Gameplay Design for Role-Playing Battle Systems Master of Science Thesis Christopher Dristig Stenström Department of Applied Information Technology CHALMERS UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY Gothenburg, Sweden, 2012 Report No. 2012:089 ISSN: 1651-4769 The Author grants to Chalmers University of Technology and University of Gothenburg the non-exclusive right to publish the Work electronically and in a non-commercial purpose make it accessible on the Internet. The Author warrants that he/she is the author to the Work, and warrants that the Work does not contain text, pictures or other material that violates copyright law. The Author shall, when transferring the rights of the Work to a third party (for example a publisher or a company), acknowledge the third party about this agreement. If the Authors has signed a copyright agreement with a third party regarding the Work, the Author warrants hereby that he/she has obtained any necessary permission from this third party to let Chalmers University of Technology and University of Gothenburg store the Work electronically and make it accessible on the Internet. Gameplay Design for Role-Playing Battle Systems Christopher Dristig Stenström ©Christopher Dristig Stenström, June 2012. Examiner: STAFFAN BJÖRK Department of Computer Science and Engineering Chalmers University of Technology, SE-412 96, Göteborg, Sweden Telephone + 46 (0)31-772 1000 Cover: A battle in the role-playing game Final Fantasy 13. Department of Computer Science and Engineering Göteborg, Sweden, June, 2012 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I want to thank Staffan Björk, the supervisor of this research. Mr. Björk has been an asset in this research, in both methodology and how to analyze games. Mr. Björk has also helped me acquire a general understanding of game design since 2010. ABSTRACT This thesis explores role-playing games, an existing genre within the current game industry. Role-playing games have many different parts which together create the whole game experience for the user. However, this research has focused on what arguably can be said to be the core gameplay feature of role-playing games: The battle system. This was mainly conducted by analyzing existing games using different methods, primarily by identifying gameplay design patterns in the games, and comparing them using a cluster method. The use of patterns allowed basic elements for observing and analyzing the relation between different role-playing games while the clusters provide overviews of the subcategories of the role-playing genre. This thesis presents view of the role-playing genre from the perspective of combat systems through two main results. The first result is the trees created by the clusters which explain subgenres through the presence of specific gameplay design patterns. The second result is four categories of patterns: those which illustrate patterns found in nearly all role-playing games; those that define the tree result; those that can have strong impact on gameplay but without affecting subgenre membership; and those that link combat system to other parts of the gameplay. Through this, the research has established a view on the design space of role-playing games and created visualizations of how different role-playing games relate to each other. From this relation a designer can further understand how to design for different gameplay experiences for the user. Table of Contents 1. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................... 7 1.1 Purpose ............................................................................................................................ 7 1.2 Limitations ........................................................................................................................ 8 1.3 Language Explanation ...................................................................................................... 8 1.3.1 Genres shortening ...................................................................................................... 9 1.3.2 Game initials shortenings ........................................................................................... 9 2. THEORY ...............................................................................................................................11 2.1 What is a game? ..............................................................................................................11 2.2 How can we speak about games .....................................................................................13 2.3 What is a role-playing game? ..........................................................................................16 2.3.1 The user has to be able to develop his/her character(s) ............................................18 2.3.2 Player has a party of characters, or an army of characters ........................................19 2.3.3 Only games which the user can beat the game himself/herself .................................20 2.3.4 The Game needs to have a clear end of the game ....................................................21 2.3.5 Battle gameplay emphasis on strategic decisions from the user ................................21 3 BACKGROUND .....................................................................................................................23 3.1 Genres of role-playing games ..........................................................................................25 3.2 Mechanics, dynamics, and gameplay of sub genres of RPG ...........................................31 3.2.1 WRPG .......................................................................................................................31 3.2.2 JRPG ........................................................................................................................33 3.2.3 ARPG ........................................................................................................................35 3.2.4 TRPG ........................................................................................................................36 3.2.5 MMORPG .................................................................................................................38 3.2.6 Shooter RPG .............................................................................................................40 3.2.7 Notes on problematic fusions of battle systems .........................................................42 4 METHODLOGY .....................................................................................................................44 4.1 Methods ..........................................................................................................................44 4.1.1 Interaction Design Methods ..........................................................................................44 4.1.2 Game Design Methods .................................................................................................44 4.1.3 Game Research Methods .............................................................................................45 5 PLANNING ............................................................................................................................49 5.1 Why some methods were not decided to be used ............................................................49 5.2 Methods decided to be used ............................................................................................51 5.3 Time schedule .................................................................................................................53 6. WORK PROCESS ................................................................................................................55 6.1 Pre Study .........................................................................................................................55 6.1.1 Literature ...................................................................................................................55 6.1.2 Motivation for why the specific games were decided to be analyzed .........................56 6.2 Iteration 1 ........................................................................................................................61 6.2.1 Motivation List for games 21-31 ................................................................................65 6.3 Iteration 2 ........................................................................................................................66 6.3.1 Motivation list for games 31-41 ..................................................................................79 6.4 Iteration 3 ........................................................................................................................80 6.5 Iteration 4 ........................................................................................................................84 6.5.1 Empiric Studies .........................................................................................................89 7 RESULT .................................................................................................................................90 7.1 Trees, dispersion of genres .............................................................................................90 7.2 Patterns ...........................................................................................................................94 7.2.1 Ubiquitous patterns ...................................................................................................95