The Zen of Game Design
-You can only understand and learn through experience.

Problematic Types of Game Designers:
Ant farming - making a game more fun to observe and build than it is for consumers to play.
Bean counting - making a game for the purpose of milking consumers of their money.
Old school MMO designers - making a game designed to crush consumers through difficulty.
-These games designers forget that that the objective is ultimately fun! Allow players to sit back after a hard day and choose your product as their corner bar.

Forming Relationships with MMO’s:
-Customers are looking for a long-term relationship with an MMO. NOT a one night stand.
-People looking long-term tend to pay close attention during the first 5 minutes: Does the game sizzle? Does it have potential? Are there any noticeable flaws?
-MMO designers should consider the Bartle’s four when offering content that appeals to player interests.
-Consider issues that, as a designer, you CAN control in terms of the player’s “life span” and exit points.

Consumer Exit Points:
The brick wall - needless difficulty with minimal reward.
Pimp slap penalties - time sinks without any forward progression.
The end of fun - all content consumed that a particular type of consumer enjoys.
The Sudden realization - you’ve killed 2500 water elementals. (Time wasted realization).
-Provide progression that ramps seamlessly. Any pitfalls will lead to disaster.
-Minimize or try to remove exit points whenever possible.

The Three R’s:
Recruitment - getting people in the front door to try your game.
Retention - keeping old players happy.
Reduction of costs and services - how much does it cost to manage one person (marginal cost per everything)?
-It’s easier to retain old players than it is to recruit new.

The Hardcore:
-Hardcore is relative and a measurement of personal investment. (Casual / interested / committed / devoted / hardcore)
-People are never as hardcore as they think they are.

Why are the hardcore important?
-They serve as cultural touchstones and as an aspiration for the less committed.
-They evangelize - blockbusters tend to occur when the hardcore evangelize the game to their more casual friends.

Signs that your game is too hardcore:
-Your game is too hardcore when players are ashamed of playing.
-Hardcore customers are being exclusionary (”you’re not hardcore enough for this game!”)

People can easily take social cues for their behavior:
Example: Stanford prison experiment
-design around the idea that matchmaking will occur (sometimes poorly).
-control your culture!

Appealing to player tastes:
World: Realism / simulation / immersion / freedom
Game: Balance / Limitations / Powerups / fun
Community: Socialization / Cooperation / Competition / Interdependence
Rewards: World = Intrinsic /Game = Explicit / Community = Social

The Rule of 3:
FIND THE AREA IN WHICH YOUR GAMES FALLS AND DESIGN SUCH THAT IT IS TOWARD THE MIDDLE!
-The sweet spot is towards the middle and often players will try and push games toward the middle if not designed to appeal to all areas.
- 2/3 and 3/3 is in general, a positive overall design decision on a given aspect or element of a game.

 
Game Title: “War on Terror”
By:Nicholas Cassidy
Game Type: Strategy God Simulator

Game Premise:
Since 1563 BRR (animal time delineation – “Before Rocky Raccoon”), the Palestrael forest has been called home to hundreds of woodland creatures seeking refuge from outlanders (humans). That is… until Palestrael met its demise to the outlander’s mechanical beasts and was replaced with a fortress believed to be called “The Plaza Strip”. As the spirit of Palestrael, the worshipped god of the realm, it’s your job to reinstate order in this time of chaos by driving back the outlanders to where they came.

Game Play:
In “War on Terror” - you play the role of a god-like figure that guides woodland creatures in the fight against human occupancy. Each round, players are provided with a finite number of animal recruits as well as mana to develop a formidable defense against the ever increasing human population. Essentially a player trains, arms, and commands animals in a fight to reclaim their homeland. Through continued success, the number of worshipers attributed to a player increases and thus the number of recruits available as well as the size of a player’s mana pool also increases. Much like tower defense, summoned items used to arm animal recruits as well as the recruits themselves, can be upgraded. As rounds progress, a player changes tactics from defensive to offensive while capture and holding strategic points in the fight to drive the outlanders from what was once a cherished woodland realm.

