Daniel Cook: Game Design Theory I Wish I had Known When I Started
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- Опубліковано 27 вер 2024
- We'll cover critical design tools that I use every day in design my games. These are pragmatic design topics like loops, arcs, internal economies, interaction frequencies and other fundamentals that all designers will benefit from understanding.
Daniel Cook is a veteran game designer and co-founder of Spry Fox. He writes extensively on the techniques, theory and business of game design on Lostgarden.com and Gamasutra. Some of his games include Triple Town, Steambirds, Tyrian, Leap Day and the upcoming Road Not Taken.
Here are the topics in the talk:
04:53 Building player mental models with Loops
11:42 Scaffolding skills to create Skill Chains
14:58 Evoking lessons with Arcs
21:33 Loops and arcs vary in Frequency
25:09 Tuning real-time control systems with ASD Curves
29:39 Transform resources through Internal Economies
35:08 Tuning for Flow
upvote this guys ! ty jaween !
+dapand not a problem
+Jaween Ediriweera You are a gentleman and a scholar.
god bless you
+Ronald Johnson Many of these points are about making the game work well enough that a player can have fun! Having players getting stuck, confused or frustrated at a game that looked fun is a lose/lose for everyone
My right ear is lonely
+Rob Layton Flip the headphones? : )
+Khyrberos hahaha
Turn on mono audio
Book recommendations from the talk:
A Theory of Fun for Game Design
Game Feel
Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design
Thanks, I was just about to rewatch the video just to find them.
Flow: The Psychology of Happiness by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
My left ear enjoyed the talk
why was it like this?
now if i have a second video which onlys plays on the right speaker, i can listen to both at once!
For mac users, you can go into acessibility controls and set "play stero as mono" in the audio tab
Just noticed the similar settings in Windows 11
@@MohammodZunayedHassan Hate to reply to an old comment but any idea where I can find it?
Edit: Nevermind, it's right there in the sound settings.
Some really great points made in this talk.
I ended up plugging in my headphone jack halfway inside the port for the audio to split evenly to both ears.
I put off listening to this for a year and a half due to the single ear audio!
Thanks for that!
Really insightful lecture, thanks for this. The formalisation of gameplay into loops and arcs makes it all makes sense to me! Really tidies up my game theory.
Install Audio EQ from the web store and simply click mono.
Thank you!!
my left ear is a game designer now
when your left headphone earbud dosent work -__-
put it in mono wtf man.
+Jeff Quartz cant watch it like this :(
happens so often i wish for a youtube plugin to force mono. i did have a mixer setup to route one channel to stereo which worked...
These teachings are awesome indeed, i'm grateful.
"A good ending is the least important thing in the game."
Life Is Strange: "Hold my 5 empty beer bottles."
i love it that videos have stereo sound
Ugh.. is this available in stereo?
Oh lol, i thought my headset was broken at first xD
Great talk.
Very nice video, exactly what i was searching for. One MAJOR PROBLEM, i don't see the difference between arcs and loops :s ... my point on view is that arcs are just emotional loops where loops are skill loops (in you video) , you just threw away the last arrow in arcs that would transform them in loops. Games is about those loops , any kinds, exactly in the same manner that life is about loops .... still don't see the point to call it ' arc". I would infinitly appreciate you helping me get my idea straight on this. thanks a ton. William
arcs are meant to be experienced once, loops are experienced until the loop is satisfied
+William Baeyens Well a loop is like seeing an enemy, pressing the attack button, having the computer do game calculations, and seeing the response on screen. It happens over and over throughout a game. An arc is more like a pivotal moment in a game, and getting a single use out of it. It's harder to train players to successfully complete arcs because of their non-repeating nature, which is why arcs tend to show up as quicktime events (everything in Dragon's Lair) or maybe as the result of a plot-altering decision you made in the game. At least, thats how I understand them.
