next »

[vinheim3]

Table of Contents
Intro
1. Metroidvania Formula
2. Branches
3. Collectibles, Completist Value
4. MMORPG Elements, Quests
5. Scoring, Minigames
6. Replay Value, Content Models
Conclusion

[vinheim3]

Intro

So recently, I've been trying to get an internship at a game development company and thinking to myself "Once I'm in one, what can I do to impress the people there with my game designing talent?" Despite mostly being a programmer, a sense of good dame design is necessary for any successful game, so it's something I had to keep in mind. Anyways, in my head, I answered my question by thinking "I'll make powerpoint presentations on Metroidvania games and why they are so addicting despite their simple formula"

If anyone remembers, I made a topic a while back about "Definition of Metroidvanias", explaining also why the cycle of exploration and rewards makes for an addicting game. I thought of how my presentation would go, rehearsing the speech I would make. All of a sudden, all this thinking reawakened my old knowledge about reviews and discussions on game design techniques from old and removed blogs I can no longer find. I also had received insight on other game design techniques that are overlooked, rehearsed the speech I would make about them, and I came here to explain each of them. Also, I will show how to use every game design technique in the following 3 types of bland games:

1) Side-scrolling street beat-em-ups.
2) Typical RPG with a typical inventory, battle, whatever system.
3) Typical adventure game, with exploration like Pokemon or Legend of Zelda (with similar gameplay

[vinheim3]

1. Metroidvania Formula

First of all, escaping any possible arguments on the term, Metroidvania, what is its formula and how can it be applied to your game?

Every Metroidvania follows a cycle of exploration and rewards. I described it in this topic: http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=16983.0

But to give a brief explanation here, good Metroidvania games have a vast world to explore and heaps of power-ups. The way the game works is that you explore the world to find power-ups, use these power-ups to explore more of the world, and do this again for more power-ups. An (almost, because games do end) endless cycle of exploration of rewards.

This is a good game design technique because good Metroidvanias have vast interesting worlds with new, interesting challenges in each world. Players will want to explore the whole world because of how interesting each new world is. This is also the case in most good adventure games. Also "rewards" is a slightly overlooked game design technique that provides interest to players because getting new, shiny power-ups or items or whatever gives the gamer a sense of accomplishment gotten when completing a "stage" (like in Sonic), when completing the game, etc. Even new weapons in shooter games will provide interest if each one is better or more fun to use than the last.

Metroidvanias use these 2 game design techniques included in most games and puts them in a cycle focusing very strongly on those 2 game mechanics.

With that brief definition out of the way, how can it be included in YOUR game?

1) Side-scrolling street beat-em-ups.
Think Ninja Gaiden/Contra with the power-up system. You get them whenever you defeat an enemy and it's random which is picked. It doesn't have to be random if you want, and you may also put them pre-placed in a stage, but its best when its JUST from enemies and random, unless you can make it work your way. Anyways, these come in the form of Metroid-type power-ups (weapon change, high jumps, double-jumps, climbing, etc).

Think a stage with more view on what's above you with the same goal of progressing to the right, and like Ninja Gaiden, you can only have one power-up at a time. Getting double-jumps, higher jumps allows access to higher up, possibly safer ledges with easier enemies or a useful weapon power-up. It can also aid in avoiding enemy damage for enemies with predictable, yet hard to avoid AI. The ability to glide (think Kingdom Hearts) allows easier passage over pits lessening Ninja-Gaiden-like problems (always falling in pits).

Weapon power-ups sacrifice things like double-jump or glide, however may do more damage or inflict status effect like freeze or burn. They may make certain boss battles easier. For weaponless beat-em-ups, you can have a flaming punch (burn does damage over time), powerful punch, freezing punch (frozen enemies can't move for an amount of time or forever depending on you).

2) Typical RPG with a typical inventory, battle, whatever system.
If you've played Radiant Historia, you'll have an idea of how this is incorporated, although in Radiant Historia, it wasn't strong and the feeling of "more exploration" wasn't felt. If you haven't played Radiant Historia, along the way, you encounter trees you can't cut or rocks you can't blast away. These obstacles can be overcome by getting the necessary power-up. Shift the game towards a more Metroidvania-type feel if your core mechanics aren't fun.

Kingdom Hearts also includes this system with power-ups like High Jump, Air Dash (along with jumping, you can dash in air to reach farther away platforms) and Glide. This is great in 3D or pseudo-3D (isometric games). Can be done in 2D like the indie game An Untitled Story, though the RPG elements may not be felt strongly depending on how you do it.

3) Typical adventure game, with exploration like Pokemon or Legend of Zelda (with similar gameplay
If you've played Pokemon or Legend of Zelda, you know how this is done. In the case of Pokemon, you get things like Cut which allows you to cut bushes blocking your way, and a similar case in Legend of Zelda. You can shift the focus more strongly on Metroidvania-type gameplay if you want for more addiction if your other gameplay mechanics aren't as fun as Pokemon's or Legend of Zelda's.

Make sure your "power-ups" are unique and interesting. You can reuse underused elements like Legend of Zelda's raft, but including a boomerang or bomb may provide smaller interest than you hope. Again, if you can make it work, however, go for it.

