Game Design LESSON 5 Game Length Considerations Tabletop

Game Design LESSON #5: Game Length Considerations Tabletop to Digital Production Alternate Reality Games Intro to Unity 2 D

TODAY: 1. Playtesting Workplace Games. 2. Considerations for Game Duration 3. Tabletop to Digital production: Git. Hub, Backlogs, and Prefabs 4. ARGs: Discussing the Mc. Gonogal Reading, and Game Design through Alternatives to Misery 5. Intro to 2 D games with the Unity engine

Game Playtesting Evaluation • CLARITY: Are the instructions and board concise and easy to understand? • INNOVATION: What is new and exciting in the gameplay to stimulate interest in new challenges? • IMMERSION: Is the story compelling (setting, action framing, art and music)? • FLOW: Does the player feel constantly productive, able to act and have those actions matter (advance their agenda) every turn? • FIERO: Multiple big victory moments for players?

Game Duration Imagine a game that is a 100 spaces long, and all you have is a d 6 die to traverse the distance. Designers want to know whether an experience is likely to be an enjoyable duration for the players. Even a fun interaction will get boring or unpleasant if it goes on too long. To estimate the likely duration, ask these four questions 1. What is the average ability of a player to progress in a turn? (For a dice game, calculate the average result for a roll. What is the average result for a d 6? ) 2. Given that average progression, how many turns on average will it take for a player to complete the game? (What is the average duration for the experience described above? ) 3. What is the Minimum # of turns for the player to complete the game? 4. What is the Maximum # of turns for the player to complete the game? Are these numbers likely to be an unpleasant slog? A d 6 through 100 spaces is pretty long. What if we used a 20?

HW 5 & 6: Attempt a Unity version of your Workplace Game • DISCUSS: What mechanics would translate well to a digital game? Would it work better / more interestingly in 2 D or 3 D? • Git. Hub: Set up your collaboration space. Git. Hub and the Github Desktop app are highly recommended! • Backlog: Type up a list of all the features you want in this game, and prioritize them by • UNITY: Make sure you all have the same version, and one person starts the project and uploads to the Git. Hub repository. Be careful that only one person works on a specific Scene at a time, to avoid push conflicts in Git. Hub. Everyone else upload (push) their work as Prefabs, to be integrated by the current Scene owner. • COMMUNICATE!: Divide the work up as evenly as you can. Make a plan for when you will meet and what needs to be done by that time. You will be submitting a single game for class– be sure everyone’s work is in it! Communicate every day to be sure everyone has what they need, and no one feels like they are the only ones working : ). • PPRs: Every week you work on team game in Unity you have a PPR due on Piazza: a persnol progress report

The Second Reading: Reality is Broken (pp 119 -215) by Jane Mc. Gonigal

The Second Reading: Reality is Broken (pp 119 -215) by Jane Mc. Gonigal • “A good game can change the way you see yourself and what you are capable of, forever” (p 214) • Reality does not satisfy human needs as well as games, but if it did, our real lives would be better. • Games can be used to alleviate human suffering. • Intrinsic rewards motivate engagement and feel more rewarding than extrinsic rewards.

Reality is Broken by Jane Mc. Gonigal • p 114: Four Essential Human Cravings: • More Satisfying Work • Better Hope for Success • Stronger Social Connectivity • Being a Part of Something Bigger • + reliable source of Flow and Fiero • p 126: To make something fun, make it: • Goal Oriented • Feedback Rich • Obstacle Intensive • Happiness Hacks: Avoid embarrassment by focusing on a challenging goal.

