quote:
Is good game design universal? Could a good game designer design a game in any genre? Could Sid Meier create the next great FPS? Could Peter Molyneux create the greatest sports game ever?

YES

but it depends on your definition of game genres...how ''exclusive'' you think they should be...

game design is a creative endevor...sure there is the ellement of craft to it (craft as in a collection of techniques)...but there is also a portion of creativity in how these crafts are applied.

A person could study how to draw (write music, whatever)...and effectively ''master'' a set of drawing techniques...but even when many such ''masters'' work on drawing a specific image (such as a still-life) they all will use their skills in different ways...no two images will be the same, because they had to individualy decide on how to apply thier techniques to the work at hand.

now if your view of any genre limits it to a set of specific features then you may not see that such specific features share common ground with other genres.

An example is the film the Matrix...a person who has a limited view of the sci-fi genre may claim the film fits the genre to a tee...another may see the film fitting into the action genre instead...but people who find such genre specifics limiting will see that the film can fit into a wide range of genres.

Mozart could make a punk rock album if he wanted to...sure genre ''pureist'' prolly wouldn''t like it...mainly because by ''crossing such genres'' sort of defuses them...blurs the ''boundries'' that such purists put up...

If you gave two film directors the same script, sets, actors, and props...you would still end up with two different films...this is because each will applay thier techniques in slightly different ways...imagine if Spielburg directed Star Wars..or James Cameron did..or George Remaro...the film would turn out quite differently...maybe even better, or even worse in reguards to how the genre purists view the flick

quote: Original post by beantas
So then the next question is, if you''ve played every game there is in a genre, can you design a game in that genre well (without having made a game in that genre before)?

I''d like to think that the answer to this question is yes. And then a good game designer should be able to take universal game principles, play a lot of games in any genre, and be able to design a game relatively well in any genre.

>I think you are trying to rationalize a creative process, and formulate designers. You may do that with design principles, approaches, techniques and styles, but you can''t with the human element. You have not even given any consideration to the funny thing that happens in creative fields no matter how patiently and rationally the art form builds upon itself; one day, somebody comes along and just blows it up to a level that everybody wonders why they never saw it coming. We haven''t had our picasso in game design yet, but he or she is out there, and working right now.

quote: Original post by Kylotan
Most game designers, even the great ones, will probably not have the time or resources to come close to mastering more than 2 genres, [...]

Rubbish, game design is not about "mastering genres", every game is different in its way, every game requires a lot of research before design proper even gets underway. Every designer will have some preferences of genre or system, but a good designer will be able to write you a good GD for every game, no matter what the genre is. Game Design is not a mystical process, its a very solid and structured process which, granted, is a little bit different every time, but which relies on principles which are valid and useful for every genre out there.
A good game designer does not design the game HE wishes to play, but rather that which the target audience wishes to play. If you can do that right, you can do anything.


PS: your sig is horrible in quotes.

quote:
Game Design is not a mystical process, its a very solid and structured process which, granted, is a little bit different every time,

Not quite so...game design is basied more on designer intuition then structured principals which is why games turn out differently.

quote:
A good game designer does not design the game HE wishes to play, but rather that which the target audience wishes to play.

Nope...a good game designer has good design instincts...has nothing to do with explicitly pleaseing target audiances....a good game designer makes the game He wants to play, with the idea in mind that it should reach a target audiance...a good game designer puts a ''little of themselves'' in the game in the form of instinct basied gameplay choices they made.

You are right in that genres are really meeningless...mastering them is pointless as they offer nothing to be mastered (else there would be little point in developing new games in the genre)...any designer who goes against thier gamedesign instincts in a effort ot please a target audiance is bound to produce crappy games...indeed "target audiances" are much more genre explicit in defineing thier expectations of the genre, which tends to impare good game design anyway...if the target audiance wants Quake...and you, as the designer, give them something that goes against your design instincts...the game will suffer because of it, and the target audiance will not be pleased...

Good game designers follow thier personnel gamedesign instincts, period...

Intuition?

Maybe for generating the original idea, but certainly not the bulk of game design. It is really crazy when you think about it. Do you think publishers would be shelling out these millions of dollars on games where the designer just went with what he thought was cool, without doing research, playtesting, focus groups and so on?

