Gameplay - Fundamentals of Game Design - page 254

Design around the player. Everything in this topic is based on player-centric
game design, as Chapter 2, “Design Components and Processes,” explains in detail.
You must examine every decision from the player's point of view. Games that lose
sight of the player lose sight of the fun.
Know your target audience. Different groups of players want different things.
You don't necessarily have to aim for the mass market, and in fact it's much harder
to make a game that appeals broadly than it is to make a game that appeals to a
niche market you know well. But whatever group you choose, know what they want
and what they think is fun, and then provide it.
Abstract or automate parts of the simulation that aren't fun. If you model
your game on the real world, leave out the parts that aren't fun. But remember your
audience: To somebody who just wants a chance to drive a fast car, changing the
tires isn't fun, but to a hardcore racing fan, changing the tires is fun and a critical
part of the experience. If—and only if—you have the time and resources, you may
include two modes. Otherwise, choose one market and optimize the fun for the
members of that market.
Be true to your vision. If you envision the perfect sailing simulation, don't
add powerboat racing as well because you feel that adding features might attract a
larger market. (Marketing people are notorious for asking game designers to do
this.) Instead, adding powerboats will distract you from your original goal and cut
in half the resources you were planning to use to perfect the sailing simulation.
Both halves will be inferior to what the whole could have been. You will lose the
fun, and without it you won't get the bigger market anyway.
Strive for harmony, elegance, and beauty. A lack of aesthetic perfection
doesn't take all the fun out of a game, but the absence of these qualities appreciably
diminishes it. And a game that is already fun is even more fun if it's beautiful to
look at, to listen to, and to play with.
The Hierarchy of Challenges
When you're up to your __ in alligators, it's hard to remember that your original objective
was to drain the swamp.
—U NATTRIBUTED
In all but the smallest games, the player faces several challenges at a time, orga-
nized in a hierarchy of challenges . Ultimately, he wants to complete the game. To
accomplish that, he must complete the current mission. Completing the mission
requires completing a sub-mission , of which the current mission probably has sev-
eral. At the lowest level, he wants to deal with the challenge that immediately faces
him: the enemies threatening him at the moment, perhaps, or the locked door for
which he needs the right spell. These lowest-level challenges are called atomic chal-
lenges ( atomic in the sense of indivisible ). Atomic challenges make up sub-missions;