I'd like to make a counter-argument to a point in this. He talks at 23:40 that the ending isn't important because you're not getting little moments of delight anymore. I wholeheartedly disagree. I'd like to compare Ocarina of Time to Mass Effect 3. Both amazing games moment to moment, both thematic and great, great feedback moments, both from iconic and great series' for no small number of reasons. But in Mass Effect 3 they had that attitude, and the repercussions were MASSIVE, they even had to go BACK and spend a huge amount on making a slightly more satisfying ending, just to keep people calm. And say what you will about players being finicky, but compare it to food. Imagine eating a great, delicious freshly made cuisine that you absolutely loved, and then the last thing you eat is... well, you don't even really know. It was awful. You think it was part rotten egg, part broccoli? You don't know, but you throw up it with all that great food afterward. It doesn't really matter how great each individual, high-frequency bite was, all you can taste is that lasting, horrible aftertaste. Meanwhile, in Ocarina of Time (just an example I'm sure there are better ones, but it's well known), after your adventure, you're treated to closure that's been discussed for YEARS. The ramifications of that ending lead to avenues for the future games to take, kept fan enthusiasm high, and when you're done the action of talking about it with friends, recall what happened and what the world consisted of, what others enjoyed too, then you take a step back and reminisce over it, then holy shit, you have a community-created loop left from the legacy of the very game you made. A lot of the most talked about stuff is even long after you've pressed your last button besides the power button; Ganon's beaten and you're given a massive amount of information, which is treated as more loops to absorb. Which I give another example to, Skyrim. Yeah, you learn skills, but it's hardly like Zelda or Metroid where you're constantly using loops for skills alone. The intake of information, that you get that sugar-buzz from, is from the world's information, that you use later. That's how you become engaged in the world itself. That's how lore becomes effective. There's mechanics too, but I'm using this as an example. I definitely don't want to undermine this, this is probably the best game design video I've seen, the arc to loop thing is brilliant. I just gotta emphasize that saying endings aren't worth much is a HUGE error at any point in time beyond the NES era, and REALLY diminishes the value of the end product, no matter how well constructed those lego blocks are made and well-prioritized those frequencies are.
That's all. :3 Thanks so much for this video!!
+Hylian Jim I think it depends. Mario is an old arcade-style game with zero story arc. As a result the ending doesn't need to be all that elaborate. If you look at modern versions of tetris they continue this trend: you get ending credits, some music, and that's about it. When I finished the original flash version of Meat Boy it was very similar and that spawned a whole genre of difficult, highly mobile platformers with fine controls (I've never finished super meat boy, oops).
But the more your game depends on story, like a book, the more the ending begins to matter. Because stories are arcs. And, as he stated, arcs are about the payoff. This is why in RPGs like Chrono Trigger have a big celebration at the end after the the world is saved. Like a book, it needed an epilogue. Which is why Mass Effect was so poorly received: being the finale of a 3 part story based series "choose your color of soap bubble" just didn't cut it.
Secondly, people have a lot of trouble finishing games nowadays. People have trouble *starting* games nowadays. With stuff like super cheap steam sales and humble bundles people can have hundreds of games that they'll never even play. The market has completely and utterly exploded and developers count it a success if they can get people to play 20 hours of their story-based game, let alone finish it. I still haven't beaten pillars of eternity and breath of fire 3 yet, gotta get around to those some day.
Moreover, with the fine tuning and tightening of loops within games (so that they can be more addictive and compelling, like angry birds andcandy crush), and the way we use technology these days, I think there's been a major shift in attention away from arcs. Instead you get more loop-based games that never end, like candy crush, League of Legends, minecraft, and arguably most MMOs. I mean, sure, tell-tale games and many rpg developers are still doing their thing, but I feel like game discussion these days, undertale aside, is generally dominated by games that don't depend on story.
Anyway, just my two cents.
