GAM 244 Game Design I Lecture III Game

GAM 244: Game Design I Lecture III: Game Development 1

Part I: Creating a Design Document 2

Why Create Documents? Producing a commercial game require the involvement of countless people. When that many people are involved, communicating the tasks, purposes, ideas and direction of the game is absolutely crucial. ( ) The design document is the fundamental source of information. It must describe every aspect of your game. Coders: • Engines: physics, animation, game mechanics, etc • Character mechanic: proper reaction to environment • Character A. I. : proper behavior in the game • Game A. I. : game’s response to user’s play • Game interface and controls • etc. Graphic artists: • Backgrounds • Character • Artifacts • Misc. artwork (texture, maps, etc. ) • cut scenes • etc. Sounds: • Sound effects • Music (Themes, Ambiance, etc. ) • Voice, speech • etc. 3

Examples of Design Documents Here actual examples of Design Documents from past final projects: • Perfect Future (58 p) • Dante’s Revenge (47 p) Design documents are now covered in: GAM 229 Design Writing and Presentation. Problem: Writing such detailed documents requires us to have a very developed game idea in the first place. Not a simple task… 4

Developing a Game Idea To help you develop your game ideas: 1. Some concepts to think about : • Geoff Howland’s Game Design: The Essence of Computer Games • Greg Costikyan’s I have no words & I must design 2. A planning document • Much less formal than a design document but focuses your thoughts on what a game idea needs before considering implementation. 5

Part II: Creating Games 6

Approaches The design document describes the game we wish implement, but how do we know that we’ve included all the right elements? In other word: how do we know whether we’ve created a good game? I present here two approaches: • Geoff Howland’s Game Design: The Essence of Computer Games This is a mostly ‘systems’ approach • Greg Costikyan’s I have no words & I must design Focuses on the ‘game experience’ 7

Part II-A: Elements of Computer Games 8

Elements of a Computer Game Taken from Geoff Howland’s Game Design: The Essence of Computer Games He breaks down computer games in 5 elements: • Graphics: 2 D, 3 D, Full Motion Video, Stats Overlay, etc. • Sound: Background music, sound effects in general, etc • Interface: Physical controls, graphical cues, menu, navigation • Gameplay: overall game experience • Story: background story, in-game story, epilogues We’ll look at the last three of these elements in more details… 9

Elements of a Computer Game Interface The only way the players interacts with the game • If it’s not ‘just right’, the players won’t stick around… Ex: “sticky” controls when colliding with walls but it’s a remarkably common problem in games submitted in GAM 244… • Simplicity and clarity is key! • Complex control sets are only going to attract dedicated players • Configurability won’t help beginners • Good idea, but only true fans of the game will bother with it! Examples: Good Marathon, Bad: Box, Nemo’s revenge, Santa Sling Interface AI: Make the menu consistent with the players expectation: Examples: Good: Warthog Launcher, Bottom of the Sea 10 Bad: Drag Racer

Elements of a Computer Gameplay Refers to the overall experience the players has Balance: • There must be a feasible way to win. • There must be a risk of losing. • The game should adjust the above to the skill of the player • Resources (weapons, powers, etc) should also be balanced • Ex: Using/obtaining a power weapon should cost something to the player. Minecraft: Diamond sword/armor takes a lot of work to obtain Better enchantment requires a lot of experience points. Tradeoffs: • Allowing the user to lose one resource to increase another Examples: • Trading currency for health, weapons, etc. • Taking hits to lure the opponent for an easier kill • Needing charge time to fire a powerful weapon 11

Elements of a Computer Gameplay Easy to start, hard to master • New player are curious: let them play! • Don’t bug them with too many details! • Realistic football games such as Madden are treading a thin line… • Go easy with the long text… Have Variety • Good replay value: make sure things are different every time! • Why do you think adventures have multiple endings? Ex: Bad game: Frog Leap AI in Gameplay • The opponents should not just act randomly • Even simple rules can create a very decent opposition • See Pacman’s ghosts: one follows, one intercepts, one covers the power pellet and the other just wanders • It’s also very easy to make the AI too good (see balance) 12

Elements of a Computer Gameplay A note regarding AI: AI is not the same as having various capabilities, attacks, etc. The value of an AI is judged on how well it makes decisions about when to use these various capabilities, attacks, etc. AI in Gameplay • The opponents should not just act randomly • Even simple rules can create a very decent opposition • See Pacman’s ghosts: one follows, one intercepts, one covers the power pellet and the other just wanders • It’s also very easy to make the AI too good (see balance) 13

Elements of a Computer Game Story Sets the context for the game. Compare Super Mario with Bouncy Ball Creates a certain logic of expectations Unclear expectations: Blob Lander • Characters • Make the player identify with what is controlled (Mario vs Ball) • That’s why legends and mythology are popular themes in games • Caricaturing or magnifying real-life personality traits is also good Ex: Pearl Game • Goals: • Either the goal must be part of the game (usual case) or • Allow the players to creat their own goals (Sim, GTA) • When to goal is the completion of a story, makes sure that all the step follow logically. • An artifact that disappears from one location to appear in another must be 14 explained in the story!

