The book ‘art of game design’ highlights different aspects of making a game more desirable for the players and how to maintain their focus on the game for a considerable amount of time without them getting bored. The author of chapter 16 states the key factors to consider while designing a game. One of the critical points he sheds light on is to control the player and put limits and constraints on them, and not give too much freedom to the user of the game (Schell, 2014). It must be done in a way that the player does not know that he is continually playing within limits created or set by the designer. This is controlling the user indirectly with constraints, goals, music, visual design, characters, etc. The music in the game is an essential element in controlling the minds of the players; the type of music controls their behavior. For instance, at a particular juncture of the game, the designer wants the player to move fast; the designer would play a fast song track in the background that would subconsciously tell the player to run.
The storyline and the goal or the end product are the most crucial things to consider because the player wants an overall thrill and experience of the game and to finish it with something worthwhile. The texture and design of the game proliferated the experience the player feels during the game. If the colors and the composition of the game do not commensurate with the concept of the game, the player would get bored and even agitated no matter how compelling the overall storyline is. For instance, if the game is about crime, murder, and case solving, then the color should not be vibrant; instead, a combination of grey and black would be more appropriate to experience the feel of the game. It is all about controlling the player, and it is the designer who defines the terms.
One of the critical ways to make a game or any form of entertainment popular or successful is by giving the game to the audience in its tangible form. The transcendence of the media, the author, can be achieved through different types of media, for instance, video games, action figure toys, etc. The world the viewer dreams about into getting inside, for example, the ‘Beyblade’ world or the ‘pokemon’ universe, etc. Beyblade cartoons were a tremendous hit, so the creators decided to provide their audience with the original spinning toys, and they got instant success (Gulden, 2014). The sole reason why they were successful was that the audience wanted the same experience and entered into the world where they watch the characters fight the battles.
The ‘pokemon go’ game made the breakthrough by letting the players roam around the entire city and catch pokemon (LeBlanc & Chaput, 2017). The players go through the same experience of finding the pokemon as the characters in the cartoon would go through. The thriving world of transmedia is mainly possible if the transmedia worlds can be understood through any media, be it video games or books or movies, etc., and if they leave room for more stories to develop in the future.
Many times, a particular movie or game does not become a hit, but its characters are an instant success; for instance, the novella in which Sherlock Holmes was first introduced was very unsuccessful, but the character rose to fame. If the creators of the game want to make their product successful, they must design characters with peculiar, out-of-the-ordinary traits and their different relationships with one another that would proliferate the storyline. The protagonist must have a charismatic personality while its counterpart, the antagonist, must be a ruthless, fierce character, etc. Sometimes the storyline is not fascinating, but the characters lift the movie or the game.
References
Gulden, T. (2014). Toys and Product Longevity. In Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics AHFE 2014, Kraków, Poland.
LeBlanc, A. G., & Chaput, J.-P. (2017). Pokémon Go: A game changer for the physical inactivity crisis? Preventive Medicine, 101, 235–237.
Schell, J. (2014). The Art of Game Design: A book of lenses. CRC Press.
