Last week, I completed reading The Game Designer's Playlist: Innovative Games Every Game Designer Needs to Play by Zack Hiwiller. This book proved to be particularly engaging due to its innovative "playlist" approach. The format functions as a comprehensive compendium, showcasing the rich variety within the field of gaming.
I have extracted two key points from the book that I intend to utilise in a future article. These points are outlined below.
The element that separates games from other art forms is its requirement of audience participation. No game exists in a bubble distinct from its consumption by players. Although more traditional media need to consider the social and cultural framework in which the media will be consumed and interpreted, game authors also have to consider how the consumers will interact with the media itself. Authors generally are not concerned with how quickly the reader reads; musicians don’t generally concern themselves with the specs of the listener’s stereo. But game designers need to consider the actual act of playing as an element of their art. It is in the act of playing itself that games are uniquely qualified to deliver meaning. P.69
As we discussed in the previous chapter, one of the features of games that positions them in a different space from its more static media brethren is that the interactive nature of games opens the doors to new rhetorical and aesthetic effects stemming from that interactivity. A game can be beautiful aesthetically, but it can also be beautiful in how its systems function. P.86
We remain steadfast in our dedication to expanding our knowledge and expertise in this field. 🎮 🎲 😀
Source: HIWILLER, Zack. The game designer’s playlist: innovative games every game designer needs to play. New Jersey: Pearson Education, 2019.
In this post I’ll discuss the idea behind one of my favorite types of games: abstract games. Well, first of all let’s understand what makes a game an abstract game. The definitions are many and I chose one from Board Game Geek’s site. In a section dedicated to defining this kind of game, we can find some interesting concepts about abstract games, but I'll pick one that fits perfectly in this present discussion: “abstract games” is a term often used to refer to games without a theme (regardless of the game mechanics) like Go, Backgammon, and Checkers – as analogic game examples. But we can find digital examples also, like 2048, Tetris, and 140.
Basically, we can say that this category of games is made purely of a mechanic. The components will be geometric shapes, colors, numbers etc. Occasionally, we can put a theme inside an abstract game, but – in essence – the focus is on the mechanism. In this context it’s important to remember that mankind creates games from its earliest historical records. One of the oldest games we have knowledge of is Senet – an abstract board game - found in archaeological relics dating from 3500 years before Christ (THOMPSON, BERBANK-GREEN, CUSWORTH, 2007, p12).
Let’s check some examples of analogical abstract games:
And also let’s check some abstract video games:
#GoGamers
References:
Boardgame Geek official site: https://boardgamegeek.com/
THOMPSON, Jim; BERBANK-GREEN, Barnaby; CUSWORTH, Nic. Game Design: principles, practice, and techniques – the ultimate guide for the aspiring game designer. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons Inc., 2007.
I played a lot of games in the first half of 2020 (especially because of the coronavirus quarantine). I created a list of the ten games I liked the most here on the site (without an order of preference).
Check it out below.
The gardens between: a beautiful and clever puzzle game about childhood, goodbyes and memories of two great friends. The game uses time warping mechanics to compose the puzzles. Fast and awesome.
Little nightmares: delicately scary. Little Nightmares has excellent puzzles and an extremely bizarre narrative and fabulous graphics.
Sundered: rogue-like game set in a post-apocalyptic scenario with elements of magic and technology. Play, die and play everything different again (another interesting procedural experiment).
Starman: one of the biggest surprises of this year. Starman is a very relaxing puzzle game with fantastic art. The narrative deals with loneliness in a unique way.
Old man's journey: a very simple story about facing the past and the future. A family drama with simple but very engaging puzzles.
The las of us 2: AAA huge game with epic scenarios, animations, cut scenes and challenges. Although many did not like the narrative, I did; and I really liked it. In my opinion, just one problem: the game could have ten hours less of gameplay (it gets a little repetitive from half onwards).
