The Art of Game Design: Chapters 8, 9, and 10 Objectives:

1. The Art of Game Design: Chapters 8, 9, and 10 Objectives: This lesson discusses material from chapters 8, 9, and 10 of The Art of Game Design. Objectives important to this lesson: • Empathy with your players • Demographics • Things players like • Player types • Lens of Pleasure • Modeling • Focus • Empathy with the game • Imagination • Space • Objects, Attributes, States • Actions • Rules • Skill • Chance

3. Humane Design - Games Must Be Good to Their Players - Extra Credits

4. Demographics • Page 100-106

5. Lens #16: The Lens of the Player To use this lens, stop thinking about your game, and start thinking about your player. Ask yourself these questions about the people who will play your game: ● In general, what do they like? ● What don’t they like? Why? ● What do they expect to see in a game? ● If I were in their place, what would I want to see in a game? ● What would they like or dislike about my game in particular? A good game designer should always be thinking of the player, and should be an advocate for the player. Skilled designers hold The Lens of the Player and the Lens of Holographic Design in the same hand, thinking about the player, the experience of the game, and the mechanics of the game all at the same time. Thinking about the player is useful, but even more useful is watching them play your game. The more you observe them playing, the more easily you’ll be able to predict what they are going to enjoy.

6. Pirates of the Caribbean: Battle for the Buccaneer Gold • P. 107-108

7. Mark LeBlanc's eight primary game pleasures • sensation - everything you can see, hear, touch, etc. about a game • fantasy - the pleasure of experiencing an imaginary place or time • narrative - the pleasure of being told a story, in whatever way the game provides it • challenge - the pleasure of solving a problem or attaining a goal • fellowship - the pleasure of social interaction, either with other players, or with NPCs (non-player characters) • discovery - the pleasure of exploring the game environment, of mapping a territory, of finding a hidden easter egg in the game • expression - the pleasure of contributing to the game experience (e.g. by making new levels; by designing aspects of your character) • submission - the pleasure of being part of the game, and not part of the real world, for a while

8. Bartle’s Taxonomy of Player Types Does the player want to act or interact when playing the game? Does the player want to exercise the choice above with other players, or with the world of the game? The answers to those questions place the player in one of Bartle's groups: • achievers - want to act upon the world, they want to attain the goals of the game. They seek the pleasure of Challenge. • explorers - want to interact with the world, they want to find everything in the game. They seek the pleasure of Discovery • socializers - want to interact with other players. They enjoy Fellowship. • killers - want to act upon other players. This, oddly, includes both those who want to kill other players, and those who want to help other players, which invalidates the theory for me. Maybe this can't be mapped successfully in two dimensions.

9. Bartle's Taxonomy - What Type of Player are You? - Extra Credits

10. anticipation delight in another's misfortune gift giving humor- possibility pride in accomplishment purification surprise thrill triumph over adversity wonder

11. Lens #17: The Lens of Pleasure To use this lens, think about the kinds of pleasure your game does and does not provide. Ask yourself these questions: ● What pleasures does your game give to players? Can these be improved? ● What pleasures are missing from your experience? Why? Can they be added? Ultimately, the job of a game is to give pleasure. By going through lists of known pleasures, and considering how well your game delivers each one, you may be inspired to make changes to your game that will increase your players ’ enjoyment. Always be on the lookout, though, for unique, unclassified pleasures not found in most games — for one of these might be what gives your game the unique quality it needs.

12. Do You Want to Play a Game?

14. The Role of the Player - The Player is Both Audience and Storyteller - Extra Credits

15. Aspects of a Player’s Mind • Modeling • Focus • Empathy • Imagination • Motivation • Judgement

16. Lens #18: The Lens of Flow To use this lens, consider what is holding your player’s focus. Ask yourself these questions: ● Does my game have clear goals? If not, how can I fix that? ● Are the goals of the player the same goals I intended? ● Are there parts of the game that distract players to the point they forget their goal? If so, can these distractions be reduced, or tied into the game goals? ● Does my game provide a steady stream of not-too-easy, not-too-hard challenges, taking into account the fact that the player’s skills may be gradually improving? ● Are the player’s skills improving at the rate I had hoped? If not, how can I change that?

17. Lens #19: The Lens of Needs To use this lens, stop thinking about your game, and start thinking about what basic human needs it fulfills. Ask yourself these questions: ● On which levels of Maslow’s hierarchy is my game operating? ● How can I make my game fulfill more basic needs than it already is? ● On the levels my game is currently operating, how can it fulfill those needs even better? It sounds strange to talk about a game fulfilling basic human needs, but everything that people do is an attempt to fulfill these needs in some way. And keep in mind, some games fulfill needs better than others — your game can’t just promise the need, it must deliver fulfillment of the need. If a player imagines that playing your game is going to make them feel better about themselves, or get to know their friends better, and your game doesn’t deliver on these needs, your player will move on to a game that does.

18. Lens #20: The Lens of Judgment To decide if your game is a good judge of the players, ask yourself these questions: ● What does your game judge about the players? ● How does it communicate this judgment? ● Do players feel the judgment is fair? ● Do they care about the judgment? ● Does the judgment make them want to improve?

19. Do You Want to Play a Game?

21. How To Start Your Game Narrative - Design Mechanics First - Extra Credits

22. Historical Games - Why Mechanics Must Be Both Good and Accurate - Extra Credits

23. Assignment #4 From groups for a project assignment if you have not already done so. Report the group membership to me. Plan a game design, using the Lenses discussed so far. Turn in a proposal for your design showcasing it through each Lens.

24. CAP 211 - Interactive Design and Game Development Review for Second Test The following questions are provided to help you study for the second test. Do not expect to see these exact questions on the test. • In chapter 5, tutorial 1, the Unreal book has you create a box using the Keyboard Entry method in 3DS Max. Why is this a good method in cases like this? • What needs to be done to a box in 3DS Max before you can work on it in a subobject mode?  • Assume you are in 3DS Max in the Front viewport, in standard alignment. How can you select polygons on both the front and back of a model by working only on the front view? • What is the purpose of the Bridge button in 3DS Max? • What is the purpose of the Unwrap UVW modifier in 3DS Max? • How do you open the UVW Editor in 3DS Max?  • The Unreal text had you move and stack faces in the UVW Editor in 3DS Max. What should be true of any faces you intend to stack? What will be the effect of stacking those faces?  • Why do you need to make sure your UVW template is square, with particular dimensions? • What is the effect of collapsing a stack in 3DS Max? Why do you collapse the stack before exporting the model?  • How must you save a mesh file in 3DS Max in order to import it into Unreal Editor? What options need to be turned on that are not turned on be default?  • Once you import a mesh from 3DS Max into the Unreal Editor, how should it be saved for future use? • In general, how can you compare the shape of a model to the shape of the most likely collision mesh for the model? • Assume you have changed a 6-DOP collision mesh to a 10-DOP collision mesh in the mesh editor in Unreal Editor. What does the text warn that the mesh editor will typically do at this point? • What must be true of the shape of a collision mesh? • What must be done to make a workable collision mesh for an object like the archway in our project? • What does the text say about the economy of using instances of meshes in a level in Unreal? • How do you duplicate a mesh in a scene in Unreal Editor? • What key toggles static mesh visibility in Unreal Editor? (And who presumed that you would never hit that key by accident?) • What are two ways to rebuild the lighting in an Unreal level? • When working with an actor object in UE, what button do you press to see its properties? • In tutorial 7.3, you open the Actor Classes Browser. Why did the text have you do this? • Why do you press F5 to see the properties of a selected wall or floor surface in UE? • How do lightmaps and shadowmaps enhance game performance? • What is the switch to turn off for a UE light if you want it to shine on meshes but not on walls and ceilings? • What property do you turn on to allow a light to be movable? • What is a PointLight? • What is a DirectionalLight good for? • Which kind of UE light is best suited for ambient light? • What kind of actors does the text suggest would use a PickupLight?

25. Mechanic 1: Space Soccer Field nine zero-dimensional cells, connected to each other in a two-dimensional grid

26. Nested Spaces and Zero Dimensions

27. Lens #21: The Lens of Functional Space To use this lens, think about the space in which your game really takes place when all surface elements are stripped away. Ask yourself these questions: ● Is the space of this game discrete or continuous? ● How many dimensions does it have? ● What are the boundaries of the space? ● Are there sub-spaces? How are they connected? ● Is there more than one useful way to abstractly model the space of this game?

28. Mechanic 2: Objects, Attributes, and States

29. Secrets • A is public information • B state shared between 2 players • C information private to a single player • D information the game knows but not the players • E randomly generated information (Fates, God, etc)

30. Lens #22: The Lens of Dynamic State To use this lens, think about what information changes during your game, and who is aware of it. Ask yourself these questions: ● What are the objects in my game? ● What are the attributes of the objects? ● What are the possible states for each attribute? What triggers the state changes for each attribute? ● What state is known by the game only? ● What state is known by all players? ● What state is known by some, or only one player? ● Would changing who knows what state improve my game in some way? Game playing is decision making. Decisions are made based on information. Deciding the different attributes, their states, and who knows about them is core to the mechanics of your game. Small changes to who knows what information can radically change a game, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. Who knows about what attributes can even change over the course of a game — a great way to create drama in your game is to make an important piece of private information suddenly become public.

31. Mechanic 3: Actions • Operative Actions: • 1. Move a checker forward • 2. Jump an opponent’s checker • 3. Move a checker backwards (kings only) • Resultant Actions: • ● Protect a checker from being captured by moving another checker behind it • ● Force an opponent into making an unwanted jump • ● Sacrifice a checker to trick his opponent • ● Build a “ bridge ” to protect his back row • ● Move a checker into the “ king row ” to make it a king • ● … and many others

32. Emergent actions • add more verbs - adding more operative actions to a game increases the probability of emergent actions being discovered. The ratio of resultant actions to operative actions can give you a measure of the effectiveness of adding the new actions: add actions that create resultant actions, remove needless actions that do not add resultant actions • verbs that can be used on many objects - the author points out that being able to shoot an NPC (non-player character) is interesting, but being able to get results from shooting various other objects in a game makes the game and the gun more interesting (What happens when you shoot a car? How about a wall? How about a fire extinguisher?) • goals that can be met several ways - this allows a player without specific objects to find a way to meet a goal with objects they have, which increases discovery and replay options • many subjects - this introduces a new term; a subject is a playing piece in a game. In terms of adventure games, a subject would be a character. More subjects leads to more kinds of interaction, which leads to more emergent play. This is why playing a game with one character is quite different from playing it with a group of characters. • side effects that change constraints - changing the restrictions on players, changing the game space, changing the actions that can be taken, all have an effect on the emergent play that becomes possible after the change.

33. Lens #23: The Lens of Emergence To make sure your game has interesting qualities of emergence, ask yourself these questions: ● How many verbs do my players have? ● How many objects can each verb act on? ● How many ways can players achieve their goals? ● How many subjects do the players control? ● How do side effects change constraints?

34. Lens #24: The Lens of Action To use this lens, think about what your players can do and what they can’t, and why. Ask yourself these questions: ● What are the operational actions in my game? ● What are the resultant actions? ● What resultant actions would I like to see? How can I change my game in order to make those possible? ● Am I happy with the ratio of resultant to operational actions? ● What actions do players wish they could do in my game that they cannot? Can I somehow enable these, either as operational or resultant actions? A game without actions is like a sentence without verbs — nothing happens. Deciding the actions in your game will be the most fundamental decision you can make as a game designer. Tiny changes to these actions will have tremendous ripple effects with the possibility of either creating marvelous emergent gameplay or making a game that is predictable and tedious. Choose your actions carefully, and learn to listen to your game and your players to learn what is made possible by your choices.

35. Assignment #5 • Form groups for a project assignment if you have not already done so. • Examine a game of your choice, using the Lenses discussed above. • Turn in a proposal for improving the game using the Lenses above.

36. Mechanic 4: Rules https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Parlett

37. Rules • Modes • The Enforcer • The Most Important Rule • Concrete • Achieveable • Rewarding

38. Lens #25: The Lens of Goals To ensure the goals of your game are appropriate and well-balanced, ask yourself these questions: ● What is the ultimate goal of my game? ● Is that goal clear to players? ● If there is a series of goals, do the players understand that? ● Are the different goals related to each other in a meaningful way? ● Are my goals concrete, achievable, and rewarding? ● Do I have a good balance of short- and long-term goals? ● Do players have a chance to decide on their own goals?

39. Lens #26: The Lens of Rules To use this lens, look deep into your game, until you can make out its most basic structure. Ask yourself these questions: ● What are the foundational rules of my game? How do these differ from the operational rules? ● Are there “laws ” or “house rules ” that are forming as the game develops? Should these be incorporated into my game directly? ● Are there different modes in my game? Do these modes make things simpler, or more complex? Would the game be better with fewer modes? More modes? ● Who enforces the rules? ● Are the rules easy to understand, or is there confusion about them? If there is confusion, should I fix it by changing the rules or by explaining them more clearly?

