Design Decisions and Opinions
So this part of my portfolio is going to be me breaking down a few different design topics and giving my opinion on them. Please feel free to give them a skim to learn more about my thought process or just my values as a designer. I also have a design blog! Thanks for looking.
Design Blurbs
What Makes a Good Game?
The topic of a "good" game is an interesting one. It is something I can always go back to and reevaluate my answer and see my growth as a designer. It is also a question I can go to any design and ask to start up a debate. I think the way and the reason people answer this question show a lot about themselves.
When I first started getting into game design and that feels like forever ago I always found myself coming to the topic of the story and for a very long time, I would argue that the story was the more important part of a game. Now I look back at that design and laugh a bit. He isn't seeing the full picture and it is almost sad to think about it like that. I look at a game like how I look at pastries or food. They are delicious and I will eat as many as I can but there is something that makes a grocery store pastry and homemade pastry very different. It is the same with games. A good story is only one part of the pastry and you need all the others to make it stand out like something homemade. A game needs a strong narrative, a reason to drive the player forwards and something to trap them inside your game. This can spread out even more when taking a look at level design or decision trees. A good game needs strong mechanics to push the player and challenge them. These mechanics need to learn and grow as the player does like childhood friends until the day the player is a master and can stand all by himself. These mechanics can be anything from skill trees to the bare systems and how they are designed. A good game needs wise developers to coddle and care for the game, to grow it into something beautiful and send it out into the big open world. They need to listen to feedback and the opinions of others to craft an experience that anyone can pick up and lose themselves in.
I think that these are all crucial parts to making a truly good or even a great game. Two games that I think do this perfectly are Borderlands 2 and Pokemon Emerald.
Borderlands 2 is a game I love with all my heart and I will talk about whenever I am given the opportunity. This game's strongest point, in my opinion, is its story and narrative. The way the player is given a constant drive to get to the end and kill the villain who keeps plaguing them throughout the game. Handsome Jack is always bugging the player and mocking them. He laughs when you lose your allies and tries to manipulate you whenever he has the chance. It is something you really only see in movies, a villain that the audience quickly grows to despise but not hate and eventually grow to love. It is such a strange thing to think about.
Pokemon Emerald is my favorite pokemon game. Looking into the game, it shook up Pokemon as a whole. The biggest thing generation three did was adding natures and abilities to the game. All of a sudden now catching different or duplicate Pokemon had a reason. Some of those abilities were better than others or some just fit on your team or playstyle more. It was cool and allowed players an extra step to customize their world and their teams. This generation also added double battles which were just super fun and a great addition to anyone who made the argument of the formula getting old or repetitious. Overall the addition to the game's mechanics made that pillar stand taller and also helped pick up where the story faltered.
Design Blurbs
Design Challenges
Awhile back some friends and I were talking about different deign challenges. The goal of these were to make up a game under set requirements to try and force each other to think outside of the box. Below I'll post two of the challenges I created awhile back to give you something to think about. The goal of these were to have fun and make us think about design differently.
Challenge 1: Currency Matters!
Currency is something that is used in many different games. As time has gone on it has become more and more common in games but this leads us to an interesting idea. Look at a game that uses currency as the main way to progress, and change it to another method that makes sense in the world but it also just better that using money. The point of this assignment is to make you think about better ways to “better the player” without using a simple currency or crafting system.
Materials: Your brain and a game that you want to examine.
Specifics:
Take a game where currency is a major function to progress (i.e. upgrades, skills, etc) and change it to another system. Do not just make it a different type of currency but something different and unique to the game.
Figure out a clear reason why this new system makes sense in the game world.
Challenge 2: Plot Holes
Often when games are created designers forget certain aspects or don’t consider all the possibilities of an outcome. This can lead to holes in your game and that can be a good thing as well as a bad thing. Your objective is to create a game with simple rules but is still difficult to win but leave certain parts open ended so the players can make adaptations. This should show you how simple mechanics can be exploited or can be written unclearly and that can lead to player confusion.
Materials: Anything to make a physical game. Playtesting with multiple groups can be a benefit.
Specifics:
Make a game that is simple or easy to play but is also difficult to win.
This game should take around ten minutes to complete. (Just an interesting restraint)
Must be two to six plays max.