Part II-B: Making Interesting Games 15

What Makes a Good Game? “A game is a form of art in which participants make decisions in order too manage resources through game tokens in the pursuit of a goal. ” Greg Costikyan, I have no words & I must design Think of a game you consider ‘good’ and answer these questions • What decisions do players make in your game? • What are the players’ goals? What facilities exist to achieve them? • What is the opposition? What creates a struggle? • What resource need managing? What are the tradeoffs? • What are the players’ tokens? What makes them interesting? • What information do players need? Is it available? Now, repeat with a game you consider ‘bad’… 16

What Makes a Good Game? In general, games that are considered ‘good’ tend to have a have many of these aspects. Games considered ‘bad’ have a serious deficiencies in a few of these aspects Think of a game you consider ‘good’ and answer these questions • What decisions do players make in your game? • What are the players’ goals? What facilities exist to achieve them? • What is the opposition? What creates a struggle? • What resource need managing? What are the tradeoffs? • What are the players’ tokens? What makes them interesting? • What information do players need? Is it available? Now, repeat with a game you consider ‘bad’… 17

What Makes a Good Game? Decisions What decisions do players make in your game? Interacting with the game is not enough. There must be a purpose! Example: Flow This is an art form, not a game There must be Example: • Choices to make What/How to kill • Resources to weigh in these choices Limited ammo • Rules to follow Ammo damage, range • Goals to reach Kill all baddies vs stealth 18

What Makes a Good Game? Goals What are the players’ goals? What facilities exist to achieve them? If there are no goals, there is no point in making decisions Example: Rainbow Trip is about distracting small children The game itself may have no goals or no ‘victory’ condition Ex: Sim City. But then it must allow the players to set their owns goals and provide mechanisms to accomplish them. Ex: Build a city based only on public transport Multiple Goals: Ex: Grand Theft Auto series allows many side missions and other 19 ‘challenges’ there are not part of the main story

What Makes a Good Game? Opposition What is the opposition? What creates the struggle? We have resources, we make decisions and we try to achieve a goal. What’s stopping us? Without opposition, there is no point in the effort Ex: Good (if minimalist) Don’t Let Go Opposition barely existing: Ant City Good (yet simple) Squares 20

What Makes a Good Game? Managing Resources What resource need managing? What are the tradeoffs? Just having resources to use is not enough, they must need to be managed. • Limited supplies Clips of ammo, must reload • Cost/benefit analysis A single rare shotgun shell or lots of bullets? • Multiple types of resource Trading money for armor, ammo • etc. Ex: Minecraft is all about proper resource management. 21

What Makes a Good Game? Tokens In Costikyan’s language, ‘tokens’ are what the players use to control resources. For example: • The ship in a shooter • The hero in an adventure • The black car in Grid Lock • The ‘push block’ in Sokoban (non flash version: Sokoban) What are the players’ tokens? What makes them interesting? The ability to personalize the token (character options) helps the player to be more involved, but can add significant design overhead. 22

What Makes a Good Game? Information What information do players need? Is it available? In order to properly manage the resources, the player must know about everything that affects the game’s state Example: How do you really correct the Drunk’s walk in Home Run. Is it position only or speed of motion? Example: • What and How are gunners helping me in Demonic Defense? • Example: Compare Demonic with D-fence (no health bars) 23

Other Elements • Diplomacy: Can players help/hinder each other? Incentive? Barter? • Color: How does the game evoke its setting? • Simulation: How much simulation strengthens or weakens the game? • Variety: Are there enough things to explore/discover? • Position ID, Roleplaying: What is the emotional appeal of the game? • Socializing • Narrative Tension: Tension and difficulty must build up 24

Part III: Planning Document 25

Planning Document This planning document was created to help you focus some important elements when developing your game idea. To get a sense of how to create the planning document, we (as a class) will try to turn last week’s ‘Bug and Saucer’ example into a proper game. 26

Further Reading Online resources: • History of video games , • Planning document • “I have no words and I must design” Excellent read! Understanding what makes a good game. • Creating a Great Design Document (free registration required) Excellent read! Ten Points for a Successful Design Document • Examples of Design Documents From a past final projects: Perfect Future and Dante’s Revenge • Game Design: The Essence of Computer Games Original source for part of these notes • The Art of Computer Game Design (PDF book) A bit dry to read, but consider chapter 5: The game design sequence Also an original source for part of these notes 27

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