Risky Design: Plain Sight

Introduction:

All games have design flaws. Some are major, some are minor. Some can be fixed, others can't without changing the game greatly. This is just a reality we all get used to. I doubt any game could have perfect gameplay, pacing, balance, or interface - but all great game designers aim to limit their game's flaw's impact on gameplay as much as they can - so they are barely noticeable.

An example of this would be for example that in many modern games and sports that are objective driven and focus on simultaneous attacking and defending (such as Capture the Flag), once a team has the lead - in some games it may be more effective to defend said lead, rather than attacking and trying to get a larger lead.

This is a flaw, yes, as part of the main idea behind Capture the Flag is balancing your offense and defence - but most games will just allow it - why?

There are very limited ways to actually fix it.

You could separate the offensive and defensive elements so that each team takes turns trying to get each other's flags (kind of how Rugby-styled football games do, or how Counter Strike's CS maps play out), but that's not capture the flag. It would in fact completely remove the balance that we want to achieve.

Another alternative is maybe buffing the losing team slightly so they can break through defences easier - but then you could run into balance issues, and teams being wary to get the first point in fear of a strong counter attack - which, could lead to stalling until the clock is very low and then trying to win.

So, Capture the Flag is flawed - but we all live with it and enjoy it still, because there are few ways in which the game style could be slightly tweaked to fix the issues surrounding it, without completely changing the game type. The problem is also fairly minor, as most teams will continue to pursue the flag even if they have the lead.

Still, there's room for improvement.

Moving On:

The point of this article is to talk about the game "Plain Sight".

Plain Sight is an amazing game developed by Beatnik Games, and the reason I'm writing thisarticle is because Plain Sight takes many features that have very easy to recognise flaws, and actually mashes them together to make for a greatly fun, near-seamless game style.

Before I dive into it, check out Plain Sight here: http://www.plainsightgame.com/

And I greatly recommend you buy it from Steam here: http://store.steampowered.com/app/49900/

Plain Sight uses the following flawed systems:

• "Big Head" mode from Goldeneye.
• Progression through death
• Exponential power growth
• Transparent player actions

"Big Head" Mechanics.

Explanation: In case you haven't played Big Head mode in any games such as Golden Eye, Unreal Tournament, etc. - it is a supplementary game style where, you still pick "Deathmatch", "Capture the Flag" or the like, but in Big Head mode, when you get a kill, your head gets larger so it's easier for people to headshot and kill you.

Pros for Gameplay: A fun silly mod for people to mess around in.

Cons: People can be reluctant to go for a large spree, and will sometimes commit suicide to make their head smaller.

In Plain Sight: Characters get larger and larger as they get kills, and as they do this, they can be targeted and tracked from a wider distance. Also, players who are larger yield more rewards for those that kill them, making them not only an easier kill, but a more sought after one.

Progression Through Death

Explanation: Progression through death is where a player feels that they gain more from relentlessly pursuing a goal and dying over and over, rather than trying to stay alive. Think of it like a player using a character with high area of effect damage running in a group of enemy players over and over to slow their progression, rather than taking them with skill and planning on as the game designers would intend.

Games can reward progression to death, they can punish it heavily, or any measure in between. It depends on the game.

Pros: The only time when death should be rewarded is where death is the objective - which is extremely rare. So, if "Death" is considered the failure condition, there are no pros to rewarding it.

Cons: Again, if death is the failure condition, it is bad to reward it.

In Plain Sight: Plain Sight is the first game I have played where death is the objective. In Plain Sight, you must gain energy by killing opponents (and getting bigger), which, then, when you commit suicide - gives you the fruits of your labour in your past life. Dying with a lot of energy (being a big fat robot), gives you far more points than dying with no energy.

Exponential Power Growth

Explanation: Exponential power growth is the term used to describe when players are rewarded for their achievements in the game, and so they are more effective, and are rewarded more. The cycle repeats until the game is unfair because one player (or team) is completely dominating with overwhelming power due to a couple of early achievements.

Pros: None. You never really want exponential power gain - though, in any game where you level up, it's a given. As a player gets stronger, they'll naturally be more capable when dealing with the same threats. Most games balance this out by making it so that over the scope of a 'round' or 'match', a player will never gain permanent advantages that an 'unlevelled' player cannot overcome with skill. For example, in Monday Night Combat, a non-upgraded player can still kill a completely upgraded one with skill.

Cons: An unbalanced game.

In Plain Sight: In Plain Sight, as a player gets kills and energy, and gets bigger, they also get stronger, they can jump higher, acquire targets at a larger range, their suicide detonation is bigger, etc. That said, they do not gain defence, so while they become a killing machine, it still only takes the regular dash attack to kill them. Also, as a player detonates with more energy, the points they gain is increased greatly. So, detonating after one kill yields next to nothing, while over 10 kills is a real game changer.

Transparent Player Actions:

Explanation: When a game makes player actions transparent, it means you can see and understand what the enemies are doing easily, and there is no real element of surprise.

Pros: Forces players to play in the open, without worrying about flanking, camping, stealth, etc. Depending on the style of the game, this can be good or bad.

Cons: In most games, removes strategic depth. Like it or not, camping, flanking, and sneaking are all valid strategies.

In Plain Sight: Players emit energy trails, that other players can follow to the player. Similarly, when players step on a part of the level, the ground lights up so that other players can see where the action is. The trails and ground light up more as you gain energy - so it's far easier to find more valuable targets.

How These Features All Come Together

So, Plain Sight implements all of these pretty flawed concepts, all in the one game - but it comes out great! Why?

They all cover each other's weaknesses.

The Big Head Mechanic and Exponential Power Gain mechanic work together to make for a very risky game style.

As you get more kills, you get more powerful, more deadly, but - you also get easier to kill.

Progression through Death allows the person to capitalize on the risks they have taken if they wish - or continue on, as the risk builds up higher and higher. As the risk builds, so does their reward if they are successful in committing suicide.

The Transparency of Player Actions is important as it increases the risk. An energy-filled player cannot hide and camp, they can only run and kill.

Conclusion:

The concepts above all work together perfectly to make a game style that is all about risk, greed, and chasing the most valuable players. And I love it.

It's great fun, it's an adrenaline rush whenever you have a long streak going and - I love how the game's gameplay almost seems to mirror its design. Beatnik Games took a gamble on mashing these features together, but it completely paid off.

