Topical Tuesday: What Is Gameplay?

Spinwhiz

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Topical Tuesday: What Is Gameplay?



Depending on who you talk to, "gameplay" could have any number of meanings, so we are turning to The Escapist community to help us set the record straight.

Welcome to Topical Tuesday! Each week we will ask the community a question related to our weekly magazine topic. Our goal is to begin an intelligent discussion based on a topic that's uniquely relevant to us as gamers and nerds, and the industry we love. Opinions are welcome, but please justify your claim with support - such as quoting information from one of our featured articles - even if that requires a little research before posting.

Today's Question is about the nebulous concept "gameplay." While some say graphics and audio are their own beasts that don't fall under the "gameplay umbrella," many others view gameplay very differently. Hence our Topical Tuesday question for Issue 255 of The Escapist:

What does gameplay mean to you and what game(s) has delivered the best gameplay in your experience?

Ladies and Gentlemen, to your keyboards and discuss!
 

facade

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Furburt said:
Gameplay is how immersive a game is, to me. A game does not have good gameplay if it does not immerse you, from my experience anyway, so that's what I hold to be the most important component of gameplay.
I disagree with this statement. Gameplay may contribute to immersion, but in no way can it solely be defined as so. For example, movies and literature can be immersive, but in no way would I consider the gameplay of a movie.

To me, gameplay is defined by the interface between player and game. Simply put, gameplay encompasses how a player controls the actions within the game itself as well as the possible actions (i.e. game mechanics) that a player can take.

For example, in a FPS, causing the character to move and shoot are all aspects of gameplay, whereas the mood, setting, and the targets you are shooting at are not aspects of gameplay.
 

HSIAMetalKing

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Spinwhiz said:
This week on Topical Tuesday: What is "gameplay?"
"Gameplay" is how we interact with the medium. The basic and immediately apparent elements of gameplay, such as control schemes and internal game mechanics, are what most people probably refer to when they say "gameplay." I would say that the term has an extremely broad definition; it could be argued that all aspects of a video game can be a part of "gameplay," as each element-- visuals and audio included-- influence the player in some way. In games like Guitar Hero you see the audio, visual, control and mechanical elements combine to create the experience of gameplay, and I would consider the case to be the same in more traditional titles. I was recently playing Bayonetta and can attest to the developers' masterful use of music during boss fights to illustrate the rising and falling and then re-rising tension of those battles. The music's effects here are subtle-- your heart races faster and you grip the controller more tightly. The visuals, too, are rendered such that watching them is part of the reward of playing-- that climactic final attack (right now I'm thinking of the end of God of War III) is designed to be earth shattering, explosive and utterly satisfying.

When people refer to a "gameplay experience", they acknowledge that the fundamental purpose of video games is to "experience" something. Developers push the envelope of graphical processing and include symphonic soundtracks because these things can't be divorced from the controls and mechanics-- they are part of the experience, though always to a greater or lesser degree.
 

The Austin

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To me, gameplay is any form of interaction with the game, whether it be a God of War button masher or a Heavy Rain-esque "movie".
 

hamster mk 4

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Game play is the stuff that happens when you push buttons on your controller. I am not being silly here, game play is based on the interface and the software's response too the interface. When I see a game use the mouse, keyboard, or game pad in a new and interesting way, I say the game has inovative game play.

One of the all time best games for game play is Star Siege Tribes IMO. Though skiing was initialy an unintentional feature the game play that resulted realy shook up what I thaught a FPS could be.
 

Brainst0rm

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That's an easy question. Gameplay is what you do. It's combat and puzzles, running and jumping, selecting that battle command (hyper beam!) or holding A to move forward (and L to use items, which is awkward for big-handed people like myself).

Gameplay can be dialogue, when what you say affect the gameplay (i.e. Dragon Age). Gameplay is not a cutscene. Even (especially) with quicktime events. Gameplay is generally whenever you are interacting with the game, and your interactions have consequences. It's what sets video games apart from all other medium - cause and effect within the piece of work.
 

Fenixius

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HSIAMetalKing said:
Spinwhiz said:
This week on Topical Tuesday: What is "gameplay?"
"Gameplay" is how we interact with the medium. [snip for length.]
Congratulations! You are correct. While I might like to have a conversation with you, we already agree, so there's not much here to really discuss...
 

axemen23

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Gameplay isn't about the eye candy or cut scenes, it is about the playability of the game, Doom is an excellent example, straight up monster demon mash, unlike other games where you actually have to get into it.
 

The_Healer

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Essentially, the concept of gameplay describes the way we interact with what would otherwise be a static multimedia experience.
 

Crunchy English

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Gameplay is both my ability to affect a virtual world, as well as the methods at my disposal for doing so. Few games provide me with both options:

Strategy Games tend to give me lots of options when it comes to method, all of them interesting and easy to do, but at the end of the scenario the board is essentially "wiped clean" and I'm forced into a railroad story.

