GAME DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT

Spring 2017

Dr. Vasile Alaiba

Faculty of Computer Science

“Al. I. Cuza” University Iași, România

One of the most difficult tasks people can perform,

however much others may despise it, is the invention

of good games.

–C.G. Jung

WHAT IS GAME DESIGN?A Playcentric Approach

to Game Design

The Game Designer

■ “Part engineer, part entertainer, part mathematician, and part social director, the role of the game designer is to craft a set of rules within which there are means and motivation to play.” [1]

Why do you play games? ■ Understanding your own answer, and the answers of other

players, is the first step to becoming a game designer.

■ Read more from [1], Chapter 1: The Role of the Game Designer

Who plays games?

■ The average age of game players is now 35 years old, up 5 years since 2012 (it was 30)!

■ The most frequent FEMALE GAME PLAYER is on average 44 years old!

■ Read more from [2].

Interesting Facts

A Playcentric Design Process

■ Core principle:

keep the player experience in mind and test the gameplay with target players through every

phase of development

■ Set Player Experience Goals

– These are not features of the game!

Player Experience Goals Examples

■ players will have to cooperate to win, but the game will be structured so they can never trust each other

■ players will feel a sense of happiness and playfulness rather than competitiveness

■ players will have the freedom to pursue the goals of the game in any order they choose

Iterative Game Design Process aka How to come up with good ideas?

■ Player experience goals are set.

■ An idea or system is conceived.

■ An idea or system is formalized (i.e., written down or prototyped).

■ An idea or system is tested against player experience goals (i.e., playtested or exhibited for feedback).

■ Results are evaluated and prioritized.

– If results are negative and the idea or system appears to be fundamentally flawed, go back to the first step.

– If results point to improvements, modify and test again.

– If results are positive and the idea or system appears to be successful, the iterative process has been completed.

Iterative Process Diagram

THE STRUCTURE OF GAMES

Elements to Consider

When Designing Games

Formal Elements

■ Players

■ Objectives

■ Procedures

■ Rules

■ Resources

■ Conflict

■ Boundaries

■ Outcome

Dramatic Elements

■ Challenge

■ Play

■ Premise

■ Character

■ Story

■ World Building

■ The Dramatic Arc

System Dynamics

■ Objects

■ Properties

■ Behaviors

■ Relationships

■ System Structures

– Economies

– Emergent Systems

■ Information Structure

■ Control

■ Feedback

FORMAL ELEMENTSThe Building Blocks

of a Game

What are Formal Elements?

■ They define the structure of a game.

■ A system without any one of these elements ceases to be a game!

■ Players

■ Objectives

■ Procedures

■ RulesResources

■ Conflict

■ Boundaries

■ Outcome

Players

■ Invitation to Play

– How does the game start?

– Is there any ceremony involved?

■ Number of players

■ Roles

Player Interaction Patterns

■ Single Player versus Game (Solitaire, Tomb Raider)

■ Multiple Individual Players versus Game (Bingo, FarmVille)

■ Player versus Player (Mortal Kombat)

■ Unilateral Competition (Scotland Yard – Mr. X vs detectives)

■ Multilateral Competition (poker, Call of Duty: Black Ops, Starcraft II)

■ Cooperative Play (Journey, Portal 2)

■ Team Competition (soccer, Team Fortress 2)

Objectives

■ Define what players are trying to accomplish within the rules of the game.

■ Should be challenging, but achievable.

Types of Objectives

■ Capture or kill (chess, Quake, WarCraft)

■ Chase (Need for Speed: Rivals, Scotland Yard)

■ Race (backgammon, Asphalt 8: Airborne)

■ Alignment (tic-tac-toe, Tetris, Bejeweled)

■ Rescue or Escape (Super Mario Bros., Prince of Persia)

■ Forbidden Act (Twister)

Types of Objectives

■ Construction (Minecraft, The Sims, Settlers of Catan)

■ Exploration (Zelda, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim)

■ Solution (Gomoco, Tetris, Day of the Tentacle)

■ Outwit (Diplomacy)

Procedures

■ Who does what, where, when, and how?

■ Procedures are the methods of play and the actions that players can take to achieve the game objectives.

■ Are accessed by the player via the controls.

Types of Procedures

■ Starting action: How to put a game into play.

■ Progression of action: Ongoing procedures after the starting action.

■ Special actions: Available conditional to other elements or game state.

■ Resolving actions: Bring gameplay to a close.

Defining Procedures

■ What type of input/output devices will that setting have?

■ Will players have a keyboard and mouse, or will they have a controller? or a touch screen?

