I think gameplay is the exact process of learning. Highlighting the part “play”, the gameplay process emphasizes how a user interacts with the game world. Every successful game tends to create a unique world in which players can fully immerse themselves. In that world, the player will encounter some challenges and cope with them all through the action “play”. In order to overcome the challenges in the game, the user will have to repeat the process of “playing” which is actually constant “learning”. This learning journey enables players to enhance their skills, such as understanding the weak points of bosses and wisely managing resources, gradually unveiling the intricacies of the game world.
This kind of learning (gameplay) should be reasonable and rational. The process should be smooth and step-by-step. For example, the beginning part shouldn’t be too hard. Take one of my favorite games Oxygen Not Included as an example, I think although this game is well-developed not many people play it. I think this is because the threshold for this game is very high, the learning process is not smooth, and the difficulty increases sharply. The interface for the game is quite complicated and there are too many widgets and buttons. I had to study through the online tutorial for 2 hours on BiliBili just to get started. On the other hand, the game Inside is very effective gameplay. The actions are very simple, only the character running direction/jump (←, → and ↑) and the grasp action (the ctrl button). Throughout the entire game, I only use these four buttons but the trick is the right timing and the right combinations. The entire learning process is very smooth as the player first completes simple actions like jumping to action combinations like jumping to grasp the rope.
In the article The Best Games Have the Smartest Learning Curves, it says that
“all games have some form of learning curve, naturally, but there is a way of building them that doesn’t leave quite so many people in the position of dying all the time with no idea why; one that—through smart design—teaches them the game’s mechanics and maneuvers even as they screw up.”
It emphasizes the importance of designing the best learning experience. First, the learning has to be gradual, not “dying all the time” or losing all the progress as the character dies. Take Don’t Starve as an example, once the player dies, all the progress will be lost and the player has to start from the very beginning, luckily they solve the problem by implementing Resurrection Stone. Second, the learning has to be beneficial, the player might die but will “see exactly what he did wrong and how to fix it”. The game Inside did well on this because once the player dies, he will resurrect on the same spot (nearly the same) and redo the challenge all over again, so he will quickly gain experience and overcome the challenge.