Gameplay

1. Or, Where The Fun Comes From Gameplay

2. What Is Gameplay? • Defined as consisting of the challenges and actions that a game offers • Challenges for the player to overcome • Actions that let the player overcome challenges

3. Ideas Related to Gameplay • Hierarchy of challenges • Skill • Stress • Difficulty

4. Making Games Fun • Gameplay is the primary means with which a game provides entertainment • Solid execution is more important that innovation • If gameplay is boring or frustrating, or just ugly and awkward, it can easily detract from the fun of a game

6. Rather than adding new ideas to enhance fun, most of the work on the gameplay of a game involves avoiding things that reduce fun

7. Things That Increase Fun (In Order): • Avoiding basic errors like bugs, bad interfaces, bad graphics and sound, etc. • Tuning and polishing the game to perfection • Imaginative variations on the game’s basic premise (i.e. good level design) • True design innovation (this begins with the original idea for the game)

8. Bugs • Even with bugs, however, games can be fun • Games like Skyrim and Fallout, while being bug-ridden, provide vast amounts of entertainment • Sometime bugs actually create better gameplay and new game features, but this seldom happens • An example of this is combos in Street Fighter 2

9. Finding The Fun • There’s no formula to instantly create fun • There are, however, a set of principles that one can follow to reduce the chances of producing a flop

10. Gameplay Comes First • Above all, create fun things to do within your game world • Even with an interesting story and gorgeous graphics, a game can fall flat on it’s face without the supporting backbone of good gameplay • i.e. Final Fantasy XIII

11. Get It Right Or Leave It Out • Much worse to ship a game with broken features than to leave a feature out entirely • Broken features ruin fun for gamers, and make your team look incompetent

12. Design Around The Player • If you don’t design with a specific audience in mind, there’s a decent chance most people won’t like your game • Every design decision should be examined from your intended player’s point of view • i.e. Will twelve year old girls generally enjoy playing as a grizzled space marine?

13. Abstract Parts That Aren’t Fun • Leave out parts of your game that may increase realism at the cost of reducing fun • This is dependant on your audience • i.e. For a racing game, casual fans of the genre may not car about changing tires midrace

14. Be True To Your Vision • Keep your original design in mind at all times • i.e. If your game starts out as an action-adventure title, don’t switch to real time strategy gameplay half way through (Brutal Legend)

15. Strive For Harmony • Even with subpar graphics and sound, a game can be fun • Poor graphics and sound can reduce immersion and fun • Good graphics and sound add to and work together with good gameplay to increase the overall quality of a game

16. The Hierarchy Of Challenges • In most games, the players face off against several challenges at once • These challenges can be organized into a hierarchy of increasingly small sub-challenges • The smallest “unit” of challenge is the atomic challenge • i.e. Enemy, locked door, etc.

17. The highest challenge in the hierarchy is the win condition for the game • To win the game, the player must complete several missions, or quests, or levels, or whatever other way the game designer chose to organize progression • These missions consist of sub missions and the sub missions consist of atomic challenges

18. Figure 9.1

19. During the design process, laying out the hierarchy of challenges can help to create continuity and harmony within your gameplay • As the player completes the various atomic challenges, the sub missions and main mission will be in mind as well

20. Informing the player • Two types of challenges: • Explicit • Implicit • Explicit challenges are clearly stated within the game and usually involve either the topmost or bottommost levels of the hierarchy • Implicit challenges are left for the player to discover and usually involve the intermediate levels of the hierarchy

21. Explicit Challenges • Explicit challenges tend to be along the lines of win conditions for specific levels, or the win condition for the game • Explicit challenges are also found in tutorial levels, where players are told exactly how to meet the presented atomic challenges • As a side note, unless game controls are completely self-explanatory, your game should include some form of tutorial

22. Victory Condition • The win condition for your game should always be given to the player • Without an explicit win condition, it may seem like there’s no point to the game • You don’t necessarily have to tell the truth about the main objective • In story intensive games, changing the final objective in a twist of the plot can deepen and give complexity to your story

23. Implicit/Intermediate Challenges • Most game designers tend to leave intermediate challenges implicit • Fun is created by allowing the player to figure out things for themselves • It can create a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction

24. Armed with the explicit knowledge of the final objective, and the ability to meet the atomic objectives of a game, the player should have all the necessary tools to figure out the intermediate challenges • This only applies if your intermediate goals have been constructed coherently

25. Reward Victory • An important design guideline to remember is to always reward victory to the player, regardless of how they accomplish the objective • i.e. Sequence breaking in the Metroid series

26. In most games, overcoming an intermediate challenge involves completing all lower level challenges • This is clearly seen in action games, where defeating all enemies and getting past all the obstacles allows the player to complete the level

27. In more complex games, the player has multiple paths to victory • In RTSs like Star Craft, there are many ways to win over your opponent • Interrupt resource collection • Defend base and build huge army • Sneak in troops for a surprise attack • Etc.

