The Difficulties of Difficulties

CSE1GDTPaul Taylor 2009

Creativity 101

Unlocking your creativity and locking it in a cage

Based on Chapter 6 of The Art of Game Design

Why?

• Becoming a designer will require you to use your creativity on demand.

• It is easy to dream, but far more difficult to create something on demand

Inspiration

• Your Ideas are driven from the experiences you have had over your life

• When you are trying to generate good ideas, it is important to know the problem

• Having found the problem do not jump to the first solution, this is the creative bit...

Going slightly schizophrenic

To understand your creativity you will need to separate yourself from it a little, and negotiate with it.

To this end we will consider our subconscious to be a different person

Meet your subconscious....

He/She is:

• Mute, only talks through imagery and emotions

• Impulsive• Emotional• Playful• Irrational

Living with your Subconsciuos in a professional way

In the same way you manage any of your relationships, you must treat your

subconscious well to work together.

Pay Attention!

• To gain any good ideas from your friend you must listen!

• How?You must pay attention to what your subconscious

offers– thoughts– Ideas, suggestions– Feelings– Emotions– Dreams

Remember the Ideas

• Remember it can be really difficult to get your subconscious to refresh you on an idea it once had

• Writing everything down is a great way to keep your ideas

• You do this when brainstorming in a team, so really you are just doing it more often.– Pictures, notes, dot points, however you

remember best

Look after your subconscious’ appetite

• To be creative it needs to have things to eat– Playing different games– Watching Movies– Going somewhere new– Doing a new activity– Reading an interesting book

These are just some of the ways you can feed your subconscious

Watch out for Junk Food

• Your subconscious will eat whatever you give it

These are some of the Junk foods you need to keep away from your subconscious!

• Dealing with school• You Being Hungry• Being Tired• Outside Pressures

Your subconscious is nocturnal

• When you sleep well, your subconscious is awake.– Whilst you think during the day, your subconscious

does all its great work when you are asleep

Don’t push your friendship!

• Ever had a friend that just wont shut up or leave you alone. The one that just keeps talking?

• Don’t be this person to your subconscious . If you don’t give it time to rest, pretty soon your relationship with it will fail

Overall it is a very personal thing

• Not everything is relevant to you• There will be other things not covered that

will be relevant.• This is a learning exercise, its only through

experience that you can manage and improve your creative abilities

Managing Difficulty

Stress Skill and Absolute Difficulty

• When players are forced to perform multiple Atomic Challenges at once stress is introduced into the gameplay– It is up to your design team to decide weather you

want stress, and how much you will allow into your game

• The number of types of challenge a player need to address will also affect game complexity

Absolute Difficulty

• Intrinsic Skill required and Stressfulness of the challenge put together.– Difficulty levels can be used to give players a

choice of stress and the skill they possess• Stress is also related to the players skill

– Lower skill will provide a higher stress on the player

Difficulty Graph Fun

The Basic Difficulty Curve• Skill vs Challenge

• Three states– Anxiety– Boredom– Flow

The Nasties of Difficulty

• Absolute Difficulty• Relative Difficulty - Power• Perceived Difficulty - Skill

Impaired Players

• For some target groups the perceived difficulty should remain constant

• Such as......

Now for some challenges

This is NOT the definitive challenge list

It will get you started thinking (I hope)

Common Challenge Types

• Physical Coordination– Time Pressure– Speed and Reaction– Intuitive Physics– Timing and Rhythm– Combination Moves

• Logic and Mathematical Challenges– Formal Logic Puzzles– Mathematical Challenges

• Races and Time-Pressure• Factual Knowledge• Memory Challenges• Pattern Recognition Challenges

• Exploration Challenges– Spatial Awareness Challenges– Locked Doors– Traps– Mazes and Illogical Spaces– Teleporters

• Conflict– Strategy– Logistics– Survival and Reduction of Enemy Forces– Defending Vulnerable Items or Units– Stealth

• Economic Challenges– Accumulating Resources– Achieving Balance– Caring for Living Things

• Conceptual Reasoning and Lateral Thinking Puzzles– Conceptual Reasoning– Lateral Thinking

Player Actions

• The combination of the player (user) interface and the players actions– Actions should only be able to do atomic

challenges– The Defeat Boss button is not a terribly exciting

idea

The dangers of poor interfaces

What happens when the player can not perform the atomic challenges?

GTA IV

Halo 3

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Halo_3_control_scheme.jpg

Defining and Grouping Actions

– Actions for gameplay– Actions for Fun (Unstructured Play)– Actions for Customisation– Actions for Socialisation (Multiplayer games)– Story Participation Actions– Interface customisation Actions (Game Settings)

Disclaimer

• That was not a complete list of Actions, but gives you an idea of what to consider

• You don’t always have to have the action players want. Sometimes they want something that doesn’t support the experience you are trying to create– Ghost Recon FPS mode / Fallout 3– Resident Evil 5 Run & Gun / Machete