Computer games are designed with great care and skill. Game designers think about the effects they want, and are experts in utilizing various factors to achieve those effects. In this paper you will choose a computer game with which you are familiar, and analyze in detail some of the game's design elements. Your analysis should be based on game design concepts presented in at least one of the readings. Your paper should show how the game designers made specific decisions to affect the gameplay, the tension, the drama, or the mood of the game.
The final paper will be about 800 to 1000 words. Follow the APA documentation style described in chapter 15 of the Little Penguin Handbook. Use Times New Roman 12 point font, or the nearest equivalent on your computer, and double spacing. Without images, your paper will be about three pages. If you insert images, which we encourage, the page count may go up. Put your name and the paper's title at the top of the first page, and add a footer to the paper which includes your name.
College-level writing is the product of much thought, study, revision, and hard work. For this paper you will bring to discussion and lecture preliminary versions of your paper; however, it is likely that to produce a truly fine piece of writing and research you will need to do much more writing and rewriting that is not brought to class.
The versions are:
Bring one printed copy (double spaced) to lab on Nov. 19. The TA will review and sign it. Keep this copy.
Bring one printed copy to discussion on Nov. 21. A peer editor will edit and sign it. Keep this copy.
Staple together your final version (on top), the peer-edited draft (below that), and your outline (at the bottom). Do not put this bundle in any sort of cover or binder. Make sure your name is on every page.
You will also turn in two electronic copies of your final version.
The due date and time for the electronic version is Wednesday, Dec. 5, 8:55 a.m., this is the same for all sections.
Below is a suggested paragraph-by-paragraph structure for your paper. Consider following this, but it is not required. However, you are strongly advised to have similar opening and closing paragraphs.
1. The first paragraph introduces your paper, the game your are writing about, and the paper(s) or book(s) you are using for design ideas. State your thesis. For example, your thesis might be "Much of the excitement in Pac-Man is derived from a clever use of the Hero's Journey structure, in which the hero, Pac-Man, journeys into a ghost-filled underworld." Someone reading this paragraph alone should have a clear sense of what your entire paper is about.
2. The second paragraph is a summary, in your own words, of the design ideas on which you are basing your analysis.
3. In the third paragraph, describe the game about which you are writing. What makes this game fun and successful?
4. This paragraph announces the structure of the rest of the paper. Give three or four specific aspects of the game's design that you will analyze in the following paragraphs. For instance, you might write:
Although Pac-Man doesn't have levels in the standard sense, it closely follows the narrative structure described by Dunniway. In the first five minutes of gameplay, we see the ordinary world. With the arrival of the red ghost comes the call to adventure. Soon Pac-Man is trapped, which corresponds to Act IV, "Go for the Wrong Goal."
Note that in this example the last three sentences each summarize a specific design choice, and each of those choices will be discussed more fully in a later paragraph.
5, 6, 7, maybe 8. These paragraphs expand on what you foreshadowed in paragraph four. Each paragraph analyzes a specific aspect of the design, and shows how that design choice supports the "fun and successful" factors you wrote about in paragraph 3.
Last paragraph. Summarize your paper. Restate your thesis in (at least slightly) different terms, and pull together your thoughts on how your analysis of specific design decisions casts light on how the game succeeds in its goals.
The paper will also have a Reference section, following the APA style.