dev log 3

During class this week we were tasked with modding the river game that we were playing. One mod that we made to the game was giving it a new goal. According to Macklin and Sharp, "the goal of a game gives shape and purpose to what the players are trying to achieve while playing" (Ch2). The mod that was made to the game was adding a Nerf gun to the game and an extra space to land on that allows the player to use the gun. If you landed on the space which we called pirates then you would go back five feet and shoot the Nerf gun trying to knock over other player's figurines. If they were knocked over then they were out for the rest of the game. Macklin and Sharp go into what drives players to make certain decisions. Personally, I wanted to land on the island as many times as I could because it was fun shooting the Nerf gun at the board. In chapter four Macklin and Sharp talk about "action theory as a framework" and one of the components of it is "desire." The satisfaction that I felt from shooting one time led to me wanting to do it again and again. We even modified the rules further so that if you rolled a six you could move yourself back one. And although I never knocked a figurine over the desire to get one grew and grew. This brought more of a competitive aspect to the game. Mackin and Sharp talk about this in the third chapter of their book. "Players try to come out ahead of their opponent," they said. While the game normally could be competitive this additional move added another layer of competition. Not only were we competing against each other on the board but also against ourselves. If you'd miss a shot you'd want to be better next time so you'd take what you did wrong on the first shot and learn from it to ensure you hit the second time.