Improving Player Choices

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Because it is simply one of the most powerful aspects of fun in gameplay, we need to look more closely at choice as an aspect of fun. What makes a choice interesting versus uninteresting? How can you design choices that are more interesting than not?

One of the most important aspects of choice is consequence. For a game to engage a player's mind, each choice must alter the course of the game. This means the decision has to have both an upside and a downside; the upside being that it advances the player one step closer to victory; and the downside being that it hurts the player's chances of winning. This concept seems simple, but you'd be surprised at how many games force the players to make choices that have no impact upon whether they win or lose.

Remember, the player wants one thing more than anything else, and that is to win. Anything you do that is outside this scope runs the risk of alienating your audience. So when Sid Meier says 'interesting choices,' what he means is that the game must present a stream of critical decisions that either directly or indirectly impacts theplayer's ability to win. No matter what you've been told in the past, drama and suspense in games seldom come from the storyline. It comes from the act of making decisions that have weight, and the more weight each decision carries, the more dramatic the game becomes.

As a designer, this is what you must strive for. But how do you make the choices in your game have significance? To start with, let's step back and analyze your game. What type of decisions are your players making? Are those decisions truly meaningful, or are they tangential to the main objective? To help analyze this, we use a tool we call the decision scale, shown in Figure 10.6.

If there are decisions in your game that seem 'inconsequential' or 'minor,' you have a problem. Go back and rethink the choices you are giving your players. Is there a way to make those choices matter? And if there isn't, those choices need to be eliminated because they aren't adding anything to the game and are probably hurting the experience. Now take a look at the decisions higher up on the diagram. Is there a way to make some of your players' decisions fall into these categories? These are the types of decisions your players want to make.

Figure 10.6: Decision scale

Types of decisions

But, unless your game is an arcade-style shooter, the decisions you ask your players to make shouldn't all be life and death. Nonstop action can get boring too-it's in the breather between waves of enemies that we can appreciate our accomplishments, anticipate the next wave, and steel ourselves for the battle ahead.

In order to create a truly engaging game, you want some peaks and valleys. Let the decisions rise and fall, and as the game progresses, ratchet up the tension by making the decisions gradually more important, until by the climax of the game, everything hangs in the balance. This structure mirrors the same dramatic arc that we looked at in Chapter 4 on page 101.

It's easy to say that games should have interesting choices, but why is one choice more interesting than another? The answer lies in the type of decision you ask to the player to make. If the player has to choose between two weapons, and one weapon is only slightly superior to the other, even though the player may be faced with a life and death encounter, the decision itself does not reflect this. To make this decision interesting, each weapon must have a dramatically different impact on the player's chance of winning.

But if the decision itself is too easy, then it's not a decision at all. If it's obvious that the player should use the golden arrow to slay the dragon, there's no real choice. Why would the player risk using anything else? This decision, although it appears to be life and death, is meaningless. The player will invariably choose the golden arrow, unless he doesn't know about its powers, and in that case, it's an arbitrary choice, not a decision.

The key to making this decision interesting is for the player to know that the golden arrow is the right choice, but also to know that if he uses the golden arrow now, he won't be able to use it later when he has to fight the evil mage. To make this decision truly dramatic, the player must be put in a position where both paths have consequences. If the player doesn't use the arrow now, his faithful companion, who is not immune to dragon fire, may die during the battle. However, if the player uses the arrow, it will be much harder to destroy the evil mage later on. Suddenly the decision has become more complex, with consequences on both sides of the equation.

Exercise 11.2: Decision Types

Take your original game and categorize the types of decisions you ask your players to make. Are there any hollow, obvious, or uninformed decisions? If so, try to redesign these choices.

Not all decisions in a game need to be as complex as the one with the golden arrow. Simple decisions are fine, just so long as they're not hollow, obvious, or uninformed. As a rule, you want to remove all nondecisions from you game, and a player should never be forced to think about anything unless it has some impact, either direct or indirect, on whether they win or lose.

