Game Design: Theory & Practice- P6 doc

entirely if they figure out how to rob a particular townsperson. From there, the player is able to move freely about the next five islands, picking which ones he wants to explore and which he prefers to just pass through. Indeed, all that is required for the player to reach the seventh island and the end-game is for the player to successfully navigate each island, killing the monsters that get in his way. Of course, killing those creatures is made significantly easier if the player receives the rewards for completing the quests. But if the player so chooses, he can skip the entire middle of the game. Of course, few players have done this, preferring instead to explore the different quests and situations they encounter there. Nearly every sin - gle one of these quests has multiple ways for the player to solve it, with his actions having a direct impact on how each of the island’s mini-stories resolves. Finally, the game itself has multiple endings for the player to explore, endings which suit the different overall goals the player may have: survival, revenge, or a sort of justice and harmony. Though the game had a very definite story, I am happy to say that I doubt very much that any two players ever experienced it in exactly the same way. Non-linearity is an extremely powerful tool to use in designing a game, and the descriptions above of the types of non-linearity a designer can employ may seem obvious to the reader. What is astonishing, then, is how many games fail to provide any substantial non-linearity for the player, instead insisting that the player play through the game on a single line from point A to point B. One reason for this is that creating all of these non-linear elements can be quite time consuming. Consider that between point A and B, we have the aforementioned challenges X, Y, and Z, but the player only has to overcome one of these challenges in order to progress, say challenge X. The player can then continue playing through to the end of the game having never interacted with challenge Y or Z. As a non-linear game, that is the player’s prerogative. The problem arises when a cost accountant looks at the game and tries to figure out where the game’s budget can be trimmed. Well, obvi - ously, if Y and Z are not strictly necessary, why bother having them at all? Why spend a lot of money on the programming, art, and design necessary to get Y and Z working when there’s a chance the player will never see them? Unfortunately, accountants are often not in touch with the finer points of game design, and when you say, “But non-linearity is what makes this game great!” they are likely to dis - miss you as “difficult.” Non-linearity is also often hard to pull off from a design perspective, certainly harder than simple linearity. This may be another reason why so many designers shy away from it at the first opportunity. Designing numerous obstacles that are dif - ferent enough to provide variety for players while all applying roughly the same challenge is not an easy task. In the X, Y, and Z challenges example, if Z is signifi - cantly easier than X or Y, it is quite likely no one will ever bother with X or Y. In a way, a game with poorly designed choices for the player is nearly as linear as a game without any choices at all. The non-linearity your game provides must be 128 Chapter 7: The Elements of Gameplay TEAMFLY Team-Fly ® meaningful and useful to the player or it is a waste. Designers who think too highly of their own design skills may also avoid non-linearity in their designs because they want the player to experience every single element of the game they decide to include. “Why spend a lot of time on portions of the game that not everyone will see?” say these egotistical designers, starting to sound a lot like the accountants. The Purpose of Non-Linearity It is important to always remember that non-linearity is included in the game to pro - vide the player some meaningful authorship in the way she plays the game. If forced to stay on a specific line to get from the beginning of the game to the end, the player will tend to feel trapped and constrained. The challenges along that line may be bril - liantly conceived, but if the player has no choice but to take them on in order, one by one, the fun they provide will be greatly decreased. Non-linearity is great for providing players with a reason to replay the game. Replaying a game where the player has already overcome all of the challenges is not that much fun. In replaying a more non-linear game, however, players will be able to steer away from the challenges they succeeded at the last time they played and instead take on the game’s other branches. However, it is important to note that replayability is not the main motivation for including non-linearity in your game designs. I have heard some game designers complain that replayability is unneces- sary since so many players never manage to finish the games they start playing anyway. So if they never finish, why add replayability? These designers do not real- ize that the true point of non-linearity is to grant the player a sense of freedom in the game-world, to let each player have a playing experience unique to himself, to tell his own story. If the player wants to replay the game again, that is fine, but the primary goal of non-linearity is to surrender some degree of authorship to the player. Furthermore, the contention that players seldom finish games and hence the games do not need to be non-linear is a self-fulfilling prophecy. The reason players fail to finish games is often because they become stuck at one particular juncture in the game. This may be a boss-monster who is too difficult, a puzzle that is too con - founding, or merely failing to find the exit from a given area. If the game were more non-linear, however, players would have much less chance of getting stuck at any point in the game, since the variety of paths available would increase the likeli - hood that the player’s unique talents would be sufficient for him to make it successfully past one of them. At a Game Developer’s Conference talk entitled “A Grand Unified Game The - ory,” Noah Falstein suggested that when non-linearity