Nostalgia & Comics

I've been drawing up a list of potential themes for a nostalia-based game design, just to test the water.  The list has got very long very quickly, but I've learned a number of important things in a very short time:

1. Trademarks feature prominently, which means there's a major need to create generic versions (or spoof imitations of) products to avoid clearance costs.
2. Many nostalgic characters & objects are still current.  The toy comanies know when they've got a hit and they'll milk it for as long as they can.  Whether it's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or Transformers, some nostalgic content has been done to death already.
3. "I'd forgotten about that!" is a powerful emotion.  Taking Koster's Theory of Fun into account, there is undoubtedly a strong chemical process involved in rediscovering atrophied chunk memory.  Prehaps the endorphins flow at a greater rate along the already-formed neural links?  Whatever the neurophysiological explanation, this feeling is definitely fun.
4. Toys & sweets run all the way through.  However, for kids from the 1970s, comics & TV are prominent; for 1980s it moves on to films & early 8-bit video games; by the 1990s there is a heavy emphasis on branded characters (cartoons/toys) & 16-bit video games.

As I've noted initial ideas for game spin-offs, I've also realised that there is a pattern to the themes.  Some appear to be mostly about aesthetics (e.g. Space:1999 or Fuzzy Felt) and have little actual content that would drive a game mechanic (which doesn't stop them being useful).  Others have core factors -- "why we loved them" -- that can be exploited as the core concepts in a game.  Many, as mentioned above, need to be converted into an unbranded imitation or gestalt.

Once the useful factors are established, these can be used to drive the game design process.1970s kids' comics are an interesting difficulty here.  They are packed with high-concept characters (mostly copyrighed, but that shouldn't be a problem, as parody comic Viz discovered a long time ago) and situations which drive a narrative well.  However, they require a very specific art style -- like that of Leo & Martin Baxendale or Tom Paterson -- in order to take advantage of the nostalgic cues.  This would undoubtedly require specialist help, possibly from experts in this field like Lew Stringer.

This raises a thought: is it possible to develop a list of steps which can be used to convert any nostalgic theme into a viable game?  I suspect that it is possible, and that this is a potential research question.

Deciding on a focus

I'm now several weeks into my MA and have covered a lot of ground, working my way through many of the fundamental theories of game studies.  At this stage I still have a number of potential topics for research, so I thought it was worth listing them to help me identify the direction I'm looking to take.

• Which elements are important in creating an effective casual gaming experience?
• Something involving game mechanics (giving a main hook to hang the the game on), intrinsic narrative (added by the player), and charm (part of the hook and tying in with the mechanic).
• Can nostalgia be exploited reliably in order to add charm to a game?
• Is it possible to define a set of 'filters' which can be used to refine a game during the prototyping process?
• Is there a role for 3D printing in video games?
• Development of immersive play games & virtual play areas, based on and controlled by real-world artefacts.
• Does an understanding of object-oriented techniques assist the game designer in developing effective game mechanics?

After discussing these different topics with MA Games tutor Josh, I managed to write a couple off.  Josh felt that the object-oriented one was a dead end, because it would cause designers to pay too much attention to irrelevant technical details -- I agree with his reasoning there.  The casual gaming thing has potential but I've been finding myself moving further away from it as time moves on.

That left the charm & nostalgia ones (which overlap significantly) and the 3D printing & "real world meets virtual world" options (opposite but related).

Bringing the game into the real world with 3D printing

Josh gave me a tour of the School's state-of-the-art rapid prototyping 3D printing facilities and I was blown away by the quality of the rendered models on show.  Different plastics, wax, foam and resin printers are available.  Some of these printers can inkjet-print a coloured texture onto the surface of the model.  Quite amazing!

A powder-based ZPrinter like the one at UCLan

I suspect that, just like home printing & photocopying, we will see cheap devices in the home within 5 years, and high-quality systems (like the ZPrinter above) in the local high street (similar to the rise of companies like Prontaprint, which sprang up to offer photocopying services) very soon.

After seeing these facilities it became clear that not only is this a glimpse of the future, but also that any advances that I would be able to make in this area would be quickly swallowed by the pace of consumer adoption.  For this reason I feel it would be best focusing my time on the charm / nostalgia issue instead.

Charm / Nostalgia

One of the running themes in this blog has been the idea of charm, and how it can make an object or a game much more emotionally enjoyable.  Nostalgia can play a large role in this too, and brings with it a ready-made affection for a product.  If that product can capture the spirit of the original (not just the look & feel), then it will have already won the heart of the player.

Objects with charm often have their own built-in mechanics (or associated rules) and aesthetics.  This is especially true of toys.  They also come with a period environment, which can be used to reinforce the nostalgic feel.

A perfect example of this environment is the BBC's 2006 TV series Life on Mars, which was not just content with recreating the look & feel of a 1970s TV copshow, but also included bonus items such as old-style Lucozade bottles (with plastic cellophane wrap) and mock-up clips of childrens' TV shows of the time (such as Trumpton).  These smaller touches in some cases generated more excitement in viewers than the rest of the episode.

