Design isn’t Law
As Romero once said, “Design is Law”. Normally I would agree, but from what I’ve seen lately most people have a totally incorrect concept of what game design really is. What I’ve been told is “game design” from 90% of the designers that I’ve met so far has just been moot opinion wrapped up in ego. In fact, I should really say that I have met many people that claim to be designers. Conversely, I’ve also met many people who claim that designers are nothing more than mere idea men with delusions of grandeur. I personally don’t agree with this last statement: I think a design team with a design lead is one of the most necessary parts of games today. What would a film be without a scriptwriter? Of course, the director could write the script himself, but a good scriptwriter gives the film that edge of professionality and a higher quality product. However, many people I know also claim to be good story writers. They are not.
This allusions to some kind of literary and artistic greatness seems to propagate through people where-ever I go. Only with close and prolonged observation does real talent show. This is why I think Blitz’ approach to interviewing people is so brilliant and exactly what I would do. For example, I know people that think game design is the same as the detail of the game world. I can’t even comprehend how people reach this conclusion without thinking to themselves, “what does the player do?” When asked this question they either respond with a, “I haven’t thought of that yet”, or a “well, they can explore the world” or something equally vague. The first is obvious and the second is not fun. These are the people that go through their lives thinking they are game designers but are in fact poets in disguise. Even their design documents are so obfuscated with pretty words that they are almost lyrics to some obscure love song. They concentrate on the detail of the world, but not on the detail of the player’s actions.
Things like this are for films, not games. Films are all about the experience and the emotion. Games are about interactivity and choice. In fact, until recently the latter hasn’t really been very important. Dressing your game world is important, but not as important as the interactivity. Imagine a pretty game with nothing to do? It will be boring and it won’t sell. An ugly game with lots to do? You’ve got Deus Ex. These same people will probably think that Deus Ex was a richly detailed game, when in fact it was a series of many choices laid down for the player to make his own path with a rich narrative to support these actions. It could be argued that this narrative was part of the world detail, but I argue that the world detail was a side-effect of the narrative. However, this leads to the impression that narrative is the most important factor in determining world detail and therefore world detail leads to choice. This is wrong. Many designers tackle games from a narrative perspective and fail. Hopelessly. Again, this is how films are made, not games.
Interactivity first, then narrative, then world detail. Even I know this, and I’m just a programmer.
December 9th, 2005 at 5:02 pm
That’s what i think. It’s all very good having a pretty game, but its gameplay that matters the most.
Give me a game with replayability any day! Also, sounds like you’ve got “Crap Lecuturer Syndrome”… such is life.
Quite like the writer comment too, being an author is easy. Being a good one is hard! I’ve read many books that are just “ok” - they fall in the traps of stereotypes and cliches.
I’ve always thought that things should be a little… different. Not “anti heroes” or anything - they’re just as cliched as anything else. Who says the main character is a do-gooder? Does he have to have a dark and mysterious past? Does he have to be a he? And if it’s a she, does she have to be attractive?
Turn things about a bit, that’s what i say. I’m not saying go and do everything different, the main idea is that you are telling a story afterall. Mind you, not that i’ve ever written any stories before - nearest i’ve ever been is a series of notes about a story cunningly disguised as prose.
After all, all stories are in prose, aren’t they? (*dramatic pause for effect*) Writing out a plot in bullet points is just silly…
December 9th, 2005 at 5:05 pm
I don’t have design lecturers actually. I stay away from them mostly. I’m actually referring to most of the design students I know.
December 9th, 2005 at 5:09 pm
I totally agree with all the points you’ve made in this insightful post. Must be programmer’s logic ^_^
December 12th, 2005 at 4:38 pm
Design does seem to be a frustratingly elusive field, its’ definition seems to span a huge variety of opinion from both lecturers and students. Asking anyone when us design students actually learn any has been a lingual wrestling match with tutors, who keep pointing at the ‘level design’ and ‘games production’ modules. I guess it’s because it’s the newest of the purely gaming disciplines.. In fact, I guess it’s because it is the only purely gaming discipline.
