lafs game design 10 - fun and accessability
DESCRIPTION
Session 10 of the Los Angeles Film School's Game Design 1 class.TRANSCRIPT
FUN AND ACCESSABILITYSession 10
David Mullich
Game Design 1
The Los Angeles Film School
IS YOUR GAME FUN?
Is Your Game Fun?
Here’s how you can tell if your game is fun:
ASK THE PLAYTESTERS.
If there they say “no”, here are some things to look at to find out where your game may be lacking in the Fun Department.
The Fun Factor
Play Living Out Fantasies Story Social Interaction Exploration and Discovery Collection Stimulation Self Expression and Performance
The Fun Factor
Challenge Reaching and Exceeding Goals Competing Against Opponents Stretching Personal Limits Exercising Difficult Skills Making Interesting Choices Construction / Destruction
Fun in Monopoly
Goal of owning all the property on the board
Competition among players Fantasy of being a real estate
tycoon Socializing with other players Construction/destruction of houses
and hotels Collection of property sets
Fun in Tetris
Goal of clearing all your line of blocks
Simulation of catchy music, colorful blocks
Collection of all the blocks in a single row
Construction/destruction of row of blocks
Fun in World of Warcraft
Main goal of growing your character with smaller goals of quests and adventures
Competition among players Fantasy of being in a sword and sorcery world Social interaction with online players Exploration of huge fantasy world Stimulation with 3D graphics and sound Self-expression through role-playing Huge story and cast of characters Character construction and monster destruction Collection of inventory items
IMPROVING PLAYER CHOICES
Consequence
For a game to engage a player, each choice must alter the course of the game. The decision needs to have “risk vs. reward” potential.
What type of decisions are your players making?
Are those decisions truly meaningful or are they tangential to the main objective?
Consequence
You shouldn’t have too many choices in your game that are inconsequential. But not every choice needs to be life or death either. An engaging game has peaks and valleys in its tension level.
CRITICAL
IMPORTANT
NECESSARY
MINOR
INCONSEQUENTIAL
Life and Death
Direct and Immediate Impact
Indirect or Delayed Impact
Small Impact. Direct or Indirect.
No Impact or Outcome..
Decision Types
Hollow Decision: No real consequences Obvious Decision: No real decision Uninformed Decision: An arbitrary choice Informed Decision: Where the player has ample information Dramatic Decision: Taps into the player’s emotional state Weighted Decision: A balanced decision with
consequences on both sides Immediate Decision: With an immediate impact Long-Term Decision: Has an impact will be felt down the
road
Dilemmas
A dilemma is a decision in which no matter what the player chooses, something will be gained and something will be lost.
A well-placed dilemma and tradeoff can resonate emotionally with a player when encountered within the struggle to win your game.
Cake Cutting Scenario
The cake cutting scenario is an example of a zero-sum game – the chooser gains the crumb lost by the cutter. The Minima Theory states that there are rational ways to make choices in a zero-sum game, and these are scenarios game designers need to avoid.
Chooser gets a slightly bigger piece.
Chooser gets a slightly smaller piece.
Chooser gets a bigger piece.
Chooser gets a smaller piece.
Cut as Evenly as Possible
Cut One Piece Bigger
Cutter’sStrategies
Choose Bigger Piece
Choose Smaller Piece
Chooser’s Strategies
Prisoner’s Dilemma
Temptation > Reward > Punishment > Sucker
The question put before the two prisoners does not have an obvious or optimal decision. Games in which players can communicate and negotiate can make for even more compelling strategic gameplay.
Mario = 3 yearsLuigi = 3 years
Mario = 5 yearsLuigi = 0 years
Mario = 0 yearsLuigi = 5 years
Mario = 1 yearLuigi = 1 year
Rat on Mario
Don’tRat
Luigi’s Strategies
Rat on Luigi Don’t Rat
Mario’s Strategies
How Much Agency do Games Need?
Extra Credits: How Much Agency do Games Need?
The Lens of Meaningful Choices
Which choices am I asking the player to make? Are they meaningful? How? Am I giving the player the right amount of choices?
Would more make them feel more power? Would less make the game clearer?
Are there dominant strategies in my game?
Jesse Schell, Lens #32
Rewards and Punishments
Game designers often emphasizes the rewards while limiting the punishments.
However, the threat of punishment, if not the actual punishment itself, carries dramatic tension.
Getting killed is not fun, but sneaking past the guard and avoiding that threat can be a lot of fun.
Rewards and Punishments
Use the following guidelines for creating your rewards system:1. Rewards that are useful in obtaining victory carry
greater weight.2. Rewards that have a romantic association, like magic
weapons or gold, appear to be more valuable.3. Rewards that are tied into the game’s storyline have
added impact.Make each reward count, and if it can both push the player closer to victory and advance the story, so much the better.
