Michael Wu, Ph.D. is Lithium's Principal Scientist of Analytics, digging into the complex dynamics of social interaction and group behavior in online communities and social networks.
Mi...
Updated 5 months ago
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Hello Andrei,
Thank you for the question. However, I can’t possibly summarize the research techniques applied to game mechanics/dynamics here. That subject would required a whole book, maybe several books. But as most research, you start with the simple questions.
What does your friend want the game to achieve? Then you break down the game and analyze whether it can achieve the goal of its designers. Some games may be totally dumb and stupid, but it achieves what it’s designed to do. Then it is considered a pretty good game. Other games may be very sophisticated and well designed, but doesn’t do what it’s designed to do. Then that would be considered a failure.
Anyway, I hope this will get you started. The specifics of method for deconstruction, Identifying game mechanics/dynamics, evaluation of the efficacy of the game dynamics, etc. is way beyond the scope of this blog. Nevertheless, thank you for asking, even though I don’t think I can provide a full answer here. See you again next time.