Decision types

• Hollow decision: no real consequences

• Obvious decision: no real decision

• Uninformed decision: an arbitrary choice

• Informed decision: where the player has ample information

• Dramatic decision: taps into a player's emotional state

• Weighted decision: a balanced decision with consequences on both sides

• Immediate decision: has an immediate impact

• Long-term decision: whose impact will be felt down the road

In the example of the golden arrow, the decision is a combination of the previous decision types. It's an informed decision because the player knows a lot about situation he is in, it's a dramatic decision because the player has an emotional attachment to his faithful companion, it's a weighted decision because there are consequences balanced on both sides, it's an immediate decision because it impacts the battle which is taking place with the Dragon, and it's a long-term decision because it impacts the future battle with the evil mage. All these combine to make the decision of whether or not to use the golden arrow a critical choice in the game, and this makes the game interesting.

Dilemmas

Dilemmas are the situations where players must weigh the consequences of their choices carefully, and in many cases, where there is no optimal answer. No matter what the player chooses, something will be gained and something will be lost. Dilemmas are often paradoxical or recursive. A well-placed dilemma and trade off can resonate emotionally with a player when encountered during the struggle to win your game.

Game theorist John Von Neumann used dilemmas as a framework for studying how people make choices, and how conflicts are resolved in both game-based and real world dilemmas. Game designers can use the same methodology to study the choices in their own and other designer's games.

Figure 10.7: Cake-cutting dilemma payoff matrix

To understand dilemmas, von Neumann broke them down into very simple structures, called moves. Each move was diagrammed on a matrix, showing the potential outcomes of each strategy as they pertain to each player. To understand this concept more clearly, let's next look at a classic dilemma with a simple structure.

Cake-cutting dilemma

A mother wants to divide a piece of cake between her two children. In order to avoid arguments about how large a piece each child should get, she makes one child the 'cutter' and one child the 'chooser.' The cutter gets to cut the cake, and the chooser gets to choose which piece. If we assume that each child wants the bigger piece (i.e., wants to 'win' the game), we can diagram this conflict to show the potential strategies for each player, the dilemma they face, and the payoffs for each potential outcome.

As we can see, each child has two possible strategies. We know that it's impossible to cut the cake exactly in half; there will always be one crumb more or less on either side; but the cutter can choose to cut the cake as evenly as possible, or she can choose to cut one piece bigger than the other in an attempt to get the larger slice. Since we've determined that one piece will always be larger than the other, even if just by a crumb, the chooser also has two strategies. He can choose the smaller piece or the larger piece.

By looking at the payoff matrix created by combining these two possible strategies for each player, we can see that in this simple game, there is an optimal strategy for each player. Since we have said that each child will try to get the bigger piece, the chooser's optimal strategy is obvious-he will choose the larger piece. And, since the cutter is also trying to get the largest piece possible, she will try to cut the pieces as evenly as possible. The optimal strategies for each player meet in payoff #1: the chooser gets a slightly bigger piece.

The cake-cutting dilemma is an example of a zero-sum game. By this we mean that the total amount won at the end of the game is exactly equal to the amount lost. In this case, the chooser gains the crumb lost by the cutter. Because of the nature of zero-sum games, the interests of the players are diametrically opposed. What one player loses is gained by the other.

What von Neumann discovered in his study is that there is an optimal strategy for each player in games of this nature that will produce the best possible results in a given situation. He called this concept 'minimax theory.'

Minimax theory states that there is a rational way for players to make choices in a game, if we are talking about a two-player, zero-sum game. The optimal strategy for all players is to 'maximize their minimum potential result.' So, in the case of the cake-cutting example, while the cutter cannot 'win' the game, her optimal strategy will still maximize the amount of cake she gets to eat.

Games that fall easily into optimal strategies may be interesting for mathematicians, but as game designers, they are often the kiss of death. If you present your players with a game as simple as the cake-cutting dilemma, they will always make the optimal choice and the game will play out the same way every time. How can we create dilemmas that are more complex, where the players must weigh the potential outcomes of each move in terms of risks and rewards?

A game that has a more complex payoff structure was created by two RAND scientists in the 1950s. Called the 'prisoner's dilemma,' it's a simple, baffling game that shows how games that are not zero-sum can create situations where the optimal strategy for each player can result in sub-optimal results for both.