allows the players to tackle a series of required challenges in whatever order they desire, completing one chal - lenge should make the others easier for the player to accomplish. In the case of a Chapter 7: The Elements of Gameplay 129 collection of puzzles, this can be done by providing the player with a hint about the other puzzles once he completes one of them. In the case of a collection of battles of some sort, this can be done by providing the player with additional weaponry with which to survive the other battles. Whatever the case may be, using this tech - nique increases the chance that the player will be able to overcome the challenges at hand and get on with the game. A note of caution: all designers should understand that non-linearity is not about having the player wander around the game-world aimlessly. If the game is non-linear to the point where the player has no idea what she is supposed to try to accomplish or how she might go about it, the non-linearity may have gone too far. Often game designers talk up their in-development games by making statements like “In our game-world, the player can do anything they want; there are no restric - tions. The game is completely non-linear!” Such a game would likely be completely annoying as well. Of course, by the time these “completely non-linear” games have shipped most of the non-linearity has been stripped out and the player is left solving puzzles on a rail. Somewhere between “on a rail” games and total freedom lies an ideal middle ground, where the player is left with a sense of free- dom accompanied by a sense of guidance. Modeling Reality The desire to model reality in computer games is one that has driven game develop- ment for a number of years. The more real we make the games, the proponents say, the more compelling and immersive gamers will find them. But is this always the case? What would a greater degree of reality add to a game like Tetris or Centipede? Surely they could not be much more immersive than they already are. Consider a game such as Civilization, which is already modeled on reality. Would adding more reality to it make it any more fun? Actually, quite the opposite is true: adding a more realistic economic model or combat system would detract from the game’s strengths as a macro-strategy game and quite possibly make the game more annoy - ing than fun. The trouble with modeling reality in games comes when the games get mired in reality to the point where they come to resemble real life a little more than players actually want. Alfred Hitchcock described films as “Life with the dull bits cut out.” Indeed, games can be seen as modeling life or some aspect of life while leaving out the tedious and boring parts. If the designer, in an attempt to achieve a greater degree of reality, decides to include too many unnecessary and dull details, the game will likely become tedious to play. My favorite example of this is the use of food in RPGs. Many RPGs of the ’80s were perpetually on a quest to make them - selves more real than other RPGs, to up the ante with each new game that was released. One way designers attempted to do this was to add food, and to require 130 Chapter 7: The Elements of Gameplay the player to remember to feed his characters periodically, lest they starve to death. Here was a “dull bit” that did not need inclusion, especially as eating regularly scheduled meals is not the first thing that jumps to people’s minds when they think of adventuring in hostile worlds. Using reality as a basis for your game has its advantages, however. First and foremost, it provides players with a world they are instantly familiar with, a world in which they have some idea of what actions are reasonable and which are out of the question. Whether in Civilization, SimCity,orDeadline, a properly executed realistic setting gives players an instant “in” to your game-world. They understand or at least think they understand how it works and what they can do to be successful in it. Players can start playing the game and instantly have some idea of what they are supposed to accomplish. A more abstract game like Centipede or Tetris,onthe other hand, has such abstract goals that players must be taught what it is they are supposed to do, either through reading the directions or by experimenting with the game-world. A potential downside to having a realistic world is that, since the game mimics a reality players are familiar with, players will expect certain game-world elements to work in a certain way and will be very quick to notice when something fails to do so. For example, many of the early first-person shooters, such as Doom and Marathon, did not allow the player character to jump. The worlds of these first-person shooters were more “realistic” than the worlds game players were accustomed to finding in computer games, so real that the players’ expectations were raised and many were quick to complain that they could not jump over even Chapter 7: The Elements of Gameplay 131 Early first-person shooters such as Marathon did not allow the player to jump or crouch. But the realistic nature of FPS titles soon caused players to demand such features be added. waist-high obstacles. So the next generation of FPS titles added the ability to jump, then to crouch, then look up and down, and so on and so forth, making the games still more complicated with each element of reality added. Now, as the worlds pos - sible with RT3D engines look more real than ever, players are constantly asking questions such as “Why can’t I lie flat on the ground? I can do that in real life; why not in the game?” Some would say that, certainly for the novice players, these FPS games have grown too complex as a result of their attempt to model reality. Bringing in a certain level of reality raises players’ expectations in a way that the totally abstract world of a Centipede or Tetris never does. Players never question their capabilities in these worlds because the boundaries were completely arbitrary in the first place. So is there a definitive answer to whether or not you should model reality in your game? Of course not, just as there are no easy answers in all of game design, and as there are no easy answers in art. As a game