Player Interaction:
Human / animal interaction is largely AI based beyond the initial recruit / weapon configuration, initial position placement, move, and attack. Recruits have a limited weapon wield ability as well as range for which they are capable of firing their weapon. It’s a player’s responsibility to correctly configure units and place / command them on the map in a tactical manner within the allotted terrain and or defensive structures.

Social Play:
Primitive score board functionality is incorporated during single player play as a means provide god rankings from round to round. There is a possibility of using a “Black and White” meets “Command and Conquer” model where players essentially go “realm vs. realm” against one another instead of against a sprawling human presence. Multi-player realm vs. realm play could be time based where the player with the most worshippers or highest score wins at the end of a duration. There is also the possibility of just allowing players fight one another and proclaiming the victor as the last surviving realm.

Over the past couple weeks, I’ve been working on a game called “TK” with a colleague by the name of David Antognoli. TK is a 2.5D side scroller (constructed using the Flat Red Ball engine) about a telekinetic power wielding robot. Having done previous level design using Worldcraft and UnrealED, I agreed to help design the second stage of TK as well as the animation of a few old and new assets. Located below is a quick and dirty mock-up of the ventilation map I created with a brief contextual description:

(click to enlarge)

General Ventilation Info
-The stage mock-up is a topography in which the bottom part of each ventilation level is a false wall where the camera is docked.
-The ventilation stage begins by propelling TK through a vertical shaft via an up draft fan from the ground of the previous stage, up to ventilation level 3.
-Upon entering the ventilation stage for the first time, players notice that the scene is almost entirely pitch black. To remedy this issue, TK acquires a candle which illuminates a small area around the character for navigation purposes.

Ventilation Level 3
-Ventilation level 3 largely serves the purpose of introducing a few obstacles that TK will need to overcome as the stage progresses. The two specific mechanics in question are the use and consequence of using fan propulsion as well the effects of leaky heating and cooling pipes.
-Being that the initial pit in ventilation 3 is too large for TK to make under his own power; a forward propulsion fan is used to push TK the distance necessary to overcome the gap. The candle however, consequently goes out and requires a relight once the gap has been cleared.
-Moving forward, TK is forced into a cooling pipe due to another fan, which once again puts out his candle and promptly freezes him solid. Thankfully while frozen, TK slides into a second fan which in turn pushes him into a heating pipe that provides thawing and candle ignition. Keep in mind that the thawing effect instantly provides regained control of TK and negates any possible damage inflicted by the heating pipe for a short duration.

Ventilation Level 2
-Once in ventilation 2, TK approaches a very deep pit that requires fan levitation to bridge the gap from one side to the other. Sadly there is only enough power in the system to run two lines of fans at any given time. As such, TK must juggle between fans in order to safely make his way across the pit successfully.
-A second element of ventilation 2 is the need for TK to avoid hitting the cooling and heating pipes in the wrong order. For example, if TK becomes frozen by the cooling pipes while under fan levitation, he will plummet down the pit. Also, if TK is hit with a heating pipe without being frozen, he will take damage due to fried circuitry. Therefore, the optimal method for crossing the pit is to juggle the fans two at a time while becoming frozen mid jump to avoid damage from the heating pipes / keep the candle lit.

Ventilation 1 and 4 
-Ventilation 1 is essentially a mob area that requires TK to fight his way to the up draft fan that blows him through a tube that passes through ventilation shafts 2 and 3 in route to ventilation 4.
-Ventilation 4 is a secondary mob area that could potentially hold a final boss encounter. Once the boss has been put down, ventilation 4 provides access to a downward tube that circumvents the wall blocking the exit found in ventilation 1.

I was recently asked to design a mockup combat system for an upcoming MMO that will remain nameless for the time being. The lead designer asked that the system be devoid of numbers, more narratively driven than conventional MMO combat systems, and by in large designed more as a mini game played by a few character professions rather than a dedicated componant of an overall world system played by all. The following is a mockup of the system I came up with using the above criteria as reference.

