Game Decision

This week reading discusses the idea of decision making, with the main reading being "Building a Princess saving app." and is roughly 51 pages long. One of the interesting aspects of reading was the learning curves of games, how this can effect the enjoyment of the game, how games can test new skills and test said skills.

Super Mario Bros for the Nes is great at decision making, Image taken from Wikipedia

This ties nicely into the additional reading, "Choice and Conflict - What Does Choice Mean in Games?" by Extra Credits. This reading discusses what is choice and what does choice mean in games? Now while choice is a debatable concept and extra credit doesn't provide any solid evidence for their definition of choice, said definition is interesting. Specifically, the separation of choice and calculation.

While some would argue that there's no need for separation, as both are similar, one way of looking at it is that it is a spectrum. 

Another reading is "Grand Theft Auto may improve decision making skills", this article discusses research done that show playing GTA may improve decision making skills due to "inherently unpredictable". Keeping in mind the learning curve, by having gamers learn skills and improve said skills, effects how enjoyable a game is. This reading shows that a games may improve important skills like decision making without the player knowing.