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Gravity-flip is a simple yet effective game that at its core is designed around timing.  The game challenged the player to solve a series of levels, each with increasing difficulty.  The player is square shaped monster that is in outer space.  The monster is stationary at the beginning of each and every level.  The player is able to control/move this squarely shaped monster by using directional keys on the keyboard.  These keys can’t be combined and therefore there is 5 states that the monster can be in , moving left, right, up, down, or remaining stationary(only before the player has made any movement).  It is important that there are only these 4 directions as the levels are planned out with very straight paths that move in the x and y-axis directions(2D).  Mechanics of the game cause the monster to start moving and gaining speed once a direction is pressed, whether that be up, down, left, or right there is no way to totally stop the monster once it gets moving, though the player can rapidly spam different directions to slow the monster down.  The goal of the game is to get the monster to the portal to transport to the next level.  The challenge is that the monster can not touch any of the edges of the play space or the walls of the player space.  The walls are designed through the levels to create an increasing level of difficulty.  Notably, the speed of the monster increases as time goes on in a certain direction, so the longer you have the monster traveling in one direction the faster it will be going and therefore the less time you will have to react when you need to change the direction of the monster.  The verb of the game is to move and really that is all the player can do is move(navigate) the play space to safely get the monster to the portal to advance to the next level.  There are 5 distinct levels, each with their own setup of walls.  Notably, the speed of the monster never changes through the levels.  The speed always starts really slow when the player changes direction and then increases in velocity as time goes on until the monster hits a wall or edge and dies, hits a portal and makes it to the next level, or changes direcitons and slows its speed back down to the start speed.  While the player can strategically switch between left/right up/down to stall the monster almost at a standstill, they can never really get the monster to stop moving without aggressively switching between different directions while avoiding touching anything.  This strategy becomes much less effective in the tight, difficult spaces that level 5 presents to the player.  I think this game has a ton of potential to be expanded with more levels.  The base idea is great and opens up the ability to make a lot of challenging levels.  Another way the difficulty could be modified is through the use of changing the speed/velocity of the monster depending upon the level.  What could also be an interesting addition would be to limit the amount of time the player can change directions in order to remove the button spam approach to staying still. 

“Whoes world?” is an interesting take on a sokoban style game.  This game has very simple mechanics in all that the player is able to do is move around the play space and push blocks around.  In a normal Sokoban style game this movement of blocks would be done with the goal of moving around blocks such that you can get a particular block in a certain area of the playspace.  This game heavily differs in that there are many different blocks that need to be moved to particular spots.  How would the player know what block to move where you may ask, well this game is unique in that it uses spelling of words to create its puzzles.  The player is told what word is to be solved before the level and then they are given a playing field filled with scrambled letters that the player must rearrange to complete the level.   This game is impressively complex for a puzzlescript game and undoubtedly a lot of hard work went into designing the rules of the game to allow such complex level goals.  The way the game works is that the players goal is to remove all of the letters from the playsapce.  The player does this by making specific words out of the letters.  It is the games intention that the player finish the words in order of the challenge sentience that is presented before each level.  In this way the player knows what goal is to be solved.  There is a nice satisfying animation when the words are placed in the correct order, letting the player know that they have completed a word and the letters in that word disappear giving the player a sense of progress.  There are many mistakes that can cause the player to get stuck.  A prime example of this is pushing a letter to the corner of the playspace or clumping up the letters in a manner that makes it impossible to separate them out.  Luckily, puzzlescript has a built in undo feature that allows players to continue to solve the current puzzle if they make a catastrophic mistake, whether this is the intention of the designer to use or not is unknown.  Another note on the gameplay is that it doesn’t allow you to move multiple blocks at once, this causes the player to have to be much more strategic with their gameplay, as they will not be able to move big chunks all at once.  This is a particularly important decision to avoid players being able to get words all touching to remove them without completing the level properly.  The verbs of the game is simply to push, but this push is very important because it must be done very strategically to avoid getting trapped and make sure all of the letters in the playing field get to the correct spot. This format makes the player think much more than just having one goal for one block.  Notably, I don’t think there is anyway for the player to die, or have to respawn.a

