Hours of Addictive Play

So what is it about games like Harvest Moon and Animal Crossing that make them so addicting. When I looked up info on both games, every site I visited included the description of “addictive”. But let me take a closer look at these titles.

I remember being at my local “Babbages” (now technically a GameStop, but it still keeps the Babbages name) with a boyfriend of that time. I picked up a copy of the newest edition in the Harvest Moon series for the Gamecube. I was so giddy about it and when he asked me what it was about, I suddenly became almost embarassed about my excitement as the words, “You have this farm and you like grow stuff and you can ride a horse and have like the best farm around…” rolled out of my mouth. Needless to say, he just kind of stared at me with a raised eyebrow. And so because of this, I broke up with him…just kidding!

Harvest Moon is a game where the player is a farmer who…farms. Seriously, you get a shovel, a watering can, some seeds, a plot of land and you farm. You grow crops, raise hens, sheep, cows, etc. Sure there is also a town where you can become friends with the npcs and even date and marry someone, but essentially, the game is about making a successful farm. So yeah, my ex’s reaction at the time was totally understandable! Who would want to play a game where you work?

Even when I went to my grandmother’s and played the game and explained it to her (she enjoyed the cute little things the main character would do), she would comment on the idea of how I’d rather pull weeds in a game than do it outside in the real world. I mean, yeah there’s less actual physical effort involved in the game, but the idea is the same. I’m pulling weeds in….a game….and loving it….WHY?!

This is also true with the game “Animal Crossing”, which I recently started to play again on the DS. This was because after seeing two friends of mine playing it before one of my classes, I became like a recovering crack addict going through a bad relapse and so all I could think about was going back to my dorm so I could whip out the game card (DS games are more like cards than they are cartridges), with a shaking hand place in into the DS, and smile as the title screen gives me almost a warm and fuzzy feeling. (Wow, Elle, that is one scary image there.)

Anyway, with games like BioShock and Halo 3 sitting in my living room, I found myself consumed every day for at least an hour with “Animal Crossing”. And like, “Harvest Moon” this game involves pulling weeds and making friends. Except this game is even worse (in the “why-would-I-want-to-play-this” sort of way), because you start off getting a house that you can’t afford and owe this raccoon thousands and thousands of dollars! When I got this game about 2 years ago, I played everyday for about a year and I just picked it up again…I STILL owe that raccoon about $25,000! Why would I put that kind of pressure on myself to pay off the bills of this game character when I could be worrying about the bills in the real world?!

So why do I play these games? Why are so many people easily addicted to these games? Why?…..I have no idea. Maybe it’s because they are real-life hardships that can be expressed in a metaphysical world and allowing people to escape the real-world issues by dealing with them in this pretend place full of rewards. Could it be that the satisfaction of paying off all our debts in a game is more of a motivation than what happens when we pay them off in real life? Yeah, that means we’re even and don’t have to worry about those debts, but in a game you are rewarded with more items and more friends. I don’t know…but here I am…doing this blog, working on my homework, eating a late lunch, and looking forward to some more “Animal Crossing” later tonight.

The Board Game Project

My first experience in any sort of real game design was with making a board game for my Intro to Game Development class. Working in groups can be a bit daunting sometimes, but in this industry, it’s what you gotta do! So when our group of five first got together everyone was a little shy and no one had ideas, except for one. He really had a story idea than a gameplay one. It was about Irish history pirates, based on fact. When hearing the word “pirates”, it made me cringe, because as my professor said, “Everyone does pirates, zombies, and ninjas.” But the story was very intriguing and so we ran with it. During our time off, I sat at my desk trying to think of a way to make a game around that. After several hours of solitaire…I decided that maybe I was looking at it the wrong way. So I thought, what makes the games I’ve played growing up fun? I immediately thought of the game “Weapons and Warriors”. Having that kind of interactivity was something I really enjoyed and it was what I’ve enjoyed in most games like Pictionary or even an old Lion King game I had as a child. These games all involved the players doing other things besides moving pieces on a board.

I wanted to combine this interactivity with something that would add in telling the story of this pirate woman taking over different areas of Ireland. I needed some sort of basis that anyone could pick it up and get it. That’s wear Monopoly came in. I thought, “That game can be rather boring sometimes…what can I do to make it better?” And so in combining the two games, I realized that this could be something that would take skill, strategy, and at least an hour of fun gameplay! Keyword being “fun”.

I became the sort of “producer” of our project after presenting the idea and the group had agreed to it. I told command and really did my best to direct the group on how I envisioned the gameplay and design. I sorted out jobs for everyone. The guy who came up with the story focused on the design of the game…really, the aesthetics of it. I gave the other members jobs of making the pieces of the game and the rule book. I worked on tweaking the game mechanics and balancing of the game. It was a little nerve racking because it was my first game design project and some how I had ended up being the leader.

Over the course of the project, out of the five members, only three were actually working on the game. I did everything I could to get these guys to help us out, but I don’t know what else I could have done. So the three of us carried on and worked our hardest to make this project and make it work. Luckily, one of those absent members helped us play test it and it was fun right there on the first run through! Only a few minor tweaks here and there and we had it! I was so happy and so proud, knowing that my ideas came to life and worked! It was a very validating feeling and I felt like, no matter what grade we got, I would know that I had made my absolute best effort and worked my hardest on something I will always be proud of.

The day the board game was due, the member in charge of the rules forgot to spell-check his rule book and also forgot to send us a copy beforehand to check it for errors and make sure it could make sense for everyone. And unfortunately, that became our downfall. I suppose, I should have pursued him more that night before when he said not to worry about it. But you know what? It was a great learning experience. I would still want to work with that member because he was a hard worker. It was just this one thing that he slacked off on, but we all have those moments in life.

We ended up getting a B on the project, but other great news followed about it (which I’ll perhaps mention in later posts) that really made up for the B. I’m still so proud of it and would love to make a copy of that board one day and re-write the rules and play it with friends in my spare time. Everyone in our class did a really great job with their games and I’d love to work on another board game one day!

I think the project was a great way to learn about game design even for the digital format. By learning how to make something “fun” and “balanced” in a non-digital format, where there is no forgiveness, really teaches you so much of the fundamentals to making a good, fun game for all who play it.