Failure Group that made Tower of Goo (amongst other Embrace the - PDF document

8/8/2014 Pen and Paper Zach Laster Dice, Cards, Rough boards, stand-in play elements University of Helsinki Excel Simple scripted games (Löve2D) Experimental Gameplay Project Failure  Group that made Tower of Goo (amongst other  Embrace the possibility of failure things)  Don’t just accept it  Each person in the group built a game  Take risks! prototype in a week  The thing about rapid prototyping is you  They bounced ideas off each other and used each are SUPPOSED to fail sometimes other for feedback, but otherwise worked independently  It wouldn’t be a prototype if it was  Rules: guaranteed to work  Each game must be made in less than seven days  If you fail you probably still learn  Each game must be made by exactly one person something valuable  Each game must be based around a common theme  Prototyping is for SCIENCE! i.e. "gravity", "vegetation", "swarms", etc. Do it fast Limits  The point of rapid prototyping is it is  Building prototypes is easier when  You know the question you are trying to answer  And throwing more time at the problem  You have defined limits for what you are building doesn’t make the solution better  It don’t have to be exact or highly specific,  There isn’t typically a correlation just limiting between time and prototype quality  The EGP benefited from focusing on themes like “gravity” or “swarming”  They also seem to have all used the same theme at the same time (at least initially) 1

8/8/2014 Team of Individuals  One of the stronger tactics that EGP used was  The value of the team in that they don’t work together. this context is primarily helping to provide ideas  Producing prototypes individually spreads out and competition the risk  EGP found that the  At least one of them is likely to be good team was most useful at the start and the end of  It improves competition prototyping  Especially if everyone is working with the same  Bouncing ideas off each constraints other  Gives more to share  Competing with final products  Code, ideas, concepts, methods, etc  In the middle of  All the stuff you learn individually can now be taught development, it just http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/130848/how to others! _to_prototype_a_game_in_under_7_.php messed with them being in the zone Brainstorming – How not to do it Concept Art from Others  Formal Brainstorming doesn’t work (at  One method to help get the initial least, not on schedule) idea/setting/mood for your game is to  Mostly, you just want to get something collect and put together music and/or art running in your head, bounce some stuff around which is somehow significant to you  If inspiration doesn’t hit you at first, keep it in the  Tower of Goo, Gravity Head, and On a back of your head Rainy Day all used this method to build their  Your brain does a lot of background processing atmospheric moods  Brainstorming IS useful for hammering things out  Feedback on ideas  Helping to solve stuff Thought Experiments Toy First  Generally, games have some core  Or, prototype your prototype mechanics that make them what they are  Simulate it in your head first, don’t just  When prototyping, build that first, and make sure get half an idea and start coding it’s worthwhile  If it isn’t, you can save yourself the time of  Consider how the player is playing and if building the rest. they are enjoying it ○ This is knowing when to cut and run  Is everything playing nicely together?  The toy is the mechanic that’s fun to play  Paper prototypes can help a lot here! with just by itself, without actual gameplay  Super Tummy Bubble  Tower of Goo 2

8/8/2014 Fake it Shoot it. Shoot it now.  Whenever possible (and it’s usually  Sometimes, it just isn’t working possible), it’s cheaper and faster to fake  Sometimes the toy just never crystalizes things  Correct AI doesn’t come up often in AAA games,  Sometimes the toy just refuses to become a because fake AI is faster to make, easier to game tweak, and works basically as well.  You also can’t just add polish to it  This can also make your game faster  One of those lessons taught by the  People see through this kind of thing quickly, programming gurus: Learn to slack of with though it may catch their eye initially style  Also known as “Hobbits would be fantastic coders” Art Matters Engineering only sort of matters  EGP found that “correct” and “reusable”  Despite not being a good cover for crappy are not really targets design, art and music very much improve a  I’d argue that “reusable” is always good, but I game can definitely see not making it a requirement  Sets atmosphere here  If you make parts of your base reusable, later  Can greatly improve immersion! prototypes can benefit!  Sometimes just a few simple things put  The big thing is: The user will never see together well can make a strong aesthetic your fantastic architecture  Build an art style for the game, and that will  Badly architected games can be fun (Minecraft) cover most of it  If it works, and works fast, then it works; that’s  A standard industry method for music is to build all they care about basic themes for things Complexity != Fun Building Games from Primitives  Many mechanics can be reduced to similar  We don’t need a lot mechanics  Dice, cards, bouncy balls  Dice rolls vs card draws  We’re pretty easy to entertain Often possible to simulate mechanics using  So perhaps all you need are a few basic other means primitives and a neat idea  Most games have highly similar elements, such as drawing or rolling to determine  This also ties back to “the polish won’t allocation of resources or success. save it” When building a new mechanic, it's  Similarly, experimental != complex probably wise to compare against other similar mechanics 3

8/8/2014 Goals and Bounce  When converting a toy to a game, we want to try to use any implicit goals  What would you want to do with this even without game mechanics?  Avoid things that feel randomly tacked on  Keep the game bouncy!  Things which are responsive and bounce to user input will help the user  Super Tummy Bubble  The Swarm  Mario  Minecraft (in some aspects) The Hero with a Thousand Faces  Joseph Cambell determined this trend in  Once it was identified, it was obviously most mythic literature; The Hero’s Journey everywhere  Many ancient tales from all over the world use  It was used to build Star Wars this formula  And has been used to explain Harry Potter ○ Nigeria, Finland, North America, China, … and the Sorcerer’s Stone ○ The Odyssey, Inferno, Sleeping Beauty, Faust, …  Some virtual worlds (Shadowbane) use  Also known as the monomyth it when building their quests  Cambell suggested that this trend is rooted in a human need or psyche The Quest for Self  The Hero’s Journey is a process of self  With most cases of the formula (books, movies, myths), it’s not the reader who discovery, from ignorance to mastery goes on the journey, it’s the main character  The hero travels from a mundane world to an “other world” of danger and the (whom they hopefully identify with)  While this does provide some similar growth in unknown self, it’s not the same  Once they succeed there, they return to  Virtual Games are the exception to this. their own world, armed with new You are the character, you control their knowledge and a new sense of self, ready actions. to tackle whatever drove them to the other  The more freedom you have in the game world, world to begin with the more room you have to explore your self.  Sounds a lot like the story line from Ultima,  You are the hero. doesn’t it? 4