[vinheim3]

2. Branches

When I think branches, I think choices, completist-friendly, challenges, variety, and strategizing. But what are these "branches" and how can they be incorporated into a game? Well there are 2 forms of branches, I'll talk about. One is talent trees and the second is stage branches.

Talent trees are a game mechanics included in some MMORPGs like World of Warcraft, Godswar, etc. There are flash games like Wizard's Run and Sonny(?) that uses it and there are also games like Elephant Quest (flash game) which use a variation of talent trees. Talent trees provide you with a bunch of talents you can acquire over the course of the game by spending talent points which are usually gotten per level up.

These talents are either new abilities you can use or a boost to your stats/existing ability. For example, a Samurai character could have Sword Stab as an ability you can get off the talent tree for 1 talent point. On the same talent tree is a talent called Attack Boost, which boosts the damage he does. There is another talent called Stabbing Maniac which boosts the speed and attack of Sword Stab.

These talents form a tree with weak talents at the top, which branch down into stronger talents at the bottom. You have to spend talent points at the top before you can access the talents they branch off into. Sometimes, there are level requirements too for lower talents. Also talents that boost abilities usually come below the talent ability (Stabbing Maniac in my example would have branched off of Sword Stab).

Well that's talent trees in a nutshell. They can add a layer of strategy to your game and it can be applied to most common games very easily since most games have "abilities" or "stats" you can improve with talents. These things will keep your game addicting because improving abilities/stats this easily will mean you have to amp up the difficulty of your game. The presence of a talent tree will mean people will also have fun doing a "talentless run", where they go through a game designed for being of mid difficulty to those who spend talent points, with no talents.

The second kind of branches is stage branching. This is a game mechanic I thought of while designing my latest game (not made yet). Simply put, any game genre can be split into stages that are linked together, it's usually beating one stage goes to the next. Beat-em-ups, shmups usually are like this. RPG's like Radiant Historia are and there's even branching here, etc.

Unlike your regular beat-em-up/shmups, branching works in such a way that beating a stage will lead to more than 1 stage. You can do this in one of 2 ways depending on what would suit your game most. First way is the player gets to choose the stage he goes to, simple as that. The stages you get to pick between have variety between them and unique challenges, so its the player's choice which path he takes. Also, you can include unique story endings that force the player to choose different paths upon replay as long as your core game mechanics are fun.

The second way of stage branching is showing at the beginning of the stage, which stages he can unlock and what challenges the player will have to beat to unlock them. For example, beating stage 1-3 without ever pressing the Left button will give you the choice of choosing stage 2-2. If you beat none of the challenges, you get access to 1 stage. If you beat one or multiple challenges, you get a pick between the 1 stage and whatever stages were unlocked from completing their challenge, but you can only pick one and not come back to it (unless you allow time travel like in Radiant Historia, or provide a New Game+ option).

Why is stage branching addicting? Well because depending on how you incorporate it, it adds completist-friendly value to the game (if the game is fun, players will try to tackle all challenges and all paths to reach, for example, unique equipment found in a set path or a unique ending). It adds replay value to it as well. It adds variety and a sense of openness too. You can mix it with a blacksmithing game mechanic where certain ingredients are gotten end of stage and to get ultimate weapons for completion, only certain paths may be chosen.

With all of that out of the way, how can branching be included in YOUR game?

1) Side-scrolling street beat-em-ups.
For talent trees, have talent points gotten at the end of level up (if you have leveling) or upon beating a stage. These improve your attacks, movement, gives you new abilities like High Jump, Glide, etc that were discussed in the Metroidvania section.

For stage branching, it's easy. Get your stages, have the first one branch into the beginning stages of 2 or 3 different worlds, which branch off again. Feel free to include whatever was discussed like the blacksmithing mechanic and challenges, etc.

2) Typical RPG with a typical inventory, battle, whatever system.
For talent trees, this should be easy, just think how MMORPG's do it. Have abilities gotten only from the talent tree there, talents that boost your stats or your best abilities, etc.

For stage branching, you can incorporate whatever quest idea you have, try going the Radiant Historia route of being able to time travel and make different decisions to unlock different paths, include in a mini-game that uses stage branching, or you can incorporate my quest idea into your game.

My quest idea worked such that you beat a quest, which unlocks new quests, and these new quests unlock newer ones. However, the catch is that, every time you go to get new quests, you HAD to have done all the quests you've been assigned and you can only pick 3 quests. You can get new quests a total of 10 times, which means over the course of the game you would have experienced 28/100 quests (1 first time, and 3 the next 9 times).

3) Typical adventure game, with exploration like Pokemon or Legend of Zelda (with similar gameplay
Again, for talent trees, it's easy. Just use it to improve whatever abilities you get. You can even improve the Metroidvania feel by having obstacles that you can only overcome by upgrading your previous abilities (think a bigger shrub in Pokemon which needs a leveled up Cut). Legend of Zelda-type games can have improved weapon damage, increased defense, etc.

