game design and theory - will wright class

  • game design takes inspiration from other disciplines
  • balance
  • design is constraint

  • what's the win state?

    • e.g. a competitive game is 0 sum (+1 win, -1 loss, 0 tie)

  • story-tellers

    • will thinks the coolest stories come from the player

  • games are based on agency (i did something - something happened)

    • broforce - the enemy kills you, they giggle
  • emotional pallet

  • maslovs pyramid - what's the motive of the character?

    • connecting base motives to larger aspirations
  • abstractions/schema = (what's the difference between a dog or a cat - this is often things that are things we don't really actively think about but they typically have defined behavior)

  • Player schema (how it operates/ how it behaves)

    • classification
    • causality
    • empathy
    • agency
  • Player's mental model

  • Enable player communities

    • every player is different
    • have the player see themselves (i.e. identity)
    • recognition (online communities around games)

  • Player flow state (edge of abilities)

    • failure is interesting and understandable
    • building ability to problem solve and strategize
    • the player is the one adjusting the difficulty - player paced
    • more advanced systems use automation (dda?) to adjust difficulty automatically

  • failure accelerates learning

    • the classic pottery class anecdote

  • design need loops of successes and failures

    • ramp model up smoothly and gradually
    • simple model that gets more complex over time
    • variety of failure states can be humorous
  • capturing metrics

  • rewards and incentives

    • some of the more interesting rewards are those that players think they came up with themselves (discoveries)
    • exploits
    • purple cow
    • rewards are mechanisms to guide players
    • incentives are internal to the player

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