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Game design is simple

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Re: Game design is simple

#141

Post by okayjustonemore »

cubefox wrote: post #47
Johanx64 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the AAA games will be inherently fucking stupid almost by design. And this is unavoidable - massive hundreds of millions if not billions in budget -> even if you alientate the bottom 10%, you lose 10% of sales. Bottom 20%, 20% of sales. Not gonna happen. So you have Legend of Zelda games where pretty much all puzzles are so simple you can instantly tell what the solution is the very moment you see them, ie. downr…

Or God of War. The puzzles almost solve themselves. Interestingly, Elden Ring (2022) is AAA but very difficult, though not because of the puzzles. Perhaps puzzles test more for IQ (which can't be changed) than for gaming skill.

[dead]

Re: Game design is simple

#142

Post by random9749832 »

teamonkey wrote: post #109
random9749832 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Gaming has always been about exploiting human psychology. If you think about it from this perspective than it certainly makes sense to add elements of randomness with intermittent reinforcement (e.g. slot machine) to any game or quick rewards and exponential progression (e.g. Cookie Clicker). Meanwhile you have games like Shenzhen.io which have a PDF that you need to go through to solve programming puzzles and no hi…

> What part of human psychology is being exploited here outside of progression from solving the puzzle which you would naturally always have? This and the other scenarios you mention are deliberately created to make the player have fun. They are all engineered to manipulate the player’s emotions, the intention is to trigger dopamine and other neurological reactions. As I said, that doesn’t have to be a bad thing! You…

The difference I am highlighting isn't that it is wrong to think about how to make your game "fun" but the perspective you are thinking about it from. You can try to treat creating fun using a scientific or neurological framework or you can think about it from a more artistic standpoint. When Shenmue chose to make you start doing forklifting (and while I can't prove it) I am sure this was more of a artistic decision and they weren't thinking about it in terms of extrinsic or intrinsic rewards. At least to me it is obvious when something is designed more by an artist and less by someone trying exploit human psychology.

That isn't to say there isn't any logic to the design of great games but also something much more intuitive to their design decisions that doesn't follow known principals or science.

Re: Game design is simple

#143

Post by zehaeva »

Razengan wrote: post #125
krapp wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Game development and game design are completely separate domains. Game development can be generalized to algorithms and languages targeted to specific processors and architectures because it's a subset of programming and computer science. You can't have a DSL for design because the domain is the human mind. The design of a game like Undertale has absolutely nothing to do with the language used to develop it. Unless y…

I mean coding gameplay logic. The game engine can remain in C/++ or whatever. Gameplay and game mechanics are fairly different from making other types of programs. Things like stats, buffs/debuffs, conditions, and their dependencies on each other. It's all sort of a vague middle ground between typed vs untyped, static vs dynamic, inheritance vs composition, sequential vs asynchronous, and other oddities that make it…

Isn't this basically what Jonathan Blow is trying to do with his "new" programming language, Jai?

Re: Game design is simple

#144

Post by random9749832 »

I can program and play chess to a proficient level but I also know I can't design a good game whatsoever because the mindset required to design a truly good game seems to me to be something beyond logic and reasoning. Same thing with any other art. I don't think any framework could ever truly explain it.

Re: Game design is simple

#145

Post by devin »

zwaps wrote: post #15

This reads like the handbook for people making grind-based games. Sure enough, the author exclusively works in the mmorpg space. If you are a game designer, please take this with a grain of salt. Fun does not equal repeated challenges. And let me also reject the implicit notion that stories are entertainment but not, academically speaking, fun.

Raph has written about avoiding grinding in games very explicitly. This was one of the big takeaways from Ultima Online.

Re: Game design is simple

#146

Post by deaddodo »

meheleventyone wrote: post #122
sph wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've come across this kind of comment elsewhere, and the recommendation was that "the book" is Designing Games by Tynan Sylvester (the author of Rimworld) https://tynansylvester.com/book/ Haven't read it yet myself.

I'd say there's no such thing as 'the book' for game design and which you will jive with largely depends on your preferences and values around games.

Also your style. Game design is influenced by the mind of the designer. Some take a systematic, methodical approach to it. While others treat it like a painting, designing as they go from a core of an idea. And others go full ad hoc, with multiple prototypical designs until they find something that hits.

This is oversimplifying, most designers fall into a bucket of mixed styles; but the point is, no "book" will be perfect for all. Same as with software engineering, graphic design, etc.

Re: Game design is simple

#147

Post by Razengan »

zehaeva wrote: post #143
Razengan wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean coding gameplay logic. The game engine can remain in C/++ or whatever. Gameplay and game mechanics are fairly different from making other types of programs. Things like stats, buffs/debuffs, conditions, and their dependencies on each other. It's all sort of a vague middle ground between typed vs untyped, static vs dynamic, inheritance vs composition, sequential vs asynchronous, and other oddities that make it…

Isn't this basically what Jonathan Blow is trying to do with his "new" programming language, Jai?

Isn't Jai still mostly a C-like, with manual memory management and other archaic rituals?

See, SQL for example don't care about the hardware or the internals of the database it runs on, why couldn't we have something like that for gameplay?

Re: Game design is simple

#148

Post by Luc »

Razengan wrote: post #125
krapp wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Game development and game design are completely separate domains. Game development can be generalized to algorithms and languages targeted to specific processors and architectures because it's a subset of programming and computer science. You can't have a DSL for design because the domain is the human mind. The design of a game like Undertale has absolutely nothing to do with the language used to develop it. Unless y…

I mean coding gameplay logic. The game engine can remain in C/++ or whatever. Gameplay and game mechanics are fairly different from making other types of programs. Things like stats, buffs/debuffs, conditions, and their dependencies on each other. It's all sort of a vague middle ground between typed vs untyped, static vs dynamic, inheritance vs composition, sequential vs asynchronous, and other oddities that make it…

Are you aware of https://machinations.io/ ?

Re: Game design is simple

#149

Post by [deleted] »

zwaps wrote: post #15

This reads like the handbook for people making grind-based games. Sure enough, the author exclusively works in the mmorpg space. If you are a game designer, please take this with a grain of salt. Fun does not equal repeated challenges. And let me also reject the implicit notion that stories are entertainment but not, academically speaking, fun.

[deleted]
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