So how do you learn GD anyway? To learn math you solve problems. To learn to code, write programs. Design games? Given how much time it takes this isn''t always a good option. Join beta-testing teams and try to suggest game improvements? This is way better, given how hard it is to come up good ideas that don''t interfere a lot with the vision of the developers. Go into level design? Mods? What are some good games to do that? Books? Forums? Articles?

I''m not much of a game designer, and don''t wanna assume that role But for the level design/mod thing, I guess the good games for that these days are Unreal 2 and Half Life 2 if you wait a bit. Maybe Doom 3 too...
I think there is some kind of prize for Unreal 2 mods, like $1M for the best one.

Hum, well I guess it really depends on what you mean by game design.


Myself personally, I've focused more on the actual high-level conception and description of a game that, once communicated to someone, they can understand what this game is about. Furthermore if they are a programmer, they can look at it and say "Ah, I see how I can implement this." Most questions they have should be answered for them and if they hardly have to ask a question, you know you've done the first part of your job well.

The second part is a bit harder to explain. It deals with the concept of what is 'fun' and how can it be delivered? Having a good idea about what would be fun is ok for starters, but figuring out how to actually implement something so that it 'is' fun is the kicker this usually requires constant trial and error, studying and testing of your (and other) games to see what works and what doesn't.

In the end, I think a game designer need to be able to conceptualize, describe and prototype (even in something like flash, director, or image ready) what their game is about, and show how it is fun.

Practicing this is quite easy; however it is time consuming to say the least Dedication and persistence are the principle traits needed to pull through.


Of course it is much more complex than that, but I'll leave all the detailed information for another day.



-~-

[edited by - Sage13 on June 27, 2003 4:02:04 AM]

[Sage, your signature is over 350KB. That's not acceptable; remember a lot of people access this forum on dialup. -- Kylotan]

[edited by - Kylotan on June 29, 2003 6:11:36 PM]

In my school, there''s some guy who''s just elite at warcraft3, yet he has dial-up connection and hardly ever played any game on the internet. He learned everything by watching replays by the best people there are on Battle.net

In much the same way you can learn from the design of other games or mods : look at them with a crictical eye. Determine what points you like about them, which points you don''t like, what would have been better, what other games have and proved to be better. Constantly think about new features you would like to add to games you play, and the next day think about it again to see if it is a good idea or not. And when you get a great idea of gameplay, just apply it.

ToohrVyk

It's funny almost (not to upset anyone) that the basic idea is to take other games as example. Isn't this in fact just duplicating and mixing 'what you like from those games' back into a different form, a different environment, but overall just a gameplay photocopy/clone? Why must that be?

(Again, not to offend...)

I'm probably a honestly true designer then. I focus on the meat of mostly original gameplay elements, elements which are derived from simple and obvious 'fun factors', not rehashed experiences. A game should have it's own theme yes, but it shouldn't be just a MOD

Take any and all of the most common of sequels and you will see the difference between true new life to a game and just rehashed gameplay:

Mario Bros. - The most obvious of the true evolutionary gameplay, the Mario series of games hae always presented new, fresh, and fun elements of gameplay. Yes it uses relative pieces and the common theme, but there are always those new elements added to keep the game a 'fresh' sequel.

FPS Games (Most to All) - The complete opposite, talk about your most absolute cloning effects! Whoopie, new guns, different areas, maybe one good innovation out of every dozen or so clones (Like when Quake, etc. fragfests became big for the short time they were, or the Rainbow Six effect - same shit, different setting ) It's mostly been a constant remix that would have you feeling Joe Stutter was in on it (Yes it pisses me off )

Right now I'm helping with what I can in Realm Wars and it's coming along nicely as a life of it's own, bring new experiences and gameplay elements that shed light to their own fun factors (like FPS Melee Battling and realistic Wizardry in the spellcasting areas ). It's even going to [possibly] bring about a surge of new PC Races to play as and use to fight alongside your friends and teammates. This is clearly fresh, new elements. (No, It's not even taking credit much from myself either, this is not my own design, but it is what showed promise to me to want to become involved within the project - It's based on being fun in it's own way )

What I'm saying is, I look at what _is_ fun and base it contextually into a game design. I take the most basic ideas of what is fun, then grow on them and imagine how a feature would be used (even misused ) in the game. The 'life' of the element comes directly from it being within context of the game itself. From then on, it's just a matter of breaking it down into it's scientific, mathematical, and programmable body to see a way to make it feasible within the limits of a programming environment (Mouxhim will probably blow away millions of experts and advanced coders with the seemingly technical feats (which they partially may be) that are fluidly dissolved into the resulting game (it will use alot of 'chemistry inducing' effects )).

