Game Design Workshop (3rd Edition) – Tracy Fullerton

Foreword:

What Eric Zimmerman wrote in the book's opening pages was probably the most inspirational thing I've ever read, hands down. And I get pretty emotional at things pretty easily, but it was because Zimmerman was talking about games specifically and the magic that happens within it and between people who play it that I was able to connect with his speech much more than others. He put in words so eloquently what I felt about games and how it connected people throughout time til our present time where there are apparent technological advances that affect its medium. However it was not only beautifully put, but able to touch the deep depths of my heart, reminding us, the pioneers of this craft, that we hold the on our backs the future of games, shaping it and molding it in new ways. At the end of it, if Zimmerman's hand was reaching out to me, I would wholeheartedly grasp it.

Preface:

Todays' games are much different than ones in the past, especially with the times changing. No longer seen as just a pasttime, games like Minecraft are even played for educational purposes. In correspondence to Tracy Fullerton's feelings about needing to write a 3rd Edition because of the new world that game exists in and her feelings about watching young game developers ascend the current bar of game creation; I feel like, because of a perpetually changing world, the young readers of this book will also continue to raise that bar up into the limitless sky.

Introduction:

One of the most difficult tasks people can perform,
however much others may despise it, is the invention of good games.
–C.G. Jung

I definitely understand the frustration of balancing the fun in games and creating a system behind it. In fact, it's something that our group for the first boardgame project had troubles with till the last renedition of the game. We have the fun down, but our rules and motivations for some mechanics still need fixing.

It's not strange to think of every household having at least one personal computer. I remember when I used to share a really dingy one with my brother and we'd play some "educational" math games on it or games we bought some the Scholastic magazines we received from the school. Can you imagine every household in future containing at least one Amazon Echo or some voice recognition technology? Something like this will probably be accomplished at some time in the future. Obviously with an increasing focus on technology and its industry, the more tech-savy jobs are being  relevant to the growing younger generations.

Step 1
Start with an understanding of how games work. 

Step 2
Learn to conceptualize, prototype, and playtest your
original games.

Step 3
Understand today’s rapidly changing industry and
the place of the game designer in it. 

Chapter 1 - Role of the Game Designer:

 "...Advocate for the player. The game designer must look at the world of games through the player’s eyes (pg 3)." Although aesthetics, and flashy appearances are important, if there isn't any "fun" (in which Fullerton describes as a hook) in your game, then the player will lose interest. As a game designer your focus should be on the core gameplay, which should be compelling to players. A lot of times when creating a game you'll lose sight of the initial idea for it. This is why it's imperative to have playtesters "...who play your game and provide feedback on the experience so that you can move forward with a fresh perspective (pg 5)." And on this path you may encounter flaws to the game that might be eliminated or highlighted to bring more magic to your game. Simply put, accept the process.

"That’s the art of game design. It’s not locking things in place; it’s giving birth and parenting (pg 5)."

Exercise 1.1: Become a Tester

From our own playtest session of our cardgame, Love is War, the emotions I felt were that of silliness and ridiculousness to some of the arguments that were put forth while other times I was upset that my card was eliminated against the other love rival. When I watched Shantanu play, most of the times he spoke of the unfairness of the game because he never had any good cards; it was only up until one target that me and Cindy couldn't accquire that he finally felt happy. There is some sort of RNG to our game that may seem unfair, but we also have cards to counter that "unfairness". Perhaps we need more?

"First, a great game designer is someone who loves to create playful situations (pg 6)." 

There were many things during the process of our game's design that  had to be removed and given up and I think we went through about 3 revisions of  Love is War. That included changing mechanics or taking some out because it was too powerful or had no use. And throughout those jamming days a lot of, a lot of the times it felt like we didn't have much confident in our game, but we pulled through. The latest rendition at least seems playable and fun.

"How can you adapt your idea to the practical necessities insuch a way as to keep the gameplay intact? You’ll have to compromise. As the designer, it’s your job to find a way to do it elegantly and successfully so that the game doesn’t suffer (pg 7)."

You need good language skills and a clear vision to sell your games not only to potential players, but this is also applicable to marketing partners and investors, your own team and even your friends and family. Within your team, it's important to handle responsibilities together because that's what being team is. You may disagree with each other, but such things should be settled appropiately as a group.

