An Engineer's View of Game Design
Aleks Jakulin
Conference in 1997. Doug influenced some of the best hard-core design
(Thief, System Shock, Deus Ex, etc). He tried to put a rational
perspective on the "art" of game design. I summarize his views (A.
immersion and B. economy), which explain his games quite well. I
suggested an additional point, based on the adaptation cycle. These
ideas do not apply just to games, but to any kind of entertainment.
Our discussion never got written down, but I'm appending my notes at
the end of this e-mail.
Anyway, if you look at the reward section, you will notice that
different people prefer different kinds of reward. This explains why
there are different genres of games. Some prefer cognitive rewards
(puzzle solving), others prefer dramatic rewards (adventure games),
yet others prefer kinesthetic rewards (arcade games), or glandular
rewards (...). A good game is able to provide a set of rewards. Also,
not all games do the full cycle of challenge-learning-reward.
Non-interactive "games" only have challenge-reward, because you
observe a character that does the learning for you. Some games have
trivial challenges, meaning that it takes little planning, everything
is focused on the cycle between learning/acting and reward/punishment.
On the other hand, some games, especially turn-based strategy, are
predominantly challenge-learning/acting, because the rewards and
punishments are very far off.
I know I'm reinventing the wheel, and that I'm outdated, but
nonetheless this might incite some discussion.
Best regards,
Aleks Jakulin
DOUG CHURCH'S MODEL:
===
* A: game as a model of the world:
1. Immersion is the aim.
2. Immersion requires involvement (the player must care).
3. Involvement requires:
- Power of expression: an orthogonal, consistent, simple,
reasonable way of interacting with the environment
- Control over destiny: the player is solely responsible for his
destiny, he cannot blame others, he can only blame himself, therefore
replaying the game, the player must feel he can achieve the goal
- Facilitated planning: the player must be allowed to plan, the
player must know what's the aim of the game
* B: economics of game development:
1. An ideal game would take an infinite amount of time.
2. How to reduce the development time for the same gameplay effect:
- Reuse the world: keep the player interested when he has to
re-explore the world for several times: different tasks, modifications
to the environment, requires attention to different elements
- Weak task info: let the player fill in the details
- Nonlinearity: let the player choose the order in which
problems are solved
ALEKS' MODEL EXTENSIONS
===
* C: Adaptation cycle:
---
There are three mechanical psychological sources of player's joy when
playing the game, challenge->learning/acting->reward/punishment. The
role of immersion (A.) is to free the player from all distractions
while running in this circle. A good game should let this cycle spin
and spin and spin. It should be smoothly started (so that the player
doesn't drop out), varied in speed (so that it is not boring), and
stopped in one of the following ways: slowly (relaxing the player,
comforting him), or abruptly (leaving the player confused, puzzled and
(hopefully) hoping for a sequel).
CHALLENGE:
- Goal
- Problem
Examples of implicit challenges:
- learn more stuff
- finish the game
- get more power
- get to a new level
- see more graphics
- create a superman out of your character
- beat a friend
- exploring: new graphics, story, music, enemies
LEARNING-ACTING:
It's possible to reduce most of the satisfaction with the explorative
elements of the game to *learning*. About learning:
- The player must be learning all the time, this is motivating
the player to continue
- Learning gives the player a sensation of progress, and a
continuous inflow of satisfaction
- If the player learns something useful in the domain outside of
the game itself, the game is no more a "waste of time." This implies
even more satisfaction.
- Learning how to deal with the enemies
- Learn by experimentation
What isn't learning:
- Tediousness (no goal, just routine, fighting against the
enemies you have already mastered)
- Boring stuff blocking the player from continuing towards the
goal
- Problems that were solved before
- Lack of new information
- Repetition
- Irrelevance (figuring out alien lettering, what's that useful
for if you're not a puzzle junky?)
- Limitedness
- Anticipated predictability
REWARD:
There are many kinds of "reward":
- EMOTIONAL/DRAMATIC, achieved through self-identification and
catharsis. Read Aristotle's Poetics, especially his discussion of
tragedy. That's how the story should be designed in order to get
maximum impact on the beholder. Also, both punishment and reward is
provided through association, once the self-identification has been
achieved. Keywords: relevance, self-identification, catharsis.
- SOCIAL, achieved through achieving status among other (human!)
players. This explains why multiplayer games are popular, and why
people discuss about their successes in playing single-player games.
Keywords: success, prestige, ranking, score, level
- COGNITIVE, achieved through player learning useful skills, seeing
new stuff, learning the rules of the (real!) world and solve problems.
- KINESTHETIC, achieving proficiency in controlling the avatar,
pressing the keys, driving the car, etc.
- GLANDULAR: induced excitement (achievement, beauty, fear, sex,
taste) and the atmosphere.
Managing reward:
The excitement should appear in a rhythm: Continuous extreme
excitement can cause the player to get killed, or not to notice the
excitement any more. Let there be several peaks of increased
excitement, with plateaus between them, letting the adrenaline levels
in blood to drop down, so that they can burst again later. The player
enjoys to relax after moments of intense action. Anticipate this
relaxation, and facilitate it.
Read (not watch!) Macbeth, or watch a movie (thrillers are very
appropriate) to see how to manage several peaks of excitement.
References:
http://www.theinspiracy.com/400_project.htm
http://www.gamedev.net/reference/list.asp?categoryid=23
http://gamestudies.cdis.org/~rocketship/ionstormterms.htm
http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20011012/garneau_01.htm
http://www.planetdeusex.com/witchboy/articles/thefuture.shtml
http://www.gamasutra.com/features/19990716/design_tools_01.htm
Brandon J. Van Every
Thanksgiving holidays. Lotsa people are away... if you don't get a lot of
play right now, you might repost later.
--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA
Taking risk where others will not.
PizaZ
that we have a ~30 year old industry and we still don't know why people play
games or what makes a good game? Is the goal one day to reduce the process
of game design to a set of discreet algorithms and formulas? One day will I
be able to write a specification for a "fun game," stick to the rules, run
it through the formula mill and presto chango, a fun game comes out the
other end?
So Aleks presents us with a psychological profile of people who play games.
But so much of it to me seems extremely basic and obvious... not the least
bit profound (with the exception of the part about "learning" to which I
disagree). Maybe that's just because i'm a long time computer gamer?
Gamers know what they like right? Hrm, I'm reminded of some of these
ludicrous studies that organizations sometimes do which describe what common
sense already tells us. e.g "Study conducted by the University of Illinois
has found that men like looking at naked chicks." Wow! Who woulda thunk it?
(I made that example up by the way, but there are absurd studies out there
like that which don't really tell us anything new.)
Don't get me wrong, I can appreciate these types of discussions which
attempt to define or put into more exacting words those ideas we already
know in our gut, but don't necessarily know how to express in consise
terminology. I believe that is where we can find value in these types of
posts. However, these threads (like the last one dealing with "immersion")
always seem to ignore or gloss over what I believe to be the two most
important aspects of game design: 1) Creativity and 2) Game play experience
or historical familiarization (particularly) in the genre of the game you
are designing/developing. Without creativity, you get clones of games that
don't advance the genre. Without experience and historical perspective, you
don't know how various genres started, progressed and you're even less able
to predict where they might go.
Creativity and innovation are perhaps two sides of the same coin. The
gaming audience for the most part, tends to reject new titles that are no
better than their predecessors, but they can greatly reward new types of
gameplay. The Sims have made a killing over the years by giving us
something we haven't seen before (not unless you count playing with
Barbies). And look at the GTA series (particularly the latest Vice City)
for instance... its got elements of so many different games in it (car
racing, 3rd person shooter, adventure, puzzles) but its very innovative and
fun in the way all of it is tied together. That's not to say that it can't
get tedious and repetitive (indeed it can get extremely so at times) but on
balance, the variety of play keeps the players' "immersed." When I was a
kid, I had a blast playing games like Pitfall and Adventure on the Atari
2600. These games were quite repetitve, but at the same time, they were so
novel and innovative (at least to me) I was always immersed. When people
talk about "gameplay" they often neglect to talk about the impact that the
current state of the genre has on designs. People become jaded quickly.
