06MA4010991AP
Computer Game Design

Week 8

Game Design Sequence and Techniques

Game design is both an artistic process and technical process. Designers have to transform the imaginative world into the technical world, and the product is the game itself. It transmits the messages from designer to player through the playing experience. In this week we will go through a simple game design sequence and techniques.

Game design sequence

1) Set a goal and a topic

GOAL of a game - The desired effect on player
- Things in the game are to express the goal, so define it very clearly
- "a fun/enjoyable/good game" is too vague and ambiguous
- The origin of game is educational (young tigers fight each other as playing, to learn hunting skills such as hiding and attacking)
- Passing message from the designer to the player
- It is getting more important in later stages, which it helps to make decisions (trade-offs to choose one between two features)

TOPIC of a game - the way to express the goal
- It could be kind of story / plot behind to bring up the message from the goal
- We should subordinate the topic to the goal
- It takes long time to find a suitable topic, some appears that contradicts or compelling to the goal

2) Research and preparation

Immerse yourself into the topic, try to familiarize with the world of the topic. Research to environment and history of the topic, mechanism on how system works and others such as graphic and music. At this stage we can refine the goal slighty to make it more fit to the topic. Keep in mind that during preparation, we should not start writing codes. Drive yourself into the topic world by imagination. Paper works and aided material should be prepared instead. And then organize the data to be used in design phase. Storyboards are not encouraged to use becuase a game consist of many branching situation but a storyboard mainly shows a linear sequence of events.

3) Design Phase

Now you have a clear idea to the game's ideal thus we have to design for its form. Our goal is to clarify three independent structures:
- I/O structure
- Game structure
- Program structure

a) Input / Output structure
This is the system communicates between computer and human. A usual output interface contains a screen and speakers, quality graphics and sounds can help to express the topic but it is not a good place to show off if they are not meaningful. Keep in mind they are used to communicate, be informative and express clearly to players. On the otherside, input system should be responsive to player and clean (simple to use). There may exist combinations of input keys and they should be handled as well. Choosing among input device is important, as simple device can only implements simple input structure and more complex input patterns requires a more complex device (e.g multiple keys pressed at same time / convenient to type A to Z)

b) Game structure
The game structure is the internal architecture of causal relationships that define the obstacles the player must overcome in the course of the game. It turns the goal and topic into a working system.The system should be easy to understand and manipulate. It consists key element(s) (e.g A combat game may have 2 key elements of movement and shooting) and they should keep simple. It is suggested not using many key elements in a game where would make the game difficult to learn and understand.

c) Program structure
The program structure is the organization of mainline code, subroutines and data to make up the program. It translates the I/O structure and game structure into actual program. Designer have to allocate resources usage (memory / computation power) and create a program flow.

4) Evaluation of design

At this moment, we should ask ourselves "Does the designs fits my goal? Am I satisfied with this way to express my message?". We should also consider if we can deliver the message successfully or possibilities that any part of the system will get out of control. The final decision is that should proceed or abort the production of the game. At this moment we dont have much cost compared with during production.

5) Preprogramming phase

We've worked a lot on papers and we can start preparing game document, refine I/O and game structures to fit user experience rather than technical issue.

6) Programming phase

It is straight forward but a tedious work, requiring to details to be handled carefully.

7) Playtesting phase

Playtesting is a process that yields information used to polish and refine the game design. In practice, playtesting often reveals fundamental design and programming problems that require major efforts to correct. Thus, playtesting is often interwoven with a certain amount of program debugging. It may also reveals fatal flaws between different elements. Both program bugs and game exploits should be fixed at this stage by greatest efforts. Sometimes it appeared with multple solution on a problem, we should choose the one nearest to the goal but not the easiest to implement. Tune up elements with adjusting values will improves the user experience, but they should be held in late stage as changes in game rules / elements may need retune the values again.

Playtesters should invited only when the game is near to completion, choose playtesters carefully to who are experienced and have knowledge on similar kind of games. They are able to critize and make practical suggestions. There is no need to have a large number of playtesters, and reject unuseful critiques (e.g not suitable to your goal or not achieveable). Sometimes their first reaction to the game itself is a good feedback.

At this phase designer should also make a game manual, which contains information about the game. Graphics and story to support the game will help players to dive into the game world and clean up misunderstandings. It also provide feedback on cleaniness of the game design, while clumsy design is hard to describe in the manual.

8) Launching of game

After rounds and rounds of refinements, we launch the game and accept the critics from public. Look for feedbacks and critiques and find the useful one and help to improve this / next game.

Design Techniques

Game designers develop their own techniques for execution of the craft, acquires specialized skills to tackle a various of problems.

1) Balance between human and computer players

The computer and the human are very different creatures; where human thought processes are diffuse, associative, and integrated, the machine’s thought processes are direct, linear, and arithmetic. Computer games are designed to human players, we have to design a system which is challenging to players. There are four techniques are available: vast resources, artificial smarts, limited information, and pace.

a) Vast resource
- more units of enemy
- more strength of enemy
- easy to implement, but very common

b) Artificial smart
- resonable behaviour (not stupid moves)
- trying to create a general algorithm
- unpredictable by player
- very hard to implement

c) Limited information
- makes human player cannot process information to make advantage on computer
- player makes move by making suggestions and imagination
- cannot be overused or it become confusing and hard to understand
- easy to implement

d) Pace
- computer can process quickly on simple computation
- not a rich challenge to players
- easy to implement

2) Relationship between opponents

Every game establishes a relationship between opponents that each player strives to exploit to maximum advantage. The fundamental architecture of this relationship plays a central role in the game. It defines the interactions available to the players and sets the tone of the game.

a) Symmetric Relationships
- auto balance
- easy to learn
- effective methods will be used on both sides
- victory by faster execution and avoid mistakes to very fine details

b) Asymmetric Relationships
- each player have some advantages
- designer have to balance them carefully
- more efforts to implement

c) Triangularity Relationships
- non transitive
- rock paper scissor
- direct to subtler interaction

3) Learning curves

ideal learning curve	an easy game	a hard game
a game with single trick	a discouraging game

4) Winnability

If a game is to provide a continuing challenge to the player, it must also provide a continuing motivation to play. It must appear to be winnable to all players, the beginner and the expert. The most important factor in the creation of the illusion of winnability is the cleanliness of the game. Too complex systems may suggest to players judge to be an unfair and unwinnable situation thus lose the motivation. If the player believes failures to be attributable to correctable errors on his own part, he believes the game to be winnable and plays on in an effort to master the game.