Coin-runner is a satisfying arcade style game with smooth gravity mechanics and lots of replay-abilityThis game reminds me of an arcade style game that would work great on mobile devices.   The concepts are simple, yet very effective.   Additionally, the games design easily translates to an effective arcade style scoring system.  There are some very simple pieces that make this game what it is.  There is the player of the game which is the mouse cursor, coins, and bombs.  The goal of the game is to click the coins and not the bombs.  Clicking the coins earns the player one point(score) while clicking a bomb loses the player many points.  Notably, hovering over coins and bombs does nothing.  Initially I thought this was how the game was going to work, particularly for bombs.  I think the mechanics of the game might work more smoothly if the player had to actively avoid hovering over the bombs with the mouse, rather than just avoiding clicking them.  This would increase the difficulty of the game and make the player have to use more strategy to avoid the bombs while trying to get the cursor to be over the coins.  Notably, the way this game plays depends very heavily on the input device the player is using.  I played with a trackpad on a laptop which I think definitely mad the game more difficult than playing with a traditional mouse.  Additionally, I think that playing this game on a mobile device with a finger would be really satisfying.  Especially if the player was unable to lift their finger and had to avoid touching the bombs.  This variety of player input adds to the playability of the game.  Another thing that adds to long term playability is the scoring system.  The Score is constantly displayed as the player plays keeping them aware of how far they are.  I think adding a high score or scoreboard would be effective in adding a competitiveness within the game, whether that be competition with self or others.  Another thing important to mention is that when a player doesn’t click a coin and it falls below the playing field, the player loses a life.  This is a different punishment to that of clicking a bomb which loses the player many points.  This definitely adds difficulty and makes the player have to play quickly and efficiently.  If this wasn’t implemented the game would be far too easy as the player would have all of the time in the world to carefully pick out what coins they want to click.  Another interesting aspect of the game is its use of gravity, trajectories, and velocities.   The trajectories of the coins and bombs all seem to be the same  and the coins and bombs always come from the bottom of the playing field, peak, and fall back down.  This arch makes it satisfying for the player to highpoint the coin, in that perfect moment just as it goes from rising to falling.   Overall this game is simple yet effective and has a great deal opportunity around it.

Coconut-bounce is a small satisfying game with looping gameplay.  This game is very simply yet effective in its design.  The score system and looping playability reminds me of an arcade game.  The game allows the player to use their mouse to move the coconut around the playing field to bounce the ball around the playing field.   The goal is to use this coconut to hit the ball so that it hits the coins.  These coins spawn in the playing field randomly and only last so  long.  This adds some unpredictability to the game. Additionally, there are enemies that try to shoot the coconut and end the game.   Each coin hit with the ball will earn the player a point.  When the player is hit by a projectile, the game will end, and the player will be asked to play again.   The verbs of the game are to hit(the ball) and to dodge(the bullets).  There is certainly a level of interplay between these simple components of the game.  The coconut interacts with the ball in that it is able to hit it.  The ball will bounce off the coconut and go in a trajectory at a constant velocity.  It is important that there is a constant velocity of the ball, as this allows the player to better predict where the ball will go.  Much like pool, the player can somewhat predict how the ball will bounce off the walls.  The more bounces, the harder it becomes to predict.  The ball interacts with the coins in that it gives the player score.   Notably, the coins don’t change the trajectory of the ball, they just disappear.  Another way the ball interacts with the playing field is in that it can be used to bounce the enemy blocks around that are trying to shoot at the coconut.  Having the high score constantly displayed adds to the playability of the game as the player is more likely to try to beat their high score or challenge others to beat their high score.  It’s interesting that the coconut is controlled by the mouse cursor as it adds a great deal of agility and maneuverability to the coconut.  Had the designer of used keyboard mappings to move the coconut it would be a totally different game and certainly more clunky feeling.  Additionally, this adds differing experiences based upon input devices.  I played the game with a laptop trackpad, making it pretty difficult to hit the ball effectively, whereas if I played with  a mouse, I would have a much greater deal of control.  The decision to use a found character(coconut) and a round ball also adds to the unpredictability of the trajectories.   Ball on ball bouncing can be difficult to predict, especially when both are moving at different velocities.  Hitting the enemy blocks, which are square, with the round ball is very satisfying.  The use of circles and squares allows the player to distinguish the enemy projectiles and bodies more easily.  Also, the delay of the coconut following the cursor forces the player to make predictions before moving their cursor knowing it will take a bit longer than real time.

