Lecture 1 CS170: Game Design Studio 1 UC Santa Cruz School of Engineering 29 September 2008

UC SANTA CRUZ The year-long game design studio sequence  CS 170  Exposure to a variety of alternative game designs  Indie, serious games, political games, art games, etc.  Individual concept development  Frequent design pitches and rapid prototypes  Technology selection  Team formation  Final design documents  CS 171  The heart of making the game  CS 172  Emergency design revisions (the “oh my god” moment)  Final playtesting and tuning  Finish game  Win awards at indie game competitions

UC SANTA CRUZ Class mechanics  Syllabus online at   Login and password for secure page (readings)  User name: cmps170  Password: M2VkNG

UC SANTA CRUZ Platforms  This class is technology neutral – no specific platform is required  Platforms to think about  Microsoft XNA Studio – game development framework for PCs and, in managed code mode (C# only) for Xbox 360  It might be fun to be able to run your game on the Xbox – but it won’t be true console development (close to the hardware)  PC – use your favorite language (like C++) on the PC, use whatever libraries you want  Mobile  Homebrew development environments exist for DS (you can run in an emulator)  We have access to the Sony PSP development kit (but you have to sign a bunch of stuff)  Cell phone, though the innovation bar might be higher  Custom hardware  No game making tools (like game maker), though you can use engines (like Torque)  Torque is part of Microsoft XNA Studio

UC SANTA CRUZ Game innovation  To spur innovation in this class, we’ll look at a number of examples of non-traditional indie games  We want you to move beyond replicating the elements of standard genres  Don’t just want standard RPG #47 or standard FPS #63

UC SANTA CRUZ Game Design Overview – Adams Chapter 2  Player centric approach to design  Key components of videogames  Stages of the design process  Design teams  Documenting the game  Anatomy of a game designer

UC SANTA CRUZ Player centric design  You are creating an experience for the player – all design considerations must flow from the questions:  What does the player do?  What experience does this create for the player (why would they do it)?  You are not your own typical player – you should be able to design games for people different than you  The player is not your opponent – the goal is not to crush the player, but to entertain, inspire, create a feeling of agency and eventual mastery

UC SANTA CRUZ Formal game elements  Player manipulates controller and sees/hear/feels outputs  User interface translates inputs into gameworld actions and translates challenges inito something the player can perceive  Core mechanics are the rules by which the gameworld and game operate

UC SANTA CRUZ Difference between game and simulation  A simulation is a a runnable model of a real-world situation that is less complex than the real-world  Aspects of the world have been abstracted away  The core mechanics of a game like a simulation (runnable model that describes how the world state evolves)  What’s the difference between a simulation and a game?  A simulation isn’t playable, specifically  It doesn’t necessarily provide for player actions  And even if it does, it doesn’t structure the output in terms of challenges

UC SANTA CRUZ Full model  User interface provides an interaction model and perspective  Gameplay consists of challenges and actions  Gameplay modes delimit subsets of gameplay available at any one time

UC SANTA CRUZ Game design  Game design is distinct from game production  Design is the process of defining the concept, core mechanics, gameplay modes, gameworld, and so forth  Production is the process of turning a design into a polished, working game  In CS 170 we’re focusing on design and the beginnings of production  CS 171 and 172 will focus on production  Obviously some design continues into production, but the major design decisions should have been locked down before production  A game design is captured in a mixture of documents and prototypes

UC SANTA CRUZ The stages of design  Concept stage  What is the main concept of the game? Who is the audience? What does the player do? What dream does the game fulfill (especially for representational games)?  Elaboration stage, iteratively design  Primary gameplay mode, core mechanics, protagonist, game world, additional modes, level design, story  Tuning stage  Small adjustments to core mechanics, levels, etc. so as to create a balanced, smoothly progressing game

UC SANTA CRUZ Game design teams  Lead designer – responsible for overall design, “keeping the vision”. In this class will also serve as producer. Trades creativity for authority.  Game designer – defines and documents the game design  Level designer – take the essential components of the game defined by game designer (user interface, core mechanics, gameplay) and designs specific levels  User interface designer – designs layout of the screen in various gameplay modes. Traditionally has been left to the last minute (bad idea).  Writer – writes dialog, cut scenes, introductory material, etc. Often subcontracted to a freelancer or done by one of the designers  Art director – manages production of assets, responsible for the visual style of the game, in terms of authority, at the same level as the lead designer  Audio director – oversees production of audio assets

UC SANTA CRUZ Game design documents  High concept – short document that pitches the big idea of the game. Should sell the concept and player experience  Character design document – concept art, move set (animations), backstory for at least the player avatar (if she has one)  World design document – provides overview of the world, documents the feel of the world, will guide level design  Flowboard – documents how the gameplay modes relate to each other, quick sketches of the screens and what actions are available to the player  Story and level progression – large scale story of the game, progression of missions, levels, cut-scenes, etc.  The game script – documents the rules and core mechanics of the game in enough detail that you could play it without a computer

UC SANTA CRUZ Designer/engineers  As computer science students, you all have the chops to architect and implement game engines  But you know how to do this from a design-centric perspective  As designers, your magic bullet is deeply understanding what can be done with computation  Core mechanics are algorithms  In the 170 sequence you will have the opportunity to do conceptual design and see it all the way through to implementation