GDP2: Crafting a Dekonstruer #2

In this blog post, I will analyze the game atom in Skyrim: The Elder Scrolls V.

Players 

It is a single player game when I played it on PC. Players play as a dragon born warrior and explore the world in Skyrim by themselves. They are free to do many things in the wilderness but once they are in the city, they have to obey the rules.

Objectives
The goal is to slay the dragon that is going to destroy the world. There are also many other objectives from other story lines. Players often have to travel around the map, defeat many enemies, and improves their skills and weapon along the way in order to achieve their objectives.

Rules
Rules are strictly applied in cities; any illegal actions can cause consequences to players in different aspects. For example, killing someone will offend the local citizens and guards, which could result in prison; players who become vampires are not welcomed in many cities and will be evacuate by force as soon as possible.

Resources
Players gain their resources by completing quests, opening chests, pickpokecting/robbing, and searching the corpses. They can sell their resources in the NPC market and buy more valuable items that are hardly found in the wilderness.

Game State

The game state has very simple and straight forward information. Players' health, mana, and energy are displayed on screen when they change. These information directly reflect players' state at any particular point. On the other hand, the top bar shows the direction players are facing. It also shows the objectives when they are in front of and not far away from the players. 

Moreover, players' damage output and hit points are depending on the items they have and the skill levels they are at. All these information have influences on players' performance and are taken into consideration at any time in the game.

Information

The Elder Scrolls has a mixture of open and hidden information system. Nearby building, quests, or special locations are clearly shown on the top bar, players can easily access the information surround them.

On top of that, there is a window that lists all the quests in progress and their details; it also shows the locations of the quest on the map. Players have high access to the information regarding to the quests, which provides a more clear vision on the objectives and options they have.

On the other side, there are many story lines that only happen under certain circumstances, which can unlock many quests related to the story line. Players cannot obtain these type of information directly from the system, and they can only gather clues/hints from the NPCs. This is evidently shown in the Dark Brotherhood storyline, where players can gather vague ideas about this story line, they are required to take certain actions in order to trigger the event.

Sequencing
The order of players' action may vary; there are many options for players to choose from. Their actions often involve solving quests, getting into combat, or exploring on the map. The sequencing of players' action is real time as players reach higher level or have completed many quests, they have more things to do in their routine. For example, at one point in the game, dragons will show up at anytime and anywhere whether in the city or the wilderness, players have to slave them in order to improve their specific skills and obtain special items.

Player Interaction
There is no player interaction in this version of Skyrim because it is a single-player-vs-system game. Players play the game individually and their actions do not influence the other players at all. They are limited to interact with the fictional characters in game. However, there is a online version coming out soon, which will open many different interaction opportunities such as information sharing and trading items.

Theme
The are multi-themes in the world of Skyrim, but the major theme is set as a medieval fantasy where players deal with supernatural things. It involves many different elements such as magic, vampire, orc, dragon, etc., where they all combined together under this medieval theme.

Conclusion
Each game atom offers a wide range of options to players, which constantly keep the players engaged. With all game atoms combine together, it provides a huge range of options and freedom for players to do anything or explore anywhere in the game. The development has successfully created a realm of Skyrim where players can completely put their minds into their characters to explore the story and the world.