Yo, I'm back with another post. I'm gonna start this one off with a quick story.
Several weeks ago, I made a small game called Goblin Catch with some friends. It was meant to just be a 'weekend hack' kind of thing, a small game that someone could burn 4-5 minutes on and have completely discovered its nuances. The objective of the game is to get a score of 15 by collecting goblins; but I guess one could say the actual objective is to beat the high score and collect the goblins in the shortest time. If you're interested in playing it, you can find it here.
Back at uni, I told a couple of other people about it and they tried it out, and I got a lot of very interesting feedback on the game, some good, some bad.
First off, Goblin Catch is almost entirely luck based. There's no real element of skill required, no mechanical prowess necessary, no real opposition to your actions by the game which you have to surmount, and very little meta-strategy. The reason I say very little, is that, in fact, there is a strategy that you can employ to maximize your chances of beating the high score, without wasting a lot of time - can you think of it? (Hint: make use of the reset button)
Watching some of my friends play the game led me to realize that luck-based games like this can be fun, but they can also be extremely frustrating. They can be fun because the results are unpredictable - you could get 3 purples in a row on one try and demolish the high score, and then a completely horrible finish time on the next (say, if you get 15 green goblins in a row). Having a skill-based game framework seems much more consistent and appealing, no?
Well, maybe. Chess, a game in which every single variable is known from the beginning of the game, is one of the most popular games played worldwide. However, it loses some charm because it can sometimes get predictable (some people would argue there is almost always 'one correct move' in a given situation). Thus, we see that completely skill based games can have their flaws as well.
I think that keeping a game interesting for a long time (high replayability) requires some element of randomness and variance, some particular aspect of the game that can change contrary to the player's expectations - or maybe even providing room for the player to vary his/her own actions, such as numerous customization options.
For now, I'll just say this: when designing a game, you want to minimize frustration and maximize fun for players - that's a fair overarching goal (of course, in order to achieve this in the context of your game, you'll have to deal with a boatload of unique design issues - but that's for another day). I think there has to be a balance between skill and luck in every game, allowing players to enjoy the game and succeed when they have achieved mastery, but still have that varying element that keeps players coming back and trying to surpass their own accomplishments.
That's a long post ^, I'll stop here, picking up next week in part 2, when I talk a little bit about the card game Magic the Gathering.
Peace,
Kannan
Several weeks ago, I made a small game called Goblin Catch with some friends. It was meant to just be a 'weekend hack' kind of thing, a small game that someone could burn 4-5 minutes on and have completely discovered its nuances. The objective of the game is to get a score of 15 by collecting goblins; but I guess one could say the actual objective is to beat the high score and collect the goblins in the shortest time. If you're interested in playing it, you can find it here.
Back at uni, I told a couple of other people about it and they tried it out, and I got a lot of very interesting feedback on the game, some good, some bad.
First off, Goblin Catch is almost entirely luck based. There's no real element of skill required, no mechanical prowess necessary, no real opposition to your actions by the game which you have to surmount, and very little meta-strategy. The reason I say very little, is that, in fact, there is a strategy that you can employ to maximize your chances of beating the high score, without wasting a lot of time - can you think of it? (Hint: make use of the reset button)Watching some of my friends play the game led me to realize that luck-based games like this can be fun, but they can also be extremely frustrating. They can be fun because the results are unpredictable - you could get 3 purples in a row on one try and demolish the high score, and then a completely horrible finish time on the next (say, if you get 15 green goblins in a row). Having a skill-based game framework seems much more consistent and appealing, no?
Well, maybe. Chess, a game in which every single variable is known from the beginning of the game, is one of the most popular games played worldwide. However, it loses some charm because it can sometimes get predictable (some people would argue there is almost always 'one correct move' in a given situation). Thus, we see that completely skill based games can have their flaws as well.
I think that keeping a game interesting for a long time (high replayability) requires some element of randomness and variance, some particular aspect of the game that can change contrary to the player's expectations - or maybe even providing room for the player to vary his/her own actions, such as numerous customization options.
For now, I'll just say this: when designing a game, you want to minimize frustration and maximize fun for players - that's a fair overarching goal (of course, in order to achieve this in the context of your game, you'll have to deal with a boatload of unique design issues - but that's for another day). I think there has to be a balance between skill and luck in every game, allowing players to enjoy the game and succeed when they have achieved mastery, but still have that varying element that keeps players coming back and trying to surpass their own accomplishments.
That's a long post ^, I'll stop here, picking up next week in part 2, when I talk a little bit about the card game Magic the Gathering.
Peace,
Kannan
You forgot to mention that I abused the luck system to get the high score, yo
ReplyDeleteThe game was built from the ground-up to be based on luck! Nothing to abuse!
ReplyDelete