Formal Abstract Design Tools - notes and thoughts on a quote

computer game > design, art, audio, levels, code work together to create player experience

technology is evolving fast - issues we don't know about will be solved in 10 years

design is the game - without it there's just data

design evolution lags behind other technological advances ****why****

no shared language of games design

we need to be able to look at, remember, and benefit from our games - mistakes, lessons, etc.

"just fun" or "not much fun" isn't enough

FORMAL ABSTRACT DESIGN TOOLS
Formal - implying precise definition, ability to explain to someone else
Abstract  - emphasize the focus on underlying ideas not specific genre constructs
Design - we're the designers
Tools - form the common vocabulary we want to create

cool stuff is not FADT. it violates the need for a formality. it is a vague word defined differently by lots of other people. "+2 giant slaying sword" in rpg is not abstract, it's one game's element. the sword itself is based on a mechanic of a game, which is a good example of a  FADT.

analogy - you don't build a house out of tools; you build it with tools - game isn't just about "player power-up curves"

design vocabulary is a tool kit to pick apart games. once design is thought out, you can investigate whether a given tool is used by the game already.

sometimes tools don't work well together, sometimes they'll conflict. the designer wields the tools to make what you want, don't let them run the show

Mario 64 blends apparent open-ended exploration with continual, clear direction along most paths.

major design decision was to have multiple goals in each world. first time a player arrives in a world, they mostly explore the paths and direction available. first star in a world is set up to encourage players to see most of the area.

simple consistent controls and worlds, predictable physics, allow players to make good guesses about what will happen if they try something.

monsters and environments increase in complexity but always build on previous already existing interaction principles.

Mario 64 makes situations discernible

players know what to expect from the world and are made to feel in control of the situation. goals and control are created at multiple scales, from quick low-level "get over the bridge in front of you" to long-term high-level such as "get all the red coins in the world".

intention is the first FADT. accumulating goals, understanding the world, making a plan and then acting on it is a powerful method of getting a player invested and involved.

perceivable consequence is an important tool - players knowing why something went wrong. actions result in direct, visible feedback.

RPGs have mixed consequence. example of direct = because of X, Y has happened. pure form of perceived consequence. example of less direct consequence = player decides to stay at inn, next morning he's ambushed. designers possibly built in this code to the game, but it's not perceivable to the player. to the player it appears random.

"games are not books, games are not movies. In those media, the tools used......are used to manipulate the viewers or readers, to make them feel or react exactly the way the director or author wants them to.  I believe the challenge of computer games design is that our most important tools are the ones that empower players to make their own decisions"

intention, perceived consequence, and story.

A very correct statement. The most obvious tool that we can put in the player's hands is the ability for them to make their own decisions, or at least feel like they are. It's something he refers back to a lot in regards to Mario. Although it's a game with a very obvious objective the player is given control as to how they approach the objective and which path they take to get there.

The fact that he refers back to Mario 64 so often speaks wonders for the game itself. It has managed to use the three important tools - intention, perceived consequence, and story - all at once and as he mentioned in the article that's a tough task for any games designer. SquareSoft are another designer that manages to combine these elements in their Final Fantasy games, by using intention and consequence during the combat system, and story and consequence in the actual unfolding of the story.

Thinking of how they can be used is hard. I feel like every game has to contain elements of each of these or it won't feel like a game. For example, as Church says, even fighting games have a story, although it is the player's story rather than a story as we know it.

For it to feel like a game to me, I think that each of these tools has to be in the game in at least some way, whether it being an RPG with a set story that unfolds, or a sport game where the player or the game of football is a story. For a game to be good, players need to understand why things are happening. As discussed in my last post about paidea and ludus, games do combine all these elements. Games can still be games without pieces of all elements, although it's rare to find something that doesn't use a bit of everything.

I have no words and I must design - my notes and my thoughts on a quote.

Here are my notes after reading Greg Costikyan's "I have no words & I must design". After all my notes are my thoughts on the quote "An interactive structure of endogenous meaning that requires players to struggle toward a goal."

A game is an interactive structure of endogenous meaning that requires players to struggle towards goals

gameplay - possibly overused, what even is it? > bad term = good gameplay (expand upon it)

"game" is a very broad term - described as "plastic medium" by Costikyan

refers to Chris Crawford's "The art of Computer Game Design" - contrasts games with puzzles. puzzles = static, present player with logic structure to solve. games change with player's actions.

almost every game has a degree of puzzle-solving, although not as literal.

puzzle = static. game = interactive. interactive doesn't just mean computer video game. interacting with cards or pieces on a board game.

interactive game is redundant - interactive.

can interact with a light. for interaction to = game, must have a purpose or force decisions.

most games have goals. as players allow the objective to guide our behaviour in the game. some games do not have explicit goals. e.g. SimCity (Will Wright a designer) - sandbox game - no victory conditions.

SimEarth, also designed by Wright, complete contrast to SimCity. limited play - game ends once intelligent life has evolved. game crashed on the market in comparison to SimCity.

Wright describes SimCity as a software toy. compares to a ball. it offers many behaviours - bounce it, twirl it, throw it, dribble it. usable in game of football, basketball, etc. the game isn't the toy, the game is what the player makes it.

