Hello! A quick update that feels pertinent to my designer blog here that doesn’t feel like it fits on my personal game design analysis blog.

As a designer, it’s important to look deep into the design of games to understand what they’re trying to give the player and how they achieve it. So many games try to do so many different things, and it isn’t always obvious when just looking at the surface. During my course on Systems Design in games, I was asked to deconstruct a game for each unity. The units focused on systems of physicality, strategy/logic, and altered states.

The 3 games I chose to break down and analyze are three games that have had a massive impact on me as a player, and I’ve already written them in the title of this post so there’s no real need to guess. For physicality, I chose the rhythm game that requires a lot of movement: Beat Saber. For strategy and logic, the unique and investigative puzzles of Return of the Obra Dinn came to mind. Finally, for altered states (which is about immersion and player agency), my game of the year for 2017, Pyre, seemed to fit the bill.

If you are curious about what makes these games tick and would like to read my deconstructions of these games, I’ve linked them below on each image. Thank you for reading!