Game Elements

"character development" -Lee Sheldon
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/197601/sponsored_respecting_and_.php

The first article i read was Postmortem: Pinball-RPG hybrid 'Rollers of the realm'. I thought this article was very useful for getting an idea on how to talk about the process of the game development and i liked the way it split it up into what went right and what went wrong throughout the project. It showed me its just as important to show what went wrong as it is to show what went right. It will allow them to reflect on it in the future and not let them make the same mistake. They also broke it down into sub-sections which allowed us, the reader to follow what they were talking about more easily.  I enjoyed the part about audience testing. They got most of their information about target audience and what people found difficult to understand about the game and they were able to change it directly instead of guessing it.

The second article i read was Respecting and developing your game's characters. In this article by Lee Sheldon, he shows us the importance of a character and giving them their own story. While reading this article, i discovered that its important to give the character "a route, not a map of the world". Thats what stood out to me most throughout the article because its very easy to going overboard with a characters background and future. So what he's trying to say is that its best to develop a character thats pivotal to the story but don't "confuse lists of details of a character’s past with pertinent information that helps mold the character."

The third article i read was The blue shell and it's discontents. I actually enjoyed this article because it went into the background of the spiny blue shell in Mario Kart and where it came form. It gave me an insight into how game developers come up with the objects that they use in their games. I found it interesting to see the progression of the shell over time. At first it was ammunition of Lakitu, whereas now it is used competitors way behind in the race to spoil the leaders and knock them out of first place. I think its important to note that the game developers changed it from a 'stranger' who is evil destroying people to it being a friend destroying someone they know. It almost can relate to real life and i think thats clever game design, dragging real life into a video game.