Game Design Zen

Sometimes, an expression comes up in conversation and it just sticks with you. ‘Rocket surgery’ is one of those. One day it was a play on words, and the next, it was part of our everyday language. And, I think, it’s the perfect term for the game development industry.

Obviously, the phrase is a mash-up of rocket science and brain surgery. So, let’s look at those. Rocket science is hard and complex and mathematical. It’s the stuff requiring a white coat genius. I can totally visualize Doc Emmett in Back-To-The-Future. Perfect! On the other hand, you have brain surgery, which still requires genius and white coats, but also has the implication of elegance and sophistication and grace. Looked at another way, what we have is science and … art. Which is exactly what game development is all about. The science of time travel with the surgical precision and grace of art.

Can I Has Your Easy Button?

So, game development is rocket surgery. At least, that’s how I see it, which is probably why my panties get in a bunch whenever I come across a post like this:

“I have this cool idea for a great game. I don’t know how to code and I’m no artist, but I had this idea for a zombie-apocalypse-mario-kart-angry-kung-fu-panda-sim game. I even wrote a design on a napkin! I don’t have time to learn to code or develop or draw right now. Is there an ‘easy’ button?”

Easy Button

We’ve all read these kinds of posts. Doesn’t matter which forums you like, there’s always some knuckle-head asking the same thing. It makes me want to reach for the fly swatter, so I can swat ‘em, like some flying, bloodsucking pest, before they have a chance to breed. But, at the same time, I want to guide them too. I want to assume the best and help ‘em out. So, here it is, my one time answer to all of these 5-minute-cocktail-napkin game-developer questions.

The Answer

There is no easy button. No, let me be more clear. THERE IS NO EASY BUTTON! Developing games is hard! Yes, even the cruddy looking ones and the ones you hated. They’re hard too. The ugly truth is that game development requires patience, trial and error, study, persistence, and a triple-scoop helping of hard work. The idea you had for a wonderful game is just the cherry on top of the banana split. It’s the embodiment of the phrase, ‘10% inspiration, 90% perspiration’.

Games are made by artists and coders and designers and testers and project managers and teams and people who have money to fund all that stuff. As Schell explains, ‘game design is more cooking than chemistry, more art than science.’ In short, it is ‘Rocket Surgery’.

So there. Now you’ve heard it. There’s the ugly, gnarly truth. But don’t give up yet. There is a light of hope here. Because one fact remains. Even though game development is hard, it’s obvious that people do it! After all, games are released every day and someone, somewhere built it! Which means, you can learn to do it too! In fact, the only difference between you and the experienced game developers of the world is that they have years of … well … experience. They were all new at one point just like you.

Begin At The Beginning

So, here’s my advice. Begin with the end in sight. Realize that game development is hard, but it is learnable. And, there’s too much to just learn ‘everything’. So, decide what you are trying to accomplish first. What is it you want to do? Then, with that in mind, just start learning. Begin at the beginning. It’s not magic, there is no easy button. Get yourself some coding books, check out some game development blogs, watch game design videos, and my personal favorite, read great books like the ones discussed on this site.

Stop waiting for it to happen one day and start making it happen today. There’s nothing stopping you. It is, after all, the golden age of indie game development. Start with the end in mind, pick a topic, and go! And remember that the point of life is in the getting there. It’s the journey that matters. The learning, and growing, and building, and trying, and failing, and succeeding. That’s all part of the ‘getting there’, which is what makes life great in the first place.

And, that is what being a Rocket Surgeon is all about.

The Escapist makes some fantastic videos about game design. This one caught my eye: TheEscapist.com. Their vids are a great mix of custom art, story telling, and simple design. This one is an easy to follow explanation of how Operant Conditioning works in games.

It seems like the joy in life never lasts. The wonderful feeling from buying a new car or getting that new computer fades in a few short weeks. Winning a competition or getting a hard earned promotion only keeps us happy for a short while. Even the thrill from a ‘once in a lifetime experience‘ eventually comes to end. And sometimes, once the emotional high is over, we even feel a little sad – like we’ve lost something, somehow.

