• Player rewards and movitation
• Player choice and reasoning
• Drama and tension in the game
• Putting it all together with game mechanics: examples

Player rewards and movitation

As discussed in previous lectures, there are many many styles of game, and different players will draw satisfaction from different aspects of each.

• RPG/Adventure - storytelling, character development, quests/tasks (rescue, escape, capture, explore, build, learn, acquire, etc)
• Simulation/Creation - civ, sims, spore, as well as flight simulators
• Puzzle/Board - tetris, brain age, minesweeper, sokoban, chess, go, battleship, monopoly, etc
• Combat/Military - shooters, historical battles/strategy, etc
• Sports/Performance - racing, hockey, football, bmx, skiing, snowboarding, dance, stunt challenges, etc
• Cards/Gambling - poker, roulette, backgammon, slots, etc

Within any given genre, there is also room for a wide range of player numbers and styles, e.g.

• single player versus the game
• many players verus the game (each out for themselves)
• co-op versus the game
• player versus player
• team versus team
• multiplayer (everyone for themselves)

The rewards or motivating factor for different players might include

• accumulation of skills, abilities, knowledge
• accumulation of wealth, power, recognition, fame, followers
• character development and attachment to the character
• social/community interaction
• sensory stimulation
• pride in performance/creativity
• escape from reality
• enjoyment of conflict/competition
• surprise, anticipation, tension

To give players maximum statisfaction during a game, we are interested in balancing three key aspects:

• the game mechanics (rules and implementation)
• the player choices/actions
• the dramatic elements of the game

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Ideally these are balanced to allow the player to immerse themselves in the game, without introducing distractions, annoyances, or confusion/inconsistencies that draw a player out of the game world.

Player choice and reasoning

The player is constantly bombarded with choice during a game, and one of the most important aspects of game design is determining how much choice to give the player, under what circumstances, and what information should be available to guide them in making their choices.

Most players need meaningful and interesting choices to find a game fun and relevant over the long haul -- the player needs to feel in control (i.e. making informed decisions) but there still needs to be an element of risk or uncertainty to maintain dramatic tension during the game.

We can make some generalizations about the style of decisions available to a player, and when they might be appropriate:

• Hollow decisions - offer the player the illusion of choice, but have no real impact on gameplay. These might be useful to provide the player with an opportunity to add character development or roleplay to their character without actually impacting game behaviour.

• Obvious decisions - these are decisions in which there is a clear and obvious good choice/bad choice. There are still times when a player (particularly an experienced player with the particular game) might wish to deliberately make the "bad" choice, e.g. to deliberately make the game more challenging, or simply to see what happens. universe.

• Arbitrary decisions - these are decisions made with no informational basis, virtually a coin flip. Having some such decisions can increase the surprise/tension factor for a player, but including too many can lead to frustration.

  Interestingly, there can be predictable behaviour patterns in seemingly random choices, e.g. the examples discussed in lectures (picking heads in the coin flip, or noon as the meeting time).

  A Schelling point is a solution that people will tend to use in the absence of information.

• Dramatic decisions - these are made by the player based on emotional context, how it makes them feel. These decisions often lead to increased attachment with their game persona, as long as the context of the decision is consistent and realistic with the game flow.

• Weighted/balanced decisions - these are made when the player must select between conflicting goals or options, where each of the available choices has known advantages or disadvantages (often balancing short term gain versus long term gain).

  There are many ways to provide the player with the information necessary to encourage them along an appropriate path. A few examples are discussed below.

  • documentation - the game documentation (either in game help, online help, or supporting manuals) could contain information that can explain some of the player options and implications (but keep in mind that many players loath reading the manual).

  • knowledge acquisition - it may be possible for the player to buy or otherwise acquire key information leading up to the decision point, making it the player's responsibility to either acquire the knowledge or risk poor decisions.