I think this article is just saying that, well, first off, Plain Sight is designed masterfully - but also, that with enough thinking and creativity, you can find solutions to design problems anywhere, and even mash them together to fix each other.

Who knows? You could create a better Capture the Flag one day!

Lord of the Rings Online vs. World of Warcraft

Introduction:

Well, I finally got some inspiration for a post. I have been playing Lord of the Rings Online recently - well, for the last couple of days, and it was certainly an experience.

It's very similar to WoW in some ways, but in other ways, not as much. The main difference being that WoW is far better with pacing, and that's why I'm writing this post.

My thoughts on Lord of the Rings Online:

I originally had here a full run through of what happened during my playing experience, and how I felt about it - but it ended up as being extremely long, so I'll just make a simple list.

Things that surprised me in a good way:

• It's a free to play game, with solid graphics, and stable gameplay.
• Each character has a very unique play style, and the ones that I tried were all very strong when you got their core abilities.
• A strong crafting system.
• A lot of quests and instances.
• The game gives you a quick taste of power from the start by giving you some Novice items, and a free Rental Mount (that lasts for 24 hours)

Things that surprised me in a bad way:

• A lot of awful quests, with very few fun and rewarding ones.
• In fact, too many quests full stop - leading to a grinding game style.
• Sprawling zones full of lots of little towns, with lots of quests - it's impossible to decide what to do first, or at all. It's overwhelming.
• Too much running, (often) not enough action.
• The game has you completely strapped for cash in the beginning, as your expenses for gaining new class skills gets too high for your level.
• An unstable GUI.
• Many limits on even basic features without using Turbine currency - which can be paid for with real life currency. (Fair enough, the team has to make money, right? Still... it annoyed me a bit)

The main things I want to talk about ais the Pacing. So yes, expect me to be criticising LotRO a lot in this post - but, before I do, I will clarify that when it comes to free MMOs (that are legal - not private servers), Lord of the Rings Online is probably the best I have played. And I don't mean - "No monthly subscription", I mean, free all over - you don't even need to buy a serial key.

It's a great game, so if you don't want to be forced to pay for an MMO - I'd go straight for it.

Pacing Problems:

Lord of the Rings Online has some pacing issues as I described before - mainly that you're often running around aimlessly just trying to complete the crazy number of quests - and most of your quests are based on talking to people across the map. Then when you find them, you find 20 more quests.

It's overwhelming - badly structured, and as you run from place to place - somewhat boring. Towards the end of my recent play time, I spent most of my time with Auto-Run on, just avoiding monsters as I gazed up from MSN and saw I was running into them.

Similarly, every quest you get is often a part of a quest line - so it's hard to just skip one because you may have done 3/6 parts of the line, but you have not yet gotten your final reward. Similarly, it can be kind of infuriating to be finishing off a quest that has had you running around for an hour, and then talk to who you think is the final NPC only to have them send you back to the other side of the map again.

A map of what my time in "The Shire' probably looked like is as so:

Most quests are in red, the particularly annoying quests are in other colours.

Light Blue: You run around as a chicken, you cannot fight or anything - you simply have to run slowly from waypoint to waypoint. You have to do this twice-3x, with no difference really except for the waypoints.

Indigo: You have to talk to the man in the lower left, then the woman in the lower right, then the man in the top right, then the woman in the lower right, then the man in the top right, then go to the top left to find an item. Show it to the man in the top right, show it to the woman in the lower left, go back to the man in the top right, go with him to an instance in the top left, beat the instance, go to the man in the lower left, talk to the woman in the lower right, talk to the man in the top right.

And I'm not joking.

Yellow: You have to carry pies from all over the region to this one woman while avoiding particular hobbits (who steal pies). You usually have to go a long route, through enemy infested territory, and, while you're holding the pie, you can't attack or ride your temporary horse.

Green: Similar to the Pie-Carrying, you have to carry mail all around the region and avoid a different kind of hobbit that steal mail. Again, you cannot fight/ride a mount.

Pink: A crazy quest like Indigo - a lot of talking and running, with a tiny bit of fighting in the middle.

And as said, the Red are all the other quests - which, heavily outnumber the other colours. I think, if I had have truly represented Red, it would have been more of a smog than a bunch of lines.

Now, this would be... somewhat okay... if you could run from one end of the map to the other in about a minute. Well, unfortunately I timed it, and it took me nearly 10. So you can see how I spent about 15-20 hours in the last few days on this game, and only finished this area.

Now, you certainly have the option of doing the good quests - and then leaving the rest, but as a newbie - you cannot make the distinction, and, there are a lot of rewards for finishing a lot of quests in a region - so you feel that it's what you should do, while my friends have had a lot more success just picking and choosing.

It's also a lot hard to compartmentalise the quests when so many have nearly 10, or even more steps in them.

How World of Warcraft does it:

This is where WoW comes in. WoW has similar areas (where you start out as a newbie, get your professions, and leave the Novice level, choosing where you go next)

But, their areas are always (or at least, almost always) far better designed.

Let's take a look at how you'll traverse the starting area of "Durotar".

Your spawn point is the Purple X, then the green is your starting zone - for levels 1-6.

After that, you are asked to go to a little camp just outside the starting zone where you start getting some more quests - after you finish the key ones, (you don't have to finish them all to progress), you're asked to go to Razor Hill (Red), where the Yellow X denotes that you can set your teleporting (Hearth) stone to teleport there - which is useful when you've just finished many quests in the one area.

Once you've finished the key quests there - you're asked to go to Orgrimmar (Purple) again, you can set your Hearth Stone.

The key things to note is that all areas are somewhat self contained. The Starting area only ventures out when you've finished it. The Camp deals with the areas outside the starting zone and the Echo Islands. Razor Hill, being the main object of levelling inside the area covers the most ground - but even so, most quests are roundabout in the same area (meaning, you can complete them at the same time). Orgrimmar deals with the North.

Also note that all quests expand out, and then return to the single 'Town' in which you got them. They rarely go between towns - and all of your valid quests in the one area, meaning you can see them all rather than finding new ones everywhere.

