Maxi Ferreira

@maxiferreira.com

364 Followers 116 Following

Frontend Architect @ Help Scout. Rambling about software design for frontend developers at frontendatscale.com

Cover of the Frontend.fm podcast
Back to the Future the musical
A firefighter is looking at a person in a building on fire, saying, "Flagging this for sure! Let's circle back after the holidays." which is also my response to pretty much every Slack message I receive the rest of the year.
Mere Games Great themes and deep meanings are often associated with literature or with great works of art. Is it pretentious for a "mere game" to aspire to the same levels of greatness! As game designers, we must confront the painful truth that many people view games, in all their forms, as meaningless diversions. Usually, when I press people who hold this view, I can get them to admit some game that is very important to them. Sometimes it is a sport, either one they have played or one they watch reli-giously. Sometimes it is a card or board game that formed the cornerstone of their relationship with someone important to them. Sometimes it is a videogame with a storyline and characters that they identify with. When I point out the hypocrisy of games as meaningless, but a game as meaningful, they explain, "Well, it really wasn't the game I cared about—it was the experience that went with the game." But as we've discussed, experiences aren't just associated with games at random; they are what emerge when players interact with a game. The parts of the experience that are important to people, such as the drama of a sporting event, the camaraderie between bridge players, or the rivalry of chess enthusiasts, all are determined by the design of the game. Some people make the argument that games, especially videogames, cannot be deep and meaningful because they are simply too primitive in nature. The same argument was made about film at the beginning of the twentieth century when it was silent and black and white. As technology increased, this argument faded away. And the same is happening for games. In the 1970s, videogames were so simplified as to be almost completely abstract. Today, they can include text, pictures, video, sound, and music. (Continues…)
Understanding Complexity by Maxi Ferreira