Week Eleven

Is gameplay something that can be designed into a game, or is it the end result of all of the other design elements? Generally the term 'gameplay' is used to refer to the whole experience of playing a game, and surely that must be the over all end result of all of the parts of a game coming together. One then must be able to influence the gameplay by designing all of those parts to fit together in a certain way, which is where it becomes important to game production.

Gameplay has been adopted by some game reviewers as another game attribute deserving of a score. Another way in which to rate a game is to give its gameplay a number on a scale. It still seems to be a fluid term, however, so how do they decide whether or not the gameplay is good or bad? Are they basing it on graphics or sounds or how easy the controls are? Because most reviews have scores for those too. So surely a gameplay score should just be the sum of all of those other numbers?

Every game that's made must be playable, or else there's no point to the game... so therefore gameplay must be the most important part of a gaming experience. It seems to be non definable, games are too different from one another for one word that describes them all to have a strict meaning. Gameplay lays at the heart of the matter, however. Without play, there is no game...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gameplay
http://experimental-gameplay.org/
http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20060130/adams_01.shtml
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=11137
http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20060330/waugh_01.shtml