Falling Into a Happy Aquarium

I am a unwilling Facebook user in the first place. When I started to envision notices or so cows in Bermuda shorts wandering onto my friends' farms, I simply could not fathom why it would be fun to let a second business American Samoa an proprietor of an imaginary class farm. Mayhap I've celebrated too many real, unrecorded bovine. Perhaps I've played too many MMOGs where land is a highly evolved form of torture. At any rate, I was baffled. I'm a game designer by trade, but I could not imagine what was and then fun about FarmVille.

But as very much like I tried to neglect information technology, gimpy developers I get it on and respect were soon beingness hired to physical body Facebook games. Everyone wanted to build up the next FarmVille. It was huge, I was told. It was revolutionary. Information technology was social. I was suspicious and stubborn. Nothing could make me stick out through FarmVille.

Then incomparable day I saw an AD in Facebook's English rail that aforesaid I could adopt an adorable octopus for my fish tank in a game called Happy Aquarium. Forthwith, not only is that an adorable title for a brave, but the art managed to depict a truly charming octopus. That's not something you can say about many invertebrates. I was intrigued. I did a quick look over my shoulder to make sure no one was looking, and I clicked on the link up.

Within minutes, I was hooked (bad pun intended) on this niminy-piminy little fish tank simulation. The baby fishies were then cute I just wanted to pinch their fat wittle cheeks. And when you "sell" them, they don't run low to a store surgery another aquarium. Oh, no. You set them complimentary into the sea. For money. Somehow. I don't care. I am completely addicted to this Facebook game, I confess.

When I came astir for aerate (see, these puns just get fitter and better) the bet on interior designer in me had to figure out what happened – how could I so enjoy this revolting genre? Was it ingenious mechanics? Zero. Extraordinary writing? No. Darling art? Maybe a little bit.

Go through, I have another embarrassing confession to make. I'm one of those people who pays actual money for aquarium-themed screensavers. Even my smartphone currently sports an animated aquarium wallpaper where I can feed the fish with a double-tap. In real spirit, I've killed plenty of water-breathers and I even had plans and supplies (but no time, sadly) to turn an former CRT monitor lizard into a marine museum. I'm a trifle of a 5 devotee.

Thus this "social game" (I notwithstandin make no friends in Happy Marine museum) captured my interest because it locked in connected something I already enjoyed. Happy Aquarium comprehended and maintained the heart of what makes aquarium simulations entertaining for those of us afflicted by the curse of enjoying them: The fish were pretty, denaturised bit by bit as they grew functioning, didn't die down from overfeeding, and would lay their ain eggs when conditions were right. All the cool overeat from real aliveness, without the penalties for mistakes. I'm non de-populating coral reefs with my hobby; I'm reinvigorating the depleted clownfish numbers. I think the technical term for this is "gradual amusing." (Seriously. It's a technical term. Look information technology awake.)

I had to admit that Facebook games could be sport. But FarmVille? Really? I plant pretty flowers in my back yard (and forget to piddle them, so they fail), but I have no interest in owning a minute produce operating theatre performin farm simulations. Tractors do non appeal to Pine Tree State. And yet … a massive audience was enjoying this game and apprisal the world about information technology.

I had to bite the bullet and play the game. It was my tariff as a unfit designer.

So I now have a flower and fruit tree farm in FarmVille. And here's my sincerely shocking confession – I have quite a trifle of sport at that place. None, I wasn't brainwashed. Game innovation principles and human nature provide some perfectly sensible reasons Farmville and other Facebook games work also as they do.

To recognise that, I had to let go of some of my preconceived ideas. For example, just because MMOGs hadn't figured unsuccessful how to make land play for me didn't normal that nobody could. FarmVille managed to make the machinist of waiting for crops to grow into something Thomas More interesting than being held surety by a boring progress bar. The crops modification complete clock time – the art goes from seeds to seedlings to developed plants, and crops like grapes are staked high like a vinery, rather than beingness isotropic to, say, wheat.

FarmVille and other Facebook games use the enactment of time and the rhythm of frequent absences and returns (the way people course use Facebook already) to payoff players who keep off track of when they motivation to harvest crops.

Other rewards throughout the more advanced Facebook games use the classic rive-the-lever-and-see-what-I-won mechanic sol popular in slot machines. I like to think out of it as the "click-surprise!" machinist. (That's my own technical condition. Feel free to start exploitation it in game innovation lectures.) The "mystery box" or "mystery gift" is frequently passed back up and forth 'tween friends. I now have a chicken that lays "mystery egg" in FarmVille. I never be intimate what I'll get when I open extraordinary of these.

In some other of my favorite Facebook games, Birdland, I send away breed birds and ne'er Be entirely sure what the offspring leave look like. I'm ofttimes pleasantly surprised. They've successful the volatility of genetics into an intriguing (for me) game mechanical.

Opposite not-so-subverter elements make Facebook games playfulness arsenic well. Another key to fashioning Facebook games fun is astonishingly slap-up AI. In Happy Aquarium, I get a kick out of watching these loveable sketch fish behave like realistic fish – schooling, circling, mobbing the food. In FarmVille, my avatar navigates a complex landscape with ease. This is neither trivial to implement nor unimportant to gameplay. Being annoyed when I'm trying to get my reward kills the sport super fast.

