

Notes on Game Mechanics - arpit
http://www.arpitonline.com/blog/2010/10/16/notes-on-game-mechanics/

======
vitovito
I'm not sure I'd put a ton of stock in the references the author cited. The
primary reference is a book called "Game-based Marketing," which is by two
authors who have never made or worked on a game. Zichermann is exclusively a
marketer, having only managed game industry conferences, and Linder appears to
be exclusively an author.

The "Types of Players" is based on the _old_ "Bartle Test," which was based on
research from the text-based and early graphical MUD era. The test was
significantly expanded and revised as modern MMOs were developed, but Bartle
didn't license out the updated version; you have to read his book and do the
work yourself to figure out how to apply it.

More dangerously in these Cliff's Notes format, the Bartle types aren't
classifications; rather, they're like Myers-Briggs types. You can't just say
you're going to make a game that applies to one type; your video game has to
have mechanics that make it accessible to all types, because we're all
percentages of each.

The note on "shallow game design" is accurate, although I haven't watched the
presentation linked; you can't just throw "badges" or "points" into something
and expect it be a silver bullet. Scvngr's game dynamics playdeck is great
reading if you already know what you're doing.

I did a workshop on adding game mechanics to an existing product (a
calendar/dayplanner) and the results varied wildly. One group (Ray and Nicole)
integrated social game mechanics into the application really well. Another
group (Cecy and Brody) treated each mechanic as a feature, and by the end of
the discussion I felt like it was "missing something." You can read the write-
up of the workshop here: <http://vi.to/workshop/20100426/>

My own notes include a lot of references from people who actually came from
the game industry, as well as images of the handouts and my own distillation
of these principles: <http://vi.to/gmnotes>

------
zipdog
The section on "Types of Players" is based on the Bartle Test
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartle_Test>), which is worth checking out in
it's own right

