DGMD E-70 Principles of Game Design

1. DGMD E-70 Principles of Game Design LESSON #7: Team Formation Day!

2. TODAY: • Inspiration/Considerations • MIT Gambit Game Lab and Team Formation 3. Paper Prototypes, Design Documents, Scheduling

3. Final Games: Consider Marketing: Why should people care about your game? • Make a Game You Want to Play: if you won’t enjoy it, chances are your audience won’t, ether. • Address a Real-world Problem: Solutions make news, and fascinate audiences. • Original Gameplay Mechanics (Disruption): New ways to move, to solve problems, to feel and think. • Original Visuals and Audio: Create new visual experiences with radically playful and wacky art.

4. Final Games [B]: Address Real World Problems QUESTION: What issues do you want to address in the world, big or small? SCHOOL BULLYING | DISCRIMINATION ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTER | RACISM ILLEGAL TRAFFICING | NATIONALISM OR: Consider Niche Audiences (Design Method #6): Addressing a very specific/Narrow problem can provide a ready audience for your game. These can be for specific groups bound together by their medical needs or interests, or for their families to better understand what they are experiencing. Consider: Social Anxiety, phobias, cancers, amputation rehab, ADD/ADHD, Childhood ODD

5. Final Games [C]: Original Mechanics: Disrupt Movement! What movement mechanic can inspire your digital gameplay? What is a unique, interesting, satisfying kind of movement that can act as the seed of your gameplay? How can you disrupt platforming, shooting, walking, running, driving, throwing, flying, dancing, skiing, seeing?

6. Final Games: Movement: Crystal Caverns: Physics Adjuster. http://crystalcavernstufts.weebly.com/

7. Final Games: Movement: Nuns With Guns: Spray & Pray Shooter

8. Final Games: Movement: Displaced: Get Progressively Worse https://displacedgame.github.io/

9. Final Games: Movement: Platform Party Panic: Friend Tosser

10. Final Games: Movement: The Worst Caterpillar: Cooperative Climber: Multiplayer caterpillar racing game! Controls – R-Trig Grab with Head. R-Stick - Move Head. L-Trig - Grab with Butt. L-Stick - Move Butt http://globalgamejam.org/2016/games/worst-caterpillar

11. Final Games [D]:ORIGINAL VISUALS AND AUDIO • Consider new visual experiences with radically playful and wacky art! Remember Schell’s “Infinite Inspiration”: Don’t look to other video games to inspire your art or music—look to everything else! Pop-art posters from the 20s or 60s, textiles, architecture, finger paints, tattooed skin, cave paintings, bottle-caps, circuitry, human organs, animal skeletons, etchings, watercolors, scrimshaw, mosaics, glassblowing, woodwork, art nouveau, cubism, and folk art from cultures around the world, current and ancient.

12. Minimalism:Vib-Ribbon, Nidhogg, and Low-Polygon Art

13. Real-World Materials:Tearaway, Little Big Planet, Kirby’s Epic Yarn

14. Real-World Materials: Stop-Motion“Nest” by Hand Dyed Co, Neverhood

15. Real-World Materials: Folded PaperTengami, Kami

16. Modern Pixel Art (NOT retro):Sword & Sworcery, Fez

17. Shader Focus:Mirror’s Edge, Journey, Unfinished Swan

18. World Culture:Persian Rug Space Invaders, Okami, Grim Fandango

19. Historical (1960’s/70’s Groovy):Hohokum, KatamaryDamacy

20. Radical/Playful Proportions:Design with simple shapes (rectangles/ovals) & contrasting proportions:Psychonauts, Rayman Legends

21. Painterly and Silhouettes:Braid, Limbo

22. DESIGN METHOD #7: Accelerated Brainstorming for Team Formation And Now: We engage in a community brainstorming system for developing starting ideas for our final game. This methodology comes from the MIT Gambit Game Lab, 2007-2012

23. Gambit Game Lab: http://gambit.mit.edu/ Collaboration between MIT and Singapore: 5-year funding to research and explore the social impact of game development. Amazing minds: Philip Tan Clara Fernandez-Vara Matt Weiss Sara Verrilli JesperJuul RikEberhardt Todd Harper …and many others.

24. Gambit Game Lab Dozens of “Summer Research Games” based on MIT lab pursuits. The Snowfield: Modular narrative game Elude: Teach families about bipolar experiences

25. DESIGN METHOD #7: Accelerated Brainstorming for Team Formation, Part A MIT Gambit Game Lab System, Part A: • Turn Off Computers: Conversation+ Paper! • 5 silent minutes to write: Consider some game ideas on your own. • 3 ten-minute brainstorming sessions: talk about games you would like to make, listen for cool enhancements or other ideas that might excite you. LISTEN > TALK! • 1-minutes silent reflection between sessions. • 15 minute break: Continue to think and/or talk, but leave the space for water/bathroom.

26. DESIGN METHOD #7: Accelerated Brainstorming for Team Formation, Part B MIT Gambit Game Lab System, Part B: • Reconvene to Write on Postcards: Have an idea you are truly excited about? Take a card: Game Title on blank side, “Pitch” 1-sentence description on other. • Everyone Reads Their Pitches: Say your name, the Game Title, and 40-seconds to describe the game, end with game title and stick to wall, title-up. • Everyone Votes: Attach your colored name-PostIt around the game you are most excited to make. • Proctor Manages Results: Removes games with 0-1 votes, uses colors to re-balance as needed.If necessary, revote with remaining games.