For stage branching, you can, again, incorporate a sort of mini-game that uses stage branching and is closely tied in with the main game, therefore is played a lot so players can feel its addictiveness.

[vinheim3]

3. Collectibles, Completist Value

If you've played any good adventure/RPG game that has a lot of content, by the time you've completed the game, you'll be exploring even more, leveling even more, to do absolutely everything you can in the game. There might be new dungeons out there to clear which give some of the best equipment available. There may be mini-game you need higher scores on to get some good prizes. Maybe one of your existing game mechanics (think Synthesis from Kingdom Hearts) can be explored upon even more. This is all the more addicting because that game mechanic has a lot to offer.

The basic point is you've played and liked the game more because there are things you haven't done yet, items you haven't collected, etc. You have a bit of completist in you, as you want to get the very best weapon and armour in the game. How about you increase the completist value in your game so that players will lengthen their play time getting things. This section will discuss collectibles and their lists.

The easiest way to lengthen play time is to simply add an in-game list of all the items in the game categorized with all fields blank meaning you haven't got any items yet. Every time you get a new item, it is shown in the list. Castlevania and Tales of Symphonia incorporated this well. I spent a ton of time getting the most useless items in Castlevania and I liked it. Why? Because at the time, my items list was almost complete, the percentage was over 90% for completion. I needed a few more things that were hard to get, and I lengthened my play time getting them. Same goes for Tales of Symphonia, only its list was bigger. There were a lot of items, weapons, armor in the list to get and completing the list would lengthen the play time by a lot.

Another way to improve the completist value of your game is by adding collectibles in it. This can be in the form of anything, just let your imagination run free. Colorful pebbles? Go for it. Italian delicacies? Put it in. By adding these, you add new places to the game where you get these, you can make a new game mechanic that actually utilizes these items (like cooking) and find new ways to tie these with your core mechanics. You never know, by adding collectibles, you may even think up a game mechanic that turns out to be really enjoyable.

So how do we apply collectibles and completist value to YOUR game?

1) Side-scrolling street beat-em-ups.
The lists you can have here is Bestiary (some enemies have certain conditions for appearing such as being too slow on a certain part, jumping too high, and tips on unlocking these monsters are hinted in the game), Power-ups (if your beat-em-up uses power-ups), move list (more moves and combos are added as you unlock or use them), and if you've incorporated other game mechanics into this game, whatever items are created from these game mechanics.

For collectibles, you could have rarely appearing enemies or tough enemies or bosses drop a certain collectible like a medal just to look cool or you can use those collectibles to make new weapons, do whatever you feel like.

2) Typical RPG with a typical inventory, battle, whatever system.
It is very easy to incorporate completion lists in RPGs due to length and the number of items you get from shops, quests, story. You can have a list for a lot of things, mini-game scores, quest completion list, places visited, whatever. Collectibles are also common in most RPGs. Some have cooking ingredients which can tie in well with a cooking mini-game or mechanic, you can have summon stones, unicorn horns, anything random, the more random, the funnier and therefore, the better.

3) Typical adventure game, with exploration like Pokemon or Legend of Zelda (with similar gameplay
With gameplay such as legend of zelda, you can have a bestiary list here too for monsters you've beaten, item list, collectibles list (heart pieces, kinstones, item upgrades), etc. These games are closely tied with RPGs anyway, so you can follow from the examples listed above.

[vinheim3]

4. MMORPG Elements, Quests

When you think popular MMORPG, you think millions of players hooked for months and months on that game. Well obviously if it's got such long play time, it's doing something right, right? Course they are, MMORPG's that are good, are simply addicting. Working on your character everyday to achieve the highest level or get the best equipment, showing off to other people. It's because of multiplayer that motivates people to work harder on their character in an MMORPG than in a typical RPG. But multiplayer aside, good MMORPGs have other qualities that make them as addicting as they are.

One has already been discussed, talent trees, which is linked to abilities. Leveling up allows you to get new abilities or partake in quests that give you new abilities, which provides players which a short amount of fun due to experimentation and even more fun if the ability is actually any good.

Then there's 2 more addicting MMORPG elements, quests and professions/skills. Now quests are commonplace in MMORPG games, fetch quests I think they're called, where an NPC tasks you with getting a number of items or slaying a number of enemies and returning to them for a reward. These are addicting because in MMORPGs, quests flow in almost constantly, they give the best experience, aren't usually boring despite looking that way, and it's a way of getting new equipment without having to spend money.

Then there's professions/skills. I don't know how to describe these in one word since some games consider professions as class and skills as abilities, but think Runescape or World of Warcraft. You can level things like mining, herblore, fishing, jewelcrafting, thieving, etc.

Now why are these addicting? Because each profession/skill is like a new character. You work on leveling it and getting recipes for it, you treat each like a brand new person, and these "people" in turn, help out your main character. So it's like the addiction of leveling your character, but you're leveling up around 6 skills (WoW) or up to 20-30 skills (Runescape). Every time you level up, there's a chance to learn a bunch of new things, make a bunch of new products, all of these interesting things that motivate you to just keep playing the game and leveling the skills. Obviously incorporating quests and professions/skills can make your game a ton more addicting, add more completist value, all with little effort of thought.

