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Fenrir-Lunaris · **WUT** Joined: 03 Feb 2003 Posts: 1747

Done.

I suppose this topic exists so that we're at least all clear on what a "game" IS.

Bob the Hamster · Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2008 9:44 pm Post subject:

Newbie_Power · Joined: 04 Sep 2006 Posts: 1762

Toy Story Activity Center is an excellent example of what's not a game. It is just a bunch of stuff you can chose to do, with no coherent end goal, though some of the activities were games (I recall memorization and a card game), the whole package itself wasn't much of a game at all.
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Rya.Reisender · **Snippy** Joined: 18 Jan 2008 Posts: 821

The quoted definition of game refers to real life games which have nothing to do with video games, though. And wiki is not always right either.
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Snippy:
"curt or sharp, esp. in a condescending way" (Oxford American Dictionary)
"fault-finding, snappish, sharp" (Concise Oxford Dictionary, UK)
1. short-tempered, snappish, 2. unduly brief or curt (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

RedMaverickZero · Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 4:12 am Post subject:

Yeah, but all of those elements still apply to video "games". Usually some of the best games out there challenge the players in different ways. And up until the Wii, all video games have been mental to play. So it's always been figuring out how to beat things the best way. Look at Megaman, his games are bitching hard, but the challenge is what keeps people playing to see how far they can get. Or any RPG, with puzzles or boss fights that are so tough that it forces the player to think of an alternative way around it.

If anything, I'd say that the definition sums up all kinds of games perfectally.
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Rya.Reisender · **Snippy** Joined: 18 Jan 2008 Posts: 821

I'd still say goals and challenge aren't a must in games. Rules and interactivity are, though.

And I think "games" and "video games" are very different, similar in name only. Real life games indeed need a goal and a challenge to be games.

For example "Sand" is still a game despite it having no goal and no challenge. It has rules though (how each element interacts with all the others) and interactive (you can place any material yourself). However, if you would play with sand in real life it isn't really a game.

But it's really hard to define game to begin with because there are too many borderline cases. Not everything that has goals, rules, challenge and interactivity is a game either.

I think it's somewhat stupid to sticky a definition like that. Only a large discussion about this topic can slightly reflect what a game really is (like the one I started on selectbutton).
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Snippy:
"curt or sharp, esp. in a condescending way" (Oxford American Dictionary)
"fault-finding, snappish, sharp" (Concise Oxford Dictionary, UK)
1. short-tempered, snappish, 2. unduly brief or curt (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

Joe Man · Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 4:53 am Post subject:

I've never found a dictionary that includes the elements described in Wikipedia. Perhaps we should boil down our genre system to some even more basic categories? While it's not a game in the same sense, Spore is still universally considered to be a game and thus cannot be excluded. It's simply a completely different variety.

Lawdy, I could make my next big project defining games in terms of how they're enjoyable.
_________________
"Everyone has 200,000 bad drawings in them, the sooner you get them out the better."
~Charles Martin Jones

Last edited by Joe Man on Fri Dec 13, 1957 1:21 am; edited 2,892 time in total

JSH357 · Joined: 02 Feb 2003 Posts: 1705

I like Chris Crawford's definition of a game the best (It's similar to that Wikipedia one). I like to be a bit looser with definitions.

I'll try and remember to post that definition when I get back to Augusta, but it's in the second chapter of Chris Crawford on Game Design, I think. It's also useful for defining what is not a game.