That does have its place for sure, in more casual games, but in the triple a field, that attitude concern me, because not having a story isn't necessarily limited to RPGs. That lack of depth takes away from a world of depth. And sure, that doesn't mean you need a story or else, usually that just means your story's gonna be half-assed and forced. But having a game with an interesting story at the very least should be taken seriously on the console platform. Steam and PC gaming is over saturated, you're right. And stories don't even need to be present, sometimes even a solid setting with you plopped in the middle and having atmosphere is enough, to keep mechanics going. But undervaluing the impact of story and endings in game at all, like the he does in the presentation, is selling the medium short. It's not just a pass time anymore - it's an art form, and a platform for experience. If your project's leaning toward a more raw approach to the experience you're wanting to explore for players, then sure, avoid story. But if you would like some context to make the pixels assembled matter to be more than just raw mechanics, then ya, you owe it to your thinking human players to put some effort into a lens to look from. It doesn't need to be grand even. It can be simple, but it does need closure, and entering a game project just assuming that players won't finish the game is kind of a shitty attitude to start your game from, it shows a lack of confidence, and tells the players they're not worth a simple bow before exiting stage left. It's an extreme, and saying something as drastic as 'endings are worth nothing' isn't something that encourages pushing boundaries for gaming. There's a time and place, but when there IS a time and place, saying 'fuck it' at the end never pays off. That's not much respect to someone who paid for a game with the promise of an immersive setting. That's what I'm directing attention to. Mobile games are time-wasters. Triple A is the place for investing in the world you're selling.
+Hylian Jim I have found with orcarina that the ending is so good because it gives closure like you say,. A disadvantage of that is that I have never replayed it.
It's worth a replay. Or else move on to Majora's Mask that happens a year later, that continues and gives another great conclusion. I mean, honestly, after THAT much build up for Majora, of everyone's story, that you learn so intimately with THAT much of a threat, and coping throughout the game with the idea of watching the world end over and over, if it you won and it was like, "eh, it was all just a dream, no big deal," and he just woke up in Hyrule, then you know it would be awful.
Or another great example. Ignore the Triple A vs indie games argument I made. I beat Undertale, and that was... an experience to say the least. Damn. Again, mainly because of the ending(s). If you don't have any payoff, any buildup you have leading up to it will deflate and disappoint. And that's all people really want from any narrative. Gameplay can be the focus beyond that, but the buildup and the end are the most important part. But anyways, I'm beating that home pretty hard, and totally detracting from the rest of the video. Again, I want to thank the speaker here, this was the most educational video on game design and moreover aesthetics. I wanted my gripes to come off as tough love, but I know that it just seems like I'm some loser who just want to start something. No, this was freaking amazing. Just the one disagreement.
Hylian Jim The ending matters less because what matters is keeping your audience engaged through out the experience. Most of your resources should be poured into making that the best part. Not some satisfying ending. As you play through a game it should be designed to feel satisfying every step of the way so it'd would get your players to talk about it, therefore promoting it through word of mouth and online media. If the ending is not as good it's not a huge deal because they have already had a lot of their hype pleased. Of course if you have the resources you should definitely use them to make a satisfying ending that will be talked about. Which allows you to get some free promo when people are freaking out about the super good ending. Thing is though a lot of games have great narrative and ending but the gameplay isn't developed enough to maintain the user's interest and so they drop the game. Therefore not even reaching the end. Thats his point. Ofc It's important to have a good ending but other things should be prioritised ^^ not every team has an endless budget.
Very useful, timeless lessons
Thank God my computer has a "turn on mono audio" feature.
Here's a cleaned up mono mp3 file (with some eq, compression and de-essing): www.sendspace.com/file/gysnrv
For some reason the sound only comes out of the left speaker on your video.
Thank goodness the left speaker is my only working speaker!
David Rogers
haha only my right one works
***** you have them pluged in the wrong way or setup on the wrong sides
Gamesplaytoday
No, have speakers from 1987 wired to my 2014 desktop computer. I just think the hamster in the left speaker stopped running
Dragons lair... That game just ate quarters till you finally figured out how to get past the first sequence...
thx for that nice summary! I like the sheeps - even on one ear ;-)
what is he saying at 53:35 ~ 54:00 ? Something something about Bathan's apologies? Or difficult to master topologies? Could someone please help me?
53:28
Jackson King Math typologies, he's just talking about breaking the mechanics down to their fundamentals and seeing if it's fun there, then scaling it up based on what you find.
Has anyone been able to find the slides?
damn, I feel same thing too at 1:10 my gamedev folder already at number #22, and only 5 games released so far :D
Does anyone have a link to the slides?
Danial Cook? HOLY SH
after 14 years you will get good at anything you've been doing:)
atleast you would hope so
10:45 "Barrel of Doom" ;).
youtube should be able to automatically fix audio LR balancing things like this
I've been through over a dozen series along these lines this week as the subject of the next CCG forum.