I always like to praise WoW on pacing, but this is why - it's so easy to understand, it's well encapsulated - if you know the quests, you can do many of them at once to save on time. As the quests don't roam the country side, and aren't all quest chains 10 long, you can just do a couple, and then go to another area if you want - which is used a lot for speed levelling (example, if you hate the small camp outside the starting zone, you can travel to another starting zone, and finish a few quests there before returning).

Note:

At this point I'd like to recognise that a couple of weeks ago, The Shattering happening in World of Warcraft - and many zones were changed. And, Durotar is even faster, and designed better than the picture shown, if you would believe me.

Conclusion:

In closing, both World of Warcraft and Lord of the Rings Online are great MMOs - but, in order to be more competitive with World of Warcraft, LotRO has to work on its quest pacing and over all progression.

The most important factor with MMOs is getting players to play for long periods of time, so that their characters are strong enough to utilize end-game content, and when it comes down to it, I feel that for most players, LotRO is missing that gripping factor.

To improve, it should:

• Cut down on the number of individual quests in each zone, so players are less bored by the end.
• Shorten some quest chains, and split some up into individual quests so players can pick and choose easier.
• Restrict quests' objectives, so, for the most part quests are all in a small area. If they do move to another area - prohibit them from moving backwards. Players should be able to draw a line from questing hotspot to hotspot.

This means that a player will likely feel like they are progressing faster, and they likely will be - as they won't be wasting time running from on end of the map to the other, and doing boring quests.

To put this into perspective, in 16 hours I can:

• Get a character from 1 to 15 in Lord of the Rings Online, or
• Get a character from 1 to 25 in World of Warcraft.

Which would players likely prefer?

Random Chance and Luck-Based Gaming

Introduction:

My friends and I were playing Super Smash Bros. Brawl which, ever since the 2nd week of me playing Melee, I have always played without items.

At parties though, items will go on on occasion - but, after a few matches, I want to turn them off - due to the fact that when items are on, there is no real point to playing because you have limited control over the way the game is being played, and you have limited ability to judge what might be coming your way.

Basically, the game is less about skill, more about luck.

In this point I'll like to highlight why sure, a little luck tosses it up - but when it comes down to it, skill is the main ingredient in fun.

A Little Luck is a Little Good

Don't get me wrong - a lot of outcomes in each match are due to at least a little luck - even if nobody gets a critical hit, or rolls a random class.

An enemy rounding a corner, a little weighted spray - or the fact that you thought that your enemy would make one move - then he didn't think of this move at all and went for another? There's a fair amount of luck.

That said, skill will still weigh in a lot on these issues - complimenting them. If you position yourself well and are aware of enemy locations, you will be able to effectively battle the enemy around the corner. With better aim, you have a better chance of your spray hitting the opponents. With good knowledge of the game, you can use moves that, regardless of what the enemy is thinking, have a good deal of success.

So, in every well balanced game, there'll be a bit of luck - but skill will still affect the outcome of a match over luck entirely.

So, why on earth would you want to add more?

Why Skill Reigns Supreme

Skill is important in games, especially in ones where you compete against other players.

Many players get satisfaction from exacting a task with proficiency, and showing off just how much they have learned about the game and how to play it - even against computer opponents.

It builds the player's self esteem, and gives them the feeling that they are having fun.

Many designers have analysed this feeling - one in particular being Raph Koster, the author of "A Theory of Fun for Game Design", who argues that the experience of fun is derived nearly entirely from the experience of learning, and trying to perfect facets of a game's gameplay.

I don't agree entirely - but I absolutely believe that learning and gaining skill is extremely rewarding to players, and as such is a main element of the experience of 'fun'.

Repeat the mantra, learning is rewarding, and rewards are fun.

You Did What?

Another aspect of luck is the negative side, where players feel cheated if they are beaten through luck-based occurrences, which is fair enough.

One second, you're beating some guy down with a well timed sequence of moves, and, the next, he gets a lucky critical and you're down. Despite the skill difference, or how well you executed the attack, the luck trumped your skill in determining the outcome of the encounter.

That's bad - it's as if you might as well have just played Paper, Scissors, Rock with the opponent. And everyone hates Paper, Scissors, Rock.

Something that I see a lot of designers do is have little occurrences that can determine the outcome of an encounter - and justify it with the fact that it's only a 1%, 2% or 5% chance - but all this does is have no effect on most encounters (so why even include it), but make the ones that it does affect completely based on chance and rage-inducing for the player on the receiving end.

Do not do this.

As explained - it's useless (it doesn't achieve anything) and bad game design at the same time.

No-one even notices if you don't include staples of random events (crits, etc.) in your game. The only time I've heard someone say "That's odd there aren't any critical hits", is immediately before "and I love it!".

If you want to include random chance in your game, do not use "Low Chance vs. High Payoff" chance.

To ensure that your game is balanced and fun, use "Moderate Chance vs. Moderate Payoff" or "High Chance vs. Low Payoff" chance.

Triggers

To define Moderate and High Chance, I need to define Triggers.

A Trigger is simply an event, that can cause a random event. It's the event that causes the proverbial die to be rolled. For example if every time you shoot a bullet from your weapon, it can critical hit for 3x damage, shooting your weapon is that event's trigger.

A trigger's Trigger Occurrence Rate is how many times this event will happen in an encounter (or in a given time period) - and will affect the random chance co-efficients you use.

For example, if you shoot 10 bullets per second, and they have a 10% chance to crit, that's effectively one crit per second.

If you want this one crit per second, and your weapon fires on the half-second, you would give it a 50% chance to occur. It's as simple as that.

For this reason, it's hard for me to define what I would consider Moderate and High Chances.

I simply do not know the Trigger Occurence Rate for the games that this post applies to, as each game has its own balance, pace, and encounters.

That said, I generally aim to have my lower limits of occurence at 12.5% or 16.6% (1/8 and 1/6), as any lower and unless your triggers are occuring rapidly, there is a rather low chance of the event occuring and it falls in the reals of "not useful but really annoying" features.

Anyway, "Moderate Chance vs. Moderate Payoff" and "High Chance vs. Low Payoff" chances offer the following advantages:

• You can more easily judge their effect on game balance.
• Players will more easily judge their effect on encounters, and will adjust their strategies in turn.
• Something that has a higher chance of happening appears to be far more useful to players than low chance occurrences.
• Something that has a higher chance of happening is actually far more useful to players than low chance occurrences.