Exercise 1.2: D.O.A.

I know there's huge fanbase for the franchise Fire Emblem, but when Fire Emblem Heroes came out on the playstore in 2017; I tried playing the game and fell asleep in the tutorial. Because it's a sort of character collector game where you play stages to earn rare currency that can be used to "gamble" or test your luck into getting your favorite character, I thought maybe I'd like it since I play other games similar to it, But I was wrong. I was soo wrong. The turn-based combat on the first stage was so slow that at a certain point I just tabbed out and uninstalled the game. Turn-based combat can be fun and I find nothing wrong with using the strategic side of my brain, but I was placed in a situation where I was moving at small space spaces per turn, slowly dwindling down the numerous amounts of enemies. To put it simply, it was more boring than fun.

"Production is a messy business, when ideas can get convoluted and objectives can disappear in the chaos of daily crises. But good process, using the playcentric approach of playtesting, and controlled, iterative changes, ... can help you stay focused on your goals, prioritize what’s truly important, and avoid the pitfalls of an unstructured approach (pg 8)."

Exercise 1.3: Your Life as a Game

1. Waking up on time everyday- Wake up when you hear the alarm
2. Wearing the a suitable outfit for the weather that day- observe the weather while considering components like humidity
3. Sleeping on time- Trying to get at least 7 hours of sleep each night
4. Play as much games as I can before I do homework- I'm still losing. Maybe I should lower the difficulty?
5. To eat brunch now or later?- Get to class on time and suffer the rumbles or eat brunch and potentially be late and get a stomachache

"What inspires you? (pg 9)"

"And if you want to be a game designer, you need to learn to play with the same conscious sensitivity to your own experience and critical analysis of the underlying system that these other arts demand (pg 9)."

Exercise 1.4: Game Journal

I was playing League of Legends with a full house of ten friends (each team is made up of five people) and there was this moment where my friend Joe ran it down towards the enemy's base when we were about to win the game. And going into the enemy's base means you get beamed to death in about two hits, so without saying anything or communicating it to each other, three of us followed suit and just walked into the enemy's base, while Scott, being the only one alive, started raging comically. Mostly towards Joe, but the rest of us got some heat headed our way too. The base beam is a mechanic that prevents the enemies from walking up to and attacking freely. With this, players need to calculate their timing and distance when in the range of the beam. But a lot of funny stuff happens when things go wrong.

Exercise 1.5: Your Childhood

1. Hide and Seek- it was fun playing this in tight spaces, like my house, when I was younger
2. Tag- it was a sort of "zombie" game where if you were touched by whoever was "it", you'd become one too 
3. Tic Tac Toe- this was the game where a majority of times it'd be a tie (like 99%) of the time
4. Rock Paper Scissors- we'd play this to settle bets or something like whoever loses would have to do something
5. Candy Land- I remember playing this in the park with other kids and we did was roll a dice and move our pieces, pretty simple game
6. Cat's Cradle-it was hilarious when we'd maneuver the yarn/string to go back to the same one before
7. Connect 4- also kind of like tic tac toe where there'd usually be ties, but sometimes the setup was so good that there'd be no way to block the connecting of 4 circles, I was so surprised when it happened to me because I didn't anticipate it at all
8. Vocabulary games from my tutoring school- we had these multiple choice vocab sentences where you needed to circle the correct one, then raise it up first to get a point (if it was right of course), the more points we accumulated the better the prize we'd win at the end of the whole semester 
9. Maplestory- god I hate this pixel, grinding-fest of a game, but I can't deny how into it I was a kid, well mostly into for dressing up. I think my highest lvl was 70 back then when it was super hard to level
10. Battleship- battleship is that underrated game I don't hear being talked about often, but it's soo fun. It's a game that requires both strategy and luck.

"Everyone has a different style for coming up with ideas and being creative. What matters is not the spark of an idea but what you do with that idea once it emerges, and this is where the playcentric process becomes critical (pg 11)."

By including the player into the process from the beginning of the creation of your game, you can set "experience goals" before creating any features. This helps with the creative process when you do start making the game. However, "Learning how to set interesting and engaging

player experience goals means getting inside the heads of the players, not focusing on the features of the game as you intend to design it (pg 12)."

After the idea is created, go right to playtesting. Even if it is a paper prototype. "You can assure that your core design concept is sound before production begins by taking a playcentric approach to the design and development process (pg 12)."