I can't help but wonder what makes anyone think that it is a good idea to formulate any aspect of game design.
The best examples we have in every genre are not built from some fixed system for design, but by ignoring those systems and going their own way. Breaking the rules, and breaking new ground.
If you want to have a highest goal of being mediocre, pick up these books and do as they suggest.
If you want to do something worth doing, close this video and don't look back.
Yea I have to say, I'm under the impression that at the fundamental level of any creative process obviously the goal is to eventually find a way to do what has never been done before and still have that conversation between your creation and the consumer still make sense and hopefully change the way the consumer looks not only at yours but every piece within that market from there on; otherwise we'd all be just remodeling Pong or something. The thing is: that is done best usually by people who first break down and look for the reason why those trends were created in the first place and finding modern or personal innovation that opens possibilities for them to have that same experience that fulfills the same need just with different tools. You're yelling at a wall.
Isn't saying the "best example in every genre breaks the rules" a little bit of an oxymoron? If it's breaking all the rules, how is it still defined to a genre? Most of the successful recent games seem to be combining one or more different ideas, as opposed to being completely new ideas.
You ever hear that thing people say about knowing what you're doing BEFORE you start breaking them? Know how to write a proper sentence before you start writing with weird syntax. Know how to make a proper wall before you start cutting parts of it out. Know how to bake a cake before you change the recipe. This is no different.
Graysett The requisites are covered in learning a programming language/visual script language in the first place.
If everyone is following the same guide-book and making walls of identical scale / aspect, then they might as well just automate the process.
koalabrownie"All" was obviously hyperbolic.
The most popular in a given genre are those that push the limit of being in it.
Imagine, for exmple, trying to market Command and Conquer today - even if the graphics were resolved up to current standards.
It would be a complete flop.
Not because the game is lacking as an RTS - it Defined the field. But because it offers nothing that most of them don't already have.
Games serve their purpose so long as they keep us interested.. but interest wanes with familiarity.
I still look back on games like Legacy of the Ancients and Bards' Tale and how great they were in their time. I dumped hundreds of hours into each.
But today, while my interest is still in the same categories, I would have a hard time staying interested in either of them for more than an hour or two.
This is the definition of clear thinking,jesus.
How to play in mono : www.quora.com/How-can-you-set-the-sound-to-mono-on-windows-10
couldn't stand listing to this on headphones!
If someone has normal version of this video, translated on russian, please, send me an url
Если у кого-то есть адекватная версия с переводом на русский, пришлите пожалуйста ссылку
(Английский учу, просто в процессе)
this is basically an asmr video
hugging my left speaker
I wish I could host a Pigda talk :*(
left ears everywhere are no deaf.
is my left headphone broke or is it the vid
Don't you mean the right one? Or are my speakers in the wrong order?
MrKohlenstoff Your's are correct, if you hadn't figured that out haha.
My right ear is DEAF!!!
is it me or at 41:00 he looks like Walter White
Am I deaf?
100th of a millisecond? wot
12 people liked Sonic Boom.
*headphones come off*
hahaha!! so did mine #leftear
The authorities come and take your sheep...ha
One-ear stereo...
You Sir got my click, but not my view... better listen to rebecca black, sounds better †
19 minutes in, this man is no artist.
I watched 15 minutes of this, then clicked another GDC video with only RIGHT audio. I'm pretty much done with this crap.
I think if I design a game I'll skip the tutorial and just have it so you just learn in game.
Pll
tutorials are my favorite parts, don't you ever ignore them!!
Balázs Szabó why?
ProjectEchoshadow
because it provides a wide spectrum of the whole game. It gives you tipps and infos plus its fun. For example Call of Duty series has a fun shooting range tutorial in almost all episodes.
Balázs Szabó lol I was thinking the exact same thing Balazs, competing against friends in those time trial "tutorials" (the ones after the shooting range, where you run through a mockup of a ship or w/e) were my favorite parts of CoD.
This is the most useless game design talk I've ever had to sit through.
I listened to the entire lecture, and I now know less about designing a game than when I started. This entire video is full of fluff, and sounds like extensive padding an English major would shove into term paper to meet the minimum word count. Everything is either so general that it is meaningless, or so convoluted that it obfuscates what should be a really simple concept.