So how can we incorporate these MMORPG elements into YOUR game?

1) Side-scrolling street beat-em-ups.
You can incorporate both quests and professions/skills while keeping the fast-paced feel the game should have. For quests, imagine encountering random NPCs along the way with fetch quests requiring you to defeat a number of enemies, a number of a certain enemy, to perform a certain action or feat, etc, and in return gives you a useful power-up or temporary boost to strength.

2) Typical RPG with a typical inventory, battle, whatever system.
Being similar to MMORPGs, incorporate both quests and professions/skills the same way. It is important that both are tied in well with the main game's core mechanics. Synergy between game elements is the most important thing to consider when designing/making a game.

3) Typical adventure game, with exploration like Pokemon or Legend of Zelda (with similar gameplay
Being a lot more action-oriented than its similar RPG brothers, Quests are best incorporated in such a way that challenges a player's reflexes/hand-eye coordination. Think timer quests, mini-game quests, quests that challenge the speed of your eye, etc. Legend of Zelda had bow challenges that required good aiming, but these were more mini-games than quests, so try and make it in a way that doing it along a set path is required for a quest.

Professions/skills are a lot tougher to incorporate into an action game, but can still be added for longer gameplay if you know how to do it right. Maybe make it optional, but you get a lot of cool stuff for doing it. Imagine Legend of Zelda with a fishing skill you can level, would've made their fishing a lot more fun.

[vinheim3]

5. Scoring, Minigames

Scoring was a topic talked about in Mark Overmars' (Game Maker's creator) blog. He talked about when scoring should be added to a game, when it's unnecessary, how it should be done, how things are supposed to be calculated, what it's supposed to make players feel like, etc. I probably added things in there that weren't in the list.

Anyways, scoring, which is closely tied in with mini-games, are an addicting addition to a game, because there are still lots of people out there who care about numbers. Higher scores, higher place on the scoreboard, maybe even most number of achievements, etc. By adding in mini-games which do not frustrate, you are not taking away from the quality of your game, and at the same time, you are making your game more appealing to people who care about numbers. RPGs can now be played by shooter-only type people if you include scoring and mini-games in there the right way.

Remember, synergy is always important, make sure your mini-games connect with the rest of the game, like there's purpose to doing the mini-game. Even if it's the most addicting mini-game out there, you're lowering the appeal of the rest of the game if there's no connection, and might as well create the mini-game as a separate game for people.

There are many good systems out there for scoring, but my personal favourites include chain scores, where your score multiplies as long as you don't get hit, but the multiplier is reset when you do, AND end of stage achievements. Think Super Smash Bros where you get added score at the end of the stage for doing things.

Now how can YOU incorporate scoring and mini-games in YOUR game?

1) Side-scrolling street beat-em-ups.
Scoring is usually something always included in beat-em-ups. Good ways of having score determine a player's skills include both chain scores and Super Smash Bros-style end of stage scoring. Why? Because the most skillful people out there could probably beat your game without touching a single enemy on the way and taking no damage. By not killing enemies without end of stage bonuses, you'll have a lower score that doesn't tell you how skillful you are. Also, players should be told they are better at the game by taking no damage.

2) Typical RPG with a typical inventory, battle, whatever system.
It shouldn't be too hard to find a way to incorporate mini-games in RPG. With RPGs being vast, you can get away with mini-games that are hardly related to the rest of the game since they're small in comparison. I remember an RPG that had you play Pong as a mini-game and the addition made it a bit more appealing, while not making me feel too distracted (the RPG was a ton longer anyways). Just remember to keep good scoring practices!

3) Typical adventure game, with exploration like Pokemon or Legend of Zelda (with similar gameplay
Action games, especially Legend of Zelda games always have a variety of mini-games with good scoring and fun mechanics, AND they are connected with the game's core mechanics. Legend of Zelda Phantom Hourglass had a bow mini-game (you get a bow in the game) and a boat minigame (you get a boat too), along with other mini-games linked with the core mechanics, AND doing well on these mini-games gets you ship parts to improve your ship with. So again, have mini-games that reward you and are linked with the core mechanics of the game.

[vinheim3]

6. Replay Value, Content Models
Lastly, another important thing to make your game better and have players come back to it over and over again is to give it good replay value. Replay value is how well or how fun coming back to the game is after you've beaten it. Some RPGs fall to this because the whole game is the main story and even if you load up before the final fight, there's not much to get back into.

Despite me making replay value something important to consider, it is not important to have good replay value in your game if the whole game itself is just fine the way it is and plays extremely fun, which is the case in most RPGs. However, like in Tales of Symphonia, inclusion of good replay value can multiply game time tenfold (the game itself is around 20-30 hours, but with New Game+, missable rewards, I found myself replaying the game 8-10 times and I would do more if I still had the game.

Before I describe how to increase Replay Value, you need to know what a Content Model is, something I made up off the top of my head. A Content Model takes the form of a horizontal bar split in 2 with one line. The portion of the bar left of the line is the gameplay length of the main game and the portion to the right is the post-game activity.