I’m not sure I agree here. The ‘experience and the emotion’ is equally fundemental in games, it’s just the method via which it is delivered that alters. This statement remind me of when Joe says “Games are meant to be fun!”, to which I find myself replying, Scruge-like, “No, they’re not!”. If games aren’t meant to be about ‘the experience and the emotion’, then I think they may never be more meaningful than twenty minutes of Quake 3.
If Deus Ex is more purely about choice, would the game have been better if the player was able to choose the dialogue lines of Anna Navarre? It would have been more interactive, but I doubt it. It is the artful constraining of interactivity that makes games interesting. More than the choice itself, it is the context, meaning and consequence of choice - all conveyed via what is NOT interactive, that makes interactivity important.
I’m starting to sound like those many people you mention, who outline plot or world detail before what makes the game, A Game. What I’m trying to say is, it is important to consider game design the constraining of choice to allow for meaningful interaction. Not, as you seem to suggest, the effort to make interactivity abundant at every turn.
Perhaps.
December 12th, 2005 at 6:59 pm
You are correct in that the non-interactive elements of a game provide entertainment, such as your example of Anna Navarre’s dialogue. Some games seem almost completely non-interactive such as Metal Gear Solid, which was essentially a movie with running about, but even in that choice can be found everywhere. There is no way to completely remove non-interactivity from a game because interactivity is what games are based on. It’s like trying to build a house without a floor.
I’m saying that choice is what drives games. In fact, theoretically, philosophically and technically, games are sets of choices and states woven together by a concrete set of rules. Even if the choice is “which gun do I use?”, “which card do I turn?”, “how am I supposed to solve this puzzle?”, “which button do I press?”, choices are always present in anything interactive. The rules of play and the freedom they give to the player are what is fundamental to games. Narrative is most certainly not a fundamental concept, but merely a nice bonus.
To elaborate on my point here: experience and emotion are elements that are always worth considering in games. They are not concepts that a game should be based on, though. Every film, however, must concentrate harshly on the viewer experience and their emotions. A film is nothing without them. However, interactivity and choice has no place in films, as is obvious.
Every game has the ability to create emotion, even if it’s merely frustration at a tough puzzle. However, my point was that from a design point of view these are things that come out of the rules and choices laid down, not a starting point for a design. If you design a game where a player must solve a puzzle, frustration at losing and elation at beating it are two emotions that bleed from the design immediately. However, taking frustration and elation gives… what? A game? Certainly not.
December 13th, 2005 at 12:38 pm
Interactivity makes a game. In many games i get annoyed by being train tracked into a certain activity or event. Fair enough, some of this is required in order to tell a story - you don’t see me complaining when a level intro cinematic drops me into the map and gives me my mission.
What i DON’T like is when during the interactive part of the game (ie when i am in control) get pushy. Quite a few times i would rush to save someone in vain because the designers thought it might be “cool” or - gods forbid - “scary” if that marine was killed in front of me. In one point i actually DID save someone - a Strogg picked him up by the neck but i heroically killed the Strogg only to find that he was carried off by an invisible hand behind a locked door. Give the gamers choice, if we didn’t want it we’d watch a film instead.
Additionally, the Deus Ex comment is moot. You’re playing a strongly story based game - you play one character and once character only. Making other people’s choices is an utterly stupid notion, it is nothing to do with the point made. Metal Gear’s chief attraction is that it is an interactive film, when you buy the games you know that you are buying a story - and a damned good one at that. In particular there are plenty of “hidden” parts to the game for you to find and also choices. In film you may sometimes wonder “i wonder what would have happened if X happened instead of Y?”, a game can give you that choice.
Now consider a game where there are so many choices available to you, where the entire plot and game changes with your actions. There is a narrative, but it’s as much yours as anyone elses. The more options you have the better, even if they all lead to the same conclusion. I’m starting to get annoyed with boss fights where there is only one way of beating him. What about running around and past him? Or maybe dropping something on his head as well as plain shooting. Could you even bargain with him or reason?