The almost gone: depression, pain, memories of life and death. A perfect mix for a good mystery puzzle game.
Zenge: just another clever visual puzzle with simple design and a very crazy narrative created with beautiful images.
Over the top tower defense (OTTTD): one of my favorite genres! Put the turrets, kill the enemies, earn money and build new powerful turrets. This one is very frantic and distressing. A perfect one after a long day of work. =)
Alteric: according to the developers - Thomas was alone meets Dark Souls. A 2D puzzle platform game quite challenging with minimalist graphics. Excellent!
Attention: this post contains spoilers from the game “The gardens between”
I’ve been playing games since I was a child. Now 41 years old, I’m proud to say that I've been a videogame player since the first generation of consoles that were raised on Earth. I’m a lucky person that has had the opportunity to play many kinds of different games in the last 38 years.
Unfortunately, today, I don’t have time to play all the games I want. So, when I’m choosing a game to play I’m very meticulous; I talk with gamer friends, I watch YouTube reviews and I try to read a lot about games. Nowadays, what do I search for in a game to play? I try to choose the minimum of three features: a good narrative, a creative gaming mechanics and an interesting aesthetic. If I can find a game with three of these features, I’ll probably play it with much more enthusiasm and immersion.
The last game I played that filled the three features was “The gardens between”.
I’ll start to talk about the narrative feature: the game is a beautiful story about two children on the last day they have together as neighbors; the boy is moving to another city and the story of the game is about them remembering the adventures of their childhood together.
The narrative feature is the basis for a stunning art direction: the game's atmosphere is full of childish elements but, on another hand, you can notice signs of fear, sorrow and depression. It’s about dark and light; about remembering the past but, at the same time, trying to move on.
To blend the narrative layer with the aesthetic layer we have a very interesting mechanics that uses time travel as the basis for puzzle solutions. The simplicity of the commands are great: you put the joystick to the right to advance the events in time, you put left and they come back to their original places. So, what’s the challenge? The game creates timing distortions to make the player constantly think about the sequence of movements he needs to make. Check the video below to understand how everything connects in “The gardens between”.
In this context it is interesting to say how we have a large list of indie games that can fill the previous features that I mentioned. Today, it’s not a privilege from the triple A games to have great narrative with stunning art and challenging mechanics. By the way, most of the time when I’m searching for this kind of game I’ll probably choose an indie to download.
Right now, I am playing DETROIT: BECOME HUMAN, a new title by Quantic Dream studio. As its predecessors – Indigo Prophecy, Heavy Rain, and Beyond: Two Souls – the game uses cinematographic language with its mechanics based on decision trees. During most part of the narrative, you must take significant decisions that will affect the course of the game and result in different ends for the story. The trailer below shows the gaming dynamics and main plot:
Besides the immersive narrative and beautiful graphics, I want to comment on two great features of this game.
1) The ending phase screens show the complete decision tree of each chapter. This is a very cool feature from DETROIT, you can observe in details what type of consequence your acts generated inside the gaming narrative. This visual aid helps players understand how each character works in the ambient. Below, there’s an example of this feature.
2) The opening screen always has an interesting content. Every time you start to play DETROIT, there’s one opening screen with a very sympathetic female android named Chloe giving you a technological trivia. I was playing it in June 7th and she told me that that day was Alan Turing’s (the British mathematical genius) date of death. Then, last Saturday morning she told me “this is a perfect way to start a good weekend”. The android also takes interesting surveys, asking players about the interface between human and machine. It is just a “content snack”, but it helps to contextualize the gaming experience in a more immersive way. Below, I’m sharing some of these moments:
Here They Lie is a Playstation 4 game signed by Tangentlemen and Santa Monica Studio. The game transports you to a terrifying parallel world from which you cannot escape. Inside this bizarre place, it’s necessary to explore a nightmarish city inhabited by malevolent creatures. In this experience, the point of view is first-person and you can only use an old flashlight as a weapon.
