As an introduction to many of such topics, I can really recommend the weekly lecture videos that the people at Extra Credits have made. They're game industry professionals themselves, so they know what they're talking about.
Game Developers Conference.
Here
is their repository of lectures and such. Most of it is subscription, but the lower-left is stuff they've released for free.
Thanks for the link, Pykrete.
I can definitely get behind Extra Credits. For those who haven't checked it out yet, there are 80 episodes up on Penny Arcade TV right now. You could easily lose a day or even a weekend to watching those and come out very much enriched for it.
Swordsman Troper — Reclaiming The Blade — WatchI have watched some Extra Credits.
I want to agree with them, but I just can't get over how they talked about how New Vegas sucks for not having a three-act structure.
I mean... wat.
"It's so hard to be humble, knowing how great I am."I think you're missing the fundamental point. Extra Credits isn't really about what games you should or should not enjoy on a specific level — they so so themselves — but they often bring up weaknesses in specific games as an example. And yeah, a three act structure is extremely helpful in providing the interest curve you want. Any game that doesn't take advantage of the tools it has as its disposal is going to come out being less strong than it otherwise might have been.
What you think of specific games isn't the matter at hand. Their discussions are based around broader concepts, so you shouldn't hold a specific opinion about a game against them.
Swordsman Troper — Reclaiming The Blade — WatchThe problem is that New Vegas does have a three-act structure.
And they were comparing it to Fallout3.
"It's so hard to be humble, knowing how great I am."Not having played it at length, I can't comment on that.
All the same, the Extra Credits people make excellent points on a regular basis.
Swordsman Troper — Reclaiming The Blade — WatchHere's a playlist of three episodes of Egoraptor's Sequelitis series.
Basically he comments on a memorable, iconic game and compares it to its sequel in terms of changes in design. He touches on some very interesting and relevant game design topics such as Fake Game lifespan extension, level design meant to, by itself, teach the player how to play the game, and how certain game mechanics can affect the style and flow of the game.
"Shake the dust." - Anis Mojgani

Now, I realise this is not technically the right place for this thread, but I tried it in the video games forum and it didn't really generate any discussion. Putting it here is trying it in front of a broader audience, and I suspect the majority of Yack Fest folk play lots of vidya anyway.
Actually, it might just fit here nicely. While the video games forum is great for sharing experiences and opinions about specific games, it's not very good for discussing games as a whole or in a wider social, technological or artistic context. I guess you could say this thread isn't so much about video games themselves, but the experiences that are shaped by them.
To get the ball rolling, I'd like to present a concept common to game design in general that I really like. This is emergent complexity, and it essentially refers to any system that is simple and versatile enough that the game evolves with the player or players. A great non-vidya example of this is Chess. You have a lot of simple options, but the way they relate to your other options and the options of the other player are all-important. It's a simple, versatile game of high strategy that becomes complex because of the system that underlies it.
Games that successfully use emergent complexity in their core mechanics tend to stick around for a long time, if not in the public eye then at least in the competitive scene. Take Starcraft; simple to play, lots of free choice and very balanced, but with a massive professional playerbase for a video game. The reason Starcraft still gets played to this day essentially comes down to emergent complexity. There's just so much you can do with such a versatile, balanced game.
One thing you'll find is that these kinds of concepts apply universally to games, or even universally to experiences. What is mathematics if not the perfect example of emergent complexity? When you know what to look for, you'll see these kinds of things all over the place, from children's playground games to tabletop Warhammer and even academics like music theory. A part of what makes game design such an interesting topic is in how it relates to all things, because games always reflect on reality. Even the most bizarre.
edited 23rd Feb '12 1:21:54 PM by MadassAlex
Swordsman Troper — Reclaiming The Blade — Watch