Limiting choice should only be done at certain points when an action must be forced. For example it’s the whole point of the current mission, or such-and-such must happen because its integral to the plot. Otherwise the game becomes too linear and frustrating - and it loses replayability and appeal.
And if you truely think games are not meant to be fun, then i strongly suggest you rethink your chosen career path.
December 13th, 2005 at 3:06 pm
Ri: It’s inevitable with such scripted games, unfortunately. Half-Life 2 suffered the same thing. While entertaining, they lose all re-playability as soon as they end. Presenting the player with a small range of choices and maybe a few “pseudo-choices” (choices the player thinks they’re making, but in fact they have been steered ingeniously by the developers) is not enough.
This, if anything, enhances my point that a game without choice is, in fact, nothing much at all.
Sam: what did you mean by, “games are not supposed to be fun”? I only really noticed that when Ri pointed it out. Obviously the term “fun” is subjective, but it’s not so subjective that it can lose all meaning.
I would say that “fun” in the context of any media (be it film or games or books) would be equivalent to “entertaining”. What is your definition of “fun” and what are games supposed to be if they are not that?
December 14th, 2005 at 3:59 am
By the Deus Ex comment, I meant that more choice doesn’t directly equate to better games. It would be more interactive to choose the lines of the other characters, but it wouldn’t have made the game more enjoyable. There’s more to do in the world of Morrowind than of Resident Evil, does make it instantly a better game? It’s subjective, but I don’t think so. It could be argued that if choice = fun then you’d be left with FPS Creator, or UnrealEd.
We agree, interactivity is the beating heart of games. When designers forget that, you’re left, at best, with confused masterpieces like Killer 7 where the frustrated director in every designer comes out and tedious or nonsensical gameplay is slapped between awesome non-interactive presentation.
Fun, to me, has always sounded superfluous and non-consequential. Entertaining, I guess, is better. Enjoyable is probably best. Games should be fun - they should be rewarding, responsive, predictable as systems and unpredictable as narratives - but all, always in the pursuit of emotional response. ‘Fun’, to me, connotes Quake 4, which I have loudly stated as a modern low-point in games.
You say games (interactive systems) aren’t built starting with emotion - maybe that’s the problem
December 14th, 2005 at 4:34 pm
Of course choice doesn’t directly translate into a “better” game - a game is made from many different things! Comparing Morrowind to RE is like comparing a duck and a tennis ball - what is the connection? They’re two very different, well established games which appeal to different people for different reasons. Continue making comments like that and the UnrealEd one and people will completely disregard your comments as “non-consequential” as you are arguing your views like a 12 year old.
And if you think Q4 is fun, but (loudly) deride it as a “modern low-point” then, perhaps, you should revise your use of the English language? Thoughtfully, Pete has already quoted the meaning of fun in his previous comments.
You should already be aware it doesn’t really matter what you think, you do not design commercial games for yourself after all. That’s the thing you must *always* keep in mind - unless it’s your own project what you think is irrelevant. That is the nature of the oft-mentioned “real world” that university fails to point out.
I hope you are intelligent enough to realise i am trying to point out the flaws in your argument. If you were to put them across without the ridiculous comparisons i’m sure you would do much better in provoking intelligent discussion.
Additionally, i would advise you start making your points without the waffle. I know i for starters care little for how flowery and colourful you make your text - make the point, back it up and move on. You are not a journalist - journalists write like that to hide the fact they have nothing intelligent or meaningful to say.
I hope you are mature enough to read properly what i have said, I have made my point and will not do so again, but if not - consider two of my favourite quotes (both by Plato):
“As empty vessels make the loudest sound, so they that have the least wit are the greatest blabbers.”
“Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something.”
I’m sure you can see why.
