Game system design

Petri Lankoski Södertörn University

Game System Design


What Games are?Chess

Space Invaders

Doom

Flower

Sim City

War Hammer 40 000

September 12

GraveyardSims

World of Warcraft

Eve Online

Heavy Rain

Poker

Table-top RPGs

Cow Clicker


What Games Are?There are prototypical games

Tetris, Chess, Space Invaders,… Understanding what make these things tick help

you to understand game design

BUT going out from the box might produce something very interesting Sim City, Little people, Sims Graveyard, Every day the same dream

However, if a game is too novel, players do not get it


What games are about Meaningful decisions Twitch skill Puzzle solving Challenges Learning to play Mastering the game

In other words That the players’ actions

and choices have an impact In the game To the players’ emotions


What is game design?Creating rules or game systems

Creating goals and challenges for players

Creating content Not always purely game design But content and game design are always linked


Why Theories?What are your building blocks?

How the building blocks relate to each other?

What are the consequences of your design?


Game Autopsy Components Game environment Actions

What a player(s) can do Verbs

Mechanics Goals Game State Game View

This is a combination of Brathwaite &Schreiber

(2008) Järvinen (2008)


Components Components are something that can

manipulate or owned Components-of-self Components-of-system Components-of-other

Components in Chess Components-of-self

Pieces that I move Components-of-other

Pieces that another player moves Components-of-system

Does not have

Chessboard: Klin, ILA-BOY, Beao, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chess_board_blank.svg

Components-of-self

Components-of-other


Game EnvironmentArea where the game take placeArea can be

Field as in Soccer, Ice Hockey, Basket ball Game board as in Chess, Backgammon Screen as in Space Invaders, Game world as in Elder Scrolls Designed or randomly generated,

But no clearly defined environment Shadow Cities Geocaching


ActionsWhat players do when they play gameActions can be expressed as verbs

Shoot, hide, sneak, drive


Game StateAll information that can change during the

gameplay and that is needed to construct a situation in a specific moment

Consists of All components, their positions, values Who's turn it is (in turn-based multiplayer) Possible previous game states when the previous

states influence the current state


Game State examplesPoker

Cards in hands Discarded cards Bot Who’s turn it is What is the stage in the game

Tetris The position and rotation of falling blog Blogs on the ground Score Level

Poker: image by Todd Klassy, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Holdem.jpg


Game View What kind of view a player

have to the game state Perfect Information

The game state is fully visible to a player of to all players

E.g., Chess Imperfect Information

The game state is partly hidden

E.g., Poker


Settlers of Catan Components? Game environment? Actions? Game state? Game view?


Mechanics game system, algorithms or rules, The core of gameMechanics defines how game behaves


GoalsWhat is the goal of playingWhat is needed to win the gameVictory conditions / conditions for loosing game Important for motivating play


Dynamics Patterns that happens when the game system is

motion, in use Approximately the same as Gameplay Same dynamics in (among other dynamics)

Bridge Trump Spades Core mechanics is trick-taking

Same core mechanics -> similar dynamics But dynamics depends on implementation and other

mechanics in the game


Core Mechanics Chase or evade Trading Racing

Not exhaustive list These are commonly used Very useful

Territorial acquisition Prediction Spatial reasoning Survival Destruction Building / Resource

management Collection


Core MechanicsTetris

Spatial reasoning

Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne Building/Resource management + Trading


ThemeA game can have a themeVisual theme vs narrative themeExample

Ico is a game about a boy who get captured because he is different to others and he needs to escape

Not all games have a theme Poker Tetris


Where to Start? What this game is about? How do I play?

Verbs

How do I complete the game/How do I win? Goals

What challenges I face? Obstacles, enemies

What are the things I need to do to reach the goals? Why I do want to play?


Work with the Limitations Game design is about working with limitations

Limitations are not negative thing Limitations force you to be creative!

Set limitations for the design Our game should contain

A core mechanics, a design pattern, etc. E.g., territorial acquisition, ROLE-REVERSAL, one-button control

Our game should not contain Limit away the most obvious direction E.g., No shooting

The style of the game is E.g., Dali-like, cute animals, pop art, wild west + magic


Some Tricks to Overcome Designers Block Kill a rule, remove a feature Limit or unlimit a resource Take one random design patterns from Björk &

Holopainen and add that to the game Change a value in the game system or in rules

Multiply or dive by two

Change the visual theme or narrative theme Try something very different to the current one

Test or simulate the design after a change to get a fresh perspective


Evaluating system behaviorPlay-testestingSimulations

Simulations can help to understand how a part of the system behaves One does not need ready game for simulation

Does not replace playtesting But simulation can show the features work in the

long run Balancing weapons & troops

non-symmetrical things are hard to balance


Simulating a game systemModel

sum of two six sided dice -> sum of two random numbers between 1 to 6

Weapon: change to hit, damage dealt & fire rate

Simulating system Run model many times to learn how the system

behaves Run 50000 times and calculate distribution or

averages, average damage per minute, etc.


Settlers of Catan Simulation How the players gain resources Simplified

Robber vs no robber discard Only resource amount simulated, not types

Assumptions Four player game 0-3 resources at hand when ones turn ends

Model for using resources One specific board set-up

The results does not vary much board to board The results can vary with not optimal settlement placements

50 000 iterations used


Settlers of Catan…• 4 victory point set-up

• Settlements -> cities• 6 victory point sim• 1&2) 8 victory point sim

• Note the optimal settlement placement in initial placement


Settlers of Catan: Model#!/usr/bin/python import randomfrom collections import Counter

# board model (2 victory points) field1 = { 2: {'white': 0, 'blue':0, 'red': 0, 'orange': 0}, 3: {'white': 0, 'blue':0, 'red': 1, 'orange': 1}, 4: {'white': 1, 'blue':1, 'red': 0, 'orange': 0}, 5: {'white': 0, 'blue':2, 'red': 1, 'orange': 0}, 6: {'white': 1, 'blue':1, 'red': 1, 'orange': 1}, 8: {'white': 1, 'blue':1, 'red': 1, 'orange': 1}, 9: {'white': 1, 'blue':0, 'red': 0, 'orange': 1}, 10: {'white': 1, 'blue':0, 'red': 1, 'orange': 1}, 11: {'white': 0, 'blue':0, 'red': 1, 'orange': 1}, 12: {'white': 0, 'blue':0, 'red': 0, 'orange': 0}}

The above model does not contain handling for robber Full code: http://www.mediafire.com/view/bqag3hbz262gpac/catan.py

http://www.mediafire.com/view/bqag3hbz262gpac/catan.py

http://www.mediafire.com/view/bqag3hbz262gpac/catan.py


Catan: Resource gain


Catan: Robber Effect


Catan: Balance of set-up1 2 3 4

White 2.0553 2.6120 3.1700 3.7267Blue 2.0761 2.6593 3.2396 3.8224Red 2.0808 2.6661 3.2496 3.8348Orange 2.0892 2.6745 3.2605 3.8454

• Resource gain for each color is very similar• White might have small disadvantage


Catan: What can one learn?

Easy to run what if scenarios Robber -> discard all Discard if more than four resources

Estimating the costs for buildingBalance of the the initial set-up


ReferencesBrathwaite & Schreiber, 2008, Challenges for

game designers. Charles River Media, chapters 1-2

Järvinen, 2008, Games without frontiers, Tampere University Press, chapter 4.

Questionscomments, confused, disoriented?

Drag picture to placeholder or click icon to add


Game system design

Documents

Transcript of Game system design