CHAPTER 9 GAMEPLAYNate Cutler
MAKING GAMES FUN
Designer’s primary goal is to entertain, through gameplay
Without gameplay entertainment can be fun but not a game
Entertainment has many avenues besides fun So how do we provide fun?
EXECUTION MATTERS MORE THAN INNOVATION What makes a game boring or frustrating most
of the time is not a bad idea but bad execution A lot of a designer’s job is just avoiding the
things that reduce fun: Avoiding Elementary Errors: Bad programming,
music, art, UI, game design (glitches)
Tuning and Polishing: paying attention to detail
Imaginative Variations of the game’s premise: take the basics and construct an enjoyable experience 34:30
True design Innovation: original idea and subsequent creative decisions
Once a game is fun the smallest change could take it away and you can’t get it back
FINDING THE FUN FACTOR There is no formula to create fun games but
there are principles: Gameplay Comes First: before graphics or
story a game has to be made to give the player fun things to do
Get a feature right or leave it out: Better to ship with a missing feature rather than a broken one. Broken implies incompetence and destroys fun. Big Rigs
Design around the player: You must examine every decision from the player’s view
Know your target audience: Easier to provide for a niche market when you know what they want than a broad one.
FINDING THE FUN FACTOR CONT. Abstract or Automate parts of the
simulation that aren’t fun: Some players don’t want to change the tires on their car, some do, provide 2 modes
THE HIERARCHY OF CHALLENGES
In all but the smallest games the player faces multiple challenges
Completing the mission requires completing the sub mission
At the lowest level they want to defeat the immediate challenge Ex: Beat this enemy to get the key
that unlocks the chest to get the equipment that lets you get to the boss
The lowest level is known as atomic challenges
INFORMING THE PLAYER ABOUT CHALLENGES Normally the player is informed of challenges
called explicit challenges Others are left to discover themselves, called
implicit challenges Most of the time the players knows the
topmost and bottommost levels of the hierarchy
The overall goal of the game or level, and how to meet the atomic challenges
Most of the time this is done through tutorial levels
You can add more challenges in between (plot twists) but don’t do it too many times or you could piss off your player
INTERMEDIATE CHALLENGES Most of the time these are explicit, if you tell
them what to do all the time it doesn’t feel like a game
For most games these challenges are only to meet all the lower level ones If all enemies are beaten and all obstacles
passed the level is finished Reward Victory no matter how the player does it,
if there are multiple ways of beating something don’t only test the ones you’ve thought of
SIMULTANEOUS ATOMIC CHALLENGES Instead of only worrying about the challenge
you’re on in the hierarchy you can face the player with multiple challenges at the same time
These divide attention, doesn’t really work in a turn based game but for bullet death game it creates stress
SKILL STRESS AND ABSOLUTE DIFFICULTY You want to control the absolute difficulty of
challenges which is determined by intrinsic skill and stress
INTRINSIC SKILL The level of skill required to beat a challenge
if you give the player an unlimited amount of time
You can figure this out by taking out time and seeing how long it takes An archer aiming at a target Sudoku puzzles Trivia game
Some games require 0 intrinsic skill and are pure reflex
Whack-A-mole
STRESS Measures how a player perceives the effect
of time pressure
Shorter the time, greater the stress If you were given infinite time to place the
next tetris piece it wouldn’t be very difficult There is no realistic time limit on golf but it’s
very difficult
ABSOLUTE DIFFICULTY Refers to intrinsic skill and stress together When you’re deciding on difficulty think
about both
Teenagers and young adults handle stress better than children or adults because of better vision and motor skills
If a challenge requires more skill give them more time, less skill, less time.