Unlock your creative potential: 7 steps to becoming a game designer

7 steps to becoming a game designer

Unlock your Creative Potential

www.FamousAspect.com

A brief history of Ethan
intern and tester metrics and user testing

game design game production

Core competencies: game design, Powerpoint decks, inappropriate humor

Craftyy

Support the Craftyy Kickstarter to design, remix and share HTML5 games.

Super Pixel Time

Original Apple II Gameboy

Pop Red Balloons!


Cofounder @ Quarter Spiral


Unlock your Creative Potential


Why do you want to design video games?

1) Know yourself

Activity: self reﬂection
• Why do I want to design videogames?
• What are the upsides of this motivation?
• What are the downsides of this motivation?


Why design?


Upsides
• Wide range of genres
• Wide range of skill sets
• Adaptable beyond hands on design
✦ Building teams
✦ Building people
✦ Building process
✦ Building lectures


Downsides
• Overextend and lose focus
• Limited patience for lengthy development cycles
• Difﬁculty handing off pieces of the design


Find your motivation

“I want to lead the design of a 90+ Metacritic game.”


“I want to be the face of a AAA videogame.”


“I want to be rich and famous.”

90+ Metacritic

Forget about Deus Ex, Dead Space 2 or Dead Souls

Face of the product?


Rich and famous?

2011 Salary Survey: Industry average = $81,192, Designer = $73,386

Be honest with yourself

Play to your strengths, overcome your weaknesses

Communication is the key to design

2) Know vision

Activity: write a game treatment
• 2-3 page document at a high level
• Communicate the core vision
• Get people excited
• Clearly deﬁne the game


Treatment != design document


Goals of a treatment
• Communicate a clear vision
• Generate excitement
• Deﬁne scope

Easiest part of the job, hardest part to do right

Elements of a treatment
• Hype paragraph
• X statement
• Analogs, antilogs, leaps of faith
• Target player
• Major features


Smash TV Social


Hype paragraph
• Wet the appetite - get the reader excited
• Be brief - 3 to 5 sentences
• Tease major features
“‘Big money, big prizes, I love it.’ Smash TV Social is the return of the classic arcade
game, reinvented for social networks. Presented through the lens of reality TV, this
over the top, twin stick shooter allows friends and strangers to co-operate and
compete for high scores while mowing down enemies with inventive weapons.
Modernized with RPG progression systems, upgradable & customizable weaponry
and multiplayer, Smash TV Social is the next, addictive evolution of the top down
shooter.”

X statement
• Single sentence that describes the essence of the game
• “Razor” used to make decisions
• Punchy & memorable

Meaningless X statement
Return of the arcade classic

Meaningful X statement
Compete and cooperate in an over the top, reality TV shooter.

Analogs, antilogs and leaps of faith
• Idea taken from Getting to Plan B
• Analogs: successful games you want to be like
• Antilogs: similar games you want to avoid
• Leaps of faith: elements unproven in the marketplace


Smash TV analogs
• Ratchet and Clank
✦ Leveling weapons
✦ Fast and furious gunplay

• Bubble Witch Saga
✦ Short, rewarding levels
✦ Leader board competition
✦ Earned currency and boosts

Smash TV antilogs
• Smash TV Arcade
✦ Don’t be a quarter monster
✦ Engagement not frustration

• Simcity Social
✦ Social network integrity
✦ True multiplayer not friend gating


Leaps of faith

Social network gamers
CRAVE
synchronous multiplayer.

Target player
• No need for fancy marketing studies
• Imagine your ideal player
• Describe him or her in 3 to 5 sentences

‘Ethan is a 25-35 year old, lifelong gamer. He grew up pumping quarters into arcade
machines and begging for the hottest NES game each holiday season. As an adult, he is
an enthusiast gamer with disposable income - researching and buying all the hottest
AAA titles and indie gems - but rarely playing them. He grabs 5 minute sessions of
iPhone and Facebook games multiple times a day, but grabbing a 4 hour gaming
marathon is a rare luxury. He has nostaligic memories of Smash TV arcade co-op.’

Major features
• Describe the core feature set of your game
• Each feature should have a short paragraph
• Clear, concise communication
Leveling Weapons
Smash TV Social’s over the top weaponry will create a long term progression system to
keep players engaged over weeks and months. Similar to Ratchet & Clank, each
weapon will have multiple levels that are unlocked for killing baddies with it. As
weapons level, they get more grandiose in both destructive power and visual splendor.
Players who crave achievement will come back for game after game to level each
weapon to its top level, Diamond Form.

