Difficult Design Aspects

Simplify is the word.

For designing, yes simplifying is harder but it brings such beauty to the game. I can only share my limited experience, this is my 1st design.

The 1st version was broken, VERY complex yet the mechanics would not have been wholy original.

I attended Protospiel ( http://www.protospiel.org ) earlier this summer, played tons of different and interesting designs, lots of them were very promising. Being there exposed me to Soooo many different mechanics that were unknown to me, it gave me great ideas to advance my design to version 2.0. The ONE thing i learned being there was this: simplicity.

Every single game i tried was simple, yet many promised and delivered lots of fun moments.

A few months later, my design is doing great, it changed so much i was even wondering if it was the same game. After all this, simplicity is the main focus: is this simple enough? can i combine this mechanic with this other one? Is the game more fun or less fun because of that aspect?

And, lastly, spirituality being an important aspect of my everyday life, when something doesn't work out, when the difficulty cannot be solved with logic and hard work, i simply contemplate on it, close my eyes and let the truth flow in: i get my answers.

my 2 cents

Ben

Bravo. Well said, Pat. It basically sums up my thoughts on game design as well.

Just a quick example, I my space ship rally game that I am currently brainstorming, the reason why I wanted to make the ship design rule complex, is to make sure that passing a few hours tweaking your ship's stats will give you the feeling that you are actually there experiencing the tweaking of a real ship.

Broad generalisation follows: I wonder if what pushes a game out of the "abstract" category is generally the complexity level that is added in order to make the thematic component more fitting? Since it isn't necessary to come up with any reason why "adding a counter at each end of a row flips all the other counters over"*, the ruleset can be pretty short. But as soon as (to take an example that is rather close to my heart!) you want to make a Three Musketeers game, then you have to include rules for sword-fights as otherwise players get a little testy, and inevitably that makes for a more complex final game, although the actual "weight" of the game may be much lighter.

(*this is, of course, the USP of Othello/Reversi.)

OrlandoPat writes
[For example, complexity requires more "effort" on the player's part. Does the experience of the game justify that effort?]

Spot on! Excellent points throughout. BE the ball.

But... what happens when your game-- boiled down to simplicity-- inculcates complexity and in fact thrives on it?

I'm a babe in the woods with regard to RPG's and historic war simulations but I've learned the rewards concept is crucial. Every action should gain the player some reward-- even if it's the satisfaction of clever positioning for future action. Reward during play-- just as important as reward afterward. That's the *fun* aspect which keeps players engaged as the board builds in complexity.

Infernal's 4 points are elegantly complimentary, but talk of reward punishment mechanisms does make me feel like my players are in a Skinner box. (No offense to behaviorists, but my dad treats autisitic childen using C-D-- a Cognitive-Developmental systems approach to avoid simply shaping rote behavior but rather building on a disordered child's innate abilities-- less robot, more child. Impressive success rate. End of plug.) I wonder if primary focus on reward/puishment is a red herring.

Games model life experience or perspective in some manner. Lots of shades of grey, some reward, some punishment, often both, in single decisions or moves! They also offer a narrative, like a good short story or novel. So what drives a novel or a movie-- or a game?

It's not "theme," it's NEED. I have read about Theme here. I want to hear more examples about the Player's Need, which if it's clear, will drive a player to acquire some amazingly complex skills, motivate her to learn odd rules of movement, swordplay, weapons deployment, delegation, alliance, whatever it takes to acquire a competitive edge, to reach the goal and fulfill the need-- ultimately, to win. This is why I was so into OrlandoPat's Player experience perspective.

Theme is the underlying emotional and romantic mounting of a game. It's important, it allows dramatic license for certain rules and not others. It tlels you how to adorn the playing field. There's very little arbitrary rulemaking and graphic design about a carefully-themed game.

But the driving force is the player's Need. You see it right on the box: Kill, conquer, collect, destroy, thwart, dodge... action verbs. Okay, I confess I'm stealing some of this from Warhammer 40K boxes and other product and ads. But we've all seen the pitch to the consumer. Appeal to the players need to accomplish and succeed.

I think what games do so well is to delineate a need which in everyday life is so abstracted or obscured as to exhaust. Games refresh by stripping away all the politically correct home, school, or office crap and allow us to define raw need to behave badly, betray, be devious, express outrage and defiance, to conquer, to win. Games will never go out of style.

(It's why game designers also get their games made into bad movies--but hey, the mortgage has been dissolved, the pool is being lined in laminated prototype game cards, etc. Do you need to control everything?)

In writing screenplays or even editing for other clients, when my characters needs becomes clear, I can hear them knocking on the door, each insisting on coming in. He or she or it drives the story; I'm just a traffic cop, putting obstacles in the way and poroviding those rewards and punishments which echo life.

Those of us struggling with game rules take note. Once you know your player's motivation, draw the rules from your given theme.

So what is the player's Need in SofC? Axis and Allies? Go? Magic? Twixt? Can it be boiled down to a statement, a few words? Because I think Need is THE sell point. And I suspect most of us hope to sell!