In the whole gaming narrative you must wrestle with life or death moral choices to uncover the mystery of the woman in yellow (a kind of Ariadne that guides you through the city maze and corridors inside buildings). There are two ways to play Here They Lie: classic version or using VR glasses (which enhances the immersion in the story). Check the mysterious trailer below:
Despite the beautiful graphics and soundtrack, Here They Lie caught my attention through the perfect balance between narrative and gameplay. You only run from the monsters; inside this dark dimension, you are only a voyeur, observing a scenario of pain and blasphemous acts. The only thing you really do is walking around the huge city capturing hints to discover what is happening. Where’s the fun in it? I think Here They Lie is the kind of experience that brings literature features to play.
For me, having played Here They Lie from the beginning to the end was like reading a book written with a Kafkanian and Lovecraftian touch. The situation is too absurd but, with the suspension of disbelief, you can accept that this strange world makes sense. The story grabs your attention and curiosity leads you to find the answer for some questions like: How did I get here? Who is the woman in the golden dress? What are the creatures with animal heads? Why did it happen to me?
Games like this one lead us to the multiple possibilities that we can experience today in the gaming market. We still have “triple A” first-person shooters with zombies but on the other hand, a huge universe to explore fantasy in a different way. We are leaving a privileged ambient of ludic possibilities. To play different games like this one is to create a richer repertoire for classes, gaming projects or gaming discussions.
The Brazilian gamer consolidates with a cross-platform profile - 74% play on more than one device. The smartphone remains the most popular (77.9%), followed by computers (66.4%) and consoles (49%). Despite all the popularity of the games, only 6.1% of the respondents consider themselves as "hardcore gamers". Most identify themselves as a casual consumer, who uses games only as a simple form of entertainment (54.1%).
The preferred device to play is the smartphone, chosen by 37.6% of gamers, followed by consoles (28.8%) and computer (26.4%).
Their favorite game category is Strategy (50.9%), followed by Adventure (45%). An interesting fact is that these two types of games are among the preferred for both sexes, however, Action, Racing and Sports games are only present in the top 5 of men, while Cards, MatchThree and Trivia games are those that Complete the women's Top 5.
There are several places where the consumer plays. With the smartphones mobility, 60.7% of respondents say they play when they are in transit (bus, subway or car). However, contrary to previous research, this was not consecrated as the moment of greater consumption of games, since 71% of gamers also said to use the smartphone to play at home.
140 is a gaming masterpiece. Created by Jeppe Carlsen (known for his gameplay direction in Playdead's Limbo), the game is an immersive and synesthetic experience that uses electronic music synchronized with minimal shapes to give life to the scenario and the main character.
The game doesn’t have a clear narrative plot. You command a multiple-shaped character and must solve some puzzles to advance to the next level. Looks simple, but this simplicity has a dense complexity in terms of level design. Check the gameplay below:
In 140, the level design challenge is to coordinate all the puzzles’ solutions with a constant electronic music (that changes according to the player’s actions). In a game like this, we notice different layers that create one solid level design: one with simple abstract forms, one with synchronized music and one that blends both (the experience of the game per se).
As Adams and Rollings point out, level design is the process of building the experience that will be offered directly to the player, using components provided by the game designer. Level designers create the space in which the game takes place, the initial conditions of the level, the set of challenges the player will face within the level, the termination conditions of it, the interplay between the gameplay and the game’s story, and the aesthetics of the level. (2007, p.399 & 400).
Following the previous ideas from these authors, we can add – in the case of 140 – that music can be another essential component to create a gaming experience.
#GoGamers
Reference:
ADAMS, Ernest; ROLLINGS, Andrew. Fundamentals of Game Design. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2009
I’m a very methodical person. I like to organize everything in my everyday life and in my work. In this post, I want to share a small checklist I’ve created for my gaming projects. It’s a synthesis of the main points to remember in a game’s creative process and production. Check the fields and plan your work!