The prisoner's dilemma

Two criminals commit a crime together and are caught by the police. For the purposes of our example, we'll call the two unlucky criminals Mario and Luigi. Mario and Luigi are held in separate cells with no means of communication. The DA offers each of them a deal and discloses that the same deal was made to his partner in crime. The deal works like this: if you rat on your partner, and he denies it, you can go free and the he gets five years. If neither of you rat on each other, the DA has enough circumstantial evidence to put you both away for one year. If you both rat, you will each get three years. Figure 10.8 shows the payoff matrix for each potential strategy.

Using the same process we used to determine the optimal strategy for the cake-cutting dilemma, we can see that the optimal strategy for Mario is to rat on Luigi. If he rats, he gets either three or zero years. If he doesn't rat, he gets one or five years. The optimal strategy for Luigi is also to rat on Mario for the same reasons. If both players choose the optimal strategy, however, they will both serve three years-more years total will be served in jail than in any other resolution.

The hierarchy of payoffs in the prisoner's dilemma is as follows:

• Temptation for defection: zero years

• Reward for mutual cooperation: one year each

• Punishment for mutual defection: three years each

• Sucker's payoff for unreciprocated cooperation: five years

The actual numbers in this hierarchy are not important. What is important is that they ascend in this order: Temptation > Reward > Punishment > Sucker. If this hierarchy exists, the optimal strategy for each player will always result in a payoff that is less than if they had acted cooperatively. Now, we are talking about a true dilemma-what will Mario and Luigi do?

In a recent presentation at the Game Developers Conference, designer Steve Bocska of Radical Entertainment applied the hierarchy of payoffs in the prisoner's dilemma to a hypothetical game design in order to show the usefulness of game theory concepts to designing compelling dilemmas.^[1]

Designer Perspective: Brian Hersch

Brian Hersch has designed all types of games including CD-ROM games and television game shows. He is best known for his blockbuster boardgames.

Title

General Partner, Hersch and Company

Project list (five to eight top projects)

• Taboo

• Outburst

• Oodles

• ScrutinEyes

• SongBurst

• Trivial Pursuit DVD Pop Culture

• Hilarium

• Out of Context

How did you get into the game industry?

Trivial Pursuit unlocked my creative curiosity, and my business background led me to conduct a market research study of games in general, and the then-burgeoning adult game category. The interpretation of that research resulted in a recognition that a number of sociological imperatives were all coalescing at that time. A recession was impacting entertainment budgets. The baby boom was strapped with bills, had demonstrated a willingness to entertain at home, and had a predisposition to play boardgames. So the opportunity presented itself, and I jumped in. Happily, our interpretations were correct, and our creative efforts resonated with the public, and our games sold.

What are your five favorite games and why?

• Taboo: Because it is one of my babies, and really demonstrated how the simplest concept can be translated into fun.

• Carducci: Though it never licensed this was the game that I am proudest of. It has so many creative and fun elements, and people seem to really enjoy it when we play (even though no company can figure out a marketing strategy for it).

• Poker: Because I enjoy taking money from my friends.

• Trivial Pursuit: Because it was perfectly suited for my brain-full of garbage, and it was the catalyst for my entry into this business.

• Snood: Because it remains the most addictive online game that I have found.

What games have inspired you the most as a designer and why?

I am not sure that my design instincts are inspired as much by games as by outside influences. I happen to design games. And obviously I have an understanding of play-patterns and compelling entertainments. But I think purely from a design standpoint I am often more stimulated and inspired by nongame products: art, photography, architecture, edgy commercial products and innovations. I think I fear being over-influenced by other game designers' works, and worry about the impact on my own desire for originality.

What are you most proud of in your career?

The good fortune to have successfully repeated the creative process of designing new games, and then having those games enjoy retail success. I could probably be satisfied just with the design/creation of new products, but the commercial success has proven to be the validation of my efforts.

What words of advice would you give to an aspiring designer today?

Gamble. Try and do new things. Be original in your thinking. Remember that you are attempting to put entertainment in a box. If you can engage people, make them laugh, spend a compelling hour, then you have succeeded. But it will always feel more satisfying if it is not derivative. Be original-the only thing you have to fear is rejection. And you're going to get plenty of that anyhow.

