Nothing asserted here is simple. And after reading all that it's still hard to design and build a game that will cut through the noise of all the other games coming out on Steam.
It's not a matter of "simple vs. easy". If you have to write many words to list your ideas and you state each idea is deep and connected to all the other ideas, the thing you are talking about is not simple.
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
the complexity of a given domain is not necessarily an indication of it's difficulty. I suspect that a guy of Koster's experience and reputation knows that and is making a spicy title for the clicks.
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.
When I started writing fiction I found myself naturally gravitating towards inserting puzzles and mysteries and twists and unknowns. I think some people just love that. There's this dopamine aspect of solving the problem or knowing the unknown and the anticipation towards it can be very intriguing! Games do this in a more obvious way, but the 'rule of fun' is everywhere.
Look how exciting mystery is and how boring well known things are, but ironically there's a lot more to, say, the theory of gravity that if contextualized differently would be exciting and deeply interesting that 'unknowns' like the mystery of some cult or whatever can't even come close to, but in the end, there's something inside of us that wants to read about that cult. I make sure to self-aware of this and do deep dives into the boring 'known' world and push back on the sensationalism and such I'm so drawn to.
Raph is, at once, incredibly accomplished, thoughtful about design, and humble about it. I once caught him coming off an international flight, and he was excitedly showing off a game he'd coded on the plane. He genuinely loves working on the stuff and thinking about it.
His writing is often SO full of ideas that I can't absorb an entire piece in one sitting. It's like a 12 course tasting menu. The neat thing with his writing is that, despite what he says here about all 12 pieces being important together, you can often just pick an isolated bit and chew on it for a while, and still learn something.
(Presumably return to the other 11 courses later; they'll still be fresh.)
My question: is there a concise theory of game design that properly explains why cutscenes are fucking stupid?
There are a lot of AAA games out there that very clearly seem like the developers wish they were directing a movie instead. Sure, there’s loads of cutscenes to show off some cool visuals. But then they seem to think “ok well we need to actually let the player play now”, but it’s still basically a cutscene, but with extra steps: cyberpunk 2077 had this part where you press a button repeatedly to make your character crawl along the floor and the take their pills. It’s just a cutscene, but where you essentially advance frames by pressing the X button.
Then there’s quick time events, which are essentially “we have a cutscene we want you to watch, but you can die if you don’t press a random button at a random time”, and they call it a game.
If it’s not that, it’s breaks in play where they take control away from you to show you some cool thing, utterly taking you out of the experience for something that is purely visual. I usually shout “can I play now? Is it my turn?” at the screen when this happens.
But I digress… I essentially hate games nowadays because this or similar experience seems to dominate the very definition of AAA games at this point. None of them respect your time, and they seem to think “this is just like a movie” is a form of praise, when it’s exactly the opposite of why I play games.
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 100% then its pure random which isn't deep or fun.
I've noticed a similar more-is-better trend in a few sequels I've played, where the first game had say 5 mechanics which were fun. Then the sequel has 10 mechanics, and because 10 is more than 5 it therefore must be more fun. But it ends up being too much shit to juggle and less fun as a result.
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."
I need to sit down and give this a proper read, but anyone who wants more of Raph giving insights into game design should check out this old GDC talk he did about Practical Creativity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyVTxGpEO30
Towards the end of the article, I say this: "If you just make the same game, the one you know how to make, the players get bored because it’s nothing but problems they have seen before and already have their answers to. Sometimes, they get so bored that an entire genre dies." -- the last phrase links to a video about how MMOs are dead. :D
I watched a lot of Sakurai's (Smash Bro's director and creator of Kirby) videos on game design and development and not once did he bring up "dopamine" or any other neurochemical. I think once you start thinking about game design from this perspective you are essentially looking for ways to exploit human psychology which explains how a lot of games have now turned into casinos. Some of the best games out there defy a lot of prior design knowledge or things most people don't like but still have a cult following (look at Death Stranding) (Dark Souls made difficulty cool again when everyone else was trying to be "accessible"). The best games are also probably by people who were just passionate about bringing a certain idea into life because they themselves want that thing (Pokemon got a lot of its inspiration from the creators childhood exploring outside) not because people will get addicted to it. I understand treating game design as a science to some degree but it rubs me the wrong way.
I’m not experienced game designer, but I definitely view games a bit differently from the author. I don’t like complexity much tbh, and I’m sure there are people like me who enjoy some clicker like experience without game forcing me to solve problems
One thing that gets me is how there hasn't really been a language made solely for gameplay logic..