Unfortunately, this is just how we’re wired. It’s a normal part of being human and it has a name. It’s called adaptation. Simply stated, adaptation means, ‘we get used to things, and then we start to take them for granted.’ Barry Schwartz talks about this quite a bit in his book, The Paradox of Choice – Why More is Less. Adaptation is something that effects almost everything in our life.  Our purchases, our life choices, and even our romantic relationships. It happens to everyone, but somehow, we never expect it. In fact, no matter how much it happens, we are always surprised when our enjoyment of something begins to fade. Almost everyone predicts that the NEXT awesome thing will make us happy forever. If only I had this other thing then I’d really be happy.

The reality is that all things lose their novelty over time. We’re biologically wired to get used to our circumstances. And that’s a good thing. How else could we have ever survived as a species? Break a limb as a cave man? You’ll adapt and deal with it. Didn’t kill that wild bore? You’ll get over it. Don’t have as much food this year? You’ll get used to less. It’s even true with the most awful of tragedies – losing a child, sibling, or parent. We feel terrible, but eventually we recover. As the expression goes, time heals all things. And yet, we’re still surprised when our new car, our beautiful date, or landing the best job in the world no longer makes us ecstatic. And sometimes we feel bad about that – we know we should be thankful for what we have, but the novelty still fades.

The same is true with our games. Our players are going to go through the exact same emotional cycle. It’s why sequels are rarely rated high – even if they are in fact better games! The reviewers have already played the first one, so they have already adapted to the awesome experience. Yet, they still expect it to feel as awesome as the first time. It’s why you can never recapture the experience of your first ‘MMO’ or first dungeon crawl or first raid boss success. It’s why we get bored with even the best games. And it’s why Raph Koster writes, ‘the definition of a good game is therefore ‘one that teaches everything it has to offer before the player stops playing.’

But, all is not lost as game designers. There is something that counteracts the phenomenon of Adaptation. And that is gratitude. Gratitude is the antidote for adaptation. It extends how long we enjoy new things and it can even help us re-capture the joy of things we have already become used to. The old becomes new again. Seriously, this is not just mystical, new-age thinking. It’s proven. In fact, the science of gratitude is well studied. People who are routinely grateful are healthier, more optimistic, and feel better about their lives. They are more alert, enthusiastic, and energetic and on the whole, they are more successful in whatever they do. Finally, they are more resilient to set backs and failures, which makes them more willing to carry on in the face of difficulties. If you like survival shows, you’ll know that gratitude and optimism play a big part in surviving a near-death experience.

So, here’s the question I’m trying to figure out. If adaptation is the reason our players get bored with our games, and gratitude is the antidote, then is there a way we can encourage gratitude in our players? Are there techniques we can use, mechanics we can employ, or feedback we can give that will help? Is there a way to encourage our players feel grateful about the experience and therefore play our games longer and enjoy them more?

I am inclined to believe that there is. But… I don’t know how. So, I’m throwing this one out to the ether. What do you think?

Sometimes, life is funny. Like, when you come across a series of things that all seem to line up the same way. One day, you’ll be working on something new. Then, the next day, you’ll see something else that links directly to what you were doing. And, a couple of days later, a third thing will pop up out of the blue. But, they all line up – perfectly. You’ll make this amazing discovery. ‘Hey! These all point the same way. They work together!’

It is ‘synergy’ and it’s kind of funny. No, it’s strange. Or, chilling, maybe. Yes, chilling. Because when it happens, I get this chill down my spine. It feels like my brain is jumping up and down and cheering. It’s thrilled because it connected these separate pieces of knowledge. It connected them into a new pattern and oh, my brain loves to find new patterns! It’s ice cream and Cocoa Puffs, all mixed together, but way more fun. Besides, I prefer the generic Cocoa Roos anyway. Yuuummmm!

