Spaces ...continued.

So as I said last night i have a few extra things I'd like to talk about regarding Game Spaces...

I had a read of Sudnow's paper about spaces, in particular the Eyeball and Cathexis sections. I found it a very...different...read. I liked it, and thought it gave a very good insight into how the author saw and used the game space of "Breakout"- a game which is played on the Atari. In the game the player is shown a few rows of different coloured blocks, which the player has to try and hit/destroy with a ball hit by a flat paddle towards them. The player can his the ball off the boundaries of the game space- the surrounding walls to try and hit the blocks.

I *think* I've played the game myself before, or at least something very similar as I remembered how the game was played (and how frustrating it was) as I read the paper. What I found the most interesting about the paper was how Sudnow tried out different ways to play the game, to try and beat it. One method he used was placing some black tape accross the bottom of the screen so he couldn't see the little paddle which was used to hit the ball. He tried to rely on his instincts and eventually found that he could hit the ball about 60% of the time!
Another thing he tried was using his peripheral vision rather than concentrating on the ball. He found this method worked much better. What facinated me most was that he was so immersed by the game and the game space that he felt he needed to complete it, to find the best way to do it using the game space he was given. It basically took over his life!

I think that the game space of a game is a very important element of every game, but it is important that the game spaces is suited to the game and its genre for it to really work. The player needs to feel that they belong in the game, that their surroundings make sense to be the way they are. I believe that is what makes the game space so important.