GAME DESIGN AND ANALYSIS

Session 3

David Mullich

Survey of the Videogame Industry

The Los Angeles Film School

THE GAME DESIGNER

Players vs. Designers

Players want the fun of playing a game as well as the enjoyment of being with their friends.

Game designers are focused on how the game works: How do you make it, and how to you break it? What are the different elements and how do they fit

together? What skill level does a player need to successfully play

and win? Does each player have an equal chance of winning and a

fair chance of experiencing all that the game has to offer?

Main Role

The game designer’s main role is to be an advocate for the player.

In some ways, designing a game is like being the host of a party. It’s your job to get everything ready and then open your doors to guests to see what happens.

Other Roles

Builder Engineer Scientist Dreamer Teacher But NOT Boss

Designer Skills

Inspiration Creativity Process Teamwork

and most importantly, Communication

The Designer’s Journey

Stage 1: Consumer Stage 2: Tinkerer Stage 3: Masher Stage 4: Creator

Teale Fristoe

Stage 1: Consumer

We all begin our game designer lives as game consumers. Most children play games, and for many people games are significant and meaningful. If you want to make games, you probably already love games.

To consumers, game design is pure magic. Consumers believe that a game designer imagines a game, then creates it exactly as he or she envisioned it.

Stage 2: Tinkerer

Tinkerers tend to imagine new games in terms of modifications (often additions) to existing games, sticking closely to their underlying rule sets.

Many games come with a level editor. This allows Tinkerers to get involved with a game in a whole new way.

However, Tinkerers begin to realize that game design is not magic, but it is a lot of work.

Stage 3: Masher

At this point, the designer is creating entirely new games, but the design process tends to involve mashing existing genres, mechanics, and themes together.

Mashers envision new games as collages of existing game components. They tend to focus on the mechanics and theme rather than on the player experience.

Stage 4: Creator

Before long, a game designer will shift his or her focus and work style. Instead of having visions of a specific game, the designer will be interested in exploring broad or incomplete ideas. The ideas can be about theme, they can be about mechanics, they can be about player experiences… really, they can be about anything.

Stage 4: Creator

Designers at this stage approach new games with a healthy emotional distance. Obviously, they are excited by their ideas, but they know many ideas never work out, so it’s dangerous to become attached to an untested one. They also know that the initial conception is very rarely the best implementation, so keeping an open mind and keeping nothing sacred will tend to result in better final games.

Design Specialties

Lead Designer System Designer User Interface Designer Technical Designer Level Designer Content Designer Game Writer

Extra Credits, Season 1, Episode 16 - So You Want To Be A Game Designer (7:36)

Discussion

Why is communication the game designer’s core skill?

What other skills does a game designer need? Why is “idea guy” a poor definition for what a

game designer does? Why shouldn’t game designers get too attached

to their ideas? What is the number one cause of failed games?

THE DESIGN PROCESS

The Game’s Journey

Every game takes its own journey from concept to product, but skilled designers use the iterative design process

Teale Fristoe

Ideas

All games start out as ideas. Some games come from one powerful idea, but most are formed by combining many ideas to create a unique whole. It’s very possible that initial ideas will be (or should be) abandoned, and lots of new ideas will be considered during the process.

Inspiration

Ideas don’t come out of thin air. Game designers are influenced by personal interests and hobbies.

Spend a significant part of every day doing something other than playing games: Read a book Go see a play Listen to music Exercise, draw or sketch Study a new language Volunteer at a neighborhood organization

Game Designer’s Notebook

Many designers carry a notebook for jotting down their ideas.

Game Idea Sources

Brilliant Inspiration Licensing Hook Technology Hook Filling A Gap Following Coattails Orders From Above Sequels

Brainstorming

A group creativity technique to find a solution to a specific problem by gathering a list of ideas spontaneously contributed by its members. In games, brainstorming is used to generate a large number of ideas about game's concept, mechanics, setting, characters, etc.

