So, there we have it

Wow. There you have it. 36 posts, over 15000 words, 13 weeks, multiple game ideas, lots of analysis, and too many Cokes to appropriate later, and we have a complete design journal. I thought my "last" one should probably wrap up, as I feel like it's been somewhat of an epic journey.

I've actually found this journaling process incredibly helpful for getting a grasp on the lecture content in ITN016. And I'm not trying to say this to appeal to the markers. I really have. I mean, learning about design concepts has been interesting, but I've found their use and importance by actually examining games in the industry against them.

It's also forced me to have to come up with my own game ideas. This has been great cause, while course co-ordinators invite you to think about your own ideas in your spare time, the truth is that.. you don't really get much opportunity to. Not only that, it's forced me to actually assess these ideas. Not just having ideas for the sake of ideas, but having some ideas that are actually soundly justified by tested design principles.

So, key findings:

- Designers abuse gamers - in difficulty, in interface use... and maybe not so much in terms of narrative and affect

- The tried and true methods are often your best bet - a lot of areas *could* be innovated in order to move the industry forward even further, but it's probably best for the moment they aren't ie. FPS interfaces, implicit vs. explicit challenge balances

- Games are a good medium for people to grow - whether this is by assaulting players memorisation ability and requiring superhuman ability, or by bringing them further along in their own lives

- Designing games is HARD - or harder than I initially thought: there are no guarantees what you come up with will sell, and the processes you have to implement to get there are actually quite involved

I know that game developers have probably known these for years, but it's good to have the revelation of these for myself.

I may even continue this blog in the near future. It sure has been useful for creating good game ideas. And while it may not always have an ITN016 lecture to go by, it sure will be focussed on finding new and innovative ways to revolutionise, or at least increment, the gaming medium.

Watch this space.

Alas, the tormented soul

I can't seem to escape this notion that designers are mean to gamers. They clearly are. I swear they are. Or maybe I just have some sort of deep, repressed hurt from the times that these games broke my heart so... Alas, my secret misery is now revealed.

But it just occurred to me that some things which could severely mess up a group of players emotionally could also be what inspires or engages another set of gamers. It seems that the perceptions gamers may bring into their experiences may have severe consequences on how they are affected, or how they allow themselves to be affected, by a particular gameplay segment.

The problem is choice, Neo.

In Knights of the Old Republic, you are given an extensive list of options as to how your character behaves, and a branching story that follows along depending on how you've acted. **SPOILERS** In a significant part of the dark side end-game, you are given the option of how to treat your party after you have fallen to the ways of the Sith. You are given the rather cruel option to turn one of your life-bound companions on his life-time friend and have her killed. When he refuses, you are then given the option to kill them both. It is a pretty high impact decision, after spending 20+ hours in the company of these characters. For some, it may have had them wishing they never said yes to Bastilla and her dark side ways. For others, it may highlight the new-found power and authority of their twisted dark lord. ***END SPOILERS***

I haven't played Half-Life 2 Episode Two yet, but I have played all the titles before it. So when I saw a link on GameTrailers to watch its ending, I couldn't help but click. And omigolly. An incredibly significant, albeit innocent character is shockingly killed off in the presence of family... then the game ends. When I saw it, I actually felt quite ripped off and it's sort of put me off getting the game. My mate Dan, on the other hand, said it was quite a good cliffhanger and would lead in well to the next game. The level to which we involved ourself in the game obviously came out.

And don't get started on Final Fantasy VII. When I see Aeris die, it just makes me remember all the parodies. "And remember, phoenix downs don't always work... I'M LOOKING AT YOU, AERIS!". But there are enough records of people breaking down in tears in that segment of the game to show that the game had some serious affect on people... or that they were just too attached to the game.


Well, there's an evident design question: How do you design so that people view your high impact, emotional scenes in the right light? Well the obvious answer, it seems, is you can't. You can't design for everyone, sometimes not even for yourself. But you can pick up trends and strategies used by others, in games and in other media, for touching the emotions of a particular market. Otherwise, it seems to be a large waste of time and money. Besides, if you can hit most people, it's usually described as a success. Here here, Mr. Uematsu!

Ok ok, so I'll admit it - gamers probably aren't as tortured as I've made them out to be. I guess when the Universal Survey of All Gamers is run*, we will finally know.

*May or may not be a Universal Survey of All Gamers, any likeness to a real survey is mostly coincidental

What are you implying?

Lately I've been getting into the Nintendo 64 Zelda games again. What great games. They're absolutely fantastic. Great quest and level design, fun controls, excellent reward system, wonderful score etc. The list goes on on reams of paper that clearly aren't fair for the humble rainforests.

Zelda is a really great series for showing the power of balance between implicit and explicit challenges. Combat, for instance, is always very explicit. There are icons on the screen clearly showing what button will initiate a jumping attack or a sword swing, as well as others corresponding to arrows or bombs. If that isn't specific enough for you, there's even the option to listening to advice from your fairy about exactly how to kill this beast. This is offset with a remarkable quest system: a spelled out critical path; some other quests which are largely hinted at, but not forced; and a whole load of quests which aren't even required, or eluded to, unless you go looking for them.

