4.9. Boss Battle - Critical Analysis Part I¶

Critical analysis is a term that means examining a movie, book, album, etc... with the aim of describing what it says and analyzing how effective it is in making its point.

In terms of a video game, critical analysis means analyzing what a game does and how well or poorly it does it. “Critical” in this context does not mean criticizing - the goal is not a list of things that are wrong with the game. Rather, what we want is a thorough and unbiased look at the game that analyzes what it is attempting to be and in what ways it succeeds or fails.

We will look more at the complete process of critical analysis in a future chapter, but the process starts with describing the game’s elements. Things like:

• What is the theme?
• Who are the players?
• How do players affect each other?
• How is play sequenced?
• What objectives do the players have?
• What rules make achieving those objectives hard?
• What actions can players take to overcome those challenges? Are there multiple possible approaches?
• What resources must the player manage?
• What information do they have?
• What are the essential parts of the game state?

Your challenge is to pick a game you are familiar with and to develop the start of a critical analysis. Describe your selected game in terms of the elements described in this level.