Brainstorming

Osborn’s method of brainstorming has four general rules:

Focus on quantity Withhold criticism Welcome unusual ideas Combine and improve ideas

Alex F. Osborn

Advice About Ideas

Come up with more ideas than you’ll need

Never rule out an idea as bad until you’ve tested it

Never accept an idea as good until you’ve tested it

Do not get emotionally attached to ideas

Stages of Creativity

Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes the classic stages of creativity: Preparation: Becoming interested in a topic Incubation: Period where ideas “churn around” in

your subconscious Insight: The “aha!” moment, where an idea comes

together Evaluation: Deciding whether the insight is worth

pursuing Elaboration: Fleshing out the idea

Planning

Once a designer has promising ideas, it’s time to test them. Here, the keys are minimalism and focus.

Your playtest (coming up next) is an experiment, so be prepared for it. Identify what the most important questions you want to answer are and figure out the quickest way of discovering those answers.

Prototype

Create a prototype that answers the questions at hand. A prototype is an early playable version of the game, section of game, or game system.

A prototype, whether paper or electronic, should be:• Playable• Quick to Make• Easy to Change

Playtesters

Playtesters are the people who play your game and provide feedback on the experience.

Observe their experience Pay attention to what

interests or frustrates them They are your guide and

it’s your mission to let them lead you

Playtesting

OTHER TESTING Alpha Testing Focus Group Testing Closed Beta Open Beta

Playtesting is an iterative process where the game is tested, the designer makes changes based on feedback, and the game is retested, over and over.

Playtesting

Extra Credits: Playtesting (6:55)

Discussion

How soon should you begin playtesting your game?

Why is listening so important during playtesting?

How much talking should a designer do with playtesters?

Who is the worst playtester? Who is the best?

Evaluate

After you playtest, consider your data.

How does it answer your questions?

If you were testing the quality of an idea, did it pass the test, or should it be thrown out?

If you saw problems, what caused the problems, and what can you do to fix them?

Done?

Knowing when a game is finished can be even more difficult. A game is never finished, it’s just due.

But you often won’t have external due dates, so it can be tempting to go on making tiny tweaks ad infinitum. Eventually, you’ll have to accept that a game is as good as it’s going to get.

DESIGN DOCUMENTATION

Game Concept

Defined by four elements:

Hardware Platform: Determines the controller configuration and technical limitations

Genre: Determines what the gameplay will feel like. Genres can be categorized by along two dimensions: Action vs. Strategy and Exploration vs. Conflict

Core Mechanic: Determines what the player will actually do in the game

Key Features: Determines what makes the game different or better than other games in that genre

Pitch Presentation

A pitch is a concise verbal (and sometimes visual) presentation for a film, TV series, or game, made by the producer to an executive in the hope of getting the financing to do development.  "Pitch" is a contraction of "sales pitch."

Elevator Pitch

An elevator pitch is a short summary used to quickly and simply define a product and its value.  The name "elevator pitch" reflects the idea that it should be possible to deliver the summary in the time span of an elevator ride, or approximately thirty seconds to two minutes.  

The term itself comes from the scenario of accidentally meeting someone important in an elevator.  If the conversation inside the elevator in those few seconds is interesting and value adding, then the conversation will continue after the elevator ride or end in the exchange of a business card or a scheduled meeting.

Example Pitch

Somehow it always falls to Mustachio to rally his friends for their many adventures. Run and jump through a side-scrolling world made of and inhabited by blocks. With mustaches. A world full of action, puzzles and arbitrary danger that Mustachio faces boldly with his mustache-fueled power to make block duplicates of himself. What? Cloning AND mustaches?! You betcha!

Elements:• Game Title• Genre• Target Customer• Play Value• Competition• Differentiation

Mood Board

A Mood Board is a type of collage that may consist of images and text that graphic designers use to visually illustrate the style they are pursuing.  Mood Boards can also be used to visually explain a style of writing or an imaginary setting for a storyline.  They serve as a visual tool to quickly inform others of the overall "feel" (or "flow") that a designer is trying to achieve.

Greenlighting

To green-light is to give permission to go ahead to move forward with a project.  The term is a reference to a green traffic signal, indicating "go ahead".  In the context of the game industry, to green-light something is to formally approve its production finance, and to commit to this financing, thereby allowing the project to move forward from pre-production to production.