Exercise 10.3: Dilemmas

Does your original game contain any dilemmas? If so, describe these choices and how they function?

Bocska imagines an online game in which two players are building and customizing spacecraft with a budget of $10,000. The game requires bartering and trading of raw materials, but at a high transaction cost: $8,000 of 'shipping and handling' in a typical game round. A technology can be purchased that allows materials to be 'transported' with no transaction cost-but in order for it to work, both players must purchase it. The cost of the technology is $5000.

Bocska asks, 'Under these conditions, what is a player likely to do? If both players purchase the transporter equipment, they will reduce their transaction costs for the game from the usual $8,000 to a one-time cost of $5,000 for the transporter-a savings of $3,000. If, on the other hand, neither player purchases a transporter, the transaction costs throughout the game for each player will amount to the usual $8,000. What if only one player purchases the machine? With nobody else to connect the transporter to, their machine becomes effectively useless, resulting in them receiving the 'sucker's payoff'-the cost of the equipment plus the added cost of continuing to barter using the traditional costly method ($5,000 + $8,000 = $13,000).' The payoff matrix in Figure 10.9 shows the results of the potential strategies.

Figure 10.8: Prisoner's dilemma payoff matrix

Unlike the prisoner's dilemma, Bocska envisions a game in which the players can communicate-negotiating with each other when and if to purchase the technology. This complex payoff structure creates a dilemma for the players that can make for compelling strategic moments and potentially deceitful or cooperative decisions play after play.

This is exactly the type of situation you should strive to create in your games. If possible, give the players dilemmas as part of the core gameplay. Make sure to tie the dilemma into the overall objective of the game. If you can accomplish this, it will make the choices much more interesting.

Puzzles

Another format for structuring interesting choices in your games is by incorporating puzzles. Puzzles are solvable systems. They can contextualize the choices that players make by valuing them as moving towards or away from the solution. Suddenly, the act of rifling through a treasure chest takes on new meaning if you are searching for the key to open the door to maze, rather than just looting the castle.

Puzzles are also a key element in creating conflict in almost all single-player games. There's an innate tension in solving a puzzle. If you tie this into a system of rewards for solving the puzzle and punishments for failure, the puzzle transforms into a dramatic element. For example, take Myst, the best-selling adventure game of all time. It's essentially comprised of puzzles. It incorporates story and exploration as well, but at its core, it's really a glorified collection of interlocking puzzles.

Figure 10.9: Transporter game payoff matrix

The popular genre of first-person shooters is also puzzle-based, especially in single-player mode. Take Medal of Honor. You have to plant bombs, unlock doors, find medical kits in a labyrinth of rooms, and figure out how to use weapons and explosives in just the right way. The game is one giant action puzzle. The same holds true for many other single-player games.

You'll notice that we keep using the qualification 'single-player.' This is because in multiplayer mode you don't need puzzles to provide conflict.

The conflict comes from the competition with other players, whether they are human or computer-controlled. But in single-player mode, especially when you are sent on a quest or mission, puzzles play an increasingly important role. That's why every game designer should also consider herself a puzzle designer. The better your puzzle design skills, the better your game will be.

One consideration when designing puzzles in your games is to make sure that the elements of the puzzle are woven into the fabric of the game. By this we mean that it advances the player towards his overall goal. If a puzzle doesn't enable progress, it's a mere distraction and should be redone or removed. A puzzle may also advance the storyline. You can use the puzzle to tell the player something about the unfolding plot.

If you can integrate your puzzles into the gameplay and the story, they won't feel at all like'puzzles,' but rather like integral, interesting choices a player must make to progress in the game as a whole.

Designer Perspective: Bruce C. Shelley

Title: Senior Designer, Ensemble Studios

Project list (five to eight top projects)

• Railroad Tycoon (original edition)

• Age of Empires

• Covert Action

• Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings

• Civilization (original edition)

I contributed to the design of these games:

How did you get into the game industry?

I played games of one sort or another all of my life. I began testing board war games by mail for free and eventually landed a job with the company. I was developing boardgames in 1987 when my company asked me to move over to computer games, which I did. In 1988 I landed a job with MicroProse and got a chance to work with Sid Meier. In 1995 an old friend asked me to join Ensemble Studios and have been here since.