Prompt 2: “*starwar*” is a game where the player is tasked with shooting asteroids as they are randomly spiral around the playspace.  These asteroids threaten the player as if they hit the player, the player will immediately die and the game will be over.  The goal of the game is to destroy as many of these asteroids as possible to gain points.  These points add up and are totaled when the player dies and the game is over.  The goal is simple, get as high of a score as possible.  The player is able to dodge the asteroids by moving the mouse.  The player is also able to shoot down the asteroids by aiming at them, timing the shot, and firing from their ship.  The more asteroids destroyed the more score the player gets.  The game tries to make you lose in several ways.  Firstly, the asteroids are plentiful.  Having so many asteroids makes it hard for the player to dodge them all effectively, let alone aim and shoot them down in a controlled manner.  Secondly, the asteroids come in and out of the play space in a random manner that makes it hard for the player to predict where they will come from.  Another way asteroids are made difficult is that they split up into even more(smaller) asteroids when they are shot.  These small asteroids add to the first level of difficulty. Another way the game is difficult is combining mouse movements with keyboard shooting.  This takes extra coordination from the player.  Aiming the ship is yet another way the game is difficult.  To aim the ship the player must use the arrow keys to get the ship in the correct direction, strafe using the mouse to help aim, and then time the shot with where the asteroid should be when the projectile arrives.  A way the game could be made even more difficult is if the designer didn’t allow the player to have unlimited projectiles fired at once.  

Prompt 1: “Asteroid-Collector” is a simple yet effective arcade game built upon uncertainty.  It is uncertainty that challenges the player to complete a task in the shortest time possible.  The player is a spaceship that is tasked with collecting asteroids as fast as possible.  The problem is that the asteroids have erratic and unpredictable movements.  To add to the problem, the player's ship is sluggish relative to the asteroids.  This combination challenges the player.  Without this challenge, the game wouldn’t be much of a game.  Players can strategize by trying to get as close to as many of the asteroids as possible so they can collect them quickly.  This works by being able to pick them up consecutively before they randomly move again.  This strategy is still quite difficult though.  The tension in the game is created by the timer and the animations.  The player is tasked to race to beat their high score.  Understanding the trajectory of the various asteroids is very difficult.  Perceiving where the ship will be by the time the asteroid gets to a particular point in the game's space is ever more difficult given the differing speeds.  The asteroids often move too fast to be able to react, so the player must be patient and not lose focus.  Staying calm and trying to get the asteroid on its next move is the best step the player can take towards completing the round.  This game effectively utilizes aspects of randomness to add a challenge to a very simple concept, collecting objects as fast as possible.