Game Design Document (GDD)

The lead designer is the principle author of all the game design document.

To a programmer and artist, it is the instructions for implementation.

However, design documentation should be a team effort, because almost everyone on the team plays games and can make great contributions to the design.

GDD Topics

High Concept Background Story Tone Objective Gameplay Interface

Perspective Story Structure Multiplayer Difficulty Completion Time AI

GDD – Other Topics

Characters License World Controls Menu Structure

Levels Graphics Cut Scenes Music Sound Effects

The Soul of the Game

A good GDD describes not just the Body but the Soul of the game.

It should convey the feel that the game should have, the purpose behind each element, the experience each user will have, and any other aspects of the game's look and feel the designer can envision and describe.

GAME TERMS

Game Genres

Action Ball and Paddle Beat’em Up Fighting Game Maze Game Pinball Game Platform Game Shooter

○ First Person Shooter○ MMO FPS○ Light Gun Shooter○ Shoot ‘Em Up○ Tactical Shooter○ Rail Shooter○ Third Person Shooter

Action-Adventure Stealth Game Survival Horror

Adventure Real-Time 3D Adventure Text Adventure Graphic Adventure Visual Novel

Role-Playing Western/Japanese RPGs Fantasy RPGs Sandbox RPGs Action RPGs MMORPGs Rogue RPGs Tactical RPGS

Simulation Construction/Management Life Vehicle

Strategy 4X Game Artillery Game Real-time Strategy Real-time Tactics Tower Defense Turn-based Strategy Turn-based Tactics Wargame

Other Casual Game Music Game Party Game Programming Game Puzzle Game Sprots Game Trivia Game Board GameWhat’s YOUR favorite game genre?

Game Genres

Game Genres

Game Genres

Defined by gameplay interaction

Classified independent of their setting

Most fall within one genre but some are a combination of two or more genres

Combining Genres

Extra Credits: Combining Genres (4:52)

Discussion

When combining genres, what should you focus on?

What is wrong with the hacking minigame in BioShock?

What’s right with the combat in PuzzleQuest?

Core Game Elements

Player Format Objectives Procedures Rules Resources Theme (for some games)

Player Format

Single Player vs. Game (Player vs. Environment) Player vs. Player (Head-to-Head) Multiple Individual Players vs. Game Unilateral Multiplayer (One vs. Many) Multilateral Competition (One vs. One vs. One…

or Free-For-All) Cooperative Play Team Competition

Player Format

Player Roles

Sports: Team Leader vs. Team Mate Mastermind: Codemaker vs. Codebreaker D&D: Fighter, Magic User, Cleric or Thief MUD: Achievers, Socializers, Explorers or Killers

Objectives (or Goals)

Objectives give players something to strive for. They define what players are attempting to accomplish within the rules of the game.

Ideally, they should be: Obtainable, but challenging to reach Worthy of obtaining Immediately replaced by new goals

Types of Objectives

Capture Chase Race Alignment Rescue Escape Solve

Outwit Beat the Clock Collect Build Destroy Explore Advance Story

Types of Goals

STRATEGIC(Mental)

REFLEX(Physical)

CHANCE(Random)

Procedures

Procedures are the methods of play and the actions players can take to achieve them.

One way to think about procedures is:

Who does what, when, where and how.

Types of Procedures

Set Up or Starting Action: How to put the game into play.

Progression: Ongoing procedures after the starting action.

Special Actions: Available conditional to other elements or game state.

Resolution, or Resolving Actions: Bring gameplay to a close.

Rules

Rules define game objects and allowable actions by the players.

In digital games, rules can be explained in the manual or they can be explicit in the game itself.

Too many rules might make make the game too complicated for the players to understand.

Leaving rules unstated or poorly communicating them might make players feel confused or alienated.

Rules should be consistent with the game’s theme.

Rule Groupings

Rules Mechanics Systems

Scoring Progression Economics

Examples of Systems

Combat Artificial Intelligence Multiplayer

Resources

Resources are assets that are used to accomplish the game’s goals.

