{"id":657,"date":"2009-06-02T17:51:14","date_gmt":"2009-06-02T21:51:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/?p=657"},"modified":"2009-06-02T17:52:58","modified_gmt":"2009-06-02T21:52:58","slug":"easy-to-use-and-incredibly-difficult-on-the-mythical-border-between-interface-and-gameplay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/2009\/06\/02\/easy-to-use-and-incredibly-difficult-on-the-mythical-border-between-interface-and-gameplay\/","title":{"rendered":"Easy to Use and Incredibly Difficult: On the Mythical Border between Interface and Gameplay"},"content":{"rendered":"

Should a good game have an easy interface, but difficult gameplay? How can we tell the difference between the two, between interface and gameplay?<\/p>\n

“Easy to Use and Incredibly Difficult: On the Mythical Border between Interface and Gameplay<\/a>” is a paper I co-wrote with Marleigh Norton and which we presented at the Foundations of Digital Games Conference in April 2009.<\/p>\n

The paper is meant as an in-depth examination of the common argument that the interface of a game should be easy-to-use<\/em>. We argue that this is not necessarily the case.<\/p>\n

In the paper we make the case that first of all, there is no way to clearly distinguish between interface and gameplay. Secondly, even when we can <\/em>identify the interface in a given game, a difficult-to-use interface may very well be part of the core challenge of the game. In other words, no<\/em>: good game does not<\/em> equal easy interface + difficult gameplay.<\/p>\n

For example, Street Fighter II<\/em> has an interface that makes it easier to move your character than the interface of Toribash<\/em> does, but that does not mean that it is a better game. It simply means that Toribash<\/em> places part of its challenge in the basic movement of the character.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nStreet Fighter II<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

<\/em>Toribash<\/em><\/p>\n


\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Paper abstract:<\/p>\n

In video game literature and video game reviews, video games are often divided into two distinct parts: interface and gameplay. Good video games, it is assumed, have easy<\/em> to use interfaces, but they also provide difficult<\/em> gameplay challenges to the player. But must a good<\/em> game follow this pattern, and what is the difference between interface and gameplay? When does the easy-to-use interface stop, and when does the challenging gameplay begin? By analyzing a number of games, the paper argues that it is rare to find a clear-cut border between interface and gameplay and that the fluidity of this border characterizes games in general. While this border is unclear, we also analyze a number of games where the challenge is unambiguously located in the interface<\/em>, thereby demonstrating that “easy interface and challenging gameplay” is neither universal nor a requirement for game quality. Finally, the paper argues, the lack of a clear distinction between easy interface and challenging gameplay is due to the fact that games are fundamentally designed not to accomplish something through an activity, but to provide an activity that is pleasurable in itself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Should a good game have an easy interface, but difficult gameplay? How can we tell the difference between the two, between interface and gameplay? “Easy to Use and Incredibly Difficult: On the Mythical Border between Interface and Gameplay” is a paper I co-wrote with Marleigh Norton and which we presented at the Foundations of Digital … Continue reading “Easy to Use and Incredibly Difficult: On the Mythical Border between Interface and Gameplay”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-games","category-my_publications"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}