Why is this important? Well to me, its a good self-evaluation tool. I play my game beginning to end and go for completion after. I then draw up the Content Model (drawing isn't necessary, you just have to do number work) and see if it is one of the desirable models. There are 3 desirable models are:

1) Circle bar - if you bend the bar to form a circle, the ends will create the split line in the circle. This shows that the length of the game is the whole bar, but due to New Game+ and lots of things to collect, you'll be replaying A LOT. Best example is Tales of Symphonia.
2) Full bar - if the whole main game is itself all you're playing, as in there's absolutely no post-game stuff, that's good. Why? Because (and mostly in the case of RPGs), the whole game is fun and has a good story and good core mechanics, but it's lengthy and tiring, despite being very fun, and I am more content with finishing the game and that's it. Best example is Dragon Quest XIII. I was ok with the post-game content, but it wasn't exciting or interesting at all. The game mechanics were exhausted to its full potential. For games that are almost full, but not yet full, they are better if the post-game is stretched to become the last desirable content model..
3) 1/3 or less bar - if the main game constitutes only 1/3 or less (preferably less) of the whole time playing it, it becomes something fun and addicting. Typically, the less playtime the main game has, the more potential the post-game has for stretching farther than you think. Best example is Disgaea 2 where main game content is so little in comparison to post-game stuff, that focus on main game mechanics stretches gameplay time to 300-500 hours. This is the most desirable model as most games can't do Full bar or Circle bar unless it's a good RPG, and most games usually almost have post-game content that should be stretched as it makes it more fun, even if it is tedious (Disgaea 2 is VERY tedious, but we still play for hundreds of hours).

When you make a game, try and fit your content model to one of the 3 desirable ones listed. Improving replay value is as simple as tweaking your core game mechanics til its as fun as you think you can make it. Feedback is important here. I won't show you how to incorporate these into the 3 types of games since I'll just mention you having to use the above 5 game designing tips. So that's all there is to it.

[vinheim3]

Conclusion

So that's it, these are the game designing techniques I feel are overlooked, I've described them and how they can be used in 3 different types of games. Hopefully, you people can find some use in these. Try 3 or more of these techniques, lengthen the gameplay of your game while adding addiction, lessening effort required to think of ideas, but be creative.

[baconman]

Wouldn't the optimal combo of these to have branching sets of levels, like 3 at a time, each with their own collectibles, playing one of each 3 per playthrough, and a New Game + system of looping them? Possibly with nonlinear level designs to make use of these Metroidlike powers? And scoring that reflects it?

Obvious branching for Zelda-like adventures includes non-linear dungeon order too, btw.

[vinheim3]

Thanks for the suggestion about the Legend of Zelda thing. Though not obvious, access to multiple dungeons at once seems like a flexible way to let people play.

Anyways, that does seem like 1 example of an optimal combo if you put them all together straight away, though the game would seem empty since it lacks interesting core mechanics. I would just get a random genre or idea for a game and use all or most of these as supplements. I've actually designed an RPG where the goal is to do quests over the course of 10 days when something major in the story is revealed that puts you in the ending sequence. I then incorporated all of these in my game.

The main gameplay was Metroidvania-like, I described how completing quests branched into more new quests (but you can only choose 3 a day), there were collectibles in the form of ultimate equipment (you'd have to follow a strict path, choosing the right 3 quests a day, to get an ultimate weapon which is more of a gimmick), the whole game was already based off quests and getting rewards after each quest like Metroidvania-type power-ups, some quests were mini-games with scores (boar racing, machine operating, etc), and since you can only do 28/100 quests per run, you had to replay quite a bit to unlock all quests and ultimate equipment.

The same addition of mechanics can be applied to any game without making it feel bulky (my idea actually seems sorta short and empty for all it has), but yeah, better as supplement.

[Coz]

I have never tried to impress people with my game development skills, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

First you have to know your audience; you are going to be a newcomer among old timers. Most ideas that you can come up with won't impress them. You also will need to have to hard evidence ( i.e. at least a game demo of your design, and at least 1 finished game ) to prove that you have the will to go through with it.

That would set you up to a good start. The fact that you are making a presentation about game design will give you bonus points.


Now, feedback about your presentation:
- While I agree with most of your points, it doesn't seems like you can explain the reason behind them, and it ends up looking like you are making false asumptions. For example, you say that rewards are overlooked, but from my point of view, they are the most used device to keep the player hooked; I'll just point you in the direction of all those social games like farmvile with horrible gameplay where some people even tell you "I really don't want to be doing this anymore..." ( true story, more than once with diferent people, spontaneously ), yet they keep going because if they don't they won't get their reward?

- When I think branches, I think replay; if a branch gives better results than another, the designer has failed in balancing the game, except where a previous factor determines the best outcome, for example, if one branch has puzzles while the other has fast-paced action; a player can then pick whichever he thinks that will do better( in reality they will pick by whichever they think it's more fun, but let's ignore the fun factor for now ); if the branches have different rewards, the player might pick the branch based on the biased notion that one reward is better, but it shouldn't be that way.

