On Game Design

2 On Game Design esign is essentially a synonym for plan . When we design a game, we not only have to plan what kinds of actions will be possible in a game, but also all of the types of interactions that could take Dplace . Game design is all about planning . In this chapter, I’ll be giving a detailed walk-through of what I believe to be the best approach to creat- ing games that will stand the test of time . Th e best way to start is to fi lter out any bad reasons we may have for wanting to make games . The Medium and the Message Th e fi rst thing to ask when you’re about to embark on the journey of game design is, am I sure that a game is what I want to make? Because of the almost limitless technology available to a digital game designer, it’s tempting to believe that games are a good place to express just about anything . While it’s true that you can express anything in a digital inter- active application, a game is a specifi c thing . A game is a system of rules in which agents compete by making endogenously meaningful decisions . Th is sort of a system is very good at expressing abstract concepts such as spatial relationships—as in, this object is above that object—and numeric expressions—or, agent A has more of resource X than agent B . 19 20 Game Design Theory These kinds of relationships also extend into larger themes such as terri- tory control, prediction, adaptation, risk management, and many more . Often, the real themes of deep games (such as Go) are difficult to put into words . As noted in Chapter 1, game designer Frank Lantz has described a game of Go as a complex visual representation of the intertwined thought patterns of two players . This is the sort of theme that you can actually abstract from game mechanisms . Can you also express a literal theme, such as love of a father, in a game? The most obvious way to do this would be to add nongame ma- terial such as cutscenes or dialogue (i e. ,. cinema or prose) in order to express your theme . Although our broad usage of the word game to refer to digital entertainment software may lead us to say that the game is expressing the theme, in reality the game parts of the game cannot do this . In more recent years, some developers have taken to the task of expressing a literal idea through the use of an abstract system . Rod Hum- ble’s The Marriage is one such example . In The Marriage, the player loosely controls two squares on a single screen . You have various ways of making the squares grow and shrink, and overall the application is meant to say something about marriage itself . But is The Marriage a game? I would say definitely not, because it lacks a goal—it’s not a con- test between different agents . Several examples of so-called art games (a term that I personally find offensive) make similar attempts to express ideas . However, in every case it’s clear that a game is not making a home for literal expressions . If your goal is to express a literal idea, there are almost certainly better media to do so . Questions to Ask Here are a few questions that you should ask yourself before you start to design a game . If your answer is yes to any of these questions, you should consider another medium . Remember: games aren’t better than other media . In our culture and era, it can be easy to fall prey to a misguided Downloaded by [University of North Carolina, Charlotte] at 10:12 06 January 2017 desire to make a game when you’d be better off making something else . Is your goal to tell a story? Consider a linear, temporal medium such as prose, cinema, or comics . I’ll get into this more in the next section . Is your goal to feature a character? Again, stories tend to be the best way to reveal who a character really is by showing the decisions he or she makes . In a game, the player makes the decisions, not the character . Is your goal to feature a physical object, image, or setting? I have heard many novice game designers describe their ideas for games Chapter 2 . On Game Design 21 that are little more than an idea about a magic sword, or a post- apocalyptic desert world, or some such thing . What should be obvious is that these aren’t ideas for games . All of these are great subjects for portraiture, since they are visual or verbal descrip- tions of persons or things . Consider a painting, a photograph, or video art instead . Really, the question to ask first is: will interactivity help me do what I want to do? Further: will a game system, with its goals, its competition, and its player interaction be helpful? The answer may very well be no, and you’ll be much better off if you start in the right medium . Games and Story First, I should make clear what I mean by story . I often see people using this word to describe an emergent story; a story that unfolds as a natural process of any game . This is not the kind of story that I am talking about here—obviously, any game (or really, any activity) will yield an emergent story . What I’m talking about is a prewritten narrative, as is seen in games like Final Fantasy VII or Half-Life . Since digital-game technology allows for stories in games, more and more games include them . Some video games that are considered the greatest of all time not only include story but are actually based on story . Games like The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time, Final Fantasy VII, and Metal Gear Solid set the standard for modern video games . Very few in the game-development world are willing to challenge these sacred games, which I think limits the new games we create to only being as good as them . The real question is, does the presupposition that games should have a story help or hurt digital games? Let’s look again quickly at our definition for a game . Game: a system of rules in which agents compete by making ambigu- ous decisions . Downloaded by [University of North Carolina, Charlotte] at 10:12 06 January 2017 The dictionary defines story as “an account of imaginary or real people and events told for entertainment ”. This definition is fine, but for our purposes it may be more useful to define story using the language below . Story: a telling of a sequence of events . It’s important to note that a story is essentially a list . An account cannot have two possible first events, since only one thing can happen first . A story is sequential: this, then this, then this . We therefore can draw the experience of story in a straight line with nodes representing 22 Game Design Theory Story Game End End Start Start Figure 7 . A rough representation of the shape of a story versus that of a game . various events . I need to make clear that I’m by no means saying that stories are simpler than games . Both stories and games are complex “machines” that actually have to function, each in their own way . Good stories have many threads that interweave with each other in a grace- ful and beautiful way . In terms of what the user experiences, they are linear lists of events (Figure 7, left) . Games, however, do not consist of linear lists of events (Figure 7, right) . The experience is more like a constantly evolving and emerging web, since as players go through them, the nodes and connections (the possibilities and choices) are changing . It’s not always clear to players how nodes are connected—in fact, getting better at a game is a process of getting better at predicting the future structure of the web . When we can completely map out the entire web of a game (as we can do with any story we’ve seen before), the game actually is “solved” and becomes use- Downloaded by [University of North Carolina, Charlotte] at 10:12 06 January 2017 less to us (think tic-tac-toe, in which most adults know with certainty the optimal move in any situation) . So those who are interested in making a story-based game essentially are left with the three options below . Cutscenes. The most common way to create story-based games is to use cutscenes . With this method the application essentially bounces back and forth between a movie and allowing the user to play the game parts . It has become more clear to most developers that this method is a somewhat sloppy solution and players will probably grow more and more irritated by it as time goes on, since having a play experience interrupted is frustrating . Metal Chapter 2 . On Game Design 23 Gear Solid, Gears of War, and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time all rely on cutscenes . Allowing the story to trump interactivity. When the story trumps interactivity it’s sometimes referred to as “being on rails ”. Apps that exhibit this model of story typically give players very little choice over how the game goes . Often they’re required to simply move down a linear corridor for the entire length of the game, sometimes with small bits of “gaming” thrown in to keep it inter- esting .

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