27. DESIGN METHOD #7: Accelerated Brainstorming for Team Formation, Part C MIT Gambit Game Lab System, Part C: You Have your Teams! You have your Game Pitch! But you don’t know yet if it is a game worth making. • Now Teams Meet: Share email and phone contact information, plan to meet at least twice this week to work on homework. • Your Homework Goal: Turn the Idea into Playable Prototypes: Almost all game ideas sound great initially, but are not actually viable play experiences until prototyped and tested and revised. CREATE PAPER PROTOTYPES TO PLAYTEST THIS WEEK!

28. First Team Meeting: 5 minutes: Exchange Contact Info, Discuss Schedules

29. DEVELOPMENT ROLES: Please refer to the document on Roles posted to the course website, and discuss the roles you each want to hold with your team (Everyone participates in Game Design for the course). In particular, discuss Project Management and the potential systems you might want to implement, We will discuss these more next week.

30. How to Paper Prototype: • QUESTION: Why do we paper-prototype?

31. How to Paper Prototype: • QUESTION: Why do we paper-prototype? Test for fun before investing large amounts of time and effort into digital development. Avoid “attachment.” • QUESTION: Do we need to paper-prototype every game aspect?

32. How to Paper Prototype: • QUESTION: Why do we paper-prototype? Test for fun before investing large amounts of time and effort into digital development. Avoid “attachment” • QUESTION: Do we need to paper-prototype every game aspect? No: Create paper prototypes for core game interaction. • QUESTION: How do we start a paper-prototype?

33. How to Paper Prototype: • QUESTION: Why do we paper-prototype? Test for fun before investing large amounts of time and effort into digital development. Avoid “attachment” • QUESTION: Do we need to paper-prototype every game aspect? No: Create paper prototypes for core game interaction. • QUESTION: How do we start a paper-prototype? Identify core interactions you want to test. Create a minimalist board game. If your game has Ai, then have one tester play the Ai and give them rules. Playtest, revise and playtest again. Keep it simple—the point is to iterate rapidly.

34. How to Paper Prototype:Stone Librande (Designer for EA/Maxis, Riot games) paper prototypes for Spore:

35. How to Paper Prototype:Clockwork Demon: “Testing if blending exploration-based storytelling with emergent, sandbox mechanics was as compelling as we thought.”

36. How to Paper Prototype: • QUESTION: Why do we paper-prototype? Test for fun before investing large amounts of time and effort into digital development. Avoid “attachment” • QUESTION: Do we need to paper-prototype every game aspect? No: Create paper prototypes for core game interaction. • QUESTION: How do we start a paper-prototype? Identify core interactions you want to test. Create a minimalist board game. If your game has Ai, then have one tester play the Ai and give them rules. Playtest, revise and playtest again. Keep it simple—the point is to iterate rapidly. • PAPER PROTOTYPE HAND-IN: Submit your final paper prototype like all board games this term, both digitally and paper. Also submit testing page: briefly describe each test session and how you adjusted the prototype. Photos welcome!

37. What is a Design Document?: A roadmap for the scope of your project… DESIGN DOCUMENT PAGES (obviously, not all details apply to all games) • Summary (1 page): overview of entire game: name, 1-3-sentence pitch, concept, genre, audience, Game Flow summary, and basic Look and Feel. • Gameplay: challenge/puzzle structure, objectives, play flow • Mechanics: implicit/explicit game rules, physics/ actions/ economy/ etc. • Story/Setting: narrative, setting, backstory, gameworld, characters. • Levels: describe intended level progression • Interface: visual system, needed key elements • Artificial Intelligence: opponent/enemy, friendlies, and support AI • Technical: target platform, game engine/network hurdles to research. • Game Art/Audio: Description of style, asset list, tools for development. • Milestones and Production Timeline: Rough outline of testable prototype stages and completed product.

38. What is a Design Document?: …but not engraved in stone. You won’t have to have everything figured out this week! This is about drafting your ideas and testing them on paper. • Benefits of Design Document: Agreement, Clarity, Grounded-ness, Scheduling • Limitations of traditional design documents: Make too many assumptions, Always out of Date, Only useful if read, Too rigid, Don’t allow for failure. • INSTEAD:Keep it light, agile, and collaborative. Research / record experiences as you go. Use a non-rigid tool to document your ideas like Prezi, wiki, Google Docs (avoid Word). • Don’t Pad: Be concise, clear, straightforward, and as graphically organized as you can to create something you will go back to again and again, and add to as you develop your project.

39. DESIGN REMINDER: Your design will change! If your pitch was chosen, get used to the idea that the final game your team will create WILL be very different than your original vision, due to the process of iteration based on playtest feedback. It may be helpful, right now, to imagine you found this idea scrawled on a piece of paper on the street. Don’t get attached to the original: look for opportunities to grow and change it!

40. Production Scheduling: Course Milestones • Due Week 8: Paper Prototypes: “Fun” • Due Week 9: Digital Prototypes: “Quantity.” • Due Week 11:Full Playable Prototypes: “User Clarity.” • Due Week 12:Revised prototypes: “Fun.” • Due Week 14: Prototype Complete: Multiple levels populated, bugs fixed, full Art and Audio. • Final Presentations: Playable Game and Marketing materials: Trailer, Website, Press Release, Icon.

41. Due Next Week: HOMEWORK #7: Final Game, Preproduction • Each team meet AT LEAST 2x to: • Create Paper Prototypes to test/revise game. • Draft your Design Document. • Draft a Production Schedule. • Set up online team resources: Source Control (like BitBucket), Production Tracking(like Trello) , and a Wiki for your Designs, Backlog, and Visual References (aesthetic ideas). • ALSO Read Schell pp 75-95 (Prototyping chapter).

42. Have an Inspiring Week! And don’t forget to email with questions: Instructor: JASON WISER JasonWiserArt@gmail.com Available daily by email.