Of course, if you, for example, pick an RPG character that has high speed, and a certain branch gives you a skill that will give you a special ability when your speed is higher than a certain threshold, the player will pick that, but note that there's the preset factor of the character's high speed.

-The one thing that did impress me was how you turned your concept of replay into a visual model. Not the content itself, but they way you did it, since it is an attempt to simplify a concept instead of 'making it better by making it more detailed'.

[vinheim3]

You also will need to have to hard evidence ( i.e. at least a game demo of your design, and at least 1 finished game ) to prove that you have the will to go through with it.

I was actually thinking doing a game demo for each of these points (separate presentations) to showcase each point's full potential. As for the finished game, I have some complete platformers somewhere on the internet, but they don't show off any of the points, nor is the gameplay fun, so I think that'll set me back, but uni's got me practicing making game demos so that part's good.

- While I agree with most of your points, it doesn't seems like you can explain the reason behind them, and it ends up looking like you are making false asumptions. For example, you say that rewards are overlooked, but from my point of view, they are the most used device to keep the player hooked; I'll just point you in the direction of all those social games like farmvile with horrible gameplay where some people even tell you "I really don't want to be doing this anymore..." ( true story, more than once with diferent people, spontaneously ), yet they keep going because if they don't they won't get their reward?

I'd like to know where else I've made false assumptions, but here, I assumed that focusing on rewards isn't common. Because of common game designing practices, rewards in games come as like a 6th sense, every RPG has rewards even if you don't plan on making one with them. It makes the player addicted like you said, but from work-in-progress documentation of games, there isn't much talk about the value of rewards. Maybe it's just that they keep it to themselves, but it's something I want other people to bring into light more.

- When I think branches, I think replay; if a branch gives better results than another, the designer has failed in balancing the game, except where a previous factor determines the best outcome, for example, if one branch has puzzles while the other has fast-paced action; a player can then pick whichever he thinks that will do better( in reality they will pick by whichever they think it's more fun, but let's ignore the fun factor for now ); if the branches have different rewards, the player might pick the branch based on the biased notion that one reward is better, but it shouldn't be that way.

Yeah, I think replay too. As for balancing things out, I'll just explain to people how hiding information about things like enemies in the stage, overall difficulty, length or hazards involved can be beneficial. That way, even if the game isn't as balanced as possible, it will seem balanced since you have to pick randomly, you know little about the stage. Though telling them one path focuses on action or one focuses on puzzle seems like a good idea I'd include. Players who enjoy action will go that route, and those who enjoy thinking will go the other.

And I agree about the reward part, although it can be hard to balance it out. I had 2 quests, one gave an ice beam-like power-up and money, and the other gave heaps more money, though players would always go for the power-up. Adding more money to the other quest made it seem out of balance. Perhaps rewards should be hidden too? Until end of the quest and players have made a walkthrough? Seems more fun that way.

-The one thing that did impress me was how you turned your concept of replay into a visual model. Not the content itself, but they way you did it, since it is an attempt to simplify a concept instead of 'making it better by making it more detailed'.

Thanks :D to be honest, when I wrote it up, because it was such a simple visualization (you have a bar and a line), I thought it would seem a bit unnecessary, and filler, but it felt like something that should be visualized so yeah, there it is.

[Coz]

I was actually thinking doing a game demo for each of these points (separate presentations) to showcase each point's full potential.

This comment was completely unrelated to your presentation.
One of the things that separate the wannabes from the beginners it's that they haven't had any participation in any games; it was just an idea to impress the devs, in general.

I'd like to know where else I've made false assumptions, but here, I assumed that focusing on rewards isn't common. Because of common game designing practices, rewards in games come as like a 6th sense, every RPG has rewards even if you don't plan on making one with them. It makes the player addicted like you said, but from work-in-progress documentation of games, there isn't much talk about the value of rewards. Maybe it's just that they keep it to themselves, but it's something I want other people to bring into light more.

This is just a quick reply, since I have to get ready to go out right now, so I'm not going to scan through your presentation all the things I disagree with. Also, which documents are you talking about? I mean, can you point out specific design docs that are available online?

And I agree about the reward part, although it can be hard to balance it out. I had 2 quests, one gave an ice beam-like power-up and money, and the other gave heaps more money, though players would always go for the power-up. Adding more money to the other quest made it seem out of balance. Perhaps rewards should be hidden too? Until end of the quest and players have made a walkthrough? Seems more fun that way.

If adding more money does makes the quest choice unbalanced, then it's not a matter of balance; it's a matter of perception. For example, if in the game money is common but power-ups are not, that increases the perception of value; also, my reasoning might be 'the power up will make every fight easier, where money only buys temporary items'. Stuff like that, but it really depends on the game.

Thanks :D to be honest, when I wrote it up, because it was such a simple visualization (you have a bar and a line), I thought it would seem a bit unnecessary, and filler, but it felt like something that should be visualized so yeah, there it is.

Well that's exactly the reason why it was impressive; when I read the idea, it was still a bit murky and confusing in my mind, but upon seeing the visualization, I understood inmediately what you tried to say. That the visualization is simple is a *good thing*. That's its job, to simplify!

