Thursday 7 February, 2008

GAMEPLAY

The first time I played Bejeweled, I only played in “classic” mode. This time I played, I tried out Action mode and Puzzle mode. In Action mode, the timer is affected by how many combinations you makes, so that making a combination adds time to the timer. When the timer is full, you advance to another level. When the timer is empty, the game is lost. This was my favorite mode of playing because it felt more intense than classic mode, and I liked the feeling of the way that I played the game being connected to the timer, rather than just soaring through levels on a set clock. Unfortunately, I lost the game at the same level each time.

In Puzzle mode, the player must solve puzzles by making sets of jewels in the right combinations so that all the jewels on the board are destroyed. To advance levels, 4 out of 5 puzzles on each level must be solved. This mode had a very different feel than the others, because for one, it did not rely on a clock. There were also lots of buttons to switch puzzles, undo, hint, etc, so it felt much slower. I was not very good at it and liked the other modes better, which felt more intense.

It feels good that every time I play the game, I seem to get better at it. It is still very addictive.

DESIGN

The design of the Bejeweled is interesting because the way the game is played, the design doesn’t matter much at all. When the player is playing, he/she is only really concentrating on one thing, which is making jewel combinations. The game could be just as fun without the start menu, the level design, and the bridges between levels looking the same as they do. Even the idea of having jewels as the objects that are being played with could be altered to make a similar gameplay experience.

The jewels themselves have some important qualities. Most importantly, they are made of bright colors and of slightly varying but bold shapes. This allows the player to distinguish objects without having to think much about it, which is crucial for the experience. But they are not so different that they can always be immediately distinguished.

The design of most parts of the game seemed to be trying to convey a feeling of intensity and grandiose. There seemed to be a decent amount of effort put into giving the game a feeling of movement when bridging levels, and giving the levels a background, but not too much effort. After all, it is not a very important aspect of the game.

I did enjoy how smooth everything felt. There was something nice about everything being a little bit rounded and not feeling like there was any lag. Though the specific details of the game design didn’t matter much to me, it was nice that they put some effort into it.

You say the design isn't important, but then go on to cite several ways that it is important (differentiating jewels, building energy, smoothness). Also design includes everything about the game, for example the fact that only 4 out of each 5 puzzles needs to be solved.

In the design section we're really looking for an exploration of the "why" behind design decisions. You sort of touch on this, but we're looking for more explicit discussion.

Generally an excellent gamelog though.

- Ian Rickard (Your TA/Grader for this week)