Monday, February 19, 2024

Engaging Game Design

The trick is to make your material so fascinating that you cannot stay away from it, so intriguing that you ignore negative feelings and second thoughts, so rich with interest that the concepts of "good" and "bad" hardly occur to you.

- From 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel, by Jane Smiley, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author

 

While Smiley's words are intended for writers, I found that they offer good insight for game designers as well. Crafting a game is not merely about following design principles; it's a creative pursuit that benefits greatly from engagement with the material.

The Essence of Engagement

At the heart of Smiley's quote lies the concept of engagement—the deep, immersive connection that creators forge with their material. For game designers, this means more than just understanding the mechanics, rules, or components of a game. It's about cultivating a deep interest in the world you're creating, the elements of your game, and the experiences you're crafting for players. When designers are genuinely engaged, their enthusiasm permeates every aspect of the game, from its thematic elements to its game-play dynamics.


Ignoring the Noise

When designing a game, you will often encounter obstacles, doubts, and critiques. Creating a game is involves challenges, both internal and external. However, as Smiley suggests, when you're deeply engaged with your material, these obstacles fade into the background. The engagement with your game propels you forward, allowing you to navigate challenges with creativity, resilience, and determination. By focusing on what truly excites you about the game, you can overcome doubts and second-guessing, and more easily continue the work of developing the game.

Measure your Engagement

Some questions I like to ask when evaluating how engaged I am by a game I am working on are:

  • Are there boring or tedious parts? If yes, can I remove, shorten or enliven them? How?
  • Do I gloss over any parts?
  • Do I get tired of telling any particular rules while playing the game?
  • Are there any parts or concepts or themes that I really like that I could expand upon?
  • Do I want it be longer or shorter when I play through it?
  • Do I want to play again soon?
  • Are there exciting discussions after a play? Is there "telling the story of the game" after?
  • Are there any "if I only I had done..." statements afterward?
  • Are players interested in and paying attention to each other's turns, just to see what happens? 

 

Beyond Good and Bad

Smiley's assertion that the concepts of "good" and "bad" hardly occur when deeply engaged with material apply directly to designing a game. While clearly evaluating a game's mechanical merits is essential, being overly preoccupied with rigid definitions about games can stifle creativity and hamper your progress. Instead, focus on creating game experiences that are interesting, meaningful, and that grab your attention. By thus immersing yourself in the creative process, you can ignore limiting notions of what you "should" be doing and other ideas that may hold you back from crafting your game.

Conclusion

Jane Smiley's insight into the creative process serves as a good reminder for game designers: engagement contributes to forward movement and compelling design. By cultivating a deep connection with their material, designers can navigate challenges, keep themselves interested, and continue work on their game. Ultimately, the more time, effort and thought you put into a game, the better it turns out, so finding ways to keep going is essential.

 

Thursday, January 4, 2024

Hits & Misses

I've been making games for most of my life, ever since I was a kid. In my twenties I got a job as a professional game designer. After that I created a lot, in a lot of mediums: Web games, Palm Pilot games, card and dice games, conceptual games, board games. 

One thing I've learned is that every game you make can't be your best game. Sometimes due to circumstances, your game is underdeveloped. Sometimes you try a new idea, and it doesn't work out. Sometimes you make a good game, but it falls flat anyway. Sometimes there are hits, and sometimes there are misses. 

This is not to say that your effort has no influence. It's to remind you that there are circumstances and influences in the world in addition to you that affect what happens. Development timelines, funding, marketing, shifting costs and norms, what medium you're working in, who's on your team, publishers and distributors going out of business or being acquired, trouble in your family and personal life: all these can impact your project.

I remember a period of time when I was having incredibly bad insomnia, and was still developing web games. I got through my current one, The Journey to New Earth, and it worked! But afterwards I kept finding very weird bugs and also realized the game needed much more development to play well. So I took the opportunity to revise it.


My games on the Palm Pilot gained dedicated and excited players. Many players of Adventure Solitaire counted it as their favorite game on the Palm OS. And I made a modest living for a while. But then the Palm OS itself got overshadowed by new and exciting cell phone technology -- smart phones. So there went that for me. And yes, I could have ported them to phones, and then other phones, and so on. But learning each phone and OS is a big project, and I decided against it.