Almost every other domain has its specialized language: SQL, Julia, even HTML/CSS/JS.. but game developers still have to trundle on with general purpose languages invented 500 years ago by people who had nothing to do with games.
I agree there aren't very many. I can think of PuzzleScript, Unreal Blueprints, and Machinations (mentioned elsewhere in this thread). Perhaps this dearth is why Blueprints got so popular?
Honorable mentions might go to PICO-8's flavor of Lua (C-like but clearly designed to create a specific type of game and have a specific developer experience) and Excel (used for developing & balancing game mechanics, but usually replaced in the final product).
Towards the end of the article I mention "some of us have been working out the rule set for how you can link loops into a larger network of problems for literally over twenty years."
That is referencing the "game grammar" effort undertaken by myself, Dan Cook, Stephane Bura, Joris Dormans, and many others. It is very specifically about arriving at a notation system for gameplay logic.
The principles in this talk went on to be used by the field of computational modeling of games, AI game generators, and also used in training AI game players.
37 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 70.7 ms ] threadIt's not a matter of "simple vs. easy". If you have to write many words to list your ideas and you state each idea is deep and connected to all the other ideas, the thing you are talking about is not simple.
This is an amazing article. I work on game design and I think this could work as a map of the terrain.
> Put another way — every single paragraph in this essay could be a book.
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.
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.
Look how exciting mystery is and how boring well known things are, but ironically there's a lot more to, say, the theory of gravity that if contextualized differently would be exciting and deeply interesting that 'unknowns' like the mystery of some cult or whatever can't even come close to, but in the end, there's something inside of us that wants to read about that cult. I make sure to self-aware of this and do deep dives into the boring 'known' world and push back on the sensationalism and such I'm so drawn to.
His writing is often SO full of ideas that I can't absorb an entire piece in one sitting. It's like a 12 course tasting menu. The neat thing with his writing is that, despite what he says here about all 12 pieces being important together, you can often just pick an isolated bit and chew on it for a while, and still learn something.
(Presumably return to the other 11 courses later; they'll still be fresh.)
There are a lot of AAA games out there that very clearly seem like the developers wish they were directing a movie instead. Sure, there’s loads of cutscenes to show off some cool visuals. But then they seem to think “ok well we need to actually let the player play now”, but it’s still basically a cutscene, but with extra steps: cyberpunk 2077 had this part where you press a button repeatedly to make your character crawl along the floor and the take their pills. It’s just a cutscene, but where you essentially advance frames by pressing the X button.
Then there’s quick time events, which are essentially “we have a cutscene we want you to watch, but you can die if you don’t press a random button at a random time”, and they call it a game.
If it’s not that, it’s breaks in play where they take control away from you to show you some cool thing, utterly taking you out of the experience for something that is purely visual. I usually shout “can I play now? Is it my turn?” at the screen when this happens.
But I digress… I essentially hate games nowadays because this or similar experience seems to dominate the very definition of AAA games at this point. None of them respect your time, and they seem to think “this is just like a movie” is a form of praise, when it’s exactly the opposite of why I play games.
But they are also not gameplay, obviously.
https://www.raphkoster.com/2012/01/20/narrative-is-not-a-gam... https://www.raphkoster.com/2012/01/26/narrative-isnt-usually...
...and maybe https://www.raphkoster.com/2013/03/13/why-are-qtes-so-popula... since you dislike QTE's. :)
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/
> 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 100% then its pure random which isn't deep or fun.
I've noticed a similar more-is-better trend in a few sequels I've played, where the first game had say 5 mechanics which were fun. Then the sequel has 10 mechanics, and because 10 is more than 5 it therefore must be more fun. But it ends up being too much shit to juggle and less fun as a result.
More isn't always better
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.
I'm having some trouble parsing this sentence. Does he mean that "player has fun if their predictions lead to progress"?
Well, welcome to planet Earth then, the ultimate game environment.
Almost every other domain has its specialized language: SQL, Julia, even HTML/CSS/JS.. but game developers still have to trundle on with general purpose languages invented 500 years ago by people who had nothing to do with games.
Honorable mentions might go to PICO-8's flavor of Lua (C-like but clearly designed to create a specific type of game and have a specific developer experience) and Excel (used for developing & balancing game mechanics, but usually replaced in the final product).
That is referencing the "game grammar" effort undertaken by myself, Dan Cook, Stephane Bura, Joris Dormans, and many others. It is very specifically about arriving at a notation system for gameplay logic.
The original talk from 2005 is here: https://www.raphkoster.com/games/presentations/a-grammar-of-...
The principles in this talk went on to be used by the field of computational modeling of games, AI game generators, and also used in training AI game players.