At this stage I have not yet formed a rough question to answer in this arena, but expect to have something nailed down within 7 days.  I also intend to create a very rough game idea based on a nostalgic item, in order to establish the notion within a games context.  This is now starting to find a clear direction.

A Theory of Fun

In this post I'm taking a look at the book "A Theory of Fun for Games Design" (2005) by Raph Koster.  Koster is a designer of MMO games and played a major role in developing Ultima Online (still going after 15 years) and Star Wars Galaxies (which ran for 8 years).

He starts by looking at the brain's pattern-matching process and the way we learn to model the world around us by identifying common features.  (If this sounds familiar, it's because we talked about this in a recent post).  He ties this to 'chunking': the way in which repeated routines are linked in our brain (by increased weight to pathways between neurons, if I remember my A.I. lectures of 22 years ago correctly).

Koster states that we get a chemical kick (via endorphins) "at the moment of triuimph when we learn something or master a pattern".  It's this that is the primary way of having 'fun', whether it's learning to fit shapes together, working out which aliens to shoot in order to survive, or developing a successful method for getting a frog across a busy road.

Unfortunately the chemicals wear off once we've finished learning, and that's when boredom can set in.  (Interestingly, this brings us back to flow (see this post) and the need to balance challenge & skill -- or new learning versus existing routines.)

Koster argues that game-players quickly move past aesthetic & narrative flourishes to recognise abstract patterns in a game, and uses Deathrace & Grand Theft Auto to argue his case that the story & setting are a "side dish" to add some variety to the learning process.  (This comes back to the ludology vs. narrative debate.)  Bizarrely, he contradicts this stance later in the book when arguing that a game is not just about mechanics but about the whole, illustrating this with the suggestion that a humans-falling-atop-one-another-in-a-gas-chamber game would be morally repugnant, yet would essentially be Tetris in practical terms.

The book looks further into specific contexts of learning, including social & visceral aspects.  However, by this stage Koster has lost me as an audience.  Maybe, ironically, it's because I don't think I'm learning anything new from him.  Mostly, though, I think it's because his analysis is a little too idiosyncratic, adding descriptive flourishes that try to be 'fun' in the wrong way -- a bit like when people want to add 'fun' to Maths to make it appeal to a wider group, yet miss the idea that maths itself can be fun.

This hasn't been a wasted exercise, though.  I've learned that the endorphin-producing "aha!" event is important to the enjoyment of a game, and have seen Schell's ideas on modelling & flow reinforced.

The Art of Game Design (part 6)

In the previous part of our look at game mechanics we covered rules.  This final section features skill and chance.

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Skill

Depending on the game, the player may need physical skills, mental skills or social skills -- which may be further sub-categorised (e.g. mental = memory, spacial, pattern-matching, etc.).  When designing a game, Jesse Schell recommends making a list of the specific skills that will be required.

This is more important than it sounds.  For example, Big Brain Academy for the Wii (one of the major "brain training" games popular five years ago) covers a range of mental skills; however it also requires users to accurately point a Wii remote at the screen to control a cursor, which must be moved at speed to select items in a timed game.  These two skills are very different, and people who are good with their minds may struggle with the physical aspect and become frustrated.  It's apparent that the makers of the game felt it was a risk worth taking to appeal to a more mainstream audience.

Chance

Schell argues that games need some element of chance to be fun.  He links skill and chance, explaining how skill levels can introduce an element of chance (otherwise games like ten-pin bowling would be pretty boring).

His most important observation is that expected value is important to the player.  This is the average 'win' for the player.  In most casino games, the odds are stacked to ensure that a player will, on average, walk away with less than they stake -- not much of an incentive!

The skill of a designer lies in making this more attractive to a player, by balancing the odds carefully.  (In the case of a casino, this average loss is kept to an optimal level to avoid deterring players; they also apply clever psychology to emphasise high potential winnings as a counterbalance.)

Expected value can be used to motivate a player: if they feel they should have won, yet have lost, they feel a need to prove themself.  In the case of Windows solitaire, the 'Vegas' scoring system is carefully balanced to encourage a player to play another round in an effort to recoup their losses.


What have we learned from this?  Well, skill and chance play an important role and cannot be ignored.  Most importantly, a poor balance of skill or chance can scupper a game.

Defining Game Mechanics

While reading around the topic of game mechanics for recent posts, I came across an article by Dr. Miguel Sicart published in Game Studies, the international journal of computer game research.

This article, entitled "Defining Game Mechanics" (2008), does what it says on the tin: it develops a definition of the term 'mechanics' for use in game analysis.

Although it's important to identify things in order to analyse them, I've already seen that it's easy to get hung up on terminology and definitions.  Therefore -- so far -- I've been looking predominantly to gain an overview of the major aspects of design rather than get bogged-down in detail.

However, something about the article caught my eye and I though it worth taking a closer look.

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Sicart begins by examining previous studies of mechanics.  He shows that many academics define mechanics as a sub-set of the rules of a game, with copious debate over how much these rules affect a player.  He goes on to examine other viewpoints, including the focus on the use of verbs (such as "take cover" or "repel") to describe these mechanics.  He concludes by arguing that some games (specifically god simulators or sandbox games) do not fit this definition, and sets out to form a better one.