The first advantage is actually really important - as I too have falled for the "Low Risk v. High Payoff" trap before, and, I'm in the middle of rectifying it for Pokemon Universe.

In PU, a few Pokemon have some abilities that have a tiny chance of activating, but, could win a match. Put them all together (each Pokemon had a few of them each), and I realised that these could decide matches more than team layout and skill a lot of the time.

The scary thing is, I put them in the game a while ago and it took me this long to realise how bad it really was.

As a designer, it's so easy to say "Oh, it'll only have 5% of the time, that won't affect anything," and "That makes it just a filler", but - the amount of grief it could give your players is tremendous, and could make the difference between having a game with a skilled design and a possible competitive future - and a casual party game that isn't even fun at parties.

Higher activation chances increase the transparency of a feature's effect on game balance - making it more enjoyable for both you to work on and players to play.

Conclusion

So remember:

• Games with few random parameters usually have enough luck in them as it is.
• Skill should always trump luck in deciding the outcome of an encounter.
• Gaining skill and learning is a rewarding experience for players.
• Low Chance, High Reward feature often don't happen enough to affect balance, but when they do happen, annoy players greatly.
• Use "Moderate Chance vs. Moderate Payoff" and "High Chance vs. Low Payoff" chances.
• These chances are easier to factor in your balance.
• These chances are easier for players to factor into their strategies.
• These chances increase the transparency of your luck system, increasing the quality of the game.

And that's why I think you should turn items off in Brawl.

Rewarding Players and Item Management

Introduction:

Torchlight is an amazingly fun game - it's simple, easy to play, well paced... and monsters drop rare items like there's no tomorrow.

Torchlight rewards its players for playing, there is no doubt there. Hell, it rewards you for letting your pet kill everything.

But is it too much?

The following is a fairly common sight in Torchlight, especially if you have just killed a boss ora large mob of tough enemies:

Many players when discussing Torchlight say "It's great fun, there's a lot of loot!" but then "There's too much downtime when trying to sort your loot".

So, while Torchlight is great fun as you're accumulating all these items, trying to sort through them is a bit of a chore.

How much Loot is too much?

Well, this depends on the game - but there is rarely such a thing as a severe case of "too much reward" as long as some basic systems are implemented.

First let's look at the cons of over-rewarding, with the cons of under-rewarding.

Over-Rewarding:

• Can make players too powerful for their current place in the game.
• Can make challenges easier than was intended.
• "It's too noob-friendly"
• Can overwhelm players.
• Can lower player's excitement when loot drops.

Under-Rewarding:

• Makes players feel as if they haven't progressed in the game.
• Makes players feel unrewarded (well.... of course)
• Can force players to grind for rewards, rather than playing the game and enjoying it.

As you can see, it's better to over-reward than under-reward.

Simple System to Combat Over-Rewarding

Out of the 4 problems, the first two pertain to the player outgrowing the current state of the game - and becoming too powerful, or having alternate ways to navigate puzzles and challenges that defeat the purpose of the challenge.

The 3rd isn't really a problem - but a faulty attitude that some developers have. Developers shouldn't have it in for new players, and they shouldn't force players to jump through hoops to play their game. They should encourage different styles of play. End of rant about anti-player developers.

The fourth and fifth points are problems associated with Torchlight, and can be fixed in a couple of ways, which I'll get to later.

The best way to fix the player becoming to powerful for the game are:

Level Caps (in a random drop system)

Level caps make random drop systems. You cannot have a random drop system without some kind of level limit on equipment - otherwise yes, a level 8 Zombie might just drop a level 10 Hand Cannon. Other systems rely on level limits as well, such as trading systems - so that veteran players cannot give newer players their high level gear.

For looting systems, I think a good idea is to make a double-security system.

You can limit players from obtaining high level items by:

• Stopping them from dropping.
• Giving items a level cap, so only players of a certain level and higher can use them.

The second part is simple, and essential. I don't feel like I need to explain it at all.

The first can be more complex.

Many developers will instinctively say "Well, restrict drops to be that player's level and under." Though, while this works, there are definite reasons for making the system a little more complex. One such reason is that when a player gets an item that is really useful - but that is of a higher level than they are, they strive to wear it, and in fact make it another goal to aspire to.

Since they already have the item, and the goal is made up by the player, it's like a freebie reward that keeps the player playing with no additional work from the developer.

Just be mindful, you must restrict the items that can drop for the player. A Level 8 player is probably going to have forgotten about a Level 60 Chest-piece by the time they are able to wear it - and if all items are in the pool to be randomly dropped, your player may not find any relevant to his current place in the game, when he needs them.

A good idea is to make it so that only items a maximum of 5-6 levels away (though, this depends on your game and the speed of leveling) can be dropped. Also, a good idea is to make the system such that items 6 levels higher than the player are quite rare, while, items one level higher are more common.

Clamping the drop system around the lower limit range is important too, as, players don't want to be finding Level 8 items as a Level 10. For this reason, you may want to make it so no common items (of low standard) are dropped when the player is of a higher level. Rare items with special traits though, can perhaps take up a part of the random drop pool.

Common Sense (in a fixed drop system)

If there is no randomness to your equipment acquisition system, and your player is gaining items before they should - then... well.... that is a problem easily solved.

If you know a player shouldn't get a Rocket Launcher before Level 20, and you feel you need to reward them more... do not give them the Rocket Launcher during Level 18. Balance is the top priority - use your common sense and work out another reward to give your player.

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If the player is suffering from having simply too many items, the following systems could be implemented.

Selective Item Drops:

This system involves altering the probabilities that various items will drop, and is often accompanied by the drop rate being lowered. This essentially gives the effect of dropping all of the good items that the player wants (they feel rewarded), while hindering the probability of a 'trash item' dropping (the player has less to manage).

Obviously, items of a lower level than the player are going to be seen as trash, unless there are very unique traits on the item. As already explained, low level items should be somewhat uncommon.

A smart way of weeding out irrelevant item drops would also be to evaluate the player's character. Essentially, lower the probability of items that the player cannot (or will not) use, and raise the probability of a more useful item dropping. An example would be a player playing the staple Mage, rarely getting Plate and Chain Mail drops, while still finding Cloth armour.

This is simple, Class > Class-usable items. An even smarter way of selecting drops would be to analyse the player's actions. If this Mage is always using its fire spells over its ice spells - give it more equipment with fire damage.