Luckily for us all, the technology of this medium is still growing and the
possibilities are still expanding. We need to have more discussions on this
phenomenon which has a greater impact on the this particular entertainment
medium than any other.
With regards to gameplay experience, I believe it does make a difference if
for instance, you're making a first person shooter and the only games in
that genre you've played before are Half Life, Quake 3 and Unreal
Tournament. If you goto film school, you're going to learn the history of
film through viewing allot of the classics including silent movies. As you
branch out on your own to create films of a particular style or genre,
you're going to want to learn the styles of the old masters by reviewing
their works. The best (INSERT PROFESSION HERE)'s are also historians of
that profession.
"Challenges" and "Rewards" seem like pretty basic concepts for any game
computer or otherwise. But with regards to Aleks' view on the importance of
"learning" on gamer satisfaction with "tediousness" and "repetitive"
gameplay as being the enemy of "learning" well... I just don't know if it's
so important or even true. For starters, there are plenty of great games
that have "tediousness" and "repetition" and often in great measure. Super
Mario Brothers, Legend of Zelda, Half Life, Doom2 and lots and lots of
really cool games all are guilty of those things to varying degrees. That
doesn't make it all bad though. Even a marathon 72 hour sex orgy would
start to get tedious, boring and repetitive at some point.
And is it learning just to see how a particular storyline unfolds? Is it
learning to figure out that in order to kill this monster you have to shoot
it inside its mouth 5 times with the rocket launcher? That seems like a
recipe for "tediousness, repetition and boredom" to me. If i've got
several weapons in my inventory and suddenly come upon an Ice Golem and i
switch to my flame thrower and he dies instantly, what did I learn?
Nothing, except that the game played as I expected it too... that i didnt
have to learn any tricks on how to destroy this monster. Rather than
learning, i'd put more weight on toying with the player's emotions. That is
the key to design in my opinion anyway... designing an experience for the
player. Let the player experience fear, relief, revenge, achievement,
I'd like to see more threads on the historical evolution of games and
gamers. Do gamers really get jaded by advancements in graphics technology?
If a game like Pitfall were created today with the exact same gameplay, but
with a 2003 graphical facelift, would it have any appeal? Has the gameplay
in the genre passed it by? Then again there are kids coming of computer
game playing age everyday who'd probably still get a kick out of such games.
Would be interesting to hear discussions on the relationship between a
gamer's age and their ability to stay immersed in any computer game.
-PizaZ
"Aleks Jakulin" <jakulin@@ieee.org> wrote in message
news:bq2bm6$760$1...@planja.arnes.si...
Aleks Jakulin
I try to understand what's going on around me and summarize it in a
compact mental model that will help me act, decide and create. If the
model is compact, I will be able to pass it to people that have not
been playing games for 10 years, so that they will have an
understanding of this stuff. These are mine, but there are many other
motivations. My motivation is not to "mechanize" game design, and
nobody sane has this goal. The crucial idea of my model is the cycle,
not the obvious phases of it.
Creativity and gameplay experience are implict in my model. I didn't
point them out because I thought that it's obvious. Novelty in the
cycle, which contributes to rewards, makes challenges attractive, and
gives the opportunity to learning while acting, is achieved by
creative engineering. Gameplay experience is just another word for
"reward".
My model is based around the psychology of decision-action-reward
cycle in gamers. Game designers are decision-action-reward engineers
(some of them are creative), but this sounds too unromantic so they
prefer to say that what they do is art.
You are right in stressing the general study of the history of games.
I liked your examples. On the other hand, both games and films that
require a thorough knowledge of the history, are not particularly
appealing for the mass public. Such sophisticated films are shown at
festivals to selected high-brow audiences who have spent a lot of time
reading books and watching films. As much as I enjoy a twisty article
that's going to activate my whole brain in pursuit of comprehension, I
respect and support a solid simple little article that's going to tell
the same substance to a school child without that prior knowledge.
As for learning and tediousness, I disagree with you. Tediousness is a
way of punishing the player (you got killed, play again for 30
minutes), it's a way of letting him get rid of the endorphines from
his bloodflow so that they can burst to new heights during the next
cut scene (delayed reward), and it's a chancey way of increasing the
perception of game value (I spent ?50 on a game that I finished in one
evening! Yuk!). Tediousness that doesn't perform one of these roles is
a mistake. Not all games provide the full range of learning and
reward, but this doesn't invalidate the model.
Your ideas for threads are good. I'm looking forward to reading your
notes on the subjects.
Aleks
Aleks Jakulin
Pete Taylor
news:bAAxb.11509$785....@nwrddc01.gnilink.net:
> I'd like to see more threads on the historical evolution of games and
> gamers. Do gamers really get jaded by advancements in graphics
> technology?
I can't speak for other gamers, but I know that I have. I am one of the
minority (or so we're led to believe) who doesn't enjoy First Person
Shooters. In a world full of 3D gaming I long for my teenage years! What
choice do I have now? I'm sure there are plenty of PC games around for
me, but where are the 2D commercial big-hitters? I'm so excited about R-
Type Final coming out, and I was pleased to read about Metal Slug
hitting the PS2. Perhaps patience is indeed a virtue and I will be
rewarded for my waiting...?
> If a game like Pitfall were created today with the exact
> same gameplay, but with a 2003 graphical facelift, would it have any
> appeal? Has the gameplay in the genre passed it by?
I'm still hoping that as graphics reach a "realism plateau" the focus
will shift to gameplay, and as developers try to make their games stand
out, they may shift towards 2D. I've only just found out about the "Sega
Ages" games that are being released for the PS2 in Japan, and to me this
is huge! There is a lot of reference to "retro" gaming these days, but I
think that's a misguided term. If I listen to and enjoy Elvis' music, am
I "retro listening"? There is a surge of activity in the classic gaming
arena and I believe there is a big market for reduced complexity 2D
games (but have no evidence to back this up other than gut feeling).
> Then again there
> are kids coming of computer game playing age everyday who'd probably
> still get a kick out of such games. Would be interesting to hear
> discussions on the relationship between a gamer's age and their
> ability to stay immersed in any computer game.
>
I'm 26 and I find it difficult to immerse myself in FPSs (as I mentioned
earlier). I love games like Jak and Daxter and Super Mario Sunshine
because it's the closest I can get to a 2D platform game. If a Super
Mario Bros. game were released with 3D characters but a side-on
perspective (like the early games) I would be buying it like a shot and
would be willing to spend money on buying a system to play it if that
were necessary. I still play Sonic the Hedgehog 1,2 and 3 a great deal,
along with Super Mario 3 and World. Strangely, I find them more
challenging now than I did when I was younger, and I appreciate the
experience much more because I now have the patience to look for all the
"secrets" in these games and am not just blindly rushing towards
"completion".
I think there is a definite yearning (within me at least) to return to
simpler games that you can play in short bursts and not think "where was
I? Where do I have to go in order to get to that puzzle that I was
trying to solve?"
Games such as Vice City have appeal for me because I don't have to
remember anything between sessions. I can pick it up after not playing
for weeks, and straight away I can get into a mission and spend maybe an
hour to complete a mission or two, and then switch off again and deal
with other commitments.
When you're a kid you have hours and hours to spend playing games,
listening to music, watching films... But I have found that now I'm an
adult I don't have the time or inclination to complete long games. I
want quick hits. Gran Turismo 3 for the PS2 is a good example of this. I
really want to complete that game, but I'll never do it because I don't
have the spare time to complete the endurance races, and even if I did
have the time, could I really justify sitting in front of the TV for
hours going round and round a track in my car? That *is* repetitive and
tedious to me, and I love driving games (it's the one genre where I
really appreciate the 3D graphics and the advances made).