Chills…

So… I was reading an article when I got those chills again. I was reading along, learning how the military sees the future of training, when my spine got that tingling chill. The article was: ‘The next training revolution’ by Col. Benjamin Wash. Colonel Wash is charged with creating the long-range vision of training for the military. He describes a future when the volume of information is completely overwhelming, when the paradox of choice impacts all of us, and when hybrid cyber technologies are a part of our daily lives. Of course, the paper applies mostly to the military. But his vision was very interesting. I’ve read that we are all getting smarter, but I don’t think we’re getting smart enough to deal with all that the Colonel foretells.

And, then the Colonel drops this bomb: “So in planning to the future, what timeline should we use? Five years is too short, it’s already in the Defense Plan. Thirty years, perhaps too ambitious, we could all be in the singularity by then. The number we propose is 20. How do we train to 2031? What will our soldiers look like in that year?”

Heck, forget about my freaky brain trips. That quote is chilling all by itself. What will soldiers look like? In 30 years, we ‘could all be in the singularity’? … Major chills … Of course, the singularity Wash refers to is the brain child of Ray Kurzweil. At some point in the near future, Mr Kurzweil predicts there will be a day when advances in technology are coming so fast that it is impossible for any of us to keep up. By 2029, he predicts we will have a computer as powerful as a human brain and that by 2040, we will have a single computer as powerful as the entirety of humanity. He may seem crazy sometimes, but he’s been honored by presidents Clinton, Reagan, and Johnson, so he’s got some street cred.

The advances in biotechnologies, nanotechnology, and robotics will converge. They will advance together. A positive feedback loop. Synergy. I’m not sure if it’s ice cream and Cocoa Roos, but there’s definitely alignment involved. The result is a world that is either wondrous or awful (or both). I remember hearing Kurzweil speak at the 2008 Game Developer’s Conference. You can actually see parts of that talk in his movie, The Transcendent Man. That man is all about chills… But, what’s really freaky is that he’s not alone in his predictions. Mainstream media is starting to pick up on it and you can even see similar themes in the recently released XMen: First Class.

So, what’s the point?

I’m not sure what to make of the singularity. It’s chilling for sure. But, I did realize something really significant in all of this. I realized that game design, learning theory, and psychology line up a lot more than we care to admit. And, I’m becoming convinced that the reason we play games and the things that improve learning are really one in the same. So, I don’t know what the future of humanity holds, but I’m pretty sure I know what the future of game design is.

And, that’s what gave me the chills … You go, brain!

I recently got an email from one of my favorite people in the whole world. Oddly enough, he was writing to tell me how much he missed playing the old Everquest (EQ). “Really? Everquest?” I replied. But he was quite insistent. For days, we went back and forth. He spoke quite eloquently about the many great times he had, of getting lost, falling off of boats, and crazily scary corpse runs. He recalled tons of things I had forgotten, including some really harsh memories. But, he seemed to miss all of it, whether it was a triumph or a spectacular failure.

Now, you have to understand. Ben is a mid-western, quiet, stoic kind of guy. He’s more likely to give a weighty nod that to actually say anything. For years, my wife was convinced that ‘cool’ was the extent of his vocabulary, until she realized that it was the digital equivalent of a cowboy tipping his hat (ala Clint Eastwood). So, this was an uncharacteristically long set of emails. It was clear that he was frustrated. We’ve been friends for over a decade and he wanted to talk about what he felt was missing from modern MMO’s. And the answer was pretty simple. He missed the deep and meaningful social experiences that he had while playing EQ.

EQ?  Really?

But, seriously, Everquest?! Really? I mean, we’ve both played dozens of MMO’s. Everquest was neither the first nor the last and I definitely wouldn’t say it was the best. Plus, EQ had so many design flaws, so many things they could have done better to make the game more engaging with better Flow and more appealing to a lot more people. Heck, for years, I considered it one of those secret ‘guilty’ pleasures that I played in spite of all of it’s design flaws. So, why EQ?

