Ultimate Game Design : Building game worlds

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C H A P T E R 1 0 iterate on the balance, distribution, and use of all of those elements. The bigger a game gets, the more there is to follow and probably fix, so we need to make excellent tools to facilitate doing so in a timely and organized fashion. In more mundane terms, if you have 10 people in your community, you can remember all of their names and phone numbers. If you have 50–100, you need a pen and a notepad. If you have 1,000,000, you need a phone book, directory assistance, and a way to organize operators to facilitate your calls. TM: What aspects excite you about the near future of gaming? BR: Both what we can do as game designers and acceptance of the game industry as a mainstream form of entertainment are constantly on the rise, and there are no indicators that these are trends that are going to slow anytime in the near future. As this generation grows up, they are likely to consider PC and console games as much a part of their culture as past generations viewed art, literature, music, television, and movies. This means that there will be an increasing interest in games. There will continue to be a need for talented, dedicated developers who have a passion for making great games, and more and more people will be exposed to the great fun to be had. The systems we create and play those games on will continue to get more powerful, and the player’s experience will just keep getting better and better. The best part is, in five years, we will probably be creating things that right now we could only dream about. TM: For most game projects, how far away from the original game concept does the game travel by completion? BR: The two opposing, but supportive, forces in game design are maintaining your persistence of vision while being able to let go of ideas. Once you have set the vision of your project—meaning the main goals, feel, gameplay mechanics, and so forth—you need to always keep them in mind as you design out the game. Although there will be innumerable changes, both grand and small, to your initial design, you must keep the concept of the game in the forefront of your discussions. During the creative process of designing a game, you will come up with thousands of great ideas and also a lot of not-so-great ideas. Sometimes you come up with an idea that is destined to be a truly amazing and groundbreaking concept. Occasionally, these ideas simply don’t work out. Regardless of the reason, you realize that these ideas need to be changed or even set aside. This can be a simple matter when you finally try out the idea in the game and immediately realize that it is just not fun. Other times, this can be an extremely difficult decision because you can see how it might work and are willing to try and find ways to keep the idea alive. In either case, dumping an idea that you have conceived, fostered, and perhaps even implemented is a painful but necessary process. Not everything works out as planned, and it is a difficult thing to admit when that gameplay mechanic you thought would revolutionize the industry turns out to be an adventure into tedium. When you are faced with the need to pull the plug on something in the game—no matter what the cause—you have to do so as quickly and painlessly as possible. Do not be afraid to scrap ideas, because many times you will replace them with something far better or simply find that there does not need to be anything there at all. Keeping your eye on the overall vision for the project will allow you to make major changes to even key elements of the game with the knowledge that you will end up with a cohesive and fun game design. This is where these two forces meet and actually work together, as long as you recognize they are there and are willing to accept them both as tools to use. 263 Getting Started in Game Development
Building Game Worlds 264 U L T I M A T E G A M E D E S I G N TM: The “design” role means different things to different developers. Should designers focus on the technical, the artistic, or something else entirely? BR: First and foremost, find out what it is that drives your creative juices, and then focus on becoming the best you can in that area. Look at what else interests you and see how these elements of your life can intermingle with your job as a designer. If you love sports and are also interested in AI, start working on creating the best football coach that has ever competed on the digital gridiron. If you love westerns and horror, start working on a game that has a zombie gunslinger as the hero or villain. If you have an idea for a game that you just haven’t seen yet, make it out of cardboard and pieces from other games, or build a level that shows the idea with an editor for another computer game. As a designer you should focus on the area where your passion and expertise can best help the game. MEGA TIPS 1. Keep your approach, skill set, and mindset diversified. The game industry is a tough and turbulent business. 2. The best developers appreciate opportunities to “bring back” the results of their individual and collective explorations for the benefit of gaming. 3. Focus on the meaning of your skills growth as an individual and as a game developer, not only as a game developer. 4. You can start now by studying and exploring areas you believe are relevant to building new game ideas, or improving your game-related skills by extending them. 5. Make sure you focus on the foundations of game design: industrial design, writing and presentation, scripting, modeling, staging, dynamics, lighting, and, perhaps most importantly, learning how to truly be a team member. 6. Get out of the box. Don’t be afraid to try to take gaming to new venues. 7. Focus on the fun. As a designer, don’t fall victim to techno-distraction. A game is either fun enough to create a natural replay value or it isn’t. You have to get this aspect right at the most basic level of your game design. 8. Don’t ignore opportunities to expand the domain of gaming. You will be helping yourself and possibly creating opportunity for others. 9. Keep gaming.
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A BOUT THE AUTHOR Tom Meigs is a ga
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Brandon A. Nordin Scott Rogers Wend
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2 THE game design process begins by
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24 AFTER you’ve completed your pr
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54 FOR a game to be competitive the
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86 YOU now understand the developme
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Building Game Worlds 100 U L T I M
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108 UP to this point, we’ve cover
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130 Building Game Worlds 130 U L T
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136 SCRIPTING in games gives develo
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166 ONCE your game environment has
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Building Game Worlds 174 174 U L T
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188 A whole new avenue for games ha
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Page 237 and 238: 216 ANOTHER new content horizon for
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322 AS a point of reference and as
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Building Game Worlds 336 Baseball s
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