GTA and other open world games let me affect the world in a huge variety of ways, but the methods for doing so tend to be simplistic and unintuitive. For all the genius of GTAIV, Niko still moved like a marionette puppet and fought like a wet rag. Only auto-aim made the game remotely manageable.

Most MMOs fail on both counts - Controls tend to be bother restrained as well as unintuitive and while my characters can grow and change under my direction, the world is completely static by necessity.

There are however, some games that do a good job of balancing the two axis:

Batman Arkham Asylum had a railroad story - but within given scenarios you had the ability to change nearly everything in a surrounding area, with tons of tools, options and methods, all of them handled well. Chances are you couldn't do a stealth section in Batman on the hardest difficulty the same way twice. And if you managed, you'd be robbing yourself of the best part.

BioWare RPGS - Especially Mass Effect 2 had both intuitive controls and a great many ways to effect the world and the story. It pales in comparison however to:

Fallout 1 - HOLY CRAP. Best "gameplay" ever. Everything was a simple as click or right click, turned based in combat to help keep things easy. But within those simple controls you had the ability to try ANYTHING to get the job done, and with few exceptions your actions had truly permanent consequences.
 

Spinwhiz

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For me, gameplay has a lot to do with control, which some of you have said. The more I can control the character(s), the more I feel directly control the outcome of events. I feel immersion has to do more with the environment and storyline than gameplay but I do agree that without good gameplay, immersion is impossible. To point out a couple other opinions in this thread that I can understand, if the gameplay is good enough, you feel as though you aren't playing a game anymore and time flies by, which I can accept as well.

A couple games that I really enjoyed the gameplay of were Fallout 3, Dragon Age: Origins and the simplistic gameplay of Mario Kart.
 

JourneyThroughHell

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Furburt said:
Gameplay is how immersive a game is, to me. A game does not have good gameplay if it does not immerse you, from my experience anyway, so that's what I hold to be the most important component of gameplay.

By immersion, I mean when the only thing on your mind is the game itself. Recent games that have accomplished this very well are games like STALKER, Hearts Of Iron II, ArmA II, X3 Reunion, Left 4 Dead 2 and Mass Effect 2.
So are you then saying that games like Heavy Rain (I have a quota of mentioning it every day) have great gameplay if they manage to immerse you?
 

JourneyThroughHell

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Furburt said:
JourneyThroughHell said:
Furburt said:
Gameplay is how immersive a game is, to me. A game does not have good gameplay if it does not immerse you, from my experience anyway, so that's what I hold to be the most important component of gameplay.

By immersion, I mean when the only thing on your mind is the game itself. Recent games that have accomplished this very well are games like STALKER, Hearts Of Iron II, ArmA II, X3 Reunion, Left 4 Dead 2 and Mass Effect 2.
So are you then saying that games like Heavy Rain (I have a quota of mentioning it every day) have great gameplay if they manage to immerse you?
Yes.

But then again, I like quick time events, so apparently I'm incurably insane.
I don't, but I love Heavy Rain as much as MW2.
Probably even more.
So, no, I'm far crazier.
 

Keava

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Gameplay is.. uh, the thing?
Actually for me its an avarage of various elements that make or break a game. A perception of game that includesvarious elements from different parts of the whole product proudly called game.

Starting from the concept story and how it is presented and further exectued throughout the game, is it at least a bit logical, is it interesting, does it have good plot twists, does it have loads of unnecesary and pointless from even lore-freak point of view elements and is there any reason i should be concered about it.

Next thing is what pretty much can turn even a good game into a nightmare that will just get you frustrated - controls and interface. Are they intuitive enough, is the character im controlling responsive to my action, how the camera behaves, does the interface provides me with all i do need to know and is it readable without unnecessary clutter.

Third would be smoothness. Is the action paced properly or do i get bored in game that supposed to be based on intensive action, Does combat feel at least semi-natural or everything just looks and feels like unrelated scenes sticked together with duct-tape of running thorugh corridors. Do i feel like progressing or am im actually stuck in same state all the time without any sense of achivement.

Eventually there is also difficulty curve. It has to make sense which same time doesnt have to mean the few early goons have to be a complete laugh. Its is often nice ot have a little challenge early on to prepare you for the supposed climax in the end stage. There also needs to sort of balance between my character getting some sorts of upgrades and eneimies getting stronger. Adding just healthbars doesnt cut it, weapons of mass destruction while fun can easily turn the whole 'hero feel' into mundane holding your fire button.

There is probably plenty more i skipped and for full analysis what the actual game is, one could write a book..or even whole series of books. Plenty of smaller and bigger things form technical to narrative elements build it eventually into something that may either be enjoyable, silly, or just plainly bad.
 

Woodsey

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Gameplay is how you play the game - I always thought that's what everyone counted it as.