Play Response

Games are a unique form of media, because they require the audience to actively participate. The creator of the game has a lot less control over what their audience experiences, so there are different challenges in creating a game that is enjoyable by the audience.

The audience itself, and the age of the audience is more of a factor when you’re designing a game. I remember playing Hungry Hungry Hippos when I was younger and enjoying it. But we played it in class, and it got old after about two minutes. The same thing went for Candyland. A game is rarely fun if it’s too easy or mindless. For six-year-olds, making plastic hippos eat marbles is exciting and challenging. Not so much for ages 19-25.

Another factor is the rules of the game. If the audience doesn’t understand the rules, then the game isn’t very fun. Sometimes my family will get a new board game, and no one wants to read through the rules, so we just try to figure out how the game works without them. In class, we played Disney Infinity. The first several groups of people tried to figure out on their own how to make things work, and they didn’t have much luck, until we decided to play the tutorial. In the end, someone always gives up and goes through the rule book. When playing a board game or card game,  sometimes we disregard the rules, or make up our own. That is another quirk of game media. Even if you do come up with a game and a workable set of rules there is no guarantee your audience won’t completely disregard those rules, or at least modify them.

Possibly the largest overall challenge of creating a game is making it just the right difficulty level. If a game is too hard, then no one wants to play it. If it’s too easy, it gets boring. But that varies depending on your audience, and depending on the type of game. Most board games don’t get that much easier as you play them, but video games do. Many video games are about improving your ability to use the controls, and are about timing and accuracy. When you start out playing a video game, you’re usually pretty bad at it. It was interesting to watch everyone take turns playing Disney Infinity, because no one had long enough to really get used to the controls or gameplay.

When you make games for children, you have a natural competitor. Children sometimes make up their own stories, but they are always making up their own games. So when you design a game for a child it has to be compelling enough to take them from their own made-up games. Often, children will use game boards and pieces and invent their own rules. I know my brothers and I did when we were younger.