Rewards and Punishments
Operant Conditioning: the frequency of performing a given behavior is directly related to whether it is rewarded or punished.
The timing and quantity of rewards is critical. If you give the player a steady stream of small rewards, it becomes meaningless.
Rewards and Punishments
Fixed interval schedule: not very effective Fixed ratio schedule: more effective Random ratio schedule: most effective
The Skinner Box approach works well for game mechanics that are repetitive and likely to become rote.
Anticipation
The more clearly you allow players to see and anticipate the consequences of their actions, the more meaningful their choices will be.
Games with closed or mixed information structures can create anticipation by giving players quick or limited information. This can actually increase the game’s tension.
Fog of War
Surprise
Surprise is one of the most powerful tools in a game designer’s toolbox. Randomness adds a level of drama in not knowing how an event will turn out.
When do you know when to surprise the player or to telegraph the situation? The trick is to find the right balance between the randomness of surprise and the importance of making player choices meaningful.
The Lens of Surprise
What will surprise my players when they play my game?
Does the story in my game have any surprises? Do the game rules? Does the artwork? The technology?
Do your rules give players ways to surprise each other?
Doo your rules give players ways to surprise themselves.
Jesse Schell, Lens #2
Progress
Nothing is as satisfying as seeing the choices you make result in progress, giving the player a sense of achievement.
One approach for structuring progress is to design milestones for players. These are small goals along the way toward the ultimate goal of winning. Milestones can come in the form of levels or missions. However, there is no reason why you cannot measure progress in several ways at once.
Keep in mind the amount of time the player will spend in the game. Pace the game’s progress so that the player achieves a milestone or has a memorable game event during each play session.
The Resolution
After the player has spent many hours playing your game, do you reward them at the end?
Multiplayer games have the built-in reward of the satisfaction of beating the other players, but in a single-player game, can you reward the player with a meaningful animation?
FUN KILLERS
Micromanagement
There is a fine line between granting your hardcore players control and burdening your average player with unwanted chores.
Micromanagement takes place when a task becomes repetitive or tedious to the player. The best way to find this out is to ask your playtesters.
Micromanagement
Possible solutions: Simplify your game system by eliminating
lesser decisions Combine many microdecisions into one
macrodecision Give the players the choice of automating
certain tasks
Stagnation
Stagnation is where nothing new seems to be happening for a long period of time and choices stay at the same level of importance and impact.
One source of stagnation is when players are forced to do the same task over and over. The game designer needs to find ways of varying the action and communicating to the player how progress is being made.
Stagnation
Another type of stagnation is when the balance of power between players keeps shifting so no one achieves victory. The solution is to create a condition that tips the balance of power so far in the favor of the winner that he can defeat the other players.
A third type is a reinforcing or balancing loop where the player gets so far behind, he can never catch up. One solution is to create a random event that can shake things up.
The last type is where it feels like nothing is happening because nothing is happening due to poorly define goals. The solution is to make the game’s goals clearer.
Insurmountable Obstacles
Insurmountable obstacles are situations that appear to be impossible to solve to many players.
The best solution is to make sure that the game has some way of recognizing when the player is stuck and provide them with help for overcoming the obstacle without ruining the challenge for them – such as game characters placed in strategic spots to provide clues.
Arbitrary Events
Arbitrary events are random situations that disrupt the player experience. Bad surprises need to fit in with the players’ expectations for the game and be telegraphed in advance so that they can make preparations.
A good rule of thumb is to warn the player at least three times before hitting them with anything catastrophic. Random events that have lesser impact require smaller warnings or even no warning at all.
Predictable Paths
Games that give the player only one path to victory can become predictable. Consider giving each object in the world a simple set of behaviors and rules for interaction rather than scripting each encounter separately.
Another solution is to give players a choice from among several objectives.
IS YOUR GAME ACCESSIBLE?
Game Accessibility
The final aspect to refining your game is making sure it’s accessible to its intended players.
Can players pick up your game and understand it without help from you?
Usability specialists are generally trained psychologists or researchers whose focus on testing and how users interact with products.
Layman’s Usability Testing
You will need 3-8 playtesters who are: Part of your target market Objective (not friends or relatives) Never played your game before
You need to identify the most critical areas of your game and create a script to get them focused on the areas of interest to you.
Identify areas that are causing problems, make revisions, and do another series of tests until you are satisfied that your target players have access to the most critical parts of your game.
Course Evaluation
Go to the following link and fill out the course evaluation:
http://goo.gl/forms/zHgILf5F6H
1. Playtest 3 of your fellow students’ games
2. Fill out playtesting form for each