Finished reading Theory of Fun for game Design by R. Koster.
Some important things I took away from this was:
- Games might seem abstracted from reality because they are iconic depictions of patterns in the world. They have more in common with how our brain visualizes things than they do with how reality is actually formed.
- This is an important insight for game designers: the more rigidly constructed your game is, the more limited it will be.* To make games more long-lasting, they need to integrate either math problems we don’t know the solutions to, or more variables (and less predictable ones) such as human psychology, physics, and so on. These are elements that arise from outside the game’s rules and from outside the “magic circle.”
- Fun is all about our brains feeling good—the release of endorphins* into our system.
- Fun from games arises out of mastery. It arises out of comprehension. It is the act of solving puzzles that makes games fun.
- In other words, with games, learning is the drug.
- The brain craves stimuli. At all times, the brain is casting about trying to learn something, trying to integrate information into its worldview. It is insatiable in that way.
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