What I Care About In Game Design And Why You Should Too
Here’s a small article about the few things I care about in game design. Everyone has their own approach and I’m not saying I hold the one & only Truth about it. It’s just mine and I’m sharing it so other can get inspired and confront it with their own way of looking at a creative process.
The best game design advice I ever received, hands down, is:
“Know WHO/WHY you’re making this game for.”
There is no definitive list of answers to this question, but most of the time you’ll find answers like “for you, for X, to achieve Y, to showcase this/that” .
This question is why making a prototype used as a proof of concept is very different from making the whole game: you’re not creating it for the same reasons.
This advice should not be understood just as “know your audience”.
You can be creating a game for you while still making it publicly available and hope people will like it for example.
The idea behind it is more about having a guideline to put down your intentions and also help you make choices when you encounter them. And you will.
As a general advice, I strongly advise you to always work on something for you, and of course factor in other things if the projects needs it. Otherwise you’ll lack motivation and will scamp your game.
I hate seeing gamedevs cry about being forced on crunches, putting more hours because of their bosses etc.
Why would you work in a creative field if it’s not to do something you care about?
This behavior goes beyond my understanding. — And don’t answer me with all that “I need money to eat” bullshit. We all do. Not caring about your work is a choice.
The moment you’ll start being invested in what you do (even if you pick up dog shit on the street for a living) is the moment life will be way more enjoyable.
COMMON SENSE
Most of game design is just common sense, yet we all seem to forget it sometimes. If a mechanic or idea you’re implementing in a game sounds stupid when said out loud, it probably is. You should either put this idea aside (or make it the center of your game)!
Common sense is pretty self-explanatory, so I don’t know how to develop more on this subject. Just put yourself in the intended player’s shoes and make sure your ideas aren’t ridiculously wrong.
PURPOSE
Always try to make your mechanics as simple as possible, and iterate over and over again. Adding features on top of features will not save a game broken at its core.
Moreover, every element in your game should serve the experience, and be there for a reason. Keeping your game coherent is really important. It doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t add details to your game/environment/whatever, but they should come naturally.
Having a simple game also has a lot of perks. You can explain it really fast and instantly know if people are interested by the concept. And you can always add cool mechanics on top of a polished core mechanic.
EMOTION
Your players must feel something when they are experiencing your game. A lot of the emotions you want to create goes by the sound, level design & visual style… But the most overlooked one is just gameplay. I already mentionned this in the RYTMH section of my advice on FPS level design.
The actions and inputs your players will have to do at some point will drastically change how they experience your game.
In Hotline Miami, the untamed violence of the avatar is enhanced when you have to hit several times the attack input to bash an enemy’s head in the ground. In the same situation in Splinter Cell, you only have to hit the input once and see the avatar swiftly put down the enemy. Drastically different approaches and feelings, yet the situation remains the same.
I don’t really care about beating a dead horse, so a perfect example of what not to do is Firewatch. Visuals & audio convey the emotions about a superb forest you want to explore. Yet most of the game is just about following the ONLY path to go from point A to point B, the animations when climbing/going down steep rocks is horribly clunky and instantly puts you out of Firewatch‘s universe.
If you have played this game you probably remember the lake area. The invisible wall preventing you to go in the lake was enough for me to completely break the immersion. It’s a bad design decision. Even the path to arrive to the lake is some kind of S-shaped path walled by bushes. It looks very artificial and makes me very angry at the designer just by looking at it.
Most players won’t give a shit about invisible walls and these kind of details, but as a gamedev you should.
Well, that’s it. Common sense, emotion, purpose. I don’t care about anything else when creating. I hope this will be of some use to you, or that you’ll hate it (it’s still a valid emotion, right?).
