Understanding Games

By: Derek Yu

On: March 21st, 2007

Understanding Games

Games finally have their Understanding Comics, and it’s called… Understanding Games! Pixelate has created an utterly charming series that teaches some of the basic concepts behind games by playing games. The graphics and music are top notch!

I think in a perfect world all the lessons would be finished and combined into a single game that had more interactivity from the outset. For the most part it feels more like a series of cutscenes with little games in the middle. But these are grievances I level at Understanding Games with no small amount of guilt, considering how original and polished it is.

There are three episodes out right now, check them out here:

Episode 1 | Episode 2 | Episode 3

  • Optrirominiluikus

    I gotta take a look at this as soon as I have finished playing Twilight Princess for tonight.

  • Xander

    I’ve only watched the first episode so far, but I’ve gotta say I love the idea. It’s very sweetly executed too. A tutorial like this could be very intimidating if it was started off with the games that exist today, since a lot games that receive high acclaim are often extremely challenging or complicated and difficult for a new player to get to grips with.

    It’s not so much that this teaches new people how to be a gamer, rather that it serves as a re-education about the fundamentals of gaming. Even after gaming for my whole life practically (Hugos House of Horror is the first one I can visually remember. I was decapitated by a butler) this reintroduces familiar concepts to me in a completely original and inspiring way.

    To summarise; This **** is the ****

  • http://www.ciroduran.com/blog Chiguire

    I loved the three episodes. As Xander says, these are more about going for the gaming fundamentals. Others could say that it’s a game design tutorial (though it’s too short to be a comprehensive one, in my opinion).

    I’m sorry my blog’s in spanish, but it’s also about indie games and games as literature. TIGSource is one of my favorite blogs :-D

  • http://16x16.org nenad

    Just watched it. It’s really lovely!