This is where it gets interesting: Sicart connects the mechanics directly to objects and actions; specifically, he equates actions with an object's methods (i.e. the things you can ask an object to do).

These aspects were all mentioned in part 4 of my post on the Art of Game Design book, and validate my comments about actions & methods.

Why is this important?  Well, it means that mechanics can be specified in a manner which is immediately compatible with (object-based) game engines.  This improves communication between designers and programmers.

It also explains why it is important that game designers, who are not usually versed in computer programming, should be introduced to the object-oriented paradigm.

I wonder how far this should go?  Do most game designers need to understand other OOP principles such as inheritance and polymorphism?  I suspect that it can be an advantage, and will keep an eye out for this in the future.

The Art of Game Design (part 5)

In the previous part we started looking at game mechanics.  We examined space, objects and actions.  We continue looking at mechanics by examining one of the more important aspects:

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Rules

In 2005 David Parlett published an analysis which splits rules into three categories:

• Operational procedures -- how to play the game.  Examples: what to do when you land on a snake's head in snakes & ladders.
• Implicit rules -- rules which are implicit or subconsciously known.  Examples: when you roll a number with dice, you move that many squares; a player's turn in Scrabble should not exceed 10 minutes.
• Written rules, laws & tactics -- rules which need to be stated.  Examples: number of players in a football match; the penalty applied to a player for attempting an illegal move.

These categories are further subdivided to create a model for game rules.

Jesse Schell states that the set of rules must contain a clear definition of the goal of the game.  Examples include chess (capture the opponent's king), ludo (be the first to get all four counters 'home'), and Donkey Kong (get to the top of the screen).

Personally, I feel that Schell is being too simplistic here.  Games such as Space Invaders & Mario Kart may have concrete short-term goals (respectively, "shoot ALL aliens" & "don't come last in the race") but they do not necessarily have clear long-term goals.

Does anybody really play Space Invaders just to accrue the highest score?  Do most Mario Kart players really care about unlocking every type of vehicle or building up awards on a driving licence?  I'd suggest that goals are very important, but not vitally important, within a game's design; attaching too much importance on goals can sometimes detract from the sheer fun of playing.

More to come in the final section on game mechanics, looking at skill & chance!

The Art of Game Design (part 4)

As regular readers will know, I've been looking at Jesse Schell's book The Art of Game Design.  Parts one and two covered the fundamental elements of games.  Part three covered the experience of playing a game.

In part four we start to look more closely at one of the major elements: mechanics.

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What are game mechanics?

Essentially, game mechanics are what is left once aesthetics, story and technology have been stripped away.

For example, Pac-Man is essentially a 2D maze-based object-collection exercise carried out while avoiding enemies; a temporary role-switch allows you to chase the enemies for a fixed period of time.  The game repeats and is played at a faster pace until the player is caught.

This vague description of Pac-Man's mechanics illustrates another problem: there is no single taxonomy for analysing game mechanics; no clear & precise terminology for us to utilise.  (We've seen this problem before and it illustrates the general difficulty of trying to analyse games.)

Space

Schell states that a game takes place in a space of some kind.  This space may consist of discrete points (linked in one, two or three dimensions) or a continuous range (allowing unrestricted movement between constraints in one, two or three dimensions).  One type of space may be nested inside another, creating complex environments.  The specific application of thee terms is not important.  What is important is the fact that there is a set of rules defining where things can be and how they relate to one another.

Objects

He moves on to talk about objects: characters, props, buildings, head-up displays, etc.  As a programmer I'm particularly familiar with object-oriented (OO) techniques: the idea that objects within the game have attributes (a.k.a. properties or variables) which each have a current state (or value).  These objects also have methods (also called functions) which identify an object's abilities -- what it can do.

CLASSES & OBJECTS

Fido is an object.  He has various attributes (location, direction, speed, energy, etc.).

 

What if we wanted Fido to have two friends called Rover and Spot?  They are both the same type of object as Fido, and would also have the same attributes.

What do all three objects have in common?  Well, they're all dogs.

We can design a Dog class which describes the features common to a dog (i.e. attributes & methods).  From this template we can create multiple objects ('instances' of the class) -- Fido, Rover & Spot.

Although they are all based on the same design, their states are independent (for example, Rover's speed might be different to Fido's).

Note:  In many branches of OO programming it's conventional (for historial reasons) to use a capital letter for the class name ('Dog') but lower-case for the object names ('fido', 'rover', & 'spot').  This runs counter to the normal conventions of English (lower case for general type, capital for a name) but I'll be sticking with the OO convention in these posts.

This is a very powerful abstract concept, and is very useful in gaming: we can describe a general mechanic and apply it to multiple objects, which each behave independently according to the rules we have set.

Actions

Schell moves on to talk about actions.  These are the things that happen within a game.  He splits these into two main types: operative actions and resultant actions.

