Games andvideogames

FUNDAMENTALS OF GAME
DESIGN
GAMES AND VIDEO GAMES
Sayed Ahmed
BSc. Eng. in CSc. & Eng. (BUET)
MSc. in CSc. (U of Manitoba)
http://sayed.justEtc.net
http://www.justETC.net
Just E.T.C for Business, Education, and Technology Solutions
www.JustEtc.net
JustE.T.Csayed@justetc.net
1

TOPICS
 Define Games
 Essential Elements of Games
 Define games based on the elements
 What computers bring to gaming
 How video games differ from traditional games
 Specific ways how video games entertain people
 Some other enjoyable feature
 That you need to know for Game Design
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WHAT IS A GAME
 Playing and pretending are essential elements of playing
games
 Play:
 Arise from human’s desire to entertain themselves
 Nonessential and usually recreational activities
 Pretending:
 Is the mental ability to create a notional reality
 Different from the actual/real world
 We can create, abandon, or change at will
 Toys, Puzzles, and Games
 Toys: We play with toys
 No defined rules or games
 Puzzles: We play with (or solve) puzzles
 No defined rules but defined goals
 Games: With defined rules and goals
3

WHAT IS A GAME
 Definition of a Game
 A game is a type of play activity
 Conducted in the context of a pretended reality
 In which the participants try to achieve at least one
arbitrary, nontrivial goal
 By acting in accordance with rules
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THE ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF A
GAME
 Play
 Pretending
 A Goal
 The Rules
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GAME
 Play
 Participatory form of Entertainment
 Books and movies provide presentational form of
entertainment
 not necessarily passive but not interactive
 Pretending
 Magic Circle: boundary that divides ideas and activities
from game world and real world
 Single Player Games: Pretending – just select the player
and pretend with the game world
 Multiplayer game: All players pretend together and agree
to the game world rules
 We even pretend in traditional games as the rules or
activities may not have any real significance or effect in
real world
 Exception: The win loss can cause death or not
 Gambling
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GAME
 A Goal
 Games should have one or more goals (objects)
 Not necessarily quantifiable (Simcity)
 Victory condition, termination condition, loss
condition
 Loss condition: You cannot win but can loss
 RollerCoaster Tycon:
 Lose by running out all of your money and having your
park collapse
 Rules and Goals within the magic circle
 But winning or losing can affect the real world as well
 The Rules
 Definitions and instructions that the players agree to
accept during the duration of the game
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GAME
 Rules
 The following things are defined by rules
 The semiotics of the game
 The gameplay
 The sequence of play
 The goal(s) of the play
 The termination condition (may or may not have)
 Metarules
 Rules about rules
 When certain rules expire or can get changed
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THINGS THAT A GAME IS NOT
 Games are not always
 Competition or conflict
 It can be cooperative as well
 Entertainment and recreation
 Can be part of Study, practice, training, and work
 About fun
 Fun is not intrinsic to the game itself
 Fun is just an emotional response to playing a game
 That’s why the definition does not mention about
 Competition, conflict, entertainment, or fun
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GAMEPLAY
 Essential Elements of Gameplay
 Challenges
 Actions
 Challenges
 Task set for the player
 Nontrivial to accomplish
 Overcoming a challenge must require
 Physical or mental effort
 Unique, recurring, or continuous
 Shooting down – recurring
 Avoiding to get hit - continuous
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GAMEPLAY: CHALLENGES
 Challenges
 Simple, complex (make a game profitable)
 Can be divided into smaller challenges
 Completing an obstacle course divided into
 Climbing over a fence, crawling under a barrier, jumping
across a gap
 Optional challenges
 Preventing opponents to score goals
 May not be explicitly told
 But can be logically formed from the rules
 Nontrivial but not necessarily difficult
 Think about casual players, children, inexperienced players
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GAMEPLAY: ACTIONS
 Actions
 Rules specify
 What actions players can take to surmount the challenges
 Actions that are allowed
 Actions that are prohibited
 Which ones are required and under what circumstances
 Games also
 Permit Optional actions
 Listen to radio
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GAMEPLAY: DEFINITION OF
GAMEPLAY
 Gameplay consists of
 The challenges that the player must face to arrive at the
objective of the game
 The actions that the player is permitted to take to address
to those challenges
 As a game designer you should create them
simultaneously
 No point to create interesting challenges without defining
actions to overcome those
 Some designers consider fantasy and imagination to
be part of gameplay
 In general, fantasy and imagination are good sources of fun
as well
 Part of pretending (assuming that he is the pilot – reality
of the situation)
 You may design fantasy separately from gameplay
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FAIRNESS
 Players expect that the
 Game rules should be fair
 In single player games
 Fairness is a complicated issue
 It depends on the expectation of the player
 The outcome should reflect the actions
 Also dependent on the balancing
 In multiplayer games
 Each player should have equal chance of winning the game
 At the beginning
 Make games symmetric
 Lies outside the magic circle
 Not an essential element
 Culturally constructed notion
 Social metarule on how the players will judge the rules of the
game
 Players try to change the rules (real world games)
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SYMMETRY AND ASYMMETRY
 Symmetric Game
 All players play by the same rule
 Try to achieve the same victory condition
 Basketball
 Initial conditions, actions allowed, and the victory
condition
 are identical for both teams
 Chess and Backgammon are symmetric
 Except that one player will go first
 But in Chess – it does not give any special advantage (like tic
tac toe)
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 Symmetry and Fairness
 All players should start in the same state
 If a player is already more skilled with the game
 He should better take a handicapped role
 Sometimes people feel – this is fairness
 Example: Amateur Golf (allows handicapped concept),
Professional Golf
16

