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telling the audience WHY the game is as it is...

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Sun, 08/14/2005 - 13:06
Nazhuret
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Joined: 12/31/1969

i've had this thought in my head for a while.

reading through the games journal and other excellent sites (of course, including this one!) and books on game design and the theories behind them... i've been thinking....

having purchased / played so many games and found many of them lacking in some fundamental "thing"... or something in them is just not making sense to me why the designers would have chosen to make a certain mechanic "just so" and not some other way....
seeing so many "house rules" that often change the game into somthing completely different than the original....

etc, etc....

i'm now thinking that with any game i make from this point on (and even going back and revising past games) i will include an article etc explaining what i was thinking when i made the rules as they are.

perhaps going so far as to give a little history book of the playtesting and relevant quotes from certain articles i've read that made me do what i did.

not a huge thing mind you... maybe a page or two of the rules. maybe just an insert so if you're not interested then you can throw it away and not worse for it...

but so many times i find myself asking the ether..."why did they do it this way? what were they trying to do with this? what is the point of this? am i missing something?" etc...

there are so many good writers about games out there and i know it influences us all to make the games we do. why not share this with our audience? why not let them know what's what with our games and on a larger scope... games in general?

games are very much like any art form... film, lit, 2d, sculpture.....

they do not exist in a vaccuum. they draw from those that came before.

i feel that letting the audience in on at least a small part of this would let them appreciate our individual creations at least a little bit, and hopefully a lot, more.

and maybe, just maybe, spark something in their heads that could create another passionate designer...

just like you and me.

what do you think?

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Sun, 08/14/2005 - 13:17
#1
Hamumu
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Joined: 12/31/1969
telling the audience WHY the game is as it is...

I would definitely find that an interesting addition. You find something like that in many Cheapass games. That's something I like in any medium - DVD extras, liner notes on CDs, Author's Notes in books. It's there if you want to learn more, or you can ignore it if that's not you're thing. The only concern is the cost of printing the extra pages!

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Sun, 08/14/2005 - 13:45
#2
Nazhuret
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Joined: 12/31/1969
cost of printing

yeah, that was a thought.

i guess the thing is for me i only home print and distribute to friends or friends of friends.

i'm not in it for big time publishing. i'm in it because it's a compulsion. and the people i play with seem to genuinely enjoy what i produce. hell, if they didn't they would sure enough tell me!

i see sub-micro publishers like myself liking this idea....and large publishers as well...

it's that shaky middle ground that i think a lot of those here on BGDF might have a problem with it simply on the issue of cost.

but i sincerely believe that if they allowed for such a thing it might be enough push to a next level.

i don't know though.. like i said... i'm a sub-micro...

i'll tell you though.. if i saw a game by one of those mid-levels that stated on the box-back something to the tune of "why we did what we did article --special feature" i darn near might pick it up just for that.

but that's just me....

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Sun, 08/14/2005 - 13:46
#3
Nazhuret
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Joined: 12/31/1969
cheapass

ps: i must admit i've yet to pick up a single cheapass.

i was not aware they did this already. how similar is it to what i've described?

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Sun, 08/14/2005 - 15:07
#4
Hamumu
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Joined: 12/31/1969
telling the audience WHY the game is as it is...

Well, in Kill Doctor Lucky, which I happen to have handy, it's a special case. See, this is the "Director's Cut" of the game! It says so. In the rules, each page is cut in half - on the left side are the rules, and the right side is the "Commentary Track". It's very long. It talks about where he got the idea, a little bit on what he went through designing it, some tidbits on Cheapass itself, some changes the rules have gone through, some little laments and caveats ("I should have tried harder to explain to new players how to avoid being skipped. Stay out of the hallways, kids!"), a mention of why you might want to play one of the variants that are included in the rules, talk of the sequel game and how it addresses some of the shortcomings, more talk about the sequel and how it's not as popular as the original, a little bit about legal issues on the board, and at the very end, a few strategy hints.

