State of Game Design 2011

Quote from Taylor

The trouble with videogames isn't the violence. It's that most of the characters are dicks.

Charlie Brooker is the best games journalist.

Quote from Taylor

The trouble with videogames isn't the violence. It's that most of the characters are dicks.

that's a pretty shitty article

Maybe. That quote is exactly why I couldn't play Gears or Bulletstorm, though.

Infinitely re-spawning enemies... any game developer responsible for this should be closed down and everyone drowned in the ocean. The only time this has worked was in System Shock 2...

Quote from D3ads

Infinitely re-spawning enemies... any game developer responsible for this should be closed down and everyone drowned in the ocean. The only time this has worked was in System Shock 2...

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nice anatomy

Quote from D3ads

Infinitely re-spawning enemies... any game developer responsible for this should be closed down and everyone drowned in the ocean. The only time this has worked was in System Shock 2...

works in sandbox games just fine

Quote from Erny

works in sandbox games just fine

I think he is talking about MW3 / BF3

Because there are more than 2 good examples of Infinitely re-spawning enemies

Yeah obviously, in sandbox everything respawns...

Relevant?!?

I have to agree with Rick concerning money and all. Limits of any kind (financial, tech limits, etc) usually enforce creativity on many levels. Most of my favorite games had such limitations, but in the end they managed to take profit of these (such as LGS's games back in the day).

If I had to do a list of game design mechanics that really bother me, it would be the following:

- The use of QTEs; I really have to agree with D3ads and Jetsetlemming on that one. I couldn't have said it better.

- The "game-plays-itself-and-you-watch" syndrome, which sadly occurs quite frequently with recent games. I want to play, not watch the game play by itself dammit.

- Regenerating health. I'm not against it when it's done properly, like in DX:HR. But fast regenerating health? Heck no, there's zero challenge with that. You just have to duck behind a wall and wait.

- AI sidekicks when they are badly implemented. I prefer to be alone rather than having to rely on an AI friend following me and doing crap.

- The lack of challenge. I want to play a game in order to become better at it. But if it's a cakewalk, it's just boring and not worth my patience.

- Something I find lacking in so many games nowadays is the dimension of sound. I think that sound plays a really important role in the immersion process, and I'm not talking about background music only. Seriously, the last game in which I felt that sound played a very important role was STALKER. Just listening to my surroundings in the wilderness was an incredible experience I did not have since Thief and HL. Battlefield 3 has a great sound design though, which is something I was pleasantly surprised of when I played the beta.

- I usually dislike invisible walls as well. I like exploration, and except for RPGs nowadays, there's not much exploration available.

- I'm not against respawning enemies, we even used respawning AIs in our game mainly because it is a levelling RPG with vast and open maps. But respawning enemies in a linear FPS is really sloppy game design to me.

I'm sure I can come up with more, but yeah, that's the most important ones that come to my mind for now.

Also, this Megaman video is really great.

I have probably read this somewhere; but I always think of game design as sinus waves. (Now that I think about it, it was probably valve that taught me this).

Meaning that if you have a really fast paced section in your level/game then you need to follow up with a slow paced one. If you toss incredibly many shitty enemies at the player in a section you need to follow up with tossing one giant epic one at him and so on. And the more of these curves that you can manage to squeeze in there the better.

Quote from Skjalg

I have probably read this somewhere; but I always think of game design as sinus waves. (Now that I think about it, it was probably valve that taught me this).Meaning that if you have a really fast paced section in your level/game then you need to follow up with a slow paced one. If you toss incredibly many shitty enemies at the player in a section you need to follow up with tossing one giant epic one at him and so on. And the more of these curves that you can manage to squeeze in there the better.

I think you mean sine wave but yeah, pacing is critical. I remember loading up Call of Duty 3, really curious what Treyarch was going to do with the franchise after Call of Duty 2...and I was really disappointed because from the start the game put you in a chaotic situation where you had no idea what was going on, where the bullets were coming from, etc. It wasn't intense as much as it just felt bland. Moments like that need to be built to. Red Faction 2, because executive management ordered Volition to rush the development, had the same problem. First level in the game was totally chaotic, the player was given way to many weapons and it was just artificially intense, confusing and hence boring.

The bigger issue (related to this) that we're all touching on is how games often take the gameplay aspect out of the game. "Press X to win." "Watch this cutscene...and this one...and this one...Press X...jump...watch another cutscene." Uncharted 3 really disappointed me in how they made the player use his brain even less frequently. Despite mass media / FOX news characterizing all gamers as unemployed college dropouts living in their parents basements sustaining themselves on pizza and pot, gamers (meaning people posting in this thread) like games because they challenge them to think. In games you have to assess the situation, make decisions, use judgement, take risks, solve problems etc. When the game does 95% of it for you, the very reason to enjoy a game gets diminished. Hence, why so many of us were disappointed by Uncharted 3.

Related to this (omg entering tl;dr territory) is less clever level design. I don't mind linear (ahem, much of Half Life 1 & 2) but give me really interesting situations along that long, twisting linear path. Give me a "ticking clock" scenario, then a "running out of ammo scenario" then a "how the hell do I get up there scenario" then a "close quarters scenario" then a "jumping over rooftops sniping thing scenario" or something...but don't make every situation THE MOST CINEMATICALLY INTENSE MARKETING BABBLE TYPE SCENARIO EVAR bullshit. Fucking pace it and make me use my brain rather than "push forward with left thumbstic, press X for victory.

Crap...I'm just rehashing what everybody all ready said here. Maybe we should draft a Mapcore Manifesto and then protest at major games publishers. "We demand change! We are the 99% of people who want smarter games!"

Like Freytag’s Pyramid, yeah?

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Though there was a lead designer who I have a great amount of time for described game pacing as being a slightly different shape, more weighted towards the end, a dip before the climax and it never quite returning to zero. But more importantly was how this was fractal; so a combat encounter would have this pacing, the level will have this pacing, and if you line up all your levels in a row you’ll see the same thing. It also related to other elements including how guns fired or enemies attacked. Of course it wasn’t definitive, but it certainly isn’t a bad rule of thumb.

Charts and graphs are for the creatively bankrupt. They turn it into a science cause they havnt a fucking clue. See: Gamasutra.

Maybe they can do something useful and chart me a graph showing when and at what point their creativity finally evaporated.

Yeah man, I'm going to make a film where it climaxes at the start and then nothing happens for 2 hours. You didn't see that coming did you, so-called creatives?

But srsly, it's a structure but you don't have to treat it so clinically. It's like learning anatomy as an artist; a great artist can play around with it, but he has to know how it works before he can.

The problem with CoD-alikes is not the respawning enemies per se, but the prohibitive leveldesign, where you are forced to solve the problem the exact way you are told, even if there are clear viable alternatives.

"Go kill that mg nest with a grenade. No, RPG doesn't cut it, he is magically invulnerable to it. Throw a fucking grenade already, Ramirez!"

"Flank those guys behind the barricade and kill them! No, headshotting them from here wont work, smartass, they will magically respawn. Ramirez, go f..." ALT-F4 [Blocked Image: https://migrationtest.mapcore.org/public/style_emoticons/default/mapcore_smilies/emot_shakehead.gif]

Now that's a fucking glaring consistency problem with your gamerules! Things suddenly stop to work just because your silly designer wants to force player to do his way and changes the rules on the fly. You cant fucking do that! Such gamemasters get punched in the face. (sorry, Im talking like this megaman-fan)

Great megaman video. Thanks Bunglo :megaman:

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