December 14th, 2005 at 6:46 pm
Personally, I’d use the term ‘fun’ interchangeably with ‘entertaining’ in the context of media. As pointed out by Pete, ‘fun’ can be defined as “A source of enjoyment, amusement, or pleasure”; would you purchase a game that is not enjoyable? How about a game without rewards, is it enjoyable to play a game that does not reward you for your efforts?
I personally believe that games should be created with the initial objective to be fun/enjoyable/entertaining/”superfluous”, where emotion can be derived whether it be the frustration of a hard puzzle or fear from a Chainsaw-wielding madman.
In a way it’s great that some designers have an obscure view of games. It allows for variation. But consider this; when working on commercial games you’ll have to create games from the marketplace’s point of view. This is the reason why there are so many ‘quake clones’ - Consumers buy them.
December 14th, 2005 at 8:13 pm
We are talking about the role of choice in games, are we not? If we agree that Morrowind and Resident Evil are both Computer Games, then couldn’t you compare them as interactive systems?
Yes. We are discussing those reasons. Namely, whether the more choice based nature of Morrowind (more fundementally ‘game’ based), is a better, purer game because of this.
I’ll try and simplify my (twelve year old) arguement here. I’m saying that games aren’t “purely about choice”. To prove this, the criterion of choice would be one in which every decision can be made. Like UnrealEd.
Quake 4 is a derivative, unimaginative Doom 3 mod of the lowest intellectual quality. There is almost nothing in it that I didn’t expect or thought I’d seen before. I have made this pretty clear to everyone around me, loudly.
I can’t respond to this, it’s too inane. Other than that, thank you for trying to teach me how to write, it (loudly) sounds like I need the practice. You’re being quite offensive, and obviously aren’t reading what I’m saying. I’ll just take my uselessly ornate language, and my wildly incoherant opinion out of this argument!
December 15th, 2005 at 12:08 pm
Is my comment too inane? Sounds like you lack a counter argument to it, probably because there is no valid one. You are in for a real shock when you leave the cushioned world of university. Think of me when your boss gives you a verbal slap for it.
I ask you one last time to actually read my comment properly, because if you did you would certainly not make a reply like that. Or do you lack the capacity to understand simple and direct English?
I didn’t think you’d listen, because people like you never do. Which is why i’ll leave it at this and let you go on your merry ignorant way. If you can’t take honest opinion, then you shouldn’t voice yours.
As a parting shot: i quite like the way you break my comment down into segments in order to answer. Just like a 12 year old.
December 15th, 2005 at 2:56 pm
That’s enough “debate” now, I think…
January 15th, 2006 at 4:59 am
regarding what you [peter] said here:
experience and emotion are what the player gets as a result of interaction and choice. it therefore makes perfect sense that a designer of a game would first think about what emotion and experience they would like to evoke, and then design the interactive system to do it.
and i disagree that “fun” is the only or most important thing in games. consider that games could be made interesting through educational content [see film documentaries]. consider that games could be made a meaningful experience purely because of how it makes us feel and think, instead of just being “fun” [see the film schindler's list].
imo, the idea that “games = fun” is shortsighted, and destined to be proven wrong as the medium evolves.
January 15th, 2006 at 5:42 pm
I think you have fixed the link between games and non-interactive media too strongly in your mind. They are far from the same.
Have you ever played a game that wasn’t “fun” in some way? I’m talking about “fun” = “entertaining”, which doesn’t necessarily mean that it evokes positive emotions. In fact, games rely on the combination of positive and negative emotions to create their sense of immertion. Games can be challenging, frustrating, scary, et cetera, while also keeping the player hooked to it by creating emotions such as elation, satisfaction, relief…
However, a game that sets out just to make people cry is going to die a swift death. Or at least I hope it would. I also did not say that “games = fun”, but I meant that “games need fun”. Even the scariest games or the most frustrating games need to give some reward to the player for sitting through it. The amount of reward required to create this effect, however, can turn out to be surprisingly little.
Imagine a huge gunfight: you are going to die. You have no armour, little health. You run into a room and your enemy is hot on your heels. In there you find a health pack and that’s it. Just a health pack. But the player will be utterly grateful for it.
