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The Game Design Innovation : Game Innovation

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2.3 Game Design Innovation
Game innovation can be split into the following 4 categories: 1) Technological, 2) gameplay, 3) presentation and 4) narrative innovations (Alha, 2011). At times, it is not even necessary to make something distinctly new, as long as there is an effort to reinterpret or subvert existing notions of what video games should be.

On the other hand, Peltoniemi (2009) uses two main categories to classify gaming innovation: Technological and stylistic. Technological innovation can be further divided into three categories: 1) graphics, which improve the game’s appearance, making it much more photorealistic; 2) simulation, which improves the physical realism of the game such as creating; and 3) gameplay, which allows for …show more content…

It does not define how the end aesthetics of the game will end up. But, these technological capabilities have resulted in “many poorly developed games” (Alexander, 2010). The restrictions older-style games impose upon image and sound quality force developers to ensure that the final product is of a high quality while being selective. It is an ode to minimalism and focuses solely on the fundamentals the game, ultimately making it much more immersive.

Game design is seen as a key to designing innovative, emotionally engaging game experiences and is always designed with the player in mind (Fullerton, 2014). Game design innovation in particular includes unique play mechanics or thinking beyond existing genres of play, appealing to casual gamers, strong integration of story and gameplay, as well as generating new thoughts and discussions on how games actually impact us socially and culturally (Fullerton, 2014). As the game’s core mechanic is a big part of the experiential building blocks of player activity, it is vital for designers to integrate patterns of behavior within the game that will manifest itself as a player experience (Zimmerman, 2004).

Cook (2005) uses the “Onion Metaphor” to further divide game design layers into six categories: 1) Core mechanics, 2) Metagame, 3) Base Setting, 4) Contextualised Tokens, 5) Contextualised Levels, 6) Story.

Game Design Layers Definition
Core mechanics - Basic Risk and reward schedules

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