My gaming adventures of 2023: A mix of digital and analog delights

Another year is winding down, and what better way to celebrate than with a list of the games that kept me entertained? Here are my top picks for both digital and analog.

DIGITAL GAMING

The pedestrian


Balatro


Saviorless


Lorelei and the laser eyes


Planet of Lana


Plucky Squire


Neva


Iron Lung


ANALOG GAMING

Cat in the box


Cheez tricks


The green fivura


Mycelium


Tatsu


Zombies and Zilches


#GoGamers

Unveiling the iterative design cycle: a cornerstone of game development

Within the domain of game design, iteration cycles represent a cyclical development process employed to refine and enhance a game concept throughout its creation. This approach stands in stark contrast to the linear "waterfall" method, where distinct stages, from ideation to implementation, are completed sequentially with limited room for feedback and adaptation.



Each iteration cycle in game design encompasses a series of well-defined stages: prototyping, playtesting, analysis, and iteration. The initial stage involves the creation of a playable prototype, a rudimentary representation of the game's core mechanics and features. This prototype then undergoes playtesting, where players interact with it and provide feedback on its strengths and weaknesses.

The gathered feedback is meticulously analyzed by the development team to identify areas for improvement. This analysis focuses on aspects like gameplay mechanics, user experience, and overall enjoyment. Based on the analysis, the team then embarks on the iteration stage, where they implement modifications and enhancements to the game based on the collected feedback. This cycle of prototyping, playtesting, analysis, and iteration continues iteratively until the desired level of quality and player satisfaction is achieved.

The iterative nature of game design allows for continuous refinement, enabling developers to adapt and improve their game based on real-world player experience. This approach fosters a dynamic development process, ultimately leading to a more polished and engaging final product.

#GoGamers

Game Mechanics & Game Dynamics

The difference between game mechanics and game dynamics might seem like a subtle trick, but itis all about the engine driving the experience. Think of mechanics as the gears and pistons; they are the tangible elements and rules players directly interact with, setting the game in motion. Dynamics, on the other hand, are the invisible forces powering the emotional journey – the why behind the how.



To clarify, let's delve into some examples of mechanics:

• Puzzle and enigma: games like Gorogoa, Chants of Sennaar, The Witness, The Pedestrian, and The Last Campfire showcase how intricate puzzles mechanics weave compelling narratives and test our deductive prowess.
• Shooting: from the extreme need of aim of Call of Duty to the intimate battles in Last of Us or the retro thrills of Blazing Chrome, different shooter types offer distinct challenges for trigger-happy players who like to hit targets with precision.
• Jump and dexterity: Super Meat Boy, Celeste, Dandara – these classics prove that mastering precise jumps and fluid movements can be its own reward, testing our reflexes and spatial awareness.

Remember, a game isn't confined to a single mechanic. Just like Super Mario Bros. (the classic one from NES) mixes jumping with power-ups and fire blasts, game designers can blend genres and gameplay styles to create unique experiences.

Now, let's explore the dynamic forces these mechanics - potentially - unleash:

• Competitive spirit: whether striving for personal bests or outsmarting rivals, the thrill of competition ignites passion and fuels perseverance.
• Collaborative camaraderie: Working together to overcome challenges, solve puzzles, or achieve shared goals fosters teamwork and strengthens bonds in cooperative games.
• Progression's ladder: Witnessing our skills improve, levels conquer, and stories unfold fuels a sense of accomplishment and keeps us invested in the journey.
• Immersion's embrace: When environments come alive, narratives captivate, and characters feel real, a game transcends into a world we're completely absorbed in.

Let's take as an example the classic Super Mario Bros. mentioned before. Jumping on goombas (the small enemy mushrooms) and use the "fire flower" power-up to shot are mechanics, the tools you wield. But the triumphant rush of reaching the flagpole or the gut-wrenching frustration of falling into a pit – those are dynamics, the emotional echoes of your play.

In a nutshell, mechanics are the instruments, and dynamics are the symphony (wow, that sounded beautiful 😀). A good game strikes a harmonious balance between the two, offering players not just challenges to overcome but captivating experiences to cherish.

Remember, this is just the tip of the iceberg. A single mechanic can spark a spectrum of emotions, different players interpret dynamics uniquely, and mastering the art of balancing these elements is what separates good games from truly unforgettable ones.