I wonder what would happen if all of those optional quests were suddenly spelled out in great detail during the game. Oh yes, that's right.


Runescape would happen. Every single quest you can possibly do is explicitly implied... explicitly implied? Well yeah, the quests are completely spelt out; then again, they aren't exactly forced. Perhaps it is more useful to the target market for Runescape, which could be a bit hard to gauge since it is an MMO spread largely by word of mouth (or at least that's how I heard about it). From the community I was in back in those dark days of playing it, I can remember a fairly strong early-teen contingent. Then again, Zelda has a similar target market, albeit those owning consoles.

How can a perfect balance be determined? Guess this is another example of people not straying far from the tried and true. Perhaps it would be perilous to even try. And yes, of course we're gonna try it for a moment.

Most current games follow the formula "explicit combat, explicit critical path, implicit sub-quests". What I was thinking is, what if you implied the critical path? What if it wasn't forced? What if the player had to actively go look for what they actually had to do in the game, rather than being spoon-fed by annoying "HEY! LISTEN!" or by extensive quest logs?

On the plus side, it would be a new experience for players. I can't think of a game that has you doing something like this. Actually, that's not true. There are some games where reviewers complained about "wandering around for hours, trying to find out what you actually have to do next". Perhaps players don't have the attention span or the motivation to have to search out their main objective.

Maybe if other things were made explicit in its place, like.......................................................... optional quests? Hmmm, maybe not the best way of going about it. Well I can't say that either, cause it hasn't actually been tried. If the earliest part of the critical path was made explicit (and was an absolutely AWESOME experience), then perhaps this wouldn't be so bad? Once again, unconfirmed, and in desperate need of an attempt.

And so it seems, the tried and true is once again the winner. Not necessarily a bad thing, but if a solid innovation is made in this area, we could be on to some good game sales...

Even more gamer abuse

I've done a couple of posts stating that producers who abuse their target market sell well. And I still maintain it's true. Just looking over some of the key design principles Peta put forward in the interface lecture, and I'm so reminded of all the games that abuse players, not just by difficulty, not just by challenge hierarchy, but by exploiting the interface to no end. Usually this is done in the audiovisual, via senses, but is also done in other ways.

Instant example is Eternal Darkness. The game's whole point is to mess with the player. As typical of survival horror games, you are always being bombarded with a constant barrage of downcast yet frantic music to instill fear. You're being hunted quite a bit. And then, this is where the game just gets amazing... you have a sanity meter, which measures how sane your avatar currently is. When this bar starts to go down, all sorts of crazy stuff happens. Your head will randomly fall off. A TV volume bar will appear on screen and mute the TV on you, like someone was turning it down using the remote. The interface will turn to static. Absolute madness. A perfect example of a game abusing the player via the interface to induce emotions of fear and panic.


A lot of multiplayer games will enable players to use the interface of their opponent to effect their ability to play the game, and some are quite mean. I think of how, in Guitar Hero battles, you are able to reverse the opposing player's dexterity orientation (ie. make a right-handed player use the left-handed interface, and vice versa). I *hate* it when this happens to me. Or the flashbang grenade in Counter-Strike or Operation Flashpoint. It completely blinds the player's character, and an instant white screen with a high-pitched wail is also annoying. I know it's to capture the "realism" of a flashbang, but that doesn't escape the fact it's sense-abuse.

You've gotta admit, developers must have some excellent recruiting processes to find the genii that come up with this sort of stuff. Absolutely remarkable.

But once again, this is an example of where players are tortured to some extent, in order to create a fun experience. I think, perhaps, the tolerance of players to this sort of thing is quite a bit higher than we have been led to believe. And these are just the most popular games. There is an interesting flash game I played that makes the player wander through a maze. I think it was called Disorientation. The premise sounds easy enough, right? But then it reverses the orientation of the controls, shuns you with motion blur, and gives you a moving floor to work with, all in increasing levels as you go through the game. Sheer madness.

Player abuse. Don't report it. Be a capitalist and make money off it. Seems to have worked for so many companies, and I'm sure there'll be more to come.

My place in this woooooooorld

Ignorance is bliss, they say. Perhaps this has been my greatest source of uncertainty in our group experience. Uncertainty that our game ideas are actually *good*. And fun. These things which are potentially impossible to assess are required to be assessed during the design process. *Sigh*. The joys of entertainment.

And actually, it has been. I have actually really enjoyed working in a group to create a game idea, and then implement it. I won't go into the details of what I've already said I've gotten out of it, rather, I should probably mention what I actually ended up doing in the team.



