RESEARCH STEPS 2

After playing these five "games" for the research steps assignement, my idea of what a "game" is has changed. Out of the games listed in teh assignement, Collapse, The Goat in the Gray Fedora and Funkytruck 4wd fit my definition of what a game is. These games meet the requirements for what I believe a game is. They have a starting point and and ending point. The are interactive and require you to achieve some kind of goal. Samarost was the interesting "game." Samarost is a click and watch program that doesnt really require much user interaction as it really is more of a moving comic book. The same can almost be said about The Goat in the Gray Fedora but that requires more user interaction than does Samarost, which does not stimulate user interest, which is something a game is supposed to do. Mr. Picassohead is the one example out of this list that I would truley not call a video game. Mr. Picassohead is more of a program, because there is not start or finish to this program. It is more related to microsoft paint than it is to any other game. A video game is any interactive software that allows a user to interact with what ever the purpose of the software is. From something as basic as online checkers to state of the art playstation 3 video games, anything that allows a user to interact with the software to complete what ever the software wants the user to do. Video games can be complex or very simple but the basic idea is shared with all video games. Usually video games are created to stimulate the user to complete a goal or mission or level. That is the most important part in my opinion of what a video game is. And after looking at these different examples my definition of what a game is really hasent changed other than knowing that the most important part of the definition is that a video game must be something that stimulates the users interest and also must have some goal or purpose to it something Mr. Picassohead and Samarost lack.