[I ment to present it as a tool (like game theory and descion theory) to help designers overcome difficulties in game design.]

Absolutely, and it conveys another important aspect to good games: balance. For every action a reaction. For every daring move, a debilitating countermove. For every gain, the threat of loss. But I also agree, without a player need working through a tightly constructed theme, reward and punishment have little purpose other than thin melodrama. A lot of the current Hollywood crap-- eh... CROP... of movies proves this!

Let's say we have a 2-player game where the victory condition is to be the first to earn $10. The only mechanic in the game is that each player draws one card off a deck and the instructions on the card are followed. Play goes turn-for-turn until one player wins. There are four types of cards in the deck. The deck is composed of 1000 cards, 250 of each type, and is shuffled well. The card types:

1. The player who drew the card earns $1.
2. The player who did not draw the card loses $1.
3. The player who did not draw the card earns $1.
4. The player who drew the card loses $1.

This is about as simple an example of Infernal's punishment/reward spectrum that I can think of. #s 2 and 3 are patently not the same thing.

Imagine that our game has progressed to the point where we both have $5. It is my turn. What happens if I draw a card of each type?

1. My score is $6, and yours is $5. My score leads yours by one point, I am one step closer to winning than I was previous to the draw, and you are in the same position relative to the victory condition that you were previous to the draw.
2. My score is $5, and yours is $4. My score leads yours by one point, but I am not any closer to winning than I was previous to the draw, and you are a step back from satisfying the victory condition.
3. My score is $5, and yours is $6. My score trails yours by one point, youi are one step closer to a win, and I am in the same position relative to the victory condition that I was previous to the draw.
4. My score is $4, your score is $5. My score trails your by one point. I am farther from vicory and you remain in the same position relative to the victory condition.

Each of the four card types results in the same point SPREAD, yes... 1 point difference, or in a less concrete system, the same amount of improvement/setback relative to the other player. (assuming that it is an optimistic perfectly-balanced system like this simple one.)

The overall effect of the four options is different though. Look at the scores. Consider that your goal is to reach $10 first, and rank the scores in the order of which you'd most like to see:

1. You: 6 The other guy: 5
2. You: 5 The other guy: 4
3. You: 5 The other guy: 6
4. You: 4 The other guy: 5

Personally I would keep the effects in the order that Infernal has ascribed them. Now maybe you would switch 1 or 2 with each other, or 3 and 4 with each other, but no gamer who wants to win would ever pick 3 over 2. They are not the same thing, not by a long shot. 2 results in a leading score for you, while 3 results in a trailing one.

As for the choice "Would I rather get ahead or force the other guy to get behind?" (given the choice....) That all depends on your personal preference, and on the other factors or mechanics in the game that you calculate (or hope) will make one tactic more beneficial to you than the other. As this particular example game has no other mechanics at all, I would always prefer active improvement over passive.

~Josh

Actually, all 4 states are both punishments and rewards, if you choose to look at the situation from the perspective of all players.

Let's not do that. Try it from the perspective of one player only. Let's call that player "Me."

Change the wording to:

1) Active reward for me. (I move towards the goal)
2) Passive reward for me. (My opponent moves away from the goal)
3) Passive punishment for me. (My opponent moves towards the goal)
4) Active punishment for me. (I move away from the goal)

I think this illustrates better Infernal's spectrum and cleans up the semantics of what he meant. (I hope... Infernal do I read you right?)

The spectrum you seem to be suggesting is this:

1) Relative positive change for me. (which encompasses both 1 and 2 from above, though I maintain that both are different.)
2) Relative negative change for me. (which encompasses both 3 and 4 from above, though I maintain that both are different.)
3) No change at all. (which does not encompass 2 and 3 from above as you are suggesting.)

Both are valid spectra for punishment/reward, though

a) I might challenge the existence of an action in a game which truly has an effect of Zero.

and b) Infernal's is simply more detailed.

I am enjoying this dialogue. Please respond... anyone else, opinions?

~Josh

You misunderstand me here. I am not saying that the schema works for a game with a single player in it. I am defining it so that it applies to every player, separately, in a game with any number of players.

Using the sample game again. We are both at $5. I draw a card that earns me $1. The result is that my score has increased, while yours has stayed the same, widening the spread to $1.

If we look at the schema from my perspective, the action is #1 - Active reward for Josh. If we look at it from your perspective, it is #3 - Passive Punishment for Rob. Every action taken in a game must be viewable from every player's perspective, but that doesn't prevent us from isolating one player's perspective and determining where the action stand's on Infernal's punisment/reward spectrum as revised by me.

Of course. Agreed. Wholeheartedly. Like most designers here I think, I tend to invent "equal-forces" games, where all players begin on an even footing, so by designing the game from one player's perspective really results in designing the game from ALL players' perspectives.

Let's say I am designing a 4-player game, a game where all 4 players start with equal assets/limitations etc., and all have the same goal. If I design the game entirely based on Player A's perspective - assigning all of A's possible actions positions on the Infernal Spectrum - I feel confident in assuming that I could plug Player B's name into the design instead and have all the assignations remain coherent and true.... I have merely switched perspectives. If instead I attempted to DESCRIBE A's game from B's perspective, then certainly many or all of the actions taken would have different assignations. That's pretty much perspective defined.