What are your five favorite games and why?

I generally dislike this question because tastes change and games that were very important at one time are no longer even available for current operating systems or platforms. Here are five that I particularly enjoyed.

• Railroad Tycoon: Working on this game was something I would have done for free if I could have made a living somehow; it was great to see Sid Meier figure out how to make a good game out of something as cool as railroading-not an easy task; the game had a fun economic model, cool trains running, multiple paths to victory, was endlessly replayable.

• Civilization: Great fun to work on; we knew we were making something very special. It had a great hidden map, 4X game, multiple paths to victory, endlessly replayable, levels of difficulty, great topic, deep and rich, and presented a very interesting stream of decisions for the player to make.

• Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings: An excellent RTS in a great period, fantastic graphics, tremendous value to customers, lots of different game experiences within the same box, endlessly replayable, and a deep and rich game experience.

• Empire Deluxe: A very old game but a classic that is an early and excellent example of many good design principles for strategy games: hidden maps, inverted pyramid of decision-making, a great first fifteen minutes, adjustable levels of difficulty, not beautiful but clean, great opportunities for strategy and tactics, simple but interesting economic system, and a great stream of interesting decisions, but the one negative for me is the end game, which can drag on.

• Robin Hood: Legend of Sherwood: I like puzzle and problem solving games that look beautiful and offer a lot of challenge, without being too tough or too easy. I liked the graphics and topic.

What games have inspired you the most as a designer and why?

The single greatest resource for any game developer is all the existing games that can be played and learned from. Empire Deluxe and SimCity were great inspirations for later games that I helped design. Populous offered a lot of ideas about god games and strategy games. At Ensemble Studios we were greatly influenced by WarCraft I and II, and Command & Conquer.

What are you most proud of in your career?

Being a member of the teams that developed Railroad Tycoon, Civilization, and the Age of Empires series. That's like playing for two different teams that won world championships. Although I did not have a lead role on any of those products, I contributed to them and had a lot of fun doing so.

What words of advice would you give to an aspiring designer today?

Play a lot of games and analyze them. Understand why some games succeed and why others do not. Understand what is actually happening within a player's mind when he or she is being entertained by a game. Think in terms of entertaining a large audience, not a small one. It is okay, even encouraged, to borrow from great games, but be different at the vision level (topic, look, and feel) and innovative at the gameplay level. Don't imitate great games-people have had that experience and probably won't pay to repeat it.

Rewards and punishments

The most direct consequences for player choices are rewards and punishments. Obviously, players enjoy being rewarded and dread punishments. Nothing is more natural. So when designing a game, a designer often emphasizes the rewards, while limiting the punishments. This makes sense; players aren't playing games to suffer the hardships of life. And in reality, you don't want to punish players so much that they stop playing your game. But often, the threat of punishment, if not the actual punishment itself, carries a dramatic tension that can add layers of meaning to even the most trivial choices a player makes.

Think of a game that forces the player to be stealthy, like Thief or Deus Ex. The tension, when you are trying to accomplish a task without being caught is tremendous. Getting caught and attacked, and let's face it, killed, is not fun. But that moment when you oh, so quietly pick a lock and sneak past the security bots without incurring any harm is made much more effective by the threat that the anvil of punishment was hanging over your head all the time (see Figure 10.10).

Coming up with a balanced system of rewards and punishments is a way of making the choices in your games much more interesting for players. The type of rewards you offer can vary, but the best rewards are those that have utility or value in the game. When you develop your rewards system, use the following guidelines:

10.10 Being stealthy: Thief

1. Rewards that are useful in obtaining victory carry greater weight

2. Rewards that have a romantic association, like magic weapons or gold, appear more valuable

3. Rewards that are tied into the storyline of the game have an added impact.

Make each reward count, and if it can both push the player closer to victory and advance the storyline, that's even better.

The timing and quantity of rewards is also critical. If you give a steady stream of small rewards, it can become meaningless. Players know the rewards are coming, no matter what they do and they stop caring.

