To kick-off this week’s topic, we take off our developer hats and put on our player hats.
What do you look for when choosing a game to buy or play?
When I was younger, I was drawn to games by their visual style and outlandish gameplay, titles such as Crash Bandicoot (1996) and Rachet and Clank (2002) being at the forefront of my choices. Some years later, I sought to immersive myself into fantastic worlds with sinister undertones. Titles such as Jak II (2003), Fallout 3 (2008) (see figure 1) and Metro: 2033 (2010) stand out for me during this phase. Nowadays, I tend to lean more towards popular multiplayer games. Furthermore, I have been deliberately sticking with IPs I know rather than exploring other games unbeknown to me. Although, since I started my postgraduate, I have found a new appreciation for indie games. Finally, I look for games which offer value for their worth. I believe a prime example of this is The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (2015).
Figure 1: Fallout 3 (2008) Brotherhood of Steel vs Feral Ghoul
What keeps you engaged with your favourite games over a long period?
I think it's a mix of being invested in the intellectual property I'm playing and how much passion the developers devote during its development and post-launch, which keeps me playing the same title for long periods. Although at a much more rudimentary level, the genre and gameplay have to appeal to me before anything else. Furthermore, I like when games have longevity, I believe this can be accomplished by offering achievements to players or developing DLC.
Creating Games with Appeal
The first lecture was about creating games with an appeal by Iain Lobb. This lecture is incredibly informative as Lobb highlights the topics of hooks, core loops, player fantasy and art direction whilst providing relevant sources. In addition, Lobb's lecture on 'The Triforce of Game Design' is worth listening to when preparing to develop a commercial game. My notes are as follows:
In music, a hook is the catchy segment of the song, while in computer games, it is an aspect of your game which triggers people's desire to play it. They should be surprising yet desirable.
According to Ryan Clark, there are 'Pre-Play' and 'Post-Play' hooks.
Your game should be aspirational to your chosen audience.
You should be able to identify your target audience before developing the game. This notion could be achieved by faking an MVP (Minimal Viable Product) to gauge a rough audience.
Art direction is a great way to attract the audience's attention.
Create a mascot for your game!
Keep players engaged by developing a compelling core gameplay loop.
Engagement mechanics could be building a progression, upgrading, unlocking, levelling-up, looting, crafting system or having a sandbox, unfolding story, procedural generation, audio-visual rewards, game updates and live service.
Multiplayer games are currently popular on Steam. Although, multiplayer games should be designed from the start of development and not implemented later.
Prototype ideas as quickly as possible.
GDD's can be useful, but time consuming,
Designing a multiplayer game with PVP elements can cater to people who enjoy playing competitive games. When developing a multiplayer game, it's good to think about synchronous vs asynchronous gameplay, complete or incomplete information, cheating, social features (such as leaderboards, ghost runs, and scoring) and chat systems.
The Triforce of Game Design
*Advice for indies
This Triforce of Game Design by Iain Lobb is Goal-based game mechanics, audio-visual feedback, narrative and playtesting.
The short-term is the game feel, and the long-term is gamification (leaderboards, progression, collectables, achievements).
Character silhouettes are good to know if your character is iconic.
Beware of default assets!
For developing attack animations, consider the anticipation, then the action and finally, the reaction.
Focus more on reusable content and less on single-use content.
Game Hooks
The second lecture was on game hooks by Ryan Clark. Clark advises you to pay attention to the market, test your hooks before releasing your game and consider using the mash-up technique to create compelling hooks. Lastly, he warns that friends and family often lie when providing feedback about your game.
Source(s):
Game Marketing
The third talk was on how to appropriately market games by Mike Rose. Rose talks about the hook vs the kicker. He advises giving a reason for people to care about your game and to make a community! Be realistic, and do not be afraid to ask other companies for help.
Making Games Stand Out & Design and Marketing Mistakes
Finally, the last talks were about making games that stand out and marketing mistakes by Nick Popovich and Hugh Monahan, respectively. I highly recommend watching the GDC talk on Slime Rancher (2017) because Nick Popovich offers excellent insight into how two developers with zero budget managed to launch a successful game (see figure 2).
Figure 2: Slime Rancher Post-mortem (GDC, 2017)
Source(s):
Challenge Activity - Game Design Outline
Date: 17th October 2022
*GDO written by Nathan & Adam
Nathan and Adam did a great job writing the game outline for Alien Infiltration: IV! Unfortunately, due to time constraints, I was behind, so I prioritised the player movement mechanics instead. After a thorough read of the outline, I feel that it provides the necessary information for a very detailed game outline document. I may add to it later, but I have other things to prioritise now.
Player Movement & Guns! (Unity)
Figure 3: Basic Movement & Shooting (Unity 2021.3.10f1)
Initially, I attempted to make the player 2D (with the respective components attached to the game object) within a 3D environment. Unfortunately, Unity did not like this. So, I made everything 3D whilst maintaining the illusion that the player is 2D. After gathering feedback, I plan to adjust the camera as it currently appears quite strict with the top-down view as many of the 3D environmental elements (such as the cubes) appear 2D at first glance (see figure 3).
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