University of Helsinki Ask Questions Dont be shy, I like to answer - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Zach Laster University of Helsinki

 Ask Questions  Don’t be shy, I like to answer them  I tell lots of stories (usually Tales from the Pixel Mines I’ve picked up)  Bored of the content? Get me off on a tangent. ;)  Please silence your phone

Who am I, and why am I here?  I have recently completed my Master’s degree in Computer Science, specializing in Artificial Intelligence and Algorithms for Games.  I am (hopefully) starting a PhD focusing on Procedural Terrain Generation in Massively Networked Games this Fall.

 I have been working as an instructor since 2010, and this is my second class I’ve designed and lectured.  I’m lecturing because I really enjoy teaching. It’s fun for me and I love it.  My goal is to educate. However I can best do that, let me know.

Ask Questions!  Yes, I know I already said this.  I specialize in this. I have difficulty telling what is obvious vs what is arcane.  I actually allocate some time in my lectures for you to ask things, and for me to discuss them.  I know a lot of stuff, and sometimes I just forget to put things into the slides! If you are interested in a concept ask!  Worst case scenarios:  I don’t actually know, and will get back to you tomorrow.  I will say “we’ll cover that on day X”

Slides  I try to keep the information on the slides informative and direct, and then to present new and more information by speaking.  I try not to read off my slides.  I try to keep all of the most important information on the slides.  Half the time, the slides are there so I know what to come back to. ;)

Why this course exists  HY has several courses on Game Programming, but nothing on game design  Game Engine Architecture  Game Architecture  Introduction to Game Programming  We’ve also had courses on specific topics  AI for Games 1 & 2  At least one seminar on Game AI

 The absence of actual game design and balancing classes means that the course projects from these classes rarely play well as games themselves.  It is an odd hole in the existing teaching around the department.  Especially since a number of people were interested in such a course, when asked.

Intro to goals of the course  Look at games and what makes a game fun and interesting  Look at how balance affects those qualities  Ability to evaluate the balance of a mechanic in a game  Ability to construct metrics and flow paths for balance  Ability to construct balanced content for games

 Each lecture, I’d like to include a bit of “homework.” Largely this will be things you can use immediately to improve balance in your own project(s).  Rather than cover widely different topics each day, I will begin with basic concepts and then progress to deeper things each day, spreading the various concepts across all the days.  By the end of day one you’ll hopefully have a number of basic concepts, which we’ll expand on the next day.  Some days will focus more on certain avenues than others, like we’ll have a lot of discussion on prototyping on one of the days, while most of the time I’ll just mention it or make some comments on it.

Grading and Project  The course does not have an exam  You will work in teams of 2 to 5  It is recommended that you have a team. Teammates means more personhours and points of view.  Max allowed group size is 7, and that’s only if you walk into the class as a group. If you are forming groups here, max is 5.

Report  The actual grading for the projects will be conducted using a report system. Each group will write a project report containing:  Game Concept  Balance Goals  Game Design  How the balance goals were achieved and any known issues  Postmortem

Individual Reports  In addition to the group report, each member of a group will return an individual report with:  Personal impressions and lessons  Commented contribution breakdown out of 100% ○ From a total of 100%, give each member of the group a value for how much work they contributed. ○ Explain why for each percentage. Large discrepancies especially need to be justified.

Game Definitions  Math (Game Theory)  Gaming Theory  Software Dev  Intuitive Understanding

Game Theory  There exists a mathematical definition of games for the purposes of game theory  Commonly, this context is interested in two player games which have certain payoffs for various strategies  While knowing some things in this area can be useful to conceptualizing game balance and design as we mean it, it’s not a very good definition for us.  We’ll draw on a few concepts from here, primarily in solving games.

 Game theory is a study of strategic decision making. Specifically, it is "the study of mathematical models of conflict and cooperation between intelligent rational decision-makers". [1] An alternative term suggested "as a more descriptive name for the discipline" is interactive decision theory. [2] Game theory is mainly used in economics, political science, and psychology, as well as logic, computer science, and biology. The subject first addressed zero-sum games, such that one person's gains exactly equal net losses of the other participant or participants. Today, however, game theory applies to a wide range of behavioral relations, and has developed into an umbrella term for the logical side of decision science, including both humans and non-humans (e.g. computers). - Wikipedia

Gaming Theory / Game Studies  Essentially, the focus of Gaming Theory is on players and player enjoyment. It’s more the study of why we play games and what roles they fill, where as the mathematical game theory is interested in the solution to games.  Here we’d define a game as any “social” interaction with one or more players. Basically it’s something fun to play, and builds from an intuitive sense of games. See also: Gamification

 Gaming theory is commonly used in  computer science  psychology  sociology  anthropology  philosophy  arts and literature  media studies  communication  theology  etc

Game Development  When defining games as software, we are interested primarily in certain aspects. Games are a soft real-time interactive agent-based temporal simulation  Which is kind of fancy sounding, but a very good description of games as software  This definition is taken our Game Engine Architecture course

Intuitive Understanding  Games are games, right?  Generally, most people can tell you what’s a game simply by looking at it. At least, most games.  The intuitive understanding of games isn’t strictly useful, as it only lets us say “this is a game” and doesn’t tell us anything about that game.

So what are we looking at?  For the purposes of this course, we’re kind of in the middle of these definitions.  While our games fit better with Gaming Theory, Game Theory is certainly a strong way to approach balance.  If you are building your game in software, then you care about that definition as well.  From the intuitive understanding, in our case we really only care that the game is playable. It needs to have some form of defined interactions, but otherwise it’s not even technically required to be fun. Of course, we probably want it to be …

Because games are fun Because games are social Because games permit exploration Because games allow escape Some can even turn a profit (if you are good)

Immersion  One of the key elements for players of games is to be immersed .  Immersion is a state of being “in” the game. Immersive games “suck you in.”  Generally, as players are more immersed they have more fun.  If immersion is broken or the player cannot be immersed, they generally will not play for long.

 Obviously, then, immersion is a necessary trait in games.  They improve the fun of games  Lack of immersion will prevent players form playing even if the game is “fun.”  Generally, we’ll want to maintain immersion however we can.

 There are four levels of immersion  Unimmersed, avatar, character, and persona  These terms come from the perspective of story immersion, but apply fairly generally  When a player is unimmersed they are not enjoying the game. They feel no connection to it and don’t care about it.  The next level is when the player’s in -game self seems like an avatar to them. A body which accomplishes the goals the player sets forth.  This is a disconnected attachment. The player is enjoying the game, but nothing in the game happens to them, and they interact with the game only indirectly.

 Deeper is when the avatar becomes a character. The player feels they are controlling something a bit more alive; with more purpose.  Last is the persona. At this level, the player is fully immersed and feels they are part of the game world.

 What do these levels mean outside of games with controllable characters?  These concepts map fairly well, though the terms themselves don’t work well  Some games may never really aim for such deep levels of immersion. Some are happy with the player being at the level of avatar or character.  What does it mean to be immersed in a card game? In a game of chess?  What produces immersion?