Game Design EST310/ISE340 Fall 2011 Tony Scarlatos

What makes a good game? “Games should be easy to learn and hard to master.” - Nolan Bushnell, Atari Computer SpacePong

What makes a good game? People want to play right away. Games should be easy to learn. Start playing in a few minutes! People hate to wait. Keep all players involved, even when it is not their turn. People love a challenge. Games should have variety – should be different every time you play. People want to win. Combine luck and skill so every player has a chance to win. People learn from playing games - so make learning fun. Aesthetics - eye catching design. Interesting content - story, dialog.

Player-centric design methodology Your player is not you Beyond mere demographics – age, sex, race, education, income level, etc. Players have different likes and dislikes even within their demographic (ex. Core vs. Casual gamers) Various research methods (such as focus groups) can be employed to get data about your target audience Play testing is an important part of the game development process “What does the player want to do?”

Bartle’s 4 Player Types

4 Engagement Styles

Classic Game Genres Action – shooter and fighting games, such as Doom (often a First Person Shooter - FPS) Strategy – Risk, Warhammer (known as Real Time Strategy or Turn Based Strategy) Role-Playing Games – known as RPG’s, can be single player like Final Fantasy, or multiplayer like World of Warcraft Sims – simulations, typically sports games like Madden NFL, or racing games, like Midnight Club: Street Racing Construction – building games like Sim City Adventure – similar to action games except the gameplay focuses on puzzle solving and not combat, Myst is the common example Puzzle – Tetris is the most commonly cited example

Anatomy of a game User interface Core mechanics – Precise rules of the game as symbolic & mathematical model Interaction model (what the UI is showing) Camera model (view of the gameworld) Shell menus and screens – Load/Save, A/V settings – Title screens, credits, cut scenes

Anatomy of a game Player Interaction Model (Controls, Feedback) Core Mechanics Camera Model (World View) INPUT OUTPUT ACTION CHALLENGE USER INTERFACEGAMEPLAY GAMEPLAY MODE

Design process Concept – Define audience – Determine player’s role(s) Elaboration – Primary gameplay mode – Design protagonist – Define gameworld – Design core mechanics and additional modes – Design levels – Write story and dialog – Build (UI, game assets, and programming) Tuning – Test

Game Design Process

Platform Considerations Console – Playstation, Wii, Xbox Computer – OS X, Windows Networked or Stand-Alone Browser-based Handheld Game Systems – DS, PSP Smartphone – Android or iOS Cost of porting the game to a different platform Royalty collected by the manufacturer (between $3 to $10 per unit for consoles) – Apple collects 30% of the price of an app sold on the App Store Peripherals? – Joystick, dancepad, Kinect, microphone, custom controller (guitar in RockBand)