28. Players may face multiple challenges at once • Many of these challenges, higher up on the hierarchy, don’t draw the player’s full attention like the atomic challenge at hand does • Presenting multiple atomic challenges at once, however, splits the players attention

29. By splitting the players attention between multiple atomic challenges at once, the player is forced to deal with multiple challenges in a limited amount of time • This can increase the stress felt by the player, potentially creating more interesting gameplay

30. An example of this is in the game Dark Souls • Multiple undead creatures attack you at once, some from melee range, and some from afar with firebombs • This creates a feeling of extreme stress and completing the sequence brings a great sense of accomplishment

31. As the designer, it is your job to design the hierarchy • This means deciding how many challenges the player must at once, both vertically up through the hierarchy and horizontally at the bottom • The more simultaneous challenges the player experiences, the greater the stress created

32. Skill, Stress, and Absolute Difficulty • Two factors determine the absolute difficulty of a challenge • Intrinsic skill required • Stress

33. Intrinsic Skill • Intrinsic skill by a challenge is defined as the level of skill required to complete the objective given an unlimited amount of time • Intrinsic skill can be seen in trivia shows • If you don’t know the answer, having more time won’t let you answer the question • Intrinsic skill can also be seen in Sudoku puzzles • Having unlimited time won’t make the puzzle any easier

34. Stress • If a challenge includes time pressure, stress comes into play • Stress measures how a player perceives the effect of time pressure on his or her ability to meet a challenge • The shorter the time period in which to complete the objective, the higher the stress

35. Succeeding in a stressful game requires quick reflexes and a quick mind • Chess requires large amounts of skill to be good at, but imposes no real stress created by time pressure • Add in a turn time limit however, and the stress experienced by the player would be extreme

36. Absolute Difficulty • Refers to intrinsic skill required and stress put together • Easy modes in games require less skill and cause less stress than hard modes • Hard modes, while upping the skill requirement, also often reduce the time you are allotted to complete the challenges in the game

38. Your target audience factors into the difficulty level you should implement in your game • Teenagers and young adults tend to handle stress better, due to having better vision and motor skills • Try to have an inverse relationship between skill and stress • The more skill required the more time you should allow, and vice versa

39. Commonly Used Challenges • There are virtually unlimited possibilities when it comes to ways games can challenge players • Not all of them are good • The next section is comprised of various challenges, most of which could be considered atomic, that are commonly used and are tried and true

40. Physical Coordination Challenges • Comprised of: • Speed and reaction time • Accuracy and precision • Intuitive understanding of physics • Timing and rhythm • Combination moves

41. Speed And Reaction Time • Speed challenges test the player’s ability to make rapid inputs on the controls • Reaction challenges test the player’s ability to react quickly to events • i.e. Modern “twitch” shooters, fighting games, etc.

43. Accuracy And Precision • Comprised mainly of steering and shooting in modern games, though many other challenges exist • Steering includes navigating the character, as well as driving • Accuracy and precision are also found in combat situations in action adventure games

44. Intuitive Understanding Of Physics • Often found in vehicle simulations, player’s need to gain a “feel” for the vehicle they choose in order to be successful • Includes things like learning the breaking distance of a car in a racing game, or the right amount of force to put behind a bowling ball • Requires a consistent physics engine to be successful in a game

45. Timing And Rhythm • Timing is featured heavily in side scrolling action games • i.e. when to jump, when to block, when to attack, etc. • Rhythm challenges are found in games like Guitar Hero

48. Combination Moves • Combos are most often found in fighting games • Also found in action games • Involve pressing the right buttons in order • Sometimes also involve timing • When practised for an extended period of time, combos can become muscle memory

50. Logic And Mathematical Challenges • Comprised of: • Formal logic puzzles • Mathematical challenges • Refers to logic puzzles, rather than logical or strategic thinking