Dramatic elements within a video game is something that is very important to the success of the game itself.  It is the very thing that keeps the players interested, invested, and excited about the game. Within the chapter “Working with Dramatic Elements”, it is mentioned that challenge is very important when it comes to game design.  In the chapter it says, “For a person who does not have any of the skills a task requires, it is not challenging, but meaningless.  For a person who has the skills but is not completely assured of the outcome, a task is challenging” (99).  I think it is important to understand that you cannot just throw a whole bunch of random challenges at the player throughout a game and expect it to have a meaningful and dramatic effect.  Those challenges have to make sense and hold meaning within them on their own.  If there is a challenge within a game that requires a high level of skill to complete, then that is motivation for the players to keep playing the game until they master that skill and overcome the challenge.  There are many games that have kept me interested in playing just because it requires certain skills that I am interested in getting better at.  The Last of Us was a game where sneaking around was a huge challenge and required skill to do so.  I was never really exposed to that specific style of playing prior to the game, so it was extremely challenging for me to get use to at first.  Because that challenge was reoccurring, and the skill of sneaking was very necessary, it drove me to want to be better and keep playing the game until I was able to successfully sneak past enemies. This took me a few tries to get right, but to me that was where the fun was.  If the enemies were super easy to kill, then sneaking would just be an unnecessary mechanic.  Overall the game would be more lackluster and too easy to get through. To me challenge and skill are what makes games exciting, regardless of if there is a narrative or good graphics or neither.

Work Cited

“Working with Dramatic Elements .” Game Design Workshop: a Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games, by Tracy Fullerton, CRC Press, 2019, pp. 97–127.