Iterative process: Experience goals are set and from there a system is brainstormed then formalized (the prototype), this is playtested and evaluated by experience goal criteria, if negative or flawed go back to step 1, improvments? modify and go again, positive? you did it.

Step 1: Brainstorming, experience goals, top three ideas (concept document for each)

 Step 2: Physical Prototype, physical prototype, experience goals met?, document gameplay treatment describing how the game functions

 Step 3: Presentation (Optional), demo artwork and solid gameplay treatment, during this stage you should be flexible to changes

Step 4: Software Prototype(s), rough digital models of core gameplay then move onto development of full feature set and levels when player experience criteria is met

Step 5: Design Documentation, organize documentation notes of the "real" game so it is accessible, in larger prouction teams, collaberative documents easier to work with as production goes on

Step 6: Production, work to achieve goals and to make sure that it is achieveable 

Even big companies do playtesting at events (like EA). Also game jams. 

Reflecting the narrative our own lives into the game, appealing to groups of hardcore gamers or new players, embracing new business models, creating emotionally rich story games (gameplay in story games).

"Play many games. Play them hard core." - Christina Norman 

Chapter 6 - Conceptualization

"Reiner Knizia says, “I don’t have a fixed design process. Quite the contrary, I believe that starting from the same beginning will frequently lead to the same end. Finding new ways of working often leads to innovative designs (pg 165).”
Go out and live life to get inspiration, but do it passion and curiosity.

Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes the stages of curiosity as: Preparation, Incubation, Insight, Evaluation, Elaboration

Record your inspiration all the time to ensure you're always in the stages of preparation and incubation (letting ideas and thoughts ponder).

"As you work through your idea, elaborating on its unique elements, it might turn out that no one would recognize the influence of your language interests in the final experience, even though you know that is where the initial spark of the idea began (pg 166). "

Exercies 6.1: Below the Surface

I read a story in which a girl transmigrated back into ancient china, a world that was something she read. Because she was the body of one of the supporting characters that died, her goal was to prevent that ending from happening. She did this by trying to hug the thigh of another supporting male character because being near the male lead character would mean death. But of course the norms of the past were totally different from now, such as being a female and interacting closely to other males was seen as taboo, or at least there'd be many rumors.

Exercise 6.2: Game Deconstruction

League of Legends is a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) and is immensely popular. Being a player for at least five seasons now, there has been many changes the game has went through to keep the game "fresh". Essentially, each character in the game (there's like over 100) have their own set of 4 abilities (3 normal and one ULTIMATE ability). Some characters maybe be overtuned and do more than others (All characters are equal, but some more than others), which comes with the question of how do you balance a game that's this big? There are frequent patches that fix bugs and nerf some of these abilities and even items in the game that increase the stats of your character each match (that are bought with gold, not P2W stuff, gold is just the game's currency).

Boardgames for game design inspiration:

•  Carcassonne, by Klaus-Jurgen Wrede
• Scotland Yard, by Ravensburger
• El Grande, by Wolfgang Kramer and Richard
  Ulrich 
• Modern Art, by Reiner Knizia
• Illuminati, by Steve Jackson
• Puerto Rico, by Andreas Seyfarth
• Acquire, by Sid Sackson
• Cosmic Encounter, by Bill Eberle, Jack Kittredge,
  and Bill Norton
• I’m the Boss, by Sid Sackson
• Settlers of Catan, by Klaus Teuber

"Expert brainstormers train themselves in the craft of generating workable ideas and solutions to problems, building on the contributions of their fellow team members (pg 167)."

Brainstorming Practices:

• start with a challenge or prompt (ie: design a game in which players must make strong alliances and then betray them) that allows for a specific game type, audience, or a mechanic that requires technology as the medium

"If you are brainstorming with a team, do not criticize or ignore your colleagues’ ideas during the brainstorming process. The process should be about free thinking, about building on each other’s thoughts (pg 168)."

When brainstomring it may be useful to be in a playful environment, sketch on a whiteboard, generate a lot of ideas, but don't go on for too long.

"The key to productive brainstorming is finding the right balance of stimulation and structure (pg 170)."