General:
-Combat consists of several rounds called “conflicts”, required to reduce the mob or the player’s “stamina” to zero.
-Combat is less about damaging an opponent and more about tiring the mob out enough to deal a single killing blow.
-Attacking is largely only used when a mob has made a mistake or opened an opportunity to be attacked.
-In general, combat is largely driven through emote and visual communication between the mob and player during rounds of conflict.

Success or Failure:
-If a player reduces the mob’s stamina to zero (inducing fatigue), they have won the encounter and defeated the enemy.
-If a player has his / her stamina reduced to zero, they are forced to flee and may not engage the mob again for a short duration (due to exhaustion).
-Losing a combative encounter results in not being capable of reaching content guarded by the enemy.

The Flow of Combat:
-A stance is chosen prior to the start of the first round of conflict and remains the player’s stance till the end of the encounter.
-Each round, an ability is chosen to either inflict damage, avoid damage, or flee.
-Deciding how much stamina is reduced (fatigue induced) during a round, takes into account the player’s combat skill, ability result, stance result, and a randomly generated value, which is compared to the randomly generated value of the mob currently in conflict.

Combat Component Breakdown:
Combat is broken down into 3 variables:
1. Stance Selection
2. Ability Selection
3. Skill in Combat
-Each of the above variables adds a specific value to the random dice roll - which helps determine the outcome of each round.

Stance:
-Stance selection largely serves the purpose of negating the physical strengths of the mob being engaged. If a mob is particularly ferocious, approaching combat in a defensive stance will allow the player to persist in combat and possibly defeat the opponent. (The inverse is also true - using an aggressive stance against mobs that are primarily defensive.)
-Distinguishing what stance to use against a particular mob is done through observation and consistency. If a type of boar stood its ground defensively in the past, that specific type of boar will always have a defensive mentality when in combat. Upon entering combat with a specific mob for the first time, Offensive / Defensive stances can be distinguished through observing what types of weapons, armor, as well as other aesthetics the mob in question has associated with it. For example, a mob that is wielding a shield and a short sword will be assuming more a defensive stance. To counter this, the player would approach the mob aggressively. If a mob’s stance is not distinct through observation, a player must essentially guess when fighting that mob for the first time.

Ability Selection: (needs further development)
-One of four abilities can be used during a given round: Attack / Dodge / Parry / Duck / Flee
-Ability selection is determined by the result of the previous round, the type of weapon an opponent is wielding, as well as the readied position of the opponent.
-At the start of each round prior to selecting an ability, the mob selects a new tactic and holds at the ready. The player must deduce the mobs actions based on the mob’s weapon in play, stance in use, tactic in cue (denoted by animated posture and emote) - and select abilities accordingly.

-Attack - attacks an opponent - useful when a mob fumbles his tactic or fails to pull a weapon.

-Dodge - allows a player to avoid taking damage from long reaching weapons (great sword, rapier, long swords).
-Parry - allows a player to avoid taking damage from short reaching weapons (dagger, short sword, short maces, and hand2hand)
-Duck - allows a player to avoid taking projectile damage.

-Flee - The player is incapable of winning the conflict either through considering the enemy prior to accidental engagement or several rounds of failure resulting in zero remaining stamina. Time to run!

Combat Skill:
-Combat Skill is the final variable added to the random value used to determine the success or failure of a given round.
-Combat Skill is tiered such that numerical skill ups equate to a textual cue representing a player or mob’s skill in combat. An example would be that the thug class begins with a combat skill of “feeble” and progresses to the skill level “adept” after completing a few quests.
-Combat skill is not increased through killing mobs but rather through completing quests and taking part in the narrative. This requires that combat content be closely designed around combat specific class concepts.
-A player’s skill in combat has an associated tier number which is essentially just added to the random roll along with the outcome of the stance and ability selection match up results.

