Hey all, here's the first installment.
Lanethan's Musings 1
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
3:45AM
This will be a thread for my thoughts on game design. You (the reader) are encouraged to interact with me, to bounce ideas off of myself and others in the thread. I will primarily be discussing game design theories, both basic and advanced, and how they apply to the projects I'm working on now.
I decided to start this series of posts for a number of reasons: Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, I often find myself wanting for a creative outlet, a place to discuss my ideas on game design (theory as well as practice). Secondly, it is becoming increasingly important for me to write these thoughts down, and to discuss them with others. There is only so much that a man can learn simply by thinking and observing on his own, for true knowledge and understanding only comes when a person interacts with others, and exchanges information and observations.
And so I come to my first topic, and one that is fundamental to the theory of game design: Interaction.
What seperates games from other forms of popular media? Television, film, books and magazines.. while some of these offer a limited degree of interactivity, none of them come close to the video game format.
Computer interface designers have often understood one of the key elements in designing a good interface is the (extremely tangible) concept of feedback. When the user does something, he should understand that what he did had some effect, whether it be a negative result, positive result, or somewhere in between. When you press a button, you expect to see results, and in some cases hear results. Interaction with video games takes this very same premise and brings it to the next level: Not only is feedback important in any game, it is essential to creating what I describe as the "Player Environment."
The "Player Environment" is a loose concept describing the general expectations we expect when we are playing a game. It is comprised of a few key concepts:
1. When we interact with the game, we expect the game to interact back, whether in text format (Remember trying to open locked doors in Doom without the proper keycard?), action on screen (Fire that pistol!), sound effects (Doom, once again, played a grunting noise when the player attempted to 'use' something that was unusable. This "negative feedback" is one of the most recognizable ever created).
2. The player expects that, if he attempts to do something in the gameworld, whether this attempt failed or not, he will be notified within a short period of time that he had tried to do something. Nothing is more frustrating than an instance where a player thinks he can do something, generally because he's been doing similar tasks for a long time, and has no idea that the game isn't even recognizing his attempt.
Interactivity is what defines "Games" as a medium. Essentially, all games boil down to one concept: the tug of war match. Only in this case, the match is between the player(s) and the game system itself, or between more than one player with the game system acting as the 'rope'. All players expect that when they pull on the rope, the game will react and pull back. Thus, game designs are not successful if the player has no idea that the game is responding to their actions.
Tug of war applied to various famous games:
Doom- This game is a tug of war between the player, who is moving through the game world, collecting powerups and fighting monsters, and the game logic, which is actively attempting to destroy the player based on its own set of rules.
Pong- This game uses the 'system as the rope' method: Players compete head to head, using the ruleset of the game, to defeat the other in paddleball combat.
Mortal Kombat- Either player vs. player or player vs. system, but in both cases it is the 'system as the rope' method: Even when players are fighting against the computer, mastery of the fighting system, timing and reaction to changing circumstances, is the real battle here.
In summary, what then comprises good interactivity in games?
1. Feedback is essential. The player should know they are interacting with the game.
2. System reaction is essential. The player should know that the game is interacting with them.
Very basic, but often forgotten rules. As a challenge, name one game you thought had good interactivity, and one that you thought had bad interactivity, and then explain why.
My answer to challenge:
Good- Super Mario Brothers (NES). This game's interactivity was, while it may seem basic now, quite revolutionary for the time. While there were only a few buttons to press, each was given a distinct action that never changed throughout the design- 'B' Button made Mario run and shoot fireballs, 'A' Button made Mario jump (he attempted to jump even if it was impossible in his current state.. the game's negative feedback feels great even to modern gamers), and the D-Pad moved him as expected.
Bad- Friday the Thirteenth (NES). Including glaring flaws in the interface itself (left on the game map does not always mean left in the gameworld! That's a major discrepency, and one which there is no indication of), and problems with interactivity (when moving inside houses, sometimes button presses seem completely ignored, and you feel like you have to force your character to move), this is badly designed game.