Designing a game in the above way is not designing it to the benefit of one player, and yes, you are right, one must look at the consequences of A's action on B, C, and D to truly weigh the impact of an action in the game and determine where on the Spectrum it lies. (in even a slightly complex game that determination might prove effectively undiscoverable, but I digress....)

However, the point of the Spectrum as I understand it is not to assign a universal quality of Reward/Punishment to any action, but a Subjective quality of same.

Oh, I'm not saying a zero-effect action would be bad or good, I'm doubting the possibility that such an action could exist in a game. There are many possible actions that will not affect the final outcome of a game... there are plenty of obvious examples of those... but an action that creates literally not one iota of relationship change between the players of the game. Any examples of such an action would be welcome for scrutiny here!

Keep it coming...

~Josh

Josh writes-
[I tend to invent "equal-forces" games, where all players begin on an even footing, so by designing the game from one player's perspective really results in designing the game from ALL players' perspective.]

I would be curious to know of any published games which don't do this-- handicaps, et al.

[Let's say I am designing a 4-player game, a game where all 4 players start with equal assets/limitations etc., and all have the same goal. If I design the game entirely based on Player A's perspective - assigning all of A's possible actions positions on the Infernal Spectrum - I feel confident in assuming that I could plug Player B's name into the design instead and have all the assignations remain coherent and true....]

You are in fact describing a proper point of view for devising the rulebook for a game! ('Tis another important thread.)

I would be curious to know of any published games which don't do this-- handicaps, et al.

Axis & Allies pops into my head instantly... both (all) teams have extremely different force quantities, arrangements, territories, and incomes. Many wargames where the starting setup is prescribed, especially those based on historical events, will be unequal in this way.

Personally I don't include RISK in this description. Although the map is wildly assymetrical and favours (debatably) certain starting positions, the players themselves choose their starting deployment. The deployment is part of the gameplay. All players start with the same units of the same strengths and have the same options from the get-go. (until the first player places the first unit to create the initial imbalance of the game, of course.) The definition of an equal-forces game to me is one where all players are on absolutely equal (not BALANCED, but EQUAL) footing up until the moment where the first action is taken. (Equality in player skill is discounted, of course.)

~Josh

You will get your ear talked off if you want a discussion about how balanced Axis & Allies is. The original game design is actually considered "broken", that is, imbalanced, in favour of both the Axis AND the Allies by separate factions of diehard A&A players. The recent 2004 Revised edition of the game does much to rebalance the game more equitably, and I personally think that it is a great improvement over the original.

However, for the purposes of this thread, I am talking about Equal, not Balanced. Exactly that. Each player has the exact same pieces with the exact same dispersion, the exact same goals, the exact same limitations, and the exact same (or symmetrically identical) access to the gameboard, if there is one.

~Josh

I havent been online for a couple of days. I didn't think that 1 post of mine would spark such an informitive dabate. :)

With the Reward punishment schema:
I got that from a child psychology course I did in year 12. I aggree that 2 and 3 seem to be the same, but this is only on the surface.

If you stole a cookie from the cooky jar ("Presence of Reward") and you didn't get caught ("Absence of Punishment").
This is different from:
Your sibling stole a cookie from the jar ("Absence of reward") and got away with it ("Absence of Reward"? :-) ).

This schema is a way to help break down the results of a player's actions.

If you combine them then it does make a big difference (you combine them when more than 1 player is considered).

For example:
In magic I can have a card that says: "Gain 4 life" this is a presence of reward for me, but is it an absence of punishment for the other player. If however I had a card that says: "Deal X damage to target player and gain X life" then this is a reward for me and a punishment for the other player.

With the needs and wants I have seen it as a player "Wants" to win, and to do so "Needs" to perform certain actions. This is only within the context of the game however.

The other "Needs" I was talking about probably should have been "Drives" or "Desires" rather than "Needs" as it was in the context of the psychology of why someone plays a particular game.

The resons that people play games can be very varied, but a big factor is that we are social animals and the environment of games and play allow us to "test" the social waters in a safe environment, we can do and say things that would be otherwise unacceptable (like trying to conquer the world or betrying a close friend) and only have a consiquence that exists only in the game environment. So we can let loose our antisocial side in a social environment. So games that apeal to these drives will be more attractive (but not nessasarily fun - that is a different kettle of fish) to players.

Two of the strongest of these drives tend to be "Aquisition" or Greed and "Dominance" or Territoriality. Thus games that appeal to these (or both) will be more appealing.

Take trivial persuit. This is considered a fairly social game, but it has these aspects to it. Dominance: The aim of the game it to show that you are smarter/more knowledgeble than your opponents by answering the questions corectly. Aquisition: You must answer questions from different categories and you gain a token (pie slice) for each category.

There are other drives that games use but from all the game sthat I have seen (both board games and computer games) these two drives are the most prevalent.

Keep it comeing this is a very interesting thread...