Intelligent Game and Career Development
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Posted by Brice on March 1, 2010
In case any of you haven’t seen it, Jesse Schell of Carnegie Mellon gave a great talk at the DICE game development conference. He discusses a lot of the psychological tricks that many cutting edge designs use to monetize their games (Punishment and Reward Systems and Base Mechanics). Very worthwhile for anyone interested in learning about what lots of designers in the industry are thinking about now.
Posted by Brice on February 6, 2010
Choice is often necessary for the deeper emotions of life. Choice are how people express themselves, design their lives, and make mistakes. It is through choices that we build our pasts and shape our present. Choices make life feel alive and real.
Choices can also appear in games, but for some reason, when many developers attempt to create meaningful choice in their games, they miss key components. Oftentimes poorly executed choices in games tend to feel empty, unimportant, or as though there really was no choice at all.
Luckily, when trying to design something like meaningful choice, we are not groping in the dark (as with some other design challenges). Meaningful choice is something that you and I experience every day in our real lives. What can life teach us about game design in this area?
Let’s start be defining exactly what our goal here is. I am defining a “meaningful choice” as a choice that the player makes that they actually care about. They deeply considered the choice. They felt the weight of the choice. And after the choice was over, they remember it and feel either satisfaction or regret.
A choice is a reflection of the player. Interactivity is one of the most important aspects of games that sets them apart from all other media. By giving the player a choice, you give them a chance to express themselves and differentiate their gameplay. You give them the chance not just to tell a story, but to show them the meaning of the consequences of their own actions, not just a set of actions that was predetermined. This lifts games above all other forms of storytelling.
According to the Game Design Canvas, meaningful choice is build using the bricks of the game’s Punishment and Reward Systems. There are three essential components. Neglect any one of them and the choice is rendered meaningless. The three ingredients are awareness, consequence, and permanence.
This may seem obvious, but you would be surprised how many early developers (including myself in my first games) make this mistake. For a choice to be meaningful, the player must first be aware that they are even being presented with a choice. Failing to recognize a choice is not the fault of the player, it is the fault of the game and the developer. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Brice on December 17, 2009
You have many choices in your everyday life. Wake up and jump out of bed, or hit the snooze button? Eat chicken, beef, or veggies? Do some work, or go out with friends? These choices, these actions that you can take are the different colors you use to paint the landscape of your day, your week, and your life. It is through these choices that you experience and express yourself in the world.
If life were a game, these actions that you can take are examples of the Base Mechanics of life. They are actions that you can perform, that you have the ability to perform, and that you may choose or choose not to perform. They are the inputs into the system from yourself. You can freely choose from all the possible abilities you have and perform them to your liking.
…Or can you? Well, there’s more to it than that. Your actions and free will are not as free as one would think. Yes, you have choices you can make, but there are consequences, there are requirements, and there are strings attached. You may have the ability to go into the middle of a library and shout at the top of your lungs. You may have the ability to insult your best friend or to rob a convenience store. You may have the ability to sit in your apartment and be depressed instead of going out and enjoying the weekend with friends.
You could do these things, but you probably won’t. Even though you have the ability and the means, there is something else that is guiding your decisions. There is more to this so called “choice” business than you might imagine. It is as though some invisible force outside of yourself is governing your actions.
Enter the third component of the Game Design Canvas: The Punishment and Reward Systems.
As we discussed in our last introductory article to the game design canvas on Base Mechanics, every game has actions that it lets the player perform. The player can run, shoot, paint, throw, eat, duck, swap polarity, teleport, or what have you. But these actions are not isolated; they have higher systems that govern them. These Punishment and Reward Systems nudge the player towards certain behavior. They give meaning and weight to the Base Mechanics, forcing the player to think about their choices. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »