You know there are often times when I have to sit back and reflect on my college education. I feel like sometimes the general consensus is that game design is an easy field of study and that it’s all about fun and games – well, I can tell you from personal experience – it’s not. It’s a frustrating, difficult, yet rewarding experience. You may be designing something that’s intended to be a fun experience had by all, but it requires dedication, determination, and trial and error fixes to make a masterpiece.
Now why am I talking about this today? Well, I’ll let you in on some of my studies.
Understanding games since 2007!
I’ve recently started one of my first game design courses – and as a part of our study – we were asked to view a set of games [ or more like tutorials ] on understanding how video games work. These “games” were designed by developer, Andreas Zecher. They’re pixelated doses of joy and educational for anyone who wants to get to know some of the basics on what make games interactive and enjoyable to any player.
We’re pixelated practitioners of punctual programming!
Now here are some minor accessibility notes on these light little interactive tutorials:
- Multiple languages – English and German for most [ Dutch added for Ep. 1 ]
- All info is text driven – so deaf viewers will be fine.
- Most games represented are easily playable via mouse or arrow keys.
- Some portions may cause issues for color blind gamers.
- Text is small, which could make it difficult for vision impaired gamers.
Otherwise, these tutorials are definitely a memorable little piece of pixelated education that should be enjoyed and shared. Whether you’re an artist, designer, programmer, music artist, etc. I think these games definitely help share how interactivity and making your medium a fun experience can go a long way into making something worthwhile. You can play/view all 4 episodes of Understanding Games here. Have fun, learn a little something, and enjoy the ride my fellow developer/gamers!
Understanding Games: Episode 1
Understanding Games: Episode 2
Gastrogamer 
I know what you mean. People often speak about me like I’m a lazy person even when I’m spending most of my days programming; yet if you ask any of my close game development friends they will tell you the exact opposite – that I’m a workaholic. It’s quite annoying that young game developers don’t receive more encouragement, but I think it’s just something we have to accept; that as a field most people are completely oblivious or misunderstanding of the work involved. I think it’s probably also a general consensus that you’re not supposed to enjoy hard work and the fact that while I’m developing I look happy probably doesn’t help. A good game designer will be working throughout the entirety of the project constantly testing and tweaking things. The wider their knowledge base, the better they are likely to be; things like psychology, anthropology, writing, mathematics and engineering are just a few examples of what a designers have to get their head around. I don’t think it’s just game design though, as back when I did art a lot of people took it on as an easy subject. The thing is, art is actually one of the most time consuming subjects you can take and they give you a lot of work to do. Anybody who wants to be good at it will also probably tell you that they practice on a regular basis, several hours a day. I like professions that require passion and dedication though. It gives you a sort of greater purpose in life. Thank you for sharing the links, they are pretty cool 😀
No problem Sg! I’m glad to spread the wealth of knowledge – they are pretty fun and entertaining links that really do teach you something. I figured – why not share them with the masses who haven’t seen them yet?