Game Design’s Bookshelf

1-9-2012 Posted by: RobotAdventure
I have gotten away with a lot in my childhood. No matter what hour my parents found me playing video games, the line “I’m doing research!” seemed to, at least, soften the blow, even before my parents believed you could make a living making video games. Though playing video games as research may seem absurd at times, especially for a child, there is a large amount of truth to the statement.

As designers, our job isn’t always cut-and-dry as the other roles in game development, especially acquiring and improving necessary skills. Want to learn art? Start with drawing. Want to learn programming? Buy a book on the basics of C++. Want to be a game designer? Well, take these 40 unrelated classes ranging from graphic design to architecture and kind of figure it out somewhere in there. But, in truth, a good designer has always been doing their research. When you are learning art, you look at countless paintings from every artist and discuss their techniques. Games are the same way.

Whenever you play a game, you have an opportunity to become a better designer. Every fork in the road, every store menu, and every boss fight is a learning opportunity. Take the time to break down what you are doing, and more importantly why. If there is a fork in the road, ask yourself why you chose the path that you did. If you are frustrated whenever you buy something, figure out the reason. If you figure out the trick to a boss fight, reflect on the rest of the level and how it fits into your progression leading up to that point. Here are some starting points if the process seems vague and silly at times.

1. Identify Your Game Mechanics
Break the game mechanics down in a tiered manner and start from the top. Take God of War 3 as an example. The main mechanic was combat with exploration/puzzle solving as a small second. Within combat, there were 3 types of moves: basic combat (combos), situation and utility (items), and limitied resources (magic). For combos (ignoring the different weapons for now), you had two different categories: direction (vertical or horizontal) and strength (light and heavy). For direction, vertical is advantageous when… etc. You could go on for a while.

2. The Framed Shot
Take a look at the level design. Everytime you have a moment of awe within a game when exploring the environment, find out what build up to that moment. If you round a corner and you see a large impressive tower in the distance, a couple of things probably happened to subconsciously build up this moment that a designer spent a lot of time crafting. Is there a sudden reveal to the view of the object such as turning a corner or exiting a building? Does the immediate terrain frame your view of the object, drawing attention to it? Look at the lighting, is it dark on the path leading up to the reveal? Is it lighter during the reveal or is the object in the distance well lit?

3. Difficulty Shift
When a game’s difficulty seems to drastically change in a direction, there’s normally a reason why. Don’t get angry at the developers because having a good difficulty progression can be challenging. Instead, figure out where they went wrong. When did the game shift away from perfectly challenging to too easy or too hard? At what point did you master the last game mechanic? How does the last game mechanic effect the current one? Does the core game mechanic not have enough depth for this long of a game? What else could be done with the game mechanic?

Before I go, I have one more side note, well two. Playing video games isn’t the only other form of research. There’s also this thing people used to do called reading. There are many, many good books on game design that all designers should check out, especially budding designers. Take the time to read some game design books and be able to discuss them. Even after you read them, they are excellent references to keep around, so look into purchasing over renting if you can (Amazon usually has the books at discount prices). I’ll leave you with two of my favorites. Perhaps I’ll have another blog post about reading material down the road. I also didn’t hit on learning from other mediums such as movies or traditional art, that is also worth of its own blog post.

Level Up!: The Guide to Great Video Game Design by Scott Rodgers
Amazon

The Art of Game Design: A book of lenses by Jesse Schell
Amazon


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