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Game Design Advance has moved to a new host! Right now it doesn’t look like much, but from now on the latest posts will be going up at gamedesignadvance.com. So to everyone’s who subscribed, make sure to update your RSS feeds! We’ll be keeping this site up for a while at this address just so we’re sure to catch everyone.
Thanks to Josh Knowles for all the help in getting this sorted out!
Of the blogs I’ve been following recently my current favorite is Versus Clu Clu Land, written by the mysteriously named Iroquois Pliskin (if you catch the reference you get a good idea of his taste in games). About a week ago Iroquois posted a short piece drawing an analogy between Jazz and video games.
Music has always seemed an appropriate metaphor for games to me, and I think the post does a good job of touching on the interesting design tension inherent between structure and improvisation. Unfortunately it gets caught up in the over-blown ‘narrative versus interactivity’ dichotomy at the end and doesn’t speak to what I think is the more interesting logical conclusion: that playing a game is a form of performance.
One of the hardest things to do as a game designer is the balancing act between being clever and being obtuse. Sitting with our own ideas for too long we often start to subconsciously justify our decisions, thinking that they’re more obvious than they are. We’re then flabbergasted when other people don’t immediately grasp the things we thought were simple.
Brenda Brathwaite considers the same question on her blog, Applied Game Design, and comes to the conclusion: “change your design, not the player.”
While I think that a large part of games actually is about changing the player’s natural instincts and inclinations, or at least tweaking them a little, she is right when she maintains that the solution is not trying to press your point. It’s better to simply give in and try something different. There’s a good chance that in the end it’ll make for a better game. Failing that, it’s always good to work with tangible design challenges.
David Sirlin’s long-awaited, online collectible card game, Kongai, has finally been launched over at Kongregate. After initially finding the game uninteresting I was convinced by our friend Nash to give it another try. I’m glad I did, because it really is a great game.
Unfortunately the great game is hidden under a terrifying interface, making the best way to learn the game an in-person tutorial from someone who already knows how to play (which is actually a lot like real card game). On top of this there’s a lot of lag and a few server glitches right now that might cause you to lose games even when your victory is imminent (this seems to happen less on ranked matches). Also, there’s no ability to play with your friends, which is ironic for a game hosted on a social software site. Finally, the card distribution is draconian, so when someone uses an incredible combo on you it’s basically impossible to throw together a deck and try the move out for yourself.
None of that, of course, is David Sirlin’s fault (except maybe the interface stuff) and he deserves credit for creating a really compelling and rewarding game. Everyone should try it out.
Designer and textbook author Chris Bateman has a post on his blog Only a Game challenging Sid Meier’s famous maxim that “a game is a series of interesting decisions”. To his mind there are plenty of games that succeed without featuring decisions that are particularly interesting, such as rhythm games like Guitar Hero.
Maybe it’s time to start delineating between ‘games’, ‘puzzles’, and ‘activities’; or would that simply confuse the matter further?
Michael Abbott, who writes a blog called The Brainy Gamer, has a new post that strikes the same chord that our own Charles Berkeley Miller often does, musing on the design and culture of sports and intimating how it might overlap with digital game design. Abbott’s post is about the joys of keeping score in Baseball, and he wonders aloud if maybe some video games, specifically RPGs, wouldn’t benefit from more openly embracing their numerical side.
I’ve been reading theories about games and game design for a long time, and I’m always happy to come across writers and thinkers whose ideas interest me. Recently I discovered two writers who are approaching games from a very systematic, design-oriented perspective.
The new issue of the Escapist has an essay by Jason Rohrer in which he outlines his hopes and dreams for the future of games. Though the piece is wide-ranging, the core of his argument is that the problem with the industry is actually that most developers put gameplay first, trumping whatever artistic visions the creators might have had. According to Rohrer, in order to elevate games to a form of ‘high art’ it’s going to take putting the gameplay, as defined by the mechanics of a game, in service of the expressive potential of games, instead of rehashing old genres and slapping on any theme that comes to mind.
Every now and then I play a video game that really shows what’s possible with the medium. A game where the context and the gameplay are tightly woven, with the meaning reinforced by every element, from the smallest player action to the larger possibility space. It’s even better when a game like this is really about something. Something that sticks with you long after you’ve stepped away from the screen.
Adam Parrish gets a nice shout out from GrandTextAuto.org for his thesis “New Interfaces for Textual Expression.”
Ian Bogost has already expressed some love in the comments, too!
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