#GMS Day 1 : Playing with Space

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In order to study Practical Game Design, I decided to go for a simple but tricky one-month challenge : « One day, One Game Mechanic » or « Game Mechanics Study Day » (GMS). The objectives will be to level up my programming skills and study interesting patterns since all the coding will be done from « scratch » in Unity C#.  Those study could not be considered as « games » but little parts of it.

In Art of Game Design, Jesse Schell defines Space as the first of a list of the 5 elementary game mechanics. Let’s play with the way we experience space !

Play the Interactive Study here : https://loganou974.itch.io/gmsd1

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The idea of today was to warm up with some quick, fresh and interesting code. I had never touched « Animated Curves » before except in PlayMaker when i use to use it. I just wanted to make a « Smart Floor » whom will magically appear, in a pleasant way, just under the player steps.

We can imagine further gameplay : The floor only « following » objects the player can throw, the latter would have to construct a bridge to cross a huge gap.

Every game has an environment to play with. Game Environments link interactives objects together and propose orders to discover them, a sort of spatial scenography. Moreover, players love to have an significant impact on a game and feel changes, constant feedbacks.

In the Mechanics-Dynamics-Aesthetics (MDA) framework, Discovery defines games as uncharted territories and provides the urge to explore worlds. How do your player interact with your environment ? Can he modify it ? What game rules defines it ? Can it be more « smart » ? « Alive » ?

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