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[gimymblert]

I never had to design god like, construction and management game. I wonder what makes them good and enjoyable, what makes them works and what is the inherent abstract structure that ties those games. They have no goal and generally are open ended, i find hard to conceptualize them for a design purpose (aside for blatant cloning).

Action and puzzle games have a large amount of documentation and analysis, it's easy to figure out what work and what does not or to observe anomaly and draw conclusion. But i can't find any guidance for management game.

Do you have any idea, advice and guidance to make a good management game?

[fraxcell]

Personally, my favorite management game is Dwarf Fortress, because of the level of detail and the way it lets you build just about anything. In many other games, you can build a structure, but you really only have control over where you build it, not what it looks like. In Dwarf Fortress you can build a giant pit or a giant tower, and you could designate the pit as a dining room or make the tower one big barracks.

However, Dwarf Fortress is pretty unique from other management games, so it probably isn't the best place to look if you're trying to emulate the appeal of more traditional management games.

[Core Xii]

Don't arbitrarily limit the player's options. For example you can build anything out of anything in Dwarf Fortress. As a counter-example, you can't build solar power plants in SimCity 4 until you reach some arbitrary number of citizens.

[gimymblert]

Let's start with the basics: what's a management game? What define them? what is the purpose? what are the different gameplay function?

[SirNiko]

The player has limited resources, the game is all about using them well to gain more resources or manipulate the game environment. Everything costs resources you have to always expend limited resources to get more. Unlimited resources are incredibly rare or more likely nonexistant. Timing should be minimal, the player needs only to recognize the situation when a button needs to be pushed. Reflexes take a back seat to planning.

Those would be factors I would consider necessary for "pure management".

[gimymblert]

From what you all said:
Resource, limitation, cost, planning, transformation, decision, controle, construction

Implicitly:
equilibrium, solving, effects of choices, behaviour, pattern recognition, adaptation, strategy, tactics, evaluation, analysis, flow, optimization, system, consequence, anticipation, Homeostasis, architecture, potential earning, stability

From wikipedia:

pure CMS games differ from strategy games in that "the player's goal is not to defeat an enemy, but to build something within the context of an ongoing process.

Economic challenges
Economics play a primary role in construction and management simulations, because they allow players to build things while operating within economic constraints.[6] Some games may challenge the player to explore or recognize patterns, but the majority of the game challenges are economic in that they focus upon growth.[6] These games are based in a setting where an economy can be built and managed

Players usually have two types of tools at their disposal: tools for building and tools for managing.

the main challenge of a CMS is obtaining the resources required to complete construction.[1] Players must manage resources within a growing economy, where resources are produced, consumed, and exchanged.[1] Resources are drawn from a source, such as money from a bank, or gold from a mine. Some CMSs allow players to convert resources from one type to another, such as fermenting sugar into rum.

Resources are utilized in one of two ways: either construction, where players build or buy things to serve some purpose, or maintenance, where players must make ongoing payments to prevent loss or decay.

CMSs are usually single player games, as competition would force players to eschew creativity in favor of efficiency, and a race to accumulate resources.[6] They typically have a free-form construction mode where players can build up as they see fit, which appeals to a player's sense of creativity and desire for control.[6] As such, many CMSs have no victory condition, although players can always lose by bankrupting themselves of resources.[1] These games emphasize growth, and the player must successfully manage their economy in order to construct larger creations and gain further creative power

I have reach some conclusion but still not satisfied but it's late, i would rather go to sleep -_-

[J. R. Hill]

A pure management game is good when the stuff you're building is cool.  I think the best example of simple management games is the GROW series.

[bvanevery]

I've come to realize that my addiction to Freeciv and others of the genre is due to Skinnerian Conditioning.  If you want to maximize the interval of the player's attention span, drop the good rewards at random time intervals.  For the past several months I've been playing on gigantic maps with lotsa huts.  My goal is to pop so many huts that I climb the tech tree in seriously short amounts of time, like Communism by Turn 100.  Granted, Miniaturization by Turn 100 is known to be acheivable with an island Republic / Democracy strategy, but that doesn't involve hut popping.  The act of scouring the map for huts, and then getting randomly rewarded for the huts I do pop, is Skinnerian Conditioning.

