Sports Games - Fundamentals of Game Design - page 505

of the sports game designer to fit the sport to the machine. Sports game design
doesn't require nearly as much raw creativity as designing an adventure game or a
role-playing game. It's a more subtle process that entails endless tuning and tweak-
ing to find the right balance between realism and playability. When you get it
right, you have a product that can sell for years and years.
Design Practice CASE STUDY
Choose a sports game that you believe, from your own experience of playing it, is
an excellent example of the genre (or use one your instructor assigns). It should be
a team sport rather than an individual sport, and a real one rather than an
invented one. Write a report explaining why you believe it is superior to others of
its kind. Be sure to cover at least the following areas:
■ Document the athlete attributes that the game implements, including any spe-
cial abilities that are associated with a particular position or role.
■ Think about and describe how accurately the game simulates the strategy and
tactics of the real sport. Are there any particular strengths or weaknesses? If so,
point them out.
■ Discuss the extent to which the game correctly implements the rules of the
sport. Are there any rules that it does not enforce? How does it handle infractions
that are not necessarily under the control of the player?
■ Explore the user interface in the primary gameplay mode. Briefly document the
mechanism mapping the athlete's body or movements onto the control device.
Note important indicators that appear on the screen and discuss how they improve
the playing experience.
■ Address the management features that the game offers. Can the player manage a
team over the course of an entire season or several seasons? What challenges and
actions are available for doing so? What kinds of things does the player have to
think about off the field that he doesn't have to think about on the field? If the
player's decisions during a match can affect the gameplay between matches, indi-
cate how.
The design questions in the next section may help you to think about these issues.
In your report, use screen shots to illustrate your points. End the case study with
suggestions for improvement or, if you feel the game cannot be improved, sugges-
tions for additional features that might be fun to have in the game.
Alternatively, choose a game that you believe is particularly bad . Do the same case
study, explaining what is wrong and how it could be improved.
A case study is neither a review nor a design document; it is an analysis. You are
not attempting to reverse-engineer the entire game but simply to explain how it