Overall, my point is, to be a good game designer, you don't really look at what made this or that game fun, but what would make your game fun, what fits in the world you imagine being there. If you don't see a good portion of raw talent behind the idea, think of what it could use to make you want to play it, or for multiplayer, what would make it fun for your friends to play with you.

Just one last address, about the non-coherent parts of games, stuff that sounded cool but either had no real value or just made a game bad - Watch out for this. Concepts should fit the scene and have a good use, not overused, but sparingly and planned out from every possible angle. Watch out for too much to become just senseless and repetitive, there is a balance. Watch out for too boring, too corny, and too cliche as well, they can drop a game into the bargain bin quicker than you can say "oops!"

- sigh - I think too much

- Christopher Dapo ~ Ronixus


[edited by - ronixus on June 27, 2003 8:07:44 AM]

quote: Original post by Ronixus
It''s funny almost (not to upset anyone) that the basic idea is to take other games as example. Isn''t this in fact just duplicating and mixing ''what you like from those games'' back into a different form, a different environment, but overall just a gameplay photocopy/clone? Why must that be?

I think you need to do both.

If you just mix and match old ideas from other games, then you''re unlikely to come up with anything especially original. Of course, unoriginal doesn''t necessarily mean bad, but it doesn''t help.

On the other hand, if you completely ignore existing games, then you have very little experience of which ideas actually work and which ones don''t. You''ll spend a lot of time reinventing the wheel, and then when you''re done you''re likely to find you''ve made it square instead of round.

Well from reading a lot of articles I learned some good stuff you may want to search here or in www.gamasutra.com

The way I''ve learned a lot is by studying games in a historical context. If you keep looking at every game and ask of its features, "Where did this idea come from?" you''ll come to understand where the differences between a cheap knock-off and a fun, innovative game are. Then you can apply this to something you come up with yourself, and expand where you look for ideas until you''ve come up with something new and different.

If you want to jump into designing straight away, design board and card games. They force you to focus on the critical elements involved in a fun game and you can jump into testing very quickly, as long as you can get some people to test with. Designing video games is both harder and easier at the same time - with a video game you can more readily *visualize* your gameplay, but if it has anything near modern sophistication the details of interface and interactions will bog you down in no time - and of course, the obvious part, which is the difficulty of implementation.

To be a good game designer you have to set self imposed restrictions and limitations on your design...this is especialy important today as technology allows a whole lot more then it did even five years ago.

To most these limitaions may be technology basied (game AI isn''t completely human like yet, so no use in trying to create a full feature neronetwork or some such for game NPCs when a simpler short cut way of generateing thier actions would work well instead)...or basied around removeing things that didn''t work/ don''t like in the game examples that you are baseing your design on (removeing the sudden random encounters in console style RPGs and replaceing them with a "monster radar screen" for example)...

I mean you must really set limitations for your game design...

For example, you are designing a FPS...but you restrict yourself to NOT haveing any projectile weapons...a FPS without guns then becomes your design goal...and by sticking to your self imposed restriction, you must get real creative - innovative even - push yourself to come up with a fun FPS game that has no guns in it (yes, it can be done!)...who knows, you might just come up with a new game genre in the process.

Makeing a RPG?...set it in the modern world (restriction number 1)...no monsters (restriction number 2)...no physical combat (restriction number 3).

What you might come up with, given your goal of makeing a RPG (includeing all the common and cliched bits of the genre)...but "drawing lines in the sand" (restrictions) that you will not cross...forces you to find alternatives...like baseing "combat" on the characters ability to rap instead of fighting with swords/magic...you could end up with a RPG game where the player performs side quests inorder to build experience (in the forum of inspiration for rap lyrics) that can help him/her "combat" other rap artists...heck the game story could write itself...the player character is dirt poor and trying to break out of the ghetto, does this by rapping...game villians can take the forum of exploitive record agents, other rap artists in it for the money rather then art...heck, there could even be a moral delema in that the audiance wants you to rap a certain way (which would increase your fame) but by doing this the player characters friends consider him a "sell-out"...lots of potential for a great game right there. :D

Assuming we mean ''game designer as Lead Concept Developer'';

Personally I look at game design as being largely about 2 things: psychology, and statistics. Psychology is because a game is all about player decisions. So understanding basic theories of decision-making helps a lot. Statistics (and probability) are important in quantifying these decisions and predicting them. A good statistical model of many things can help in predicting player behaviour, optimise game balance, determine replay value or difficulty level, and so on. In addition to those two, there''s a decent amount of general design vocabulary that''s important to learn too, although that''s (sadly) far from being standardised yet.

That''s at the broad ''gameplay'' level... below that it starts to depend on what type of game you''re developing. Different genres have their own set of vocabulary and ''test cases'' that a designer should be familiar with. They often also have a lot of real-world literature which you would use for the ''bottom-up'' design, when it comes to generating maps, weapons, monsters, etc.

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