I was talking in an earlier post about how I feel that the best levels come when the Level Designer begins working on the level with a solid set of mechanics. After playing LIMBO it got me thinking about this even more since this game is completely based around precision mechanics.
The basis for many of the puzzles in LIMBO is timing your movements so precisely that you get to that next plateau JUST before the object of destruction comes crashing down right behind your heels. Think of the impact it would have on the levels of the game if you adjusted any aspect of the mechanics even a little bit. If the player movement speed was changed from 1.2 meters per second to even something like 1.1 meters per second...the designer would have to shorten the distance of any puzzle that required timing movement. It may sound like a small change, but it has huge impact on every single puzzle in the game and there would be at least some amount of rework necessary game wide.
I realize that this game is an extreme example of how slight changes in mechanics can cause wide spread impact on the game, but it's honestly not too far from the truth with most other games. Let's carry the same example to a game like Modern Warfare and how that speed change affects something simple like the distance between cover spots for the player. A designer knows the movement speed of the player and can plan for the player to potentially take X damage based on how long they will be exposed. If the player speed is lowered even a little bit, suddenly there could be many more deaths than anticipated and the distance between the cover spots will have to be altered. This can cause an entire level to be reexamined and can even have significant impact on the art team who have to rework areas based on designer updates. Think about the kind of impact it would have on the picture above!
As I've mentioned before, this does mean the System Designers have a huge job ahead of them but this is why it is extremely important for System and Level Designers to work together closely during prototyping phases to nail down what's going to work best and then move forward with these findings into production. Design is all about failing early and failing often, so that you can work toward finding what is truly fun about your game.
To see the original Blog Post click HERE
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It seems too basic to even write, but it should be remembered; game mechanics are what separates this type of entertainment from all others. Without input by the player, a game would become a movie. When we truly understand that interaction is the essence of a game, it follows that the methods of interaction (i.e. "game mechanics") be the central focus of the early stages of game design.
Rather than discussing the plot, or art/music styles, people involved in the earliest phases of game development do well to design gameplay that is enjoyable in the abstract; that is, fun to play even when game objects are represented graphically by simple black and white geometric shapes, and in the absence of music. This, of course, is difficult for writers, artists, and musicians, whose minds gravitate naturally toward their own fields of creative expression.
I heard an interesting story on this topic, regarding the design process for Super Mario 64. The story says that Miyamoto would not allow designers to begin work on character models or other graphical elements until the game designers had succeeding in making it fun to move a gray, rectangular block around a barren, black and white landscape filled with plain geometric shapes. After the designers had completed the core of the game, game mechanics, he green-lit the project for further development.
Certainly, not all design processes need to begin with such austerity; very often, designers of a high-concept game will draw on the setting or plot to choose a genre and construct game mechanics which they feel are likely to appeal to their intended audience. However, because good gameplay can overcome nearly any graphical, musical, narrative flaw (cf. the original" Super Mario Bros." or "The Legend of Zelda"), designers must be willing to sacrifice window dressing in the service of strong game mechanics.
Many games with great gameplay become so cluttered by hyper-detailed graphics and cutscene storytelling that the user experience is diminished. For example, "Advance Wars: Dual Strike" was a significant downgrade from its predecessor, "AW: Black Hole Rising" because of its attempt at a more "adult" plot, and because of its attempt at squeezing more detail into the same screen resolution, which only succeeded in making the game look worse. On the other hand, many games with excellent gameplay and simple graphics, such as "Tetris," for GameBoy, and "Fancy Pants Adventure," which debuted at Kongregate.com, would almost certainly NOT produce increased levels of player enjoyment if given a graphical face-lift or injected with a deeper plot.
Well, that's the way I see it, anyway; what do you think?
1. Do you know of a game that has such high production values or such a riveting plot that an improvement in the game mechanics would not increase its "fun" quotient?
2. Is is possible for artists and writers to suspend their creative thought processes long enough to give total attention to the development of strong game fundamentals?
3. Is there any value to analyzing game mechanics in the abstract (i.e. before creating the game), or can we only discover how well they work during beta testing?
4. Do we even have the vocabulary to articulate individual gameplay elements and debating their relative likelihoods of ending up "fun?"
I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
1. There honestly isn't a game I can think of that couldn't do with a bit of tweaking in the mechanics area. As much as I would like to say differently, gameplay trumps story every time. Now, a terrific plot can greatly enhance the game, but look at Mass Effect 1 vs 2. The level of storytelling is about the same, but the game play was given a pretty decent overhaul. I had friends that hated ME 1 because of the MAKO tank and the clunky inventory system, but once that was fixed for 2, they loved the game.
2. I think that once the very basic setting/types of environments are basically agreed on, then yes, they can. Primarily, I'm a level designer, but I'm also a writer. For the project I worked on for Columbia College Chicago called Grunt Work, story had to take a back seat to the development of the gameplay. Granted, this game was made to show off the talents of the students game skills and not their story telling abilities.
3. I'm a huge proponent of physical prototyping, whether that's a board game with dice or a card game. There's things that you cannot do with physical prototyping, but it does let you figure out if basic damage, movement, and abilities work.
4. In short, no. Fun is so subjective to each individual. There's basic things that many people can agree upon as fun (i.e. going really fast in a racing game). It reminds me of a debate between the guys in Monty Python. They were trying to figure out the famous "Spam" skit of what was funnier to have on the wall: a block of cheese or a stuffed goat's head. We can take guesses at what is fun, but we honestly don't know until we show it to people.
1. Improvement in game mechanics is always welcome, but it needs to be done at the right time. What I've been seeing on a lot of projects lately is that with big budgets and tight time frames, we tend to try to build everything at once. Mechanics are being drastically altered at the same time as everything else which makes everything else difficult to nail down.
2. Writers can easily be doing their work early in the pre-production process as mechanics are being nailed down, the place that it affects most is Level Designers and Artists who will have their work load impacted greatly if they have to redo things based on changes at a high level.
3. Absolutely, and I think this is exactly what should be done as early as possible I love the gray block example because this is exactly how I want system designers to be thinking early in the process. These type of scenarios can be mocked up quickly and nailed down before any real work begins. It's easy to think of it as throwaway work when so little has gone into it's look. I also encourage looking elsewhere for prototyping entirely since things like spreadsheets and Flash can be used to get initial ideas nailed down sometimes.
4. A common vocabulary is something that our industry has always struggled with, but I think we do have enough of a basis to get on common ground. That said, it is very important to quickly come up with some other way to get your ideas across and prototyping is the only way you can ensure that everyone is thinking along the same lines.