Resources must both be useful and be scarce (or they lose their value).

Managing resources and determining how and when to control player access to them is a key part of a game designer’s job.

Examples of Resources

Lives Health Currency Actions Energy Mana Time Moves Turns

Power-Ups Building Materials Combat Units Inventory Items Spells Territory Special Terrain Information

Theme

Story Setting Characters

Helps players become engaged Makes game easier to learn Tells a compelling story

Abstract Games

While many games are thematic, some are abstract, meaning that they don’t have a theme.

The process of creating content and rules for games.

The Player’s Journey

“Great games are compelling because the player’s experience and expertise changes over time in meaningful ways.” – Amy Jo Kim

Experience Phases

Most people talk about a game as one summed up experience – the game is good, bad, interesting, easy to use, funny or boring.

But in reality, a user’s interaction and journey with a game is continuously evolving. The game that people play on day 1 is a VERY different game to them on day 20. The features they see are different, and the reasons why they are playing the game are different.

If a game attracts people at the beginning, but as time goes by becomes boring and uninspiring, that’s a failure in design.

Similarly, if a game offers an amazing experience only after 20 hours of play, but before the 20 hours it’s a grinding and boring experience, that’s a failure in design too.

Experience Phases

Therefore, a good game designer will look at one game as 4 different games, which emphasizes on the 4 Experience Phases of a game, as defined by Professor Kevin Werbach:

Discovery Onboarding Scaffolding Endgame

Discovery Phase

This is when people first discover your game.

How did they find it? Was it from a friend? Through the news? Or a clever marketing campaign?

Onboarding Phase

This is when you train them to become familiar with the rules of the game, options, mechanics, and the win state.

This is what most designers focus on because everyone thinks once a player plays their game for some time, they will fall in love with it.

Mastering the Onboarding Process can get your users to start participate in your game with excitement and interest.

Scaffolding Phase

This is the phase where players use all the rules and options they learned during onboarding to try to achieve the win-state as many times as possible.

This is where the most “fun” should happen.

Once you have a well designed win state in scaffolding, you will start to see player engagement and motivation.

Endgame Phase

This is when players have done everything there is to do at least once and are starting to see more repetitive actions to get to the win-state.

In this phase, if the designer didn’t create a good endgame, people easily get bored and quit the game.

But a good endgame can be achieved through evergreen mechanics as well as creating a system where the game producers can easily add new content in a system consistently.

If you mastered the endgame, you will create a lot of contributors, evangelists, and long-term customers.

Game Design Goals

Fun Interactive Social Easy to Learn Hard to Master

Well-Paced Immersive Replay Value Affordable Manageable in

Scope and Time

Flow

Flow is the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity.

When players experience flow, time stops, nothing else matters and when they finally come out of it, they have no concept of how long they have been playing.

Flow

Psychology professor Mihayi Csikszentmihalyi identified some key factors that could lead to such a phenomenon: Clear goals and progress Constant and Immediate feedback Balance between the perceived challenge

and the perceived level of skill needed

Flow

In 1997 he provided the world this visual representation of his theory.

Flow

If a challenge exceeds the abilities of the current skill level, it can lead to frustration

If the skill level is increasing faster than the challenge, it leads to boredom

Both of these will normally end with the player leaving the game

Flow If we combine the ideas of

Flow and Player Journey, you can begin to see how a game, in theory, should behave in an ideal world.

You start off with a challenge that is acceptable for a new comer who is starting in the game – on-boarding.

Over time, you increase the challenge as skills increase. Most games tend to build up each level to a boss battle of some type.

Flow Not all games have this

“ideal flow”. A game like Tetris would

have a flow like the top line. Tetris. There are no lulls in the progression with Tetris. It just gets faster and faster, and you might feel frustrated until you achieve Mastery.

A game like WOW would have a flow like the bottom line. You must endure grinding until you get to the interesting sequences.

Difficulty

How much skill a player needs to have to complete a game objective.

Games should be easy to learn, but hard to master.

