Game Design Concepts By Orin Bishop A thesis presented to the Independent Studies Program of the University of Waterloo in fulfilment of the thesis requirements for the degree Bachelor of Independent Studies (BIS) Waterloo, Canada 2009 Thesis Abstract “ Game Design Concepts ” Bachelor of Independent Studies University of Waterloo © 2009 Orin Bishop The term “game design” is not well defined; it is used to mean many different things which oftentimes are only peripherally related to the actual design process, and many books purportedly on the subject do not adequately cover the core concepts of game design proper. The purpose of this thesis is to explore the more formal aspects of game design separate from other aspects of games such as art, production, audio, and programming. My objective is to flesh out a set of guidelines that can be applied across all types and media including both digital and non-digital games, and touch upon various difficulties and challenges that a game designer is likely to face in each stage of the design process from initial concept to playtesting and tweaking. Along the way I provide specific examples of how formal gameplay might be altered by specific changes to internal logic and mathematics, and how this might affect the experience for the players. The focus is on games as formal, mathematical systems, and I examine games from their basic elements outwards, though I also explore such topics as the incorporation of theme and narrative into formal gameplay. Throughout the thesis I present a number of different ways of looking at and thinking about gameplay, with the hope that the reader may emerge with a clearer vision of the underlying formal systems of all games. I hereby declare that I am thesole author ofthis research paper. I authorize the University of Waterloo to lend thisresearch paper to other institutions or individuals for the purpose of scholarly research. Ii/\-a y 4 I 2 0 0 7 (signature) (date) I furtherauthorize the University of Waterloo to reproduce this research paper by photocopying or by other means, in total or in part, at the request of other institutions or individuals for the purpose ofscholarly research. M -a-'/ 41 LOO J (signature) (date) 2 Thanks to Lewis Pulsipher, Neil Randall, Scott Nicholson and Ian Schreiber for their guidance and feedback, all of my friends for their countless hours of playtesting, and my parents for believing in my childish obsession. Table of Contents Section 1: What is Game Design? Section 2: Skill and Choice Section 3: Constructing a Formal System Section 4: Victory and Game Over Section 5: The Role of Chance Section 6: Testing Properly Section 7: Common Design Problems Section 8: What are Games? - Section 1 - What is Game Design? Games have existed throughout all of human history, from ancient Egyptian roll-and- move race games, to Mesoamerican ball and hoop sports, up through modern first- person-shooters. Games have always been and always will be with us, but how they are created has and undoubtedly will change. Within the last few decades in particular, games have shifted from being things that evolved and passed from generation to generation, to things that are actively being created. A new profession has rapidly emerged and is steadily rising in prominence, that of the Game Designer. So what exactly is this profession? What is game design? That is perhaps the main question that this book is attempting to answer. There are many disciplines that relate tangentially to game design: game theory, systems design, economic (microeconomics more so than macroeconomics), psychology, sociology, political science. The problem is that none of these fields teach anything that is particularly close or relevant to actual game design. Game theory and systems design might be the closest, but even they fall drastically short of imparting any sort of impression of what it is to design a game except perhaps inadvertently. The truth is that game designers can learn and draw inspiration from almost anything, but “game design” as a formal discipline is still in its infancy. With this book, I am attempting to paint a picture of what I see the game design as; not programming, not graphics or sound design, not marketing or production, but game design proper. Whether you are an aspiring designer or just an interested reader, I hope that I can in some way change or enhance your perception of what I see as a deep, noble and worthwhile pursuit. 5 Formal and Experiential There are essentially two basic ways of looking at games, as physical or digital things that people play, or as mathematical systems. The first will be referred to as a game’s “experiential” structure/gameplay, and the second will be referred to as a game’s “formal” structure/gameplay. Ultimately, experiential gameplay is all that matters because that is what players will see and play, and at this experiential level the game must be fun or engaging in some way or else players will not want to play it. But a game designer cannot directly affect experiential gameplay; he or she cannot always be in the room with the players making sure they are having fun. The only thing the game designer has control over is the game’s formal structure. This can be manipulated in any way the designer can imagine and engineer, and this will effect changes on the game’s experiential structure. The problem is that it is almost always difficult to anticipate how the experiential structure will be affected by any given change. Games are complex systems. If they are not sufficiently complex, they will fail to hold players’ interests. To achieve a sufficient level of complexity, a game’s different elements will be interlocked to a certain degree, affecting each other in subtle ways. Because of this complexity, the tweaks that one makes to a game’s formal system are likely to result in complex changes to the entire system that are hard to predict. The problem is that talking about changes to games as formal systems is often meaningless, the changes and their ramifications only become evident when we try actually playing the game, and then any problems will only be seen and described in terms of experiential gameplay. A designer must learn to transition between these two levels, to learn and understand how the game’s formal structure creates the experiential one, and then to translate the experiential problems back to formal ones and make appropriate changes. The central way to learn what ramifications various changes might have is to play the game many, many times until you become familiar with it at both a formal and experiential level. This process is called “iterative” design, the notion that you make a change in the game’s formal system, play the game (usually multiple times without further changes), and then use the feedback you got from other players, as well as your own impressions, to devise further changes. Wash, rinse, repeat. This idea of a cycle of 6 testing and changing is so essential to good game design that there is a section of this book devoted to it, but let us for now just say that this is central to what a game designer does to improve a game’s experiential structure. Uncertainty So what should a game’s experiential structure be like? There are many things one can strive for when making a game, but the first element that your game must have is some degree of “uncertainty.” Without this basic ingredient, it isn’t really a game at all. Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman explain this well in their book Rules of Play: One way to understand why games need uncertainty is that if the outcome of the game is predetermined, the experience cannot provide meaningful play. If a game has no uncertainty – if the outcome of the game is completely predetermined – then any choices a player makes are meaningless, because they do not impact the way that the game plays out. Meaningful play arises from meaningful choices. If a player’s choices have no meaning in the game, there really is no reason to play. There is an intrinsic connection between uncertainty and meaningful play. Uncertainty is usually thought of as something that disempowers players by removing a sense of choice and agency, yet paradoxically, it is the uncertain outcome of a game that allows players to feel like their decisions have an impact on the game. So how does one make the outcome of a game more uncertain? There are many different methods, but they essentially fall into two categories: Things that make a game more random, and things that make it more complex. The outcome of a game of Chess is uncertain despite the fact that it has no random elements (ignoring the possible coin-flip at the start for White or Black) because it is sufficiently complex, not in the rules themselves, but in their ramifications (though the rules themselves do create these ramifications). It is not simply that the winner is uncertain; indeed, if one player is sufficiently more skilled it is very likely that they will win. But this may not matter because how they will win is not known to either player until the last few moves. The interactions between the limited elements in the game create a vast sea of emergent 7 complexity that will be nearly opaque to the beginner and still somewhat murky even to the master. If we look at a completely different sort of game, Snakes and Ladders, we see that how this game will progress will also be uncertain.