Principles of game design written by Scott Mann
First of lets talk about minecraft
What is Minecraft? Minecraft is an block based construction and survival game that is within a blocky world. The games visual are revolved around a very pixelated and very blocky world. That the player perceives the world in which they are playing in in 3D and from a first person perspective. The detail in the game on the blocks often have strong and bright colours exept for a few blocks within the game.
The world The world that the game creates are completly random. The player will never play the same world ever (unless they use the same seed as before). This is to enhance replayability for the player. The gameplay within the game revolves mostly around the building in the game than on combating the monsters that are within the game the monster primary role within the game is to provide a form of challenge for the player to beat and to give value towards you building and to make the time spent worth while. The bulding within the game is none realistic taking towards a more arcade like. I mean you can stop water flow with a ladder in minecraft. The gravity within the game is quite weird there are very few blocks that are effected by graviy. The player and mobs within the game are effected by gravity and so are items.
There are many monsters in the game from exploding creepers to teleporting endermen The monsters
A picture that decribes the HUD in minecraft
The key mechanics within the game 1. The day and night cycle. It is straight forward in the day it is light out side but at night it grows dark and monsters will begin to spawn. 2. The hunger system is rather simple food keeps you hungry and it slowly deplets or deplets faster if you are running around. When the hunger bar full deplets you start to take damage untill you go to half a heart then it stops. Though in hard core mode you will die instantly. 3. The health system within minecraft is quite simple it regenerates through the hungar bar being full and through other sources such as potions. 4. The armour system. There are only realy tiers of armour within minecraft diamond being the strongest and most durable. 5. Duarability of specific items. This is dependant from the materials that the tool you made it from for example that diamond has far greater duability than gold and wood. 6. Procedural generation is a mechanic within the world that allows the player to go as far as they can and it completly randomises the world. 7.Crafting system is what keeps the game going and having some depth into the game. The way that the crafting system works. This gets the player to gather resources to build within the game as well. This also works within the game to give the player a sense or reward and purpose so that it helps make the game feel worth while. There is no story in minecraft but there is many fan stories anf fan theories on the story of minecraft
community Minecraft has a very active community around the game from people playing in servers with one another to the modding community around the game creating mods for people to play within the game such as tekkit to HD remake mods.
There is also parts of the community within minecraft that shares buildings that they have made with in the game. I have many examples here. There are a few websites that people share the builds such as the minecraft forms and on social networks such as facebook.
Engine The engine that minecraft is running on is the java 3D engine within the game. This is what the game mainly uses for rendering within the game and it is what is used to render within the game. The engine for minecraft is not the best for the game as it can be rather demanding depending on what kind of hardware you are currently running the game on. though the game does have a very good options menu to help out people with less powerful rigs.
History Minecraft came out in 2009 as an alpha product for everyone to buy. The game was getting gradual patches over time until they announced that the game will be fully releasd in 20011. The game staterd to become famous in 2010 through social networks and online video sites such as youtube. Youtube started to have video game lets plays that were focoused around minecraft and they started to become popular among people within youtube. Though youtube was not the only wasy minecraft became popular it started to become famous through the picture board 4chan. Thee story within 4chan was that in the game a character called Herobrine would go around the place and start creating odd buildings and destroy some of your own buildings. Though now to the present in which minecraft has been sold to microsoft for $2.5 billion.
the thumb nail for a minecraft lets play
Don’t starve is a rogue lite game (rogue lites are like rogue like games but have some important features removed. Like in don’t starve’s case turn based gameplay).The way in which don’t stave has rogue like elements in the game is because of the use of permanent death and the world being completely random every time the player plays. The game focuses around the survival of your own character within the game. The game keeps track of how long your character has lived for and adds how long you have lived for to the score board when they die. As you can tell with the fact the game has a score board that the game is clearly a single player game though the creators of the game are putting in multiplayer in the game but when it comes out it will be an optional thing to do.
The visual style. The visual style of the game is a lot like a somewhat dark cartoon. The ascetic of the game and gameplay changes with the sanity mechanic in the game. As your character starts to loss sanity more monsters attack and the world starts to appear much darker and the sounds begin to turn far more disturbing as well.
Characters
The character design within the game also strongly represents the characters word phrasing within the game and goes great with the visual style of the game. All the characters appearance strongly represents the characters personality within the game. This is shown with the character Wolfgang that his visual style is of the clear strong man that happened in the past. His little bits of dialog in the game also strongly represent the character in the game. The character will often say how things don’t scare him within the game acting like the stereotypical strong man.