Prompt 2:  This game is a great take a top down adventure game for the Gameboy.  Thus use of three-dimensional art really adds to the players experience and it’s unlike other games I’ve played.  The space feels very open and explorable with this art style as it adds depth.  The player gets a much greater feeling of height as well when using the many ladders in the game.  The investigation/mystery style makes the world interesting to explore as you slowly uncover more and more secrets as Detective Block.  The players role is a detective that is tasked to free captives and find clues to explain the story. The core mechanic is exploration.  The rules are the ability to collect explanatory documents and the ability to interact with characters.  When Detective Block interacts with captives they are freed.   When Detective Block interacts with Robot Steve the logistical goal of the game(number of things to do) is explained.  When Detective Block interacts with the FBI Agent the mission is explained again.  Finally, when Detective Block interacts with the evil Igor he flees and tries to deter the player.  This is the main conflict of the game.  Resources of the game are documents the game and captives that are liberated by the player.  Every document must be collected to explain the story and every captive must be freed to complete the game. These pieces all add up to describe a real world investigation case in which the detective must piece together all the pieces(clues) to the puzzle(mystery).  Both are essentially to fixing the problem at hand.  Saving the captives is obviously important and understanding the situation prevents the situation from happening again.  One thing I would like to have done is to go down the ladder to the toxic FBI scene.  I’m not sure if there is a way to do this or not?

Prompt 1:  "Over Up" effectively uses shape to design the play experience of the game.  Being a platformer, the shape of the world/levels is absolutely essential to making an effective game.  The game is organized in a work your way up style.  The main level begins with the player plummeting down to the ground.  Here the player can find an NPC that mocks you for falling down again.  This lets the player know that they are supposed to work their way back upwards. The entrance is very wide and obviously easy to fall down.  The exit is quite the opposite, once you finally get there(you will likely fail many times) you will find that it is very narrow and difficult to reach.  The space of the level is somewhat unpredictable.  This is due to the limited FOV(Field of View) provided by GB Studio platformer mode.  Importantly, the small FOV adds to the difficulty of the level as the player is unable to see what’s ahead at times.  The shape of the level becomes more and more narrow and difficult as the player works their way up.  This creates a progressive difficulty and also makes the player want to keep trying as they will feel like they were really close when they fail at the most difficult parts of the level.  Ultimately, once the player passes the main level they will find that their stats have been recorded the whole time.  Additionally, the game also allows the player to enable a faster run, this can help the player speed run but also makes it much more difficult to accurately run.  The player collides with square platforms and can go through upwards but not downwards on thin platforms.  The triggers are at the end of the level to transition and at the NPCs to either mock you or tell you your stats.  Statistics add replayability to the game.

Prompt 2: Describe how the passages are organized.  “To feed or not to feed” is a game of decisions and compromise.  The game begins with a brief intro to introduce the player to their environment and circumstances.  The player is introduced to the general format of the game.  There is a short paragraph with the setting/circumstances of the player.  The first passage introduces the notion that the player has 4 portions of food and that they are on a beautiful lakeshore path with plenty of nature.  The first passage also introduces the general structure of most passages in the game.   The game is based upon the player being given a setting in the first paragraph and then another paragraph about an animal that you could either feed or not feed, hence the title “To feed or not to feed”.  This is the format for the remainder of the passages but instead of a setting, the first paragraph is typically the result of your decision to feed or not to feed each animal.  There is also a setting added to remind the player of how many portions of food remain.  Each animal provides a slightly different prompt and outcome.  Typically there are only two options, to feed or not to feed and the player can anticipate these options, that is until the bear arrives and gives the player no option but to feed.  The game does allow you to reverse your options, but I don’t this that is the intention of the game.  The player must strategically choose which animals to feed for success.  The shape of the story is like a flower where each decision has small offshoots but stick to the main stem.  The theme of the game is to be generous but not too generous, making this game have some strategy involved.

