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[hmm]

Interesting talk from the Lead Designer of Monument Valley, worth a look if only for his fairly anti-mechanics point of view;
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1020878/Designing-Monument-Valley-Less-Game

General gist of the talk, if you don't want to watch it: focus less on the mechanical side of design, more on the aesthetic, experience side of things. Discard commonly held wisdom of challenge and choice and focus instead focus on making something that pleasing to interact with.

Just wondered what people's thoughts were on this idea. Its kind of anti-gameplay, but I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed Monument Valley, amongst other similarly "experience-focussed" games. I'm thinking that The Walking Dead, maybe even Limbo or Ico would fall into the same category here.

[bdsowers]

I think it's a perfectly valid alternative design approach. It's also easier to sell - you come out with a product that can immediately grab someone's attention without a word.The "Indies vs PewDiePie" jam had it as one of the focal goals: you were tasked with making a game that was fun to watch such that when someone made a video or Let's Play, people would be entertained without playing themselves.

I don't see why the two have to be mutually exclusive, though. I'd say (at risk of being horribly cliche) that Shadow of the Colossus combined the two pretty well. Katamari's another example of something with a strong aesthetic vision that also incorporated pretty well with a challenge-based gameplay.

[valrus]

From what I watched (I jumped around a bit), I mostly agree.  I think "gameplay" as a lot of us mean it has become concentrated on a narrow range of loops that tweak a narrow range of feelings.  Kill the thing, make that jump, get that upgrade, get all the stars, become more powerful, become rich.  That's fun -- we know it's fun, we've been honing that for 30 years -- but it's *so* compelling that I think it can drown out whatever else you're trying to do, and whatever other experiences you're trying to cultivate.  If you have that stuff in there, that's what your game starts to be about, whether or not that's what your game is actually good at. 

Sometimes I play games that are just dripping with atmosphere and/or good ideas, but then there's stuff to kill or platforms to jump onto, and I get onto that familiar addiction treadmill and rush past the good stuff to try to get my fix.  (And the fix isn't always there; sometimes there's actually nothing to combat but "press X", or the jumping isn't tweaked quite right, and what could have been a unique and atmospheric game gets filed in my mind as "tedious brawler" or "platformer with control issues".)

[Pfotegeist]

I liked the train of thought. The ideas work really well for an entry level game.

On the other hand; The reason bunnies want more difficulty is because it gives them a chance to improve a seemingly useful skill, to play the game. Showing off and aiming for a high score are natural animal tendencies to demand peer validation.

[hmm]

That's fun -- we know it's fun, we've been honing that for 30 years -- but it's *so* compelling that I think it can drown out whatever else you're trying to do,

This is an interesting point, that certain 'fun' designs have been so refined that they overwhelm newer approaches. If we look at games as an experience, then these limited designs will lead to a limited set of experiences

Sometimes I play games that are just dripping with atmosphere and/or good ideas, but then there's stuff to kill or platforms to jump onto, and I get onto that familiar addiction treadmill and rush past the good stuff to try to get my fix.

This too. Recently played through Shadow of Mordor, and quickly went from "Oh, I'm in Mordor killing Orcs! Cool!" to "Gotta complete that mission / collect all these things / upgrade this skill etc". It became a bit of a totally addictive checklist to grind through, which for me detracted from the experience.

I don't see why the two have to be mutually exclusive, though. I'd say (at risk of being horribly cliche) that Shadow of the Colossus combined the two pretty well. Katamari's another example of something with a strong aesthetic vision that also incorporated pretty well with a challenge-based gameplay.

Totally. I think the point isn't that you shouldn't have interesting game mechanics, just that the focus should be on the experience first and everything in the game should support that.

On the other hand; The reason bunnies want more difficulty is because it gives them a chance to improve a seemingly useful skill, to play the game. Showing off and aiming for a high score are natural animal tendencies to demand peer validation.

I think that's part of the appeal of the experience that such games offer. The experience of progression, of learning something and mastering it, is a repeating one in games probably because it is so rewarding.

[Mittens]

This is how I naturally feel about designing games, however I do have to constantly dial it back.
Once you actually show these experiences games to people, my experience is, they will not appreciate what's novel or how something feels, instead they will complain about not having level ups, points, achievements, health bars etc. etc.
En masse gamers want what they know, they wan't what they are already used to.

Games like this are, i guess, kind of like art house films; awesome for people who are into it, but the majority of people won't see the appeal and would rather consume more generic commercial crap.


