This post’s theoretical input has been in my head since the very beginning of this blogging project. I often intended to write a rather lengthy post about it, but here we are:
Time is short and I enjoy writing these small but kinda punchy posts, so no in-depth philosophical inquiry about that topic (though if you want to read such a thing (in german), then look here).
Pacing
There have been posts on this blog mentioning and even defining the term pacing. Much of this influenced the seminary paper I linked above from which I’ll cite my most recent understanding:
Pacing is the arrangement of game-aesthetic features relative to the arrangement of other perceptual content.
This is a generous definition. Under the right curcumstances (meaning how you define game etc.) it encompasses things such as the relation of colors on the screen to goals you make up in your head. But more importantly and most interestingly, we can look at something like the intensity over time. That’s quite helpful, because entertainment relies a lot on providing you with different paces, intensities, variations – and pacing is the term to talk about these things.
But onwards to today’s inspirational link: Katarina Gyllenbäck’s blog, which very much drove to dive deeper into this topic.
Ocularis: Morhind’s Sword
This time I’ve returned to doing a preproduction part of quest design: Writing a quest design document for a section of Ocularis’ future story.
It prominently features a pacing graph:
You might see here that I’ve been employing a certain pattern: An overall growing curve with small reliefs and finally a big relief. This kind of pattern is not unusual and explained per instance in Jesse Schell’s The Art of Game Design.
If you want to take a look at the entire QDD (which is inspired by one of my own posts), look here:
Feedback Suggestions
- Do you agree with how broad I defined pacing?
- Do you miss anything (e.g. a section with particular info) in my QDD?
Conclusion
It’s december now, so the day of final conclusions is nearing. I’m wondering how I’ll spend my last posts during this project (the blog itself might continue), so if you’ve got some suggestions – don’t hesitate to give them to me 🙂
Any-way, hope you’re having a nice pre-christmas time!
Gregor Sönnichsen 