next »

[Alex Vostrov]

I've been writing game design articles for my blog, recently.  I feel that the idea below is important enough that it deserves some feed back from you guys.

The more I learn about game design, the more I am convinced that there’s a huge overlap between teaching and game design. I don’t think that it’s an accident that my game designer hero – Chris Crawford – taught prior to making games. If you’re an amazing teacher, you can become an amazing game designer.

That’s a pretty strong statement to make, isn’t it? What does standing in front of a class have to do with making games, anyway? At first glance, they are two different activities, but let me explain why there’s more similarity than you think.

Empathy for Teachers

You’ve probably never taught a class, but I’m sure that you’ve explained something new to a friend or a co-worker. The typical experience goes something like this. You lay out the topic in a simple and comprehensible manner, only to be met by a blank stare. You explain again, wondering if they’re a bit on the thick side. This time they ask a question that completely misses the point.  You roll your eyes; muster your patience and prod them towards the correct path. On and on this process goes on until the two of you stumble into understanding.

Now, it’s not true that all learners are thick-headed imbeciles. The problem is that you already know what you’re trying to explain – you don’t remember what it felt like not to know. Of course it’s obvious to you! On top of that, the way your student thinks is probably different from you, so points that you thought were elucidating fall flat for them. Frankly, it’s a wonder that anybody manages to teach anything.

So, what’s the key ingredient in the above process? Think about what goes on when you are teaching something. The knowledge in your head is not a book – it’s not linear. It’s a web of associations, a jumble of related facts and experiences. Your understanding of the subject is organic; somehow you must turn it into a linear stream of words so that a similar web is produced in your student’s head.

You have no hope of making people understand any complicated topic in one shot. This is why empathy is crucial. You must imagine what it feels like to be the student – what’s the web of ideas in their mind? Once you know this, you can tailor your next lesson to correct their misunderstandings. If you don’t have empathy, you’re waving your arms in the darkness.

Empathy for Game Designers

Is just so happens that empathy is a critical skill for game designers as well.  How does the player feel at this moment? Are they bored or frustrated? What have they learned so far? A good game designer is painfully aware of all these questions.  Helping the players learn the game is even harder than teaching face-to-face.

As a teacher, you have the advantage of interacting with your students directly.  If they are confused or frustrated, you can nudge them in the right direction. As a designer, you interact via the intermediary of the game.  If the player is frustrated, there’s nothing you can do. This means that you must be that much better at anticipating your audience before-the-fact.

When I was making Pandora’s Gearbox, I felt a magical sense of connection to the player.  Making puzzle games forces you to get inside the head of the audience.  If a puzzle is obvious or too hard, it falls flat very quickly.  Knowing this, I did my best to play mind games against the player. If you can cultivate this sense of playing with someone who’s not there, you will win as a designer.  Play is an inherently empathic process.

Learning is All There Is

Let’s say that I’ve convinced you that teaching players the game is important. Aha, you say, what about all the time after the player learns the game, what then?  Well, I’ve got a shocker for you – there is no “after the player learns the game.” Once the player completely absorbs the game, it becomes boring and they stop playing it. In other words, your job as a designer is to deliver an interesting learning experience to the audience.  Raph Koster pointed this out very well in his “Theory of Fun.”

Finally, if you’re not convinced with all this fuzzy empathy and learning stuff, let me appeal to your selfishness.  Being a great teacher is a way to sell games that you want to make.   Let’s say that you want to create a game about the call patterns of South American fruit bats.  But, curse it, you seem to be the only one interested in this – for some reason everyone else is missing all the excitement.  They’d rather play those innumerable match-3 games.  If you were a great teacher, you’d be able to explain why someone should be giddy about fruit bats.

Your game must be its own advocate.  It’s not enough to just plop down an interesting system in front of the audience and expect that they invest the time an energy to explore it.  As far as they are concerned, you are a talentless hack who couldn’t design his way out of a paper bag.  If you can’t prove them wrong quickly, they’ll close the game and move onto the next thing.  This is why you must leave bread crumbs for the players to lead them into interesting areas.  Do this effectively and you can make that game about fruit bats or the migration patterns of the African elephant or whatever else you want.

[Alex Vostrov]

Let me throw in a coda to the above.

This is why MMORPG grind and achievements are bollocks.  I'm reading a book right now called "Punished by Rewards" which makes it clear that external rewards kill intrinsic motivation.  If you have to hand out gold stars to motivate people to learn, you're a crappy teacher and a crappy game designer.

P.S. Thanks to JB for turning me onto the book.

