A Theory of Fun for Game Design - by Raph Koster (Summary - PVI)

Chapter 6: Different Fun for Different Folks

There are seven categorized forms of inteligence:

1. Linguistic;
2. Logical-Mathematical;
3. Bodily-Knesthetic;
4. Spatial;
5. Musical;
6. Interpersonal;
7. Intrapersonal.

• People are not likely to tackle patterns and puzzles that appear as noise to them. They'll likely select problems that they think they have a chance at solving.
• On average, females tend to have great trouble with certain types of spatial perception. Males tend to have great problems with language skills.
• Since different brains have different strengths and weaknesses, different people will have differente ideal games;
• Men not only navigate space differently, but they tend to learn by trying, whereas women prefer to learn through learning another's behavior.
• It's clear that players prefer other types of games in ways that seems to correspond their fun personality. What does it all means to game designers? Ut means that not only will a given game be unlikely to appeal to everyon, but that it's probably impossible for it to do so.
• The difficult ramp is almost certain to be wrong for many people.
• This may indicate a fundamental problem with games. Since they are formal abstract systems, they are by their very nature biased toward certain types of brains, just as books are biased.
• Perhaps the answer is simpler. Maybe games are more likely to appeal to young males because these players are good at mastering formal abstract systems.
• Both genres should seek out games that address their weakness.
  

A Theory of Fun for Game Design - by Raph Koster (Summary - PV)

Chapter 5: What Games Aren't

• People tend to dress up game systems with some fiction. Designers put artwork on them that is suggestive of some real-world context.
• The fiction serves two purposes: it trains you to see past it to the underlying problem, and it also trains you to recognize real-world situations where the problem might be lurking.
• Usually there are metaphors for what is going on in the game. While metaphors are fun to play with, players can basically ignore them.
• Since games are about teaching underlying patterns, they train players to ignore the fiction that wrap patterns.
• The commonest route these days for developing games involves grafting a history onto them. But most video game developers take a usually mediocre story and put little game obstacles all through it. It's as if we are requiring the player to solve a crossword puzzle in order to turn the page to get more of the novel.
• The stories that wrap up games are usually side dishes for the brain. For one thing, it's damn rare to see a game story written by an actual writter. For another, since games are generally about power, control, and other primitive things, the stories tend to be so as well. This means that they tend to be power fantasies. Story deserves better treatment than that.
• Games are not stories. It's interesting to make the comparison though:

1. Games tend to be experential teaching. Stories teach vicariously.
2. Games are good at objectification. Stories are good at empathy.
3. Games tend to quantize, reduce, and classify. Stories tend to blur, deepen, and make subtle distinctions.
4. Games are external - they are about people's actions. Stories - good ones anyway - are internal, they are about people's emotions and thoughts.

• Physical challenges alone aren't fun. The feeling of triumph when you break a personal record is.
• Throughout the book, fun is referred only as mentally mastering problems. Often, the problems mastered are aesthetic, physical, or social, so fun can appear in any of these settings.
• The brain rewards you for an autonomic response when they are given in the context of a mental challenge.
• Delight strides when we rocognize a pattern but are surprised by them. Unfortunately, it doesn't last. It's like the smile of a beautiful stranger in a starwell - it's fleeting. It cannot be otherwise - recognition is not an extended process.
• We find things beautiful when they are very close to our idealized image of what they should be but with an additional surprise wrinkle.
• Real fun comes always from challenges that are at the margin of our abilities.
• As we succeed in mastering paterns thrown at us, the brain gives us little jolts of pleasure. But if the flow of new patterns slows, then we wont't get the jolts and we'll start to feel boredom. If the flow of patterns increase beyond our abilities, then we won't get the jolts either, because we're not making progress.
• Meditation induces brainwaves that are similar to the ones of the flow state.
• Fun is about learning in a context where there is no pressure.

A Theory of Fun for Game Design - by Raph Koster (Summary - PIV)

Chapter 4: What Games Teach Us

As we age, we think things are more serious and that we must leave frivolous things behind. Is that a valid judgement on games or is it a value judgment on the content of a given game? Do we avoid the notion of fun because we view the content of the fire drill as being of great import?

• The very phrase "it's just a game" implies that playing a game is a form of practice for a real life challenge.
• Exploring possibility space is the only way to learn avout it. Most games repeatedly throw evolving spaces at you so that you can explore the recurrence of symbols withim them.
• Some of the really important parts of exploration involve memory. A huge number of games involve recalling and managing very long and complex chains of information. (ex: dominoes)
• In the end; most games have something to do with power. Even the innocuous games of childhood tend to have violence lurking in their heart of hearts.
• Action games for example, they are all about reaction times, tactical awareness, assessing the weakness of an opponent, and judging when to strike.
• We pay attention to the obvious nature of a particular game and we miss the subtler point.
• Many games, particularly those that have evolved into the classic Olympian sports, can be directly traced back to the needs of primitive humans to survive under very difficult conditions.
• We do in fact evolve games that are more suited to our modern lives.
• Traditional role-playing can reach the same heights as literature in the right hand. But it's an uphill battle nonetheless, simply bacause games are at their core about teaching us survival skills. As we all know, when you're worried about subsistence and survival, more refined things tendo to fall by the wayside.
• It's still valuable to train ourselves in some of the caverman traits, but we need to adapt. It's worth asking ourselves what skills are more commonly needed today.
• Some of the new patterns we need to learn in our brave new world run contrary to our instinctive behaviors. For example, humans are tribal creatures. Most games encouraging demonizing the opponent, teaching a sort of ruthlessness that is a proven survival trait. But these days, we're less likely to need or want the scorched-earth victory. Can we create games that instead offer us greater insight into how the modern world works?
• Since the introduction to the concept of grabbing and using a weapong in a game was introduced not much has changed. The difference is that, today, instead of a single weapon for us to use in the game, we have a bewildering array of weapons.
• Possible algorithm for innovation -> find a new dimension to add into the gameplay. Recent games have included more robust stories and even elements from role-playing games. Are there more dimensions on which to expand?