GDC, and theories on fun.

GDC is almost upon us, and I'm getting excited, as well I should be. As a gamer and a computer scientist, I can't imagine an event that would combine more of my passions. Well, unless it was a game developer's conference with a rock climbing competition and Mystery Science Theater 3000 playing in the background the entire time. Until the day that dream is realized, I will be content with attending the GDC. Plus, it's in San Fransisco, so I get to visit somewhere new.

I am a bit nervous though, since part of the reason I am going is to try to land a job. Since I don't graduate until May, my resume is a bit sparse. I am lacking the, "Must have shipped two games on X console" each job seems to require, but everyone has to start somewhere. I will be putting the finishing touches on my resume this week, and I guess we will see what happens.

On a slightly unrelated tangent, I have been reading "A Theory of Fun for Game Design" by Raph Koster, and despite how irritating I find the title (for it's casual use of the word "theory," which is a topic that has no relevance to this blog), I am benefiting greatly from reading it. First and foremost, it has got me thinking about things that I had never even thought to think of before. That was an odd sentence, so let me give you an example: I had never thought about what it is that makes games fun.

As I wrote that, I realized just how ridiculous that sounds from someone who is trying to get into Game Design. After all, shouldn't that be all that I am thinking about? It wasn't that I didn't think the topic wasn't important, I just assumed that I already knew. I've played enough games to know what I find fun, but I had not considered why it's fun, or even exactly what it is beyond "winning" and "crushing all those that stand before me."

Koster's book presents the idea that underneath their pretty exteriors, games are all really about patterns, and our brains love patterns. We delight in finding them, and in a game this is what we are doing when we start to win. We have started to recognize the underlying patterns in the game and have learned how to exploit them. I won't go into all the reasons Koster provides because he does a much better job presenting his point of view than I do, but I have to admit, it's got me thinking. I'm not sure how much I agree with him, but the important thing is that I'm now thinking about something that I had taken for granted. And thinking is good.

I hope to follow up on this post with a bit more of my impressions of Koster's book, but that may have to wait until after GDC, when I have a chance to reread it. And speaking of books worthy of a reread, "The Pragmatic Programmer" by Hunt and Thomas is also on that list.