GAME DESIGN

FROM TOYS TO GAMES

Miguel SicartIT University of Copenhagen

miguel@itu.dkmiguelsicart.net

Menu of the Day

• Who am I?

• What is game design?

• Systems and players: useful concepts

• Toys and Games

• Rules, Mechanics, Challenges

• Toyplay, Gameplay

• Verbs!

Who am I?

• MA in literary theory + philosophy

• PhD (at ITU) on computer game ethics (and forthcoming book, MIT Press)

• Research: game ethics, serious games, design theory and practice

• Design: prototyping & experimental gameplay

Becoming game designers

congratulations you all are game designers!

consider

• changing rules in football

• selecting questions in Trivial Pursuit

• adjusting rules/environment/skills to the opponent

• cheating?

so what is game design?or, should you get your time and money back?

game design is a craft

game design as a craft

• Make the player imagine a world,

• in which her actions are of extreme relevance!

• Creating a (player oriented) experience.

• Challenging players in interesting ways.

• Making players understand and follow the rules voluntarily.

game design beyond player experience

• Designing a thing (like a chair)

• that has to be experienced (like a car).

• Create rules that originate this experiences.

• Make systems that originate behaviors (predetermined, predicted, or emergent).

• This building as a game?

so game design is about players and systems

but what does that really mean?

Let’s Play! embarrassing moment #1

in the beginning, there were toys ...

What is a toy?

• Toys are tools for entertainment (Bateman)

• Toys are facilitators for playful activities

• Toys focus actions and turn them into play, facilitating the act of playing by means of their design:

• bears are meant to be loved,

• dolls are meant to simulate activities!

• Play is a free movement within a rigid structure (Salen & Zimmerman)

• Play is the dialogical experience of a ludic structure (taking cues from Gadamer)

• Play has no performative, quantifiable goals.

• Toys are designed to facilitate play.

A Word on Play

Spil vs. Leg Why the Scandinavians got it right

How do toys facilitate play?

Affordances and constraints

A CONFESSION

Affordances

(or perceived affordances)action possibilities readily

perceived by an actor.

Constraints

Designed limits for user agencyPhysicalLogical

Cultural

Task:identify affordances or constraints in your toys!

Why is this important?

Prototyping:specially when making games, we test many things by making little software toys.Toyplay:avoiding the dominance of gameplay

Growing up: from toys to games?

Rules

• Instructions on how to play (Rollings

and Adams)

• Definitions and instructions that have to be accepted by players (Rollings and Adams)

• Rules create a state machine with a game tree of possibilities (Jesper Juul)

• Structures and frames for play

• (Game) Rules define (according to Rollings and Adams):

• Semiotics of the game

• Gameplay

• Sequence of Play

• Goals and the victory/loss conditions

• Termination condition

• Metarules

IRL: found rulesVideogames: it depends

World/Simulation Rules(parameters that give consistency to the gameworld; not necessarily

attached to game rules)

Is Gravity a Rule?

Toys, Rules, and the next step

• When we apply rules to playing with a toy, we are creating a game.

• Rules, as designed, can also present affordances and constraints.

• Rules by themselves are mostly uninteresting, but they are:

• one of the building blocks of games

• structures for game design and player behavior (formal analysis/playtesting)

Game Mechanics

Defining!(get your notebooks ready)

• Mechanics are the various actions, behaviors, and control mechanisms afforded to the player within a game context (MDA)

• Game mechanics are rule-based systems/simulations that facilitate and encourage a user to explore and learn the properties of their possibility space through the use of feedback mechanisms (Lost Garden)

Game mechanics:rule-based methods for player agency in the gameworld, designed for overcoming challenges in non-trivial ways

Challenges!Any action that requires an

effort to accomplish.

Not all challenges are rule-based: behaviors of the

system, behaviors of other players.

Challenges are overcome by the use of game mechanics

The Function of Mechanics (in the design process)

Game Idea(verbs, nouns, adjectives)

Rules

Challenges

Game Mechanics

Game Mechanics are the discrete units that define player interaction and relate

the player with the world, the challenges, and the overall rules.

For a designer, game mechanics are the essential grammar of her craft: the

different formal elements from a tradition that can be formulated,

communicated and modified for solving specific design problems

For game design, rules, mechanics and challenges are the essential grammar

What to do with these tools?

• Toys: facilitators for playful activities

• Rules: Structures and frames for play

• Game Mechanics: rule-based methods for player agency in the gameworld, designed to overcome challenges in non-trivial ways

A Word on Play

• Salen & Zimmerman define three types of play:

• Being playful (at leg)

• Ludic Activity (games)

• Game Play: the experience of a game set into motion through the participation of players

Something does not work ...

These three types (which are not very clear), can happen at the same time, in parallel, or consecutively.How can we define play?

The Playground The Play Continuum

Play Toyplay Gameplay

Freeform ludic activity, with no

goals predefined or external to the player and not

depending on the use of mediators or

instruments

Freeform ludic activity with

no goals predefined or external to the

player, and mediated

(constrained) by toys.

Ludic activity regulated by game rules, mediated by game mechanics, and oriented to the satisfactory achievement of

goals predetermined by rules agreed upon

by the player or players

Question: can we have play in videogames?

Task: in groups, exemplify toyplay and gameplay in GTA, Sim City, The Sims and Doom(5 min)

The Masters• Gameplay is players trying

to overcome challenges (Juul).

• Gameplay is a consequence of the choices presented to players (Rollings and Adams).

• Gameplay is related to:

• choices

• challenges

• players

ChoicesA game is a series of

interesting choices (Sid Meier)

What characteristics had these game choices?

No single choice is best

Choices should not be equal

Players should take informed

choices

Another task:Identify these characteristics in a game (~5 min.)

When I’m bad, I’m good

• Gameplay is a consequence of players trying to achieve goals by overcoming challenges.

• What happens when players are too good? Or too bad?

• What happens when players don’t understand the goals of the game? Or the fundamental mechanics?

• Gameplay is not a formal tool!

Great gameplayhow interesting is it to do what you have to do (to win)?

Grand Theft Auto Dance Dance RevolutionBejeweled

language issues

nouns

adjectives

verbs

designing games is about verbs!

how many verbs in the picture?

The verb issue

players do stuff in the virtual worlds of games!

Players do that stuff the rules allow them to do!

The Linguistic approachDesigning games is about finding interesting verbs and creating actions (gameplay) and worlds around them!

shoot

explore

defecate

think about other verbs!hugattractoffendgrow

ideas

come up with your game ideas: discuss!

• which verbs apply?

• what are the rules and the choices the player has?

• what kind of experience for the player?

• what is the genre and setting?

• what is the technology you need?

Summary(part I)

• game design is a craft,

• centered in creating systems of rules

• with which players interact in engaging ways,

• from toyplay to gameplay

Summary(part II)

• Important concepts for game design:

• affordances & constraints

• game rules

• game mechanics

• challenges!

Summary (part III)

• A game designer uses these tools to create gameplay:

• to design games is to know that vocabulary,

• apply it to concepts through verbs,

• and create engaging gameplay for an audience.

• piece of cake! (the cake is a lie)

questions? miguel@itu.dk

Gracias! DADIU / 09