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What Kurt Vonnegut Can Tell You About Game Design
The keynote speaker at this year's GlobalGameJam spoke about games and how they're viewed by most of society as a waste of time. As a game developer himself, he despaired about what meaning his job had if all he did for a living was make works that were regarded by many as a "waste of time." In order to combat that, he said, we as game developers need to make our games worthwhile.
How do we do that?
He quoted Kurt Vonnegut, the famous American science fiction author, to answer this question. Vonnegut established eight "rules" pertaining to the writing of short stories, which the speaker insisted hold just as true for games. The most important rule, the rule that must never be violated, is this:
"Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted."
In simpler terms: do not waste your player's time. This is especially true for indie game developers like us, who offer our games for free. Why is it that it's so hard to get someone to play a game when we're giving it to them for free? Because it's not free, of course. Playing a game is a time investment. If you manage to convince someone to play your game, then you should do them the courtesy of making that time be well-spent. Make them feel that they got the most out of their 20 minutes, hour, two hours, ten hours.
Less Is More
There's a strange obsession among a lot of RM* developers with having a long playtime. It seems to be "understood" that having a longer game makes your game better. As a result, developers either feel discouraged at being unable to produce a long enough game or pad their game with needless features or side-excursions in order to artificially lengthen their game.
This is a paradigm that clearly violates Vonnegut's rule. If you're putting material into your game for the sole purpose of making it take longer, then you're wasting your player's time. It's far better to have a short but well-developed adventure than a long and drawn-out one. The more concise you keep your story/dungeon/field, the less you have to flesh out. Because there's less to focus on, you're free to add more detail to what's there, making your world feel vibrant and full of life.
There's nothing wrong with optional sidequests, but you should never be forced to go on a sidequest to complete the game. Make sure the tasks the player is required to do are to the point. Don't force your hero whose quest it is to save the world be forced to help out a hapless farmer just because he's a nice guy.
Give Grinding a Rest
Many RPG purists may disagree with me on this point, but the need to grind is another RPG paradigm that should be dispensed with. Nothing annoys a player more than conquering a dungeon and finally confronting the boss at the end only to get obliterated because he didn't spend enough hours going out of his way to fight monsters there.
There's nothing meaningful or interesting about grinding. It's a trap that many professional games fall into, too. But how do you present a challenge without requiring a player to level up? That's something to address in gameplay mechanics. Make challenging fights require more than grinding and mashing attack until you win. Have the boss use unique effects or follow a puzzle-like pattern that the player has to recognize and solve to win. If the player loses, he should be left thinking "where did I mess up?" rather than "how many more enemies do I have to fight before I can win?"
Of course, there's nothing wrong with making battles easier if the player has grinded. If your player went out of his or her way to level up, then reward that time spent by letting them win a few fights more easily. Don't punish your player. Reward every choice the player makes, even if the rewards are sometimes different and unexpected.
Conclusion
RPGs are particularly susceptible to the problem of being designed as time sinks. The vanilla RM* engines reinforce this behavior and it's a major contributor to the problem of getting other people to play your games. Be considerate of the tasks you're requiring your player to perform and how much time they take to accomplish. If something diverges too much from the point of the game, then ask yourself if it really has to be required, or if you can turn it into a sidequest instead.
This was my first article and I hope you found it helpful. Thanks for reading!
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What Kurt Vonnegut Can Tell You About Game Design |
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Thu, 04 Mar 2010 03:43:32 -0500 |
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Sailerius
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872 |
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