Prompt 4: Don’t Get Fired is a game based off a situation that many of us are all too familiar: the stress of work.  The game sets the player in the situation of a stressed out employee who is overtired and likely overworked.  The employee wants really badly to impress their boss, but there’s a problem.  The employee forgets their important briefcase and the player must chose whether to go back and get the briefcase and be late or continue on to work and be on time.  This is a compromise that must be weighed by the player.  This is where uncertainty is brought into the game.  The game allows the player to make decisions to try to impress their boss, in this way the game limits the player into making decisions related to work performance.  The game draws heavily on preconceived western work notions, the “nine to five” grind of a cooperate employee who is working hard to impress their boss and keep their job.  The game subverts the expectations of the real world in the way of allowing the player to go back and change their mind to not get fired.  As the player I anticipated how each decision would affect the game from my preconceived notion of working in a corporate environment.  I made my decisions based on my interpretation of the game relating to my work experience.  The process of anticipation is played upon when the game slowly reveals text.   This is particularly effective when the employee is on the phone calling for help.  This anticipation and suspense adds value to the decisions the player makes throughout the game.

Prompt 1: This game could be related to physical objects in numerous ways.  To start, I would relate the blank canvas to that of a physical painting canvas.  They serve the same role, one is just digital while the other is physical.   I think the “Abstract shape brush” represents some form of a splatter effect.  It somewhat reminds me of paint splatter artwork. The randomness combined with the artists/players' intention to make the art more compelling.  The artist's intention may be to create something very abstract or it could be to make something very distinct.  The abstract shape feels both hard and soft as some of the included objects have sharp edges and some have round.  The randomness of it reminds me of paint splattering but the effect is not nearly as uniform with its soft and hard edging contrasting.  The important parts are the noticeable shapes on the outside while the inner parts blend together and the individual shapes are lost in translation.  The polka dot tool reminds me of using a dot marker/pen but combined with a bunch of other random dots made simultaneously and randomly from other people.  This randomness is much less uniform than that of the abstract shapes and it feels much less predictable.  The growing circle reminds me of a paint bucket slowly spilling onto the canvas.  The longer the mouse is held, the longer the bucket is spilled, and therefore the larger the painted circle grows.  This action feels very soft and round.  This is by far the most controlling feeling action in the game.  The combination of the different brushes allows the player to easily and playfully create art without having to critically think about their actions.

Prompt 3: I found this tool to be very interesting in the way it implemented its basic brushes.  This drawing software made me feel more like I was playing than using software with its natural relation to drawing lines of different colors.  The ease of creating circles and ellipses made it feel very natural.  The more natural and easy a tool is to understand the more the player will feel disconnected from the fact that they are indeed using a piece of software.  In other words, the drawing aspect of this tool feels like second nature; humans are known to draw.  Drawing and creating shapes opens up a limitless world of opportunities.  The canvas in this p5.js program is like a blank sheet of paper just waiting to be drawn on.  I wasn’t able to break the program in any way.  I thought the use of sliders was great in adjusting the eraser size and expressing the color in terms of RBG.  This is definitely something I wish I would’ve thought of when creating my tool.  The ability to erase(you can also clear the whole canvas) is also a great way to add more avenues of creativity in addition to the shapes and lines.  The sliders allow the player to create infinite colors and I found it enjoyable to use it to make new colors and add them in my designs.  The particles were a nice added feature to bring some random colors and sized circles into the mix.   The loop button is a bit ambiguous and I’m not quite sure if I was able to get it to work quite as intended.  Nonetheless, it is still a great way to add some random coloring in.

Prompt 5:  The images, sounds, and writing heavily affect the player's experience in Lawn Care.  The visuals, particularly all of the green color, make the player feel like they are mowing a lawn.  As silly as that sounds, it can be difficult to make the player understand the environment with such a limited low pixel-based design environment.  The green background on the itch.io page adds to this as well.  This game was specifically interesting for me because I actually enjoy mowing lawns.  I find it to be a relaxing time to not think about much, except avoiding obstacles and not missing spots, which are the exact goals of this game!  The environment and art design combined with my experience mowing lawns made it immediately evident what the goal of the game is: just cut all of the grass.  The addition of sound as feedback for running into bushes or flowers lets the player know that they are making mistakes.  The sound effect for cutting grass informs the player that they are doing the right thing.  The added detail of literally breaking the mower is a nice addition as it really makes the player feel helpless that they can wander the lawn with no tools to do their job.  The contrasting color of the player and the mower help them stand out on the lawn, so you don’t easily lose them in all of the green.  The text at the beginning of the game also made it obvious what the player is to do, along with the title. The third level stumped me on how not to break the mower and move on with the level.  Nonetheless, the images, sounds, and writing helped me to identify with this game and easily understand/relate to it.