I don't think Skinnerian Conditioning makes a game "good."  I think it makes it frequently played.

[Muz]

Most of my favorite games are management games

I'd go with SirNiko's definition for this one. Management games seem to blur between strategy game (because of long term planning & limited resources) and simulation (because management games copy/model real life thingies).

The ultimate management game is Football Manager 2010. I don't know if you play it, but it has all the aspects of a perfect game... it's a game that generates tons of revenue yearly, it's highly addictive, it has a large fan base that discusses how to approach the game. I'd say it's a good benchmark to compare most management games to.

The goals are simple - to score goals. But there's so many ways to do this. You appear to have a only two resources.. money/fans and players. And maybe you can count staff. Yet, each player has dozens of skills, his own personality, fame. All of those are more subtle resources which everyone will be fighting for. There's also managing your set of resources against the opponent's set of resources, different formations, different teams.


Since I love management games so much, I've tried working on a few. And I'd say that they're some of the toughest to design. Making a management game is pretty much like engineering something. There's just so many ways to unbalance something.

A feedback system is a good way to balance it, perhaps.. like if the player was building lots of gold mines (e.g. most profit), the price of gold would lower. Or if the player's buying a lot of big trains (e.g. most efficient), the big trains become rarer and more expensive. Or a competitor might deliberately attack the focal points of the player.


So, personally, what I think every management game should have is:
- Something to simulate. There's a game, Rags to Riches which simulates stocks. This is boring because you don't get to see that you're winning. You need to simulate something for the player to evaluate their success - Sports, space empires, companies, cities, etc.
- Feedback economy. It balances itself.
- Different valued resources. It's not a fun game if all the player only needs to collect one kind of resource, like residential areas. The player needs to achieve some kind of balance. Some kind of Rock-Paper-Scissors effect would be useful if the player is competing against someone.
- Risk. The player wouldn't be able to devise a "perfect plan". A small element of risk would be involved in many decisions. This could most simply be done by just adding making some random effects. Good managers will have plans that hit upon bad times, requiring tough decisions, but should perform well in the long term.

[gimymblert]

Hello again!

I want to thank you for all the feedback that was really useful to understand what makes and constitute management gameplay. I think management is an under document part of game design that would give better methodology of game design, to make game more systemic and less situational.

I was reading the thread "The death of deep & well though complex games" and could not help to think that one problem lie in the lack of tools to describe system design in game.

When it comes to game design, the "challenge" philosophy really helpt craft compelling experience. It's all down to goal oriented structure with path/obstacle aesthetic toward that goal. Goal is what give "goal structured" game their purpose.

On the other side, simulation, systemic and pure game about management does not feature a clear goal to "attain", it's more like one or many "reversible states" or endless progression in one or many gauges. Playing those game is more about balancing and "solve" through adaptation emergent situation. Most action game feature a bit of simulation, through health management for example, as a tool to progress around obstacles.

While I now get the structure and tools of management/systemic games, I still don't get how to "frame" their purpose like goal frame the other type of structure. When I thought about game, I define a goal and then how to attain it. If there is nothing to "attain" how i suppose to design a non goal game? Solving that would open much more power to design fun game, instead on relying on intuition and a string of unproven tips.

[s0]

A pure management game is good when the stuff you're building is cool.  I think the best example of simple management games is the GROW series.

Grow is great but it's not what I'd consider a management game. It's a simple, deterministic, goal-based puzzle game with a theme of building stuff. There's a big difference there.

 What makes management games compelling for me is emergent gameplay. It's about interacting with a system, (or multiple systems that interact with each other) and trying to manipulate that system to suit your means. Experimentation also plays a big part. Dwarf Fortress is partly enjoyable for the same reasons that Conway's Game Of Life is enjoyable. It's exciting and fun to see what the system "comes up with" based on your input or lack thereof.

Also, I think it's important include events and processes that are beyond the player's control. If the system submits to the player too much and doesn't challenge them, the game quickly becomes predictable and thus boring.

