The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses exam study guide questions and answers(latest update)

The Lens of Essential Experience What experience do I want the player to have? What is essential to that experience? How can my game capture that essence? The Lens of Surprise What will surprise players when they play my game? Does the story in my game have surprises? Do the game rules? Does the artwork? The technology? Do your rules give players ways to surprise each other? Do your rules give players ways to surprise themselves? The Lens of Fun What parts of my game are fun? Why? What parts need to be more fun? The Lens of Curiosity What questions does my game put into the player's mind? What am I doing to make them care about these questions? What can I do to make them invent even more questions? The Lens of Endogenous Value What is valuable to the players in my game? How can I make it more valuable to them? What is the relationship between value in the game and the player's motivations? The Lens of Problem Solving What problems does my game ask the player to solve? Are there hidden problems to solve that arise as part of the gameplay? How can my game generate new problems so that players keep coming back? The Lens of the Elemental Tetrad Is my game design using elements of all four types? Could my design be improved by enhancing elements in one or more of the categories? Are the four elements in harmony, reinforcing each other, and working toward a common theme? The Lens of Holographic Design What elements of the game make the experience enjoyable? What elements of the game detract from the experience? How can I change game elements to improve the experience? The Lens of Unification What is my theme? Am I using every means possible to reinforce that theme? The Lens of Resonance What is it about my game that feels powerful and special? When I describe my game to people, what ideas get them really excited? If I had no constraints of any kind, what would this game be like? I have certain instincts about how this game should be. What is driving those instincts? The Lens of Infinite Inpsiration What is an experience I have had in my life that I would want to share with others? In what small way can I capture the essence of that experience and put it into my game? The Lens of the Problem Statement What problem, or problems, am I really trying to solve? Have I been making assumptions about his game that really have nothing to do with its true purpose? Is a game really the best solution? Why? How will I be able to tell if the problem is solved? The Lens of the Eight Filters Does this game feel right? Will the intended audience like this game enough? Is this a well-designed game? Is this game novel enough? Will this game sell? Is it technically possible to build this game? Does this game meet our social and community goals? Do the playtesters enjoy this game enough? The Lens of Risk Mitigation What could keep this game from being great? How can we stop that from happening? The Lens of the Toy If my game had no goal, would it be fun at all? If not, how can I change that? When people see my game, do they want to start interacting with it, even before they know what to do? If not, how can I change that? The Lens of the Player In general, what do they like? What don't they like? Why? What do they expect to see in a game? If I were in their place, what would I want to see in a game? What would they like or dislike about my game in particular? The Lens of Pleasure What pleasures does your game give to players? Can these be improved? What pleasures are missing from your experience? Why? Can they be added? The Lens of Flow Does my game have clear goals? If not, how can I fix that? Are the goals of the player the same goals I intended? Are there parts of the game that distract players to the point they forget their goal? If so, can these distractions be reduced, or tied into the game goals? Does my game provide a steady stream of not-too-easy, not-too-hard challenges, taking into account the fact that the player's skill may be gradually improving? Are the player's skills improving at the rate I had hoped? If not, how can I change that? The Lens of Needs On which levels of Maslow's hierarchy is my game operating? How can I make my game fulfill more basic needs than it already is? On the levels my game is currently operating, how can it fulfill those needs even better? The Lens of Functional Space Is the space of this game discrete or continuous? How many dimensions does it have? What are the boundaries of the space? Are there sub-spaces? How are they connected? Is there more than one useful way to abstractly model the space of this game? The Lens of Dynamic State What are the objects in my game? What are the attributes of the objects? What are the possible states for each attribute? What triggers the state for each attribute? What state is known by the game only? What state is known by all the players? What state is known by some, or only one player? Would changing who knows what state improve my game in some way? The Lens of Emergence How many verbs do my players have? How many objects can each verb act on? How many ways can players achieve their goals? How many subjects do the players control? How do side effects change constraints? The Lens of Action What are the operational actions in my game? What are the resultant actions? What resultant actions would I like to see? How can I change my game in order to make those possible? Am I happy with the ratio of resultant to operational actions? What actions do players with they could do in my game that they cannot? Can I somehow enable these, either as operational or resultant actions? The Lens of Goals What is the ultimate purpose of my game? Is that goal clear to the players? If there is a series of goals, do players understand that? Are the different goals related to each other in a meaningful way? Are my goals concrete, achievable, and rewarding? Do I have a good balance of short- and long-term goals? Do players have a chance to decide on their own goals? The Lens of Rules What are the foundational rules of my game? How do these differ from the operational rules? Are there "laws" or "house rules" that are forming as the game develops? Should these be incorporated into my game directly? Are there different modes in my game? Do these modes make things simpler, or more complex? Would the game be better with fewer mods? More modes? Who enforces the rules?