Remember, in terms of rewarding players:

Quality of Item Drops x Frequency of Item Drops = Reward.

So that you can have great items dropping sparsely, good items dropping commonly, or terrible items dropping a lot - and, the total gain of power is somewhat the same.

Obviously, there is an optimal amount of items that a player wants to hold, and so it's your job to find that.

Note that frequent drops feel more rewarding than rare drops however. Find the right balance.

Easier Management of Items:

Players need to be able to easily manage the amount of items that they possess.

Depending on the number of items that they possess though, the systems will change. An FPS will likely only require enough item slots to carry weapons, grenades, and health packs - while a resource based RPG may have a bag spanning over 100 items.

Depending on the game you may want:

• Multiple item selection
• Stacking items
• Item sorting
• Item categories
• Item comparison

It's really up to the designer to know what tools are best for managing the items that their game gives to the player.

Storage Handling

Many games have a 'Safe Deposit Box' or 'Bank' where you can put items that you'll rarely use, but still want to hold on to.

Others, also have boxes where you can put items to trade them between your individual characters.

Depending on your game, it's something to think about. I would at least recommend a bank. It makes having lots of items much easier to handle.

Conclusion:

I think I'm done now, so:

Over-rewarding is better than under-rewarding.

And methods of dealing with rewards and item drop issues are:

• Level Caps
• Common Sense
• Selective Item Drops
• Item Management Systems
• Storage Handling

More articles coming soon (hopefully next week).

Concise Writing for Video Games

First Off:

Here we are, I'm back! I was never anywhere but here, but, I am back in the mood to write design articles.

I think what frightened me off is the amount of work that I'm doing at college, and on Pokemon Universe, as well as working, trying to catch up with friends, and gaming taking up a lot of my time. This coupled with the fact that when I wrote articles they were often a full day investment and usually had over 2000 words, meant that I was struggling to find the time and will to write.

To help myself, I have decided to change my style a little. Though, this is also to help people read my articles. While I enjoy describing my design ideas and philosophies to a detailed extent, it takes a lot of my time to write, and a lot of commitment from a reader to read in full.

Just like I say that a player shouldn't have to work through a game like a chore, readers shouldn't have to work through my articles.

I thought it would be fitting to make my first article back about concise storytelling and instruction in video games.

Introduction

Concise means: "Terseness and economy in writing and speaking achieved by expressing a great deal in just a few words"

Have you ever had a friend who tries to tell a story, or explain a concept - but, who gets so bogged down on the pointless details that you can't understand them?

And you're just tapping your foot, waiting for them to get to the point, and, even if they do, sometimes you don't understand?

Games are headed that way.

There are games that try to tell a story, or explain a gameplay mechanic - but, get so bogged down on the pointless details and backstory, that players don't bother paying attention.

The players just mindlessly tap 'A', waiting for the the cutscene or dialogue sequence to finish, and, when it does, the player doesn't even feel enriched.

It has to stop.

I would consider this problem to be a crime of hubris.

Designers need to always remember that they make the game for the players to enjoy, primarily. Badly designed communication often comes about when a company wants to show off their next generation cutscenes, or, thinks that every player wants to hear as much dialogue as can be thrown at them. Remember, the player is your priority.

Quality > Quantity

Nobody gains anything from lengthy dialogue and too-long-cutscenes. They intrude on the gameplay experience, and simply annoy players. Most players are just mashing their interact button and sighing, or taking a sip of their drink.

Unlike what you may think, storytelling is not enhanced with more words or time alloted to it. In novels, yes, there need to be a significant number of words allocated to setting up scenes, the nature of character interactions and mood - but don't be fooled. As much as you want your game to have a powerful story as if it's a novel, video games are a graphical medium. You don't need to write a novel to make a good story, as a large portion of the description is covered by the graphical elements of the game.

Dialogue, a major part of storytelling, needs to be direct and clear. Players want realistic dialogue - which, for the most part, is very brief in real life. As we covered before, people are irritated by others who cannot express themselves quickly, it is exactly the same in games and movies. Players find it very hard to sympathise with a dying character, who, for the last half of the game, they have been yelling at to "SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP!"

Concise writing makes good story telling, and will give you the powerful emotional moments that you want.

Ways to Fix These Issues:

#1 Optimisation of Dialogue

To get realistic, succinct dialogue, look at good TV shows. TV shows have to stay within either a 25 minute, or a 45 minute time slot - and so, the writing has to be very optimised so that an episode can cover however many plot points it needs to within that time limit. Try to find shows with a similar tone and plot layout to your game, and analyse it.

Quick list of some well written TV shows:

• Heroes (Season 1) (drama/action/mystery/sci-fi);
• Dexter (crime drama/suspense/black comedy);
• NCIS (comedy/crime drama);
• Scrubs (comedy/drama);
• Get Smart (comedy/parody/action);
• Supernatural (horror/thriller/mystery)
• Boston Legal (legal drama/comedy) (anything by David E. Kelley is good.)
• Avatar: The Last Airbender (adventure/fantasy/action/comedy)
• Etc. etc.

Another idea you can try is just saying the dialogue to yourself. If the wording sounds clumsy, you can often simplify it just by trying to express the point in your own words. Another idea that can help is imagining that you're saying it to someone who doesn't have much patience - because when it comes down to it, audiences often have little.

Try to also optimise cutscenes - don't make one for every level opening and after every remotely difficult enemy. Players will buy a movie if they want to watch a movie.

That said, some games use frequent cutscenes to great effect - such as Bioware's recent titles Mass Effect and Dragon Age. The main point I'm trying to get across, is that your players aren't playing for movies - and, if they are not well planned and executed, cutscenes can be an annoying, obtrusive obstacle to the player's enjoyment of the gameplay.

Whether they are sparse or common, by making well directed, interesting cutscenes, players will enjoy, and cherish them - considering them to be a great feature of the game.

A good case study for good cutscenes would be Borderlands. The cutscenes are short, limited to important characters and bosses, and have a good sense of humour. Players like them, and they capture the tone of the scene perfectly, while not intruding on gameplay at all.

#2 Make all Cutscenes and Dialogue Boxes Skippable.

Simple, eh?

