Game Design Skills


The term "game design skills" means different things to different people. If you're a programmer, it usually means that you design your code well. On the other hand, if you're someone playing a game, it means designing a game that is playable and fun. Let's take a quick look at both of those viewpoints.

Structuring Game Code

From a programming point of view, you must learn to design your game program code in such a way that the program is robust (in other words, it doesn't crash) and operates the way that games should. No matter what the game is, the program code performs the same essential set of tasks as every other game. Game programmers have found by experience that there are certain ways of putting game program code together that work well. There are other ways that don't work well. This book not only shows you how to write games, it also explains and demonstrates how to build your programs in ways that work well. As we go through the rest of the book, I'll point out ways to structure your game code properly.

Note

You'll find a list of books on game design in the list of suggested reading on the CD.


Making Games Good

If you want to write your own games, you must spend time and effort (and probably money) finding out what makes a good game good. Also, you need to know what types of games there are and what sells.

Asking what sells seems the same as asking what makes a good game good. Not so. Mediocre games can sometimes outsell good games. Why is that? Let me give you an example. About a year after the first version of Doom came out, I was at an industry show called Comdex. Nearly every game company was selling a Doom-style first-person shooter. When you asked them what their game was like, they said, "It's like Doom, only better." For the most part, they were wrong. The games were like Doom but not better.

At that time, the market was saturated with first-person shooters. Some of the games I saw that year at Comdex actually were better than Doom. However, because the market was so flooded with first-person shooters that year, not many of them were selling well (except Doom). As a result, even some very good games had mediocre sales.

To top it off, I saw some games that were very mediocre but were selling well. Why? Because they were different than most of what was on the market.

Make it Unique

When you approach game design, you have to come up with something unique. Just rehashing what's already out there is a waste of time. That doesn't mean you have to think up an entirely new type of game. Your game can still fit into a well-established category. However, it has to be significantly different and better than the other games in that same category. And when I say "better," I don't mean that it just has better graphics. Players will often settle for graphics that are like everything else out there if the game itself is significantly better.

An example of what I mean is Halo, from Microsoft. Shooters like Halo were on the market for about 10 years before it came out. But Halo did quite well, especially on Microsoft's Xbox.

Why?

First, Halo had a unique story line that was well integrated into the gameplay. It also had a wider array of vehicles to drive and fly than most games. The vehicles added a lot of fun to the experience of playing the game. Halo also lets you move seamlessly between indoor and outdoor battles. At the time it was released, there weren't a lot of games that let you do that so easily and the outside areas of most games weren't nearly as large as those in Halo. Lastly, Halo had excellent music and sound that stood head and shoulders above most of the competition.

Tip

Generally, if you describe your game as being "like Game X, only better," don't bother writing it. Your game is not unique enough. People will just buy Game X instead.


Because of these unique elements, Halo did quite well even though there was a decade of similar shooters on the market. Of course, Halo's excellent graphics did help, but other games with similar graphics have not done as well. Upon its release, Halo's unique features set a new standard for all 3D shooters.

Make it Plausible

If aliens were to invade the earth, the Powers That Be wouldn't send just me to take care of the problem by myself. They'd send a whole bunch of people. I don't know how many games I've played in which one person was sent to save the entire planet (or galaxy or universe). It's completely implausible.

If I am the only person who can save the world, there has to be a reason. For example, I sometimes play a game called Gun Metal, from Yeti Studios. In this game, the player is the pilot of a prototype vehicle that can transform from being a battle robot to being a jet fighter. The idea works because the vehicle is a prototype, making it the only one of its kind. The player goes up against an army that is much better equipped and rather formidable. You have to be clever about how you approach each situation. Just diving in and shooting anything that moves isn't usually the best approach.

The nice thing about the setting of Gun Metal is that you have others helping you. Ground troops provide protection for your energy recharge unit. Drop ships move troops into position after you've cleared out the enemies. Battle cruisers take on enemy ships, with you providing support. You get the feeling that you're part of a much larger force, which is plausible in an invasion.

I've also played games that began with some kind of accident. The player in that case is usually the only survivor in a hostile environment. That's another plausible reason to be alone.

Make it Playable

To be playable, games must enable the user to control the character or vehicle in a smooth and intuitive way. A good example of this is the old Super Mario 64. When it came out, it was a big step forward. It was very easy to make Mario run, climb, jump, or whatever. Even very young kids could master it quickly. Games also need challenges that are hardbut not too hard. Let me give you an example of both of these ideas.