  • foreshadowing - adding hints or tips of what is to come in the game, or to subtley warn the player about the dangers of their current path of action

  • balancing dilemmas - to try and enforce fairness in a situation a designer might use variants on the cake cutter's dilemma, in which one person sets up a situation or divides resources but their opponent gets to pick which side or portion they get (forcing the "cutter" to either create a balanced division, or to somehow entice the "chooser" into a particular choice)

  • co-operative dilemmas - to try and increase dramatic tension a designer might force players to gamble on whether to work together or against one another.

    One example is the "prisoner's dilemma":

    • two partners in crime have been arrested are being interrogated seperately
    • if each prisoner refuses to talk, the police have enough evidence to jail both for 1 year
    • if each prisoner implicates the other, the police will be able to give both of them 3 year sentences
    • if one prisoner implicates the other, and the other refuses to talk, then the crime gets pinned on the silent one - the talker goes free while the other prisoner gets 5 years

    Each prisoner must decide whether they can trust the other, and whether it's worth the risk of keeping quiet or implicating their partner.

Drama and tension in the game

The dramatic elements of a game are often those which make the game fun (challenging, exciting, gripping, amusing, ...).

Some of the key components we are interested in include

• the game premise - the underlying world, concept, or foundation for the game (e.g. being a tycoon in Monopoly, a race car driver, leader of a civilation, pilot of a test plane, etc)

  The premise is often the hook that captures a player's interest, and allows them to immerse themselves in a game world.

• the game characters - who populates the game world? are there personalities, unique individuals, different types of individual? are these characters static, or do they evolve/change as the game progresses?

  How does the player learn about the personalities and abilities of other characters in the game? through narrative about the other characters? through dialogue with the characters? through observing the other characters' behaviour?

  (Note that showing the player something and allowing them to draw their own conclusions is often more satisfying for the player than simply being told "blah blah blah" about a character.)

• the plot or story lines - what is the sequence of major events in the game? is there a single rigid storyline, or are there several possible plotlines? what is the rationale behind the event sequence, and the relationship between the plotlines and the game characters?

  As with character development, it is often more desirable to let the player observe and deduce things about the plotline than to bluntly state facts/observations to the player.

• the history or back story - what is the background of the game world and the characters in it? what, in the context of the premise, happened leading up to the start of the game?

In general, games follow a very traditional dramatic arc - tension slowly builds as the game unfolds, then starts to increase more rapidly as you approach a climax, rapidly falling off afterwards.

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Tension in the game will generally follow this wavelike pattern, building to key events then subsiding as the player achieves key goals.

Long periods of low tension often lead to boredom on the part of the player, while long periods of high tension may lead to frustration.

Use of foreshadowing and predictable paths can gradually build tension and anticipation, while randomness and surprise can cause rapid changes.

Note: keep in mind that a game doesn't necessarily need extensive premise or storylines to be successful, as long as other elements of gameplay capture and keep the player's interest. Tetris is a prime example - incredibly simple, and yet incredibly successful, with a good use of ebbs and flows in tension as the blocks mount up and disappear.

Putting it all together with game mechanics: examples

Balanced against all the factors above, we need to establish the game mechanics: the underlying rules and implementation that governs and guides the game.

These include the rules defining the actual concepts and objects within the game, the rules governing character and player actions, and the rules governing effects and behaviour, e.g.

• player numbers, roles, actions, attributes
• player objectives (short and long term)
• the rules and procedures for the game process/sequence
• boundaries and restrictions on behaviour
• the definition of conflict within the game (obstacles, opponents, puzzles, problems)
• the rules governing the outcome of actions