That's just my 2 cents worth!
As a bit of background, I'm not involved in the games industry and am
not a "hardcore" gamer like I was in my early teens. I am, however, a
programmer and an average guy in his mid-twenties who enjoys a bit of
gaming when it fits in with his lifestyle.
PizaZ
Thanks for the clarifications. The main point I was trying to make is that
I didn't see how your model helps designers to make good games. Most of
what you described seems so basic and common sense to the point that its
applicable to not just games, but life in general. The reason we all don't
go jump off a cliff is because what tomorrow holds is unknown (stuff to
learn), there are always goals to be achieved, rewards to be had, and we're
always hopeful of the future. Suffice it to say, when we escape into a
computer game, we don't shed our humanity. To me, your model is so generic
that it not only describes the psychology of gamers, but also describes the
inherent behavior of all games. Its almost as if to say, to be aware of the
model is irrelevant since the game will have these properties anyway. Which
wouldn't be surprising considering we are humans creating fantasy realms
which are still ultimately based on our hopes and dreams as people. And if
that's true, how does it help people design better games?
That is why I went on about creativity and becoming a historian of games.
If you want to create good games, play games, become a student of game
history and spend more time trying to provide users with innovative
gameplay. Consider your audience and their expectations by knowing the
games they've likely played before yours. People's expectations are always
rising, more of the same is not usually enough.
Anyways, tell me more about how you feel your model relates to PC
simulations like NASCAR, MS Flight Sim and hardcore combat sims like Falcon
4.0 and the like. Do consumer level, entertainment simulations fit under
your model as well? Also, what about non computer games like board games
and sports?
-PizaZ
p.s. If "tediousness" is punishing the player, then does that imply that
removal of all "anti-learning" aspects of a game's design results in a great
game? Ive created this paradox in my head and i keep getting lost in it.
"Aleks Jakulin" <jakulin@@ieee.org> wrote in message
news:bq6v24$nq3$2...@planja.arnes.si...
Aleks Jakulin
includes and is relevant, but also what the model excludes and is
irrelevant. Yes, I have tried to keep the model wide enough to
encompass more than just games: my favorite field of application of
this model is education. It helps create better games by directing the
focus on the quality of the challenge-action/learning-reward cycle.
I'd recommend that the challenges are relevant, the rewards are
pleasant, that the learning-acting is appropriately difficult, and
that a trip around the cycle isn't too long or too short. I'd argue
that the rest doesn't matter: be it 3d or 2d, gnomes or Martians,
mouse or joystick, as long as those requirements are met for a group
of people, that group will enjoy it.
Life in general is a single trip around the cycle: so it's not a game.
But during this trip, we may practice on smaller sub-trips, which is
the essence of what learning=playing=entertaining is about.
Although game historians create sophisticated games, this
sophistication prevents younger players from enjoying them. So
although it's good to have some game historians for the sophisticated
players, but also game designers ignorant of history to serve the
needs of less sophisticated players. Innovation doesn't need history,
although knowledge of history prevents repetition.
About the relevance of my model to simulations: simulations are
primarily relevant challenges. People who play with simulations gain
knowledge of the real world. That's an important source of reward.
Board games carry many social rewards, and one of the challenges is to
learn human psychology - a very relevant challenge. Sports provide
many kinesthetic and social rewards if you're the player or dramatic
rewards if you're the spectator, in addition to a few good spins
around the cycle. I find the challenges in sports trivial and
irrelevant, though.
> p.s. If "tediousness" is punishing the player, then does that
> imply that removal of all "anti-learning" aspects of a game's
> design results in a great game?
If it has good challenges and good rewards, and doesn't cause
adrenaline overflow, ceteris paribus, yes, that would make it a better
game. But such a game may be expensive to make, or may not last enough
not to induce displeasure with cycle shortness. Look at Doug's model,
aspect B: economics.
Aleks
Wismerhill
> I'm still hoping that as graphics reach a "realism plateau" the focus
> will shift to gameplay, and as developers try to make their games
> stand out, they may shift towards 2D. I've only just found out about
> the "Sega Ages" games that are being released for the PS2 in Japan,
> and to me this is huge! There is a lot of reference to "retro" gaming
> these days, but I think that's a misguided term. If I listen to and
> enjoy Elvis' music, am I "retro listening"?
Good point. I was thinking just about that a few days ago. The gaming industry
is based on newness. Gamers are pushed to buy only the latest games. If it's
old, it sucks. Games are quickly removed in stores if they're old or sell badly.
There is something along these lines in other medias as well: music, movie,
book, but not as strong.
The movie industry is close to the gaming industry on this point: theaters
mainly serve new movies.
The music and book industries are not so versed in this 'always something new'
way. This is plain normal to read old books. It's not even common to say 'old
book', I read a book, that's all. Maybe because there have been no technological
enhancements to books ...
> As a bit of background, I'm not involved in the games industry and am
> not a "hardcore" gamer like I was in my early teens. I am, however, a
> programmer and an average guy in his mid-twenties who enjoys a bit of
> gaming when it fits in with his lifestyle.
Same here.
David Dunham
<jakulin@@ieee.org> wrote:
> * A: game as a model of the world:
>
> 1. Immersion is the aim.
As with most discussions of games, this rules out a LOT of games. Are
chess or poker immersive models of a world? (Or Tetris, assuming we're
talking computer games?) Magic: The Gathering is anything but
immersive, since there's a meta-game to worry about (deck building).
I think "immersive" is a red herring -- more of a marketing term than
something that's useful in discussing game design. Probably "flow" is
more useful (though I haven't read Csikszentmihalyi).
--
David Dunham A Sharp david@SPAM_B_GONE.a-sharp.com
http://www.pensee.com/dunham/
"I say we should listen to the customers and give them what they want."
"What they want is better products for free." --Scott Adams
Aleks Jakulin
than
> something that's useful in discussing game design. Probably "flow"
is
> more useful (though I haven't read Csikszentmihalyi).
David,
Although I see "immersion" in a wider way than you do, I agree with
your second point. "Flow" is largely synonymous with "immersion". I
wonder which of the two terms came first. Or perhaps one should just
use "concentration". Csikszentmihalyi's series of books looks very
much like a good business selling old concepts packaged as new ones.
Ah, he even wrote a book titled "Good Business". So, I guess that
"flow" and "immersion" are marketing terms, what we really want is
"concentration".
Aleks
drewid
I think absorbtion might be a more useful term, seeing as immersion is used
both as a term for becoming immersed in the "game world" (as in a good first
person game), as well as for becoming immersed (absorbed) in the game
itself, which can obviously happen in any type or style of game.
The first is about "suspension of disbelief" and identification/empathy. the
second has much wider terms of reference.
Walter Mitty
in news:bAAxb.11509$785....@nwrddc01.gnilink.net he conjectured that:
> If I may ask, what is the goal of these types of threads?
<snip>
Totally agree. A bunch of pseudo intellectuals creaming over each other
about how smart they are. One of the reasons I got out of the IT business.
Brandon J. Van Every
> "flow" and "immersion" are marketing terms, what we really want is
> "concentration".
Yes, "how do we keep the player's attention" and "how do we keep the player
from getting bored?" are better frameworks than bandying the "immersion"
word about. In the game industry, "immersion" is a do-nothing word.
--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA
20% of the world is real.
80% is gobbledygook we make up inside our own heads.
Brandon J. Van Every
"Walter Mitty" <nos...@nospam.co.uk> wrote in message
news:Xns9442B5FAAE...@127.0.0.1...
It's a stage in one's personal growth as a Game Designer that can lead to
better things. I'm certainly not about to stop formulating and theorizing
about Game Design, it's definitely a productive endeavor. What *has*
changed about my outlook, however, is that the majority of time has to be
spent implementing. Game Design Theory discussions are for staying awake
when you don't feel like rolling up your sleeves and doing real work.
Brandon J. Van Every
>
> DOUG CHURCH'S MODEL:
>
> ===
> * A: game as a model of the world:
>
> 1. Immersion is the aim.