[CRTSSLL]

Your right in your assertions that teachers and game designers are very similar if not one and the same. A game designer has to teach the player the rules of the game and then provide sufficient reasons to continue learning. All games are patterns, and game designers have to trick players to keep learning. Your also very right that achievements can cause players to finish bad games that they have long lost interest in. Nice essay, I definitely need to check out your blog.     

[Zenorf]

Cut from the same cloth, sometimes, but not one and the same.

Would you argue that a great game designer can always become a great teacher. For a start you are assuming there is only one style of games designer and one style of teacher which isn't true.

both my parents were teachers. I'm a games designer.
My dad was a creative teacher and my mum was an entertaining teacher.
Only the former suits the requirements of a games designer. The latter more a producer.

My dad went on to become a software design manager and my mum became a deputy head teacher.

Both have excellent people skills which is one of the most important prerequisites of a designer working with a larger team, but not necessarily a small few person team where you can achieve the same results by pulling on board like minded individuals. A credible option in indie development.

but my mum is not super creative and she is not a creative problem solver. She could sell the ideas of others to kids and has numerous letters/e-mails from kids that were inspired by her teaching over the year but no-one would call her a creative force to be reckoned with.Perhaps she could could work as the type of designer that simply pushes the creative directors vision?

Overall I would say that the two professions meet at service sales. Just as a games designer in a larger company has to continually sell their systems to the team and management, a teacher continually has to sell their subject to the pupils.
In indie development the system is often entirely different and usually programmer driven. A programmer basically starts to make something. Shows it to artistic people and says "does anyone want to make this look pretty?" Over time more creative partnerships form. There isn't a heavy teaching element.

[Alex Vostrov]

Cut from the same cloth, sometimes, but not one and the same.

Would you argue that a great game designer can always become a great teacher. For a start you are assuming there is only one style of games designer and one style of teacher which isn't true.

...

Of course there are many other skills to being a great game designer - storytelling, for example.  I'm painting with a broad brush here.

It's interesting that you mention the teamwork aspect.  I suppose that I'm so focused on the indie perspective that I don't think too much about that.  Collaborating creatively with others is an art of its own.

[Zenorf]

It's interesting that you mention the teamwork aspect.  I suppose that I'm so focused on the indie perspective that I don't think too much about that.  Collaborating creatively with others is an art of its own.

Strange that, given this is an indie games forum. What on earth were you thinking?

I'm a hybrid bastard child semi indie developer. I make some of my own stuff but I also whore myself out doing contract work to pay the bills and feed the family. I didn't even realize there was such a thing as a designer for indie games. The designer is usually one of the people with another core skill, most often code but sometimes art.

I'd quite like to know how many indie devs are purely designers and don't do another core task such as code, art, or sound. Maybe I'll make a poll on it later. Maybe ypou can make one now?

[Alex Vostrov]

It's interesting that you mention the teamwork aspect.  I suppose that I'm so focused on the indie perspective that I don't think too much about that.  Collaborating creatively with others is an art of its own.

Strange that, given this is an indie games forum. What on earth were you thinking?

I'm a hybrid bastard child semi indie developer. I make some of my own stuff but I also whore myself out doing contract work to pay the bills and feed the family. I didn't even realize there was such a thing as a designer for indie games. The designer is usually one of the people with another core skill, most often code but sometimes art.

I'd quite like to know how many indie devs are purely designers and don't do another core task such as code, art, or sound. Maybe I'll make a poll on it later. Maybe ypou can make one now?

Ah, I see.  We have slightly different perspectives here.  I view myself as the designer first and everything else second.  The reason I program and do art and PR is because there's nobody else to do it for me and because it's more efficient that way.

[Zenorf]

Ah, I see.  We have slightly different perspectives here.  I view myself as the designer first and everything else second.  The reason I program and do art and PR is because there's nobody else to do it for me and because it's more efficient that way.

I call bullshit on that.
As a designer first you should realize that there are much better coders, artists and musicians out there than you and you would have a better product if you could utilize their talents for your designs.

If you said you like to do it all yourself cause then you never have to compromise your vision then that's ok as long as your vision remains inside the scope of your talents.

If you'd said that you do it all yourself cause you just enjoy working on your own and not collaberating that's cool

If you'd said that you work alone because you just haven't found the right people to work with then you've probably come to the right place.

If you say that you work alone cause you smell or no-one likes you then I'd take that with a pinch of salt,

but don't say it's more efficient cause there are some epic coders/artists/sound guys that will be able to do a much better job of that task than you could in half the time and furthermore if you are JUST designing you can focus on that while others do other tasks and you can produce games much much faster.

