Essential Game Design

Designing games requires understanding the elements of good game design. You also have to know the process most professionals use to design games. Creating a good game begins with using the elements of good game design within the game design process.

Elements of Good Game Design

To design good games, there are certain techniques that you need to use:

• Training the player during gameplay

• Keeping it fresh with new challenges

• Keeping challenges appropriate

• Incorporating powerups for player relief

• Deciding when to use a boss

Training the Player During Gameplay

Whatever else you do in your game, don't just throw a new player into the middle of an intense battle or challenge without some initial instructions. In general, players will not read the game's instructions. So typing up a nice help file about how to play the game is usually not sufficient. You typically have to train the player in the first level or so of the game. There are a number of ways to accomplish this.

First, you can have a level that is for nothing but training. The setting of the level is actually a training school where you have to pass all available courses before moving into the game itself. Several of the firstperson shooters do this when you begin playing them. It's a bit tedious, but if there are a lot of weapons, movement techniques, and so forth that the player needs to know before they get into the game, players will generally put up with a training level. Often, the game features some sort of narrator's voice giving instructions.

Another technique is to have a level that is simple but that is actually part of the overall plot or mission of the game. In this simple level, the player can become familiar with moving the character or using the weapons, or begin learning the rules of the game. There may be a narrator for this type of level as well.

Instead of having levels designed for training, some games use popup dialog boxes with instructions. When the player encounters a certain object, instructions pop up explaining how to use it. Instructions might cover such topics as running, jumping, using weapons, or driving vehicles.

However you decide to approach this task, be sure to provide players with an interactive method of getting training.

Warning

If you use popup instructions, you must either disable the instructions after the player has seen them or provide the player with a manual way to bypass them. Players do not want to encounter a set of instructions about how to use a pistol every time they pick up a pistol.

Keeping it Fresh with New Challenges

Monotony is the death of any game. It is important that the game gradually gets harder as the player moves to higher levels. The more the player becomes proficient at the game, the harder the game should get. Each level should present slightly different and slightly more unusual challenges. Also, the training that you started at the beginning of the game should continue as the challenges get harder.

Keeping Challenges Appropriate

The challenges that you present a player with must always be appropriate to the player's skill. As a result, it makes sense that your game should be easier at first and grow more difficult later. However, that's not always true.

For example, if you give the player an especially challenging level to overcome, the next level should be slightly easier. That provides the player with some relief and lowers his or her frustration level. Also, it provides you with an opportunity to give the player new abilities, weapons, or other tools within the game. Players can spend time in a slightly easier level learning the new tools or techniques. They can then move onto more difficult levels after becoming proficient with the new stuff.

To keep challenges appropriate, have a specific goal in mind for each level. The goal can be nothing more than you want the player to kill lots of monsters. Or it might be that you want players to learn a new strategy that they'll need later. Either way, focus the challenges on the goal.

Tip

You play your game a lot while you're developing it. As you might expect, you get very good at it. Your own skill at playing the game makes it difficult for you to evaluate how challenging each level is for the player. To more accurately know how challenging each level is, have a person play your game during development who has never played it before. In the game industry, this is called focus testing. Ask them what they think. Write down what they say. Give them some pizza!

Incorporating Power-Ups for Player Relief

Players must have some sort of relief mechanism. These usually take the form of powerups. Even the oldest and simplest games used this technique. For instance, one of the first games after Pong was Space Invaders. In this game, the player was expected to shoot rows of invading aliens. The player started the game with three lives. After attaining a certain score, the player was given another life. Every now and then, an alien spacecraft would drift across the top of the screen. If the player shot it, the game awarded extra points. This helped the player get a new life faster.

Although you have to be careful not to provide too many powerups, it is important to offer the player some method of relief. This helps keep people's frustration levels down and enjoyment up. Also, getting a powerup as a reward helps bring a sense of accomplishment as the game progresses.

Deciding When to Use a Boss

Many games have a big monster, or some other kind of major challenge, at the end of each level. This monster or challenge is usually referred to as the boss. You must decide whether your levels will have bosses or not. They are not always appropriate.

If you use a boss, don't do it just to have a boss. Put in the boss for a purpose. In the best games, fighting the boss trains the player for the game's final challenge. Putting in a boss is, in a way, the opposite of putting in powerups. You add bosses to levels to increase the challenge and difficulty. Used appropriately, this helps give the player a sense of accomplishment.

The Game Design Process

Now you're ready to learn the game design process. Keep in mind that the process you see here is a generic one. It differs for different types of games. For games that are strongly driven by a storyline, the game design process can be very much like making a movie. More freeform games use a process similar to the one shown here.

The basic steps for designing a game are as follows:

1.	Start with a brainstorming session.
2.	Create the goal for the game.
3.	Select the emotional experience for the game.
4.	Choose the right look.
5.	Set the hook.
6.	Create a design document.
7.	Let it simmer a while.
8.	Revise the design document.
9.	Create a prototype and play it.
10.	Iterate as necessary.