> 2. Immersion requires involvement (the player must care).
> 3. Involvement requires:
> - Power of expression: an orthogonal, consistent, simple,
> reasonable way of interacting with the environment
Sounds good to me so far.
> - Control over destiny: the player is solely responsible for his
> destiny, he cannot blame others, he can only blame himself, therefore
> replaying the game, the player must feel he can achieve the goal
This is too restrictive. It is not necessary for a player to be "soley"
responsible for his destiny to play a game. This would eliminate, for
instance, games of Chance. Gambling games are clearly viable reward systems
for many people, even if they bore other people. Some personality types
have a more vested interest in personal control than others, i.e.
micromanagers. The perception of control is also more important than the
absolute nature of the control. Some people, like myself, are comfortable
viewing the board game Axis & Allies as a series of risk management
propositions. Other people are not comfortable with "attempting to control
the odds" and scream that A&A is "all luck." Those of us who can
consistently gain Heavy Bombers when we're ahead know otherwise: you simply
have to spend enough money to overcome probabilistic uncertainty.
> - Facilitated planning: the player must be allowed to plan, the
> player must know what's the aim of the game
I don't understand why planning is important. Few people plan a game of
Blackjack, although people do tend to have heuristics of why they think they
will do better. Again, the perception of some control is more important
than actual control, and even then, I'm not convinced everyone feels a need
for control. Game Designers are almost always people who like to control;
it is important to remember this, and not project one's *own* desire to
control on all possible audiences.
Most people also don't have much of a plan for Monopoly. They make a
planning decision when they choose to buy or not buy a property, but a lot
of their planning is contingent upon luck. Some people extend the
"plannability" of Monopoly through hardcore wheeling and dealing, but others
eschew that as anti-social non-family gaming behavior. Thus, it may be more
important for some people to sit around a table and enjoy each other's
company, with the level of competition kept low, than to plan aggressively
and win the game. The decision may not be conscious, a particular Monopoly
crowd may simply not have any powergamers in it, it doesn't even occur to
them to make deals about properties. This is actually fairly likely and
expected gameplay, Monopoly has rather broad demographic appeal because it's
capable of functioning as a fairly mindless tabletop entity. The highs and
lows of the game come from rolling dice, i.e. drama imposed over randomness.
Chutes and Ladders and Candyland are still games. This has to be reconciled
with anyone's preconceived notion that games require planning. Clearly they
don't. I would say, however, that within these games' expected demographics
(i.e. very young children, and "alternative" 20..30 somethings waxing
nostalgic), the games do create immersion. A child does not need planning;
a child is still learning that planning exists.
> * B: economics of game development:
>
> 1. An ideal game would take an infinite amount of time.
This statement makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever. I can't imagine
why anyone would posit infinitely long games as being ideal. Evidence from
other media is that human beings have limited attention spans and only want
so much time spent on an entertainment experience.
> 2. How to reduce the development time for the same gameplay effect:
> - Reuse the world: keep the player interested when he has to
> re-explore the world for several times: different tasks, modifications
> to the environment, requires attention to different elements
> - Weak task info: let the player fill in the details
> - Nonlinearity: let the player choose the order in which
> problems are solved
I dunno; like, whatever. These imperatives are not particularly compelling
to me as a Game Designer. These are Strategies that a Game Designer *can*
take, but they are certainly not the be-all end-all of game design
Strategies. As such, I wouldn't include them in a list of fundamental game
design imperatives. They aren't "up there" with Immersion as a driving
principle of game design.
> ALEKS' MODEL EXTENSIONS
> ===
>
> * C: Adaptation cycle:
> ---
> There are three mechanical psychological sources of player's joy when
> playing the game, challenge->learning/acting->reward/punishment. The
> role of immersion (A.) is to free the player from all distractions
> while running in this circle.
You have not included socialization in this list, and that is an error.
Trivial Pursuit, for instance, is *not* basically about answering all the
trivia questions correctly. It is usually about getting drunk together.
> A good game should let this cycle spin
> and spin and spin. It should be smoothly started (so that the player
> doesn't drop out), varied in speed (so that it is not boring), and
> stopped in one of the following ways: slowly (relaxing the player,
> comforting him), or abruptly (leaving the player confused, puzzled and
> (hopefully) hoping for a sequel).
Doesn't sound like a full gamut of plot / pace arcs to me. Films typically
have a Beginning, a Middle, and an End. The goal is often to create the
psychological satisfaction of closure. Some films are cliffhangers, some
films are New Age fishtank relaxation devices. Most films are BME closures.
I am not saying games must be like films. I am saying your list of possible
game plots / paces is quite incomplete.
> LEARNING-ACTING:
>
> It's possible to reduce most of the satisfaction with the explorative
> elements of the game to *learning*. About learning:
> - The player must be learning all the time, this is motivating
> the player to continue
You are discounting other possible motives, such as financial reward, or
peer pressure.
> - Learning gives the player a sensation of progress, and a
> continuous inflow of satisfaction
Only if the task is within their ability to master, in the amount of time
they are willing to spend. Consider how frustrating most adventure game
puzzles are for most people.
> - If the player learns something useful in the domain outside of
> the game itself, the game is no more a "waste of time." This implies
> even more satisfaction.
I could care less about the moral valuation of time spent on entertainment.
It does not belong in a treatise on what's fundamental to Game Design.
Masturbation is also a "waste of time;" people do it to fulfil a need.
> What isn't learning:
> - Tediousness (no goal, just routine, fighting against the
> enemies you have already mastered)
Yes, tediousness is not learning. Something is tedious when:
1) the task has already been mastered, is being repeated, and the player
doesn't enjoy repeating it
2) the task is new, and the player doesn't find it enjoyable to wrap their
head around the new task
(2) is important to consider if you start formulating your game designs in
terms of Learning. Who said people wanted to Learn stuff? Maybe you think
learning all this stuff is kewl; maybe Average Joe thinks you're creating a
lot of boring futz factors that he doesn't want to deal with.
It's also important to realize that (1) works *if* the player enjoys the
repetition. Some people enjoy plunking quarters into slot machines. I
think it's a boring waste of time and money. We are different demographics,
we have different perceptions of the available level of reward for spending
one's time and money.
> REWARD:
>
> - EMOTIONAL/DRAMATIC,
> - SOCIAL
> - COGNITIVE
> - KINESTHETIC
> - GLANDULAR
Ok fine, you've got a palette of paints in front of you. The canvas is
still blank.
> Managing reward:
>
> The excitement should appear in a rhythm: Continuous extreme
> excitement can cause the player to get killed, or not to notice the
> excitement any more.
So what? Consequences schmonsequences. What if there's a demographic that
actually *likes* a continuous high-stress game? I don't like Speed Chess;
others do.
> Let there be several peaks of increased
> excitement, with plateaus between them, letting the adrenaline levels
> in blood to drop down, so that they can burst again later. The player
> enjoys to relax after moments of intense action. Anticipate this
> relaxation, and facilitate it.
Feel free to design your game experiences this way, but be aware that you
are making design choices, not enacting any fundamental laws of human
perception and experience.
Brandon J. Van Every
"PizaZ" <so...@noemail.com> wrote in message
news:bAAxb.11509$785....@nwrddc01.gnilink.net...
> If I may ask, what is the goal of these types of threads?
Well, I think when someone offers a body of theory, we bang on it and
eliminate the extraneous. Get rid of things that don't hold up under
scrutiny, things that are just "your nice idea" as a Game Designer.
Hopefully then a few core fundamentals remain.
> Are we saying
> that we have a ~30 year old industry and we still don't know why people
play
> games or what makes a good game?
We will of course always be able to say that! It doesn't matter if the
industy is 30 years old: not everyone *in* the industry is 30 years old, or
has put 30 years of hard thought into Game Design. Every generation will
always be inventing Game Design anew; it is new to them. And, in every
generation there will always be Game Designers / Screenwriters / Novelists
who suck rocks. People who just Don't Get It, who aren't talented,
perceptive, experienced, or dilligent enough to do a good job at it.
