So I don’t think videogames have anything more to prove—they already outdid themselves way too many times and created a niche culture that’s as unique as itself. It may sound cliché but videogames are just made of win.
But after all these decades of collective experience and gameplays, there are certain traits or characteristics that we find at the heart of any videogame, played out (yeah, pun intended) in a distinctive way. And if we take a closer look at some of those videogames that have carved their places in the hearts and minds of the players, the ones that are known as the ‘legends’ such as Halo, Half Life 2, Deus Ex (the original one), Portal 2, Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age: Origins (a personal favorite) just to name a few, we’ll find something very common to every one of them.
But first we need to know about the basic elements or ingredients that ‘form’ the experience of a videogame. Basically any videogame runs on 4 key mechanisms or design elements, and the first of them is Core Gameplay Mechanics (basically your ‘activity’ in a game, what are the things that you ‘do’ in that game, the ‘what’ aspect of a game like what’s the game all about), which is certainly the most important aspect of any videogame as this is what makes or breaks a game, even if all the other elements are overlooked.
Then there’s Level Design, the second pillar as I’d like to call it. This is what ‘builds’ the game in the first place and is as fundamental of an element as gameplay. Level Design is the ‘where’ part of any videogame, what you look at in the game and what you see (the ‘doing’ or action comes after that, naturally, it’s all based on what you see).
This is also the single most important aspect of any first person shooter as most of our time is spent on, guess what, looking. And Level Design is, what we ‘look at’ in a game. Actually ‘looking’ is as crucial in an fps (or in any genre) as the ‘doing’ or ‘gameplay’ part cause one is very much dependent on the other.
After that, there is the Narrative or the Storytelling part. This is not the same as the plot or the story of a videogame, the plot is actually a part of the storytelling. Storytelling not only consists of the main plot, but also of how the story is ‘told’ or presented to the player, the techniques used (in-game cutscenes or just scripted events, or any other innovative ways possible) and how the story ‘moves’ with respect to the player. I’d like to call storytelling the ‘why’ aspect of a game, the element that gives motivation to the player to continue with the game, ‘why’ are they interested in the game so to speak.
This element forms the ‘intrigue’ part of the videogame and has the potential to engage the player in emotional ways in the game world, giving a reason to ‘care’, for the events in the game.
Now in any videogame, we find a fusion of these three elements in a way that basically ‘blurs’ all of these different mechanisms into a singular experience. And at any point in the game, it feels like there’s only ‘one’ element present, the game itself. We don’t recognize (most of the time) that these three elements are working in such perfect synergy that there is no separation to them at all, the line is hidden and what we remember from the game, is the experience itself, as a whole. This is the ‘immersion’ aspect of a game, how well the game ‘handles’ it’s ‘parts’ and weaves them into a mix.
Now in cases of all great videogames, the ‘whole’ of the experience seems much more than the ‘sum of it’s parts’ or it seems there’s an added ‘unseen’ element that’s present and that’s responsible for adding something in the game that’s beyond all of these three individual elements.
It’s difficult to actually come up with a ‘name’ or ‘pointer’ (every word is only a pointer) for that ‘fourth’, unseen element. But it’s real and it’s what separates the great from the good. Personally, I’d like to call it ‘inspiration’, something that comes from the developers themselves and transmits itself into their work, which is the videogame in this case. How ‘inspired’ the ideas are (gameplay ideas, the level design and the story-based ideas), how fresh or attractive they are and how they are implemented within the game—all of these make up that fourth unseen element. Basically, this is the ‘how’ aspect of games. Every game has the three elements but ‘how’ they use them decides their lasting value—the reason we remember a game long after we’ve played it.
Now there’s another kind of ‘sub-element’ in a game which is more like a function of the key design elements but it’s worth mentioning simply cause it makes a difference. And it’s called the ‘Replayability’ factor—how many times can you play the game without feeling bored or feeling redundant.
It depends mostly on the gameplay itself, how much depth there is to it or how many different experiences can it present to the player, if played in different ways. Or for games that feature multiple story branches which give the player a purpose for replaying the game to experience those parts of the story, it’s the narrative that creates the replay value.
Then there are games such as the Dishonored series (just to name one, there are plenty of them) which gives the player many different ways to approach an objective through their open-ended and multi faceted level design, adding to the overall replayability of the game.
So the replayability factor is actually a function of the individual key design elements in a videogame—gameplay mechanics, level design or the non-linear storytelling—they can all contribute towards achieving this, providing gamers a purpose for revisiting the game.
These are what I consider the key design elements that make up a videogame, or the experience of a videogame. In the next article (which'll be here when it’s done), we’ll go deeper into videogames, beyond the technical aspects and focus on the very DNA of a great game—what it stands for, the experience it aims for and it’s purpose for being the way it is.
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