Journal Response: Week 5

Super Mario Bros: The iconic first stage of the original Mario Bros is similar to a lot of the 2D platform Mario games that have come out. It's simple, and at it's time there were few buttons to press. You figured out how it works through trial and error and then you can progress at your own pace. It was simple, but the gameplay was fine being simple. 

Chapter 9: In this chapter, we first discussed about levels and the terminology behind it. There are multiple definitions that could be used for the term "level" like a player's level, a level in a world, a specific spot of a level, and how far up in levels of difficulty you are. Next, game tropes Game Designers tend to love using: Outer Space games tend to have sci-fi, Fire and Ice levels for their simplicity, Dungeons, Factory-type dungeons, Jungle type levels for creative freedom in game developers,  Spooky type slow paced environments where music is key, Pirate adventures for their hyper energy close combat and pirate ship experience, Gritty Urban world, and sewers. When creating your levels as well as programming files, the name is important not just for file management, but to give a signal to the players as to what type of environment they're entering. In the matter of players entering an environment, make sure it connects to the previous environment. A lot more detail goes into this chapter as it talks about repeating game mechanics, having a goal for the level, mapping, and actions players can do while in games.