next »

[powerkraut]

Fast Paced Game Design

Today I started thinking about some action games that I would consider fast paced like Nuclear Throne, Enter the Gungeon, or Downwell to name a few. It progressed to me starting to wonder exactly how to create such a fast paced experience, and if there are any kind of "golden rules" that make a game feel faster paced. I think that in my personal experience, I have trouble making games feel fast paced, despite the fact that predominantly design around an arcade-y feel.


Feel vs Pace
To clarify, though, making a game "feel good" to play and making a game that feels fast paced are two totally different goals, at least in my personal opinion and from my own experience. Take a game like Hearthstone for example: there's a "tactile" feel to picking up and placing cards, as well as the immensely satisfying effects when opening a card pack or hitting your opponent. Put simply: this game feels good to play. But in general this kind of game is more cognitive and encourages creative solutions, as opposed to executing actions very quickly. It is in this way that we see the difference between "feel" and "pace". On the other end of the spectrum we could take a game like Nuclear Throne(or really any Vlambeer game for that matter), which "feels" very good to play. There are effects to give the player feedback for almost every possible input the player can do, which is really what I think satisfying "feel" comes from(credits to Juice It or Lose It for that message). Nuclear Throne, like Hearthstone, feels satisfying to play, but unlike Hearthstone it conveys a very specifically fast paced feel. I guess the general message here is that a game can "feel" good to play without necessarily being fast paced.


Gotta Go Fast
So how then, if the two are separate goals, do I design my game around a fast paced goal? This is really where most of my games' problems arise, and I'm trying to learn how to fix it. I feel that there have to be proven ways to just convey a faster pace in a game, and it is obviously not an unsolved problem in game design. To me, it seems like faster pace can come from:

1) Add more things to the screen
        2) Make the player's input more emphatic

Point two might be hard to understand, because it's a little abstract. One example I can think of is say you have a Galaga clone. Application of this point could be as simple as making the player ship move faster per second, which gives more emphasis to movement than a sluggish ship trying desperately to cross the screen.


The Real Question
It can't be as simple as these two broad rules, and it's quite possible that I'm wrong about both. My question to anyone who reads this post is this: What are some ways you can think of to make a game feel faster paced? Are there any big rules you follow when designing a game in this way? I think that it could be important to discuss this subject, because it's something that a lot of people(or at least myself) could potentially overlook when trying to design a fast arcade-y game.

This is all just my gut feeling about things, so if something seems disorganized or just plain invalid, I apologize in advance. Nevertheless, some designers who might not consciously think about this should maybe try. I think it's an incredibly important strategy in precisely designing the experience you mean to.

TL;DR: How do make fast game?

[Alec S.]

As with anything in design, there are a lot of elements to consider depending on the game.

One thing I will say that is important for fast-paced games is readability and conveyance of information.  One thing that I think a lot of people miss about "Feel" is that a lot of it is about conveying information to the player, in addition to just making the game feel good.  One of the reasons that techniques like screen shake and frame-pause are so effective is that they allow you to convey information visually no matter where the player is looking.  In a top-down shooter, for instance, you can be watching the player, but have a feel for whether or not your shots are hitting anything by the screen shake.  Or you could be watching where you're shooting, but know you've been hit because of the frame-pause.  All of this, of course, is also conveyed by sound effects, but it's always good, especially in the case of particularly important information, to provide multiple forms of feedback.  This lets the player absorb a lot of information about the game-state very quickly that they'll need to perform split-second decisions.

[Juskelis]

Definitely what Alec said.

Personally, I think the first rule you mentioned isn't actually indicative of a fast game. Sure, it can be fast, but it can also just be cluttered/busy/dense.

One thing that I've been thinking about a lot recently when it comes to fast pacing is the movement of the character(s). I think when people hear/imagine fast paced anything, they thing of fluid, kinetic motion between action moments. I always think of SMB or Mirror's Edge, but conveying the avatar's inertia is critical to speed.

Another tried and true rule for me is to get the player back into the action as quickly as possible. OlliOlli 2 does a great job of this by letting the player restart a level by double tapping Y.

[voidSkipper]

I agree with Alec here.

I think that if we're talking golden rules, another one for fast-paced games is that they need to be intuitive, to the point of being forgiving.

The game needs to flow.

For example, in a regular platformer, having an annoying jump to make (maybe it takes your entire jump range, so you have to cue it pixel perfect or you fall down and have to climb back up, wasting 20 seconds each time) is quite frustrating.

However, have you ever been on the highway and then passed through a city? 50km/h feels a lot slower when you've been doing 100+km/h for the last hour.

Similarly, suddenly having an unintuitive section in an otherwise fast game is many times more frustrating than in a regular-paced game, so careful care needs to be taken.

The writeup on Canabalt, if you can find it, is quite good. He mentions things like making the player's hitbox smaller, and making platforms slightly wider than they look. The rationale is that players are always going to be more frustrated by just missing the jump than they are going to be elated by just making it.

If your testers are saying "bullshit, I made that jump", or "are you kidding me? That bullet missed me by a mile", then, regardless of whether they're right or not, your game doesn't feel intuitive.

Another thing is that user-intitiated animations need to match the pace of the game. Take Super Smash Brothers, for example. Most weaker punches and kicks take barely two frames. All but the weakest moves have windup and cooldown that only the most seasoned player would even notice. Basically, it's not fun when the world seems to be moving quickly but it feels like you're swimming in molasses.