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Game design is simple

raphkoster.com

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Re: Game design is simple

#161

Post by codebje »

ehnto wrote: post #63
codebje wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The skill tree system was so nice compared to the rigid class systems of other MMORPGs, too. The fact that player towns just emerged was really cool. It was such a shame the space expansion was so ... flat. Neither space nor ground had a storyline to follow, but space wasn't an open world, and had no real element of choice in skill paths.

I enjoyed the new aspect ships brought to crafting, and there's something special about walking around your own ship while it's in transit. But otherwise totally agree, it was kind of just space combat arenas and not much more.

I had a collector's edition 3-man transport ship, but IIRC the novelty of standing on the ship while in transit wore off before the beta ended. Cool, but too shallow on its own.

I can't figure out if the open world game was fun enough just on its own that an open space game would've been chef's kiss, or if it did need some kind of story telling too. It's too long ago to remember well enough, for me.

Re: Game design is simple

#162

Post by EdwardDiego »

Lichtso wrote: post #102
EdwardDiego wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And let me also reject the implicit notion that stories are entertainment but not, academically speaking, fun. Stories are obviously fun, otherwise no-one would read books, but a story that you interact with meaningfully, that you can change significantly, really hard to do well. Like every game where you can do good thing or bad thing, and the game punishes you for doing bad thing. It's really hard to write a comp…

> I honestly cant't think of any good examples where game mechanics and stories interacted in a way that gave you significant agency while still being fun. I'd love to be given contra-examples though. Rimworld and The Sims. Both are procedural story writers. > I felt railroaded into comically absurd black/white choices I agree: All these AAA titles essentially are movies where you get tons of "agency" in choices whic…

Dwarf Fortress (like the classic Boatmurder) also. The Paradox games, especially Crusader Kings led to some great story writing if you read AARs.

Re: Game design is simple

#163

Post by Tade0 »

avandekleut wrote: post #134
Tade0 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally what I find off-putting is throwing around the term "dopamine". Yeah, there's a link and all, but why include this bit? > Dopamine can release for 'richly interpretable' situations Ok, and? I mean, Oh, right. The dopamine. The dopamine for gamers, the dopamine chosen especially to entertain gamers, gamers' dopamine. That dopamine?

not to mention that dopamine is generally associated with anticipation and searching + reinforcing behaviours, whereas pleasure and satisfaction is associated with the opiate system

Exactly! Plenty of people have this mixed up.

Re: Game design is simple

#164

Post by PostOnce »

a13o wrote: post #106
PostOnce wrote: post #4

For reference Raph Koster wrote "the book" on game design, and was the lead designer for Ultima Online (among other things) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raph_Koster

I wouldn’t say A Theory of Fun is “the book.” It’s more a coffee table read. “The book” is Jesse Schell’s The Art of Game Design

That's why I put it in scare quotes; personally I don't believe The Book has yet been written. There's not an Art of War for every subject yet, and game design is one of those subjects not yet mastered, at least in writing.

Re: Game design is simple

#165

Post by Raph_Koster »

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.

1. This article, at its very core, says that grind-based games are less successful than games that are not based on grind. How you got the reverse out of it, I do not know.

2. This article also does not say that fun equals repeated challenges. The closest thing in there is that fun is about prediction. Even the definition of "mastery" that the article sets forth is pretty explicitly about every type of cognitive challenge you meet in life.

3. This article does not imply that stories cannot be fun. In fact, I specifically pointed out that stories that you are unsure where they are going, and stories with more interpretability are more likely to be fun that predictable ones. If you follow the links in the article, you will see

4. I don't exclusively work in the MMORPG space. I have worked in tabletop, puzzle, trivia, casual, and single-player RPGs.

Re: Game design is simple

#166

Post by Raph_Koster »

astrobe_ wrote: post #117
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.

That "Fun" is a de gustibus sort of thing is the important point. I wonder if there is something like relationships between the various flavors of fun, or if one can infer good "collateral fun" activities from the main genre. For instance, I think that puzzles are ok in Mass Effect, but the many mini-games in Final Fantasy 7 are borderline annoying.

The article indeed states that fun is different for everyone.

