Game Mechanics &
Gameplay Design
Lecture slides, self-check quizzes and activity files for CRE342. Each week builds on the last: start with who players are, then how mechanics create experiences.
Player psychology, motivation & behaviour
How players perceive, think and remember.
Flow, immersion & what breaks them
From mechanics to experience (MDA and Schell's tetrad), the flow channel, three sources of immersion, agency and presence, and the distractors that break them.
Rewards, feedback & playing fair
Designing reward systems: reward types, short- and long-term, tiered and milestone rewards, fast and slow loops and reinforcement schedules.
Stories, worlds & the player's hand
Crafting compelling player experiences: story structure (acts, arcs and beats, scripted and emergent), linear, branching, branch-and-bottleneck and open-world narratives, characters, world-building and environmental storytelling, thematic coherence, level pacing and layout, Norman's interaction principles, affordances, and balancing agency with guidance.
Experience & interface design
Designing for real players and the screen between them and the game: player-centric design, representative players and personas, customisation, difficulty and accessibility options.
Game atoms & the feel of play
What mechanics are made of: the five game atoms (actions, resources, goals, rules, feedback), mapping atoms to mechanics, dynamics and aesthetics with Pac-Man, micro-mechanics and game feel (latency, coyote time, input buffering, polish), combos and progressive skill development, the system layer versus the representation layer, schemas, and how interacting loops produce emergence.
Simulate it, test it, play it again
Simulation and testing in game design: the difference between running a model and running the game, types of simulation (physics, AI, economy, player models, emergent systems), Monte Carlo simulation of balance, the iterative design cycle, types of testing and bug triage, playtesting methods and the golden rule, quantitative and qualitative data, and ethics and bias in testing.
Reading the player: game and player analytics
How data informs design: the game analytics value chain, telemetry events, quantitative and qualitative data, engagement and retention (DAU/MAU, D1/D7/D30, churn), the player lifecycle, progression metrics and funnels, heatmaps, economic, social and technical metrics, A/B testing, predictive analytics, tools, and the ethics of collecting player data.
Geometry Wars: a case study
A close reading of Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved (Bizarre Creations, 2005): its origin as a controller test, twin-stick controls and the core loop, the enemy roster as atoms, spawning and the difficulty curve, fair deaths through telegraphs, the score multiplier as risk–reward, leaderboards and replay, and feedback, sound and flow.
Eighty-nine rooms: Mutant Storm
A case study of Mutant Storm Reloaded (PomPom Games, 2005), a twin-stick shooter cut into 89 timed rooms: the room loop and the run loop, the score multiplier and belts as difficulty earned by performance, Adventure and Tally modes, interest curves at every scale, teach-test-twist sequencing, enemy roles, mini-bosses and difficulty dials, readable visual design and audio identity, and a comparison with Geometry Wars.