I refer you to Gamasutra.com. There you can find many articles by game designers showing how good design does NOT come from intution.

It seems our discussion is really about whether there is some kind of magic happening in the brains of game designers, or artists of any kind...which some people seem to view almost religiously.

Anyway, I think that if you actually asked a renowned game designer, none would say that intuition is what made them so succesful, but rather tons of time and effort spent discovering what is fun and what isn''t.

quote:
I refer you to Gamasutra.com. There you can find many articles by game designers showing how good design does NOT come from intution.

I said <b>INSTINCT </b> not intuition.

Please follow your own advice and read, not only my comments, but the Gamasutra articals (and subscribe to the GD magazine too). You will clearly see that a designer must pay attention to his INSTINCTS . Market research and playtesting are only part of the design equation...read those articals...note how often the writer presents two seperate gameplay situations and then notes that one doesn''t "feel" or "seem" to be correct for the purpose of the game. Read Ernest Adams pieces, and you will see that there is more to gamedesign then meets the eye...Read the old ''Designers Corner'' pieces in the archives, there is a lot of great stuff in there...

MSW, you sound a bit like you own the ultimate truth on game design. And neither do Gamasutra nor Earnest Adams.
I believe that a good game designer should be able to argue EVERY design deceision he makes... that way he can avoid a lot of pitfalls by checking his own designs, as well as being able to argue his design to someone else - otherwise when the publisher comes along and says "no, we want [something] instead of [something else]" (which would incidentally ruin the game for 70% of the target audience) you HAVE to be able to argue why the design is good as it is, and where changes can be made without affecting target audience or EE.
Games turn out differently because of: a) the initial idea and b) the number of deceisions taken during the course of game design. No magic at all. Infinite Deceisions = Infinite Possibilities of different games.

If you ask me its the same as with every other job: if you want to be good at it it´s 1% good ideas and 99% determination and hard work. Sure, if you have the gut feeling telling what works and what doesn´t its cool, but if you can´t put it into words you´ll lose out in the long run.

quote: Original post by adventuredesign
You have not even given any consideration to the funny thing that happens in creative fields no matter how patiently and rationally the art form builds upon itself; one day, somebody comes along and just blows it up to a level that everybody wonders why they never saw it coming. We haven't had our picasso in game design yet, but he or she is out there, and working right now.

That's a good point and I agree. But I think the original statement still stands. Perhaps a special person with a special spark could innovate a genre or create a masterpiece, but a good designer without that spark could still design a solid game in a genre without having experience in that genre. It wouldn't necessarily be the genre's holy grail but nonetheless a good solidly designed game.


[edited by - beantas on October 20, 2002 9:40:41 PM]

MSW: I scrolled up and looked at it dude, you used both instinct and intuition. and I DO get GD magazine

It''s kinda funny, since I was gonna mention Ernest Adams'' "Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie" series as showing how game design really can''t run on a person''s instincts. But the argument is starting to get silly...since game design is clearly at neither extreme of the spectrum...

I still think it weird that we got completely opposite messages from the same sources though...

Opps....I did say that

Sorry, I can get a little passionate about this subject...and tend to let that lead my arguments....

I have a artist background, and tend to be a bit anti-establishment...

the remark that ruffles my feathers:

quote:
A good game designer does not design the game HE wishes to play, but rather that which the target audience wishes to play. If you can do that right, you can do anything.

I may have taken that the wrong way...Because it tends to downplay every innovative game ever made...the designer of Tetris didn''t have a target audiance in mind...id software didn''t develop Wolfenstien 3D because market research showed that a FPS was exactly what a target audiance wanted to play...Mario, Metroid, and Link wasn''t created because of the same reasons.

Would you really like to play a game designed by someone who has no desire to actualy play the game they themselves designed? would you listen to a band that only produces music fit for a set target audiance that they can''t even stand?
Thats like saying the only GOOD musician, film maker, game designer is in it for the money...

I know gamedesign is a lot of hard work...I never ment to say otherwise....but gamedesign is not a completely surefire structured process (if it REALLY was, there would be a crap load of much better games out there today...and there wouldn''t be much need for this discussion)