In a way, SimCity isn't a game. it is like a toy that lets the player play what/how they want to.

Character improvement is fundamental to both RPGs (roleplaying game) and MUDs (Multi User Dungeon).

Although there is no goal within these types of games, as a player/group we set out to find a goal ourselves, or have the gamesmaster create a goal for the players.

games are goal-directed interaction - although goals alone are not enough

competition creates struggle. the opposition is the struggle. best way to create struggle is head-to-head versus a determined human opponent, e.g. in a game like chess. 

competition isn't the only way to create struggle. protagonist has goal: faces obstacle a, b, c, and d. struggles at each turn, growing after each obstacle. completing obstacles gives satisfaction. obstacles don't have to be enemies.

dungeons and dragons you cooperate with other players in your group. mutually supporting each others goals. opponent isn't in the form of other players. struggle in D&D is monsters, NPCS, and the world itself set out by the dungeon master.

Grim Fandango - graphic adventure - essentially animated stories held apart by puzzles. The game isn't entirely linear. Solving a puzzle transit to next space in game, encountering new puzzles. Why not get rid of puzzles and turn it into a story game? Because you lose the struggle - it's no longer a game.

Struggle is a tough concept - if there's too much, a player will find it frustrating. If it's too easy, it will be dull. Where feasible, allow adjustment of struggle.

A game without struggle is a dead game.

Games are to kill time. If a game is over quickly, it isn't much fun.

Game requires players to struggle interactively toward a goal.

"Games are structures of of desire" Eric Zimmerman. Games have goals, players mutually agree to behave as if goal is important to them when they play.

Not much distinction between childhood "let's pretend" and a commercial paper RPG. Main difference being that children playgames have minimal structure. However structure is invented as and when it's needed, e.g. having to tag someone to attack them.

"Let's pretend" has minimal structure, can become confusing. Confusing structure is deadly to a game.

Small change in structure breeds a big change in player behaviour

A good game provides considerable freedom for the player to experiment with alternate strategies and approaches.

Ultima Online allows players to engage in player-killing. Garriott didn't want players to kill each other, he allows his games to have a moral subtext and allow players to take certain moral paths.

A good game will not dictate an outcome, but guide behaviour through the need to achieve a single goal.

A game's structure creates its own meanings. Meaning grows out of structure, caused by structure, endogenous to the structure.

Monopoly money is useless outside of the game itself. Has meaning endogenous to the game of Monopoly. It is vitally important to its players.

Is stock market a game? It's interactive, has structure, has a struggle, has a goal - but isn't endogenous. Shares in companies would still have meaning if the stock market evaporated.

An interactive structure of endogenous meaning that requires players to struggle toward a goal.

Entertainment is a side effect of many things, but not always the purpose. The purpose of games is to entertain.

Creating a compelling game - provide goal, create endogenous meanings, establish a structure, make sure you make the player struggle.

Categories of pleasure: sensation, fantasy, narrative, challenge, fellowship, discovery, expression, masochism.

Sensation
Good visuals, tactile pleasure, muscle pleasure (e.g. dance dance revolution)

Fantasy
It's important to be able to lose yourself in a game. Losing yourself is fun.

Narrative
Not all games will be improved by adding narrative, but games should support a sense of drama. Good narrative = sense of rising tension, leading to a climax. Games, too, though with a sense of accomplishment after the climax.

Challenge
Equivalent to struggle mentioned earlier. Heart of any game. A game has a struggle.

Fellowship
= Community in online gaming. Creates points of contact with other people and reason to feel friendly towards them.

Discovery
Exploring a brand new world, revealing new information. Exciting appeals of many games.

Expression
RPGs, MUDs, MMORPGs are best to self-express. Choice of name, personality, appearance, attributes, etc.

Masochism
Pleasure to be gained from submitting yourself to structure of a game. We don't care about whether or not we get monopoly money, but when we play, we agree to act like we do. An important transition to make when playing a game, especially to have fun.

WHAT MAKES IT A GAME?
This entire section is worth reading again and again.

Games unlike other artform - not passively received - means you aren't spoon fed the entertainment. you work for it.

An interactive structure of endogenous meaning that requires players to struggle toward a goal.
I completely agree with this quote. I've never really looked at games in such a broken down manner and this quote really hits the nail on the head, for me. 

"An interactive structure"
Games are structured environments in which we interact with either other players, pieces on the board, cards, characters in the game.

"Endogenous meaning"
It's really interesting to think that a game can be described as having no meaning outside of itself. I don't think that's the case, at least not all the time. It's very easy for people to become attached to their in-game characters. For example, some people play a lot of Dungeons & Dragons, weekly, for hours at a time, and it's very easy for those people to practically live the character. Although, again, it kind of is endogenous because albeit they might play the game a lot, once they stop playing the game they return to their normal life. I don't know where I sit on this but it's hard to disagree with him.

"requires players to struggle towards a goal"
The most important part of a game. Almost every game will have a goal, although not always predetermined by the game itself. In RPGs it's often the case that the goal is set both by the dungeon masters and by the players themselves, and it's that which I find interesting - we create our own goals when playing if we aren't set any. The goals ("rules") are required to have fun.

