Week 2.02: Reflection — Game Design (Reboot)

For this module, I wanted to build on last year’s experiences and produce a game design where I could deliver Wow! whilst keeping very tight control on scope and feature creep. One of the issues I had with Swarm! was I simply hadn’t appreciated the volume of content I would need to produce in order to create even a very basic game. Couple that with up-skilling in Unreal Engine — something I had no prior knowledge of — and it’s clear that this would be a challenge and a half.

Hindsight is a wonderful teacher!

In my previous post I presented the outline of a game idea that (I hope) will be small enough for a Lone Wolf developer to create in 12 weeks and embrace all the skill areas touched on in this module, namely:

• Game Design
• Programming
• Narrative Design
• Art
• Animation
• Level Design
• Sound Design

The Pinball idea I described should provide enough meat to cover each of these aspects. I was initially concerned about the narrative aspect but given how the ‘mission’ aka modes aspect of most pinball games work and the overall theme of the game I feel these two aspects can combine to form the narrative element. Further, this will later feed into the overall level design and artwork needed for the game. At least that’s my plan.

But will it deliver?

My projects from module 710 were OK and I was pleased with what I’d achieved but they failed to deliver the fun, excitement and satisfaction I envisaged during the ideation phase. Hopefully my pinball game will build on these and taking inspiration/advice on “Juicing up” my game . In his book, Swink defines this as concept as a game’s feel, i.e. “Real-time control of virtual objects in a simulated space, with interations emphasized by polish” . He further maps this onto the Venn diagram of Figure 1, redrawn here from page 8 of his book.

The three major components from Swink’s definition being…

• real-time control — i.e. the player’s avatar moves in sympathy with continuous input from the player.
• spatial simulation** — i.e. the action takes place within a simulated game world with rules that govern interactions between the avatar, non-player characters and the world itself.
• polish — game effects designed to enhance the player’s experience. This could be a subtle effect such as an almost unnoticeable pause when something important happens to over-exaggerating the size of a bullet or explosion.

(** I can’t help but wonder if this definition will be modified in the near future with developments into virtual and augmented reality)

Conclusion

The material we covered this week was mind-blowing. It showed the gap between where I am now, and where I need to be. Not only that, it also revealed the initial parts of the pathway to get there. Trying to map this onto my own past experiences as a fashion photographer, I remember how very simple tweaks to my technique and workflow made a huge difference to my images. Or as my karate Sensei used to say, the difference to become a black belt is only millimetres.

My goal for this module is to reduce the number of millimetres on my own journey to become a black belt game developer.

List of Figures

Figure 1. SWINK, 2017 Levels of Game Feel (Swink, 2017,8) – Redrawn from original, THORN, 2021

References

Photo by Faye Cornish on Unsplash