When Difficult Is Fun

Extra Credits: When Difficult Is Fun (7:44)

Discussion

Why were early video games so difficult to play?

How did the game industry transition to the philosophy of “Everyone Wins”?

Why are we seeing more difficult games now?

What’s the difference between “difficult” and “punishing”?

Difficult vs. Punishing

Rules should be consistent Players should be given enough resources

to solve challenges Players need to be given enough

information to make decisions The player’s choices should be meaningful

Difficult vs. Punishing

Randomness should only be used for variety and uncertainty (replay value)

Low iteration time for trying again Create useable control interfaces When the player fails, they should feel they

could have done better

Balance

A balanced game does not give an unequal advantage to any player (or the game system).

The relative strength of different resources, mechanics, objectives and starting states.

Are these two characters balanced?

The fighter, on the left, can do 6 points damage, but the archer, on the right, does only 1 point of damage.

Perfect Inbalance

Slight deviations from perfect balance so players can discover what choices will give them an edge

Cyclical Inbalance: When players gravitate to a weaker gameplay element looking for ways to defeat a stronger one.

Metagaming

Metagame literally means 'beyond the game' and refers to any planning, preparation, or maneuvering that a player does outside of actual gameplay to gain an advantage.

Strategic decisions to exploit the game’s rules Strategic decisions to exploit an opponent's or map's

style of play Strategic decisions to exploit a player's reaction or

weakened mental state in the future. This is also known as 'mind games' or 'psychological warfare'.

Complexity

The greater the complexity, the harder it is to learn how to play the game.

The number of rules or the number of elements with which the player interacts.

A cluttered or non-intuitive interface can also make a game too complex.

Complexity ≠ Difficulty

Difficulty Complexity

How much effort or skill is needed to accomplish a task?

How many different steps or skills are needed to accomplish a task?

How many people can accomplish a task correctly?

How many different ways can a task be accomplished?

Easy or Hard Simple or Complex

Depth

The greater the depth, the harder it is master the game.

The ability to find enjoyment in a game as one’s skill improves.

Depth

Tic-Tac-Toe has few decisions, but it also has few rules

Chess has more rules and elements, but it has many interesting decisions

Monopoly has even more rules and elements, but relatively few meaningful decisions

Depth is directly related to the number of interesting decisions the player can make.

Complexity vs. Depth

It is the designer’s job to get the maximum depth with the minimum complexity

Ways to Reduce Complexity

A well-crafted tutorial Don’t require the player to learn all

the rules before they start playing Intuitive user interface Lower the rate at which player’s

must make decisions

Pace

Pace is the speed of play, or how quickly the player receives information and takes action or makes decisions.

Turn-Based Real-Time

Dramatic Pace

Proper Pacing Grab the player’s attention at the start, but keep it

short Give them a breather to set the proper baseline for

the experience Oscillate engagement level in a steadily increasing

manner Intermittent reinforcement is more powerful than

constant reinforcement Bring player’s down after an intense experience so

that they feel closure

Engagement Segments

Arc: The game as a whole Scene: A subsection or level of the

game (this has its own engagement curve)

Action: A specific moment of player experience (even this should follow an engagement curve)

Replay Value

Play Value: The reason a person plays a game

Replay Value: The reason they play a game over and over again

Designers increase replay value by: Adding more choices to make and things

to discover Increasing depth Multiplayer gameplay

Age Appropriateness

The age or maturity level of a game’s intended audience

Sid Meier

G4 Icons Episode #12: Sid Meier (21:18)

Discussion

Why do you think Sid Meier has had such success as a game designer?

Everything You Know Is Wrong

GDC 2010: Sid Meier Keynote (53:58)

Everything You Know Is Wrong Game design is a psychological experience in which the

designer needs to make the player feel good about playing the game

Winner Paradox: Player gladly accepts a win, but complains about an (unsatisfactory) loss

The First Fifteen Minutes: Needs to be very engaging and foreshadows the rest of the game

Unholy Alliance (between designer and player): It’s important for the designer to make the player feel good about their ability, while the player needs to suspend their disbelief