Operative actions are the fundamental actions that a player can take (e.g. moving a piece, firing a bullet, etc.)  An object's methods contribute to this, but there are overall game actions affecting the objects themselves.

Resultant actions are tactics -- methods which are used to achieve a specific objective (according to an overall plan).  Examples of this include hiding a piece behind another piece, shooting to clear a path before running along it, etc.)

Schell does not mention strategy, but this is presumably because it plays a wider role in the game narrative than in mechanics.


This gives a lot to chew on so far, and we're not even half-way through the topic.  The most important thing I've learned in this post is that it's vital to have a very clearly-defined mechanic.

The Art of Game Design (part 3)

Part 1 of my commentary on Jesse Schell's book The Art of Game Design looked at the importance of simplicity and fun, and touched on the experience received by the player (more on that in a moment).

Part 2 dealt with Schell's four game elements -- aesthetics, mechanics, story & technology -- before moving on to the importance of themes and, finally, the development process.

This third part explores the nature of The Experience:

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Modelling

Our brain forms models based on the repeating patterns we see in the world around us; it then uses these models to help us to identify new things.  The author uses cartoon characters to illustrate this point, showing how we recognise them as human despite their disproportionate features.


Schell argues that "the subconscious exerts terrific control over almost everything we say or do."   This is certainly the case for modelling: most of us will see 'faces' in things like decorative wallpaper.

However, there is also a subtlety to this pattern-matching.  For example, speech recognition requires more detailed analysis for similar sounds (e.g. 'P' versus 'B') than for dissimilar sounds (e.g. 'W' versus 'L').

I'd suggest that pattern-matching works fastest on the subconscious level but works most accurately when fully conscious.

How do we take advantage of this in a game?

We can recognise Captain Kirk
even when he's made of Lego.

• Distinctiveness.  We can take a lesson from Star Trek here.  Why do the characters wear coloured shirts?  It is really tied to rank or job role?  Not really.  The primary purpose is to make sure that we can distinguish each character easily.  Essentially, we're making the model simpler for speed-matching on a subconsious level.
• Repetition.  Iteration is a key feature of forming models, and we can use this to help train the player.  It's important to balance this to stop the player getting bored.
• Metaphor.  We can use existing models to help ease the player into our specific ones.  This is why physics-mechanic-based games like Linerider are so successful -- they work on the fact that we already know the model of how things move under gravity.  This use of real-world metaphor is a key factor in human-computer interaction (HCI), and helps a computer user to use an abstract system more easily.

Focus

Focus works in two ways: we can deliberately select to concentrate on one thing, or we can have our focus forced onto an object (e.g. a focal point in a painting).  Either way, we 'tune out' everything else.  Schell states that this is crucial to create an interesting gaming experience.

Schell talks about flow, as defined by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and suggests that game designers can benefit from careful study of this concept.

A1 = practically no skills and barely any challenge.
A2 = repetitive practice of skills.
A3 = a challenge which is too difficult for the current skill level.
A4 = challenge which can be met by skills, giving an enjoyable experience.

This is used to recommend a variable pattern of well-paced adjustments to challenge & skill in order to create a fluctuating game experience, without wandering into the regions of anxiety or boredom.  This is something which a skilled QA team (quality assurance, i.e. game testing) would look for, and feed back to the designer.

Empathy

Empathy with our avatar or with other players will enhance the experience of playing a game, and can add an emotional context.

This can also be used in a negative way, tied-in with challenge: the player can experience a negative emption through watching their avatar fail, especially if this imparts some kind of insult, and will be spurred-on to succeed at the game as a form of revenge.

Imagination

Schell finishes by stating that the player will use their imagination to fill gaps.  This could be very powerful for intrinsic narrative, as it allows us to use the player's presumptions to our advantage.

Again, this can be linked with empathy: in some of the Mario games, the player will appear to teeter on an edge or miss a platform when jumping, but will struggle back on -- this 'rescue' is emotionally satisfying.  Yet it may not actually be happening!  Did the designers actually put that in?  Is it just a jumpy animation caused by dodgy collision detection?  Sometimes a player will infer action within the game to enhance the emotional experience.

Conclusion

Schell has uncovered a number of aspects to The Experience and all seem valid and important.  The one thing that sticks out to me is the notion of mental modelling, which can be exploited to make the player quickly feel at ease.  This deserves further study if time allows.

Physical vs. virtual world

So far, this blog has meandered back-and-forth through different topics, looking at Schell's four elements of game design and the recurring themes of charm and experience.

However, I've also been hung up for much of the last week with an idea raised in my Skylanders post: the suggestion that the game participation experience can be enhanced by bringing game objects into the physical world (using 3D printing).  This captures some of the charm which is present with physical objects; charm which is missing when those same objects are represented on-screen.

I was discussing this with classmate (and all-round creative genius) Broady Blackwell, looking at the potential for this kind of thing as 3D printers get cheaper.  (By comparison with the development of inkjet printers, these devices will likely drop to the stage where they are affordable for households within the next 5 years.)

Broady came up with a cracking suggestion which turned the whole thing on its head: instead of taking the game into the real world, why not take the real world into the game?