The first nine steps need to be completed before you start writing any C++ code. It's important to finish each step. If you skip any, you're likely to undermine the quality of your game.

Start with a Brainstorming Session

The goal of this step is to come up with a unique and unusual idea for a game. It's best to have multiple brainstorming sessions over a period of time.

For each game idea you come up with, write a brief summary of what the game is about. The summary should not be longer than about 35 sentences.

When you have a list of good ideas, go through the list and rate them on a scale of 0 to 100. Assign the scores based on originality, potential audience, how fun you think it is, and how hard it is to implement. Give up to 25 points for each category.

For instance, you might think your idea is extremely unique and assign it a score of 25 points for originality. However, if only males between the ages of 14 and 24 are going to like your game, its potential audience is smaller than it might otherwise be. Therefore, it should get a low score for that category.

When you assign the score for how fun your idea is, be careful. You might think your game is fun because you're in the target audience. But how fun is it for everyone else? You can assign your game a good fun rating if it hits its target audience well. However, if there's a way to tweak the idea so that it appeals to a broader audience, you can give it both a higher audience score and higher fun score.

The last category you should assign points for is difficulty of implementation. Elaborate games may be very cool, but if your idea takes you five or six years to program up, you may want to think twice before diving into it. Beginning game programmers should start with games that are easier to implement. There are a lot of good games that fit into this category. For example, many puzzle and logic games are not difficult to write. This is especially true if you use LlamaWorks2D.

Tip

It's better to stay away from elaborate 3D firstperson shooters until you feel more proficient as a programmer.

Create the Goal for the Game

Every game has a goal. For most firstperson shooters, the goal is to maximize carnage and violence. The goal of most puzzle and logic games is to present brainteasers. Other goals for games might be telling a story, building civilizations, forming relationships between game characters, or saving kidnapped dragons from bloodthirsty princesses. The goal can be anything you want. However, everything in the game must be focused on the goal. All aspects of the game should move the player toward it.

Given that, it is sometimes desirable to put things into a game that are deliberately unrelated to the game's goal. These are usually bonus diversions and surprises that you include just for fun. In the game industry, these are called Easter eggs.

Suppose, for example, that you're writing a roleplaying game called Arnold the Anteater Saves the Universe. It's perfectly possible for Arnold to find a game on the computer aboard the spaceship of the Vampire Antoids. That game might be a parody of Space Invaders in which a Vampire Antoid protects the planet from rows of descending humans. That's a fun little Easter egg that players might enjoy.

Select the Emotional Experience for the Game

Closely related to choosing the goal for your game is selecting the experience the player has. While the goal defines the point of the game, the experience defines the feelings and emotions people have while playing the game.

If the goal for a firstperson shooter is to maximize carnage, then the experience should be fastpaced. The player should experience a series of intense adrenaline rushes throughout the entire game.

On the other hand, if the goal for a game is to develop relationships between game characters, then the experience should be relaxed, lighthearted, and romantic.

Whatever your game's goal is, you should carefully think about how the game's emotional experience helps you attain that goal. If the emotional experience does not match the game's goal, the player won't like the game. It's really that simple.

Choose the Right Look

Before you start writing a game, you need to decide how you want the game to look. Because the experience of the game is primarily a visual experience, the look of your game is critical to its success.

Don't think, however, that your game must use photorealistic graphics to be enjoyable. To understand why, take cartoons as an example. Most Disney cartoons use excellent graphics. Likewise, the old Looney Toons cartoons were elaborately drawn for their time. However, people also enjoy highly stylized looks such as Rugrats cartoons. Heck, people even seem to like the simple, ugly graphics of Sponge Bob Squarepants. I can't imagine why.

The point here is that there are a wide range of visual styles you can choose from. Your game can use elaborate or simple graphics. Either way, the look of the game should be focused on the goal and the emotional experience. That look should also include a color scheme.

For instance, firstperson shooters generally have settings that are dark, foreboding, and brooding. In some places, they use unearthly neon greens or raging oranges and reds. You generally would not see pinks or pastels in a firstperson shooter.

On the other hand, games oriented toward relationships might make good use of pastels to invoke feelings of softness and gentleness. They might also use bright primary colors to incorporate a feeling of liveliness and fun. Relationship games would probably stay away from cool colors and use warmer colors.

Never underestimate the impact of the overall look of your game. It has a huge effect on the emotions your game evokes in the player.

Set the Hook

Writing a game is like fishing. You want to draw players into a game with a pretty lure. Usually, that's something like cool graphics, fast action, stimulating puzzles, or complex strategies. However, just like getting a fish on the line, you need to set the hook so that players stay addicted. The question is, how do you get them hooked?

A lot of different hooks have been used in the game industry. Here are a few of the most common:

• High score. This hook was common in early arcade games. It's not used as much any more because players expect more from a game experience than just a score. However, some types of games use this well. Logic games and sports games are good examples.

