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You should be able to skip the text in explaining the game ... after all you just worked it out yourself so you don't need it explaining in great detail!
I scored 108300 on it by the way
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This one was less interesting, shorter, and yet more drawn out and boring. It took too long to make its point. Humor is a must to keep the viewer's interest, and it was absent here. But I liked the minigame, and the concept behind the series is great.
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The minigame is awesome but the point felt a bit drawn out and laboured in this episode, though. Otherwise great series!
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I was just thinking this earlier today!!! I was playing some of the lower-rated games and was thinking to myself "These games aren't even almost intuitive... you stumble through them wondering what each thing represents..."
Only one beef... I didn't have too much trouble with the last "game", but it was the least obvious of them all, and you could've made the point that, although intuition should be a large part of any good game, some parts of some games do require short tutorials.
Overall, though, great.
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Excellent way of demonstrating the concept. Of course, it should be noted that some games just can't be played without a game manual, and some even require handouts to remember all the keys and shortcuts. Sometimes, you can trial and error part of the game, but unless you read the manual and learn you can do something more, you limite yourself to only a part of the game.
BTW, this same principle applies to learning almost every computer program, not only games.
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Anyone interested in these kinds of game design principles should read "Trigger Happy." (Forgot the author's name.) It explores these and a ton more issues. Of course, the format is paper based... :-) Great book.
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A few years ago I started trying to produce computer games and, I have to say, this series would have been very helpful! Pixelate did a great job on this. Can't wait to see the next installment.
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entertaining game design I think if you were to put all of the episodes together you could have a pretty good handheld worthy of purchase
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this reminds me of the book everything bad is good for you which states that bassically video games and television and all pop culture is making us smarter.
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Good information, but I really don't feel like playing 10? different levels of something to understand how annoying it can be to play something before reading the manual first. Plus, if I decided I needed the manual I would go get it.
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What a fantastic game! If only people beyond so many of the awful film-to-game conversions could play some of these educational offerings and start making some half as much fun as this simple series!
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@axcho: According to Gee a good video game gives the players information in situations when they actually need them. Compare that to a board game, where you have to read all instructions prior to playing the game. (Or in your NEON game, you have one help screen with a lot of text, but the text is disconnected from the actual game experience.)
The information the player needs to learn a game don't necessarily have to be communicated through text, but can also be (and mostly is) done with visual and audio feedback as explained in Episode 2. Make sure you provide enough feedback to the player so he or she understands the meaning and outcome of their actions. It is a good idea to start with a prototype, get user feedback (How did the user play the game? What didn't he or she understand?) and iterate on that prototype.
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Yes, that's a great book! :) But my question was more about how to design a game that will be easy to learn without instructions.
I've noticed that many physics-based games, especially my own, suffer from a very difficult learning curve, likely because the developers have spent so much time testing the physics that they forget how hard it is to learn to play in the beginning! Any advice?
My own Braids NEON, for example, and the game Hovercrafty are both physics-based games that are way too hard to get the hang of. On the other hand, there are games like Red that are really easy to learn. Why is this?
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I really like the idea, I just have one small quip with the execution. It seems like the concepts taught are something very inherent that everyone is already aware of. There's a lot to say about formulas in gaming and how they attribute to the game being addictive or enthralling or easy to pick up. But I guess the idea places automatic limits on the scope of the game, and you might lose the casual audience if you went into too abstract a concept. So perhaps it's just right and I'm only speaking as a developer when I say I'd love to see deeper concepts covered. All things considered, good game.
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@axcho: I highly recommend the book "What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy" by James Paul Gee which this episode is mainly based on.
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I love this series -- I'm not really learning anything new, but it's a great reminder of design fundamentals, and the lessons are fun to have in game form.
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that was fun but and the game started out easy but got a lot harder I like :-) oh yeah and the lesson was interesting also