Game Design: from rules to craft

Game Design:

From Rules To

Craft Pietro Polsinelli

@ppolsinelli

These slides:

http://bit.ly/rulescraft

Transformation 1/3

Games for

Social Impact

Friday, November 28, 2014

… to develop and implement a

game infused e-learning tool

to promote early access to

services with neglect and

abuse for young people on the

move in Europe

Mission. 3

Kids becoming aware and capable of dealing with

situations of neglect and abuse.

4

Pick a mod, just change the labels ...

5

Collateral story gets in the way of play.

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Designing Games for Social

Impact

RE-DESIGN

Inspired by ...

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Represent notions with characters

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Inspired by Dumb Ways To Die. Specific mechanics.

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Universe made of simple atoms

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Inspired by Dominions: cards are characters, actions, a universe.

Build up of awareness defines the game mechanics.

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Game loop: shit happens.

Deal with it and keep your universe together.

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Designing Games

for Social Impact

TIPS

Use cards.

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Cards constitute a universe, not just characters and actions.

Also universal language. Developers, cards are objects –

classes, instances, extensions.

More pervasive than it looks.

20

Plants vs. Zombies (1) was born and prototyped as a card

game – actually collectible card game.

Complexity trains strategic thinking.

22

Distinction between input output randomness &

unpredictability: from Randomness and Game Design

Use ramdomness sparingly.

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Games with simple relations and play mechanics are simpler

to evolve.

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Minimal viable game.

Keep a good state in the loop AND

supply an evolving story line.

Stories get deadly in loops.

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If Games Were Like Game Stories...

From Nick Case If Games Were Like Game Stories...

Games don’t’ branch, they evolve.

Even branching games do not have branching at their core.

Interact early with concept art.

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Black and white games: “get ready for

fight or flight”

What I say here is based on anecdotal evidence

from working experience, no data no lab.

Applied games

definition and

theory

An applied game (serious game) is a game designed for

a primary purpose other than

pure entertainment.

Take this as a sort of definition. Hard to say which are not serious. Note

that in effort, style, problematic this changes little.

Self referential / Referring games

Both may be good or bad.

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You will need full game design skils – and more - to

create good games that teach something.

Shortcuts …

Game design is a specific profession. Image from Extra Credits.

Working in applied games is particularly complex /

interesting because you are working in between systems.

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Motivational theory?

A game where you can’t win, and its not fun.

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This War of Mine

Each game is played because of a motivational framework

defined by… the game itself.

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Transformation 2/6

Games for

Health

Help people that are evolving

towards a chronic desease by

influencing behavior and

disrupting this evolution.

NDA

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Customer thinks (s)he knows what “game”

means. This is a problem. 48

Designing Games for Health

RE-DESIGN

Friday, November 28, 2014

Category, competition,

avatar, war, reward, levels

Vs.

Inclusive, mentor, path,

story, transformation

A language change. 50

Ian Bogost: gamification is bullshit.

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Redesigned by including negative feedback, turning avatar to mentor,

building an AI.

Designing Games for Health

TIPS

Distinguish (and then merge) projective

experiences and couching.

Genre and inclusiveness.

Power of baptism. Comes in many forms...

57

the greatest invention

of the video game era

was – and continues

to be – “single-play”.

Applied game’ customers often don’t get this.

Independence, absence.

Beyond the avatar: Discarding the relatable avatar for a

meaningful voice learning from poetry

Transformation 3/6

Games for

Change

This is the communication context. Few really cares about global warming, we

have to make people aware of consequences.

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Not so cool for not geeks.

agent based model

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Designing Games for Change

RE-DESIGN

Friday, November 28, 2014

Dystopic future, like in The Curfew. “Lacking food

water oil”, daily life has to change. 64

How will you prepare breakfast without electricity?

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Variations on daily life habits due to external changes.

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Designing Games for Change

TIPS

Emergence: a set of simple rules acting on many elements. The

game is an emergent behaviour

Progression: a predefined set of actions to be performed to

complete the game

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Emergence / Progression

Sim City, Braid.

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So?

Become a game designer:

study, prototype, release, loop

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Sources www.gamasutra.com/blogs/KeithBurgun/20141015/227740/Randomness_and_Game_Design.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+GamasutraNews+%28Gamasutra+News%29 http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/NickyCase/20140811/222467/If_Games_Were_Like_Game_Stories.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+GamasutraNews+%28Gamasutra+News%29

http://www.anglia.ac.uk/ruskin/en/home/microsites/global_sustainability_institute/our_research/resource_management.Maincontent.0021.file.tmp/Climate%2520Change_Resource%2520Scarcity_Conflict%252019-09.pdf http://www.aboutkidshealth.ca/En/Pages/default.aspx https://mysugr.com/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/littleloud/6725429655/in/photostream/ http://images4.fanpop.com/image/photos/24200000/Dominion-card-and-tile-games-24276844-502-405.jpg

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My twitter stream is

mostly dedicated to

game design

http://twitter.com/ppolsi

nelli

A blog on game design

http://designagame.eu