■ Will they sit close to a high-resolution screen or several feet away?

Example: Super Mario Bros.

■ Select button: Use this button to select the type of game you wish to play.

■ Start button: Press this button to start the game. If you press it during play, it will pause/unpause the game.

■ Left arrow: Walk to the left. Push button B at the same time to run.

■ Right arrow: Walk to the right. Push button B at the same time to run.

■ Down: Crouch (Super Mario only).

■ A Button

– Jump: Mario jumps higher if you hold the button down longer.

– Swim: When in water, press this button to bob up.

■ B Button

– Accelerate: Press this button to run. If while holding B, you press A to jump, you can jump higher.

– Fireballs: If you pick up a fire flower, you can use this button to throw fireballs.

Rules

■ define game objects

■ define allowable actions by the players

Examples

■ Poker: A straight is five consecutively ranked cards; a straight flush is five consecutively ranked cards of the same suit.

■ Chess: A player cannot move her king into check.

■ Go: A player cannot make a move that recreates a previous state of the board—this means an exact replication of the whole board situation.

■ WarCraft II: To create knight units, a player must have upgraded to a keep and built a stable.

WarCraft II: Unit Properties

Resources

■ In the real world, resources are assets (i.e., natural resources, economic resources, human resources) that can be used to accomplish certain goals.

■ Most games use some form of resources in their systems, such as chips in poker, properties in Monopoly, and gold in WarCraft.

What is a Resource?

■ Resources must have both utility and scarcity in the game system.

■ If they do not have utility, they are like the sushi in Diablo III: a funny and strange thing to find, but essentially useless.

■ If the resources are overly abundant, they will lose their value in the system.

Types of Resources

■ Lives (Space Invaders, Super Mario Bros.)

■ Units (checkers, chess)

■ Health (Diablo)

■ Currency (Ultima Online)

■ Actions, moves, turns (Magic: The Gathering)

■ Power-Ups (Super Mario Bros.)

Types of Resources

■ Inventory (Diablo III)

■ Special Terrain (WarCraft III)

■ Time (speed chess)

Conflict

■ Emerges from the players trying to accomplish the goals of the game within its rules and boundaries.

■ The procedures and rules challenge the players by forcing them to employ a particular skill or range of skills and create a sense of competition or play.

■ This should be enjoyable in some way, so that players will gain the ultimate sense of achievement that comes from participating.

Conflict Examples

■ Pinball: Keep the ball from escaping the field of play using only the flippers or other devices provided.

■ Monopoly: Manage your money and your properties to become the richest player in a tightly constrained real estate market.

■ Quake: Stay alive while player or nonplayer opponents try to kill you.

■ WarCraft III: Maintain your forces and resources while using them to command and control the map objectives.

■ Poker: Outbid opponents based on your hand or your ability to bluff.

Sources of Conflict

■ Obstacles:

– Can be physical (actual objects on the map)

– Can be mental (puzzles)

■ Opponents:

– The other players in a multiplayer game.

– NPCs in a shooter game.

■ Dillemas:

– Stay in or fold in poker.

Boundaries

■ What separate the game from everything that is not the game.

■ For example, the size of the field in football, tennis, the size of the chess board, etc.

■ When combining real-world elements with the game it is mandatory to have boundaries defined, as in City Treasure Hunt.

Outcome

■ For many game systems, producing a winner or winners is the end state of a game.

■ At defined intervals it is checked if a winning state has been achieved.

■ If it has, the system resolves, and the game is over.

Determining Outcome

■ The structure of the final outcome is related to both the player interaction patterns and the objective.

■ For example, single player versus game, the player might either win or lose, or the player might score a certain amount of points before ultimately losing.

■ The outcome can be determined by the nature of the game objective. A game that defines its objective based on points will use those points in the measure of the outcome.

■ Chess games are won or lost based solely on meeting the primary objective, capturing the king.

What Next?

■ To learn more, read Chapter 3: Working with Formal Elements from [1] (p. 55-96).

GENRES OF GAMEPLAYCategorizing Games

by Gameplay Experience

■ Action

■ Strategy

■ Role-Playing

■ Sports

■ Racing/Driving

■ Adventure

■ Simulation/Building

■ Flight and Other Simulations

■ Educational

■ Children

■ Casual

■ Experimental

Other genres, sub-genres or super-genres exist, of course. For example Shooter, Puzzle, Family,

Fighting, etc.

There is no clear standard around how games are actually categorised in genres. For more read

Chapter 15: Understanding the New Game Industry from Game Design Workshop. I used it as a

basis for the genres presented in this lecture.