[vinheim3]

This comment was completely unrelated to your presentation.
One of the things that separate the wannabes from the beginners it's that they haven't had any participation in any games; it was just an idea to impress the devs, in general.

I'm not sure what you mean by the unrelated part, but for the other part, I'm definitely neither a wannabe or a beginner. For years, I've made tutorials for some people on GMC and answering quite a bit of advanced topics, made a ton of platformers/maze-type games in the past (but still have programming knowledge in other areas), and programmed small games on other languages like C++. I'm intermediate at best.

This is just a quick reply, since I have to get ready to go out right now, so I'm not going to scan through your presentation all the things I disagree with. Also, which documents are you talking about? I mean, can you point out specific design docs that are available online?

It's mostly work-in-progress documentation found on GMC and some other game developers' websites (like midnightsynergy.com). I read up on their design plan and what they are going to consider and one thing I commonly see overlooked is how to create the right pace of rewards. Like I said, though, their games usually do have a good pace, due to it coming automatically to people who design it right, so it's common, but not heavily focused on.

If adding more money does makes the quest choice unbalanced, then it's not a matter of balance; it's a matter of perception. For example, if in the game money is common but power-ups are not, that increases the perception of value; also, my reasoning might be 'the power up will make every fight easier, where money only buys temporary items'. Stuff like that, but it really depends on the game.

Yeah, I'm still at a standstill on how I'm supposed to suggest a good way to balance rewards since it's entirely dependent on the game. For my game, the choice would be easier if my weapon's damage actually made a difference (I gave them insignificant stat boosts). For other games, all I can suggest is hiding the rewards when given a choice as one option so there's a good 50/50 both choices are chosen by players.

Well that's exactly the reason why it was impressive; when I read the idea, it was still a bit murky and confusing in my mind, but upon seeing the visualization, I understood inmediately what you tried to say. That the visualization is simple is a *good thing*. That's its job, to simplify!

I guess I thought it was useless since to me, the idea was simple, and the visualization was just an add-on, but of course, if someone who knew rocket science explained it to someone who doesn't, that person won't understand it just as well as the guy who's explaining. So great that it was useful for what was murky and confusing.

[baconman]

Well, especially where nonlinear gameplay is concerned, it's usually best to focus on risk/reward as a balancing system; and you have to take into account three groups of gamers all at once: casual players, completionists, and speedrunners. Ideal level design will take all three varieties of gameplay into consideration, by putting some subtle, hard-to-execute speedrun shortcuts (some of which use a little of both paths), with an unlikely/hard to find or execute link between the core parts of each choice.

The choice itself, however, is all about inherent risk vs. reward. Clearly there should be some visual indicator leading players in the direction of the "recommended" route, with a par-for-the-course experience and appropriate rewarding thereof. But you should also allow for some deviation thereof, perhaps a "safe but longer" route, or a tremendously more hazardous one that doubles both as a shortcut *and* has a high payoff for pulling off.

A lot of the exploration rewards don't even have to be featured on a path deviation; they can be a simply-hidden "sweet spot" in your level design. A good example in Super Metroid (or even classic NES Metroid, for that matter) is how many of the rooms containing a new major item is *explicitly* designed with a hidden basic Missile upgrade, *just* for using your new item correctly. And where the hidden Energy Tanks are located: most of the time they're just "there" in the levels, behind a destroyable block. Another good example is whipping walls and specific-place crouching in Castlevania games; they're both very simple things to do, and your reward for exploring them is simply "there," often in the form of a life refilling turkey meat.

The difficulty of finding and reaching these should, for the most part, match the value of whatever you're hiding. But along the way, you'll probably want to trickle at least one of each type of thing in an easy-to-stumble-upon spot... this way, the player will almost inevitable stumble upon SOMETHING, and the desire to "find" more will be triggered.

One more factor you might want to consider, which isn't listed here:

Geometry is FUN.

If I've learned anything from games like Bust-A-Move, Yoshi's Island, Chrono Trigger and MegaMan 8, it's that few things are quite as fundamentally enjoyable as geometry-based gameplay. Most often played in forms of attacks, few things are as righteously satisfying as taking a simple weapon or item-collection method, nailing an awesomely-planned bank shot (or an awesomely unplanned one via whiff) and scoring something cool from it is one of the best gaming sensations out there.

They should include some level of twitchy-reflex in their aiming systems (as opposed to point-and-click, for instance), to make "missing the shot" something with a reasonably valid chance of happening, because sometimes it's in doing that where players trip over some of the coolest (or most ruthless) consequences in that kind of game. Sometimes bouncing yourself around geometrically is every bit as fun, too! Perfect example of that: barrel cannon sequences in Donkey Kong Country games. Look at how many entire levels in that series are built around that one, simple concept.

[gimymblert]

If you want to impress people in the industry, talk about market, production process, risk management and how it relate to the gameplay.

Sometimes, the best gameplay is not what you want if it create balancing horror and expensive resource or awful messy and long iteration process to find the fun. We are talking business no day dreaming.

see:
http://www.eldergame.com/2011/01/classes-vs-open-skill-systems/

[Coz]

I'm not sure what you mean by the unrelated part

What I meant was that I was just telling you how you could impress them; afterwards I started to actually give feedback on the content of your metroidvania presentation.

