ComCity Research

What is a game?
Sid Meier, designer of the classic Civilization computer games, gave a classic definition of “a series of meaningful choices.”
Authors of the book Andrew Rollings and Ernest Adams on Game Design narrow this further to “one or more casually linked series of challenges in a simulated environment.”
Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman say in their book Rules of Play that a game is “a system in which players engage in an artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in a quantifiable outcome.”


What makes a game fun?
 Fun is all about our brain feeling good -- the release of endorphins into our system. Science has shown that the pleasurable chills that we get down the spine after exceptionally powerful music or a really great book are caused by the same sorts of chemicals we get when we have cocaine, an orgasm, or chocolate.
One of the subtlest releases of chemicals is at that moment of triumph when we learn something or master a task. This almost always causes us to break out into a smile. After all, it is important to the survival of the species that we learn -- therefore our bodies reward us for it with moments of pleasure.
Fun from games arises out of mastery. It arises out of comprehension. It is the act of solving puzzles that makes games fun. In other words, with games, learning is the drug.
 -Raph Koster, A Theory of Fun for Game Design


Games as a simplification of reality
Games simulate simplified human experiences in reality. They are abstracted and iconic, and so are readily absorbed. Since they are formal systems, they exclude distracting extra details. Usually, our brains have to do hard work to turn messy reality into something as clear as a game is.
In other words, games serve as very fundamental and powerful learning tools... being iconified representations of human experience, we can practice with them and learn from them... and thus, through subconsciously learning, we enjoy ourselves and deem the game “fun.”
-Raph Koster, A Theory of Fun for Game Design


What do we hope to achieve?
The objective of ComCity is for the player, through whatever resources and places the game’s city offers, to make their character happy whilst at the same time juggling work and family, as you would in real life.
Of course, the main purpose of this project is to build a happiness machine -- so how can a game make people happy besides them simply playing it, learning, and having fun?
We want the player to observe and discover what makes their character happy and what doesn’t, and so lead them to ask themselves if what they think makes them happy in real life really does, and how they can make themselves happier.

How Character Happiness will work
Family, Food, etc. have separate bars of happiness. The maximum amounts of each will be determined by a quiz at the start of the game which will determine how much the player values each of these aspects.
The amounts of each happiness bar are added up into one overall happiness bar, which is what the player sees.
The character can’t be completely happy by just doing one activity, e.g. eating burgers, so they will have to fulfill all the requirements to be completely happy