IAT 410: Advanced Game Design

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IAT 410 Advanced Game Design

• Instructors Magy Seif El-Nasr, Eric Yang
• Teaching Assistant Ai Nakatani

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Class Overview
Developinga game

• Learn by doing (design, develop, test, prototype
  cycle)
• Learn about tools
• Learn to Critique others work

Lab assignments
Blogs (individual assignment)
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What would you learn?

• Why games work, Game design principles (what?)
• Interaction models
• Balance
• Feedback
• Motivation
• Immersion
• Design and Development cycle (how?)
• Tools rendering engines, game engines,
  prototyping tools

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Books

• Tracy Fullertons Book
• Game Design Workshop Designing, Prototyping, and
  Playtesting. 2004

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Structure

• Lectures more on how-tos rather than theory
  (that is IAT 312)
• Labs
• Lab tutorial
• Lab assignment
• Presentations
• Quick
• Be prepared
• Send us presentations before class (MUST)

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Schedule

• Course webpage http//www.sfu.ca/magy/courses/IA
  T410-Fall07/index.html
• Tentative at
• http//www.sfu.ca/magy/courses/IAT410-Fall07/
  schedule.htmlThis is where you go for DUES and
  UPDATES

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Grading

• Project
• Group of 5 (individual grade weekly assessment,
  and attendance)
• 45 on deliverables
• 5 Concept presentation (individual)
• 15 paper prototype, testing doc, and
  presentation
• 15 prototype, testing doc, and presentation
• 10 final game, testing doc, and presentation
• 20 labs
• 30 critiques (on ur blogs)
• 5 weekly assessment

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IMPORTANT

• All deadline are to be submitted before the
  class, i.e. Monday midnight
• Send all assignments, presentations, and
  documentations by email to magy_at_sfu.ca with
  subject IAT-410, all emails without this
  subject will be ignored.
• Note about LABS, no email necessary (check
  marked)

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Some games from previous classes
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Your Next assignments

• Setup blog for this class and email me the link
  (easy?)DUE Monday 9/10, 1159p
• Game Concept Presented and Voted onDUE Monday
  9/17, 1159pPresented in labs, 9/18
• No labs or lecture next week, get ready for the
  concept competition

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Concept Document

• How to present your game idea?

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How do you design a good game?

• Do a lot of research
• Have a good team
• Test, test, test
• Prototypes (small, use all tools possible)
• You can use some of the frameworks around
• MDA framework (this weeks labs)
• Game balance, fit to an old model (e.g. rock,
  paper, scissors)
• Read Tracys book (chapters 1-5)
• There are several other good books and papers I
  can recommend

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Time for Game Trivia

• Lets see if you know the games I play

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Game Trivia
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Game Trivia
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Game Trivia
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Game Trivia
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Game Trivia
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Game Trivia
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Game Trivia
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Game Trivia
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Game Trivia
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Concept Document

• Outside Resources Fogg Conceptual Designs
  (handout)

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Concept Document

• Use the template supplied by Fogg
• 1. Title Page
• Title
• Visual to situate your game, genre
• Design Challenge what is new about your game
• 2. Overview
• Genre, if one exists
• discuss aesthetics of your game (use MDA to refer
  to a list of aesthetics)

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Concept Document

• 3. User Description
• Who is the audience? Age? Gamers?
• 4. Storyboard of experience discuss gameplay
• What is the player doing? GamePlay
• point out the features of your game
• show the mechanics that will achieve the
  aesthetics you pointed out earlier
• Discuss underlying systems of your game

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Concept Document

• 5. Prototyping nothing there
• 6. Features/Functionality
• More details on the game system
• More details on the aesthetics
• More details on the mechanics of the game
• 7. Justification of the Design
• Is it based an already accepted system? Or new
  (can argue for originality)?
• Basically why should we give you money to build
  this game?