Lanethan's Musings 1
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
3:45AM
This will be a thread for my thoughts on game design. You (the reader) are encouraged to interact with me, to bounce ideas off of myself and others in the thread. I will primarily be discussing game design theories, both basic and advanced, and how they apply to the projects I'm working on now.
I decided to start this series of posts for a number of reasons: Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, I often find myself wanting for a creative outlet, a place to discuss my ideas on game design (theory as well as practice). Secondly, it is becoming increasingly important for me to write these thoughts down, and to discuss them with others. There is only so much that a man can learn simply by thinking and observing on his own, for true knowledge and understanding only comes when a person interacts with others, and exchanges information and observations.
And so I come to my first topic, and one that is fundamental to the theory of game design: Interaction.
What seperates games from other forms of popular media? Television, film, books and magazines.. while some of these offer a limited degree of interactivity, none of them come close to the video game format.
Computer interface designers have often understood one of the key elements in designing a good interface is the (extremely tangible) concept of feedback. When the user does something, he should understand that what he did had some effect, whether it be a negative result, positive result, or somewhere in between. When you press a button, you expect to see results, and in some cases hear results. Interaction with video games takes this very same premise and brings it to the next level: Not only is feedback important in any game, it is essential to creating what I describe as the "Player Environment."
The "Player Environment" is a loose concept describing the general expectations we expect when we are playing a game. It is comprised of a few key concepts:
1. When we interact with the game, we expect the game to interact back, whether in text format (Remember trying to open locked doors in Doom without the proper keycard?), action on screen (Fire that pistol!), sound effects (Doom, once again, played a grunting noise when the player attempted to 'use' something that was unusable. This "negative feedback" is one of the most recognizable ever created).
2. The player expects that, if he attempts to do something in the gameworld, whether this attempt failed or not, he will be notified within a short period of time that he had tried to do something. Nothing is more frustrating than an instance where a player thinks he can do something, generally because he's been doing similar tasks for a long time, and has no idea that the game isn't even recognizing his attempt.
Interactivity is what defines "Games" as a medium. Essentially, all games boil down to one concept: the tug of war match. Only in this case, the match is between the player(s) and the game system itself, or between more than one player with the game system acting as the 'rope'. All players expect that when they pull on the rope, the game will react and pull back. Thus, game designs are not successful if the player has no idea that the game is responding to their actions.
Tug of war applied to various famous games:
Doom- This game is a tug of war between the player, who is moving through the game world, collecting powerups and fighting monsters, and the game logic, which is actively attempting to destroy the player based on its own set of rules.
Pong- This game uses the 'system as the rope' method: Players compete head to head, using the ruleset of the game, to defeat the other in paddleball combat.
Mortal Kombat- Either player vs. player or player vs. system, but in both cases it is the 'system as the rope' method: Even when players are fighting against the computer, mastery of the fighting system, timing and reaction to changing circumstances, is the real battle here.
In summary, what then comprises good interactivity in games?
1. Feedback is essential. The player should know they are interacting with the game.
2. System reaction is essential. The player should know that the game is interacting with them.
Very basic, but often forgotten rules. As a challenge, name one game you thought had good interactivity, and one that you thought had bad interactivity, and then explain why.
My answer to challenge:
Good- Super Mario Brothers (NES). This game's interactivity was, while it may seem basic now, quite revolutionary for the time. While there were only a few buttons to press, each was given a distinct action that never changed throughout the design- 'B' Button made Mario run and shoot fireballs, 'A' Button made Mario jump (he attempted to jump even if it was impossible in his current state.. the game's negative feedback feels great even to modern gamers), and the D-Pad moved him as expected.
Bad- Friday the Thirteenth (NES). Including glaring flaws in the interface itself (left on the game map does not always mean left in the gameworld! That's a major discrepency, and one which there is no indication of), and problems with interactivity (when moving inside houses, sometimes button presses seem completely ignored, and you feel like you have to force your character to move), this is badly designed game.
