Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Cheat Sheet
At the end of each chapter of this topic is a sort of glossary of terms.
Many of the things to which I'm introducing you are psychologically
and educationally heavy, and have a huge body of literature associ-
ated with them. For this reason, the cheat sheet will serve as a list of
definitions of terms as they relate to game design. You can probably
pull this portion out and staple it to your wall, if that works for you.
Element Interactivity: Element interactivity is a measure of how
complex something is. Essentially, the more complex things a
person has to focus on at one given moment, the more taxing
it is on the brain. Something with low element interactivity
is sitting on a bike, whereas something with high element
interactivity is riding a bike. You must focus on more discrete
things at a time to do the latter than the former. In games, the
more element-interactive something is, the more time it will
take to learn, generally.
Schema: Schemata (singular schema) are theoretical cognitive struc-
tures that dictate how we organize information in our minds.
Players build schema around things like “guns,” “RPGs,”
and “Consoles,” and create meaning links between them. An
RPG is a type of game, which is a type of interactive enter-
tainment, and so on. Cognitivists postulate that this is how
we learn and understand everything, and schemata need to be
altered or adapted for people to learn.
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