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Concept Document

• 8. User Testing nothing there
• 9. Shortcomings
• List problems of the design
• List Risks
• 10. Expansion
• What are the alternative designs you are thinking
  of trying?
• 11. Next Steps
• 12. Summary

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MDA framework

• Slides are Marcs slides, used at GDC 2005
• Marc is a great guy, look up his game Oasis
  (Warning very very addictive), but a MUST play

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The Designer-Player Relationship
?
?
Designer
Player
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The Designer-Player Relationship
?
?
Game
Designer
Player
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The Designer-Player Relationship
?
?
Creates
Consumes
Game
Designer
Player
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The Designer-Player Relationship
?
?
Creates
Consumes
Game
Designer
Player
Book
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The Designer-Player Relationship
?
?
Creates
Consumes
Game
Designer
Player
Book Movie
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The Designer-Player Relationship
?
?
Creates
Consumes
Game
Designer
Player
Book Movie Painting
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The Designer-Player Relationship
?
?
Creates
Consumes
Game
Designer
Player
Book Movie Painting Chair
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The Designer-Player Relationship
?
?
Creates
Consumes
Game
Designer
Player
Book Movie Painting Chair Car
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The Designer-Player Relationship
?
?
Creates
Consumes
Game
Designer
Player
Book Movie Painting Chair Car Pizza
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The Designer-Player Relationship
?
?
Creates
Consumes
Game
Designer
Player
The difference is the way that games are consumed.
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An Extreme Opposite ExampleA Theatrical Play

• The design team knows
• Script
• Lighting
• Acoustics
• Seating
• Intermissions

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Games, on the Contrary

• The designer doesnt know
• When will the player play?
• How often? For how long?
• Where? With Whom?
• And most importantly...
• What will happen during the game?

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Obligatory Editorial

• This lack of predictability is the essence of
  play.
• It should be embraced, not eschewed.

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Games as Software
Code
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Games as Software
Code
Process
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Games as Software
Code
Requirements
Process
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Games as Software
Code
Requirements
Process
Rules
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Games as Software
Code
Requirements
Process
Rules
Activity
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Games as Software
Code
Requirements
Process
Rules
Fun
Activity
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A Design Vocabulary
Code
Requirements
Process
Rules
Fun
Activity
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A Design Vocabulary
Code
Requirements
Process
Mechanics
Rules
Fun
Activity
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A Design Vocabulary
Requirements
Process
Mechanics
Dynamics
Fun
Game
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A Design Vocabulary
Mechanics
Aesthetics
Dynamics
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The MDA Framework
Mechanics
Aesthetics
Dynamics
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Definitions

• Mechanics The rules and concepts that formally
  specify the game-as-system.
• Dynamics The run-time behavior of the
  game-as-system.
• Aesthetics The desirable emotional responses
  evoked by the game dynamics.

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The Designer/Player Relationship, Revisited
Mechanics
Aesthetics
Dynamics
?
?
Designer
Player
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The Players Perspective
Mechanics
Aesthetics
Dynamics
?
Player
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The Designers Perspective
Mechanics
Aesthetics
Dynamics
?
Designer
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Three Views of Games
Mechanics
Aesthetics
Dynamics

• But they are causally linked

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The Building Blocks Formal Models

• No Grand Unified Theory
• Instead, lots of little models
• We can think of models as lenses
• Models can be formulas or abstractions
• Discovering new models is an ongoing process

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MDA is a Taxonomy for Models

• Knowledge of Aesthetics
• Knowledge of Dynamics
• Knowledge of Mechanics
• Knowledge of the interactions between them

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Properties of Good Models

• We want our models to be
• Formal (well-defined)
• Abstract (widely applicable)
• Proven (known to work)
• On any given game, we expect to use several
  different abstractions, not one big one.

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Part III MDA in detail

• In this part, we discuss Aesthetics, Dynamics and
  Mechanics in detail.

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The Designers Perspective
Mechanics
Aesthetics
Dynamics
?
Designer
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Understanding Aesthetics

• We need to get past words like fun and
  gameplay.
• What kinds of fun are there?
• How will we know a particular kind of fun when
  we see it?

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Eight Kinds of Fun
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Eight Kinds of Fun

• Sensation

Game as sense-pleasure
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Eight Kinds of Fun

• Sensation
• Fantasy

Game as make-believe
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Eight Kinds of Fun

• Sensation
• Fantasy
• Narrative

Game as unfolding story
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Eight Kinds of Fun

• Sensation
• Fantasy
• Narrative
• Challenge

Game as obstacle course
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Eight Kinds of Fun

• Sensation
• Fantasy
• Narrative
• Challenge
• Fellowship

Game as social framework
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Eight Kinds of Fun

• Sensation
• Fantasy
• Narrative
• Challenge
• Fellowship
• Discovery

Game as uncharted territory
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Eight Kinds of Fun

