Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
A game must present an imaginative, coherent experience, so the designer must
have a vision.
A game must sell well, so the designer must consider the audience's preferences.
A game with a license must pay back the license's cost, so the designer must
understand what benefits this license brings and exploit them to the game's best
advantage.
A game must offer an intelligent challenge and a smooth, seamless experience,
so the designer must understand the technology.
A game must be attractive, so the designer must think about its aesthetic style.
Player-centric game design means testing every element and every feature against
the standard: Does this contribute to the player's enjoyment? Does it entertain her?
If so, it stays; if not, you should consider eliminating it. There's no easy formula for
deciding this; the main thing is to make the effort. As Brian Moriarty said in the
section quoted in Chapter 1, “Games and Video Games,” too many designers “pile
on gratuitous features just so that they can boast about them,” which means
they're not designing player-centrically.
There are sometimes reasons for including features that don't directly entertain:
They might be necessary to make other parts of the game work, or they might be
required by the licensor. But you should regard them with great suspicion and do
your best to minimize their impact on the player.
Chapter 1 looked at what a game is and what gameplay is. But where does gameplay
come from, and how does the player interact with it? In order to create gameplay
and offer it to the player, you need to make sure your video game is composed of
two key components. These are not technical components but conceptual ones.
They are the
core mechanics
and the
user interface
. Some games also use a third
important component called the
storytelling engine
, but we will deal with it in
Chapter 7, “Storytelling and Narrative.” This section introduces the core mechanics
and the user interface and shows how they work together to produce entertain-
ment. Each of these components has a complete chapter devoted to it later in the
book, so the discussion here is limited to defining their functions, not explaining
how to design them.
Core Mechanics
One of a game designer's tasks is to turn the general rules of the game into a sym-
bolic and mathematical model that can be implemented algorithmically. This
model is called the
core mechanics
of the game. The model is more specific than the
rules. For example, the general rules might say, “Caterpillars move faster than
