Games are very complicated pieces of art. Let's just get that out of the way. Obviously, there are many layers to a game. Most basic of these are the coding, visual art, audio art, and environment (level) design. However, just because something is complex, does not mean that creating them has to be.
I've listened to some analyze the various designs of various games to the most tiny details, and it's my opinion that these people are missing the point. Even though creating games is a very complicated exercise, playing them is not. What the user sees at the end of the process, when the game is spilling out onto his or her living room through the TV set or PC monitor, is simple.
The user only experiences what is happening in the game. And from this experience, the user creates an emotion. It is this experience that creates the emotion that should be the focus of the game's designers. By focusing in on this one word, and ignoring all others, the game creator has avoided many pitfalls that other game creators fall into.
These pitfalls exist for various reasons, and not all of them affect the game negatively in the long run. But they are pitfalls, and thus they cannot be positive, and thus they should be avoided.
An example of one of these pitfalls can be found on the recent EGM podcast on 1up.com. The guest was Dennis Dyack, the lead creator of the Xbox 360 game "Too Human". On the podcast, he talks on an E3 2006 demo of Too Human that received negative reviews. According to insiders in the industry, Too Human's flop at E3 was due to the fact that right before the E3 2006 demo, Dyack and his team dumped their old engine, and applied the Unreal engine to their game. Unfortunately, the game's code wasn't optimized for the Unreal engine, and the game's frame-rate dropped to unbearable levels. Thus, when the media played the game at E3, the game was broken.
This is a pitfall. Dennis shouldn't have wasted time preparing a demo for the game if the game wasn't going to be shown properly. Dennis didn't get any usable feedback on the experience his game provided because the demo didn't represent the work the team had done on the game. Because this demo did not help Dennis improve the quality of his game's experience, it was a waste of time.
Frankly, to make a game as good as possible, all time dedicated to the creation of a game must be applied to improving the quality of experience provided by the game. Now, granted, the example mentioned above was probably (hopefully) a temporary pitfall that didn't affect the game in the long term. The bigger, deeper pitfalls, may not be as evident to a game creator, and in some cases, not evident at all.
These pitfalls, are harder to avoid, and sometimes, are unavoidable. Many game developers on the Xbox 360 and PS3 need to rely on Sony and Microsoft for money to make their games (an example would be a publisher demanding better graphics in a game that probably doesn't need better graphics). Because these companies are putting up money for development, they're probably going to want a say in how the game is designed. This may or may not be a pitfall, but generally, it probably is a pitfall. After all, how can a CEO with degrees in business and management possibly know anything about game design when he or she has no experience (in most cases) in designing games?
Therefore, these pitfalls must be overcome by simplifying the thought that goes into the process of game design.
I am currently in the process of designing my own game, Angel Wings, a side scrolling aircraft shooter. When I began the process of game development, I decided to simplify the game's desired experience to one sentence:
"Angel Wings is a side scrolling shooter that challenges the user, and makes that challenge more tolerable through comedy similar to television cartoon humor"
And from that point on, all development in the game is focused on that point. Any time I add a new element to the game, I ask myself "does this fit with that sentence I based the game around?". If it does, the element is added to the game. If it doesn't fit with that sentence, the element is not created.
This, in effect, focuses all those complicated elements of game design that I mentioned above, (coding, visual art, audio art, and environment design) around that once sentence. Thus, when I begin creating a sprite for my game, I ask myself "does this sprite provide a comedic experience for the user?". And when I begin writing code for the object the sprite represents, I ask myself "does this code provide enough challenge for the user?". And after that, when the sprite and code are finished, I ask myself, "does this sprite provide enough comic relief for the user to defer the challenge to make the game enjoyable?".
If the answer to that final question is yes, then the object is finished. And when that question is applied to an entire level of the game, and the answer is yes, that level is finished. And then the question's answer is yes for the entire game, the game is finished.
It is of course, possible to have varying levels of "yes" (one could have "yes" and "oh YES!"), and how high a "yes" you want is often dependent on how hard you're willing to work on a game. And as in any field... often, the harder you work, the better your results will be.
~Alexander
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3 comments:
Hey!
This post is a mess, but I have to say I'm impressed.
The build up of ideas wasn't smooth at all, and the very first sentence is a subject of much debate and would be provocative to the 'academic ones', but in the end, your managed to convince me of the merit of your method of thought.
I think your way is both simple and focused. I think I found me a peer to discuss game design with in a more dedicated manner :)
I have much I want to say, but all in good time.
I feel that the ultimate problem with this mode of thought is that it takes a long time to say very little.
Ultimately, what you've said is that you have to start your design with a specific point in mind, and make sure that the elements of that design actually push that point forward.
That's useful to know, of course. But it tells you nothing about:
1: How to push a particular point forward through design.
2: How to tell whether a particular element is pushing forward with the design correctly.
3: How to tell if multiple elements combined harmonize with one another to push the point forward.
4: How much should be in one portion of the game compared to another, and how fast this transition should be.
5: How to tell if an element breaks the game.
Among other things that I haven't thought of right now.
The problem is that the statement itself doesn't solve anything. It doesn't help a designer actually do something or even test to see if what they're doing works. Or even to define what it means for it to work.
Obviously, given my own blog on the subject, I believe that the minutiae of the design are what creates the purpose, and a deep understanding of how these behave and interact will be paramount in achieving great game design.
Having a clear and specific vision for a project is obviously important. But it's hardly the most important thing.
Taking this game you're making as an example. The quality of your game will be based on how well the difficulty paces with gameplay, how effectively you use the interactive loop, and whether or not the game finds itself in a pathological dimension of game design. Now, your game may look funny and whimsical and so forth, but ultimately, its quality will be dependent on the details of design that you employ and how effectively you employ them.
And nothing in the mechanism of design you put forth here provides a means for that. You simply say, "If this object is 'hard enough', then its done." This doesn't take into account what "hard enough" means. How hard should it be at this point in the game? Should it be harder than another point in the game? In what way should it be hard, compared to another object? What facets of the player's attributes are you trying to exercise when you use this particular object?
It is in this minutiae that you find the true depth of exceptional game design.
After reading your thoughts on simplifying game design, I get the jist of what you are saying, namely that game design should be careful not to diverge from the intended focus of the game, and build around that central point, but after reading nicol's point that excellent game design is distinguished by the level and degree and depth (like the difficulty example he gave), I also agree with his opinion.
That said, I thank you both for your points of view, and I believe they aid me in my game design, to not only be (and remain) focused, but to also pay attention to pacing and detail, as I am sure supposedly differing methods can actually harmonize to meet the goal intended at the outset.
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