Game Name: “Survival”
By: Nicholas Cassidy
Game Type: Bridge Class Card Game
Number of players: 3-6
Game Components: 52 Cards, 6 Character Sheets, and 1 Status Board

Game Lore:
“Survival” is a post apocalyptic conflict card game between surviving humans and zombies that embodies the expression “you don’t need to outrun zombies… you just need to outrun your friends”. Each player assumes the role of a human survivor that has been chased into a shopping mall. On each floor, players try to stave off thieving survivors as well as the oncoming zombie assault using weaponry acquired while moving between floors in route to the roof. A player that fails to obtain weapons to defend themselves while on a given floor essentially becomes overwhelmed by the undead. Once caught and killed, a player is provided with a chance to avenge his/her death on the remaining players as a zombie.

General Game Rules:
Survival is an elimination based bridge class card game that revolves around a player’s ability to acquire weapons to advance from one round to the next. Acquiring weaponry is essentially the same as obtaining tricks - a mechanic often used in other card games. The first round consists of dealing eight cards to each player and each following round reduces the number of cards dealt to each player by one (eight total possible rounds - representing the eight floors of the shopping mall). A player dies when they fail to acquire weapons (tricks) during a given round. The last human player remaining wins the game (escaped the mall via helicopter from the roof) which could potentially happen during the first round (if a single player acquires all eight tricks in the first round – highly unlikely) or at any point leading up until the eighth round of the game where the final two players (and any zombies) remain and only a single trick is available between them. If no single human player remains at the end of the game, the zombies currently in play win.

General Game Rules: Continued…
Play revolves in a clockwise rotation starting from the position left of the dealer. Players are required to follow suit if a card of that suit is available in their hand. If they do not have a card of a said suit that is in play, they may play a “weapons of choice” card to beat the card initially played or they may play a card of any suit they choose to forfeit to the card in play. If one or more “weapons of choice” cards are in play, the card that is closest to the pre determined “weapons of choice” parameter wins the trick.

Defining the “Weapons of choice”:
Weapons of Choice is essentially trump often found in other card games. Each round the player (human survivor only) that acquired the most weapons (tricks) the previous round - chooses the weapons of choice parameter and is also responsible for being the dealer. Any ties in the number of tricks acquired during a round are resolved by allowing each player that has tied to cut the cards; the player with the highest card calls the weapons of choice and deals for the next round. Assigning the weapons of choice parameter is done by verbalizing which suit as well as which direction (high or low of a said suit) are to be the weapons of choice for that round. After the player that acquired the most tricks the previous round deals cards to each player that remains, he/she decides the weapons of choice based on the cards present in his/her hand. Being that no player acquires the most tricks prior to the start of each new game; high numbered cards in the Hand to Hand suit is automatically chosen to be the weapons of choice prior to dealing cards for a new game (being that no one has acquired any weaponry prior to the start of the game).

Suits:
Survival incorporates four suits that consist of a total of fifty-two cards (much like a poker deck). Suits are delineated as “Hand to Hand Weapons”, “Cutting Weapons”, “Blunt Weapons”, and “Guns”. Each card in a specific suit ranges in power from one to thirteen and has an associated weapon of that suit’s type pictured on the card. The higher the number found on the card, the more powerful the card is in a specific suit.

Being a Zombie:
If a human player fails to acquire a weapons (tricks) during a given round, that player dies and becomes a zombie for the following round and that round only. A zombie is dealt to just as a human player except that once the weapons of choice have been called, the zombie player must place his cards face-up in plain sight of the remaining players. Unlike humans, zombies do not have to follow suit if they do not want to and may play weapons of choice cards at any time. Although they may play weapons of choice cards at any time and are not confined to following suit, if a zombie wishes to acquire a trick without using a weapons of choice card, they must follow suit. At the end of the round, the zombie dies and is eliminated for the remainder of the game.

Card Mockups: