Imagining New Game Styles

Imagining New Game Styles Greg Costikyan CEO, Manifesto Games greg@manifestogames.com

Game Design is: • Specification of • UI • Player verbs • Underlying gameplay algorithms • But normally concerned with implementing a game of an existing game style

What is a Game Style? • ~= to “game genre”... • But in games, genre is not thematic (science fiction, the action movie) but tied to a set of gameplay dynamics (FPS, RTS, platformer, etc.)... • A game style is a collection of a set of game mechanics that together make for engaging play.

For example: • The RTS is characterized by • Resource gathering • Building construction • Tech trees • Buildings create units and/or improve tech • Diverse unit capability • Realtime combat with multiple units on each side

Game Styles are Ancient • Per Parlett (Oxford History of Boardgames), virtually all classic games belong to categories that are definable not only by mechanics, but also by historical derivation

Example:The Chess Family • Shared mechanics: • Capture by replacement • Bilateral symmetry and equality of material • Functionally differentiated pieces • Play by movement & capture, not placement • Victory through capture of a single piece

Chess Family (con’t) • Shared history: • Chess, Shogi, Chinese chess, etc., all derive from the Indian game of Chaturanga (approx. 600 A.D. • In other words, these are “game styles” in the same sense as modern ones.

The last 30 years • Have seen an enormous surge in new game styles, in both digital and paper media: wargames, RPGs, TCGs, platformers, RTS, FPS, LARP, etc., etc., etc…. • The rise of the game industry is not just a story of new enabling technology—it’s also the story of a ferment of creativity

Creation of New Game Styles... • Is vital to the growth of the field. • Each new style creates a new audience • By contrast, games in existing styles mostly sell to existing fans of that genre. • For the field to continue to grow, we need to continue to find new game styles

The Space of All Possible Games • Most will be uninteresting. • But there are local maxima, where some fruitful combination of mechanics breeds interesting gameplay • Once a local maxima is discovered, many games exploring the possibilities of that set of mechanics can be designed

Innovation is Driven by Finding New Maxima c. 2000BC: Track game with blocking (Royal Game of Ur > Backgammon) c. 800AD: Game of Replacement Capture (Shaturanga > Chess, Shogi) c. 1200AD: Game of Leaping Capture (Alquerque > Checkers) 1756: Thematic track game (A Journey Through Europe > Candyland)

New Game Styles (con’t) • c. 1850: Trivia Game (Grandmama’s Game of Useful Knowledge > Trivial Pursuit) • 1856: Word Interpolation Game (Komikal Konversation Kards > Mad Libs) • c. 1890: Fishing Game (Fish Pond > Operation) • 1910: Military Miniatures (Little Wars > Warhammer)

New Game Styles • 1953: Board Wargame (Tactics) • 1973: Adventure Game (Colossal Cave > Myst) • 1973: Tabletop Roleplaying (Dungeons & Dragons) • 1974: Vehicle Sim (Atari Tank) • 1977: LARP (Dragohir) • 1978: MUD

New Game Styles (con’t) • 1979: Flight Sim (Sub-Logic Flight Simulator) • 1981: Platformer (Donkey Kong) • 1981: Computer RPG (Ultima 1) • 1984: Graphic Adventure (King’s Quest) • 1985: Dynamic Puzzle (Tetris) • 1991: First MMOG (Neverwinter Nights) • 1992: RTS (Dune II)

New Game Styles (con’t) • 1993: FPS (Doom) • 1996: Rhythm Game (Parappa the Rapper) • 2000: Autonomous Agent Game (The Sims) • 2001: Collectible Miniatures Game (Hero Clix)

Slowdown Since the 80s • Possibly because “the videogame” is more mature— • But, IMO, because the increasing conservatism of publishers makes it harder to get funding for anything novel (unless your name is Will Wright)

How Do We Go About Trying to Invent a New Game Style? • Doubtless many ways to do it. As Kipling says, “There are four and twenty ways of writing tribal lays, and every single one of them is right.” • Perhaps looking at some historical examples:

Doom & The FPS • Attempts to do 3D even from early home computer days (e.g., wireframe dungeons in Ultima III) • Plenty of 2D, third-person shooting games (e.g., Castle Wolfenstein) • Licensed by id for “Wolfenstein 3D”—essentially wireframe graphics with 2D textures...

Doom (con’t) • Wolfenstein 3D: opponents as 2D sprites, limited variety, choice of weapons, 1st person perspective... • Doom nails it: wide variety of opponents, textures give better illusion of truly being in a 3D space (though still not true 3D) • Often the case that it takes several tries to really find the “sweet spot” in terms of mechanics and gameplay.

Doom (con’t) • Fundamentally, the FPS results from technical improvements; with 286 machines, we finally have enough processing power to get decent-looking 3D • Technical improvements often contribute to the establishment of new game styles: e.g., color printing > the commercial boardgame; cheap die-cuttinng > the board wargame…

Looking to Technology • So one approach is to look at emerging technology and ask “How can this be used to create interesting gameplay?” • Physics • Location • Social networking • Mobility/Ubiquity/Pervasiveness • Procedurally-generated content

SimCity • Will Wright wanted todo a game about city planning • Spent over a year doing research • Mid-80s machines barely able to keep up with the necessary processing to provide the simulation • Successful despite technical limitations.

SimCity (con’t) • In other words, Wright looked to a subject matter no one else was addressing, and figured how to treat it in a game context • And it turned out some the same techniques were applicable to other subjects (e.g., railroads, theme parks)…

Looking to Subject Material • A difficult approach, because often the existing techniques don’t work • Can sometimes be commercially very successful—e.g., Deer Hunter • May be hard to work through the retail channel, but an obvious approach for games aiming to fill a niche—e.g., Short Hike, a space station simulator

Looking to Subject Material • But there are scads of things no one is doing: • Macroeconomic simulations • Social interactions • Making roleplaying meaningful in digital games • Games-as-theater • Geopolitics • The love story…

Magic: The Gathering • In the late 80s/early 90s, tabletop RPGs began to sell through comic stores as well as specialty game shops and book stores • Collectible card sets are also often sold through comic shops—the know how to stock and sell them.

Magic (con’t) • Garfield reasoned that a game build on collectible cards would work through this distribution channel • And that an “exceptions game” approach, whereby the base rules set is simple but extended by rules on other game components would work (an idea drawn from Cosmic Encounter)

Magic (con’t) • Thus Magic was born—not out of a technical advance or an approach to a theme—but from a business idea • Of course it helped that Garfield is a superb designer… • Deer Hunter another example—Wal-Mart figured they could sell a game that appealed to hunters (they sell a lot of guns) and went to Vivendi with the idea.

Looking to a Business Channel • Today, doing something innovative almost demands distribution not through the conventional channel • What alternative channels can you find? • Assume that you cannot simply force an existing game style down that channel—that it must be tailored to the specifics of that environment

Business Channel (con’t) • What kind of game could you sell through music outlets? (A CD-ROM is packaged like a music CD….) What would get White Stripes fans excited? • What game would get warbloggers excited? • What about evangelicals? • LL Bean Wilderness Explorer?

EyeToy • Webcams had beenaround for a while, and some PC peripheral manufacturers had tried offering games with a camera. • And configuring a PC with drivers and such is difficult • Ron Festajo at Sony in the UK wanted to make it as simple as possible

EyeToy • His insight was to view EyeToy as a UI input device, not a “camera”… • And devise a series of simple games built around different UI ideas—wiping the screen, batting at objects, etc.

Starting from UI • In other words, the germ of the idea was in a different UI element • A more elaborate example: Journey into Wild Divine, controlled by heart rate and sweat sensors • Of course, it’s expensive to bundle hardware with software…

Starting from UI • But it isn’t always necessary: • Katamari Damacy: How do I use a PS controller to roll a ball. • Oasis: I have a limited number of clicks, and every click must count. • Loop: Use the mouse to circle moving objects

Starting from UI • One approach: Imagine a novel gameplay activity, and figure out how to map it onto existing controls (Katamari Damacy) • Another: Figure out some way to use existing controls that games don’t normally use (Loop) • A third: Provide a new input device (EyeToy)

“Four and Twenty Ways” • Doubtless there are other ways to approach the problem, but these four are worth thinking about as a start: • How can new technology be used to create gameplay no one has ever seen before? • How can we create a game on a subject no one has touched (or touched recently)?

Approaches • Where and how else can we sell games, and what kind of games would work there? • How does a different approach to UI give us new opportunities?

“We Know What Works” • …or so publishers say. • But the game is a highly plastic medium. • So is software. • We’ve only skirted the coast of a vast virgin continent. • 30 years of dynamic creativity must not come to an end.

Whole cloth innovation is risky • Most experiments will fail. • The ones that work have the potential to be vastly more successful than the average game…. • And the designers we admire most are those who have pulled this off—Will Wright, Richard Garriott, Richard Garfield, Gygax & Arneson….

Duty Now for the Future • “If you don’t fail from tGime to time, you’re not taking enough risks” – Woody Allen • As an industry, we need to take more risks. • The potential payoff is big. • Go do something cool.

Imagining New Game Styles