Game design

Games

• “Voluntary engagement with unnecessary obstacles”
  • Jane McGonigal, Reality is Broken
• Types of games
  • Sports
  • Yard Games
  • Card games
  • Board Games
  • Pinball tables
  • Video Games
• Verbs -> Game Mechanics -> Player experience

Verbs

• Verbs are the primary player actions
  • “Jump”
  • “Attack”
  • “Build”
• What verbs do these games have?
  • Laivan upotus
  • Kirkonrotta
  • Super Mario Bros.

Game mechanics

• What are game mechanics?
  • Wikipedia: “rules that govern and guide the player’s actions, as well as the game’s response to them.”
• Examples of game mechanics:
  • List of Board game mechanics
• Errant Signal: Perceivable Consequence

Playcentric Design Process

• As we remember from Playtesting, it helps to put player experience first
• Set goals for player experience:
  • “How should the player feel during this sequence?”
  • Note: For player exp goals, we don’t specify how features are implemented
  • Player exp goal example: “Freedom to pursue goals of the game in any order”
• Try to see your game from the lens of player experience
  • What is the player thinking?
  • What choices are offered? What choices are actually made?
• Prototype fast & playtest very early
  • Either by creating a playable demo or, if possible, with pen and paper
  • Iterate based on player response

Design for the players

Design for the players, not you

• In the development process, designers becomes blind to their own games
• Due to familiarity…
  • designers can make the game frustratingly hard
  • designers can forget to explain things that are obvious to them
• The only truth about your game is inside the mind of the player
• If player feedback contradicts with your preconception, it’s on you
• Extra: Create interesting outcomes for player mistakes

  Design to guide players

• The job of a game designer is to teach the player to play the game well
• Zach Gage: Building Games That Can Be Understood at a Glance
• Tim Rogers: Link To The Past’s Perfect First 10 Minutes
• Invisible tutorial
  • GMTK: Half-Life 2’s Invisible Tutorial

Design for different kinds of players

• Wikipedia: Bartle’s taxonomy of player types
  • ♣ Killers
  • ♦ Achievers
  • ♥ Socializers
  • ♠ Explorers
• “Like Myers-Briggs, it’s bad for explaining individuals, but good for understanding entire audiences” (Aki Kanerva)

There are other categorizations as well

• Honers vs Innovators (see this video):
  • Honers: people who like to perfect a skill
  • Innovators: people who like to learn a broad range of skills

Reasons for players to engage with games

• Mastery: grown skills in doing/accomplishing a task
• Autonomy: Ability and freedom to make meaningful choices
• Sensation: Physical sensations or the new
• Connection: Feeling connected to others/community

Choices

• Choices create a possibility space

• More choices $\Rightarrow$ More assets to create

• Illusory choices / meaningful choices
  • Sometimes the illusion of choice is all you need
    • Telltale’s Walking Dead is often used as an example
  • …but the illusion breaks when choosing the other option and ending up with the same result

Design to make the game its best possible version

Follow the fun

• The initial idea for your game might turn out to be boring to play
• Usually, there is something good, though
• Follow the fun
  • If some random interaction happens to create interesting situations, build upon it
  • • “Players tend to optimize the fun out of game”
      • -> Nudge players towards fun interactions
• Fun isn’t the be-all-end-all of game design, however
  • Errant Signal: An Aimless Diatribe On Fun

Elements that create themselves

• Are there some design elements that seem to “create themselves”?
  • Follow those elements
  • GMTK: The Games That Designed Themselves
  • If you were to create a puzzle game, but during design process, you notice that the game benefits from action elements
  • Maybe the game wants to be an action game after all?
  • GMTK: Why is it so hard to make game design decisions?

Level design

• Many games are split into levels, stages, boards, etc…
• The field of level design is an art of its own
• Dan Taylor: Ten Principles for Good Level Design
• Maddy Thorson: Level Design Workshop: Designing Celeste
• GMTK: How Mega Man 11’s Levels Do More With Less
• GMTK: Making Hitman 2’s Best Level
• Patrick Holleman: Reverse Design: Super Mario World and the accompanying video

Kishōtenketsu

• Four-act structure
• Part of the Eastern storytelling tradition
  • Example comic
• Works for levels, worlds, whole games
  • Ki: Introduce
  • Shō: Develop
  • Ten: Twist
  • Ketsu: Conclude
• GMTK: Super Mario 3D World’s 4 Step Level Design

Intensity graph

• Ebb and flow
• jazz mickle knows how it’s done

Puzzle design

• “Gotcha” puzzle design
  • Show the lock before the key
  • Obvious solution fails!
• GMTK: What Makes a Good Puzzle
• GMTK: How Jonathan Blow Designs a Puzzle
• GMTK: Puzzle Solving… or Problem Solving?

Story design

• Story vs gameplay: The ludonarrative dissonance
  • Errant Signal: The Debate That Never Took Place
• Laura E. Hall: Environmental Narrative: Telling Stories Without Saying Anything
• GMTK: How Level Design Can Tell a Story

• GMTK: Telling Stories with Systems

• GMTK: Can We Make Talking as Much Fun as Shooting?

World design

• Kate Edwards: A Geographer’s Guide to Building Game Worlds

Character design

• Recognisable silhouettes!

Visual design

• League of Legends VFX style guide

Game design: Some basic principles

• Versatile verbs
  • GMTK: The Secret of Mario’s Jump (and other Versatile Verbs)
• Dual purpose design: Do more with less
  • GMTK: Downwell’s Dual Purpose Design
• Meaningful choices
  • GMTK: The Power of Invisible Choices
• Feedback loops
  • GMTK: How Games Use Feedback Loops
• Synergic systems
  • GMTK: How Synergies Make Slay the Spire Fun

Game feel

• Game feel in isolation
  • GMTK: Secrets of Game Feel and Juice

• Realistic vs gameistic physics

• Errant Signal: Kinaesthetics
• Squirrel Eiserloh: Juicing Your Cameras With Math
• Martin Jonasson & Petri Purho: Juice it or lose it
• Jan Willem Nijman: The art of screenshake
• Nicolae Berbece: Game Feel: Why Your Death Animation Sucks

Good design?

• What design is good and what is not is usually subjective
• Some subjective rules of thumb:
  • Good design solves many problems at once
    • (and doesn’t introduce new ones)
  • Good design explains itself
    • use real-world analogues: “water puts out fire”
  • Good design fuels creativity
    • complex outcomes out of simple rules
  • Good design creates more good design

Game Design Document (GDD)

• Wikipedia: Game Design Document is a highly descriptive living software design document of the design for a video game
• Idea -> ( Prototype -> Playtesting ) -> GDD
• Wikipedia: GDD Table of contents
• The original design document of Grand Theft Auto

Reading

• Jesse Schell: Art of Game Design
• Tracy Fullerton: Game Design Workshop
• Richard Lemarchand: A Playful Production Process
• Jaakko Kemppainen: Pelisuunnittelijan peruskirja