There's this talk about "loops" and "arcs", but that's all jargon. Here's the real simple breakdown:
A) What do you _do_ in the game?
B) Is what you _do_ fun or entertaining?
C) Why would you _do_ thing in the game? What is the motivating factor.
D) Are there any points where the thing you _do_ becomes too repetitive?
E) Does it become too complicated or convoluted at one point?
From there, it all goes down into the specific needs that specific types of games would have. All of this is post-hoc analysis of successful games that produces no meaningful movement toward innovation or guaranteed success.
auuhm.. but them.. auhmmm.. and... auhmmm. auhmmm auhmm auhmmm. dude why! so annoying with them auhmmm
No offence, but what is this guy saying? 21 mins in and I can barely understand the message / lecture / whatever it is he is trying so hard to relate. I mean, arcs, loops, etc. WTF? pls stick to game programming u r a very poor teacher.
He's not a programmer, lol.
@@esotericmoniker its also a terrible tutorial on making a ham sandwich. I assume thats because it's not about programming or making a ham sandwich.
schema, model, object, bla di bla bla, It's pragmatic oh yes. fundametals, feedback, identify, bla di bla bla....aaaaaaaaaaand...captain obvious
if you cant design a fun game without all this, youre simply not a good game designer.
no offense
sad but true.
Your statement makes no sense. You are a good designer when you can dissect something that is not working and identify how to proceed to fix it (or know when to kill it) which is exactly what the tools presented in this talk is for.
awesome video.
If you hover over the like button, you will find that there is a 200ms delay before the text pops up. While you're there, you might as well click it too.
The parallels to music production, or at least electronic music production (for that is what i understand) is uncanny! who knew these overlapped so much!
What parallels are you talking about, I'm curious. Can you link me to some tutorials or weeks or books about music production?
I started producing electronic music as a means to make music for my games, and I started to learn a lot about game design through designing songs, their buildup, their drop, their addictive rhythm and polished pacing, art imitates art.
Why is Walter White teaching me about Game Design?
Breaking mega
Great talk, really liked the segment on scaffolding skills with skill chains
Right ear doesn't like this vid.
This is an interesting lecture
DanC! Not only is he a great designer, but a great guy, too! (Went to school with him. LOL)
31:21 Sell the sheep to scientists and they will provide research results thus allowing you to produce more sheep. It could also end up allowing for higher quality sheep depending on the game.
"Rogue not Taken" haha!
BTW: A quick "hack" to fix the left-ear only audio problem, go in your sound panel and activate the karaoke "Voice Cancellation". For some reason it makes this video equally sound in both stereo speakers/headphone.
wny is it so quiiiiiiiiiiiiet
Open VLC Media Player, Go to Media > Open Network Stream (Ctrl+N), copy and paste in the video URL, press Play, go to Audio > Stereo Mode > Left.
I took the time to watch this while taking notes, to get the things in my head.
I am in a loving relationship with a notebook.
What type of potato did you guys use to record the audio?
Russet.
It is all about the process.
I should've written down the books as he said them. The Theory of Fun, and.. balls...
Theory of Fun by Raph Koster, Game Feel by Steve Swink, and Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design by Ernest Adams and Joris Dormans.
*****
Bless you good sir.
Indeed. You're a true hero of the cyber realm. I thank you.
***** Much love for yu.
storytellerjack22 characteristics of games too - mitpress.mit.edu/books/characteristics-games, wait he never said this one but it's a good one too apparently.
That quip about Metroid came out a lot less effective than it should. Tourian, and by design Mother Brain boss battle are much much easier parts of the game than the rest of it. In fact I would argue the entirety of exploration in Metroid does nothing to prepare you for the final battle save from collecting the very tools you need to win. Breath of the Wild is a much better example because the game even offers you the choice to try the final battle ill-equipped if you're masochist!
THIS IS THE MOST EXCEPTIONAL INFO ON GAME DESIGN
Ok so people who own more than ten games "don't matter" and "endings in a game are the least important part".
Yeah, I'd say there's a reason this guy is developing shitty mobile games.