So, the next time you delve into a captivating game, take a moment to appreciate the intricate interplay of mechanics and dynamics – the invisible engine driving the magic behind your controller.

#GoGamers

Ten ideas from Reiner Knizia about playtesting

Reiner Knizia is one of the biggest names in game design around the world. The German game designer is a mathematician and has his name associated to more than 700 games launched in many different countries. I had the honor to talk personally to Knizia in 2011, at DIGRA’s conference in Hilversun (Netherlands) and I watched a great keynote about the game designing process in the same event.



On that occasion, I gave Knizia my board game, YN, and had the opportunity to talk a little bit with him (a great achievement for my game designer career).

I follow Knizia in social media and I’m always taking notes about the knowledge on game design he shares on those platforms. In this post, I will reproduce 10 ideas Knizia showed recently on Twitter about playtesting (one of the most fundamental topics in the game designing process). Below, I listed the 10 points. Follow him by clicking here.

Playtesting 1. Those who do not play do not live. Those who do not playtest do not design.

Playtesting 2. Designs always work perfectly in your mind. The first playtest is the (often cruel) moment of truth.

Playtesting 3. Regardless of how much experience you have, you cannot develop a game on the drawing board – only at the playing table.

Playtesting 4. Game design is a classic iterative process of playing and improving – nowadays popularised as “design thinking”.

Playtesting 5. When your playtesters do not like your design, (usually) your design is to blame – not your playtesters.

Playtesting 6. I recognise good playtesters by my (frequent) urge to strangle them.

Playtesting 7. For your design to appeal to one group, test with one group. For your design to have broad appeal, test with many groups.

Playtesting 8. You can make (most) designs interesting through your play-talk - but when published, your design needs to speak for itself.

Playtesting 9. Blind playtesting, without you taking part, is as useful as other people going on a rollercoaster and reporting their experience.

Playtesting 10. When you have playtested your design to perfection, let it rest some time, then play again. – Expect to be surprised!

#GoGamers

Social engagement loops

The use of games in non-gaming activities is rising each and every year. The idea of “gamification” (or game thinking, or ludic interface) became popular in our business culture and one feature to highlight in this context is engagement.



A game, in a business context, for example, needs a perfect balance between serious content and entertainment. From there, it’s possible to create strategies to engage audiences more accurately.

One fundamental idea in this discussion is the idea of “social engagement loops”.

As Cunningham and Zichermann say (2011, p.67) “social engagement loops, while not exclusive to games, borrow heavily from a viral loop design. A designer must not only see the way a player engages with the system, but also how he leaves it and – perhaps even more importantly – what brings him back again. In a social engagement loop, a motivating emotion leads to player re-engagement, which leads to a social call to action, which flows to visible progress and/or rewards, which loops back around to a motivating emotion”.

The figure below illustrates this idea:



A social engagement loop, designed to maximize player engagement and reengagement using core product design (CUNNINGHAM; ZICHERMANN, 2011, p.68)

Certain ludic contexts need deeper strategic building. Especially when we talk about serious games, business games, and gamification. The book in the end of this post is a great source of reference for this subject.

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Reference:

CUNNINGHAM, Christopher; ZICHERMANN, Gabe. Gamification by design: Implementing game mechanics in web and mobile apps. Canada: O’Reilly, 2011.

The art of making friendly enemies

I participate in a group called Board Game Tuesday (or BGT). We meet weekly to play and discuss board games. Our primary focus is the playing, but we always set aside a time to analyze the structure of the games (mechanics, dynamics, art, components etc.).

However, I quite like to analyze the behavior of players during matches. I like to observe the nervousness to roll the dice for something important, the glory in the eyes of a player with a well-structured combo of cards, the malignant partnerships between players and – of course – arguments and "fights" because of the final results of a gaming experience.


(Playing ISLA DORADA. Big, Vince & Snow. Pic: Estevão)

This last feature, particularly, impresses me. The “magic circle” of a game has the power to transform friends in enemies with established social rules (and gaming rules). As Juul says (2013, p.11) “when playing a game, a number of actions that would regularly be awkward and rude are recast as pleasant and sociable”. So, we can say that a game can generate a kind of friendly enemies during the time of a match.

About this context Juul (2013, p.14) also says that, to play a game is “to make an emotional gamble: we invest time and self-esteem in the hopes that it will pay off. Players are not willing to run the same amount of risk – some even prefer not to run a risk at all, not to play”.