It's mostly work-in-progress documentation found on GMC and some other game developers' websites (like midnightsynergy.com). I read up on their design plan and what they are going to consider and one thing I commonly see overlooked is how to create the right pace of rewards. Like I said, though, their games usually do have a good pace, due to it coming automatically to people who design it right, so it's common, but not heavily focused on.

Try reading some profesional game design docs. I have also had negative experiences with Midnight Synergy( I kept getting spam about their game and upon contacting them there would be no reply, and the spam would continue ). I'm not saying the design docs from amateurs have no value, but they probably just have their own experience to aid them; they haven't gone to game conferences, bought & read game design books, and the like. Most likely, the better design docs came from people who are more natural talent, than theorical learning.

Yeah, I'm still at a standstill on how I'm supposed to suggest a good way to balance rewards since it's entirely dependent on the game

To be honest I'm not sure this is the best way, but I just give examples.

I guess I thought it was useless since to me, the idea was simple, and the visualization was just an add-on

I'm going to be specific: the confusing part started when you started to mention the 'Content Model'. Things started to get easier to understand when you started to mention 'Circle bar', 'Full bar', '1/3 or less bar'.

[mewse]

So recently, I've been trying to get an internship at a game development company and thinking to myself "Once I'm in one, what can I do to impress the people there with my game designing talent?" Despite mostly being a programmer, a sense of good dame design is necessary for any successful game, so it's something I had to keep in mind.

Speaking as somebody who has been in the industry for over a decade (so old..), I feel the need to step in here, and not answer the question you asked, but to answer the question that you should have asked.


If you get an internship as a programmer at a game development company, the most important thing is to impress them with is your ability to act as part of a team.  This means your ability to take direction, to deliver good quality results on time, to offer ideas when asked (or when otherwise appropriate), and to work well with others. 

If you have the skills for it, then it's also fine to impress them with your coding skills, as long as you can remain within the bounds of their coding standards (see above, about working as part of a team).


If design is an area that interests you, then your programming internship is a fantastic opportunity for you to expand your knowledge and improve your understanding about how you need to think about design in large-scale games which are designed to appeal to a wide audience base.  It really, really isn't an opportunity for you to make powerpoint presentations about game design to people who are more experienced than you and are actually paid to do it, even if you're convinced that your ideas are right, and their ideas are wrong.

As an intern, your best bet to remain in the industry is to be thought of as someone who is pleasant to work with, who can be relied upon to produce results on time and who doesn't cause too many problems.

I'm definitely neither a wannabe or a beginner. For years, I've made tutorials for some people on GMC and answering quite a bit of advanced topics, made a ton of platformers/maze-type games in the past (but still have programming knowledge in other areas), and programmed small games on other languages like C++. I'm intermediate at best.

You need to understand that within the game industry, this experience qualifies you as a newbie.  The standards here are substantially higher than in internet forums.

[vinheim3]

@baconman - I liked the idea of building the design around those 3 groups. It was why I was confused when I said "it depends on a certain game" when you're making your reward system. It didn't really depend, it's just that some games only appeal to 1, 2 or all of those groups, which is why their scoring mechanics tend to be different. However, all games should really try to tend to those 3 groups if they can. Another perk of Metroidvanias is that their formula tends to these 3 groups easily.

Also, I liked how you can implant the desire of finding more rewards by putting the extra power-ups in easy and hard places, with easy ones being the ones you may accidentally stumble upon and the hard ones being the ones the player will try hard to find or get due to the desire given from the easy-to-get power-ups.

I don't exactly get the geometry part though since I haven't played those games

@Gimmy TILBERT - That article was an interesting read. And since my course took up a lot of marketing based subjects (as well as reading books and exploring in several of my dad's or his friends' companies), I think I have at least an ounce of knowledge to talk about the industry, market and risk management (though not a lot since I haven't been in the game making industry). How it relates to gameplay is something I need to do a bit of research on.

@Coz - Professional game docs are hard to come by even by going deeper than simple Google searches. Dev Logs here are great, but if there are those kinds of logs by professional, well-sold games out there, that would definitely help.

@mewse - I get that team leadership and team player are qualities you need, and I've practiced them in non-workplace situations, so let's see how much more difficult it is, eh? Unfortunately, I won't be getting an internship for programming skills, just basic encoding since it's been 3 months without internship and my time is running out and I have to take the easy-to-get jobs my friends found which are encoding, but those tips on how I should perform will definitely help in a future job if it is in a game development company.

I'm thinking of saving the presentations for private get-togethers (hang-outs) and making it more casual with the more professional people and see if they recommend me to talk to the other designers/programmers. And yeah, compared to GMC, I'm intermediate at best, but I'm definitely a newb at professional stuff (I've visited several companies for school visits and the coding, integration of everything, tools to test code, all this complicated stuff are things I need to learn).


Now does anyone want to comment on the game design techniques? Maybe if it's helped, if you're going to use it or other tips you can give to expand on the techniques?