Game System Design Petri Lankoski Södertörn University
Petri Lankoski Södertörn University
What Games are?Chess
Space Invaders
Doom
Flower
Sim City
War Hammer 40 000
September 12
GraveyardSims
World of Warcraft
Eve Online
Heavy Rain
Poker
Table-top RPGs
Cow Clicker
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What Games Are?There are prototypical games
Tetris, Chess, Space Invaders,… Understanding what make these things tick help
you to understand game design
BUT going out from the box might produce something very interesting Sim City, Little people, Sims Graveyard, Every day the same dream
However, if a game is too novel, players do not get it
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What games are about Meaningful decisions Twitch skill Puzzle solving Challenges Learning to play Mastering the game
In other words That the players’ actions
and choices have an impact In the game To the players’ emotions
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What is game design?Creating rules or game systems
Creating goals and challenges for players
Creating content Not always purely game design But content and game design are always linked
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Why Theories?What are your building blocks?
How the building blocks relate to each other?
What are the consequences of your design?
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Game Autopsy Components Game environment Actions
What a player(s) can do Verbs
Mechanics Goals Game State Game View
This is a combination of Brathwaite &Schreiber
(2008) Järvinen (2008)
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Components Components are something that can
manipulate or owned Components-of-self Components-of-system Components-of-other
Components in Chess Components-of-self
Pieces that I move Components-of-other
Pieces that another player moves Components-of-system
Does not have
Chessboard: Klin, ILA-BOY, Beao, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chess_board_blank.svg
Components-of-self
Components-of-other
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Game EnvironmentArea where the game take placeArea can be
Field as in Soccer, Ice Hockey, Basket ball Game board as in Chess, Backgammon Screen as in Space Invaders, Game world as in Elder Scrolls Designed or randomly generated,
But no clearly defined environment Shadow Cities Geocaching
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ActionsWhat players do when they play gameActions can be expressed as verbs
Shoot, hide, sneak, drive
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Game StateAll information that can change during the
gameplay and that is needed to construct a situation in a specific moment
Consists of All components, their positions, values Who's turn it is (in turn-based multiplayer) Possible previous game states when the previous
states influence the current state
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Game State examplesPoker
Cards in hands Discarded cards Bot Who’s turn it is What is the stage in the game
Tetris The position and rotation of falling blog Blogs on the ground Score Level
Poker: image by Todd Klassy, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Holdem.jpg
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Game View What kind of view a player
have to the game state Perfect Information
The game state is fully visible to a player of to all players
E.g., Chess Imperfect Information
The game state is partly hidden
E.g., Poker
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Settlers of Catan Components? Game environment? Actions? Game state? Game view?
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Mechanics game system, algorithms or rules, The core of gameMechanics defines how game behaves
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GoalsWhat is the goal of playingWhat is needed to win the gameVictory conditions / conditions for loosing game Important for motivating play
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Dynamics Patterns that happens when the game system is
motion, in use Approximately the same as Gameplay Same dynamics in (among other dynamics)
Bridge Trump Spades Core mechanics is trick-taking
Same core mechanics -> similar dynamics But dynamics depends on implementation and other
mechanics in the game
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Core Mechanics Chase or evade Trading Racing
Not exhaustive list These are commonly used Very useful
Territorial acquisition Prediction Spatial reasoning Survival Destruction Building / Resource
management Collection
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Core MechanicsTetris
Spatial reasoning
Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne Building/Resource management + Trading
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ThemeA game can have a themeVisual theme vs narrative themeExample
Ico is a game about a boy who get captured because he is different to others and he needs to escape
Not all games have a theme Poker Tetris
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Where to Start? What this game is about? How do I play?
Verbs
How do I complete the game/How do I win? Goals
What challenges I face? Obstacles, enemies
What are the things I need to do to reach the goals? Why I do want to play?
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Work with the Limitations Game design is about working with limitations
Limitations are not negative thing Limitations force you to be creative!
Set limitations for the design Our game should contain
A core mechanics, a design pattern, etc. E.g., territorial acquisition, ROLE-REVERSAL, one-button control
Our game should not contain Limit away the most obvious direction E.g., No shooting
The style of the game is E.g., Dali-like, cute animals, pop art, wild west + magic
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Some Tricks to Overcome Designers Block Kill a rule, remove a feature Limit or unlimit a resource Take one random design patterns from Björk &
Holopainen and add that to the game Change a value in the game system or in rules
Multiply or dive by two
Change the visual theme or narrative theme Try something very different to the current one
Test or simulate the design after a change to get a fresh perspective
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Evaluating system behaviorPlay-testestingSimulations
Simulations can help to understand how a part of the system behaves One does not need ready game for simulation
Does not replace playtesting But simulation can show the features work in the
long run Balancing weapons & troops
non-symmetrical things are hard to balance
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Simulating a game systemModel
sum of two six sided dice -> sum of two random numbers between 1 to 6
Weapon: change to hit, damage dealt & fire rate
Simulating system Run model many times to learn how the system
behaves Run 50000 times and calculate distribution or
averages, average damage per minute, etc.
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Settlers of Catan Simulation How the players gain resources Simplified
Robber vs no robber discard Only resource amount simulated, not types
Assumptions Four player game 0-3 resources at hand when ones turn ends
Model for using resources One specific board set-up
The results does not vary much board to board The results can vary with not optimal settlement placements
50 000 iterations used
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Settlers of Catan…• 4 victory point set-up
• Settlements -> cities• 6 victory point sim• 1&2) 8 victory point sim
• Note the optimal settlement placement in initial placement
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Settlers of Catan: Model#!/usr/bin/python import randomfrom collections import Counter
# board model (2 victory points) field1 = { 2: {'white': 0, 'blue':0, 'red': 0, 'orange': 0}, 3: {'white': 0, 'blue':0, 'red': 1, 'orange': 1}, 4: {'white': 1, 'blue':1, 'red': 0, 'orange': 0}, 5: {'white': 0, 'blue':2, 'red': 1, 'orange': 0}, 6: {'white': 1, 'blue':1, 'red': 1, 'orange': 1}, 8: {'white': 1, 'blue':1, 'red': 1, 'orange': 1}, 9: {'white': 1, 'blue':0, 'red': 0, 'orange': 1}, 10: {'white': 1, 'blue':0, 'red': 1, 'orange': 1}, 11: {'white': 0, 'blue':0, 'red': 1, 'orange': 1}, 12: {'white': 0, 'blue':0, 'red': 0, 'orange': 0}}
The above model does not contain handling for robber Full code: http://www.mediafire.com/view/bqag3hbz262gpac/catan.py
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Catan: Balance of set-up1 2 3 4
White 2.0553 2.6120 3.1700 3.7267Blue 2.0761 2.6593 3.2396 3.8224Red 2.0808 2.6661 3.2496 3.8348Orange 2.0892 2.6745 3.2605 3.8454
• Resource gain for each color is very similar• White might have small disadvantage
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Catan: What can one learn?
Easy to run what if scenarios Robber -> discard all Discard if more than four resources
Estimating the costs for buildingBalance of the the initial set-up
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ReferencesBrathwaite & Schreiber, 2008, Challenges for
game designers. Charles River Media, chapters 1-2
Järvinen, 2008, Games without frontiers, Tampere University Press, chapter 4.