Week 2.02: Reflection — Game Design

A deeper look in to Game Design set a new datum. The mini ideation projects from the previous module were fun to work on and I was pleased with the results but they were only ever a starting point. They were the stake in the ground that served as a marker for my ability at the beginning of the course. When I compare them to the work of others, they were obviously lacking something. They weren’t nearly as well rounded nor exciting as the work of more experienced game developers.

My problem was I couldn’t identify the steps needed to raise my game. How could I transform a boring, mediocre prototype into something with “Wow!”? Something that would thrill and excite the player? Something that would raise their heart rate? Make them feel accomplished when they won?

Thankfully, our studies this week tackled this very issue.

Swink addressed this very topic in his book Game Feel . He defines Game Feel as “Real-time control of virtual objects in a simulated space, with interations emphasized by polish.” which is then further mapped 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 Augmented Reality)

Looking back at my previous games, it was polish that was most ominous by it’s absence. The other two components could still be improved but polish — or as it’s also commonly known, ‘Juice’ — has the biggest potential for quick wins. The 30 polishing tips presented by Nijman should be relatively easy to translate from a 2D to 3D game world.

In order to embrace these ideas I discarded my original thought to produce a Steampunk mystery/adventure game and proposed a new idea for an all-action first person shooter/dungeon crawler discussed here: Game Proposal – Swarm. This proposal also includes a first pass of a penalty/reward mechanism to guide player behaviour and an attempt to balance player stress with rest periods .

Conclusion

This weeks discoveries are game changers. They go far beyond what I originally envisaged as game design to address both the eye-candy effects, game play and psychology of engagement and retention. Over the forthcoming weeks I intend to utilise as much of this newfound knowledge as possible. I can’t wait to see the results.

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