Reading 2: Semester 2

After a long break away from college we are finally back to college. This semester we are going to be working on not only designing a game but also we will be writing a book. After hearing that we're going to be writing a book I felt a little overwhelmed. I feel as though it will be challenging, but that's what college is all about.

This week we are preparing our research questions for the book.

The topics I have chosen from the outline for the proposed book are:

Progression Mechanics 

Tactical Manoeuvring Mechanics

 Both of these topics come are from Chapter 13: Core Mechanics.

Tactical Manoeuvring takes place in largely open or semi-open spaces. It is critical in most strategy games but also features in some role-playing and simulation games.

Progression Mechanisms is how a player can move through the game world. The progress of the player is restricted by a number of mechanisms that block or unlock access to certain areas in the game, for example levers and switches.

Both of these topics are necessary when designing a game, they are important topics to be educated about as they will provide guidelines in your game. Progression mechanisms are an important part to a game as they allow the player to experience new areas by completing certain tasks and/or quests.

The first step is to create a research question. Before creating my question, I have to create a Search Strategy.

1. Highlight keywords in your research question - the keywords in my question would be Progression and Manoeuvring Mechanics. 
2. Identify synonyms or other words that can be used to search for the same information:

Progression: development, advance, movement, growth, evolution.

Manoeuvring: navigate, pilot, plan, steer, manipulate, move, guide.

For my research I will need to look at open source books online as well as trying to find any relative books/articles in my University that will help me with my research. Before writing my question I did some research online about my topics - it was more difficult than expected to find information about my chosen topics but I hope that after doing more research I will be able to gather more information.

My current idea for my research question are:

"Why Tactical Manoeuvring Mechanics are critical in your game"

and

"How Progression Mechanics can unlock a whole new world in your game."

Example of Tactical Manoeuvring (Source)