• Sensation
• Fantasy
• Narrative
• Challenge
• Fellowship
• Discovery
• Expression

Game as self-discovery
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Eight Kinds of Fun

• Sensation
• Fantasy
• Narrative
• Challenge
• Fellowship
• Discovery
• Expression
• Submission

Game as mindless pastime
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Clarifying Our Aesthetics

• Charades is fun
• Quake is fun
• Final Fantasy is fun

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Clarifying Our Aesthetics

• Charades is
• Fellowship, Expression, Challenge
• Quake is
• Challenge, Sensation, Competition, Fantasy
• Final Fantasy is
• Fantasy, Narrative, Expression, Discovery,
  Challenge, Masochism

Each game pursues multiple aesthetics. Again,
there is no Game Unified Theory.
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Clarifying Our Goals

• As designers, we can choose certain aesthetics as
  goals for our game design.
• We need more than a one-word definition of our
  goals.

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What is an Aesthetic Model?

• A rigorous definition of an aesthetic goal
• States criteria for success and failure
• Serves as an aesthetic compass

Some examples
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Goal Competition

• Model A game is competitive if players are
  emotionally invested in defeating each other.
• Success
• Players are adversaries.
• Players want to win.
• Failure
• A player feels that he cant win.
• A player cant measure his progress.

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Goal Realistic Flight Simulation

• Model Flight dynamics match user expectations.
• Success
• Match a mathematical formula
• Pass our realism checklist
• Failure
• Counter-intuitive system behavior.

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Goal Drama

• Model A game is dramatic if
• Its central conflict creates dramatic tension.
• The dramatic tension builds towards a climax.

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Goal Drama

• Success
• A sense of uncertainty
• A sense of inevitability
• Tension increases towards a climax
• Failure
• The conflicts outcome is obvious (no
  uncertainty)
• No sense of forward progress (no inevitability)
• Player doesnt care how the conflict resolves

On to Dynamics...
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Understanding Dynamics

• What about the games behavior can we predict
  before we go to playtest?
• How can we explain the behavior that we observe?

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Formalizing Game Dynamics
Input
Output
Rules
(Player)
(Graphics/Sound)
State
The State Machine Model
Examples Chess, Quake
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Models of Game Dynamics

• Again, no Grand Unified Theory
• Instead, a collection of many Dynamic Models.
• Dynamics models are analytical in nature.

Some examples
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Example Random Variable

• This is a model of 2d6

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Example Feedback System

• A feedback system monitors and regulates its own
  state.

Room
Thermometer
Heater
Too Cold
Too Hot
Controller
An Ideal Thermostat
Cooler
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Example Operant Conditioning

• The player is part of the system, too!
• Psychology gives us models to explain and predict
  the players behavior.

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Where Models Come From

• Analysis of existing games
• Other Fields
• Math, Psychology, Engineering
• Our own experience

On to Mechanics...
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Understanding Mechanics

• Theres a vast library of common game mechanics.

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Examples

• Cards
• Shuffling, Trick-Taking, Bidding
• Shooters
• Ammunition, Spawn Points
• Golf
• Sand Traps, Water Hazards

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Mechanics vs. Dynamics

• Theres a grey area
• Some behaviors are direct consequences of rules.
• Others are indirect.
• Dynamics usually means the latter.

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Mechanics vs. Dynamics

• Theres a grey area
• Some behaviors are direct consequences of rules.
• Others are indirect.
• Dynamics usually means the latter.
• Dynamics and Mechanics are different views of
  games.

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Mechanics vs. Dynamics

• Theres a grey area
• Some behaviors are direct consequences of rules.
• Others are indirect.
• Dynamics usually means the latter.
• Dynamics and Mechanics are different views of
  games.
• Dynamics emerge from Mechanics.

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Interaction Models

• How do specific dynamics emerge from specific
  mechanics?
• How do specific dynamics evoke specific
  aesthetics?

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Example Time Pressure

• Time pressure is a dynamic.
• It can create dramatic tension.
• Various mechanics create time pressure
• Simple time limit
• Pace monster
• Depleting resource

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Part IV Tuning
Analyze
Test
Revise
Tuning is an iterative process.
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Use of Sissy fight as an example game

• Play the game
• Reflect
• Fiddle with the mechanics to create an aesthetic
• Play test