I once played a game for the now-defunct 3DO game console in which I was the pilot of a vehicle that was to save the world from invasion. No reason was given as to why I was the only one sent (implausible). In any case, as I played, I quickly discovered that it was next to impossible to fly the vehicle well with the 3DO controller. Also, this game placed some of the power-ups I needed to continue out in areas that were constantly being bombarded from orbit. You could only get the power-ups and return to the safe area if your health was 100%. It was next to impossible to fight your way through to the correct position with your health at 100%; there weren't enough recharges along the way for that. Because of this situation and the difficulty in controlling the vehicle, the game was too hard to play after the fifth level. I just quit. It probably wouldn't surprise you to know that, although the game had excellent graphics integrated with outstanding video, very good music, and killer sound effects, it sold quite poorly. It was so unplayable that word spread rapidly among 3DO owners, and they avoided it like the plague.

Make the Player Think

Let's face it: Anyone who's played games has played games in which you just go around and shoot everything that moves. That's been done to death. You've got to have a wider range of activities, and the player has to figure out what activities to use and when to use them. Let's go back to Halo for a good example of this.

If you play Halo, you can play it much like the thousands of shooters that came before it. That is, you can just shoot everything up. However, you can be cleverer about it, if you want to.

For example, instead of just stomping into an area and shooting up all the aliens, Halo lets you sneak up on them while they sleep. Using your weapon as a club, you can kill the aliens by hitting them. It's possible to clear an entire large room of aliens by silently whopping them each on the back of the head.

Another interesting thing about Halo is that you have constantly shifting alliances during the game. Sometimes, it's best to let your enemies fight their enemies and just sneak on by without firing a shot.

It always increases the player's interest level if you provide multiple approaches when confronting a situation in a game. For instance, there's one spot in Halo where you're crossing a long bridge-like structure. You can fight your way across it, take an elevator down to ground level, and then climb a pyramid. Or, if you're a bit smarter, you can sneak onto an air vehicle called a banshee and fly over to the pyramid. But in order to do that, you have to get the invisibility cloak, which is quite a way back from the bridge.

Another approach to the bridge is to fight your way to the middle (or sneak there with the invisibility cloak), and then jump down onto one of the struts that hold up the pyramid structure. But to do so, you have to have good health and you have to have a weapon called a needler. The reason you want the needler is that, as you're running down the strut to ground level, aliens are shooting at you. Because you need to concentrate on running down the narrow strut, you can't aim well. The needler is a heat-seeking weapon that doesn't require much aiming.

If you run down the strut fast enough, you can jump into a pit at the bottom. There you'll find a sniper rifle and a rocket launcher. You can grab those two weapons and go back up the strut. With the sniper rifle, you can kill all the aliens that shoot at you. With the rocket launcher, you can blow up the tank at the base of the pyramid. You can then run back down the strut and steal a vehicle to take you up the pyramid.

The result of all of these game features is that you have the option of just blindly shooting your way through the game or thinking up better strategies. Games that allow the possibility of flexible thinking on the part of the player are much more fun.

One caution here: Making players think is not the same thing as making them guess your clever plot trick. An example will help clarify what I mean.

I once played a game in which the main character was a janitor on a starship. Of course, the starship was invaded by evil aliens and the rest of the crew killed (the janitor was sleeping in the broom closet). The aliens set the ship to blow itself up, so the hapless janitor needed to get off fast. To get him off the ship, you had to get him to open doors to the shuttle bay.

Tip

Giving players many ways to solve problems in games makes the games more fun. It also gives games a longer lifespan. People will play through your game again and again to try and find every possible way to solve each challenge.


At that time, it was normal to type text commands into games (mice weren't common yet). So to get the janitor to open the doors, you had to walk him into the proper control room and type a command that would make him push a button. Unfortunately, the designers of the game decided to be clever here and make the player guess the exact command that was required to get the janitor to push the button. I tried "Push button." No luck. Next I tried "Push door button," "Press button," "Press door button," and so on. It wasn't all that long before I was typing "Press that @#!$% button you stupid *%^$#!"

The people who made this game didn't understand that making players guess the designer's cute trick is not the same as making the player think. The challenge should have been something like finding the card key that gave authorization to open the door (I found it lying on the floor). Making players guess the right set of words to get the door open made them focus on the game's interface, not on the game. That's not good game design.



Creating Games in C++(c) A Step-by-Step Guide
Creating Games in C++: A Step-by-Step Guide
ISBN: 0735714347
EAN: 2147483647
Year: N/A
Pages: 148

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