designer you must strike the bal- ance between reality and abstraction, weighing what your game needs from a gameplay standpoint with what your story and setting require and with what your engine can reasonably handle. What is vital to remember, and what many designers often forget, is that more reality is not always a good thing. Teaching the Player Attempting to model reality may be one way to give players an advantage going into your game-world; through their own life experiences, players will know to some extent what to expect of your game-world. However, even with the most real- istic game, players need time to learn how to play your game, and this learning experience is often a crucial time in a player’s overall experience with your game. The first few minutes a player spends with your game will often make the difference between whether she wants to continue playing it or not. Whenever a player tells a friend about your game, she will often remember those first few minutes and say, “Well, it was a little weird to get used to” or, preferably, “It was great. I jumped right into the game and found all this cool stuff.” In the past, many computer games relied on manuals to teach players how to play them. With some titles players literally had almost no chance of success in the game without first reading a large chunk of the manual. Today many games try to get away from this reliance on the player’s reading ability, realizing that often the last thing a player wants to do when he has just purchased a new game is to sit down and read an extensive instructional manual. Players definitely have a strong desire to just pick up the controller and start playing the game. Now that so many games allow the player to do just that, the importance of allowing the player to “jump right in” has increased. If your game is too difficult to get a handle on within the first minute, the player is likely to put it down and try something else. 132 Chapter 7: The Elements of Gameplay This does not mean that your game has to be dumbed down or simplified, merely that you must introduce the complexity of your game-world through the gameplay instead of through the manual. For example, at first your game should start out requiring the player to perform only the simplest of actions. Say you are creating a third-person over-the-shoulder action/adventure game akin to Tomb Raider. It makes the most sense to first teach the player how to move the player around correctly on the ground. Then, after the player has had a chance to become accustomed to the horizontal movement controls, you might introduce a section where the player has to jump to cross a canyon or climb up a cliff. After enough of that, you might want to introduce some simple combat challenges, where the player will learn how to use his character’s weapons. It is important that during the introduction of these controls the player is in a safe environment that engenders learning. If the player already has to worry about dying at every step and the game is generally unforgiving of the player’s mistakes, chances are good that the player will become frustrated quickly. Half-Life did this particularly well, with an introduction to the game that provided a safe yet interest - ing environment and allowed the player to become accustomed to the controls without immediately threatening him. Prince of Persia was another game that was particularly good at introducing challenges to the player in a way that taught the player through example instead of by punishing him. For instance, when the player first encounters a break-away floor in Prince of Persia falling through it is non-lethal. Similarly, spikes are introduced in such a way that the player is very likely to notice them and to be able to survive them. Subsequent encounters with spikes will not be so forgiving, but by then the player has learned of the threat they Chapter 7: The Elements of Gameplay 133 Prince of Persia carefully taught the player what to expect of traps such as collapsing floors and sharp spikes. pose to his game-world character, and if he is clever he will be able to survive them. Rewards During this learning period in the game, it is important to reward the player for even the simplest of accomplishments. This makes the player feel that, indeed, he is on the right track with the game and encourages him to keep playing. It is true that players do not want their games to be too simple and too unchallenging, but punish - ing them for blunders from the very start of the game is not the right way to produce this challenge. The key is to give the player success early on, to draw him into the game, to make him think that he knows what the game is all about, that he is better than it. “Ha ha, this game is easy, I rule!” he may say. And then, when the game becomes suddenly more challenging, the player will already have been drawn into the game and will be much more likely to see the challenge as a reasonable one, one that he can surely overcome. After all, this game is easy, right? Recently, many complex games have started introducing the player to the gam- ing world through a tutorial level which exists outside of the game-world proper. The player can access this tutorial world through the main menu as an alternative to starting a “real” game. These tutorial levels are generally a good idea and are cer- tainly an improvement over teaching the player about the game in the manual. The tutorial levels do one of the things that computers do best: provide an interactive learning experience. The one problem with tutorial levels is that they are seldom much fun to play, and as a result many players will skip them and head straight for the actual game. There is a feeling among players that the tutorial level is not part of the “real” game, and many players want to start playing this “real” game as soon as possible. If the designer includes a tutorial level because he wants to make his game difficult from the very beginning and avoid teaching the player how to play through the gameplay, players who skip the tutorial will become frustrated. Tutorial levels are good for players who want that sort of educational prelude to the game, but they must not replace making the beginning