Now, let’s imagine a game where it’s all about sadness - making the player cry. How would you achieve this? You could do it through an NPC that the player has bonded with, who is suddenly killed. That could work, maybe with a touching cutscene with some good music. I recall the Fall of Max Payne when writing this. You could have tears through joy: maybe the NPC lives? That’s pretty tough to do. The problem here, though, is what do you do in the rest of the game?
In conclusion, yes, you can start with an emotion. However, like I said above, you cannot base a game on emotion. You need to base the game on ordinary, mundane things and cleverly weave it with the atmosphere you want to create. Sometimes, the things that you set out to achieve in the game create the emotional content as a mere by-product of good game design.
Also remember that if you want to create one emotion, your game is going to suck. Games create in us a whole range of emotions. In fact, I would say a game that sets out to create every emotion and pulls it off would be the best game in the world.
Edit: Regarding this:
True enough, but I don’t see many successful educational games. The games that make us “think” are indeed great games, but only for us. Remember here that when we are talking about games we are covering a wide variety of people. Some people do not want to think about this stuff, but would rather sit down for an hour and play Puzzle Fighter 2 (which requires a different kind of thinking). Some people just want to blow stuff up, which requires almost no thinking at all.
January 15th, 2006 at 11:23 pm
i’ll try and resist delving into this too much here, as attempting to tackle such complicated subjects in such simple terms only leads to more misinterpretation, and gets us arguing over silly things.
[quote]I think you have fixed the link between games and non-interactive media too strongly in your mind. They are far from the same.[/quote]
i never said that - you’ve made that connection on your own. much like you seem to have made several other assumptions, putting words into my mouth, seemingly for the sake of a counter-argument.
i never said that games are the same as films [indeed i'm currently writing an essay about how they are not]; i never said that emotional or cerebral content in games [or films, or anything else] is just about “making people cry”; i never said that any game could possibly hope to evoke just one solitary emotion [as if a game could be "all about sadness" for 10 hours], and so what if “some people” don’t want to play a given game? no game could ever appeal to every kind of gamer, and it will always be a mistake to try.
as a general reply to some of the things you’ve said - pointing to a lack of educational games and so forth - it’s simplistic and shortsighted to define the scope of games purely by what has come so far. you’re leaving no room for forward-thinking, or progression into new genre - as if the art of the game is already “finished” and fully evolved. do you really think that the true and total nature of such a vast medium will be forever defined by the work from its first 30 years?
i trust you to be a little more open minded. in the time between space invaders and deux ex, games have become all kinds of things people never saw coming, and they will continue to do so in the future.
January 16th, 2006 at 5:58 am
I do believe that you said this:
I see here you have related films to games. Can you blame me for making this assumption? Oh, and good luck with that essay.
Regarding the “making people cry” comments: they were not actually aimed at you. They were not even a jibe or mockery of anyone, even the person I was actually referring to. I apologise if you misunderstood as I did not make this very clear.
I am just following an existing trend to a conclusion. That trend, so far, is that educational games aren’t very popular: they could be the most brilliant game in the world, but they just don’t sell. I’m not saying this couldn’t change, of course. It’s not shortsighted of me to state that they aren’t very fun, either, because if that wasn’t the case they’d probably sell a little bit better to people over the age of eight.
Please refrain from making such patronising comments in the future as I recall a few incidents where you might have done better from taking your own advice.
This post probably seems like I have a horrible vendetta against you, but I assure you that’s far from the case. I respect the face that I am no designer, but I do enjoy the occasional philosophical debate.
January 16th, 2006 at 12:40 pm
“Please refrain from making such patronising comments in the future as I recall a few incidents where you might have done better from taking your own advice.”
you know i was thinking about that comment when i went to bed last night - my analytical side tends to forget to be nice to people. i apologise.
[i'm genuinely interested to know the few incidents in which i came across as close minded, though. arrogant or short tempered i could understand...]