[gimymblert]

What makes management games compelling for me is emergent gameplay. It's about interacting with a system, (or multiple systems that interact with each other) and trying to manipulate that system to suit your means. Experimentation also plays a big part. Dwarf Fortress is partly enjoyable for the same reasons that Conway's Game Of Life is enjoyable. It's exciting and fun to see what the system "comes up with" based on your input or lack thereof.

YES!

That's exactly what I try to pin down the same way goal pin down the challenge structure. I have a vague feeling that it relate with something like "compulsion loop" but still not something as useful as "goal". What's the damn thing that give meaning to that?

When I worked in the industry, we were working on a game, one feature was "influencing the world". I had no idea where to start from a mechanical point, how to derive something that is a logic continuation of the set world and interaction?

When it came to these kind of idea, it seems that brainstorming random idea is the only way to go, until you find a "concept" that "work". I absolutely hate that! I like idea that solve a define problem in logic ways.

But i can't define the problem to begin with past the initial formulation, you don't know how much the system is consistent until you test it. With goal it's easy: it imply a path, and tools to travel that path, you balance function from that (how it lead to success, how it lead to failure). But non goal games?

Damn! it looks like the last secret of fundamental game design, i want to figure that!

Also, I think it's important include events and processes that are beyond the player's control. If the system submits to the player too much and doesn't challenge them, the game quickly becomes predictable and thus boring.

That!

How do I define events and processes that support the experience? How do i know how they contribute to the system? What drive the system as a structure? Some game work, some don't, there is a hidden pattern to uncover!

[gimymblert]

OH YES bvanevery your the MAN!


You solve my problem about "non goal" game!
The missing piece is POWER, it's about climbing and topping a power hill! The more power, the more agency, but also the more chaos to balance!

Once you define what kind of power the player should experience, you can define the type of tools and counter force that affect him, that's the core of management game!

[bvanevery]

You solve my problem about "non goal" game!
The missing piece is POWER, it's about climbing and topping a power hill! The more power, the more agency, but also the more chaos to balance!

For me personally it's power coupled with an optimization problem.  That's pretty much all I ever do with Civ-style games.  For instance in the Civ V demo, I asked myself, "Is it possible to knock the 3 other players off the small continent within the 100 turn limit?"  Answer: yes it is.  The main optimization insights were (1) stream slow spearmen towards the enemy that must die, followed by fast chariots that catch up, and (2) don't waste time on culture, monuments, etc.  In a 100 turn game if you want to kill everyone then you have to do nothing but churn out units.

Then I asked myself, "How big can I make my Capital in 100 turns?"  Well, size 12 at least.  Not sure about higher than that.  Last question is "are the Persians worth a damn?"  Only 3 civs available in the demo and I've done the Egyptians and Greeks to death already.  A lot depends on the starting land around a civ and the Persian's start position is pretty poor.  I'm thinking of walking to better land at the start.  However, I'm not willing to walk very far, because in a real civ game you have to get your 1st city started pretty quickly.  The demo is a canned experience, the map is not random.

When I have no more questions I will stop playing the demo.  It's too similar to Civ IV for me to buy the game.  I've already answered all the military questions.

[gimymblert]

I mean power like in "range of possible action" (agency) not like in strength. So yes it relate to optimization problem (keeping the power).

Oups, now i need to know how to "chart" power on a graph and how management function relate to him, just like you can represent goal as the tip of an arrow and every function would affect the body (the path toward the goal).

[bvanevery]

Oups, now i need to know how to "chart" power on a graph and how management function relate to him, just like you can represent goal as the tip of an arrow and every function would affect the body (the path toward the goal).

The metric I usually apply to Civ-style games is "How many turns does it take me to perform X?"  Generally I can't mathematically solve these problems as there are too many variables.  Instead I come up with a heuristic tactic, play a lot of games, and see how it comes out.  For instance, I've set up Freeciv to have the largest possible map, the largest number of available huts, and only 8 players.  "Get Communism by turn 100" is a typical goal, and realistically achievable.  Communism by turn 80 is better, but happens often enough that it's not exceptional.  Communism by turn 60 would be exceptional.  I'm probably measuring 2 things: the quality of my gameplay, and the variance of the random number generator.  Sometimes when the huts pop, you get a lot of techs, which makes a lot of progress.  Other times, you go for long stretches where you're only getting money or military units.  Then progress is slow.

