Game Design Cheat Sheet:I've read quite a lot on game design, but I wanted to condense and collect all the useful information in one easy place. I haven't yet read 'Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals' yet, but the other couple of books I've heard are held in high esteem I have.
Most of the points are mechanics related, but some of Jesse Schell's are more to do with tweaking and balance or scenario creation than high-level design. I was going to organize it another way, but I couldn't fit the points neatly into other groups and doing it by author seems fine for now.
You're all welcome to contribute to the list; I'll try to update it. Anyway, I hope you find it useful.
A Theory of Fun (Raph Koster):- Players experience fun when they solve a puzzle (in a broad sense of the word).
- When games stop teaching the player, they get bored.
- The player is bored if they understand the game system fully and how to beat it.
- The player is bored if they realize there is lots of depth, but that it's not useful to him/her.
- The player is bored if they see no patterns in the game - it's just noise to them.
- Patterns (gameplay elements) should be introduced often enough to keep interest but not so often as to overwhelm the player.
LostGarden.com (DanC):- Theme is used to smooth out the initial learning curve of the player. For example, if you're a space marine you can easily tell you're supposed to shoot the alien.
- The player is driven to learn new skills that are high in perceived value.
- When you learn something new to the extent you can manipulate your environment with it, you feel like you're having fun.
- Players perform an action, the simulation (game) is updated and the player gets feedback.
- Players update their mental models of the game based on the feedback. They feel pleasure if they've made progress and joy if they master the new skill.
- If players feel their action has been in vain they'll feel boredom or frustration.
- Upon discovery of a skill, players experiment with it; for example, jumping all over the place.
- After learning one skill, players will use it to try and find another, creating skill chains. (eg. jumping skill -> jumping onto platforms)
- Players will use basic skills many times to try to unlock higher skills.
- If players never find a use for a skill (ie. they can't unlock another skill with it), they will lose interest in excercising that skill and also devalue earlier skills in the chain.
The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses (Jesse Schell):- Games create experiences. Ask yourself what experience you want the player to have and what you can do to create that experience. If a game element doesn't reinforce the experience, why is it there?
- There are four parts to your game: aesthetics, mechanics, narrative and technology (eg. whether it's a computer game or a board game); he holds that they are all equally important to the experience and they should work together to create it.
- There should be a unifying theme and as many elements as possible should reinforce it.
- People enjoy surprises, either from the aesthetics, story, mechanics, other players or even themselves.
- Players should be asking as many questions as possible about your game, and they should care about these questions.
- Endogenous Value. That is, what is valuable in the game. Ask yourself what's valuable to the player and how it can be made more valuable. Consider the relationship between value and the player's motivations.
- Problem Solving: what problems is the player solving? How can new problems be generated to keep the player's interest?
- It can help if games are also successful as toys. If your game has no goal, will it still be fun?
- There should be clear goals. If there are multiple goals, they should be meaningfully related. There should be a good balance of long term and short term goals. Think about what the effects of the player choosing (some of) their own goals might be.
- A steady stream of not-too-easy, not-too-hard challenges is what gives the player a feeling of 'flow'.
- Players want to be judged. The judgement should be fair, they should care about it and it should make them want to improve.
- Is the game state known by some, all or only one of players? How would changing this change the game? Changing who knows what can be a great way of achieving drama.
- Emergence: How can players interact with objects? How many objects can each of the player's actions be used on? Are there many ways for the player to achieve their goals? What about changing the number of characters/objects the player controls? Do side effects of actions change the constraints on you or your opponent?
- How many operational actions are there (eg. moving a checker in checkers)? How many resultant actions are there (eg. protect a checker from being captured) are there? Are you happy with the ratio?
- Are there parts of the game that feel random when they're not? Does randomness give players feelings of lack of control or excitement? Would changing probability distributions improve the game? Can players take interesting risks? What's the relationship between chance and skill in your game?
- Challenges should cater for as many skill levels as possible, and the challenge should increase as the player succeeds. Think about how much variety there is in your challenges.
- A trivial choice is as good as no choice at all. Is there a dominant strategy in your game, making choices trivial? Is the player given the right number of choices? Are all the choices meaningful?
- Are there risk/reward trade offs in your game?
- Rewards: players should clearly understand the rewards they receive. Are the rewards well related to eachother? Variable reward 'drops' keep players playing steadily, whereas set rewards (say, once per 10 enemies) tend to get players to engage in a flurry of activity and then rest.
- If there are punishments in your game, why are they there? Can the punishments be turnes into rewards? Do they seem fair to players? Is the punishment balanced by an equally strong reward?
- Emergent complexity: simple rules, interacting to create complex situations. For example, draughts. Innate complexity is like emergent complexity, except created by complex rules. It is less desirable. An example of this are the pawns in chess. Can you change innate complexity into emergent complexity?
- If you can't provide high quality details in your game, can you make use of the player's imagination instead? Can you give some high quality details that will be reused in the player's imagination later?
- Is money too easy or hard to get? What can players buy and why? Are choices about spending money meaningful?
- Is the game balanced, so no-one has an unfair and ungained advantage over someone else?
- Accessibility: how will new players know what to do?
- Can players easily see they're making progress? If some of the progress is hidden, can it be made visible?
- Can challenges be presented in parallel, where finishing one makes the others easier, preventing players getting stuck?
- Can you get players to do what you want indirectly? Through NPCs, visual or audio design, interface design or goals?
- Know what problems are you have in your game design before you try to solve them.
- Consider who is going to play your game, and tailor it to them.
- What have you done that is unique and innovative that will get players talking about your game?
Misc:- Positive feedback is when, for example, the better you're doing, the better you will do (or vice versa). Think kill streaks in COD.
- Negative feedback is when the better you're doing, the harder it will be to do better (or vice versa).
- Feedback can be 'capped'. To use yet another example, getting knocked over in street fighter is capped positive feedback. You're at a disadvantage, but you can't fall further into disadvantage. There are no higher levels of being knocked over.
See Also/ Further Reading:http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=221.0http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=14491.0 (Specifically the game design section)
I would highly recommend checking out The Art of Game Design book, as well as LostGarden.com, especially the essay on the chemistry of game design.
As I say, comments and feedback are welcomed and I'm always on the look out for new game design insights