The gaming ecosystem is a complex and privileged field of studies. But we must never forget that behind a game there are human players full of feelings and this is an important part of the experience to observe, analyze and discuss.

At this moment, I’m reading again Jesper Juul’s “The Art of Failure” and Bernad Suits “The Grasshopper”. I’m full of new ideas about the role of the player inside the gaming universe and I count on this inspiration for a “wave” of posts with this subject this semester.

Keep your radars alert for that.

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Reference:

JUUL, Jesper. The Art of Failure: an essay on the pain of playing video games. Cambridge/London: MIT Press, 2013.

SUITS, Bernard. The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia. EUA: Broadview Press, 2005.

Talks at Google in conversation with "Ticket to Ride" co-creator Eric Hautemont

For board games fans and game designers. Awesome stuff.

Made for Play: Board Games & Modern Industry

Excellent content. Brilliant documentary. One master piece about the board games industry in Europe.



Jettingen Germany is home to Ludo Fact, one of the world's largest manufacturers of board and card games.

This documentary shows how a board game makes the leap from an idea to your table. You'll see every aspect of the manufacturing process: the technology and machines, the many detailed steps, and the hundreds of people that are involved in the production of a single game.

Mostly, we hope the film gives you a greater appreciation of the time, effort and investment that goes into every quality board game that makes it to the marketplace and your home. The business of fun requires a lot of hard work!

For more information on The Spiel and our media coverage of the game playing world, visit thespiel.net

Three levels of player enjoyment

Good visual idea from the author Stewart Woods.



Source: WOODS, Stewart. Eurogames: The Design, Culture and Play of Modern European Board Games. McFarland, 2012.

A little bit about playtest

Few weeks ago, the famous game designer Reiner Knizia (@reinerknizia) tweeted a very good point about the gaming creative process. Knizia said: "even if you are a great mathematician, the lifeblood of game design is playtesting, playtesting, playtesting!".

I think Knizia pointed out one crucial feature about game development in his post. I use to say that playtesting is not about playing alone your own game ten times, but putting ten players to play once and get feedbacks.



A good playtest shows the game's aspects of weakness and positive attributes, and can be an important tool for future ideas on your game design projects.

My advice is: put different kinds of players to play your prototype, watch each movement inside the game dynamics, take notes of everything and, finally, improve your game to a higher ground.

Another important thing: always try to play new games to create a better repertoire and a good critical view.

Go gamers!

Quote of the day

"Like novels, games don't come out of the blue. They come from a given designer, at a given time, in a given social situation".

Bruno Faidutti, in Appelcline, 2006 (Excerpted from the book "Eurogames: The Design, Culture and Play of Modern European Board Games").

Retrospective

In 2012 I had the chance to be in many conferences, meetings and see excelent presentations about game design and gaming concepts.

I discussed many ideas with great professionals in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Porto Alegre (Brazil); Cannes (France); Santiago (Chile), Antwerp (Belgium) and Copenhagen (Denmark). It's possible to say that 2012 was a good year full of ludic discussions.



It was a year full of discussions and new doubts. So, in 2013, I propose an attitude to dwell on: "discuss more about games", instead of only "play games".

As I said in an old post "the games of tomorrow need answers that last". I think that a broader research about games will bring us better answers about how we can use games beyond fun and understand how they can change the world.

My point is that this is the century of playfulness, and more than just thinking of a way to offer games to a diverse audience, we should learn how to offer various languages of entertainment – where the game is also inserted.

Finally, I wish you a 2013 full of games and ludic interfaces. GO GAMERS!

Now on to your opinion!

Essential books about game design & gaming concepts - EPISODE VI

I recently purchased the great book "EUROGAMES: The Design, Culture and Play of Modern European Board Games". EUROGAMES examines the form of eurogames, the hobbyist culture that surrounds them, and the way that hobbyists experience the play of such games. It chronicles the evolution of tabletop hobby gaming and explores why hobbyists play them, how players balance competitive play with the demands of an intimate social gathering, and to what extent the social context of the game encounter shapes the playing experience. Combining history, cultural studies, leisure studies, ludology, and play theory, this innovative work highlights a popular alternative trend in the gaming community.



It's very easy to read and it's not a theoretical book. Strongly recommended to board games fans.

WOODS, Stewart. Eurogames: The Design, Culture and Play of Modern European Board Games. McFarland, 2012. (CLICK HERE TO BUY)

PS: Happy new year!

