So I have to make an admission: I would’ve failed the health bar test. I’m not a very active gamer, but I also feel I’m no complete stranger to video games and have played quite a few.
I mean I would’ve probably figured out which bar is the health bar after playing the game for 2 minutes. But it isn’t immediately obvious to me that the red bar is the health bar and the blue bar is not.
“By contrast, nothing in literature or cinema prepares us for the health bar. Shakespeare never said that Mercutio and Tybalt wisely checked their health bars during their duel and adjusted their tactics accordingly; Michael never checked the DPS of his pistol before executing Sollozzo and McCluskey in the restaurant in the original Godfather. Health bars are only in games, so you have to play games and use health bars in order to learn how to use health bars in games…”
So I have to make an admission: I would’ve failed the health bar test. I’m not a very active gamer, but I also feel I’m no complete stranger to video games and have played quite a few.
I mean I would’ve probably figured out which bar is the health bar after playing the game for 2 minutes. But it isn’t immediately obvious to me that the red bar is the health bar and the blue bar is not.
I like this part:
If you enjoyed that blogpost, you might also enjoy the Extra Credits video on Basic Game Literacy, which covers similar ideas, but with more and different examples.