The answer on inferring relationships between flavors of fun, and good colalteral fun activities, is in number 11. :D

Re: Game design is simple

#167

Post by Raph_Koster »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #83
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.

If you look at most games, they're all repeated challenges, but some are so good that you don't see or experience them as such. Others are very obvious though; MMORPGs are the obvious answer and they often don't even have an interesting story or reward to go with the grind, because the reward is a gamble. Ubisoft games are another example, ever since the first Assassin's Creed their games have generally been the same…

Frankly, I think you will be hard pressed to find a game that does NOT make use of repeated challenges. Especially when seen through the atomic and fractal framework the article gives.

But repeated challenges does not equal grind. Grind typically means repeating already mastered challenges over and over.

Re: Game design is simple

#168

Post by Raph_Koster »

Tade0 wrote: post #81
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.

Personally what I find off-putting is throwing around the term "dopamine". Yeah, there's a link and all, but why include this bit? > Dopamine can release for 'richly interpretable' situations Ok, and? I mean, Oh, right. The dopamine. The dopamine for gamers, the dopamine chosen especially to entertain gamers, gamers' dopamine. That dopamine?

I mention it because so many people reach blindly for dopamine as an explanation for everything and expect it to get mentioned. That's why I said "it’s tied to prediction; but it’s complicated and nuanced" and instead provided links. The article was already 4400 words. :D

The science on this evolves pretty regularly, but dopamine specifically currently seems to be tied most strongly to prediction processes matching what actually ends up happening, and therefore curiosity, etc.

The "richly interpretable" bit comes from Biederman & Vessel's research on it; for our purposes here we can basically summarize it as "easily predictable situations versus more complex ones result in different dopamine responses."

From the neuropsych side, this is very related to Predictive Processing; Deterding has a good article on that here. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9363017/ It also has a wealth of links that can lead you deeper into the subject.

As far as "OK and?" it comes down to this:

- make games that people can predict easily, and it'll be less fun in the "hard fun" sense

- and that is true of stories too!

- and that doesn't mean there aren't other sorts of enjoyment (which are covered in several images and links there) -- and as it happens, those are mappable to particular endorphins too!

- So it's not that game designers should try using endorphins as a tool, but rather that there's a wealth of science in a half-dozen different fields that backs up what this article is saying.

Bottom line: "dopamine" isn't a useful tool. Knowing those four types of fun and what elicits them absolutely is. Knowing they really do map to specific human sensations is. And following some links deeper into the topic will lead you very specific techniques you can use to elicit these different reactions predictably.

Re: Game design is simple

#169

Post by Raph_Koster »

grumbel wrote: post #93
CompoundEyes wrote: post #40

> crazy juicy, so that players are captivated by spectacle, well beyond the needs of feedback from a UX perspective What a great phrase to describe an aspect of game design to strive for. https://www.raphkoster.com/2015/06/29/game-design-ux-design/

I feel modern game design as the exact opposite problem: It's all show and no substance. It looks spectacular on video, but it doesn't feel spectacular when you play it, since it's non-interactive script driven gameplay, barely more interactive than a cutscene. A bit of juice is fine and necessary, but the moment your juice starts to look like interactive gameplay, but isn't, it went way to far and just becomes noise…

You might like this article: https://www.raphkoster.com/2012/01/20/narrative-is-not-a-gam...

Re: Game design is simple

#170

Post by Raph_Koster »

jessetemp wrote: post #62

I hadn't heard of the author before this. I'll definitely read more of their stuff, but I thought the bottom line for part three was a little incomplete. > Bottom line: the more uncertainty, indeterminacy, ambiguity in your game, the more depth it will have. Sure, starting from 0%, adding uncertainty adds depth. But the player needs to maintain some influence over that uncertainty. If you crank the uncertainty up too…

Remember, it's about prediction (point 1 of the 12). Pure random cannot be predicted. From a prediction point of view, it is therefore ironically, an already determined result. So it is solved, and therefore not interesting.

In Theory of Fun, I phrased this as "everything has patterns, but if you are not equipped to see the pattern, it becomes noise, and therefore boring."

But it's the same underlying point.

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