As I have mentioned before, I was a bit of a jokester, but I also wanted to get all the work done. I would find myself constantly going over the lecture content in my mind during our group meetings, and ensuring nothing we were talking about was devoid of the key words, like "critical path" or "starting condition". That seemed to have served us well, if our marks for our design document are anything to go by.

On the topic of the design document, I was charged with the creation of the lengthy mechanics section. Admittedly, once I was halfway through it (standing at about the 6 page mark), I was thinking I shouldn't have picked the biggest section. Once I pushed out of that mindset, I found that it was actually quite a bit easier to think about design principles than I initially made out. There was just so much depth to what conflict actually was and how it took place, the intricacy of the rules, and the idiosyncrasies of game balance.

I'd like to view myself as the token nerd of our group. Before starting some key meetings, Tristan, Dan and I would sit and talk for about an hour about the games we really enjoyed and the ones we're looking forward to. 10 minutes in, two things were obvious: I'm an extreme Nintendrone, and I know too many games for my own good.

Actually, that isn't fair to say. It seems that my "past experiences with so many games", also known as my extreme nerdiness, has served me well in this unit and in this degree at large. I guess it makes sense: if you were doing film and TV, you'd have to be familiar with a LOT of movies, so one working in the games industry should do likewise with games.

Overall, a highly enjoyable group experience. I look forward to working in similar environments when I start work in the near future.

Rick Role

Atari were true visionaries back in the day when they invented a home console with multiple control ports. The money is indeed in the multiplayer game. We love it. We live it. We leave it. It's how we roll. Or role, as it were.



Wherever there is a talk about design, Sutton-Smith is always there. I think he's following me. In fact, I think he may have snuck into my house somehow...

He has some intriguing ideas. A little while ago we had a look at some of the different roles he proposed were present in multiplayer games. And it looks like he was pretty much spot on: all bases seem to be covered. I couldn't think of one game where player roles would not come under one of the eight roles discussed. But no harm in trying, right?

Ouch... there sure is. I've got nothing. He literally has all the bases covered. I would've tried games that use most of them and seeing if there are any aspects of gameplay left missed... let's try that.

Guild Wars. This would have to do it, right? It has the following roles:

- To overtake - players enter an arms race to get their levels high enough to wear their best armour and get their best skillset; similarly, the counteractors (other players) try their best to get ahead
- To catch, tackle or tag - ...not so much
- To overpower a defense - the premise of the game is combat, so this is definitely prevalent, with counteractors being on the defence
- To take person - entire group quests will be focussed on capturing one objective, while the counteractor (player controlled or system controlled) will try to evade
- To taunt, lure - Ah, the madness that arises from the constant harrassment, via chat or action, from other players... it can't be missed
- To find by chance or clue - exactly how every time in the game is found; counteractors participate by trying to get items first, although not with great success
- To be a saviour - this is more circumstantial, but still present - if an ally is in danger, the team may mobilize to get them back (if they're nice...)
- To force a forbidden action - this is more generated by the social interaction than the game itself, but still present

And that leaves... absolutely no elements of gameplay untouched or unmentioned. I have been foiled by Sutton-Smith and his analytical brilliance. I SHALL COME BACK TO HAUNT YOU, MY HYPHENATED FRIEND!

An avatar to call my own

How can you create for a player a completely unique avatar? Or at least, more unique than exists at present? And then ensuring that these unique qualities are balanced? I think it's time I stop asking rhetorical abstract questions and actually try answering some of these...

So here's some ideas.

The game Second Life (yes, the game) does this in an interesting way. The developers have created their own scripting language, enabling players to create their own custom... everything. You can upload custom clothes, custom textures, and even custom planes (that vigilante ITB010 students can come and make vanish). While it is a bit hard to do, and the quality of the gameplay in Second Life leaves some to be desired, it has proven quite successful, and allows players to fully customise their avatar.

But Second Life is not a combat-based RPG. The clothes and items do not influence how you play the game. But if this sort of scripting was ported over to World of Warcraft, say, then the results would be more felt.

Then there's the issue of ensuring balance. If players are allowed to write their own weapon scripts, what's to stop them giving it an attack radius of half of... whatever planet WOW is on... and doing 500000 damage a second to anything in its way?

Well, this is where I had an idea. Perhaps players could have a preset amount of "balance points" that a particular item must be under. For example, players could spend them all on attack power of a weapon and make it ridiculously strong, but wouldn't be able to put any points on its speed, range or required level. Or perhaps the "required level" attribute would be determined by how many points were spent on the item. For example, if 100 out of 1000 points were spent, perhaps you could equip it when you are on Level 15, but if you spend 1000 points, you would have to be Level 70 or 80.

Logarithmic mathematics is the friend here, with the amount of points being spent per attribute increasing as you buy more and more of that attribute; vis-a-vis, if you spend 50 points on one level of speed, it may cost 60 points for the next level.



Log maths seems to be quite useful for any sort of progression in a game. I think it'll be my loyal companion in years to come, where I may get an opportunity to implement some of these ideas.