This one doesn't really have to be explained. Make it so that there is a skip button for cutscenes, and that the 'skip command' will near-immediately go to the next message box when it comes to dialogue. Hopefully, if you've optimised your dialogue well, players won't want to skip text at all, but this means that they can if they want to - and, there won't be as much to skip.

Another point I'd like to make is, if there's an NPC that doesn't say much of value - please, one message box of dialogue only. Players hate to accidentally hit the interact button at the wrong time, and get roped into 5 lines of slow, useless dialogue.

#3 Less Intrusive Dialogue Boxes.

One development that has positively affected communications in games is persistent, but unobtrusive messages. They're usually found near the top of the screen, giving you information - but they do not take control away from your character to close them, and often close when a criteria has been met (you've executed the command that they are instructing you do to, etc.).

These are good.

Players can ignore them if they wish, but they still give information to those who need it. It is a far better system than a message box which takes control away from the character, especially because the player can execute the command as they read the message. Another advantage, is that it doesn't have to pop up to remind the player of the correct key presses, if they fail to do the keypresses the first time.

If you're going to give instructions to your player, I definitely recommend using the less obtrusive message boxes. Just remember to give your players a way to turn them off.

Optimising Messages - Examples

Here I'll just put down a couple of examples of intrusive and annoying messages in games, and I'll try to fix them up. Starting with the queen of painful buttonmashing, Nurse Joy.

(// designates a new Message box)

"Hello, and welcome to the Pokemon Center. //

We restore your tired Pokemon to full health //

Would you like to rest your Pokemon? ( YES / NO prompt) // (YES chosen)

[Animation, as your Pokemon jumps onto the counter and the Pokeballs are put into the machine]

OK, I'll take your Pokemon for a few seconds... //

Thank you for waiting. //

We've restored your Pokemon to full health. //

[Animation, as player puts balls in pocket]

Please, come back again any time!" //

~ Nurse Joy healing your Pokemon in Pokemon Heart Gold.

That's 7 messages, and 2 animations, just to heal your Pokemon. Something that you're doing a LOT in this game. It takes roughly 15 seconds when I buttonmash as fast as I can. That is infuriating.

What is even more infuriating, is that this game's Message Box allows for 2 lines of dialogue at any one time - and yet, Nurse Joy uses only one line for each message.

I would optimise it as such:

"Welcome to the Pokemon Center, would you like me to heal your Pokemon? (YES/NO prompt) //

[Much shortened animation, perhaps a second of the machine flashing]

Your Pokemon have been fully restored, good luck!" //

Finished. It should only take at most, 2-3 seconds.

And really, for an action that players will be doing time and time again - it should be as quick as possible.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Another example would be in Final Fantasy Advance Tactics 2 (which, by the way, has a game-start sequence of several minutes that is unskippable, terrible.) - when the main character is being inducted into the clan that he fights for.

"Quick! Join our clan! Your bones may be broken while in our clan but you can never die!"
"Why should I join?"
[Bird pecks at main character]

"Because I can guarantee that you'll get no such offer from him!"

"Okay so what do I do?"

"Swear your oath to the Judge! Say you'll join the clan!"

[Long animation as the judge is summoned]

"That's a judge?"

"Quickly! Before the beast has time to act!" (this sequence has taken so long that really, by now, a turtle could have slaughtered them all...)

"Hey judge, I swear my oath, let me join the clan!"

[Animation]

"Woah check it out!"

[Animation as 2 birds appear]

"Ah, he's brough the little ones along to feed"

"Stand back stranger, we'll handle this lot!"

"Ready yourselves!"

"You're going to fight them?"

"Once you stand back as I've told you, yes."

"Hey let me take a swing at them, I've sworn my oath, right? I cannot be killed as you said!"

"Harrrumph! Spoken like a true greenhorn!"

"You cannot die, but, if you take a peck in the eye, you might wish you had"

"Well I didn't mean I'd go in first or anything. And I'm no fan of getting beaked."

[Battle Start]

Okay I'm actually going to cut it there - it's starting to annoy me. By the time you get to actually take your first action that isn't filling in your character sheet, you've spent 4 minutes and 14 seconds mashing 'A' (like I said, terrible). And, as you can tell, the dialogue, while in character, is mostly pointless.

If I were to alter the above scene, I'd recognise that

a) Luso must be inducted into the clan (or must he? Truthfully, I think that inducting him into the clan so quickly was a bit of a stretch, why not just throw him a sword and say "We'll teach you how to fight, as it's a dangerous world out there"?)

b) The two additional birds must appear.

c) Luso must find a reason to fight.

"Quick! Join our clan! We can protect you!"

[Luso runs to clan leader]

"Okay! So what do I do?"

"Swear your oath to the Judge! Say you'll join the clan!"

[Shorter animation as the judge is summoned]

"Hey judge, I swear my oath, let me join the clan!"

[Animation as 2 birds appear]

"There are more of them, we might need your help!"

"But I don't know how to fight!"

"We'll teach you along the way!"

[Battle Start]

I do respect the humour that was added in to the situation, but, with the fact that the introduction has already spanned over 3 minutes at this point, it should be cut short.

Also, as said, when the sequence of initiation has easily been nearly 25 seconds, the humor of "Oh my God! Do it quick or it'll eat us!" isn't that charming. It's more annoying, at least for my taste.

Conclusion

The Pros of Optimised Communication

• Better storytelling.
• Players will read and understand your communication.
• Experienced players can skip conversation that they have already witnessed.

The Cons of Badly Written Communication

• Players will mindlessly buttonmash until they're past the dialogue/cutscene.
• Players will feel contempt for the majority of characters who have lengthy dialogue.
• Players will feel alienated and annoyed.

How to make sure your Communication is Concise and Well Written

• Time your dialogue sequences and cutscenes, and evaluate how long it should take.
• Read the dialogue a few times, and see if any seems clumsily worded or annoying.
• Look for inspiration from well-written media.
• Act out scenes to yourself.
• Make sure dialogue and cutscenes can be skipped.
• Use unobtrusive message boxes.

I think I'm done.

Another article coming tomorrow.

Pacing

Not updating for a month sucks. I have been a busy guy.

Introduction

Pacing is the rate at which a player progresses through the game, and the way in which progress is measured and rewarded.

I'll be blunt. Out of all of the gameplay mechanics you can consider, pacing is hands down the most important. I know I stress balance a lot - but really, with bad pacing, nobody will play your game long enough to find balance problems.

