Tag Archives: Game theory

The Power of Pivoting

18 Sunday Aug 2024

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Writeup from making Delve

So, I’m working on a quick jam game and today I found myself absolutely bogged down trying to make a cooking minigame. I couldn’t develop the code well and the design was clunky and then I had this thought: what if I pivot into the clunky design to enhance the narrative? My game is, overall, about the story (point and click Twine game).So instead of trying to chug through and build a slick UI-based design for the minigame with timers and all that, I’ve focused on the narrative of being a line cook and the stress of incoming orders…I just decided to let the play experience be overwhelmed. The code became much more simple and the player instead deals with an increasingly impossible task of fulfilling those orders and gets narrative breakpoints every now and then based on their order backlog to enhance the frustration of being unable to complete the mechanic.

Basically the player has to pick a dish to cook based on a cooking surface (baked foods used the oven, fried food uses the fryer) and each food takes x amount of time to cook. I decided to just give the player a new food order every round, with cooking time set to multiple rounds, and when the orders reach a certain number they get a cutscene about how frustrating and unfair it is – my game is about the stress of jobs and working, so this ties back well to our core subtext.Now the player advances to the next round through being overloaded, which puts the emphasis on stress and frustration. The overall game experience, through a flawed minigame they can’t win, conveys the emotions I want for this chapter, and I’m able to make a quicker bit of code.

Where have you pivoted design in similar ways to work with code or enhance narrative?

What is Fun? – Part 1: Player Types and Game Design

04 Sunday Oct 2015

Posted by in Game Design, Game dev

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One of the things I do at one of my jobs is analyze how users experience the game, and if it’s “fun” – this is an incredibly complex topic, which I will attempt to tackle in a series of posts, addressing the various ways games are “fun” to users.

This first post will look at the underlying player perspectives which drive what people view as “fun.”

Fun for Who?

At first blush, “fun” may seem self-evident and obvious to a gamer or a new designer. Stuff is fun or it isn’t! It just IS FUN! That view, however, is not useful when you are dealing with design or analytics – you want quantifiable data and clear design strategies – and it tends towards the myopic. People tend to gravitate towards what they find fun, and that will help define their own view of what fun is. If I can impress one thing upon you, readers, let it be this – there are MANY types of game players who find a HUGE range of things fun. Far too many new designers (or armchair analysts) cater to their own view of what’s fun, instead of realizing the vast range of interests among potential players.

Realizing, recognizing and designing for that range is what makes a truly stellar game.

Now, by range, I do not mean “Shooters vs Facebook Games” or “Sci-fi vs Fantasy.” Interest types come in many flavors, and genre is only one of the ways you can tap into someone’s concept of “fun” – obviously, I am not suggesting that designers change their genre or core concept or theme. Instead, I am stressing the importance of recognizing that people play games for a variety of reasons, in a variety of ways, and find a variety of things enjoyable.

Bartle Types

One of the core ludology studies from the early days of online gaming is the Bartle Test. The concept is basically the gaming world’s version of the Myers-Briggs personality test – basically, each person plays games a different way, with many players falling into specific categories. Many quizzes and tests have sprung up around this concept, letting gamers quickly assess their “type” – results range from a Killer to an Explorer to an Achiever. In recent game development, the MMO Wildstar based their character classes off this concept.

The concept itself is somewhat archaic (it’s from 1996, which is forever in the game industry timeline), and a bit rigid (if I spent a day training people and sitting in meetings at work, I may be far less inclined to be my usual Socializer persona, and might just want to mindlessly play a Killer all night)…but it’s a solid idea to consider when designing games and considering the people who will play them. Audience is, afterall, a huge thing to consider during development.

In my personal opinion, a good game hits more than one player type – and a great game appeals to all of them. A solid designer should, at the very least, acknowledge the different types, and consider if his or her game can include elements which will appeal to that gaming style. In future posts, I will dive into the individual types, for more concrete examples…