6/16/2005

Lost Garden has published a review of the game Nintendogs, titled “Nintendogs: The case of the non-game that barked like a game“.

As they state at the beginning of the article: “This is a game design review, not a game review. A game review typically is written for the consumer and is intended to help them decide if they want to purchase the title. A game design review is written for other game developers and is intended to highlight successes and failures of the various layers of the game design. The hope is that we learn from the successful design practices and apply them in an intelligent fashion to our future titles.”

Not a game?
The first thing that arises whenever someone talks about Nintendogs is the claim that it is not a game. “Dude, it is just a stupid Tamagotchi clone with dogs!” Such a vehement response is indicative of a larger trend in both the designer and gaming community. Unfortunately, it is a trend that has its roots in a fundamental misunderstanding of game design. Read more…

An interesting (and long) read.