[gimymblert]

Well it does not work! Because if you have progression it's a goal. NOn goal game are not devoid of goal, they are just not their main structure. I want to plot how power is SUSTAIN. And by saying that I solve my problem.

Elements can be categorize as elements that help sustaining POWER and those who decrease it.

It have some implication here:
When those element are weak and power is not disrupt (infinite resource) but still ask some effort for manipulation you can classify the game as a TOY. A Sandbox is a collection of TOYS. When resource became a major hindrance to power, it became Management.

Element of Goals and Power create ACTIVITIES, sandbox game have implicit goals, while regular games have explicit goals. Activities support ROLEPLAY which support SUBJECT which support THEMATIC DISCOURSE. The balance of systemic resource flow and availability depends on thematic subject. If Activities are enforce by the systems they became TASK, Sandbox games support emergent and implicit activities that are tools for implicit roleplays.

That's it, i can write the whole things down now
Thanks for the tips Bvanevery and everybody 

[bvanevery]

Dude you're so abstract you should learn F# if you haven't already.  Going up that learning curve myself....

Elements can be categorize as elements that help sustaining POWER and those who decrease it.

Your definition of "power" is not linguistically intuitive to me, but I will try to use it.  Power = significant available choices.  Too few resources overconstrains the player, leaving few to no choices.  In the limit, your option is simply to lose, then die. 

Too many resources also diminishes power, as once you've got enough "material" on the board, really the only logical choice is to win.  Either that or toy with the enemy, such as building elaborate mazes for the stupid AI to try to work its way through.  The problem in many goal-oriented games, however, is the AI is very good at tediously churning out more and more units, however mindlessly they may move.  So unless the game offers a technique for automatically slaughtering vast numbers of AI controlled units, the battle of mouseclicking tedium will always favor the computer.  You may toy with the AI for awhile, but eventually you'll get tired of the mouseclicks and opt to win or quit.

The midgame is where "power" as you define it matters.  There, significant choice is maximal.  At stake is falling towards either of the game's extremes: clear defeat or clear victory.  Once the game state has swung far enough in one direction or the other, it ceases to be interesting.

As you are losing, you may see how long you can delay the inevitable.  This can be rewarding, especially if your opponent is human, as you get to watch him get frustrated as he thought he was coasting to victory.  There's also the small possibility that he'll make some kind of mistake if you hold out long enough, thereby returning the game to the midgame state, instead of your loss.  You may also choose to delay winning.  This can be amusing if you want to watch your opponent suffer helplessly, giving him false hope only to crush his spirit again.  Or if your opponent is a computer, just to entertain yourself with how stupid the AI algorithm is for awhile.

It have some implication here:
When those element are weak and power is not disrupt (infinite resource) but still ask some effort for manipulation you can classify the game as a TOY.

Or it could be a content authoring system.  Certainly true of Minecraft and Spore.  It's also true of 3d modeling packages generally.  Your available resource is your time.  If you have enough time, you can make anything you want. 

A Sandbox is a collection of TOYS. When resource became a major hindrance to power, it became Management.

The main limit on creating content with a 3d modeling package is your need to keep eating, to keep a roof over your head.  And so we end up with the real world management game of money, jobs, and careers.  Then you have a new constraint: those a***oles that are writing your checks, but telling you not to do this, or not to do that, because it takes too long.

Element of Goals and Power create ACTIVITIES, sandbox game have implicit goals, while regular games have explicit goals. Activities support ROLEPLAY which support SUBJECT which support THEMATIC DISCOURSE. The balance of systemic resource flow and availability depends on thematic subject. If Activities are enforce by the systems they became TASK,

Not sure what significance you're assigning to the label "TASK," but "do this model this way by Thursday" certainly feels like a task / chore in the plain English sense of the word.  A boss who can fire you is enforcement.

[gimymblert]

Task is what you said.

However i also came into realization that the compulsion loop I was mentioning by intuition is a side effect of POWER and resource.

ACT is the instancing of power, but ACT consume resource and decrease power, you need to ACT again to regain power. But power being multidimensional, there is resource dance: the compulsion loop.
We got back to classic cost/gain, risk/reward mechanics.

I think the theory is now complete