All we can hope to do as Game Designers, is put as much effort into
understanding as we can. That's going to mean wrong turns, wasted labor,
and disagreements. These are inevitable features of the creative process.
Feel free to deny the verbal part of the process if you like; I hope you're
just hunkering down cranking out code if that's your attitude. Engagement
to material has to come from *somewhere*.
> Is the goal one day to reduce the process
> of game design to a set of discreet algorithms and formulas?
It's not for me. Is it for you?
I do, however, aim to understand the fundamental psychology of games. Some
of what Aleks brought up is fundamental; a lot of it isn't.
> One day will I
> be able to write a specification for a "fun game," stick to the rules, run
> it through the formula mill and presto chango, a fun game comes out the
> other end?
Even if theoretically possible, do you honestly believe you will ever save
production labor that way? I don't. I believe games are works of
authorship, like screenplays. I believe automated storytelling is a wild
goose chase. I think the people interested in those problems would be far
better off just improving their writing skills and doing the manual labor.
Similarly for games. Automation is a "techie" approach to creativity and is
*not* the answer to creative problems.
> So Aleks presents us with a psychological profile of people who play
games.
An implicit one... and a bad one, for being too narrow. Nothing Aleks wrote
would help a Game Designer deliver a mass market title. And by "mass
market" I mean Charlie's Angels style mass market, 65 million players.
I think one of the first questions a Game Designer has to ask is "what
demographic am I chasing?" You can't please everybody. Only when you know
who you're trying to please, do you have a basis for what to keep in your
game and what to throw out.
> But so much of it to me seems extremely basic and obvious... not the least
> bit profound (with the exception of the part about "learning" to which I
> disagree). Maybe that's just because i'm a long time computer gamer?
I don't think questions of "immersion" are at all obvious, or mature in the
game industry. I think we can all stand to do a lot of head scratching
before we'll have usable, succinct, readily communicable statements on the
subject. "Immersion" is usually the do-nothing word of Game Design. At
least Aleks attempts to define it instead of just bandying it about, even if
some of his definitions fail.
> Gamers know what they like right?
No, actually they don't. Like a lot of people claiming they want things,
they have *some* correct perceptions of what they like, and some things that
are rather inarticulate. But people like to control their power stake in a
discourse, so they vocalize things. "I'm important! You'd better do this
thing the way I say, or else!"
I always take pains to remind Game Designers that players are not so
godawful important. You are not a politician seeking re-election. You are
an artist: at a minimum, you only need to please enough people to sustain
your art habit. Take input from players; don't mollycoddle them. It's your
game and your decision. Most good Art, and all great Art, comes from people
willing to exert the strength of their personal views.
When this notion of mine turns into a debate, it's usually with people who
aren't comfortable making judgements about what's good and what isn't. Or
else they think "reacting" to the audience is morally correct and forcing
your own viewpoint isn't. This also underlies debates about whether
Marketing is a passive or active industry. It is certainly an active
industry, it forces agendas, and we can readily prove this by looking at all
kinds of availabe evidence. But a lot of people try to say that it doesn't,
that it's only passively evaluating what the consumer wants. I'm sure this
difference of perception is strictly a matter of personality type: some
people aren't comfortable with making judgements and exerting naked power to
get what they want.
> Hrm, I'm reminded of some of these
> ludicrous studies that organizations sometimes do which describe what
common
> sense already tells us. e.g "Study conducted by the University of
Illinois
> has found that men like looking at naked chicks." Wow! Who woulda thunk
it?
> (I made that example up by the way, but there are absurd studies out there
> like that which don't really tell us anything new.)
I wouldn't necessarily evaluate whatever Aleks has to say for newness. I'd
evaluate it for succinctness and extraneousness.
> However, these threads (like the last one dealing with "immersion")
> always seem to ignore or gloss over what I believe to be the two most
> important aspects of game design: 1) Creativity and 2) Game play
experience
> or historical familiarization (particularly) in the genre of the game you
> are designing/developing. Without creativity, you get clones of games
that
> don't advance the genre. Without experience and historical perspective,
you
> don't know how various genres started, progressed and you're even less
able
> to predict where they might go.
PizaZ takes his crack at the brass ring! Yes, Aleks didn't succeed at the
Unified Field Theory of Game Design. I agree with both your (1) and (2). I
call (2) the "training problem." Three Act Structure, for instance, is not
fundamental to film. It is a convention that audiences have been trained to
expect for a very long time now. Platformers have certain conventions, so
do most FPS games. Things could be done differently, but since most games
are done the same way, that strongly conditions how the Gamer demographic
perceives certain titles. There are "rules" of these genres - the
long-standing conventions as they currently exist and are typically
disseminated to players. When you break the rules, you have to break the
rules *well*. Otherwise people complain petulantly, "Why isn't it just like
all the other FPS games??!"
This is long enough, so enough!
Bent C Dalager
Brandon J. Van Every <try_vanevery_a...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> * B: economics of game development:
>>
>> 1. An ideal game would take an infinite amount of time.
>
>This statement makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever. I can't imagine
>why anyone would posit infinitely long games as being ideal. Evidence from
>other media is that human beings have limited attention spans and only want
>so much time spent on an entertainment experience.
I think the point is that it will take an infinite amount of time to
develop it.
Cheers
Bent D
--
Bent Dalager - b...@pvv.org - http://www.pvv.org/~bcd
powered by emacs
Aleks Jakulin
>
> > [Doug Church model]
> > - Control over destiny: the player is solely responsible for
>
> This is too restrictive. It is not necessary for a player to be
> "soley" responsible for his destiny to play a game.
The idea is not in restricting but in indicating that the players
should blame themselves. For example, in the games of chance, playes
may blame themselves for not betting right or for not throwing the
dice well. Even with jackpots, you (think you) affect the outcome by
pulling the lever in an appropriate way, or by picking the right
machine.
> > - Facilitated planning: the player must be allowed to plan,
> > player must know what's the aim of the game
>
> I don't understand why planning is important.
OK, I should have written that some people enjoy planning. And
satisfying planning can be quite low-brow, I'm not saying you should
be chief of state. The key idea, however, is that the player should
think that he has some control over his destiny. If the player thinks
that the stuff is rigged against him, nobody will play. If the player
thinks that everything is predetermined, it's a slideshow, not a game.
The second item that I attempted to carry across is that the player
shouldn't be left aimless in a big world. He should have an idea of
what to do next. Exploring 'aimlessly' is a valid thing to do next, if
there is something to explore and if you know where to explore.
> > 1. An ideal game would take an infinite amount of time.
>
> This statement makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever. I can't
> why anyone would posit infinitely long games as being ideal.
> other media is that human beings have limited attention spans and
> so much time spent on an entertainment experience.
I meant that developing an ideal game would take an infinite amount of
time.
> > 2. How to reduce the development time for the same gameplay
> > effect: ...
>
> I dunno; like, whatever. These imperatives are not compelling
> to me as a Game Designer. These are Strategies that a Game Designer
> *can* take, but they are certainly not the end-all of game design
> Strategies.
Right, they were examples, not imperatives.
> > * C: Adaptation cycle:
> > ---
> > There are three mechanical psychological sources of player's joy
> > playing the game, challenge->learning/acting->reward/punishment.
> > role of immersion (A.) is to free the player from all distractions
> > while running in this circle.
>
> You have not included socialization in this list, and it's error
> Trivial Pursuit, for instance, is *not* basically about answering
> trivia questions correctly. It is usually about getting drunk
> together.
Socialization is the reward, and it is in the cycle.
> > A good game should let this cycle spin and spin and spin.
>
> Doesn't sound like a full gamut of plot / pace arcs to me. Films
> have a Beginning, a Middle, and an End. The goal is often to create
> psychological satisfaction of closure. Some films are cliffhangers,
> films are New Age fishtank relaxation devices. Most films are BME
> closures.
