1. Nathaniel Baird
4/29/16
Bulbs Write Up
The main goal of Bulbs was to provide the player an experience which involves the
struggle to figure out the rules of and how to interact with a logical yet unfamiliar system. To
best serve this goal I needed an absolute minimum of explicit tutorials. The game would need to
be composed of environmental cues such that a player could figure out how its systems work on
their own. Finally, I wanted my work flow to prioritize the essential features of the game. My
time spent making the wave-based zombie survival game had increased the efficiency of my
approach toward game making. One advantage of my approach towards that project was that I
was able to reuse much of the content which I had created. Though each zombie wave increases
in its potency and more sophisticated weapons begin to spawn into the battlefield the way in
which the game handles these procedures remains the same throughout the experience. This
allowed me to adjust with ease whatever I perceived as problematic to the game balance. I
wanted to apply the same design philosophy to my work on Bulbs to ensure I could devote
enough time to the most important features of the game.
In Bulbs a player completes a level by turning on all of its light bulbs simultaneously.
Light bulbs are attached to outlets. In order to provide power to an outlet any generators attached
via wiring must be switched on. Each generator provides a certain amount of power to any
connected outlets, a value which is displayed by the number of lights on top of the generator.
The amount of power provided to an outlet is determined by the number of total connections to
the generator. For example, if there is only one outlet connected to the generator it provides the
outlet its full power value. If there are two cords feeding into a generator its power is divided in

2. half and then distributed to each. A player must track the path of each power cord to see which
outlets are connected to which generators. Splitters distribute the power of one cord amongst
several others. The power level is important because a player must place the correct light bulb
types in the correct sockets. If a light bulb requires an amount of power exceeding the power
provided by the generator it will not turn on. If the generator’s power exceeds the bulb’s capacity
the bulb will break. The three different types of bulbs are color coded and it is up to the player to
learn what the coloring refers to. The player must flip the level’s breaker switch to see if they
arrived at the correct solution.
My approach to programming Bulbs allowed me to continue to make adjustments to the
game and introduce new levels without ever going back and changing the code. Every level
functions by the exact same rules; Bulbs contains no level specific ‘scripted sequences’. When a
generator is turned on its power level is divided by the number of its connected components
(whether they are bulb sockets or wire splitters) and the resulting value is distributed amongst all
of them. If one of the components is a splitter the process is repeated; the power level supplied to
the splitter is divided out amongst all the sockets attached to it.
The fact that Bulbs was designed to realize a large variety of different level allowed me
to hone in on a variety of problems which earlier versions of the game suffered from. One such
problem involved the details of the final level. In the final level the total amount of power from
each generator exceeded the amount that all of the bulb outlets could handle. This meant that in
order for the player to succeed he would need to keep certain generators turned off. This proved
to be too challenging for testers. I hypothesized that the problem was similar to one which
occurred in TRIAD. The shooting mechanics in TRIAD forced players to use the aim down
sights feature through the entire game save the final boss fight. The ADS feature was far too

3. sluggish to be effective during that fight, yet players continuously attempted to use it because the
game had trained them to. Bulbs trains players to turn on all the generators first and then figure
out which light bulb types to utilize. This approach proved successful for players up until the
very end of the game. Though it was entirely compatible with the rules of the game to include
uncooperative generators, punishing somebody for playing the game in a way which was
positively reinforced up until the very end was unfair. Ultimately I changed the final stage to be
compatible with the understanding the player had built up till that point by ensuring that all of its
generators were necessary for reaching its solution.
Another problem encountered in the final level was that it was originally the first place to
display a splitter. Players were suddenly faced with an unfamiliar game feature in a level that
was already very difficult to wrap one’s head around. Whereas the prior generator-related issue
prompted me to remove entirely the aberrant game play mechanic, here I chose to add an earlier
level designed to explain to the player how the splitter functions before they encounter it in a
more complex environment.
The first level originally began with a bulb properly placed in its only socket. The player
merely had to learn how to turn on the generator and flip the breaker switch in order to succeed. I
made the first level more difficult by also forcing the player to place the first bulb. My hope in
doing so was that players would be encouraged earlier to learn how the game functions, steering
them away from randomly placing bulbs to see which ones work and which ones do not later in
the game.
The second level initially had a generator that was more difficult to locate than in the first
level. The power cord attached to the bulb outlet went through the floor and into the basement,
so it was not directly traceable by the player. I changed this so that the cord could be directly

4. traced all the way from the generator to the bulb outlet. I hoped that this change would encourage
players to pay attention to the power cords rather than merely rely on guess work.
Eventually I added a lighting effect to bulbs when they are turned on. I did not just add
this feature because it makes sense in the game world, but more so because it solved two
problems. By adding light that spills out to floors other than the one containing the bulb (such as
through holes in the floor) I showed the player that the breaker switch merely toggles the status
of each bulb, rather than functioning as a rigid on and off switch. The player can see that bulbs
are being affected by the switch even if they are not within direct line of sight of those bulbs.
Furthermore the player no longer needs to run up and down the floors of the final level to check
which bulbs are on and off because he can see the effects of each bulb on the walls surrounding
the stage. By solving these two problems I make the game system easier to understand and less
tedious to interact with while still ensuring that the player is figuring it out on their own. Rather
than include a menu that displays for the player what is on and what is not I allow them to see
the effect of their work through environmental cues.
There are many problems with Bulbs, some of which relate to the identity of the game.
After changing the final level to lack unhelpful generators I had appeared to remove the only
justification for including a generator on/off switch. Why should the player need to manually
turn on each generator in the level if there is never a disadvantage to doing so? This is an
example of how Bulbs is a game struggling with its own identity. On one hand it plays like a
typical puzzle game with independent levels, on the other hand it contains a degree of game play
which is not explicitly concerned with solving puzzles. For example it takes no mental work at
all to run around the level turning on all of the generators.

5. So why not simply remove the player’s capacity to interact with each generator? If I had
sought out initially to make a clean puzzle game this would be a reasonable suggestion. But
when I reflect on my initial goals for Bulbs it is evident that I never aimed to create such a game.
The real world experience of learning how a system behaves involves engaging, to an extent, in
repetitive procedure. One must first remove the screws of an outer panel, perhaps, or apply a
lubricating substance to a moving part. And learning how to properly interact with such systems
usually involves a degree of guess-work as well. I tried to front-load as much of the player’s
guess work as possible. This was to first provide the player opportunities to observe the system’s
reactions to various inputs, and then to allow the player to make informed decisions based on
their theory of how the system behaves. Unfortunately some players that tested the game
engaged in guess work throughout the entire experience and never came to formulate any theory
to explain the system’s behavior. When there are only three choices of different bulb types it is
not unbearably tedious to continually guess and check until one arrives at the correct solution. It
is possible to get through the entire game without ever understanding its rules. Furthermore there
is no punishment for continuing to place incorrect bulbs in the incorrect sockets, so it could be
argued that there is too little incentive to pause and think about the laws which govern the
system’s behavior.
If Bulbs were meant to be a full-on puzzle game it would be a good idea to cull the
features that allow the player to rely on guess work. Additionally it would make more sense if
the generators were permanently on or if the concept of unhelpful generators was introduced
earlier in the game. A more attractive big picture approach, on the other hand, would be to feed
the game’s power system into a larger game environment. For example, perhaps the player is
exploring a space. It would make sense if there were certain locations in which depending on the

6. generators you turn on different pathways would open up to the player. A player would need to
manipulate a system designed to accomplish a variety of tasks to gain access to whichever
features of the space station were immediately desirable. Such complexly organized power
systems would also be more believable if they achieved a great deal more than merely turning on
various lights.