Ecological concepts in a game

By Vince (@vincevader)

Today I’ll talk a little bit about Climate Game a game that I developed for a brazilian company named Games For Business (check out the english site here >> http://www.games4b.com). Games For Business works in the area of serious games, that, following the thoughts of Nick Iuppa and Terry Borst, may be explained as a game with a professional, educational or pedagogical use. It's a kind of game that mixes storytelling with mechanics that mean to send a serious message to the players involved in the process.

Climate Game is a game that, when played with strategy, negotiation and diplomacy, challenges its players to save the world from imminent destruction. With everyone’s effort and awareness, the emission of carbonic gas can be reduced before it is too late.



This game is both of competition and cooperation. It promotes competition because the player who emits no carbonic gas at all is the winner. But the integrated work of all the other participants is essential in order not to exceed the gas limits of the greenhouse effect that the planet can put up with. If this limit is exceeded, the Earth’s temperature will have risen to a level where human life is not possible and everyone dies/loses.

Therefore, participants must have a good degree of knowledge regarding gas emission and the greenhouse effect and also be very good at negotiating and formulating strategies.

This kind of game won’t make you a specialist in ecology or in global warming, but can reinforce important concepts about the health of the planet. The game can teach basic ideas and stimulate the players to search for more information about the theme. I think this is the core of a good serious game.

And if you want to play good serious games with a lot of contemporary concepts, check this URL: http://www.molleindustria.org/ .

SZIA!

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Reference:

Iuppa, Nick & BORST, Terry. Story and simulations for serious games: tales from the trenches. Burlington: Focal Press, 2007

Good graph

Game design process: a third approach

By Vince

In this present post I want to discuss the details about the creation of my new board game, PYRAMYZ.

PYRAMYZ is an independent title that will be hopefully launched next month. It is an abstract game for two players that uses pyramidal dice (D4) as pieces and has an area control game mechanics.

The inspiration for part of the game mechanics came from “Chinese checkers”, a very traditional abstract game where the pieces jump other pieces (or a row of pieces) to reach the player’s side on the board.

(Art by Marcelo Bissoli)

In PYRAMYZ, first of all, players must choose the color “black” or color “white”. This part is important because each player earns points by having the dice on top of their color spaces. It is possible to get points joining dice with the same color adjacent (orthogonally), when this happens the players achieve the number of points of the dice upon the respective color spaces.

The objective is to achieve the higher number of points.

In this game a player can put the dice from a bag on the board or move a die that has been placed on the board. A roll is required to put a die in the game , because the random number on the D4 will be the number of spaces the piece can move (orthogonally) by the board. A die will spawn from five special areas with different color.

For this game I created four prototypes with different dynamics, layouts and rules. It’s important to have many views in a game design process to choose the bestconnection between them. I started with a triangular board but it was not good, the traditional orthogonal grid proved to be the best option.

In this part of the creative process I defend the use of simple prototypes. It’s essential to use simple drawings, ordinary material and have total focus on the game mechanics.



After a lot of tests and a minimum certainty about the functionality of the game I recommend to generate a better prototype/layout. And remember: beta testing is not about playing your game alone by hundred times, it is about putting one hundred people to play once and have a lot of different feedbacks.

In two previous posts I’ve talked about the process to create another board game and a SMS mobile game (links here and here). I recommend the reading of both posts to complete the idea of this one.

Wait for news about the PYRAMYZ’s launching!

Transmedia Storytelling & Games

I want to delimitate in this short post the concept of transmedia storytelling (JENKINS, 2006): a kind of narrative which develops into multiple mediatic platforms, such as internet, books, video games, comics, television and movies. I want to highlight one specific use of this strategy in the entertainment industry.

I'm going to show to You the strategic appropriation of transmediatic narratives in the industry of entertainment using an established example: the Star Wars fiction series transformed into a Lego board game.

In the movie below it's possible to see how the idea of the movie "The Empire Strikes Back" becomes a board game.



Every game is an unique experience. Every game have a different end. The essence is the same of the movie but players have the opportunity to change the famous battle of Hoth with dice results.

What do you think about that?

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Reference:

JENKINS, Henry. Convergence culture: where old and new media collide. NYU Press, 2006.

Think about it

"Games are a mirror of our lives and times." - Reiner Knizia (at DIGRA 2011)