I was giving examples, not itemizing the myriad of possibilities.
> > LEARNING-ACTING:
> >
> > It's possible to reduce most of the satisfaction with the
> > elements of the game to *learning*. About learning:
> > - The player must be learning all the time, this is
> > motivating the player to continue
>
> You are discounting other possible motives, such as financial
> reward, or peer pressure.
Again, these are the rewards, the 3rd phase of the cycle.
> > - Learning gives the player a sensation of progress, and a
> > continuous inflow of satisfaction
>
> Only if the task is within their ability to master, in the amount of
> they are willing to spend. Consider how frustrating most adventure
> game puzzles are for most people.
Right. The key to good learning phase design is to tune the
difficulty, the key to good challenge phase is to tune the relevance,
and issue in good reward phase design is to tune the pleasure (and
punishment ;).
> > - If the player learns something useful in the domain
> > the game itself, the game is no more a "waste of time." This
> > implies even more satisfaction.
>
> I could care less about the moral valuation of time spent on
> It does not belong in a treatise on what's fundamental to Game
> Design.
Right, you choose to prioritize other rewards, but the realistic
simulation game fans couldn't care less about your games. Can't
satisfy everyone, that's why I noted that different populations prefer
different rewards.
> Yes, tediousness is not learning. Something is tedious when:
> 1) the task has already been mastered, is being repeated, and the
> player doesn't enjoy repeating it
> 2) the task is new, and the player doesn't find it enjoyable to wrap
> their head around the new task
Yes.
> (2) is important to consider if you start formulating your game
> terms of Learning. Who said people wanted to Learn stuff? Maybe
> learning all this stuff is kewl; maybe Average Joe thinks you're
> lot of boring futz factors that he doesn't want to deal with.
You have a narrow conception of learning.
> It's also important to realize that (1) works *if* the player enjoys
> repetition. Some people enjoy plunking quarters into slot machines.
They're (thinking they're) learning the patterns, the positions of
slot machines, the luck factors, etc.
Aleks
Brandon J. Van Every
"Bent C Dalager" <b...@pvv.ntnu.no> wrote in message
news:bqmpn6$l2n$1...@tyfon.itea.ntnu.no...
> In article <bqlu3a$22umih$1...@ID-207230.news.uni-berlin.de>,
> Brandon J. Van Every <try_vanevery_a...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >> * B: economics of game development:
> >>
> >> 1. An ideal game would take an infinite amount of time.
> >
> >This statement makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever. I can't
imagine
> >why anyone would posit infinitely long games as being ideal. Evidence
from
> >other media is that human beings have limited attention spans and only
want
> >so much time spent on an entertainment experience.
>
> I think the point is that it will take an infinite amount of time to
> develop it.
*Still* makes no sense to me whatsoever. There's some kind of totally
misguided notion of what makes a game "ideal" going on here, like that
"ideal" games have to be really really really really long and really really
really really picky about all their implementation details. Would we say
that an "ideal" painting will take an infinite amount of time? No, never.
Brandon J. Van Every
> "Brandon J. Van Every" wrote:
> >
> > > [Doug Church model]
> > > - Control over destiny: the player is solely responsible for
> > > destiny, he cannot blame others, he can only blame himself,
> > > replaying the game, the player must feel he can achieve the goal
> >
> > This is too restrictive. It is not necessary for a player to be
> > "soley" responsible for his destiny to play a game.
>
> The idea is not in restricting but in indicating that the players
> should blame themselves. For example, in the games of chance, playes
> may blame themselves for not betting right or for not throwing the
> dice well. Even with jackpots, you (think you) affect the outcome by
> pulling the lever in an appropriate way, or by picking the right
> machine.
I'm not convinced that the psychology of blame is fundamental to games.
Sounds more like a game designer being defensive, not wanting to be blamed
that his game sucks!
> > > - Facilitated planning: the player must be allowed to plan,
> > > player must know what's the aim of the game
> >
> > I don't understand why planning is important.
>
> OK, I should have written that some people enjoy planning. And
> satisfying planning can be quite low-brow, I'm not saying you should
> be chief of state. The key idea, however, is that the player should
> think that he has some control over his destiny.
Yes, even in Candyland the players *think* they have control over their
destiny. Until they are old enough to understand that the outcome is
totally determined by the dice. Gamblers do have some control over their
destiny: they can choose to play or not play, how much to bet, this machine
or that machine, this casino or that casino.
> If the player
> thinks that everything is predetermined, it's a slideshow, not a game.
No, Candyland and Chutes and Ladders are both games. Whether it's actually
a slideshow or not is not important. Whether the target demographic
*thinks* it's a slideshow or not is important.
> > > * C: Adaptation cycle:
> > > ---
> > > There are three mechanical psychological sources of player's joy
> > > playing the game, challenge->learning/acting->reward/punishment.
> > > role of immersion (A.) is to free the player from all distractions
> > > while running in this circle.
> >
> > You have not included socialization in this list, and it's error
> > Trivial Pursuit, for instance, is *not* basically about answering
> > trivia questions correctly. It is usually about getting drunk
> > together.
>
> Socialization is the reward, and it is in the cycle.
But it is not a reward controlled by the game. The game is an excuse to
socialize... the players have already "won" socialization the moment they
sit down at the table together. Some games might have a more explicitly
social mechanic, i.e. a sex trivia game that asks people to do embarrassing
things. But most tabletop games exercise no control over when socialization
occurs whatsoever. You can't stop Joe and Jill from suddenly kibbitzing
about what Suzy's been up to for 10 minutes and the game grinding to a halt.
> > > LEARNING-ACTING:
> > >
> > > It's possible to reduce most of the satisfaction with the
> > > elements of the game to *learning*. About learning:
> > > - The player must be learning all the time, this is
> > > motivating the player to continue
> >
> > You are discounting other possible motives, such as financial
> > reward, or peer pressure.
>
> Again, these are the rewards, the 3rd phase of the cycle.
If that is true, then "learning" must also be defined as a reward, and
within "the 3rd phase of the cycle." Now I don't think you have as many
cycles. ;-) Now we can ask whether a given kind of learning is perceived
as a reward or a chore.
> > > - Learning gives the player a sensation of progress, and a
> > > continuous inflow of satisfaction
> >
> > Only if the task is within their ability to master, in the amount of
> > they are willing to spend. Consider how frustrating most adventure
> > game puzzles are for most people.
>
> Right. The key to good learning phase design is to tune the
> difficulty, the key to good challenge phase is to tune the relevance,
> and issue in good reward phase design is to tune the pleasure (and
> punishment ;).
You are creating separations for the case of "learning" because you have an
a priori bias to thinking in terms of it. When we demonstrate to the player
that their learning is successful, that they have mastered a task, that's a
reward. Alternately, we can make it possible for the player to demonstrate
this for themselves.
> > (2) is important to consider if you start formulating your game
> > terms of Learning. Who said people wanted to Learn stuff? Maybe
> > learning all this stuff is kewl; maybe Average Joe thinks you're
> > lot of boring futz factors that he doesn't want to deal with.
>
> You have a narrow conception of learning.
Is your conception of learning broad to the point of uselessness?
Pete Taylor
news:3fc74e60$0$18439$626a...@news.free.fr:
> The gaming industry
> is based on newness. Gamers are pushed to buy only the latest games.
> If it's old, it sucks. Games are quickly removed in stores if they're
> old or sell badly. There is something along these lines in other
> medias as well: music, movie, book, but not as strong.
> The movie industry is close to the gaming industry on this point:
> theaters mainly serve new movies.
> The music and book industries are not so versed in this 'always
> something new' way. This is plain normal to read old books. It's not
> even common to say 'old book', I read a book, that's all. Maybe
> because there have been no technological enhancements to books ...