You can use it, copy it, add elements to it and share it. Just remember to give credits to @vincevader. Enjoy it!
Essential elements in the game design/production process
Yes (√)
No (X)
The concept and main idea are defined
I can tell the game idea in 20 seconds
The game has a narrative
In case of a narrative, it has a well-defined beginning and ending
The game is focused in pure mechanics, there’s no need of a narrative
The mechanic(s) is (are) well defined
I already constructed a simple pre-prototype (digital or analogical)
I already tested the game with imaginary players simulating a real match
I already made one first complete prototype (analogical or digital) that can be played by beta-testers
I already coordinated at least ten beta-test sessions with different players, using the first complete prototype
I applied modifications in the game after the beta-test sessions
I already created a more complete prototype that has most parts of the game’s final version
I made contact with other professionals (artists, programmers etc.) to finalize the game
I have a strategy to launch my game and disclose it in social networks, sites and other channels
Jonathan Blow is the game designer behind Braid, one awesome 2D platform game that uses time distortion as gameplay. In Braid, you can manipulate time to avoid death, solve puzzles, send a shadow to the future to perform an action, create “bubbles” of time lapse and many others cool mechanics. It’s one of my top 10 games. Check the trailer below:
In January of this year, Blow launched his new game: The Witness. Similar to Braid, it’s a puzzle game, but in a first person point of view. The mysterious narrative puts you in an abandoned and colorful island, full of digital screens. Each screen has a kind of an enigma that conducts you to the next one. Each puzzle solved gives you a small piece about the enigmatic history. You can check the main idea in the game’s trailer:
Points to highlight in the experience of the game:
1) Jonathan Blow recreates the classic mechanics of drawing a line through a labyrinth. Using colors, spatial restrictions, different shapes and logical reasoning, the game designer put the players’ mind to work, many times. The level of resolution of some puzzles is impressive.
2) The scenario is part of the narrative, and it works as a tool. Every single detail and object in the ambient contributes with the history. The island is full of statues and behind them there are hints for the plot. There are also some digital recorders with voices saying facts about the place. The colors of the trees, the direction of the light, the passing of time etc. everything could be an element for the story.
3) The game is full of references from movies, literature and other games. I found lots of similarities with Adolfo Bioy Casares’ “The Invention of Morel” book.
4) It’s a daring production. The Witness is a very artistic game. It explains little to the player and, most of the time, it’s essential to explore and use your mind to try to solve the puzzles.
I’m still playing the game, but the experience – till this moment – is strange, difficult and relaxing.
Limbo, created by the independent studio Playdead, was my favorite game in the year of 2010. I think I might have played the full game around seven or eight times. It’s a simple puzzle-platform 2D game, but the narrative and dark ambience won my attention in an epic level. Six years later, Playdead launched another big hit: INSIDE.
Put the mechanics and gameplay from Limbo in a blender. Add some dystopian elements from George Orwell’s “1984” novel and mix in a pinch of technological horror. There you have it: INSIDE. The gaming plot is about a nameless red-shirted boy that must survive in a hostile futuristic ambient, trying to avoid well-equipped guards, killer dogs and natural disasters. As the story goes, you will discover parts of a huge conspiracy that aims to create an abominable creature. To go further in the narrative, the player must solve puzzles using things that are scattered on the scene; sometimes, they seem pretty obvious and sometimes not too much. I want to highlight the “mind control” puzzles where you put a device on the boy’s head to gather zombie-type characters from the scenario to help you (a very similar mechanics from the game Swapper).
Check the gaming atmosphere and gameplay in the video below:
The soundtrack is another incredible feature from the game. During all the experience, you can hear a very disturbing soundscape. INSIDE’s soundtrack is very similar to Zoät·Aon’s album “Star Autopsy” and Robert Rich and Lustmord’s “Synergistic Perceptions”.
