Download Game play and core mechanisms

Designing a Good Game
COMP 585/185: SERIOUS GAMES
GAME ELEMENTS
KEY ELEMENTS
Gameplay
 Storytelling
 Aesthetics
 Novelty
 Learning
 Immersion
 Socializing

GAMEPLAY
Challenges
 Risk/rewards
 Creative expressive play
 Actions
 Fairness
 Symmetry
 Competition/cooperation

WHY STORIES IN COMPUTER GAMES?
Reach emotion, not just adrenaline
 Key in all well-crafted entertainment
 More specifically

 Add
to entertainment value
 Wider audience
 Keep interest
 Marketing
STORIES IN COMPUTER GAMES

Are these the first interactive stories?
 NO.

Audience participation!
What does the player want?
 New
experience
 New
place
 New person
 New activity

Recommendation: learn good storytelling rules
GENRE
CONSIDERATIONS

Arcade games

Length

Strategy games

Characters

First person shooter

Realism

RPG, adventure

Emotional richness
HOW MUCH STORY DO YOU NEED?
AESTHETICS
Style and skill, not beauty
 Harmony

 coherence

and consistency
Harmony isn’t something that you can fake. … It’s a
sensual, intuitive experience. It’s something you feel. … it
doesn’t come from design committees ,,, And it never
happens by accident or by luck. … Games with harmony
emerge from a fundamental note of clear intention.
Brian Moriarty
GAME MECHANICS
SCHELL’S TAXONOMY
Space
 Objects
 Actions
 Rules
 Skill
 Chance

SPACE
Number of dimensions
 Continuous vs. discrete
 Boundaries
 Sub-spaces

OBJECTS
Attributes
 States
 Secrets

ACTIONS (EMERGENT PLAY)
Operative and resultant
 Number of actions
 What you can act on
 Ways to reach a goal
 Number of objects
 Side effects: changing constraints

SKILL

Types
 Physical
 Mental
 Social
Dominance
 Real vs virtual
 Improvement
 Necessity

CHANCE
Probability
 Human element
 Skill of understanding chance

RULES

Types
 Operational
 Foundational
 Behavioral
 Written
Modes
 Enforcement
 Goal

GOAL

Must be
 Concrete
 Achievable
 Rewarding
Series or single
 Short or long term
 Related
