Good evening to you all! To all of you in my classroom and to you who are watching us from your computer screen.
Today we will discuss about the components of an electronic game.
- I love electronic games.
- Although I know a lot of things about games, I'm sure I will learn much more today!
A very important component of a game are the characters.
In most of the games, the player uses a character in the game world.
This character may be an animal, a prince, a car, a warrior, and so much more.
In order to create a sense of risk and competition there are usually characters - opponents that the player must beat or escape from.
A second very important component of an electronic game are the goals. All the games aim for the players to achieve at least one main goal.
Very often, the player will have to achieve several smaller goals in order to achieve the main goal.
The main goal may be winning a fight or conquering an enemy or even reaching a certain number of points.
Intermediate smaller targets can be e.g. to unlock a door leading to a new level, or to gain a more effective weapon or vehicle or skill.
The rules of a game define what is allowed and what is forbidden to do. For example, can the character walk into the water?
Can the character stop and have a break for some time or is there a time restriction?
All these issues become clear from the beginning of the design of the game and are its rules.
A really important component of the game are the objects
All the games contain items
Stars, weapons, swords, coins, money, treasures, keys that unlock doors. Some of these objects, help the main character to achieve his goal and some of them prevent him.
The next very important component of an electronic game are
M E C H A N I C S
Those are mainly the actions that our character can perform.
Can he walk? Run? Jump? Fly? Pick up an item? Use a gun? How fast will he run? How high will he jump?
Engineering is the core of the game.
Well designed engineering will contribute to create a very good game.
Another important component of an electronic game is the control of the characters.
Keyboard, mouse, joystick.
Games are more entertaining when the player feels that he fully controls his character.
So the way we control our character must be easy and the computer must respond to the player's “hits” immediately.
Another important component of an electronic game is its environment
Is it a 2 or 3 dimensional game?
From what angle does the player see the game? From above? From the front? Is it from inside?
Are there any limits restricting the character movements?
And the last important component of an electronic game is the level of difficulty
A game isn't fun if it's too easy.
The same happens if the game is too difficult.
Most games set easy goals at the beginning as the player is still learning and more difficult goals afterwards when the player's skills have improved.
The achievement of the appropriate level of difficulty at each game level is the "key" of creating a great game.