The hunt is a simple yet effective hunting game thanks to its rule of randomized movement.  The player begins the game in a wide-open square level.  The first level has 3 prey that remains stationary until the player begins moving(or if the player holds the spacebar).  The movement of the prey is randomized and they move all of the levels as the player tries to chase them down and catch them by intersecting them.  The lack of barriers in the first level makes it fairly easy for the player to catch the prey, but it is immediately evident that the rules of the game do not allow the player to predict the movement of the prey.  This is what makes the game interesting and feel like an actual hunt.   As the predator, you are unsure of where the prey will go.  This rule interacts with the level design in that the prey is restricted to the edges of the level, so a smart predator will try to corner the prey to limit their safe mobility.  As the player progresses through the game, barriers are added in the levels to make it more difficult.  Importantly, the prey can pass through the barriers, but the predator(player) may not.  In this way, the level makes it more difficult to track the prey as they can slow the predator down in their chase.  The goal of the game is simply to catch all of the prey, but that is made difficult through the randomization elements of the rules and through the physical level design.

Prompt 2: Nest is a game that uses intricately designed tiles to create its virtual landscape.  When asked what objects are given the most attention it is difficult to answer because seemingly every tile in the game is well detailed and thought out.  This paints a clear picture in a pixelated virtual world.  The composure of the avatars is forcibly much more simplistic than the composure of the background.  This is simply a limitation of bitsy, as the tiled backgrounds have more pixels in total than do avatars.  This game really takes advantage of increasing resolution through the use of tiles.   The use of animation aids the player in better understanding the environment.  Animation lets the player feel the wind just by seeing the way the waves move on the pond and the way the tall grass sways back and forth. Animating the animals makes them feel more alive. All of this adds to the immersion of the player.  The designer takes advantage of reusing similar tiles throughout the landscape to give a sense of texture.  Rather than a plain green background, the player can physically see the grass, bushes, and flowers rather than having to imagine them.  Buildings and fences stand out in the natural environment and become a point of focus.  The sun off in the distance gives a sense of the time of day and adds to the panic of not being able to build the nest.  The color change also gives a sense of the differing times of the seasons and adds to the anxiety of the coming cold season.  Overall, the tile design of the game reinforces the feelings of the main character, feelings of worry, and stress as the seasons progress without success.

Prompt 3:  Maise is an excellent candidate for an analysis on room design, as that is the main structure of the game itself.  The rooms of the game are designed as a mazes that the player has to navigate through to progress through the game.  The game does a great job of marking room exits as it takes advantage of its vivid color selection to make checkboard exits that stand out on the screen.  Arrows are additionally used to mark the exits of the rooms.  This makes it obvious to the player what the goal is of the maze.  The transition between rooms is somewhat mysterious as you seemingly teleport to another maze, but I believe this is part of what shapes the mysterious nature of this game.  The way the rooms are designed tempts the player to pick up the coins.  There are even arrows pointing towards coins, this tempts the player to pick them up.  As the player progresses it becomes obvious that greed is bad, and they should refrain from taking too many coins.  The room design is leveraged to challenge the player to fight their greed.  The exits of the room are all one way, so the player can not return to previous maze rooms once they have progressed to the next.  This keeps the game progressing in a linear fashion.  The goal of the game seems to be to stay away from the corn, so it makes sense that the room design would tempt the player to do exactly that.