Genres – are they useful?

■ Genres give designers and publishers a common language for describing styles of play.

■ They form a shorthand for understanding what market a game is intended for.

■ Genres tend to restrict the creative process and lead designers toward tried and true gameplay solutions.

■ Usually games overlap genres, e.g. Final Fantasy XII is a role-playing action game.

Action Games

■ Main features:

– emphasize reaction time and hand–eye coordination

– are real-time experiences, with an emphasis on time constraints for performing physical tasks

■ Examples:

– Battlefield 2

– Grand Theft Auto V (also a racing/driving game)

– Tetris (also a puzzle game)

Strategy Games

■ Main features:– focus on tactics and planning as well as the

management of units and resources– themes revolve around conquest, exploration, and trade

■ Examples:– Civilization IV, StarCraft II, Kingdoms of Camelot

■ Sub-genres:– real-time strategy– turn-based strategy

Role-Playing Games

■ Main features:– revolve around creating and growing characters– include rich story lines that are tied into quests– players develop their characters while managing

inventory, exploring worlds, and accumulating wealth, status, and experience

■ Examples:– Baldur’s Gate, Dungeon Siege, World of Warcraft,

NetHack

Sports Games

■ Main features:

– simulations of sports like tennis, football, baseball, soccer, etc.

– involve team play, season play, tournament modes

■ Examples:

– Madden NFL, FIFA Soccer, NBA Jam, Sega Bass Fishing and Tony Hawk Pro Skater

Racing/Driving Games

■ Main features:

– you are racing and you are in control

– arcade style: ■ Mario Kart

■ Burnout

– racing simulators: ■ NASCAR 07

■ F1 Career Challenge

■ Monaco Grand Prix Racing Simulation

Simulation/Building Games

■ Main features:– focus on resource management combined with building

something– mimic real-world systems and give the player the

chance to manage her own virtual business, country, or city

– focus on economy and systems of trade and commerce

■ Examples:– Farmville 2, The Sims 2, SimCity, RollerCoaster Tycoon,

Gazillionaire, Lemonade Tycoon, Big Pharma

Flight and Other Simulations

■ Main features:

– action games that tend to be based on real-life activities, like flying an airplane or driving a tank, train, etc.

– complex simulators that try to approximate the real-life experience

– they require the player to master realistic and often complex controls and instrumentation

■ Examples:

– Microsoft Flight Simulator, Train Simulator, Agricultural Simulator, Car Mechanic Simulator 2015, Euro Truck Simulator 2

Adventure Games

■ Main features:

– emphasize exploration, collection, and puzzle solving

– the player leads a character on a quest or mission of some kind

– most rely on physical or mental puzzle solving, not improvement and accumulation, for their central gameplay (as opposed to RPG)

■ Examples:

– Adventure and Zork (textdriven)

– Myst, Jak and Daxter, Zelda series, Ratchet & Clank

Educational Games

■ Main features:

– combine learning with fun, the goal is to entertain while educating the user

– most edutainment titles are targeted at kids, but there are some that focus on adults

– an emerging genre with lots of potential!

■ Examples of kids’ educational games:

– Motion Math, DragonBox, and Gamestar Mechanic

■ Examples for adults:

– Brain Age and Foldit

Children’s Games

■ Main features:

– are designed specifically for kids between the ages of 2 and 12

– the primary focus is on entertaining (even if they are sometimes educational)

■ Examples:

– Mario, Donkey Kong (also loved by adults!)

– ClubPenguin.com, Freddi Fish series

Casual Games

■ Main features:

– are meant to be enjoyed by everyone

– often incorporate puzzle elements into their play mechanics

– most are simple games like those hosted on MSN Games or Yahoo! Games

■ Examples:

– Angry Birds, Robot Unicorn Attack

– Tetris is a famous casual game (also an action puzzle game)

– Puzzle Quest Challenge of the Warlords (emphasizes story)

– Scrabble or Solitaire (strategy)

– The Incredible Machine series (construction)

Experimental Games

■ Main features:

– stand outside either the traditional publishing model or the traditional conception of games

– are often independently financed and explore new territory creatively

■ Examples:

– Braid, Journey, Dear Esther

– Super Meat Boy, Everyday Shooter

References

■ [1] Fullerton, T., Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games, CRC Press, 2014

■ [2] * * *, 2016 Sales, Demographic and Usage Data: Essential Facts About the Computer and Video Game Industry, Entertainment Software Association, USA, online: http://essentialfacts.theesa.com/Essential-Facts-2016.pdf