Psychologist Nick Yee has studied the reward/punishment structure of an extremely addictive game system-EverQuest-and believes its addictive power lies in a behavior theory advanced by B.F. Skinner called 'operant conditioning.' Operant conditioning claims that the frequency of performing a given behavior is directly linked to whether it is rewarded or punished. If a behavior is rewarded, it is more likely to be repeated. If it is punished, it becomes suppressed. It is usually explained by using the example of a 'Skinner Box,' a glass cage equipped with levers, food pellets, and drinking tubes. Rats are placed in the cage and rewarded with a food pellet for pressing the lever, using reinforcement to shape their behavior.

Yee writes, 'There are several schedules of reinforcement that can be used in Operant Conditioning. The most basic is a fixed interval schedule, and the rat in the Skinner Box is rewarded every five minutes regardless of whether it presses the lever. Unsurprisingly, this method is not particularly effective. Another kind of reinforcement schedule is the fixed ratio schedule, and the rat is rewarded every time it presses the lever five times. This schedule is more effective than the fixed interval schedule. The most effective method is a random ratio schedule, and the rat is rewarded after it presses the lever a random number of times. Because the rat cannot predict precisely when it will be rewarded even though it knows it has to press the lever to get food, the rat presses the lever more consistently than in the other schedules. A random ratio is also the one that EverQuest uses.'^{[ 2]}

While this might seem surprising, if you relate it to your own actions in games and in the real world it begins to make more sense. Have you ever sat down to play 'five minutes' at a slot machine and looked up to realize you'd been there, determinedly pulling that lever for several hours? In many ways, Las Vegas is simply a giant Skinner Box.

We may all be just rats in a cage, but there is one type of reward that is very powerful and thatcan't be delivered like a pellet, and that is peer recognition. Humans crave acknowledgement for their achievements, and there's little that can motivate us more. Especially in multiplayer games, if there's a way for you to make the players, even the ones who aren't winning, feel recognized for their efforts when they do achieve a goal, then you will have a much stronger game.

Many games do this through the Internet, tracking scores or providing tournaments and ladders. There are more immediate ways to provide recognition, in the moment, as well. One is to track and broadcast the players' achievements during the game, highlighting and dramatizing each success for everyone to see. If it's an online strategy game where one team is pitted against another, make it clear when a player pulls off a brilliant maneuver. Let his comrades know exactly what happened and how it impacts the victory conditions. If it's an online RPG, allow the players to show off their conquests to the world, either in the form of legends, artifacts, or admirers who follow them about.

Exercise 10.4: Rewards

Analyze the rewards system in your original game prototype. Look at each reward and determine if it is useful, romantic, and/or tied to the storyline. How are rewards timed? Does the timing reinforce the player's desire to continue playing?

Anticipation

The Skinner Box example works well for game mechanics that are repetitive and apt to become rote. For larger, more complex choices, however, the more clearly you allow players to see, and anticipate, the consequences of their actions, the more meaningful their choices will be.

In chess, and other games with open information structures, the entire state of the game is visible to both players for evaluation. There's nothing hidden. If players are experienced, they can calculate out moves dozens of turns in advance and see exactly what will and will not happen. The anticipation that players feel in a situation like this is heightened by the knowledge of when they will be able to capture a piece or get in a particular position.

Can games with closed or mixed information structures create anticipation? Definitely. Realtime strategy games often use limited visibility to offer the player a glimpse of the opposition, but only while her units are posted in enemy territory. Since the game state is always changing, the view quickly becomes outdated, and the player winds up making decisions based on only partially accurate information (see Figure 10.11).

In this example, players accept the lack of information as one of the conditions of the game and understand that their job is to maximize their position given the limited information they have available. In fact, the lack of visibility can increase aplayer's sense of tension. With the knowledge that the game state is in flux, players feel compelled to act swiftly to counter anticipated enemy moves. In many ways, the hiding of knowledge has added a new dramatic twist that is lacking in the completely open strategy games.

Surprise

Surprise is one of the most electrifying tools at a designer's disposal. People love to be surprised, especially when they feel they should have anticipated the event. Too many surprises will alienate players, however, so, how do you know when to use surprise and when to telegraph an event?