Pacing is what makes a good game concept a great game, or a total disappointment.

Unlike game balance, in the way that it can only be negative if done incorrectly, pacing influences your game positively. If you have good pacing, it will reward you, unlike if you have good balance that only doesn't fail you.

Why is it so important?

Time is very interesting to humans as while we can't perceive it, it has a profound effect on how we react to mediums.

Have you ever heard a song where the singer has an abrasive voice, the music is not in your taste, and yet... you still have the song stuck in your head for weeks?

You can never pick why you love that song so much - really, it shouldn't appeal to you at all - and yet it does.

Scientific studies have shown that this due to the song having a beat that you enjoy. Beat is pacing in the music world.

Similarly, have you ever watched a movie that really didn't appeal to your interests, the plot wasn't like the kind of movies you usually like, but... still... despite the fact that you hate romantic dramas, you secretly enjoyed this one? (Though you'll never admit that your girlfriend was right.)

Again, it's all the pacing of the movie.

This happens with games. You may think of yourself as a hardcore first person shooter player who loves gore and making 14 year olds cry - but then you'll find yourself obsessed with a simple comedic puzzle game for a week or two, until you finish it and get back to the shooting.

Despite the genre, this puzzle game likely had great pacing, that appealed to you.

Though, this can work against games as well. Let's say that you (the proverbial hardcore FPS addict with a penchant for dismembering babies) have been waiting for the goriest, most anti-baby shooting game EVER. It has rockets and chainsaws and zombies and twitch aiming - all of which appeal to you greatly.

You can pick up this game, and, if it has bad pacing and progression, you will simply find it a disappointment and go back to the puzzle game. You will often say "Ugh, it didn't really work for me" or "It was a little boring" or "It wasn't as fun as I thought it'd be" - and all of these will often point to a pacing issue.

Pacing is a mysterious fundamental to game design - but it is the most important aspect of it. Do it well, your game will be amazing to play, do it wrong, your game will be a disappointment.

Pacing is so important to fun, it's not even funny.

What does Pacing involve?

Pacing is made up of Progression, Measurement and Rewards. I guess we could call them the "PMR"s of Pacing. I've always wanted to have my own 3 letters of something. Now I do.

Progression - Pacing is the rate of progression throughout a game, game level, or encounter. In this post, I am mainly focusing on progression throughout the entire game.

Progression throughout the game needs to be just right. Too fast, and the player feels overwhelmed, too slow, and the player feels bored.

The setting, pursuit and achievement of goals should be timed such that the right amount of player effort is put into each goal depending on its over all importance on the game and the actions that must be taken.

If your goal requires too little effort, the player will feel like you're throwing simple content at them, or that the content was not explored properly ("That's all?"). If too much effort needs to be invested, players will simply feel like the outcome or reward simply isn't worth it, and they may stop playing if too many high effort, low payout plays occur in succession.

This is a problem with designers who don't design games to be fun, but more to control players and make them jump through hoops for the slightest congratulations. They don't recognise that if players don't find a game fun, they will just turn it off, and play one that is.

Remember guys, domineering designers don't hook players. You want your games to be enjoyable.

Measurement - A good practise with pacing is breaking up the game into clearly defined chunks that can aid players in progression consciously, or subconsciously. Most games break up their games into levels, areas, or rounds - all of which can help a player gauge their current progression throughout the game, and help them to decide what must be done next.

The best part is, designers do this without really thinking of it. When they think of a concept, they say "Okay, the game will have 20 levels" - and there you have it, the game has been clearly divided into stages.

When a player understands their position in the game, it helps greatly when they must remember what has already been done, and what needs to be done. If a player loads their save game in Level 13, they understand that they have already beaten 12 levels, and they will likely be able to recall a past level to remember what tools they have at their disposal.

Knowing your position in a game is a memory-jogger.

With the player's memory jogged, they are more likely to understand what is expected of them in the future. This counters that horrible feeling when you enter a game, you look at your main map, and you have no idea of what you have done, or where you need to go.

I will note that you don't need to have numbered game levels. They are the simplest indicator of progression (Level 13/20), but other games have very effectively demonstrated the ability to measure progress through other methods.

A good example is in World of Warcraft, where certain areas have level recommendations. If you know the areas and their general level recommendation, you can quickly remember what you were doing, and what stage your character is at in the game.

Similarly, the games Bioshock and Batman: Arkham Asylum have you exploring themed areas, which can show your progress. The visual imagery of the "Medical Ward" can have the players remember a lot more than a simple fraction - so you can use this to your advantage when creating levels and areas, making them visually distinct from each other.

Just remember, if a player understand their position in the game, they will find the game far easier to get into - which is of course what you want. You want players to enjoy your game, and be able to pick it up quickly from where they last left off - whether they left the game for 5 minutes to get lunch, left it overnight, or didn't leave it at all and have just began the next stage of the game.

You want your game to clearly convey to the player what they are to do.

Rewards - Rewards are great. Rewards are what players want, whether the rewards are implicit or explicit - whether they add onto gameplay, or are simply a progression through a stage of the game.

While rewards are great - you must be mindful to not reward players too much (the rewards will get stale when they should be significant to the player), or too little (as previously explained, if a player feels as if their effort gets unrewarded, they will find the game less fun).

Rewards are important to pacing as they provide feedback for what players have done, they are a cherry on the cake of the player's achievement (you feel great killing a boss, but even better when he drops a massive sword!) - and they often lead into the next part of the game.

Different games offer different rewards, depending on the task that is being rewarded, and the genre of the game. Some rewards are explicitly shown and given to the player as a direct response to the player's achievement (such as defeating the boss and getting a magic item), while others are less advertised to players, but are still very much rewards for their effort.

An Explicit Reward is the reward that players see, and they know is a reward. These are rewards such as "You got 42 exp for completing that battle" and then, "You attained 600 exp! You leveled up!". Similarly, chests found in secret locations are explicit rewards as are items found after battle.

These are the rewards that many designers dislike because they can be intrusive, and can break the flow of the game in intense moments - though, there's no denying that the more explicit a reward is, the more likely a player will feel rewarded for their efforts.

An Implicit Reward is one that is quite subtle in comparison to the explicit rewards - the reward may be invisible to the player, or it may not be recognised as a reward by most players.