Example #1:  A kid builds a cardboard car; a Kinect-style device scans this in, and allows the player to control a 3D photographic replica on-screen in a driving game.  The child could associate a dinner plate as the steering wheel and crudely-drawn buttons on the cardboard box as controls.

Example #2:  A child grabs a washing-up liquid bottle and, also using Kinect-style technology, replicates it on-screen as a pretend spaceship navigating an asteroid field, using the real bottle's movements to control the virual one.  Child fires laser bolts by shouting 'pyeow!'

It's not a totally new idea, but it does capture that elusive physical charm which is often missing with virtual objects ... in an unexpected way.

(It's interesting to note that these examples directly mimic the way that children play with toys in real life, but can expand it into a more dynamic virtual world.  Toys are not games -- a ball is a toy; football is a game -- but perhaps there is an angle here where the game technology can be used to make a sandbox for toy-play rather than focusing specifically on game-play?)

This development presents a problem.  I need to focus my research more tightly, yet this has opened a whole new direction I could take, still focusing on similar themes but in a very different context.

Time for a chat with Josh, and a lot more deliberation...

Recurring themes

Charm

Course tutor Josh suggested that this is a key factor in making a game attractive to potential buyers, and also helps the player invest an certain amount of emotion even before the story has kicked in.

Josh gave the example of a clockwork robot winding down, which is a lot more charming than a timer in the corner of the screen.  His particular example also illustrates the potential for overlap into other elements: the fact that the robot is winding down provides a fair amount of intrinsic story, and also affects the game mechanic as it slows down.

(Josh also tied charm to nostalgia, which is something that needs proper investigation at a later stage.)

Experience vs. Enjoyment

Another theme which has cropped-up a few times is that of the player's experience -- the experience of playing the game (rather than prior experience).

The fact that the word has these two different meanings has caused me nightmares on this blog: it's difficult to use the word in an unambiguous manner while remaining succinct.

This got me looking for another word to use instead of 'experience'. After bashing my head against the thesaurus with little success I happened to think of 'enjoyment', which seemed -- initially -- to sum up what the player was getting from the situation.

However, after a bit of thinking around the situation it became apparent that the experience is not always synonymous with enjoyment.  Indeed, they are different enough that it has now given me an important extra theme to consider!

Art of Game Design (part 2) Elements

In part 1 of my commentary on key points from on The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses by Jesse Schell, I covered some of his ideas on simplicity and the need for game designers to focus on fun and the experience that the player recieves

It's taken me a while to get round to 'part 2' -- mainly because it raised some very interesting issues which I needed to cogitate on before writing about them.  Part 3 will follow soon.

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The four basic elements

Illustration shamelessly adapted from Schell's book.

As mentioned in a previous post, Schell postulates that there are four elements to a game:

• Aesthetics
• Story
• Mechanics
• Technology

He also states that "none of the elements is more important than the others".

After looking at other research, including a very thorough dissertation by a former MA student, it's arguable that this last statement is aimed more at mainstream games rather than niche ones.  For example, the game Heavy Rain had an almost total emphasis on story over mechanics, and worked more like an interactive film -- giving the player a deeply emotional experience rather than a kinetic one.

At the same time, Schell's reasoning seems generally sound: it's clearly risky to imbalance these elements without good reason.

Theme

If a design is based around a single theme, all these elements can reinforce one another.

Schell uses the example of his Pirates of the Carribean virtual reality game to illustrate this, explaining that the theme they settled on was "being a pirate".  They created a subtly rocking ship's deck with cannons (which players could aim at attackers) surrounded by a projected display screen (using 3D to give the feeling of being a long distance from the horizon), set the air conditioning to blow a breeze through players' hair, and allowed the virtual ship to be properly steered using the fully-functioning ship's wheel.

In my opinion a theme needs to pervade the game thoroughly, otherwise it is just a kind of branding exercise.

Case study: Kirby's Epic Yarn

Kirby's Epic Yarn for Nintendo Wii has a main theme of knitting and patchwork.

The story tells us that the player has been transported to a knitted world -- a world which has been split into patchwork sections which need to be tied back together by collecting magic yarn.  That's certainly reinforcing the theme.

The aesthetics are the big thing here, because the visual elements are presented as wool or sewn fabric, with characters and weapons unravelling and reforming into different shapes.  It's certainly a very unique visual style, and appears to be targeted at a predominantly female demographic.

The gameplay mechanics include Kirby throwing a woollen lasso to grab things and to swing from objects, and using zips to reveal things -- a nice integration of the theme into the mechanics.  This works very well in some places -- such as when you literally unravel a boss -- but can feel forced in others (e.g. putting out a fire with a ‘water jet’ made of wool).

The technology is a bit of a bind here, because the Wii controller doesn't really fit the theme.  It's used as a traditional joypad and players need to learn to control specific functions with particular buttons.

Overall, this appears to be a pretty successful application of a theme to a game, and professional game reviews are positive about this.