The game has 3 ways of unlocking a character within the game. One is through the experience points within the game. This unlocks most of the characters within the game for the player. Then there is adventure mode that gives the player the player the chance to unlock 2 different characters within it. One is through saving the mime within adventure mode and the other is to beat adventure mode. Then you have the third way of unlocking the character Webber (a reign of giants DLC character) is through getting his head from a random drop from a spider and put the head in an already dug up grave.
As you can see this is the HUD is Don’t Starve. The game tab shows the player the crafting recipes within the game.
Need to knows The game has the obvious hunger mechanic within the game. When the character has the hunger bar deplete the character dies. The food within the game has the chance of being spoiled if not eaten yet. There is ways within the video game to prolong it such as converting meat into jerky and putting food into a fridge. The day and night cycle within the game varies in what season the world currently is in. For example the summer has far shorter nights than winter does. The game also has many biomes within the game. The player will often spawn in the grass biome. There are 20 biomes within the game that is including the DLC biome. The game has seasons within the game such as winter and summer. In the winter the player will struggle with trying to obtain food and being able to not freeze to death. The summer is more for being able to gather food for the winter. Though if the player own the reign of giants expansion. They now have the ability to die from overheating. Also within the expansion the game adds spring and autumn that are longer than summer and winter due to them being considered safe months. The combat within the game is quite bad though than is not the beef of the game. It is rather slow and quite boring. It is practically running around to dodge then a smack to deal damage to the monsters.
Crafting
The crafting within Don’t Starve is throughout 12 tabs that the player can bulid the items within the game to survive better within the game. The items within the game are locked behind multiple crafting stations that the player has to use inorder to unlock newer crafting recipies.
Tools. This is used to light. This is used in order to create create the tools that the fires within the game and in order character will need in make lights. This is needed at night inthe game. order to prevent your self from dying survival. This is used to make Food. This is used to help make food many items that are needed for within the game and revovles around survival and makes surviving food. This is used to make farms and the easier. Such as the back pack. fridge. Science. The science system is used at first to advance the crafting sytem with making the science machine and the alchemy engine. This tab is for machines like the ice flingomatic The fight tab. This is quite easy this is used to make weapons.
The structure tab is used to make within the game such as walls.
The refine tab is used to make simple materials and change them such as turning grass to rope. The dress tab is used to create clouths for the character to use this will help them with survival
The magic tab is to create magic based items within the game such as the old bell ind the DLC that summons a massive foot to cruch anything in its way This can only be used if you have a pesodoscience machine that can only be found in the ruins in the game.
The book tab is only used by Wickerbottom inwhich it creates books that have many differnt effects from each other.
Engine The engine that “don’t starve” uses within the game in a custome C++ engine that they use Lua script for within the game. Though with the engine they have made they have to keep looking at proformence within the game to make sure t is running well. They made all of the art work for the game within Flash that they ported to their own animation format.
History Don’t starve was created by Klei Entertament in 2013. This game was published by Klei Entertanment aswell. They have had previously made video games before such as the shank series. When the game came out in the begining it was origionally a beta product that the player will pay for. This was mainly for making patches within the game and to create some more content for the game and to fix bugs within the game. Then once the game fully came out in April 2013 the developers still continued with making additional patches to the game and fixing more bugs within the game. Then in 2014 the relased the DLC for the game called the reign of giants expansion for the game came out. In the present right now they are signing people up for a beta developed multiplayer expansion within the game.
A screen shot of don’t starve in alpha
My final thoughts Minecraft:
i am not to sure on what to think on minecraft i think that it is a rather well built and is a good game. I would recommend this game to praticly everyone. It is easy for the casual player so they will enjoy the game relitivley well and not have that bad of an experience. Though that group of people will not get far within the game and maybe annoyed from th creepers within the game. The more hard core players and dedicated players will have quite abit of a time investment for the gamer though they may no longer enjoy the game around about end game they will not enjoy the game as much. I can only recommend minecraft precaution that you really enjoy building and can make your own fun within a game.
Don’t starve:
I think that don’t starve is a rather good game if you feel as if you are part of this audience. If you feel that you are a dedicated person towards one game and can enjoy restarting when you die within the game. If you feel as if you are in that audience i will recommend this and the DLC for the game. If not then maybe just the game on it’s own and you can see from there or just watch some youtube videos and tell from there.