of the game itself easy to play. Again, Half-Life provided a tutorial level that taught players about the game-world, but the tutorial worked in conjunction with the beginning of the actual game itself, which was quite easy to play and had a friendly learning curve. Of course, making the tutorial level as entertaining as possible goes a long way toward encouraging players to actually play it. Often these tutorial levels include instructions which explain what keys or but - tons the player is supposed to press in order to achieve certain effects. Often voice-overs with accompanying on-screen text tell the player to “Press the spacebar to fire your primary weapon” or “Press and hold down the blue X for a super jump.” Some games go so far as to actually tell the player during gameplay what 134 Chapter 7: The Elements of Gameplay the controls are, such as Crash Bandicoot. These detailed explanations of what the player is required to do in order to be successful can be quite a boon to making a complex game easier to pick up. Even beyond that, however, games like Spyro The Dragon and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time go so far as to have actual game characters tell the player character what the controls for the game are. “Spyro, press and hold the blue button in order to glide,” the friendly elder dragon says in the for- mer game. I think this goes too far and totally shatters the player’s suspension of disbelief. The in-game characters should not know anything about the player and certainly nothing about a PlayStation controller. However, I do think it is helpful to remind players of the game’s controls while they are playing, through more removed GUI displays and non-game character voice-overs. Many modern games include such sophisticated controls that they are likely to alienate non–hard-core gamers, and reminding novice players of what they need to do in order to perform a certain move is a good idea. I would say that, in retrospect, all of my games have been too difficult, and cer - tainly too hard for the player to get into. Damage Incorporated may have done the best job at introducing the player to the game-world through easy early levels. One game that erred in the opposite direction is Odyssey, my turn-based RPG. In it the player starts off shipwrecked on an island, without any weapons or possessions of any kind. I wanted the player to, immediately, be frightened and need to find a safe place to hide in a nearby cave. I achieved this by having a few monsters start charg - ing in the player’s direction a few turns after the player arrives on the beach. The player has no chance of defeating these creatures on his own, and needs to enter the nearby cave to survive. Originally, I had the cave hidden in the woods, making it Chapter 7: The Elements of Gameplay 135 Console titles such as The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time are good at teaching the player how to control the game. hard for the player to find and thereby making the game even more unforgiving. Fortunately, my playtesters convinced me that the introduction was too hard, and I moved the cave out into the open where the player could easily see it. However, the problem remained that, before the player even has a chance to become familiar with the controls, she is assaulted by strange monsters, with no real idea of what she is supposed to do about it. I often wonder how many players were frightened away by this overly challenging introduction and never played the rest of the game as a result. Input/Output Your game’s input and output systems are two of the primary factors that determine how steep the learning curve for your game is and whether a player will find it intu - itive to play. Using the input/output systems you design, the player must be able to control and understand the game effortlessly. Designing these systems is one of the hardest aspects of game design, since, if they are designed well, the player will not even know they are there. But if they are designed poorly, players will become eas- ily frustrated, complaining that the game’s controls prevent them from doing what they really want to do in the game. Designing input and output systems are “invisi- ble” arts in that the goal of their creation is for them to be transparent to the player. This can sometimes lead to designers failing to fully consider how to best make the I/O work in their game, a mistake you must avoid if you want your games to be any fun to play. Controls and Input Nothing is more frustrating than, as a player, knowing exactly what you want your game-world character to do but being unable to actually get him to do that because the controls will not let you. Good gameplay is never about trying to figure out the controls themselves; keep the puzzles in the game-world, not in the control scheme. The controls are the player’s interface between the real-world and game-world. In order for the player to experience true immersion in the game-world the player must be able to manipulate the game-world exactly as intuitively as he manipulates the real-world. Every time the player has to think “Now, what button do I have to press to do that?” that immersion is destroyed. Though the controls for many computer games seem to be getting more and more complex, particularly those for 3D action games, there is a lot to be said for keeping your controls simple. Indeed, a lot of the success of games like Diablo, Command & Conquer, and The Sims can be attributed to the fact that the player can play these games one-handed, controlling everything with only the mouse. The mouse is an extremely powerful input device when used correctly. Its great strength 136 Chapter 7: The Elements of Gameplay is that it is a control device with which most non-gamer computer users are already familiar. This makes mouse-only games very easy to jump into, since they mini- mize the time the user must spend learning controls. A big part of designing a good mouse-based interface is making a system that does not look as sterile and business-like as the Windows file manager yet retains its ease of use. Making the interface look attractive is mostly a matter of well- conceived art, but making it attractive without