Reality is Broken by Jane Mc. Gonigal FIXES FOR REALITY • • • • #01: “Unnecessary Obstacles” (p 22) #02: “Emotional Activation” (p 38) #03: “More Satisfying Work” (p 54) #04: “Better Hope For Success” (p 68) #05: “Stronger Social Connectivity” (p 82) #06: “Epic Scope (connect to bigger)” (p 98) #07: “Wholehearted Participation” (p 124) #08: “Meaningful Rewards When We Need Them Most” (p 148) #09: “More Fun With Strangers” (p 172) #10: “Happiness Hacks” (p 189) #11: “A Sustainable Engagement Economy” (p 244) #12: “More Epic Wins” (p 252) #13: “ 10 k Hours Collaboration” (p 277) #14: “Massively Multiplayer Foresight” (p 302)

DISCUSS: Your Favorite ARGs From Reality is Broken ARGs: REINVENTING REALITY (pp 119 -215) • Chore Wars (cleaning, p 120) • Quest to Learn (school, p 127 -132) • Superbetter (recovery p 133 -142) • Plus. One. Me (boosts p 147 -148) • Jetset/Day in the Cloud (flying pp 150 -156) • Nike+ (running pp 158 -163) • Foursquare (social engagement pp 164) • Comfort of Strangers (social engagement p 168) • Ghost of a Chance (museum, p 173) • Bounce (elderly, p 177) HAPPINESS HACKS: • Cruel 2 BKind (Jen Ratio, p 192) • Tombstone Hold’em (cemeteries p 197) • Top Secret Dance Off (public dancing pp 207 -214)

DESIGN METHOD #4: ALTERNATIVES TO MISERY Process for making an Alternate Reality Game: 1. Identify a source of misery. 2. List the mechanics of the misery 3. List real-world solutions for the misery. These are likely behaviors that people would want to do if they were not embarrassed, too busy, thoughtless, afraid, or otherwise focused. 4. Focus on one tangible behavioral solution at a time, and consider game mechanics that could encourage that behavior. Iterate: what can make those mechanics more meaningful, and more specific to the behavioral solution desired?

ARG EXAMPLE #1: Mc. Gonigal’s “Tombstone Hold ‘Em”

“Tombstone Hold ‘Em” ARG Process: 1. Identify Misery: Western culture has lost touch with it own mortality, leading to anxiety and loss of lifefocus. 2. List the Misery Mechanics: People avoid cemeteries, avoid thinking about the departed and their own limited lifetimes. Graveyards seen as creepy, taboo, isolating, sources of pain and fear. 3. List real-world solutions: Encourage death-bed roleplay, create social events in cemeteries. 4. Build a Game around one tangible solution: Social game in cemeteries where the gravestones themselves are critical game elements.

Texas Hold’em Basics: Sit at a Table • The Hole: Each player gets two cards (face down) • The Flop: Dealer deals 3 cards to the center of the table face up. • The Turn: Dealer adds a 4 th card to the Flop. • The River: Dealer adds a 5 th card to the Flop. • Hands/Betting: Between each of the above stages the players place bets based on the poker hand they can create between their Hole cards and the cards in the center (runs, pairs, etc).

Tombstone Hold ‘Em: In a Cemetery Flop/Run/River happens First

Tombstone Hold ‘Em: In a Cemetery • START WITH THE RIVER: All players gather in one location in the cemetery and the dealer puts out all five communal cards. • PLAYERS WORK IN PAIRS TO FIND THEIR HOLE CARDS: Search cemetery for two “cards” to get the best possible hand • stone shapes = suit: round=hearts, cross=clubs, point=spades, flat=diamonds. • dates/#names = card number/face: last number on a date = card number, multiple names on a stone = Jack, Queen, etc.

Tombstone Hold ‘Em: In a Cemetery Find your own Hole cards– recruit among departed

Tombstone Hold ‘Em TIME’S UP: Everyone runs back to the start and declares their hand. Only best claim needs to prove it at the site. RESULTS: Engage positively/socially with space and those laid to rest there. Leave with sense of peace.

ARG EXAMPLE #2: “The Wastronauts”

Parenting and Games Blog: Yaya Play Parentzine

“The Wastronauts” ARG Process: 1. Identify Misery: Bedtime ritual emotionally exhausting and physically taxing. 2. List the Misery Mechanics: Child delays between each of the four bathroom tasks, has meltdowns and end-of-day out-of-control behavior. 3. List real-world solutions: Distracting songs and activities, different body positions, read stories offer incentives and consequences. 4. Build a Game around one tangible solution: Invent hero narratives around a fantasy crisis.