INSIDE is not a horror game, but it can create a unique atmosphere of fear and despair with the strategic use of its dark scenario, obscure music, horrible deaths and dangers in the journey. Saint (2014, p.3) argues that the mixture of fear and the sense of impotency (two basic features of this game) can create an aura of horror and a deep dive in the game’s reality. But, in this context, it’s important to remember that the “term horror is extremely broad and covers an expansive range of themes, experiences and reactions” (MARSHALL, 2014, p.60). INSIDE offers a different specter of horror/fear/terror. It’s subtler and demands the use of the players’ imagination to complete some points from the narrative.
In other words, INSIDE’s context works with the immersion in the dark reality of the game and the empathy we can feel for the fragile character fighting the dangers.
“When we feel with other individuals or characters we not only use our imagination in order to undertake a shift in our cognitive perspective and imaginatively to experience the world from their point of view but we also use our imagination to adopt the assumed emotional state of the target individual. That means, when moviegoers or readers* feel empathy with a character, they perceive the events in the story from the spatio-temporal position of that character and at the same time experience emotions that match those of the target character in terms of quality, albeit maybe not in terms of quantity” (TRIEBEL, 2014, p.5).
INSIDE is a masterpiece to discuss questions about game design and narrative. It’s an awesome example of how the classic platform format still can be creative, immersive and full of meaning. In this ambient full of “ludic fear” there’s a crucial question: why do some players search for fear and other bad feelings in games? To solve this puzzle, we quote Suits (2005, p.55) who says, “Playing a game is the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles”.
*We can include gamers in this context
References:
MARSHAL, James L.. The potential and limits of a visual arts practice. IN: SMITH, Shilinka; HILL, Shona. Transforming fear, horror and terror: multidisciplinary reflections. Oxford: Inter-disciplinary press, 2014.
SAINT, Michelle. Horror in art, horror in life: its nature and its value. IN: SMITH, Shilinka; HILL, Shona. Transforming fear, horror and terror: multidisciplinary reflections. Oxford: Inter-disciplinary press, 2014.
SUITS, Bernard. The grasshopper: games, life and utopia. Toronto: Broadview Encore Editions, 2005.
TRIEBEL, Doreen. Manipulating empathic responses in horror fiction. IN: KATTELMAN, Beth; HODALSKA, Magdalena. Frightful Witnessing: the rhetoric and (re)presentation of fear, horror and terror. Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2014.
This video from Extra Credits is an awesome game design class using the level 1-1 from Super Mario Bros as an example. We can learn many important features with this classic game. It's a simple level but full of good references to think about game design.
I always like to replay some old classic games from the Atari generation. Not only because of the nostalgia, but to find some simple game design solutions to inspire myself to create new ludic stuff.
This week, I was playing the excellent KEYSTONE KAPERS (Activision, 1983) and I'll talk a little bit about some interesting features from this game, in this post.
I played this game a lot when I was a child and it is a masterpiece until today. The narrative is about a cop chasing a thief inside a kind of a shopping mall. Before discussing some highlights from the game, I invite you to watch the gameplay; please, pay special attention to the brilliant multi-floor scenario linked by a lift.
For a game from the beginning of the 1980's KEYSTONE KAPERS is a very advanced ludic experience. Three important game design points to observe in this title are:
1. Multiple interesting dangers with increasing difficulty throughout the levels. The scenario is always the same, as well as the speed of the two characters; so, objects thrown by the villain against the hero move differently. The shopping cart moves in a straight line, the balls kick, the airplane occupies the top of the floor etc. with a progressing level of speed. About this, Brathwaite and Schreiber (2009, p.100) remember us that "video games that have a sequence of levels, simply start off easy and become progressively more difficult as times goes on" and we can see this feature in classic arcade games.