10.11 Warcraft III: fog of war turned off (left) and on (right)

A surprise outcome to a player's choice can reinvest them in the game-perhaps they thought they were going to find 20 gold pieces behind door number three, but it turns out to be a trusted friend ready to join their journey instead-a much greater reward.

Surprises may feel random to players, but in a good way. The trick is to find the right balance between the randomness of surprise and the importance of making player choices meaningful. Take the example of a real-time strategy game, where you might send a simple foot soldier up against an ogre because he's all you've got. The foot soldier has strength of one to five, while the ogre has strength of one to 20. Odds are that the ogre will win. But there's always that chance, no matter how small, that the foot soldier will prevail.

Randomness, and surprise, in this case adds a level of drama-the tension of not knowing exactly how a highly probable event will play out. Will this be a David and Goliath story or just another dead foot soldier? In most well-designed games, the element of choice remains dominant. If every choice a player makes results in random effects, they will feel like their choices have no meaning. But keep surprise in mind; used judiciously, it can create a wealth of fun and excitement.

Exercise 10.5: Surprise

Are there any surprises in your game? Try taking one type of choice and adding an element of surprise to the outcome. How does this affect the gameplay?

Progress

Nothing is quite as satisfying as seeing the choices you make result in progress. It's part of human nature to derive joy from the act of advancing towards a goal. The small payoffs along the way are often sweeter than the final victory. The same is true in a game. Allowing players to feel they are moving forward is the best way to draw someone into a game and keep them engaged.

One approach for structuring progress is to design milestones for the players. These are small goals along the way to the grand goal of winning. Advertise these milestones to the players so that they know what they're striving for, and reward them after each accomplishment.

10.12 Mission: Medal of Honor: Mission 2-4 'What Comes Around'

Many games do this well. In Medal of Honor, the milestones come in the form of missions. They give you a map and let you see where you're headed and what you have to achieve to get there. This helps the player feel like they're making progress throughout a long campaign. The same is true for games that use story to block out their single-player levels, preparing the player at each step and setting out clear and obtainable objectives, and then rewarding the player at the end of each sequence with graphics, praise, and another chapter of the narrative.

No matter what the game, whether it's an arcade shooter or a simulation, providing a path for the player to follow gives a sense of achievement. Be creative in finding new ways to represent progress for your players. Don't limit yourself to just one system. There's no reason you can't measure progress in several ways at once.

When you consider the pacing of progress that players can make in the game, you might also consider the typical amount of time a player spends with a game. Veteran game designer Rich Hilleman with Electronic Arts says that their designers plan 'mini-arcs' of about one hour into the overall game progress. This is because that is what they have found the length of time the average gamer plays for in a single sitting.

At the end of each mini-arc, the designers try to make sure the player encounters a 'memorable moment' of gameplay, which makes sure they will return for another play session. These mini-arcs, when aggregated, form the overall dramatic arc of the game.

Exercise 10.6: Progress

Take your original game prototype. Is the ultimate goal clear? Is the player always moving towards this goal? Make sure that you have milestones established along the way. Does your system help motivate the player to reach the final goal? Describe how.

The end

By 'the end,' we're not talking about when a player dies; we're talking about the moment when the play completely resolves. After investing hours, days, weeks, or even months, this is the instant when your most loyal players deserve a reward for all their effort.

Multiplayer games have their own reward built in: the satisfaction of beating the other players, or, if you have created a cooperative, unilateral, or team interaction structure, the satisfaction of having worked together to beat the game or the other side.

But what of your single-player game? After all the conflict, struggle, and time invested, make sure to give the player a satisfying reward. Too often, the end of all that work is a fluffy animation, where the hero is showered with praise and adulation. Ifyou're going for an ending like this, why not build the reward into the story? Make that animation a moving moment in your hero's quest for whatever he lacks.

Exercise 10.7: Endings

Is the ending or resolution of your original game prototype satisfying? If not, how could you make it even better?

^[1]Steve Bocska, 'Temptation and Consequences: Dilemmas in Video Games,' Game Developers Conference 2003.

^{[ 2]}Nick Yee, 'EQ: The Virtual Skinner Box,' http://www.nickyee.com/hub/home.html.

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