Well, that’s a really interesting question.  Sometimes, everything you think you know in your head just doesn’t fit into how you feel about something in your heart. You can’t quite explain it. And, I have to concede that there really was something about EQ, somehow. I mean, from a design perspective, EQ was hardly full of ‘win’. The goals were murky at best, the feedback was so-so, and the difficulty was pretty much straight off the charts. Brutal is more like it. Brutally difficult starting at level 5 or so. Unlike modern MMO’s, every single monster was really tough. And, dying? OMG, dying in the Everquest could not only lose you levels, but you could literally lose everything your character owned. Six months of character development could be lost forever in the deepest parts of the Plane of Fear from a single missed heal. So you darn well better stay up until 3 AM on a work night, if there was even a chance a rival guild could help you get your corpse back.

And, don’t even talk about solo’ing.  EQ was a group game. From beginning to end, EQ was meant to be played with others. In fact, almost nothing in that game could be done without a solid group of friends. And that … right there … is the answer to Ben’s riddle. This game was so difficult that it required a strong reliance on others. Others. Strangers. People that you don’t know, that soon become people you hunt with, that slowly turn into people you look forward to logging on, that eventually become your friends, until they are the very reason you play the game at all. This wasn’t an artificial, casual interaction with random ‘others’. No. It was a deep, meaningful reliance on skilled players that you really trusted. And this, is the key to what Ben was missing. A wonderful thing that Nicolle Lazarro, founder of XEO Design, calls Social Fun.

Social Fun

Social fun is exactly what it sounds like: having fun with others. It’s one of the strongest  forms of motivation we can experience and its been one of the major evolutions in design over the past decade. Facebook, Twitter, American Idol, the Wii, and Youtube are all successful because they foster wonderful social experiences.

You see, over the past 50 years, our social experiences have been on the decline. Even Trip Hawkins, founder of Electronic Arts, talks about this. People are more isolated than ever. We do less team sports, church activities, and family get togethers. We move away from those we grew up with and hardly know our own neighbors. You could say we are starving for interaction with others and we’ll grasp at almost anything that is even remotely social. Humans are hardwired that way because we “are generally much happier and more motivated when with friends, regardless of what [we] are doing.” (Csikszentmihalyi, p 81)

Back to Games

So the point is that our audiences are craving social experiences. But, all too often, what we give them is meaningless social fly-bys. Consider the recently released Rift MMO. Rift embeds this wonderful idea called a ‘public group’ where just by being near an important event, you are automatically offered an opportunity to join up with others. Just like that, with one click, you belong to a ‘group’. You’re in! Bam!

At first, it’s incredibly exciting. You feel this instant rush of belonging to a marauding hunting party as you travel the land, protecting the innocent. It’s thrilling! Look at all these people that could be your friends! But, after a few times, you realize that this experience is much more like shopping at the mall, then hanging out with friends. You see other people around you, but everyone’s sort of doing their own thing, shopping for their own stuff. Waiting for the check-out clerk. You rarely talk and almost never learn their names. You start to feel like your participation doesn’t really matter that much. It kind of feels like non-social peer-play. After a few weeks, it all starts to feel pretty meaningless, which is the exact opposite of what had happened in EQ.

Conclusion

Ben’s thoughts and questions really got me to thinking. I mean, I’ve been pretty harsh on EQ because of all of it’s design flaws. But, there is something deep and fundamental about the social experiences that it forced upon players. You either made friends and had an absolutely compelling experience or you didn’t and you quit. There’s really no other way to play EQ. And, I think there is something very important to learn from that. EQ was successful for a long time, but it didn’t grow. It never evolved. Soon, other games came along that did learn from EQ. Games like WoW. These new games were able to create meaningful social experiences while still embodying the design principles of Flow. And games like WoW were 20x more successful than EQ.

The point is that social fun should be one of our highest goals. And, I’m not talking just idealistically here. I mean for the good old-fashioned, bottom-line. Customer retention, player satisfaction, product loyalty, and in-game purchases are all higher when social fun is involved. Think I’m crazy? Then go watch ‘The Social Network‘ or look to how the underpowered Wii blew away its competition. Look. You can make any game you want, but the facts are, if you can design a compelling social experience too, then you’re going to blow away your competition, like Blizzard did with Sony Online Entertainment. And, if you’re still not quite sure how to design social experiences into your game, then I suggest you check out these 40 suggestions from Raph Koster.

Socialize for the win.