>
This raises an interesting point. I think this is down to the
immaturity, not necessarily of the industry, but of the technology
driving the industry. I hate the thought of playing Gran Turismo 2 on my
Playstation because it's (subjectively) inferior to Gran Turismo 3. Why
would I want to play a game that is less immersive (read "graphically
inferior)?
Now when I play the 2D games produced for the old 16-bit consoles I
notice that 2D gaming was really reaching a peak. Games had been
developed in 2D for over 10 years. In that respect, 3D is still
relatively new, and is a lot more complex.
So what happens when we do reach this "realism plateau" that I referred
to before? I personally think that at that point we won't see such a
short software cycle where old stuff is replaced by new stuff. I think
we will have games shops that are like music shops where a whole back-
catalogue of titles are available. This has already been fairly true of
the PC market and is beginning to ring true in the Console market (with
Sony continuing to sell and support the PS1).
As games are beginning to sell less on their graphical merit and more on
their "playability", good game design is going to become more and more
important...
Aleks Jakulin
>
> I'm not convinced that the psychology of blame is fundamental to
No it's not fundamental. But most players will be fundamentally
annoyed if they are kicked out of the game with general protection
fault message. It was not their fault!
> > Socialization is the reward, and it is in the cycle.
>
> But it is not a reward controlled by the game. The game is an
> socialize... the players have already "won" socialization the moment
> sit down at the table together. Some games might have a more
> social mechanic, i.e. a sex trivia game that asks people to do
> things. But most tabletop games exercise no control over when
> occurs whatsoever. You can't stop Joe and Jill from suddenly
> about what Suzy's been up to for 10 minutes and the game grinding to
Who says the game should control everything? The game is what
facilitates socialization. It's like a DJ. A DJ doesn't control what
you're going to do in a disco, a DJ merely facilitates one aspect of
the fun in a disco. Because of a good DJ, people won't be bored even
if they don't have luck finding good company. With a game, the
socialization will work even if nobody has a good idea of what to do,
if there is no good music and if the food is junk.
> > Again, these are the rewards, the 3rd phase of the cycle.
>
> If that is true, then "learning" must also be defined as a reward,
> within "the 3rd phase of the cycle." Now I don't think you have as
> cycles. ;-) Now we can ask whether a given kind of learning is
> as a reward or a chore.
In the 2nd phase, learning and acting are the core activities. But
learning is often inherently rewarding by itself, unlike acting.
Acting alone makes you feel like a robot, it's routine, it's tedium.
The learning bit is what you need to keep people from getting bored.
It's what distinguishes a game from a pure reward-delay-reward cycle.
> You are creating separations for the case of "learning" because you
> a priori bias to thinking in terms of it. When we demonstrate to
> that their learning is successful, that they have mastered a task,
> reward. Alternately, we can make it possible for the player to
> demonstrate this for themselves.
You're right. I am biased towards thinking in terms of learning (being
a machine learning researcher kinda gets you in a rut). But I could
also be biased towards rewards, or social rewards. I could have been
biased to relevant challenges, to market segments, or to the
cost/benefit aspects of game development. But, am I leaving out
something vital? Am I redundat in point out a single aspect twice.
I've been asked to decompose Asheron's Call, Stratego and Poker into
these phases. I'll do this now.
Asheron's Call:
Challenge: tasks as a part of the story line, player's "building" of
his character, pursuit of rewards
Learning/Acting: all the activities in the game, with multiple
"levels" of gameplay (character setup, exploration, character
building, fortune building, social circle building)
Reward: the usual glandular rewards arising from combat, the usual
cognitive rewards associated with the mastery of combat skills, etc.,
aesthetic rewards arising from exploring the large environment, social
rewards arising from social interactions, dramatic rewards through the
story line
Economics: Make players invest in supporting the game world in the
final "level" of gameplay
Immersion: is everything properly tuned so that people don't fall out
of the cycle?
We can see that such a game has a very wide spectrum of challenges,
activities and rewards. But it is time consuming, and not very fun at
the very beginning. The gameplay is solitary.
Stratego:
Challenge: player-created strategies, with a clear aim of winning the
game
Learning/Acting: there are a lot of patterns that one can learn, the
value of individual units; even more interesting is the learning of
psychology of the other player, the way he plays, etc.
Reward: social, cognitive
The key to Stratego is that it's a short game, with the element of
surprise, easy to learn. Because it is not so planning-heavy, you have
more of an opportunity to learn the psychology of the opponent.
Chess fans dislike the factor of chance, while some find it too slow.
Poker:
Challenge: player-created strategies, with a clear aim of winning the
game
Learning/Acting: again, learning to count the cards, learning to read
the facial expressions, learning to calculate the odds; futile
learning of "patterns"
Reward: social, cognitive, sometimes financial. Because of chance,
even bad players will win sometimes. With games without chance,
beginners often don't have enough incentive to continue playing.
Again, some people dislike the influence of chance.
Neither of these three games is particularly relevant by itself.
Aleks
Brandon J. Van Every
"Pete Taylor" <n...@this.address> wrote in message
>
> This raises an interesting point. I think this is down to the
> immaturity, not necessarily of the industry, but of the technology
> driving the industry.
Even more specifically, it's down to the immaturity of the *cost* of
technology driving the industry. For AAA games the technology is still,
basically, expensive. Both in terms of R&D and in terms of human labor
needed to manipulate it. We are not yet in a "Star Trek" computing era, or
even halfway there, where we might expect the computer to automate quite a
number of tasks and save us labor. Instead we have 3D engines that cost
$300K to license and lotsa manual labor to put into such beasts even after
they are licensed.
Acrylic paints, in contrast, are a solved problem. Digital photography is
an almost solved problem.
Brandon J. Van Every
> Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
> >
> > I'm not convinced that the psychology of blame is fundamental to
> > Sounds more like a game designer being defensive, not wanting to be
> > that his game sucks!
>
> No it's not fundamental. But most players will be fundamentally
> annoyed if they are kicked out of the game with general protection
> fault message. It was not their fault!
Yes but this has nothing to do with games. It's a general aspect of
software engineering. As such, it doesn't belong in a treatise on Game
Design. The only relevant question is whether it's necessary for a player
to assign blame about what happens *in the game." I think for many markets,
it's not a critical issue.
In a Grognard wargamer market however, it definitely is. Grognards are
obsessed with levels of perfection that cannot be achieved in industrial
practice. My own solution to this problem is to avoid Grognards and their
cultural imperatives like the plague. I think the only people who should
write games for Grognards are those who are Grognards themselves - people
who know what patch on what infantry uniform during what years of what war
etc. The rest of us "mere mortals" do not have the energy for this kind of
crap. Finding out this crap, i.e. doing that level of historical research
to ensure overweening authenticity, is rather expensive in terms of human
time (someone's gotta read a lot of books) and also art assets.
And then of course Grognards want "realistic" systems. But the systems they
actually prefer aren't realistic, just familiar to them from the cardboard
counter era. "Where's the odds table?" was a frequent question to Norm
Koger, author of The Operational Art of War. There wasn't one, it wasn't
programmed that way. Grognards couldn't accept a more sophisticated,
program coded combat system with a gazillion factors in it. They wanted an
odds table! The dialogue here is not really about realism, it's about the
players wanting control over all the variables, and game design religion
masquerading as appeals to the holy grail of "Realism."
> > But it is not a reward controlled by the game. The game is an
> > socialize... the players have already "won" socialization the moment
> > sit down at the table together. Some games might have a more
> > social mechanic, i.e. a sex trivia game that asks people to do
> > things. But most tabletop games exercise no control over when
> > occurs whatsoever. You can't stop Joe and Jill from suddenly
> > about what Suzy's been up to for 10 minutes and the game grinding to
>
> Who says the game should control everything? The game is what
> facilitates socialization. It's like a DJ. A DJ doesn't control what
> you're going to do in a disco, a DJ merely facilitates one aspect of
> the fun in a disco. Because of a good DJ, people won't be bored even
> if they don't have luck finding good company. With a game, the
> socialization will work even if nobody has a good idea of what to do,
> if there is no good music and if the food is junk.