Development

The development process for a game can follow a traditional waterfall model but Schell argues that the iterative (spiral) approach is better, and allows for rapid prototyping.  The illustration below shows this model as it is used for software development:

I've used this model many times myself for software development and it really does work well.  The beauty of this approach is that it offers a number of positives:

• Speed up initial prototypying by using primitive shapes instead of final models
• Test key mechanics in isolation (i.e. proof-of-concept)
• Use a trial-and-error approach to experiment with balance

The only disadvantage (so far as I can see) is that this can be a slow process.

(Updated 24 Oct 2013 -- added fallback link for embedded video)

Gender & Game Design

When I started this blog I stated that my initial intention was to investigate the medium of casual gaming, especially focusing on mobile devices.

According to Sheri Graner Ray, back in 2004 as many as 70% of casual online gamers were female.  That's a pretty staggering figure.  Most of the casual games from that period were web-based, and the proportion appears to have stayed at that level, even with the addition of smartphones & tablets into that mix.

Bejeweled, an example of a casual game which is more popular with women than men

It's pretty clear from that statistic that I need to know more about female gamers.

At that same time, female gamers were always under-represented on the non-casual game market, but the the rise of the Nintendo Wii & DS saw an explosion of products which finally started to exploit that enormous market.

Girls' Life: Sleepover Party -- exploiting a very specific demographic. 

Xbox & PS3 console gaming (and PC gaming) are still percieved to be primarily the domain of young males aged 12-30.  Whether this is still actually true is something worth investigating, but it certainly appears to be the case at a first glance at the type of games titles aimed at these platforms.

Over the last 5 years of teaching Games Design, fewer than 8% of my students have been female.  And in a recent poll, when I asked this year's (90% male) cohort to guess the top selling games of all time, they were genuinely shocked and surprised to see so many Nintendo products in that list.

A major question is, if women are playing so many games, why are so few involved in designing them?  Who is writing the games that appeal to women, and how do they know what they want?

For this reason I've started investigating what some professional game designers have to say about the subject of women & video games.

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Ralph Koster's Theory of Fun suggests that gameplay relies upon learning to master abstract formal systems, which is something that appears to appeal more to male players.

Jesse Schell extends Koster's theory by arguing that, although games are inherently male, the range of experiences that surround the game may still appeal to a female audience.

He goes on to draw up a list of aspects that appeal differently to the genders:

	Male	Female
Mastery	Enjoy, regardless of purpose	Only if it has meaningful purpose
Competition	Enjoy proving they are the best	Demoralising (whether losing or beating other player)
Destruction	Enjoy. A lot.	—
Spacial puzzles	Strong skills	Frustrating
Learning	Trial-and-error	Learn by example
Emotion	Interesting but not essential	Like very much.
Real world	—	Strong preference
Nurture	—	Strong preference
Dialogue	—	Enjoy

(Obviously this is based on generalisations and stereotypes, but they are formed from examining wider social studies into gender preferences.)

Schell gives an example from Toontown, Disney's MMO for kids, where he needed to develop a way to replenish character strength.  Initially he considered a traditional approach where the player pursues healing (whether as an in-game "pick-up" or by visiting a medical location).  However, they eventually decided on a tactic which emphasised nurture, by getting players to heal each other.  This helped enhance the enjoyment of the game for female players.

Sheri Graner Ray suggests that the early emphasis on technology in video games attracted a predominantly male audience, which in turn meant that most early games were designed by men for other men.  This is reinforced by an examination of common female avatars in games, which are more often fuelled by male fantasy than realistic portrayal of women.

She also postulates that the consequences of failing a task in platform or shooting games -- usually player death -- are too punitive to sit comfortably with a female expectation of a pleasurable experience; Myst is used as an example to illustrate this point, highlighting the 'try again' approach to puzzles and lack of player combat.

This gives rise to the importance of conflict resolution and emotional & tactile stimulation as the main factors in female enjoyment of games.  Graner Ray highlights the appeal of clicking on hotspots, which I note are particularly popular at the current time -- for example, the Professor Layton games.

Graner Ray goes on to look at other factors, but the main emphasis is very clear, and reinforces what the other designers have already said: women play games in a different way to men.

This definitely deserves further study, whether as part of research into casual gaming or game experience.  It's apparent that the charm of a game is different for different genders too.  I shall return to this topic in the future!


Bibliography

Graner Ray, Sheri (2004) Gender Inclusive Game Design: Expanding the Market, Charles River Media Inc, Massachussetts
Koster, Ralph (2005) A Theory of Fun for Games Design, Paraglyph Press, Phoenix, Arizona

(Updated 20 Oct 2013 -- fixed a number of dead links)

Skylanders, the Wooden Mirror & 3D printers

Skylanders

Last week I was having a discussion with a fellow student about storage of personal video game data, and we wandered into talking about distributed RFID-based storage system on Skylanders and the crossover between virtual games and real-life toys & games (i.e. collectibles in this case).