“The Wastronauts” Narrative • The bathroom is not a bathroom. It is a power and control station for Moon. Doggie Base. Each bathroom task is part of fixing an air leak, building a sonic defense tower against invading alien predators, building a shield against a storm of solar flares.

“The Wastronauts”

“The Wastronauts” • Translate each task into part of a larger narrative that supports her desire to take care of her stuffies. • Tasks she knows how to do so she feels happily productive and fully engaged. • Make it optional. • Make each task a bit more challenging than it needs to be so each completed task is an accomplishment. • Make the goal clear, add a ticking clock. • End with intrinsic reward: saving-the-day speech. • RESULT: Happy, engaged bedtimes, even improvements in timing.

GAME DESIGN EXERCISE: ALTERNATIVE REALITY GAMES PLEASE NOTE: • There is potential for this week’s assignment to enter into subjects which may be larger than your classmates have reasonable capacity in this course to engage. • Please be considerate and aware of your teammates and the larger class in choosing your topics and be aware of the possibility of “trigger” topics. • That said, I ask and trust you to communicate honestly with your teammates in setting appropriate boundaries this week in discussing sources of human misery, and please do not hesitate to contact your teacher with any questions or concerns.

GAME DESIGN EXERCISE: ALTERNATIVE REALITY GAMES • 1. TEAMS: Choose NEW teams of three. Everyone needs paper and pen to list Miseries/Solutions. • 2. MISERY IN PRIVATE: Take 5 minutes alone and in silence to list personal and social miseries. What makes you or people you know afraid in their daily lives? What unavoidable tasks make them unhappy, depressed, full of worry or shame? Both smaller and bigger sources are welcome. • 3. MISERY IN COMPANY: Discuss your list with your new teammates, taking notes on paper. • 4. MECHANICS OF MISERY: Choose a misery you find particularly interesting or deplorable. Identify the mechanics of the misery– how does it make people miserable? How does it affect their lives in larger ways? • 5. SOLUTIONS: Choose 1 mechanic of misery and consider behavioral solutions, if only the people involved were not so embarrassed, in pain, isolated, or otherwise feeling incapable of feeling otherwise. • 6. GAMES: Brainstorm game ideas – paper or participatory – to engage 1 of those solutions by adding GOALS, CHALLENGING OBSTACLES, and RICH FEEDBACK

POST CLASS TUTORIAL • The next 40 minutes will be an introduction to the Unity 2 D interface. See materials on course site.

INTRODUCTION TO UNITY for 2 D 1. Unity for 2 D: 2. Textures as Sprites 3. Building the Platformer Scene 4. Character Animation 5. Character Set up & State Machine (See course website Unity 2 D Tutorial)

Unity: Intro to 2 D Game Dev Basics of 2 D: • Hit 2 D button above Scene for flat view. • Set PNG art to “Sprites” and set “Order in Layer. ” Higher numbers = closer to camera. • Use only 2 D Physics (Rigidbody 2 D, Box Collider 2 D) Painting Backgrounds: PNGs, quality 24, power-of-2 • Standard Display: 1280 x 720, 72 ppi. Paint 2 x for HD/retina. • Set PNG art to “Sprites” and set “Order in Layer. ” Higher numbers = closer to camera. • Export layers: FG, MG, BG, with empty areas. • Scrolling: at least 3 original screens, tiling ends. • 2 D Platformer: include obvious “platforms. ”

Unity: Intro to 2 D Game Dev

Due Next Week: HOMEWORK #4: Individual: Complete at least one full Unity Tutorial Sequence, and post screenshots of the completed tutorial to Piazza (a single post with your name, HW 4): Consider Roll-a-Ball or Space-Shooter: https: //unity 3 d. com/learn/tutorials

Have a Spectacular Week! And don’t forget to email us with questions: Instructor: JASON WISER Jason. Wiser. Art@gmail. com Available an hour after class and daily email