Feel free to worry about socialization issues when designing MMOGs, game
server lobbies, in-game chat, and fan websites. Otherwise it's fairly
irrelevant.
> > > Again, these are the rewards, the 3rd phase of the cycle.
> >
> > If that is true, then "learning" must also be defined as a reward,
> > within "the 3rd phase of the cycle." Now I don't think you have as
> > cycles. ;-) Now we can ask whether a given kind of learning is
> > as a reward or a chore.
>
> In the 2nd phase, learning and acting are the core activities. But
> learning is often inherently rewarding by itself, unlike acting.
Why say you this? Some people like to learn, others don't. Some people
like to act, others don't. It's a question of demographics, not an inherent
property of the activity.
> Acting alone makes you feel like a robot, it's routine, it's tedium.
> The learning bit is what you need to keep people from getting bored.
> It's what distinguishes a game from a pure reward-delay-reward cycle.
*NOTHING* distinguishes a game from a pure reward-delay-reward cycle. Slot
machines are games! What makes it a game is (1) a reward, (2) the
*perceived* ability to control one's fate, in the minds of many who play
slots. In fact, its very instructive how players convince themselves they
have some kind of control. They don't, but Game Designers can prey upon the
perceptions.
For instance, a gambling industry guy told me an interesting tidbit back at
GDC 2002. He said they are required by law to make the machines random, but
the equations can be designed so it's really only the 3rd wheel that
determines the vast majority of outcomes. This allows slot machine
designers to make it look like you *juuuuust* missed getting a jackpot on
the first 2 wheels! It's all baloney, it ain't over until all 3 wheels have
come to rest. But it can be made to look like you've *juuuuuuust* missed
your reward - and surely it'll come again, if only you try harder! Game
Designers can offer all kinds of perceptual streams / waveforms / plot arcs
by finnagling the factors of the equation.
In college, we theorized that the "best" wargame would be one that operates
on dramatic rather than realistic principles. Rather than have any
consistent, rules-bound troop movements, the "dramatic AI" would simply plop
troops down at entirely plausible positions designed to give the greatest
possible rise out of the player. "Oh no, they're sneak attacking my rear
flank! How the hell did they get down there??!" Well there *was* an AI
city behind the rear flank... maybe discovered by the player earlier...
maybe placed there to justify the operation by the Dramatic AI. All the DAI
would have to do is keep events sufficiently consistent with the rules of
the game, that the DAI can never be caught.
I don't know that anyone has implemented a proper DAI. Plenty of people
have implemented AIs that cheat, and these often get caught cheating. Also,
plenty of players have ascribed "intelligence" to AI play that was in fact
completely random.
> You're right. I am biased towards thinking in terms of learning (being
> a machine learning researcher kinda gets you in a rut). But I could
> also be biased towards rewards, or social rewards.
I think all Game Designers will agree that games contain Rewards. They will
not agree that games all contain Social Rewards.
> The key to Stratego is that it's a short game, with the element of
> surprise, easy to learn. Because it is not so planning-heavy, you have
> more of an opportunity to learn the psychology of the opponent.
Stratego can have *tremendous* amounts of planning, in the hands of a
Planning player. Both players design how their 40 pieces are going to be
set up! One can do this anally, heuristically, flippantly... there are many
ways to think about Stratego planning *if* you are inclined to do so.
> Chess fans dislike the factor of chance, while some find it too slow.
There is no chance whatsoever in Stratego. Only bluffing, which isn't the
same thing. When playing against a not-so-great player, one of the better
bluffs is to pick up a bomb, act like you're going to move it a square,
"think better of it," and move another piece instead. A "fledgeling
intermediate" player thinks they have identified a piece they can kill with
their high-rank Marshal or General!
Another good bluff is to never move a particular set of pieces, so that once
the lines are exposed, they look like a flag surrounded by bombs. Of
course, they're just 7's or something.
Aleks Jakulin
he should blame himself" - it's an epitome of bad game design to
punish the player for no reason, but it's not necessary for a game to
function to punish him.
I agree with your notes about Grognards. They're very into the
perceived relevance of realism. However, their conception of the
battle modeling may be simplistic, but they're not wrong in this.
After my basic and infantry training, I served in the operations
research and simulations department in the military, and the models
had this kind of simplicity. What I found out was that it didn't
matter. Those commanders who screwed up in the simulations did so
because they failed to coordinate effectively, or because they failed
in the "emotional intelligence" department, not because they wouldn't
exploit loopholes in the simulation model. A battle (even the
simulated one) is so damn complex the exact bullet range matters zit.
That's perhaps why most soliders in the world are still lugging AK-47
variants around. The coordination and information awareness are the
fundamental bottlenecks of contemporary battlefare. The problem with
Grognards' models is that they fail to account for this: their worlds
are far too certain, too reliable, too obedient, too observable.
I also agree that a lot of thought has to be given to facilitating
socialization. I agree that different demographics have different
rewards.
> *NOTHING* distinguishes a game from a pure reward-delay-reward
> Slot are games! What makes it a game is (1) a reward, (2) the
> *perceived* ability to control one's fate, in the minds of many who
> slots. In fact, its very instructive how players convince
> have some kind of control. They don't, but Game Designers can prey
> perceptions.
I have noted in my previous post that slot game players *think*
they're learning something, but we're at the very boundary of what
games are here. All emotions and activities I've written about are
subjective, not objective. Your example directly confirms the "player
should blame himself" and "learning" epitomes.
Regarding Stratego. I (again) agree with your points, and am grateful
for your explanations, however, whenever you have stealth, you have
the factor of chance. So chance's not just about throwing dice, it's
about the explicit uncertainty in the game.
Aleks
Brandon J. Van Every
> The coordination and information awareness are the
> fundamental bottlenecks of contemporary battlefare. The problem with
> Grognards' models is that they fail to account for this: their worlds
> are far too certain, too reliable, too obedient, too observable.
Interesting perspective! Sounds good to me.
David Dunham
Van Every <try_vanevery_a...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> In college, we theorized that the "best" wargame would be one that operates
> on dramatic rather than realistic principles. Rather than have any
> consistent, rules-bound troop movements, the "dramatic AI" would simply plop
> troops down at entirely plausible positions designed to give the greatest
> possible rise out of the player. "Oh no, they're sneak attacking my rear
> flank! How the hell did they get down there??!" Well there *was* an AI
> city behind the rear flank... maybe discovered by the player earlier...
> maybe placed there to justify the operation by the Dramatic AI. All the DAI
> would have to do is keep events sufficiently consistent with the rules of
> the game, that the DAI can never be caught.
>
> I don't know that anyone has implemented a proper DAI. Plenty of people
> have implemented AIs that cheat, and these often get caught cheating. Also,
> plenty of players have ascribed "intelligence" to AI play that was in fact
> completely random.
While it's not a wargame, and we didn't do a whole lot of it, we did do
a little based on drama in King of Dragon Pass. I don't recall the
specifics, but I think in some cases we seeded a "good" scene if luck
had been turning against a player.
(Some of the advice is oriented this way too -- if you haven't done any
exploring in a while, someone will remind you that there are fun scenes
that can occur because of it.)
--
David Dunham A Sharp david@SPAM_B_GONE.a-sharp.com
R. Alan Monroe
>Acrylic paints, in contrast, are a solved problem. Digital photography is
>an almost solved problem.
Except those lousy Foveon guys are taking FOREVER to get their chip to
filter down to cheap digital cameras. What's the holdup?
Alan
Brandon J. Van Every
"R. Alan Monroe" <amon...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:sczAb.39247$tu1....@fe3.columbus.rr.com...
Because they can? Intel used to milk out its CPUs 33 MHz at a time.
Finally when they got nearer to 1 GHz, people started saying, "Hey wait a
minute! You're charging me how much more for a 5% speed improvement?!"