Games Decisions
I really enjoyed reading Daniel Cooks Blog on 'cozy Games' as it gave me a new way of thinking about game design. The idea of a Cozy game is that instead of basing design and game play around battle, survival and immanent threats, cozy games allow the player space to breath while playing, instead of playing to improve battle skills for example their aim could be to gather abundant resources, develop relationships with characters or other players. Cozy games are synonymous with abundant resources, warm colors, small worlds, changing seasons and other elements to inspire nostalgia and a feeling of safety and comfort for the player. visuals play a big part in cozy games. warm, soft and natural colors all add to the cozy feeelig of a game. Audio is another medium that can be implemented to add to the coziness of a game design, using familar, natural sounds to relate to the player. The use of Natural and familiar materials can add to the coziness of a game such as the woolen aesthetic of the game 'LittleBigPlanet '.
LittleBigPlanet image taken from flikr
The way the characters communicate in a game can greatly affect the emotions the player will feel while playing, having long, unimportant or meaningless conversations between characters can add to the safe, familiar feeling of relationships we enjoy in real life. Harsh commands and dominating, asserting characters would be avoided in a cozy game and the interactions with this character would always be an unpleasant and undesired experience for the player. creating vulnerabilities and weaknesses to characters such as old or young age, disabilities, roles ie priests or peaceful monks and maternal or paternal characteristics can all add to the coziness of a character in a game.
Hey Ian!
ReplyDeleteI think your reading blog is well written. I also like the layout of your blog, the image in the middle breaks up the writing nicely. Your choice of image is perfect, "Little Big Planet" is a great example of a cozy game. By the way good luck with developing your own game, I'd love to play it when you're finished.
Hi Ian, I really liked reading your take on the design of cosy games, you seem to have a really good understanding of all the elements that go together to make a good cosy game and your example of little big planet fits in really nicely. I never even thought about how making unimportant and long conversations added to the cosiness of a game but thinking about it it makes perfect sense. Good luck with your game Ian.
ReplyDeleteHey Ian,
ReplyDeleteWas great to read your thoughts on this reading. Little Big Planet is a great example I used to always play that game and would never consider a game developer and attempting to make the game cosier . It's weird because I remember the meaningless conversations with random characters in this game and they were sort or enjoyable and calming.
Hey Ian!
ReplyDeleteGreat discussion about the reading! I love little Big Planet. I played it for hundreds of hours as a kid. Cozy games are a great way of creating new worlds, I dont remember long meaningless conversations though... Maybe I just pushed them out of my memory!
Good luck with the development of your game! I can wait to see what you come up with.