  Of particular interest are rules regarding the nature of feedback or reinforcement in the game. Positive feedback/reinforcement Positive reinforcement strengthens a player's position based on "good choices". This tends to make the strong stronger, shortening the game and (possibly) having destabilizing effects. Typical examples appear in acquisition or construction games, where the more wealth or power a player has the easier it is to build/acquire more - strengthening their advantage even further. This form of reinforcement can often lead to situations in which players recognize the "obvious winner" at an early stage in the game, and lose interest. Negative feedback/reinforcement Negative reinforcement lessens the impact of negative results on players in progressively weaker positions. This tends to prolong the game, and places greater emphasis on late-game decisions. This form of feedback is often deliberately introduced to give players in weakened positions a "fighting chance", to try and maintain their interest in the game. Examples in a territorial combat scenario include making defense easier than attacking (so a player on the defensive has a chance to regroup/rebuild), or making it easier for a player to retake territory that was originally theirs (e.g. with the justification that they're getting support from the locals).

A substantial portion of the rest of our game design will focus on game mechanics.

Here we provide a short look at the use/implementation of dramatic tension in a variety of game types.

• Puzzle games: tetris
  Objectives:
  • Acheive high score by rotating/positioning falling blocks of assorted shapes into complete/removable rows, preventing blocks from stacking above the top of the screen.
  • This is a game that is never truly "won", play continues until the player loses.
  
  Information and choice:
  • The player's choices are how to orient the current falling block (rotating clockwise or counterclockwise) and where to position it horizontally.
  • The player can see the current screen contents and the shape of the next coming block, but doesn't know the sequence of later blocks.
  
  Tension:
  • Tension increases as the blocks build up towards the top of the screen - giving the player less time to react as new blocks drop and bringing the player closer to a losing position.
  • Tension is also increased by increasing the speed of the falling blocks as the game progresses, again giving the player less reaction time.

• Deduction games: minesweeper
  Objectives:
  • Identify the position of all the mines on the screen as quickly as possible, clearing all the non-mined positions.
  • The player wins if all mines are successfully identified, and loses if they attempt to clear a mined positon.
  
  Information and choice:
  • The player is shown the total number of undiscovered mines, along with a count of the number of mines adjacent to each cleared position, and must guess or deduce the positions of the actual mines based on that information.
  • The information is sometimes complete enough to identify the precise locations of a mine, but not always.

    Different players will use different balances of guesswork and deduction in trying to quickly but correctly identify mine locations from the adjacency patterns. (There are a number of articles that discuss strategies for rapid/correct identification in great detail.)

  
  Tension:
  • Tension is in part increased through the running clock - attempting to clear the mines as quickly as possible - but there is no penalty for "being slow".
  • Tension increases dramatically when the player lacks enough information to identify which of a group of uncleared positions contains a mine, and is forced to guess - risking a loss by attempting to clear a mined position.

• Board games: monopoly
  Objectives:
  • Acquire wealth and property while driving all the other players into bankruptcy.
  • Victory goes to the last player left, or the player with the most wealth at some time limit.
  
  Information and choice:
  • Players know exactly the cost, value, and fees associated with each property, as well as each other player's assets (wealth, property, get-out-of-jail free cards) and current location on the board.
  • Players do not how far they'll have to move on their next turn (i.e. the dice rolls), the order of chance/community chest cards, nor the reaction of other players to deals and negotiations (i.e. trades/sales of properties).
  
  Tension:
  • Tension is primarily driven by the desire to be the first to land on/purchase desirable properties, or to avoid landing on developed hostile properties (paying rent) or hostile positions (pay taxes, go to jail, etc)
  • Tension ebbs and flows as players pass key points on the board, particularly when critical to a player's funding (e.g. hoping the other player lands on your hotel before you land on theirs).

• Strategy games: battleship
  Objectives:
  
  Information and choice:
  
  Tension:

• Card games: poker
  Objectives:
  
  Information and choice:
  
  Tension:

• Sports games: hockey
  Objectives:
  
  Information and choice:
  
  Tension:

• Racing games
  Objectives:
  
  Information and choice:
  
  Tension:

• Adventure games: mario
  Objectives:
  
  Information and choice:
  
  Tension:

• First person shooters
  Objectives:
  
  Information and choice:
  
  Tension: