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 