A few days later I found myself reading an article on Digital Spy about the development of Skylanders.  It really rammed home just how much work had gone into the process.  Not a surprise, given the investment required to create the specialist hardware, but the most interesting part was this quote:

"We would design these toys, and one of the ways we knew things were working was - every time we made them, they would vanish," continued [Paul] Reiche. "We would do demos in Santa Monica but we never went home with the toys, because someone would always take them. We said, 'Okay, this is a good sign'."

So it was obvious -- even at an early stage -- that these items had a charm.  (You can sit there with a focus group all day, but people stealing your stuff is a pretty sure sign that they like it.  Either that, or your stuff is way too expensive.)

I remember dismissing the game when I first saw it on a kids' TV show, thinking it was yet another lame peripheral sales gimmick.  However, I've now caught up with the rest of the world and realise that this is definitely something I need to look at in more detail...

• Secret of Skylanders' Success 

Wooden Mirror

On a separate note (or at least what I thought was a separate note) I was showing a work colleague some items from the Manchester trip earlier today.  I mentioned how my game design antenna was piqued by the intrinsic charm of Bruce Aitken's wooden clocks, which wouldn't be half as endearing if they were made of metal or plastic.

My colleague then introduced me to a piece of art I'd never seen before: Daniel Rozin's Wooden Mirror.  This video shows what it's about:

It's a very nice idea: wooden blocks angled by a solenoid to reflect different levels of light to create a grey-level pixel; the pixels can then be driven live from a video camera.  Very simple and yet very high-tech at the same time.  Best of all, it has the magic charm.  By contrast it's not the wood making the charm work, it's the novelty and mechanical quality.

This got me thinking: can this kind of thing work inside a video game?  I doubt it.  We're used to game worlds realising the fantastic, but we're not used to seeing it in real life.  It's the real-life novelty that's a major part of the charm.

Joining the dots with 3D printing

And real-life novelty is why there's such about low-cost 3D printers at the moment.

Joining the dots, how would 3D printing enhance a game like Skylanders?  Imagine the ability to print (and customise!) your physical game character.  (Obviously, you'd need an Internet-connected central storage system instead of RFID.)  That literally adds a whole new dimension to the experience, though, and a lot of excitement.

If you could 3D print a wooden mirror at home, it would probably have just as much charm as the original.  (Albeit a wooden mirror made of plastic ... with extra solenoids & control circuitry, which you can't print.)  It certainly lifts things beyond the anything-can -happen artificial on-screen world.

I noticed today that Disney were suggesting creating toys which could be printed.  This came up in a 3D modelling lesson with my Foundation Degree students today, and we discussed the idea that people would download toys or hoover parts, like they download MP3 or ebooks.

It's a whole new world, and the phenomenal success of Skylanders suggests that video games will inevitably break the real-world barrier.

(Updated 20 Oct 2013 -- added fallback link for embedded video)

Spinningfields Craft Fair

I'm normally dismissive of things like hand-made jewellery, crocheted birthday cards or wooden stencils.  Like ice skating or sword-swallowing, it's definitely not my kind of thing -- but I have no objection to other people enjoying it.

So why did I find myself at a the Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair?  Well, it was the final stage of the Manchester trip and I decided to go in with an open mind.
The result?  Well, I was polarised.  Most of my prejudices were reinforced, walking past stall-after-stall of expensive artisan works.  Certain that every item took time & care to craft, I was harshly reminded that creative works can't please all of the people, all of the time.

However, a few items really stood out as something very special.  The first item to catch my eye was Holly Levell's "soft sculptures" of household food & drink.  The carefully sewn-together Monster Munch packets are really quite a delight to the soul, and show how you can take a charming new slant on something everyday.

This is something relevant to my Games Design work, as the notion of charm is a topic which will be explored as part of my research.

Next up is a visual spectacle: Jin Eui Kim has created a 3D ceramic form which uses "tonal bands" to accentuate ridged circles in these, well, erm ... not quite sure what they are, but I know I like them.

I'm sure there's some clever application of texture and displacement mapping for 3D modelling to be extracted from this work, but these are just so gosh darned captivating to look at that I'm going to leave that for another time.

Bruce Aitken's wooden clocks are quite special.  They are a lot more fragile-looking than they appear in the photo, mainly because the cogs are not solid -- there are all kind of gaps in places, which give the feeling that something will snap off.  This is accentuated by thin arms which are part of the latching mechanisms.

Again, making the cogs -- and the entire clock -- out of thin wood adds charm to them.

My last item is something I spotted outside the craft fair: the window display at the All Saints clothes store.  The window is stacked with anique sewing machines in an extremely attractive pattern.  Each is different, adding a detail which says something about the difficulty in putting this display together.  Quite special.
 

So, in conclusion, what have I learned from the experience?  Firstly, I've been reminded that when you aim for a target audience you're also likley to alienate other audiences.  Secondly, I've seen a number of things that will defeinitely help me to evaluate the meaning of 'charm' in design.

(Revised 20 Oct 2013 -- dead links updated)

Manchester Art Gallery

While I was at the Manchester Art Gallery I thought I'd take a look at some of the other rooms and floors.

I'm a bumbling amateur when it comes to Industrial Design, but one thing I do know is that chairs feature heavily in Contextual Studies.