losing any of its intuitiveness and functionality can be quite challenging. Whenever an artist suggests making a button look a certain way, the designer must consider if the new design takes away from the player’s ability to understand what that button does. Often, you can borrow clearly understood icons from other interfaces, either from other games or from real-world devices such as VCRs or CD players. For example, everyone knows what a “fast forward” symbol on an audio device looks like, and using this appro - priately in your game will mean that players instantly know what a given button does. Making buttons in your game that players can intuitively understand and that also look attractive is equal parts creativity and playtesting. If the people playtesting your game tell you your buttons are unobvious and confusing, they probably are, and you need to return to the drawing board. A common game design mistake is to try to include too much. This applies to all aspects of gameplay, but particularly to controls, where sometimes the cliché “Less is more” really holds true. Every time you add a new button or key to your game, you must ask yourself if the complexity you have just added to the game’s controls is worth the functionality it enables. When designing a PC game the temp - tation is particularly great, since the keyboard provides more keys than any game Chapter 7: The Elements of Gameplay 137 The Diablo series’ extremely simple controls make it one of the most easy-to- learn games available. Pictured here: Diablo II. [...]... controls that allows the player to enjoy the rest of what the game has to offer Chapter 7: The Elements of Gameplay 141 Output and Game- World Feedback While the player’s ability to intuitively control the game- world may be key to a successful game, outputting information about that game- world to the player is just as important Computer games contain numerous complex systems, commonly performing more... because the game s engine was not fast enough to handle rendering the game- world full screen As engine technology has improved, games have attempted to make the gameworld view take up the vast majority of the screen, with the GUI minimized as much as possible Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee did away with an in -game GUI entirely, giving the player an unobstructed view of the game- world A very few games try to... the game immune to criticism? It would appear something about the game s simplicity and clearness of design vision make even the most cynical game developer concede the game s greatness Contrary to what happened with Myst, when Tetris was first released, most of the gaming press dwelled on the game s origins in Russia and seemed underwhelmed, or at least unexcited, by the title’s gameplay The game. .. to ending his game As gameplay progresses, the speed at which these blocks fall from the top of the screen increases, thus increasing the challenge for the player and ramping up the difficulty over the course of the game Another similarity between Tetris and action games that further distinguishes it from other puzzle games is the variety of gameplay situations Tetris can create: each game a player... familiar they are with computer games, can walk up to the game and start playing it immediately However, a player will never be able to fully master the game due to the game s ramping-up difficulty and the potential for infinitely long games l No Story: Tetris has even less story than most classic arcade games, and is the case most often cited by people who want to point out that games do not need stories... the game- world actions the player can perform into just a few, focused controls This leads directly to games that are easier to learn how to play Indeed, many of the most popular console games do not even use all of the controller’s buttons Because of the massive keyboard at their disposal, designers of PC games are not forced to focus the controls of their games in the same way, and I think their games... that, perhaps, the press found themselves incapable of writing enthusiastically about the game at least at first Now that the game is an undisputed classic, any game critic will be happy to tell you about the hundreds of hours she spent blissfully lost in the game Gameplay in Tetris is exceedingly uncomplicated The game- world is a tall, rectangular, 2D box Blocks appear at the top of the box The blocks... the blocks But by taking the puzzle and changing it into a game that could only happen on the computer, Pajitnov ended up creating a unique new game, which is far more entertaining than the original Many times when members of the computer game intelligentsia refer to a game as being a puzzle game, they do so with derision For them a puzzle game is one that presents a series of static puzzles to the... you set out to develop a game Of course, this is far from a complete list, and as you work as a game designer you will accumulate your own personal list of elements which you feel contribute to good gameplay No one can say for certain what the elements of good game design are Each game designer must decide that for herself This personal preference is part of what makes each game bear the distinct stamp... classic arcade game form had stopped being used by professional arcade game developers Looking over the list of classic arcade game qualities described in the Centipede analysis in Chapter 4, we can see just how Tetris fits the guiding principles of the form 150 Chapter 8: Game Analysis: Tetris Despite being developed years after classic arcade games had fallen out of style, Tetris’s gameplay embodies . detract from the game s strengths as a macro-strategy game and quite possibly make the game more annoy - ing than fun. The trouble with modeling reality in games comes when the games get mired. the game has to offer. 140 Chapter 7: The Elements of Gameplay Output and Game- World Feedback While the player’s ability to intuitively control the game- world may be key to a suc - cessful game, . Elements of Gameplay 145 Chapter 8 Game Analysis: Tetris Designed by Alexey Pajitnov Released in 1987 F ew games are as universally well respected by game developers as Tetris. Often when a game becomes