All in all I really like this quote from Costikyan. It breaks down what a game really means almost perfectly.

A look at "Videogames" by James Newman.

During our lecture last week we looked at an extract from Newman's Videogames. It touched on the different aspects of videogames and how they can be categorised, whilst looking at ideas that Caillois had.

He defines paidea as the playing of games without structure or rules, in freeform. Spontaneous play. Ludus is described as the play of games with set rules and a clear outcome, e.g. winning.

Caillois makes an interesting point regarding his paidea and ludus theory, although I think in almost all cases there are rules to a game. Generally, the point of a game is do as the game has either told you to do or allowed you to do, therefore creating a set of rules so to speak. For example, although dungeons and dragons can be categorised under paidea, it also comes under ludus as the dungeon master will create the environment for which these players play in, and the outcome/events within this environment are more often than not determined by the roll of a dice. Although it's a game played for pleasure there are rules and story set both before the game and during, with possibilities of an endgame, e.g. everyone dying or disbanding from adventure.

Dungeons and Dragons actually combines elements of both paidea and ludus really well. The ludus elements are taking turns, creating characters on set character sheets, playing in a world set by the dungeon master. The paidea elements are being able to use your imagination to create exactly the character you want, allow the story to take any turn you want, acting however you want in a situation. Each game/story of D&D is unique with different players.

Another example of a game coming under both categories would be World of Warcraft. Players don't have to follow the story line, quest line, or even participate in any kind of dungeon or battleground event. They can play it purely for exploration, however that exploration would eventually come to an end, as the player would have explored everything and gained an achievement. However, players can (and more often than not do) follow the questing line of WoW set out by Blizzard and eventually reach the end goal of question: reaching the maximum level. 

Newman notes that SimCity is an example of a paidia videogame, and this is possibly the one game that I can't argue about. There is no end-game within it. You don't finish once you've built your city, you have to maintain it. Not all sandbox games are paidea, though. For example, Minecraft comes under both. You can choose to kill the end-game boss, thus "completing" the game, or just build whatever you want. 

Newman discusses the four terms Caillois adapted from Huizinga, agon (competition), alea (chance/randomness), ilinx (movement), and mimicry(simulation, make-believe, role-play). I want to touch on World of Warcraft again here, because I think it covers all aspects really well. There are competitive elements to it, where you're competing against other groups to beat bosses the fastest (at least at the highest level of competition you are) or competing in a player vs player arena. Alea is obviously in WoW due to things such as rolling for items, crit chance/dodge chance etc. Movement due to you being able to ride mounts (both flying or ground), travel from continent to continent, and obviously run/swim wherever. Without a doubt there is mimicry in WoW. You are playing as a character and there are even dedicated servers where players can role-play as their character and pretend to live as them. 

To look away from videogames for a second and to use those four terms to break things down, we can see that other games are more exact with what they are broken down to. For example, Chess is a purely agonistic game. It is a competition between yourself and the other player to take out the king. An example of an alea game would be almost anything from a casino. Roulette, blackjack, and slots machines, for example. They are all by chance. Children playing ring-a-roses or something similar falls under ilinx, due to spinning around until falling down. Again, children playing any kind of imaginary game would fall under mimicry. 

League of Legends, a game I play an ungodly amount of, falls under only two of the four. It has elements of both agon and alea. The competition being obviously you are competing against the other team to destroy their "base" first, and the alea being there are stats such as critical chance in LoL, too. 

I much prefer these terms to dissect which of them a videogame might fall under rather than looking at paidea or ludus videogames, as I feel like paidea and ludus are too simple and don't break it down enough. However categorising a game into being competitive, being chance-based, or even including all of them is much easier. 

"Interview"

Hi, welcome to my blog. I'm going to hopefully be blogging each week about my experiences and opinions on games design in general and what I do/learn each week.

During one of my lectures we were to interview a partner. The interviewee was to read from a set of questions that were as follows:

1. What is the title of the book (fiction) you are currently reading (or the last fiction book you read)
2. What is the title/topic of the book (non-fiction) you are currently reading (or the last non-fiction book you read)
3. What is the last live performance (music, drama, or dance) you attended?
4. What is the title of the last film you saw at the cinema, online or on DVD?
5. How often do you read a newspaper?
6. Which art gallery/museum/exhibition did you last visit?
7. How many hours a week do you spend playing video games?
8. How many hours a week do you spend playing games other than video games?

My answers to each of those were:

1. I think it was the first Game of Thrones book, not too sure.
2. A book called Dad's Life based on the struggles of a single father. Pretty funny.
3. I attended a Tinie Tempah concert with a girlfriend at the time. Only went because she liked it. I can't say I enjoyed it.
4. The last film I saw was Pitch Perfect with a friend and we both loved it. I'm more into chick flicks/rom coms than I'd like to admit.
5. I don't read newspapers. If there's something I want to know about I'll generally do some research online.
6. The last exhibition I attended was the Plymouth Life exhibition held near the University.
7. I spend around 30/35hours a week playing games. I dreaded finding this answer out.
8. Don't really play anything else.