Making lists on a topic, idea cards using idex cards (pull two cards that both have different words on it and create a game surrounding the phrase you created)

"Ultimately, experimental game design is important because it is at the forefront of games as a cultural practice ..., the games that we make and play are part of culture and tell us something meaningful (pg 172).

"One good mind map exercise is to begin with the core concept for your game at the center and then map verbs or actions and the feelings associated with those actions around that central concept (pg 175)." A mind map is useful when with a whole production team to see if everyone is on the same levels (words may have different meanings to other people).

The "stream of consciousness" method of writing whatever thoughts u have on paper is a method I use often."

"Doing research means immersing yourself in a subject, and while your game system might not need to be precisely true to life,
understanding how the real activity works can help you decide what to focus on and what to leave out for the best possible gameplay (pg 177)."

We should develop our vision of the type palyer experience we wish to create instead of focusing on an existing genre like "first person shooter".

Chapter 7 - Prototyping

"The important thing to remember when prototyping is that you are not creating the final design, you are simply trying to formalize your

ideas or isolate issues so that you can discover what works before going on to create the final design (pg 197)."

Physical prototypes (paper designs) are one of the easiest and more powerful methods when starting a prototype.

• focus more on gameplay than technical matters- gameplay will be able to go through more iterations with little effort
• it allows  for people with little or no technical knowledge to partake in the game's core mechanics and gameplay- more perspectives

Don't focus on the craft of the medium but be open to changes that are inevitable.

"The advantage of prototyping is that as you assemble the game, you gain a tactile sense for how the mechanics fit together. Abstract rules suddenly become concrete (pg 199)."

To paper prototype a 3D first-person shooter, it's helpful to have hexagonal graph papers (so that you're able to move diagonally when testing features), use a striking color for spawn points and although you can mark with a line where a wall would be, it's more visible if you put actual objects.

"Physically prototyping allows you to build a structure for the game, think through how the various elements interact, and formulate a systemic approach to how the game will function (pg 209)." 

It forces you to define design elements when working through them. And although things are subject to change, prototyping gives you a framework to work with.

"The core gameplay mechanism, or “core mechanic,” can be defined as the actions that a player repeats most often while striving to achieve the game’s overall goal (pg 210)."

This is where you should start working on first as the core gameplay is something remains relatively the same (repetitive). The more complex a design is the more it may not be enjoyable for players.

Steps for building a Prototype

1. Foundation- build a representation of your gameplay, questions may pop up but ignore those for now, try to keep as few rules as possible (in other words, keep options simple)
2. Structure- when the foundation is in place and seems to function, prioritize what is most important for the game (movements, attacks, turn order -> hit points? scoring system?) because everything is in testing phase, nothing should be recorded for now , focus on rules first then features
   1. "Features are attributes that make a game richer, like adding more weapons or new vehicles or a nifty way to navigate the space (pg 225)"
   2.  "Rules are modifications to the game mechanics that change how the game functions, such as winning conditions, conflict resolution, turn order, etc. (pg 225)"
3. Formal Details- add necessary rules and procedures, find an appropriate level of detail to add,  "One way to add formal details efficiently is toisolate each new rule and test it individually (pg 226)" and then make decisions appropiately (removing or keeping core rules)
   
4. Refinement- "...Is your game compelling? If not, what will make it so (pg 226)?" go through iterations of playtests of your prototype, this is also where you go back to adding features you wished for (but don't get too ahead of yourself), you can choose to rank your features in levels of importance for organization

Chapter 12 - Team Structures, Agile Development"

" ... in a well-run project, each and every member of the team is able to contribute their special talents to the articulation and execution of the design at whatever level they might be involved (pg 409)."

Ways to incoporate a level of authorship in your game amongst your team

1. Weekly meetings (set an agenda for the meeting, a goal)
2. Suggestion list
3. one-on-one creative talks with team members
4. Brainstorming sessions during design process that anyone from the team can attend
5. If stuck on a issue, present it as a creative challenge to your buckos
6. Share authorship ("we")

Carcassonne by Klaus-Jurgen Wrede

Carcassonne is a tile placement and score system boardgam. The single tile that players may place at each round are under a certain category and must be built upon or in haramony to be able to be placed. Players also put down a "meeple" on the board that score players points when an area of tiles is complete. These rules are just the core gameplay of the game. There are 19 expansions for Carcassonne that spice things up by adding new tiles, meeples, pieces and even rules.