One particular example of a reward that often isn't considered a reward is story progression. With the decline of adventure gaming and plot-heavy RPGs in favour of action games, story progression is no longer considered as a reward as much as it was - though, games that reveal plot skillfully, and have great plots that take effort to unfold are still among the most rewarding games.

Implicit reward is preferred over explicit rewards by many designers as they make the game experience more mature, and lend emphasis to concepts and features such as story and theme, where power ups and new game mechanics to explore may not be a viable option.

There needs not to be adversity between designers who favour either reward however, as it is the careful placement of both rewards that will make a great game that appeals to many players.

Despite what you may prefer, using both effectively is far better than only using one.

The Importance of Pacing in World of Warcraft: A Case Study

I want to close through talking about the somewhat controversial game World of Warcraft.

People are always divided on their opinion on this game - some people think it's a time-vampire, others think it's a cost effective means of entertainment (compare the monthly price to seeing a movie at the cinemas - you'll be shocked).
Similarly, opinion is divided amongst designers - some designers think it is effectively designed - and that its popularity is testament to this, others think the design is poor.

Whatever side of whichever fence you're on, you should definitely admit that World of Warcraft is a marvel when it comes to pacing - and is an excellent example of the importance of pacing in games.

World of Warcraft's game play, in my opinion, is too repetitive. You fight the same spiders at level 1, 14, 25, 35, etc. - just with slightly different models, and scaled stats. Some may have a new ability every now and then, but, it's all very similar - and if you are the right level, you will likely fight them in very similar ways, most likely using upgraded versions of the same spells you were using last time.

Similarly, quests are recycled over and over. There are roughly 4 template quests.
- Kill a number of certain enemies
- Go to a position on the map to find an item.
- Gather certain items from the ground.
- Escort this unit from one map position to another (very rare).

There are subtle differences - for example some quest will ask you to kill boars and collect their tusks. Smart designers however, will realise that this is just a slight variation on the first quest.
If tusks drop 100% of the time, and you need 8 tusks, you essentially need to kill 8 boars.
If the tusks drop 50% of the time, this just means that you have an average number of kills to make (with a minimum number of kills, there is however no maximum). You will be able to finish this quest in 8 kills, but you will need to make 16 kills on average, and, there's the chance you'll need to make 100000 kills. (This is of course, assuming there is no Pseudorandom Distribution system in the game which increases the probability of an outcome every time it doesn't happen.)

Regardless, many players and designers still believe the gameplay of World of Warcraft is fairly lacking in variety. This conclusion is also supported by an amazing occurrence in many MMORPGs that at times require grinding - and that is when players pay others to play their game for them.

Why would they do this?
It's simple - the rewards the player wants to attain are considered more important to a player's enjoyment than the experience of gameplay, a player will play merely to get their character to the highest peak in the game.
This is of course, one of the main problems when creating an RPG - you want to avoid grinding.

Now, let's explore why players feel this need for basic progression, over the enjoyment of experience (I like to call them 'progressophiles').
World of Warcraft is ingenius in this respect, its pacing creates this desire for progress by bombarding you with rewards as you level.

Let's look at it like this.

• Every level, you get a Talent Point to spend on your skill trees.
• Every 2 levels, you attain new spells, and upgrades to old spells.
• Every 3-4 levels, you get access to new instances (dungeons with bosses that require a team to complete), and quests in the area.
• Every 5 levels, you get access to new tiers in your talent tree, opening up more ways to diversify your character.
• Every 10 levels, you get access to a new battleground (PvP), abilities pivotal to your character are gained through the Talent Tree, and you gain new class skills that are key to the definition to your character (for example, the Druid's animal forms, a Warlock's summons, etc.). Every 10 levels, the recommended region for you to level in also changes, resulting in a new environment to explore.
• Ever 20 levels, you get access to massive game mechanics that greatly change how how your character can interact with the world - such as through mounts.

Then, at levels 60, 70 and 80, the amount of content that you can access explodes, as they are the end of the game for each expansion, and you can access all content your expansion limit has to offer - with each expansion adding new worlds, raids, and other activities.

You can kind see how World of Warcraft hooks people in, can't you?
You are bombarded by rewards every time you level, all of which giving you access to many new ways to diversify your character and interact with the game.
People love to be rewarded, and this game delivers to an extraordinary degree. This keeps them playing, and playing, often just to get more and more.

With this knowledge of why World of Warcraft is so successful, it's quite easy to see why so many MMORPGs that try to stand against it fail. That element of constant recognition of achievement and reward is often far less present in these competitors, and, as such, the repetitive gameplay often associated with MMORPGs stands out more - which bores players.
And that is exactly what I mean when I say pacing is extremely important - with great pacing, your game is far more fun to play, regardless of some possible shortcomings. Similarly, a game with bad pacing will be no fun to play, despite other features that would otherwise make it amazing.

For all those would-be-rewarders though, I must warn you. While World of Warcraft does deal out great numbers of rewards often, you still should be mindful of over-rewarding players for simple actions.
World of Warcraft is able to dish out the rewards because levelling does take a fair amount of time as you progress. While leveling from 1 to 6 often takes around an hour for experienced players, 6-10 can be several more, 10-20 can take days.
Don't reward players with new swords, guns, and characters every 10 minutes - keep in mind your genre, and the difficulty associated with the achievements that unlock that reward.

Summing Up

• Pacing is extremely important to all games.
• Pacing can subconsciously affect the player players respond to game.
• Pacing is defined by the rate of progression through a task in the game (or throughout the whole game)
• Games should move at different ideal paces depending on genre - not too fast or too slow.
• Pacing often involves breaking up the game into distinct sections. (Measurement)
• When players recognise these sections it allows them to evaluate what has been done, and needs to be done easily.
• Pacing also very much deals with the way in which rewards are given to the player for achievement.
• Rewards don't have to be explicitly shown and given to the player, though both types of reward should be given.
• Rewards should be given according to the effort required to complete the tasks set.
• Over-rewarding can work against you when players are used to the rewards given, and as such, don't feel as rewarded when they attain them.
• Under-rewarding will definitely work against you, as players will quit your game if they feel the effort is not worth the reward.
• Pacing is extremely important to all games.

I hope you all found the post a good read - and I'll try to update again soon.