Homework preparation for this lecture
- Find 5 examples of game "Design Briefs" on the web
- Deliverable: Blog post with the 5 design briefs plus some reflections on what you think makes a good design brief. Add link to your Homework log
- Read the other Student Products' design briefs - link to each one should be in the blog by now
- Deliverable: Post a constructive and useful comment on each of the other 2 products, that will help the team:
- improve their design brief
- more importantly improve their product
- increase their chance for success at the end
- Go deeper on the Four Elements by analyzing an existing game
- Explore 'recipe' for creating a new game
- Brainstorm a brand new game
- Connect these principles with general principles for creating great products
Review: Four Basic Elements
- the ordering has to do with how visible or invisible the element is to the player.
So, let's use those elements to analyze a game we know well.
- Discussion: Applying the tetrad to Pacman
- Story: What is the story? Is it realistic? Does it matter? What about the story makes Pacman a good game?
- Aesthetics: What choices were made? What other choices could have been made? Do you know Ms. Pacman?
- Mechanics: What are the rules? Do you need to know them ahead of time? Are they easy to explain? Would the rules make sense without the Story?
- Technology: What technology capability would be required? What was available when Pacman was created? Would it have been different if it were created today?
- Is Pacman still a fun game?
- What makes it fun?
- Let's review Pacman against all the Qualities of a game from before
"Recipe" for coming up with a brand new game
At least, it's a roadmap...
- Come up with an initial idea (use brainstorming techniques)
- Evaluate it:
- Does it excite the team?
- Can you visualize and explain how it might work?
- Are you convinced it will be a Good game?
- Is it new enough to have an impact?
- Does it meet your business objectives?
- Can you test the idea with others?
- Summarize the game on paper
- Enumerate risks that have to be addressed
- Create one (or more) prototypes to evaluate and manage risk
- Get feedback and improve your idea
- Iterate as often as is needed
- 3 'stages' of brainstorming
- all ideas are good, just write them down, don't critique, build on
- discuss the ideas and understand get clarifications
- collect and agree on the best ideas
- Take rapid notes, DO NOT rely on memory, preferably on wall/whiteboard etc.
- There are NO bad ideas.
Let's Brainstorm a game
- 4 groups of students
- 20 minutes
- Here are some attributes to mix and match:
- Cell phone platform
- Handheld game
- Integrated with Instant Messaging or Twitter
- Game Console
- Mechanics ideas
- Sims-like game
- Interactive fiction game
- The winner is the one who made the most friends/enemies
- Try to spread rumors about players
- Try to help as many people as possible
- Tetris like game
- Story Ideas
- High School Drama
- You play cupid
- You're a TV star
- Hospital Theme
- Music Theme - you're a rock star or a dancer
- Aesthetic Ideas
- Cel Shaded
- Anime Style
- All characters are animals
- R&B music defines game
- Edgy rock/punk music defines the feel
- Pick one or two elements from each set (or add one) Make a list of attributes for each of the elements that your group would like to pursue
- Take notes of the result, and write up the game concept as a blog post for tomorrow's homework (one post for the whole team.)
Thoughts about the prototype
- KISS - Keep it simple, stupid!
- YAGNI - You're not going to need it!
- Prototype should answer a specific question or risk. It's not simply a baby version of the game
- Plan to throw one away, you always do anyway. (from famous book, "The Mythical Man Month")
- Remember that the prototype can be a paper prototype!
- Prioritize your prototypes. Do the most urgent/risky one first. Try to parallelize prototyping experiments.
Thoughts about the player
- You are creating your game for a player.
- Who is she/he
- This is the same principle of understanding your user or target audience
- What's (maybe) a difference is that in games there's a focus on 'fun' and 'pleasure' of the player
- In general, what do they like?
- What don't they like?
- What are their preconceived notions and expectations?
- You need to always be thinking about the player
- You must almost be able to become the player
- What would he/she expect at this moment? What control/widget is he/she looking for?
(Background) Taxonomies of Fun or Pleasure or Enjoyment
- What's a taxonomy?
- What's the point of trying to create a taxonomy?
- Different kinds of players will value some of these more than others
- A good vehicle for brainstorming and creating variants of games
- A good vehicle for imagining new directions to take your invention
- Marc LeBlanc:
- Sensation: using senses in and of themselves - music, taste, aesthetics
- Fantasy: using imagination - imagine yourself as something/someone/somewhere that is imaginary
- Narrative: anticipating the sequence of development, enjoying met expectations as well as surprise
- Challenge: confronting and overcoming a problem produces a sense of mastery and competence
- Fellowship: being in community with others who have shared needs, knowledge, relationship
- Discovery: "The pleasure of finding things out" (see Feynman's book)
- Expression: creating, composing, designing is inherently satisfying. Creativity is fun.
- Submission: The pleasure of leaving the 'real world' behind for just a moment. Leave my troubles behind.
- Jesse Schell adds these
- Anticipation: Pre-emptive enjoyment of an expected future event
- Delight in another's misfortune: Yeah admit it.
- Gift Giving: Innate satisfaction of helping another without expecting anything back
- Humor: What makes something funny?
- Possibility: Being presented with a cornucopia of options is enjoyable
- Sense of accomplishment: After the challenge comes the satisfaction of successfully solving the problem
- Purification or order: Neaten your desktop, clean your room, wash your car, eat all the dots. Related to sense of accomplishment
- Surprise: Similar but not the same as humor
- Thrill: Similar to surprise but adding a sense of danger, of high stakes. Overcoming adversity (real or imagined)
- Triumph over adversity: What you feel when you accomplish (sense of accomplishment) something that was dangerous or a long shot (thrill)
- Wonder: Amazement, admiration, respect
Summary: All these lists and facets of pleasure can be used as check-lists and inspiration when you are wondering where to take your game, how to make it better -- for a certain player.
Part II of Morning Schedule
Go over PA-1 and discuss PA-2 brainstorming on features and their implementation...
Running the tournament!
Brainstorming about the Meta-Game
Assumptions about the game ...
- Eventually a networked, multiplayer game with robots and human players
- Competition to create MazePlayer strategies that make decisions about play
- MazeGame updates and maintains the game state
Questions about extending game
- What additional information should we add to the Game (e.g. wands, bombs, invisibility potions, ...)
- What additional actions should we add to the GamePlayers (e.g. pickup X, swallow Y, fight Z, hug W)
- What are the rules for how these game actions affect the game state?
- How should we restructure the game to implement these extensions?
- You are to make your own branch of the PA-1 codebase
- Make the changes needed to implement the extended game as we have described it
- Create a MazePlayer strategy
- Submit a video showing your code running in "Debug mode" where it prints the board and the actions..
- Review of homework for tomorrow
- Distribution of Android devices to the three groups
- Eventually each group will have a Xoom, Nexus One, Galaxy Tab and Nook.