Ultimate Game Design : Building game worlds

C H A P T E R 5
A friend of mine had a virtual Labor Day barbeque with his playing group in Everquest, and that
ranks pretty high up on the list of ultimate communal forms of gaming.
TM: What do good games accomplish?
AO: Good games tell a story, draw you into a world surrounding that story, and allow you to help
shape that story and world.
TM: What three pieces of advice would you give to someone starting in games?
AO: Play lots of games. Hunt through bargain bins and play those cheap games as well as the new
titles you would normally pick up. They’ll all teach you something.
If you can, make lots of games.
Keep a sketchbook and try and draw everyday, even if you don’t think you can draw.
Games are a visual design medium, and this will help you start interpreting the visual world around
you as well as expressing the one trapped in your mind.
TM: What is your favorite memory working in games so far?
AO: My favorite memory working in games so far has been hearing crazy stories about the earlier
days of console development, like when a Chuck E. Cheese repairman could get hired as a game
engineer. I also have fond memories of after-hour network gaming.
TM: Aaron, thanks for your help!
MEGA TIPS
1. Focus your efforts on understanding a couple of genres deeply, while
continuing to build your understanding of all the major genres.
2. Play genres you don’t particularly like. Try to identify both why you don’t
like them and what would help make you like them more. Remember, there
is a big difference between playing games for entertainment and being paid
to build them.
3. Very important: As you play games, keep a design notes and interface
journal with notes, examples, drawings, ideas, questions, and comparisons.
4. Once you’ve isolated some of your genre interests, study topics related to
that genre. Pose questions to yourself. For sports, study player motion and
sports history. Identify how fans respond to different physical sports. What
are the most dramatic moments in each style of sport? How do these insights
transfer into electronic sports games? How do you transfer sports excitement
into gameplay? If you love RPGs, study character construction, characterbased
communities, and character hooks and details. Notice how people
react in different ways to a character’s visual construction. How do you try
to operate these reactions? Can you predict them? Here’s the point: no matter
133
Design by Genre