All in all, definitely a director's cut! On the other hand, Unexploded Cow (which incidentally has the WORST rule book I have ever read - I still have no idea what the real rules are) just has a little bit on strategy at the end. Looking at the other Cheapass games I have, they have nothing of the sort, but they are also all Hip Pocket games. So maybe it's just the Director's Cut of Dr. Lucky that is so lucky!

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Sun, 08/14/2005 - 16:02
#5
FastLearner
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Joined: 12/31/1969
telling the audience WHY the game is as it is...

My thought is that such information might better be put on your website, for those interested, with a note in the rules along the lines of, "Curious about the design of this game? Check out www.MyGameCo.com/Boogers," or such. That wouldn't cost a penny.

DVDs are a somewhat special case, where the audience may well have already seen the movie, so they're trying to get you to watch it again (and buy it) by adding something.

Author's notes are easy, too: having typeset a bunch of novels over the years, you (a) are working with page signatures, often 16-64 pages -- that means if your total number of pages isn't divisible by that siguature size than you've got blank space at the end, and there's no harm putting in the notes. Alternately, you can squeeze the text a tiny bit (say to 99.97% of it's normal width) and suddenly find yourself with 3 full blank pages to work with, again with room for the notes.

With a game, though, if there are pages left, the rulebook needs to be reformatted so you don't have to pay for those pages, if possible. Or perhaps another illustration or example will help clarify things. Info about the design is, imo, of interest to maybe 1% of the population, and those folks will probably happily hop to a web site.

I do quite like the idea of designers explaining their thoughts, and would love to see it on all kinds of games.

-- Matthew

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Sun, 08/14/2005 - 17:06
#6
larienna
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telling the audience WHY the game is as it is...

I also thought of doing something like this. In the downloadable game I am working on, there will be a document called "The making of the game" ( I am not sure if I should put the document in the demo version). It will contain :

- The background history, inspiration that lead to the creation of the game.
- The technical procedure, software used,
- Historical event in the development of the game, problems help
- Some choice made during the game design ( the before and after ) or if you prefer the evolution of the game during the design.

Of course, the players might have some question like "Why have you done this" since you cannot plan all the possibilities. It would be better to have a website where we could see the user's questions and you replys.

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Sun, 08/14/2005 - 17:32
#7
Verseboy
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Joined: 12/31/1969
telling the audience WHY the game is as it is...

I'm always a sucker for insights into the creative process. What was the creator thinking when he did this?

John Lennon did an interview with Playboy or Rolling Stone before he died where the interviewer just started grabbing Beatles records and John would tell the story behind how it came to be. It was fascinating.

With films and books and records, people don't usually edit them, which is what a house rule in a game is. Before making that edit, it would be interesting to know why designer made the choice he did. As Matthew said, it's probably best suited for a web site, where there's no extra cost incurred.

Steve

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Sun, 08/14/2005 - 20:49
#8
jwalduck
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Joined: 09/06/2011
telling the audience WHY the game is as it is...

Fantasy Flight Games already do this with the Designer Notes on their website. Here are the design notes for Twilight Imperium 3.

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Mon, 08/15/2005 - 11:47
#9
soulbeach
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Joined: 12/31/1969
telling the audience WHY the game is as it is...

I agree with the website bit: simpler, cost effective, great for the ones who love to delve into other people's worlds. And yes, people can ask questions and get answers from the designer. A good exemple of this:

http://www.faidutti.com/index.php

Bruno, from the above site, answers questions quickly and simply. Soul sharing and soul searching is part of the human experience, the web is the best tool for that rigth now.

my 2 cents

Ben

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Thu, 08/18/2005 - 19:37
#10
Anonymous
telling the audience WHY the game is as it is...

Mark rosewater, of Magic the gathering also has some very excelent articles called "making magic" about how the process of design is done, and in fact is sort of influencing how I look at designing this next project I'm working on.

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