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Visible Game Mechanics Most people have played one board game or another, such as Monopoly, Ludo, and so on. In these games, the game mechanic is totally visible. In Monopoly, players roll the dice and move that number of squares. That square has an effect on the player that is explicitly written on the square itself or on a corresponding card. Novice gamers are used to visible game mechanics. A computer game for novice gamers should strive for this visibility in game mechanics as well. In a combat situation in a role-playing game, for instance, ideally players should be able to see the dice that determine the outcome of the combat. In reality, this is often an impractical solution, as it would slow down the game or take up valuable screen space. An acceptable solution would be to show the effects of a hit — display the amount of inflicted damage as a number just above the character that was hit, for example. Incidentally, this works well as a visual reward for success, too. Displaying a health bar that decreases a couple of notches for each hit is a worse alternative. A health bar doesn’t show how much damage a player made and is an abstract representation of the character’s health anyway. Likewise, if a player hits a tank in a strategy game, showing a dent in the tank isn’t a sufficiently accurate way to show the damage done. True, it’s closer to reality, but many novice gamers compare computer games to board games, not to real life. Showing the numerical amount of damage done is a better solution, and if afterwards the tank has a dent, then that’s a visual confirmation that the damage was substantial. Players should also be able to see how much more damage is needed to destroy a unit, by pointing the cursor at the tank and seeing the tank’s attributes displayed above it, for example. Another example of visible game mechanics applies to movement. If the rules of your game state that a certain character has a movement of four, then the character should be able to move a maximum of four squares. The squares should be visible in some way, perhaps by highlighting them when the player moves the mouse pointer over them. If however, just to pick a ludicrous example, a movement of four means that a character can move four times its height, then the game mechanics are hidden from the player. The relationship between the movement attribute and the distance that the character can actually move is difficult for the player to determine. Socializing When people play board and card games, they almost always do so together with others. The excitement and entertainment value of the game itself is one of the reasons that people play these games, but the social factor is at least as important. The exception is solitaire games, but these are vastly inferior in popularity to the rest of the manual games. People prefer multiplayer board and card games to solitaire games because these games are a social experience. In computer games, the opposite situation has prevailed — most computer games have been single-player games. However, this has been a consequence of the technology, and only over the last couple of years have true multiplayer games been a technical possibility (with the exception of MUDs, but these games fail in other areas when it comes to enticing novice gamers). The single-player nature of computer games is an important point. Many people have shunned computer games because playing a computer game has been a solitary experience that they cannot share with others. The social element is thus very important when you want to make a game for novice gamers. We could go so far as to say that the game is only a means for people to socialize with each other. You don’t get this effect automatically by making a multiplayer game with a chat option, however. Blasting each other to pieces in Quake or Delta Force doesn’t constitute a social experience unless you meet the other players afterwards and share your stories. You don’t have time to talk during the game.
So a game intended for novice gamers should make it possible for the players to chat with each other during, after, and between game sessions. Chatting only after or between sessions is a secondary solution, and may be the only solution in action-oriented games. In any case, some form of chatting is a must. Emphasizing the social aspects of your game to the detriment of game play may seem a sound strategy when designing games for novice gamers. However, if the game doesn’t offer entertainment value in itself, then it ultimately fails in its socializing purpose. Using a boring game for socializing isn’t exciting — get together with a couple of friends and play tic-tac-toe for an hour and you’ll see what I mean. |
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