The first one, by Serge Chermayeff, is a nice Modernist piece.  At first I thought 'oh yeah', but looking back on it I'm starting to find a lot more in it.  I love the way he uses the empty sides, which could have been solid panels, to create something that feels more 1970s than 1930s.

Second is the metal chair Slice which looks both hard & cold and yet organic at the same time.  At an initial glance the ridged seating panel would be best described as 'kinky', but it's clear that it would offer a lot more comfort than a flat metal surface.  This has definintely grown on me since the trip.

Finally there's a glass bubble chair which looks horrendously dysfunctional.  I was going to leave it out, but after reading about the construction method (hand-blown thick glass, which must be very difficult at this size) I became more interested.

The next piece was sat among a collection of less-than-inspiring chandeliers.  The exploding crockery & cutlery really stand out at an initial glance, and gets better the more you look at it.

At this stage I really wanted to get back to something which had excited me since I entered the building: the floor.  Or, to be more precise, the GLASS floor.  The main section has embedded glass bricks.  The stairs are solid planks of semi-opaque glass.  Even the ceiling lights follow the theme.  Best of all, though, is the bridge across the atrium: it looks just too thin for a bridge.

This meandering took me away from the Postgrad Posse tour group, which turned out to be a big mistake!  I got sidetracked into the next floor and found that they'd moved on without me.  (Took two hours to catch up with the main party in another part of town.)  Thankfully, I got a great deal out of the rest of the gallery.

There were some gorgeous Victorian paintings.  I liked this set which captured a foggy world.  Very atmospheric.  (In a moment of creative whim I tried altering this photo to paint out the left-side figure, to balance the image.  I got the textures but it was a pain trying to match lighting colours, and I gave up in the end.  A shame, because I think this makes a nice photo otherwise.)

Winter Fuel really stood out from the paintings around it, due to the vibrant colour (which is lost a little on this photo, although a quick search on Google Images reveals that I'm not the only one to fail to capture this aspect).

The majority of the exhibits were unexciting, but were very well presented.  A lot of places try to avoid competing with the paintings, but it's nice to see a gallery where the surroundings are as interesting as the exhibits.

The next painting blew me away: The Chariot Race by Alexander von Wagner.  What dynamics!  As a big comics fan I've long been fascinated by movement within an image.  It's easy to take a snapshot of an action, but capturing that kinetic is a rare talent.  (This is helped by the gallery's lighting, which really enhances the colour.)

His style reminds me a bit of Reynold Brown, the famous American film artist who, coincidentally, did the poster for the Charlton Heston version of Ben Hur.  (Von Wagner's painting was allegedly based on the original book.)  If you've never seen Brown's work I recommend seeking it out -- you can almost feel the characters move.

I first fell in love with this dynamic approach when reading a newspaper article which featured Before the Parachute Opens by Tullio Crali from 1939.  I'm still amazed by the feeling that you're about to fall that distance.  (Crali's work is a whole different kind of Futurism, away from the typography and exclamation marks.)

Head of a Girl by Albert Lynch is a surprisingly modern-looking image, and caught my eye due to its anachronistic appearance in the midst of older-looking portraits.

A quick trawl on the web turned up another of his paintings, Elegante, which could have been painted yesterday.  Quite remarkable.

The tiny moulded plaster panels below are based on classical sculptures.  It's not the detail but the size which impressed me.

This dress should have been part of the First Cut exhibition but was down on a lower floor along with other works on colonialism.  Making clothes from maps seems to be a common idea for artists, but I thought this worth including.

As mentioned before, I'm quite a fan of dynamism in images.  I'm also a sucker for 3D, and especially 2D images which appear 3D.  This next work (by Kelley Walker, I think) was jaw-dropping.  A flat image, from any viewing angle the rolled-up paper appeared to leap from the canvas.  I'd go again just to see this on its own.  Fantastic.

Final item from the gallery is this (which is definitely Kelley Walker) copy of The Sun from the early 1980s, left open at the page "I'd shoot my son if he had AIDS, says vicar!"

It really sums up the tabloid journalism of the era well, and works nicely as a snapshot of life.

Overall, this was a good bit of exploration.  At the time only a few items stood out, but the restrospective act of posting them up has really added a lot to the experience.

---

Quick moan about poor design

On the train back home from Manchester I spotted some poor design which really irritated me.  The passenger doors are operated by push-buttons, which are arranged as 'close' (top) & 'open' (bottom).

Why did this annoy me?  Well, for a start, the doors are normally closed.  The main time that somebody would press a button is to open them; they shut automatically when the train starts, so the 'close' button is rarely needed (except, perhaps on cold or windy days).

My understanding of ergonomics (presuming a reading-order movement of the eye downwards from head height) suggests that the top button would be the first thing you see -- especially when in a hurry, as some traincatchers can be -- and would be the default choice when looking for a button to open the door.

The train manufacturer's poor logic was borne out by the number of people who had trouble trying to open the doors.  No matter what else was right with the train carriage, this will be the thing that sticks in a passenger's mind.  Just goes to show that it's important to get the details right.