40. Mechanic 5: Skill • physical - skills typically used in sports; real skills are required in real sports, character skills are required in virtual environments • mental - memory, observation, puzzle solving, decision making, resource gathering and use; typically, these are real skills the player must have, even in a virtual environment • social - understanding opponents and teammates

41. Lens #27: The Lens of Skill To use this lens, stop looking at your game, and start looking at the skills you are asking of your players. Ask yourself these questions: ● What skills does my game require from the player? ● Are there categories of skill that this game is missing? ● Which skills are dominant? ● Are these skills creating the experience I want? ● Are some players much better at these skills than others? Does this make the game feel unfair? ● Can players improve their skills with practice? ● Does this game demand the right level of skill?

42. Mechanic 6: Chance • Fractions, decimals, and percents are equivalent mathematical expressions. • A probability of 0 is 0%: something will not happen. A probability of 1 is 100%: something must happen. All other probabilities fall between these extremes. There is no such thing as a probability greater than 1 or less than 0. • Looked For divided by Possible Outcomes equals Probability. This means: the number of ways for a particular thing to happen, divided by the number of ways anything can happen equals the probability of the first thing happening. Example: Humans typically have two genes for eye color. You get one from each parent. If you have a brown eyed parent, who has one brown gene and one blue gene (brown is dominant) and you have a blue eyed parent who has two blue genes (the only way to get blue eyes), what is the probability that you have blue eyes? • There are four ways to get genes from these two parents. Your probability of getting blue eyes is 2 in 4, or 2/4, or .5, or 50%. What if your brown eyed parent had only brown genes? Everycombination you could get from those parents (4) would result in your getting one brown gene and one blue gene, which would produce brown eyes. (4/4, or 100%)

43. Enumerate: list every possible way for things to happen. In the example above, I listed each of the four possible outcomes, and stated what would happen in each case. • If you are calculating the probability of either of two things happening (a OR b) add the probability of a to the probability of b, ONLY if a and b are mutually exclusive. In the example above, what is the probability of getting eitherblue or brown eyes? 100%, because you can only get blue or brown in this situation (mutually exclusive), and each has a probability of 50%. • If two events are not mutually exclusive, you can multiply their probabilities to get the probability of both things happening. • If you can easily calculate the probability of something happening, or of it not happening, you only have to subtract whichever you know from 100% to get the other one. • Not all events have equal probabilities. Consider the table Mr. Schell presents of the outcomes of throwing two six-sided dice (page161). The total can run from 2 to 12. Are all totals equally probable? There are 36 possible outcomes, and only one of them has a total of 2. Only one other event has a total of 12. This makes the odds of one of these events happening 1 in 36. Enumerating the possible events and their values makes this clear. • If you can't calculate, run the system enough times to get an idea of the probability of events. • If you can't figure it out, find a mathematician.

44. Lens #28: The Lens of Expected Value To use this lens, think about the chance of different events occurring in your game, and what those mean to your player. Ask yourself these questions: ● What is the actual chance of a certain event occurring? ● What is the perceived chance? ● What value does the outcome of that event have? Can the value be quantified? Are there intangible aspects of value that I am not considering? ● Each action a player can take has a different expected value when I add up all the possible outcomes. Am I happy with these values? Do they give the player interesting choices? Are they too rewarding, or too punishing?

45. Do You Want to Play a Game?

46. Skill and Chance Get Tangled • Estimating chance (probability) is a skill. Players who are better at doing it will be more successful in games that involve it. • Skills have a probability of success. He means that it is not certain that a skilled player will always triumph. Every action a player takes will have some probability of success that is less than 100%. • Estimating an opponent's skill is a skill. This works both ways. A good bluffer will make the opponent think the wrong thing and take the wrong action. A good player will be able to read other players more accurately, and take a right action based on that read. • Predicting pure chance is not a skill, it is an imagined skill. In other words, you can't predict a truly random event. Mr. Schell cites the case of a gambler believing that a lucky streak will continue, or that a bad luck streak will end because he is due to win. Both beliefs ignore probability. • Controlling pure chance is an imagined skill. This means that relying on superstitious behavior to control fate makes no sense. It ignores the math above.

47. Lens #29: The Lens of Chance To use this lens focus on the parts of your game that involve randomness and risk, keeping in mind that those two things are not the same. Ask yourself these questions: ● What in my game is truly random? What parts just feel random? ● Does the randomness give the players positive feelings of excitement and challenge, or does it give them negative feelings of hopelessness and lack of control? ● Would changing my probability distribution curves improve my game? ● Do players have the opportunity to take interesting risks in the game? ● What is the relationship between chance and skill in my game? Are there ways I can make random elements feel more like the exercise of a skill? Are there ways I can make exercising skills feel more like risk-taking?