2. Twitch decision-making. KEYSTONE KAPERS starts slow and becomes fast level by level (as we can see in the previous video). In the beginning of the game, it's possible to run only on the floors, use the stairs and catch the thief. However, in the high levels you must use the lift to capture the villain. Brathwaite and Schreiber (2009, p.101,102) teach us that there are five basic twitch mechanics: pure speed, timing, precision, avoidance, and time pressure. In some way, we can identify these five elements in the gaming interface.
3. Minimal and clear art direction integrated with the gameplay. Everybody knows how difficult it was to create games for Atari platform using minimal resources and few bits for programming, sounds and interface. In KEYSTONE KAPERS, we have a very strategic use of every single element. It's possible to clearly identify all the objects, the scenario, the characters and the gaming interface elements (points, lives etc.). All these features cooperate to create a good gameplay; a good art direction establishes logical dynamics for a good gameplay experience.
Once more, we can find inspiration in some treasures from the past. I usually call it "ludic archeology". If you want to read more about this subject, click here.
#GoGamers
References:
BRATHWAITE, Brenda & SCHREIBER, Ian. CHALLENGES FOR GAME DESIGNERS: non-digital exercises for video game designers. USA: Cengage, 2009.
Cengage Learning has just launched my new book in Brazil, today. GAME CULTURA: COMUNICAÇÃO, ENTRETENIMENTO E EDUCAÇÃO(GAMING CULTURE: COMMUNICATION, ENTERTAINMENT AND EDUCATION) is a study addressing educational aspects, narratives, questions and marketing strategies involving games. The final words were written by Uruguayan game designer and researcher Gonzalo Frasca (¡Gracias!, @frascafrasca!).
The exercise of game designing is not an easy challenge. Behind the gameplay, beta test sessions, prototypes, interviews with beta testers, meetings, information architecture and gaming art lies a player filled with emotions, wishes, wills and a great desire to experience something unique in their life.
So, this post’s question is: what does a player want when are experiencing a game (and here we are talking about any kind of game: blockbusters and indies)? It's a pretty broad question and, in my humble opinion, impossible to be answered in a simple blog post. However, we can find great insights from gaming theory.
Rose III (2001, p.2-18) in his book “Game design: theory & practice” elaborated a very interesting list trying to answer some questions from the player’s side. About the theme “what players want and expect”, the author has some good points that I’ll reproduce and comment below:
1. Players want a challenge 2. Players want to socialize 3. Players want a dynamic solitaire experience 4. Players want bragging rights 5. Players want an emotional experience 6. Players want to fantasize 7. Players expect a consistent world 8. Players expect to understand the game-world’s bounds 9. Players expect reasonable solutions to work 10. Players expect direction 11. Players expect to accomplish a task incrementally 12. Players expect to be immersed 13. Players expect to fail (this point creates good dialogue with the first one) 14. Players expect a fair chance 15. Players expect to not need to repeat themselves 16. Players expect to not get hopelessly stuck 17. Players expect to do, not to watch
Let’s take Star Wars Battlefront (EA DICE, 2015) as an example. Players want challenges to play online or the possibility to play alone if the Internet fails. In this gaming ecosystem, to achieve better rankings works as a very important symbolic currency. The Star Wars universe offers a consistent world and the game has clear rules about how you can up your level, buy equipment, kill an enemy etc. There are tutorials to teach each new movement in the game. From time to time, EA DICE launches new maps, new characters and new challenges to keep the community engaged and immersed in the experience. A player can play in a professional level or just for fun. The Star Wars brand surely helps a lot in the marketing success, but the details and the strategic game thinking behind the production is the point to highlight in this discussion.
With good humor, Rose III (2001, p.18) ends this chapter from his book with the following thinking: “Players do not know what they want, but they know it when they see it”.
This list is a brief example of a universe of possibilities. So, the games studies need to be more and more interdisciplinary. Different views on the same subject could generate good ways to research and develop.
#GoGamers
Reference:
ROUSE III, Richard. Game design: theory & practice. Texas: Wordware Publishing, 2001.