• Finishing the game. The hook of finishing the game was commonly used in early arcade games. My experience is that it's not as effective as many other hooks. It's usually not the end of the journey that keeps players going; it's the experience along the way.

• Mastery. This is a huge hook for sports games and vehicle racing games. Controlling virtual athletes or vehicles in a competition requires a steady, practiced hand. This hook is also used for fighting games such as Mortal Kombat or Virtua Fighter. To be the best, players must master tricky power moves that devastate opponents.

• Exploration. Exploring new and interesting worlds is by far one of the most common and powerful hooks in games. It doesn't necessarily take fancy 3D graphics to utilize the exploration hook. The old Super Mario Brothers for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an excellent example of a 2D sidescrolling game that made extremely effective use of exploration as a way to get players hooked on a game.

Now that you know what the most common hooks are, how and when do you use them?

The high score and mastery hooks are for people who want bragging rights. Put them into fighting, racing, sports, and other competitionoriented games.

Exploration works in almost any type of game. One of the best ways to encourage exploration is to hide some of the game's levels. I've heard it said by top game designers that as many as 40% of a game's levels should be hidden. As the player moves through a level, he or she finds ways to unlock or open hidden areas. The first few should be extremely easy to find so that virtually everyone will see and play them.

The levels that you hide in your game can be almost anything. For example, they can be arcadestyle minigames (games within games). They can be additional tennis courts for tennis games or more golf courses for golfing games. A hidden level might be a dungeon, a castle in the sky, or a kingdom beneath the sea.

Alternately, you can encourage exploration by hiding powerups, weapons, or vehicles. A racing game can have additional cars that are awarded when the player achieves a specific number of firstplace trophies. A boxing game can have a special trainer that visits only if the player gets a TKO within the first three rounds in a particular match. The special trainer teaches the player some new moves that can be used in upcoming fights.

You can incorporate multiple hooks into a game. It actually makes your game more addictive if you do. For instance, a racing game can use the exploration, mastery, and high score hooks.

Whichever hooks you decide are important to your game, take the time to put careful thought into using them. If you wait to make these decisions until after you've started programming, there's a good chance that you'll have to go back and rewrite large portions of your game.

Tip

As the player moves through the game, the hidden levels should get harder to find.

Create a Design Document

The single most important step in designing a game is to create a design document. Even if you are writing the game all by yourself, you must take time to do this if you want an effective game enjoyed by a wide audience.

Your design document should contain all of the decisions you've made about your game. It should describe in one paragraph the basic idea for the game. It should also provide a longer, detailed description of the idea. The short description is what you keep in mind as you write the game. It's your destination and tells you when you've finished writing the game. The detailed description forces you to think through the idea thoroughly. This can save you from a lot of wasted time if your idea stinks. And all of us come up with game ideas that stink. In fact, probably 9 out of 10 of the ideas a game designer comes up with should never be produced. Writing a detailed description of the game helps weed out the bad ideas from the good ones.

The design document also needs statements describing the game's goal, emotional experience, and look. It should state the hooks you're going to use and how you're going to use them. Lastly, it should contain the design of every level in the game.

Let it Simmer a While

After you've written the design document, stop and go do something else for a while. Don't skip this step. Let the design document sit in a drawer or file cabinet for at least a month.

There are often problems in the game's design that you don't see while you're immersed in the process of designing it. By letting it sit for a month or so, you'll come back to it with a fresh pair of eyes. It will be much easier to spot design problems.

Revise the Design Document

Okay, you've got your finished design document. Now start over and revise it. Eliminate everything that doesn't add to the emotional experience you're going for. Get rid of anything that detracts from the game's goal.

Good; now revise your design document again. Add any hooks that you think will improve the effectiveness of your game. Add secret levels, hidden bonuses, Easter eggs, and other goodies for the player to find.

Now you're ready to start programming.

Create a Prototype and Play It

You can start programming, but don't write the entire game. Get one level up and running. This is your prototype. It demonstrates what your game is like and what it's about. It also shows you what the game really looks like. All too often, those cool stylized graphics we come up with look completely lame when we get them into a game. Your prototype demonstrates that the look of the game is actually as attentiongrabbing as you thought it would be. If it isn't, you must redesign the look of the game.

The prototype also enables you to play the game. That tells you whether the game design really works. It's often the case that the level you designed is boring or too hard to play. That isn't an insult. That's a normal experience that every game developer has. The only way to deal with it is to understand that this is going to occur and plan for it. Creating a prototype and playing a level (or a few levels) goes a long way toward telling you how good your game is and where its faults lie.

Iterate as Necessary

After you are satisfied with your prototype, continue writing the game. You'll add levels, program new powerups and weapons, and so on. As you do, you'll need to play your game over and over. Let others play it as well so you can watch. Anything that they have trouble with is something that might need to be redesigned.

In fact, you'll be redesigning constantly as you go along. Good game designers repeat the game design process as often as possible through the development of the game. When you are done, you'll have a game that is finely honed into a compelling experience.