CSE1GDT

Game Design Theory

Paul Taylor

2009

A Brief history of Video Games

• 1951 C. Strachey attempted to run a draughts program– It crashed the Pilot Ace mainframe– The game was ported to a new mainframe

and was finally run in October 1951.• 1952 Tic Tac Toe was demonstrated on

the EDSAC Computer

Moving forwards 6 whole years.....

1958

• Tennis for Two is born into existence by William Higinbotham

• It was the first Video Game that didn’t simply emulate an existing board game

http://www.virginmedia.com/images/Tennis_for_Two-tennis-431.jpg

SpaceWar!

• This was the first influential video game.• Created by MIT students in 1961

– First to be distributed across many computers• Programmed for a DEC PDP-1

– SpaceWar! Would eventually become an included program with PDP-1 Machines

http://sophia.javeriana.edu.co/~ochavarr/computer_graphics_history/historia/images/1961_SpaceWar.jpg

Arcade Machines

• The first arcade machine was released in September 1971, featuring the “Galaxy Game”– A reprogrammed version of

SpaceWar! Running on a

PDP-11

http://cdn.dipity.com/uploads/events/3ea22f93174a9256312f2e47590765f7.jpg

1972 - Pong

• Nolan Bushnell creates a little company called ‘Atari’ which enters the market with ‘Pong’

• Soon many clones started appearing

http://www.videogamesblogger.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/nolan-bushnell-next-to-pong-arcade-machine2.jpg

1972 - The first Console

• Magnavox released the first console– The ‘Magnavox Odyssey’– Cartridges simple changed switches within

the system– It ran on batteries!

http://www.thegameconsole.com/magnavoxodyssey.jpg

1974 – E.T. Pong Go Home

• In 1974/75 Pong was released as a home console

http://www.gooddealgames.com/articles/Game%20Consoles/2%20Atari%20Pong.jpg

1976 – The Coleco Telstar

• This would launch a console war between Atari and Coleco

http://www.gooddealgames.com/articles/Game%20Consoles/6%20Coleco%20Telstar.jpg

1976 - Fairchild Channel F

• It flopped• Why call it the ‘Channel F’??• It introduced true cartridges to consoles

http://www.gooddealgames.com/articles/Game%20Consoles/11%20Fairchild%20Channel%20F.jpg

1977 – The Atari VCS (The Atari 2600)

• The 2600 proved video games as a success at large.

• 2 years later Atari recruited an amateur game designer, Chris Crawford.

• US $199

http://news.cnet.com/i/bto/20080102/Atari_2600.png

1971 Baseball (BASBAL)

• Introduced Sabermetric-style Mathematics

• Sabermetrics is statistical and mathematical analysis of baseball games.– This was used up til 1997!!!

Star Trek - 1971

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3c/Star_Trek_text_game.png/320px-Star_Trek_text_game.png

Text Adventures

• 1972, Hunt the Wumpus– The first text-navigation game– Not based on a grid (dodecahedron)

http://www.gameclassification.com/files/games/Hunt-the-Wumpus.jpg

Text Adventures Part ][

• 1975, Colossal Caves, ADVENT, Adventure– The first real text-adventure game– No-Map

http://www.nacionarcade.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/advent.png

3D Shooters

• 1973/4– Spasim nad Maze War released.– Wireframe graphics

• It would take till 1994 before 3D Shooters would become a mainstream genre

Role Play Games

• 1975– dnd and Dungeon released– The first popular RPG games– The first was probably pedit5, from 1974

• Dungeon was an unlicensed copy of the popular dnd board game– How does this compare today?– http://

www.techdirt.com/articles/20100730/17081510430.shtml

1981 - Atari

• Over 10,000 employees• In the US 1 in 4 households owned an

Atari• Atari was worth over 1.2 Billion dollars

1982 – Atari Pac-Man

• Ported from the arcade machine– In only 6 weeks!

• It was a poor copy, due to the lesser hardware of the 2600

• 12 million Cartridges were manufactured• 7 million sold

– Many returned• = A financial blow

E.T. Go Home!

• Atari purchased the rights to E.T. In 1982 for US $20M

• Manufactured 5-12M copies– This was more than the

existing console-base!• The game sucked! REALLY

sucked!

http://pwned.jp/gamecovers/atari/cbec69d088f272ba1e2c4968f1733e1a-E_T__the_Extra_Terrestrial.jpg

• 14 Truckloads of ET and Pac-Man were buried in the Nevada Desert

http://www.geeks.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/ET.gif

http://andromeda.plymouthlibrary.org/blog/libchoice/images/ET.png

1982 - Enter the Commodore

• Sold 30M units• Allowed peope to play

games and program / use work software

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9d/Commodore64.jpg/320px-Commodore64.jpg

• Games were originally developed by a single person, who managed all of the aspects of the game

• It usually took days, or possibly weeks to create a game– Nowadays the cycle for most games is rarely under

18months, and involving hundreds, or 1000’s of people

• With Atari fading away, Nintendo brought in the NES– Nintendo Seal of Quality

• Avoided the Cartridge flood which reduced profitability

• At the same time, many keen gamers were starting to develop games on their Home Computers

• The computing power of these machines, and the difference in capabilities to consoles led the development of game genres

• Elements such as varying backgrounds and storylines started emerging

• Following this games started to develop a learning curve, where experience also became an important factor

• Newer Computers had EGA (16) and even VGA(256!!) graphics, Sound Cards and even Mouse input, – The advent of the mouse is where the

computer really took over the RTS genre• Developing games started to incorporate

the length of the game play to be extended – both for enjoyment and marketing

• The release of the PlayStation killed arcade machines– Sony also broadened the games market from

Hard-Core to Kids, by marketing the PS1 at young adults

• This created a much larger market, and thus required that games be designed for specific areas of the market

• Marketing people saw this change and the ‘casual gamer’ was born– Did they exist? Or did the market create them?

• It forced the developers to change the format of games– Difficulty didn’t need to be part of gameplay– Frustration was to be avoided– Ergonomics were a key to a games success– Beauty of the game was also a major influence

This brings us to roughly now…

• The aspects we cover in Game Design are a good summary of what is involved at the moment– Changes WILL happen, forever no doubt

• On the up side, basic ingredients for games haven’t changed, just extra spices, and a few new dishes on the menu

How Not to Develop a Game

• Limbo of the Lost– Do you trust the people you work with?

Limbo of the Lost

Oblivion

Wow!

Limbo of the Lost Oblivion

Tim Croucher, Steve Bovis and Laurence Francis

One of these guys is not like the others….

I’d recommend avoiding developing like this!

The Design Process

....• Concept

• Elaboration• Tuning

Graphic Design

http://opal-gem.deviantart.com/art/My-wewy-design-flow-diagram-83391221

The Rule of Three’s

• Introduction• Variation 1• Variation 2+• Full On!

http://brainjuicegames.wordpress.com/category/brain-juice/

The End