Mailbag: How to Do Game Research

Photo: Joe Shlabotnik

Hello readers!  I wanted to take a moment to THANK all of you for making The Game Prodigy such a  success in only its first three months.  There have been over 3,000 unique visitors to the site and I’ve gotten great feedback from many of you fellow game developers, via comments on the blog, videos, and email.  It’s been a great learning experience for me and I hope I’ve been able to give some of you some useful information about game development as well.  Thank you so much!

Many of the emails I’ve gotten have started some fantastic dialogues about game design and development, and so I wanted to create an opportunity to interact with readers a bit more by sharing some of the discussion with the rest of you in a mailbag post.  I love answering game development and career questions, so please feel free to submit your own.

Our First Mailbag Question

“I find that, for some strange reason, I’m not confident when I’m designing games. Sometimes it feels like I’m designing in a void, and don’t exactly know how to piece things together. I’m wondering if it’s because, in the last ten years, I haven’t played/completed that many games at all. I keep starting then giving up in the first hour or so.

So, just like if you’re a writer, you gotta read, I’m wondering if the reason I’m finding game design so difficult is because I haven’t played that many games recently, *especially* in the genre I’m working in.”

Answer

You are very right in your hunch;  I like to think of it as game design research.  If I am working on a game, then I need to know what else is going on in the genre.  If you are working on a brawler title, then you will want to play other brawlers to see what they do and how they work.  If you are working on a mystery title, same deal.  You need to know what other developers have done so that you can get a head start on where you want your game to go.

Many indie developers ignore this, and sadly, they waste time reinventing the wheel by trying to come up with their own “original” Base Mechanics/P&R Systems that solve problems that have already been solved.  The same can be said of professional developers who miss indie titles in their genre.  Both could benefit of being aware of what other games are doing.  I view this kind of research as mandatory. For the games that I’ve worked on, it has proven invaluable.

So for example, if you’re doing a platforming shooter and you want to do a charge-up, then you’ll want to check out games like Megaman, Contra, and indie games with similar mechanics.  How long does it take to charge?  Do they limit how long you can do it?  How powerful is it?  Once you establish what has been done, you can decide what YOU want to do.  I personally used to be controlled by a need to be “original” until I realized that being original is still letting everyone else control you, just in an opposite manner.  A more mature strategy is to decide on a case by case basis when to be original and when to copy the brilliant things others have done.

Playing all these games might sound like a lot of work, but you don’t need to finish the whole game.  But you should be able to pick apart exactly what’s going on and hone in on what you’re looking for.  If you want to learn about a combat system you probably don’t need to play more than an hour or two.  But if you want to learn story progression then you’ll want to play through most of it.  AAA Games are made up of many things; if 80% of another game has nothing to do with the one you’re making, then you probably don’t need to play it.

In summary: once you define your game’s genre or Core Experience, then take a moment to check out other games in the same area.  You’ll see things you hadn’t thought of yet, get more ideas, and decide what you don’t like and where you can make your game stand out from the crowd.

Submit Your Questions for Next Monday’s Mailbag!

If you have a question about game development, design, the games industry, or getting a video game career, and have been looking for an industry insider to answer them, contact me!  I’ll be answering the best question next Monday, January 3rd.

Happy Holidays everyone!

Comments

1. Phil says:

   January 4, 2010 at 2:59 am

   Good idea with the “open letter answering”. And i totaly need that mailbox from the foto to scare my postman!^^