The way I am trying to work at the moment is like this; first make all the 'game' stuff that MUST be there, that everyone will expect, then, where possible add novel experiences inside a product that people would already accept without them.
 

[bdsowers]

The way I am trying to work at the moment is like this; first make all the 'game' stuff that MUST be there, that everyone will expect, then, where possible add novel experiences inside a product that people would already accept without them.

I'm working in a similar fashion. I still focused on the base mechanics first, but I'm highly prioritizing the experience. Of course, not having any artistic talent, my abilities there are limited. ^^

I'd say there's a flip-side to this: BioShock Infinite focused heavily on experience, and the mechanics were unexciting. The aesthetic only carried me so far before I was bored to death with the game. So I'm wondering if aesthetic-driven design works better for shorter games or for games with non-standard mechanics.

[hmm]

I'd say there's a flip-side to this: BioShock Infinite focused heavily on experience, and the mechanics were unexciting. The aesthetic only carried me so far before I was bored to death with the game. So I'm wondering if aesthetic-driven design works better for shorter games or for games with non-standard mechanics.

Yup, uninspiring mechanics can run the risk of boring the player. Infinite would have worked much better if there was a little less of the actual game!

This is how I naturally feel about designing games, however I do have to constantly dial it back.
Once you actually show these experiences games to people, my experience is, they will not appreciate what's novel or how something feels, instead they will complain about not having level ups, points, achievements, health bars etc. etc.
En masse gamers want what they know, they wan't what they are already used to.

It's a good point. The success of Monument Valley, which ditched a lot of those classic game elements, may be in that it targeted non-gamers. I think the gaming literate sometimes don't realise how inaccessible that stuff is, or how unnecessary it can be to the actual experience. However, these systems may be a strong part of the experience that some gamers are looking for.

[Alec S.]

I'm always of the opinion that a multitude of approaches is better in a medium than a limitation of approaches.  I think it's a good thing that there are people making really experience-driven mechanics-light games just as I'm glad that there are people making really technical action games and strategy games.  So, as far as "you can focus less on challenge and choice and focus more on aesthetics," I agree, and think that's a perfectly valid approach.  On the other hand, as far as "you should  focus less on challenge and choice and focus more on aesthetics," I would disagree.

One of the most pernicious philosophies across game development is "you should focus on X and not Y."  Whether it's gameplay over graphics, or story over gameplay, or aesthetics over choice, or whatever.  Games, like all art forms, become great when all the components form a coherent whole so that it becomes more than the sum of its parts.  We have so many tools at our disposal as game developers.  While it's valid, and often preferable, to chose not to take advantage of some of those tools for a specific game, it would be wrong to discount any element of game design in general.

As a final point, I don't believe that focusing less on mechanics is the only way to make a game focused on the experience.  Often the mechanics are a vital part of what creates the experience of a game.  Look at how Amnesia revitalized the horror game genre, while A Machine for Pigs fell flat for a lot of people.  While much of Amnesia's scariness came from atmosphere, scripted events, tone, aesthetics, ect... It also used it's limited mechanic set incredibly effectively.  The lantern system meant the player would have to further explore the creepy environments to find oil, and the way the sanity system worked rewarded not looking directly at the monster, which helped to make the monsters more frightening.  Paper's, Please is another example of a game that was very much built around a specific, very oppressive experience, but that experience was very much created through the mechanics. 

Mechanics have a great way of creating need, which in turn can create the drive for an experience.

[J-Snake]

General gist of the talk, if you don't want to watch it: focus less on the mechanical side of design, more on the aesthetic, experience side of things. Discard commonly held wisdom of challenge and choice and focus instead focus on making something that pleasing to interact with.

That sort of experience/pleasure is something analytically weak minded people can easily connect with. There is certainly room using interactive media in various ways. But when it comes to games my heart beats for mechanical depth, that's where the actual life of the game is coming from.

[hmm]

I'm always of the opinion that a multitude of approaches is better in a medium than a limitation of approaches.  I think it's a good thing that there are people making really experience-driven mechanics-light games just as I'm glad that there are people making really technical action games and strategy games.

Agreed. I think the talk is interesting though because often it is the mechanics-driven design that gets all the attention.

As a final point, I don't believe that focusing less on mechanics is the only way to make a game focused on the experience.  Often the mechanics are a vital part of what creates the experience of a game.

Yes! This is something that the talk doesn't get right in my opinion - an opinion that seems to be shared around these parts too! Making a game as an experience does not have to mean that it is light on mechanics, just that the mechanics should support that experience. Mechanics, like art and audio, become a tool for crafting the overall feel of the game.