Hey so this week we were asked to read up on Brathwaite, B and Schreiber, I. (2008) Challenges for Games Designers. Boston: Charles River Media/ Cengage Technology. (like that Eddie?) So here are some of my notes and thoughts on the subjects:
Chapters 5 (Elements of Chance)
Luck enables the game to be easily accessible by a much wider audience. There are many other reasons for adding luck and chance:
Delaying or preventing solvabilaty
A game is 'solvable' if the entire possibility space is know ahead of time. Adding elements of chance such as dice rolls into a game prevents all the players from ever knowing exactly what is going to happen from one turn to the next.
Making play 'Competitive' for all players.
Using luck in this way will enable players who have mismatched skill levels to maintain a competitive game and therefore hopefully maintain interest.
Increasing variate.
Forcing situations where players must play 'innovatively' and prevents repetition within games (such as tic tac toe or book openings in chess)
Creating dramatic moments
this is the creation of tension at essential moments in the game, will the gamble pay off, will this roll let me land on the finishing square, will I deal enough damage to kill the orc? It's moments in games where you find yourself holding your breath in anticipation of the outcome.
Enhancing decision making
Eliminating 'obvious decisions' and adding a 'risk or reward' twist to a game.
As game designers there are many different tools in our arsenal that we can use to add elements of chance to a game:
Dice
This can add a completely random factor if one die is rolled or several dice that are not added together. however if you use multiply dice and add the number together probability comes into play. If a single d6 is rolled the chance that any number between 1 and 6 coming up is 1/6, but if you use two then the odds of rolling a 2 or 12 is 2/12 but rolling a 7 would be 6/12 (or at least that's how I think it works)
Cards
They can be shuffled, split, dealt face down or dealt so that only the player who has these cards can see them (this adds a 'fog of war' to the game, not knowing what the other players hold and therefore not being to see the entire game state at any one time) However as cards are finite, once one card is drawn that card can not be drawn again that turn and the odds of drawing any of the other cards go up and the odds of drawing that card become zero. This also applies to the start of a new turn, unless the cards are re-introduced into the deck and shuffled then the odds will shift even more as time passes.
Pseudo-random number generators.
It is extremely hard for most computers to ever come up with a completely random number, however there are a lot of algorithms out there that will generate a seemingly random number (random enough for most games) These can be used in a lot of ways but primarily its used for either random encounters, damage calculation and other 'non static' elements in games.
-Hidden information
information can be hidden from all players (Cludo) or just from other players or even individual players (Poker, Settlers of Catan) This also creates a 'fog of war' and can lead to some interesting game dynamics and ascetics.
There are many other ways to introduce elements of chance such as spinners, coin tosses, derides and randomised face down board tiles.
Scrabble uses a few of these mechanics such as hidden information (the player only know what tiles he or she has in her hand) and also the use of a bag to hide the remaining tiles so no one can see what is left and picking a tile is also completely random (even though the probability of any remaining tiles can be worked out from what is on the board, it appears to be random and therefore keeps the game interesting)
Very few games are truly random in their entirety. most will incorporate in some form elements of skill.
Children however lack the cognitive reasoning to play or enjoy more complete games such as room 25 or risk, so letting luck decide in games like snakes and ladders is a great way of providing an enjoyable experience and distraction as well as helping to teach them things like how to count (up to 6) and how to follow basic rules. I liken this use of luck to giving a child a game controller for an Xbox that isn't connected. the child feels involved and watch the game progress without ever having to do anything more than pretend.
Chapter 6 (Elements of "strategic" skill)
Raph Kister (A theory of fun for games design) "we play games and enjoy the process because we are seeking to master the pattern in the game"
A good game is a series of meaningful decisions. If a game is engaging enough in its decision making then the player soon falls through the monitor or TV and enters the game world, this is known as "entering the magic circle" (I'm sure I can think of a better term...........) Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls this state "flow" or "the optimal play state"
Decisions are widely know/referred to as 'skill'. A designer must put a lot of thought into the reasoning to a players decisions. if a player makes a choice that doesn't affect the game state, what is the point?
Here are a few different types of decisions.
Obvious Decisions
consider a game of highest number where one players says a number and the other must say a higher number, the choice is obvious. If the player says a number higher than his or her opponent then they will win but if they say one that is lower then they loose. This is usually tedious so most modern games automate these decisions such as auto reload when a gun is out of bullets or replenishing stamina over time rather than forcing a player to eat ever so often.
Meaningless decisions
These types of decisions are very frustrating however they can be 'hidden' from the player, wrapped up something that affects the immediate but not the over all game, such as changing dialogue or even appearing to react on what you chose despite both choices producing the same outcome. This is however lost after a quick replay of a level.
Blind decisions
These decisions are based on no facts or information. if you reach a nondescript fork in the road with no signs or makings and nobody has mentioned anything before about it, do you turn left or right? The fact is that whichever route you take is pretty much dumb luck, there is no way of knowing prior to this point what consequences will come to light due to your choice. Again this is lost on a replay due to already knowing the outcome of one of the routes.
Trade offs
This kind of decision is not a 'right or wrong' decision bus and 'or' decision. Assault rifle 'or' sniper rifle, armour 'or' weapon upgrade, build a farm 'or' barracks?
Dilemmas
When all choices are bad an will harm a player in some way, they are faced with a dilemma. Does the player decide to pay a toll in coin or permanently loose a heart?
Risk vs reward trade offs
This is where each decision in the trade off has a different level of risk attached but a proportionate level of reward
Frequency or anticipation of a decision
The frequency of decision making can keep a player interested but anticipation of an impending decision can also have the same attention grabbing affect on a player.
Strategy and tactics
Grand-Strategy is the overall arching means in which to achieve an ultimate long term goal.
Tactics are a way of achieving a short term goal to aid in the progression to the ultimate goal.
There are many different types of trade off mechanics
-Auctions
-Purchases
-Limited use special ability's
-Dynamic limited use special ability's (power grows the longer you wait)
-Explicit choices
-Limited actions
-Trading and negotiating
There are also some questions you can ask yourself when evaluating the strategic components of a game:
"Do players care when other players are talking?"
"Are players making long term plans?"
"Are there multiple strategies for multiple games?"
All in all I think this reading was very informative and also really interesting. I will defiantly be using some of these tools in my future creations :)
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