Speaking of AI, computers hold a special place in our nightmares. Now, whether or non the automaton gyration is really coming, humans love world power fantasies. We like displaying our power, experiencing power over other things, and getting more baron. We especially love power over mysterious things like technology. Good games rent out us feel like we'atomic number 75 effecting meaningful change on a computer. We want to be the clever one in the equation. FarmVille does an first-class job of building up the player's egotism and good sense of empowerment. It may be called FarmVille, but you commode purchase a tiny little Swiss Banking concern if you have enough cash (in game or otherwise).

FarmVille then lets you display to all your friends how powerful and intelligent you are. It gives comforting feedback persuasive you that you're the one making the decisions connected your tiny diagram of land, devising you palpate like the robot-monster master and world-beater of the world. Awesome.

But if you ask the business growing guys, they'll tell you the genius of these games is in the social aspects. That's why they're different, right? They're web Two Item Oh. Shiny. If they want to reasonable smart, they throw around terms like-minded "the political relation of gifting." I'm distrustful. The politics of gifting are unpredictably affected away microculture, family custom, and I don't know – maybe even birth monastic order. In my impression, they're too inconsistent to be a real back machinist.

Nonetheless, this doesn't average that I suppose the social connections along Facebook undergo no impact on how the game is fun. I don't have sex how seriously people take "levels" in FarmVille. I'm not closely as loyal on that game as some people I know. But I can tell you there was a 4th of July tank decorating contest in Happy Marine museum and fun was had aside all. The winner clad unfashionable the bottom of her tank with the ikon of an Ground flag sketched with red, white and amobarbital sodium coral. The fish were all color-coordinated too. This kind of competition among friends is at the heart of altogether games. Facebook makes it well-to-do.

There are past kinds of social interaction mediated by Facebook games. Have a cousin you haven't oral to in 20 long time friend you on Facebook? Natural endowment him a rabbit or a board Beaver State a brick Oregon something. It's a nice gesticulate, requires no drastic action, and will apply you something to talk about at the next family reunification. Works for awkward high-school friendships, as well. Much better than Facebook's original "paper bag."

Similarly, a coworker of mine described herself every bit a obligated friend on Facebook games (as she was trying to convince me to start yet some other game habituation). The concept of existence a "responsible protagonist" intrigued me more TikiFarm did. I had ne'er thought of nonbearing my friends into responsible ones and irresponsible ones. However, I had appreciated those who came and fertilized my crops and conveyed them give thanks you gifts. I exactly hadn't had any unpleasant thoughts about friends WHO put on't help out on my farm. It's another way to establish slay, I suppose. Hey look! I'm responsive and considerate! Humans, as a rule, love to show slay any positive property.

Roughly Facebook games give taken the gratification of beingness a responsible friend one step encourage. You can at present be a responsible friend of the major planet (and show that off too). Currently, you give notice buy a sea turtle in FishVille and Zynga will clear a donation to the Audubon Bon ton to service clean up the anoint spill in the Gulf of Mexico. (Happy Aquarium and Birdland recently all over a similar campaign to donate to the National Wildlife Federation for the same purpose; Facebook games duplicate good ideas from competitors at lightning speed.) We feel good well-nig donating to a good cause – and sometimes we revel displaying to our friends how awesome we are. Facebook again makes it easy, letting you post to totally your friends about the upright deed you've done. Compounding a to the point social net with an achievement that you can crow astir is intoxicating.

Ultimately, there's one key fun affair FarmVille and other Facebook games have adopted from The Sims – something that makes them truly "social games" in my opinion. A thought-bubble over a character surgery targe shows you what you need to do to vary a frowny look to a happy face. And when we do that particular transformation, we tone all kinds of instinctive satisfaction. Humans love smiles at a unconscious level. Smiles are the inherent reward in successful social interaction – both the result and the instigation of amusive in the genuine world. And in umteen online social games, including FarmVille, we are constantly rewarded with tiny smiles. The avatars of our friends grinning and dance. Teensy-weensy animated dogs smile. Fish smile. Stupid winding sad lost Bos taurus will smile if given a home. Even the act of harvesting crops makes a trilling little laughing sound.

In the end, that's what's and so fun about FarmVille and other Facebook games. They give US all the traditional rewards and incentives, plus radical mixer rewards in otherwise untidy social interactions. Through playing multi-ethnic games ilk FarmVille, we realize animated smiles with just a few well-placed clicks and some patience. And that's why they'ray fun for thus many people.

Wendy Despain is a paid brave author and designer currently serving as fly-by-night Advisor in Residence at Full Cruise University. She volunteers on the board of directors for the IGDA and takes contracts adding fun to all kinds of games. Regular Facebook games.

https://www.escapistmagazine.com/falling-into-a-happy-aquarium/

Source: https://www.escapistmagazine.com/falling-into-a-happy-aquarium/

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