 Asymmetric Games
 Different players may play with different rules
 May try to achieve different goals
 For example: Wargames
 More asymmetric if based on historical events
 Starts with different number of troops and weapons (different
kinds as well)
 Start from different locations
 It may be necessary for different players to have different
objectives – to make the game fair
 Difficult to say players with equal skills have equal chance
of winning
 At the beginning of the game
 People adjust the rules to reflect their own notions of fairness
 For example: Fox and Geese Games
 Adjustment of rules
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COMPETITION AND COOPERATION
 Two player competitive (you versus me)
 Chess, backgammon
 Multiplayer competitive (everyone for himself)
 Monopoly
 Multiplayer cooperative (all of us together)
 Lego Star Wars – two-player cooperative
 Gauntlet – four-player cooperative
 Team based (us versus them)
 Soccer and sports game
 Partner games - bridge
 Single Player
 Solitaire, arcade games, Mario for Wii
 Hybrid competition modes
 Diplomacy: Overall context – competitive but also permits
cooperative modes
 Coordinate strategies, later renege for own advantage
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CONVENTIONAL GAMES VERSUS VIDEO
GAMES
 A game designer
 Ideally should be able to design all kinds of games
 May be with pen and pencil
 Video Game
 A video game is a game mediated by a computer
 Whether it is the traditional desktops and laptops or
computers built in
 A tiny keychain
 A huge electronic play environment at a theme park
 Computers help to borrow entertainment techniques
from
 Books
 Film
 Karaoke
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COMPETITION AND COOPERATION
 Design considerations
 You may offer options regarding
 Single player, multiplayer, team based
 Adds considerably for the design and implementation
 Competition:
 Conflict of interest
 Cooperation
 Cooperate to achieve the same goal
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VIDEO GAMES: HIDING THE RULES
 Video Games
 Do not require written rules
 The machine implements and enforces them
 Players need to be told
 how to play
 Not the rules
 Computer sets the magic circle
 The computer also determines when the player reaches the
goal
 Players don’t have to think the game to be a game
 Try and see if the game permits it
 Provide good immersion and pretending
 Disadvantage of Hiding
 With uninformed rules players cannot optimize their moves
 Many players do not like trial and error process
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SETTING THE PACE
 Pace of game
 The rate at which the events required by the rules take place
 In traditional games
 A timer in timer/time based games
 Non-timer based games
 The players or a referee sets the pace of the game
 Video Games
 The computer sets the pace of the game
 Unless waiting for the players input
 The game moves at a pace the designer has set
 This allows us to make
 Fast and furious games – constantly throwing enemies or other
challenges
 Slow and deliberate games
 Players can think as long as they want
 Games can automatically modulate the pace by giving a rest
period between period of intense activity
22

PRESENTING A GAME WORLD
 Game designers can
 Place imaginary people, places, and situations in the game
world
 Can use sound and appropriate video/graphics effect to
make the players sense the game world directly
 Video games target to present game worlds
 Similar to fictional world in televison or film
 Recent advancement of computer graphics has made this
almost reality
 Video games are now full of
 Pictures, animation, movies, music, dialog, sound effect, and so
on
 Designers now experimenting with a wide range of
visual styles,
 augmented reality or mixed reality
 Computers are used with real world activities to play a
game
23

CREATING ARTIFICIAL
INTELLIGENCE
 Strategy
 Path-finding
 Natural language parsing
 Natural language generation
 Pattern recognition
 Simulated people and creatures
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HOW VIDEO GAMES ENTERTAIN
 Gameplay
 Aesthetics
 Harmony
 Storytellling
 Risks and rewards
 Novelty
 Learning
 Creative and Expressive play
 Immersion
 Socializing
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HOW VIDEO GAMES ENTERTAIN
 Gameplay
 Aesthetics
 Harmony
 Storytellling
 Risks and rewards
 Novelty
 Learning
 Creative and Expressive play
 Immersion
 Socializing
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SUMMARY
 We have learned that
 Play, pretending, a goal, and rules are the essential
elements of a game
 How they work together to create the experience of playing
one
 Game play is defined as
 Challenges and actions
 Important issues of game design
 Winning and losing, fairness, competiton, and cooperation
 Informed what computers bring in the world of gaming
 With this knowledge
 You are now ready to learn
 How games are structured
 How to design them
 What it takes to be a designer
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