[Paul Eres]

there's something called a communication barrier, or in other words, sometimes the effort required to get people to work together (time spent communicating and explaining and so on) exceeds the amount of time saved from splitting up the work. this is particularly true of small games.

so sometimes 3 people can be less efficient than one person at doing the same amount of work. but sometimes they're more efficient. it's not always less efficient and not always more efficient.

[Zenorf]

Fair point.
I withdraw my previous accusation and apologize for any offense.

Doesn't that come under "not finding the right people to work with" mind you?

[Paul Eres]

to an extent yes, but i think that if the needs of something are limited, there are still cases where not knowing the right people isn't the issue, because the task is too limited or small to require expert assistance. there's no such thing as a person that has zero communication/collaboration 'upkeep'. sometimes you can know the best people in the world, and it'd still be more efficient to do it yourself. specialization is a great thing, but there are times when doing things yourself is more efficient than taking it to a specialist.

for a simple example, it's sometimes more efficient to change your own oil than to take your car to a mechanic to have them do it for you. they could probably do it more efficiently all other things being equal, but when you add the time it takes to go there and the communication, and even simple things like handing them your keys, it increases the time-cost involved, no matter how good they are at it.

[jwk5]

I call bullshit on that.
As a designer first you should realize that there are much better coders, artists and musicians out there than you and you would have a better product if you could utilize their talents for your designs.

There are likely to be better designers out there too so should he not design his game either?

but don't say it's more efficient cause there are some epic coders/artists/sound guys that will be able to do a much better job of that task than you could in half the time and furthermore if you are JUST designing you can focus on that while others do other tasks and you can produce games much much faster.

I myself can do the programing, art, writing, and art pretty well and it is more efficient for me to do it myself because I am not left working through middle men to get to the resources I need. I am an artist first, but that doesn't prevent me from being an efficient designer, etc. I tend to work on the story, art, writing, and pseudo-coding all in tandem which speeds the process along immensely for me.

[Zenorf]

There are likely to be better designers out there too so should he not design his game either?

Well then he'd be replacing 1 man unit for no reason. That wouldn't be efficient.

I myself can do the programing, art, writing, and art pretty well and it is more efficient for me to do it myself because I am not left working through middle men to get to the resources I need. I am an artist first, but that doesn't prevent me from being an efficient designer, etc. I tend to work on the story, art, writing, and pseudo-coding all in tandem which speeds the process along immensely for me.

Eris has a point about small tasks/projects but if you are working on larger things it is impossible for it to be more efficient to do everything yourself.
If you are doing art you are not coding.
If 2 tasks take you 2 months but you could hand one over to someone else after a day of explanation then your tasks takes 1 months and 1 day assuming equal skill sets. If this is a free game then yay you got it out in almost half the time and can work on your next idea.
If it's a product for sale you got it done in half the time and can move on to your next product and revenue is coming in 29 days earlier than it would have. So basically the larger the product the more advantage there is to using multiple people and particularly specialists. That's why companies tend to hire more than 1 coder or artist for a product.

P.S. It's usually inefficient to do art twice. I say usually cause Ubisoft do that with their main characters in their shanghai studio. They had 3 artists make seperate versions of Sam fisher over 3 months then scrapped two of them.

[Paul Eres]

i agree with that but should note that it often takes more than one day of explanation for one month of work. my game saturated dreamers has about 6 people working on it, and the time spent in discussions about the game and about each person's tasks and so on probably is more than a 1:30 ratio, maybe a 1:10.

people who work on games in companies often complain about meetings feeling like they waste a huge amount of time; some companies (from what i hear) have to have weekly or daily meetings. i don't know what ratio is common in the industry, but it would surprise me if it were as little as 1 hour of meeting/discussion for every 30 hours of work on a game. perhaps some of you who have worked in game companies (there are a few people who have around here) could elaborate on how much of their time was spent in communication or other upkeep and how much of it was spent on working on the actual game.

[Zenorf]

people who work on games in companies often complain about meetings feeling like they waste a huge amount of time; some companies (from what i hear) have to have weekly or daily meetings.

Yup. I'm one of them and have been though all those stupid meeting systems.
Daily meetings are a total waste of time in my opinion.
Weekly meeting are ok.
Best meetings are the irregular ones that only involve specific areas of development and the people directly involved.
Whats even better than that in my opinion is good design documentation and a quick chat with 2 or 3 people to make sure they understand it.