Control your scope
• Writing a treatment can easily be a 1 to 2 hour task
• These 2 pages can describe months (or years) of work
• Controlled scope is the sign of a mature designer


Don’t be precious


Finding the kernel of fun

3) Know prototyping

Activity: pen and paper prototype
• Choose a board or card game to modify
• The simpler the better
• Deconstruct its gameplay systems
• Strip it down to its essentials and start modifying
• Play, ﬁnd what’s wrong, make a change, repeat


Goals of a prototype
• Find the kernel of fun
• Find it fast
• Find it cheap

Prove your idea is worth pursuing quickly, or move on

Monopoly


Deconstructing Monopoly
• Each player has a character and some money
• On his turn, the player roles the dice to move his character
around the board.
• When the character lands on a property, the player may
purchase it for its price
• If the player lands on a property another player owns, he must
pay the owner rent
• If a player cannot pay rent, he goes bankrupt and his properties
are given to the player he owes rent


Parts of Monopoly
• Components
✦ Characters
✦ Property
✦ Money
✦ Dice
✦ Cards
• Goal
✦ Own property
✦ Get money
✦ Last player standing


Iterating on Monopoly
• Designer
✦ Characters > Heroes
✦ Property > Battles
✦ Money > Loot
✦ Dice > Stats
✦ Cards > Spells


Iterating on Monopoly
• Writer
✦ Heroes > Ninjas
✦ Battles > Monsters
✦ Loot > Weapons & Armor
✦ Stats > Abilities
✦ Spells > Scrolls
• Artist
✦ Deﬁne look and feel
✦ Deﬁne goals


Sample game design kit
• 3x Blank Game Boards
• 15x Poker Chips
• 3x 10 sided dice
• 8x 6 sided dice (colored)
• 20x notecards
• 8x crayons
• 20x colored glass beads


Experience the meat and potatoes of game design

4) Know tools

Activity: build something
• Reﬂect on your goal
• Pick a tool that will let you achieve that goal
• Do enough tutorials until you have something playable

Much of a designer’s job is technical and tedious

Example toolsets
• Game Maker Studio • Valve Hammer Editor
• Game Salad • Starcraft 2 Editor
• Unity 3d • Skyrim Mod Tools
• Adventure Game Studio • Dragon Age Toolset
• Unreal Development Kit • [Shameless plug] Craftyy

Tools are plentiful, only followthrough is on short supply

Playtesting, listening and iteration is the path to great games

5) Know listening

Activity: tissue test your game
• Get your pen & paper prototype (or digital prototype) playable
• Sit someone in front of it
• Watch them play giving minimal instruction
• Fix what’s broken
• Find a new tester

Repeat this process 30-40 times and you’ll have a great game

Guidelines for testing
• Make improvements between each tester
• Give minimal guidance
• Focus on the early game
• Listen to what they say
• If a player asks for a system in the game, it is not good enough


Sample play test: Pop Red Balloons
• In this video:
✦ My cousin plays Pop Red Balloons
✦ He gets stuck after 30 seconds
✦ He missed reading a valuable piece of UI


Feedback can be frustrating
• You are very close to your project
• You are probably pretty burnt out
• You will probably be defensive
• Your players have little to no context
• Cultivate listening, not reacting

Find the WHY behind the WHAT

Find the WHY behind the WHAT
• In this video:
✦ I ask my young cousin what she wants from the game
✦ She makes a fart noise
✦ Her two brothers join in
✦ They all want fart noises when balloons are popped


What they asked for:

Farts
Why they asked for it:

Lack of feedback

Game design is a team sport

6) Know teamwork

Activity: Execute a peer’s vision
• Find a friend with a game idea
• Partner with them to prototype their idea
• Be an executor, not a designer


Goal of activity
• Learn to listen critically and execute
• Learn to check your ego at the door
• Learn to help clarify design without controlling design


Why this activity is important
• Games require giant teams
• Everyone wants to contribute design
• Everyone wants to be a designer
• Learn to say “Yes and” instead of “No”


The only thing a player cares about is a shipped game

7) Know ﬁnish

Activity: release a game
• Use the process
• Make a treatment
• Make a prototype
• Playtest, iterate and polish
• Launch your game
• Listen, iterate and polish


The long road to ship

1 Hour 3 Months


The long road to ship

1 Week 1 Year


Players don’t care...

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Unlock your creative potential: 7 steps to becoming a game designer

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