I ported one of my web games to Java. It took four months. Did anyone play it? Maybe one guy. So much time, so little result. I ported some Palm Pilot games to Windows. Same thing. They'd been successful on those other platforms, but not on the new ones. So then I chose to make board games, in part to avoid the obsolescence issue for digital games.

Some luck's bad, some luck's good. Majesty wouldn't have been the game it was if it hadn't had several extra years of development due to switching publishers a couple of times, once at least because the then current publisher was going out of business. So that was some good luck that led to a great game.


I think it is helpful to think of your entire pantheon of created games as an iterative, interactive process of design. You can learn something from each one, and that experience contributes in some way to the next one. This view also helps you not get too attached to whether one particular game succeeds or fails. Work as well as you can on your current game, understanding that all the circumstances and events will have effects, and see what happens. And then make your next game!

Monday, October 23, 2023

Information Design in Board Games - Part Three: Layout

Information design is the practice of presenting information in a way that fosters an efficient and effective understanding of the information. The term has come to be used for a specific area of graphic design related to displaying information effectively, rather than just attractively or for artistic expression.
 

In my previous posts about information design in board games, I talked about the significance of component size and the use of shapes to convey information. This time, I'll talk about the often underestimated yet crucial element of layout, and how thoughtful layout choices can convey information effectively. The layout of text and graphics on a game component can make a huge difference in how players interpret and interact with the game.

The Hierarchy of Information

Much like in a book or a web page, the layout of information in a board game should establish a hierarchy. This hierarchy guides players' attention and understanding. Typically, more important or frequently referenced information is placed prominently, while secondary or context-specific details are presented in a less prominent manner.

Example 1: Ticket to Ride

In Ticket to Ride layout communicates essential information. Destination tickets showcase the points awarded for completion prominently at the bottom right, with the cities the player needs to connect as the title. The point value is made more prominent on the card by making it the largest element, and by offsetting it in its own circle - which brings it into the foreground, making it look like it is set on top of the rest the background, instead of integrated with it. The cities of the route are also important and the rest of the card information is dedicated to those. This layout encourages players to prioritize the point values of the routes, and then figure out where those are on the map.



Clarity and Readability

A fundamental principle of information design is readability. Readability hinges on clear fonts, sufficient contrast, and appropriate spacing. The goal is to make text and graphics easily legible to all players.

Example 2: Carcassonne

Carcassonne's tile layout is a great example of readability. The city, road, and field sections are crisply defined and intuitively designed, making it simple to recognize the type of feature and its potential connections. The ease of readability encourages quick and accurate tile placement.


 

Example 3: Codenames

In Codenames, the word cards' layout is designed for readability. The words are presented in a grid, ensuring they are easy to see from across the table. This lets players quickly scan the words and make word-association connections with their team. Also, the words are printed twice on each card, so that the words can be read right side up from either side of the table.



Information Grouping

In board games, effective layout often groups related information together. This approach reduces visual clutter and supports quick comprehension of complex concepts.

Example 4: Power Grid

Power Grid's power plant cards use information grouping simply, but well. Essential details like the power plant's resource type, capacity, and fuel cost are neatly clustered together along the bottom, in front of a background color bar. This layout allows players to evaluate the power plant's value efficiently and more easily make informed decisions. The big number in the top left of the card is separate from the other icons, since it is referenced at a different time and in a different way - in order to determine when the card comes into the for sale queue as well as a minimum bid.



Some things to avoid

Bad layouts in board games often cause confusion, hinder game play, or compromise the overall experience. Here are some common elements of bad layout:

  1. Overcrowding: When there's too much information or components crammed into a small space, it can lead to visual clutter. This makes it challenging for players to interpret the game state. A cluttered board can confuse players and slow down the game.

  2. Unclear Text or Icons: If the text is too small, fonts are difficult to read, or icons are unclear, players may struggle to understand the rules or components. This can lead to constant rule-book referencing and frustration.

  3. Inconsistent Visuals: Inconsistent graphic design, color schemes, or iconography can confuse players. When similar elements have different meanings or when the same meanings are represented differently, it can hinder understanding.

Conclusion: Layout in Board Games

Effective layout design in a board game is essential for creating a smooth, enjoyable, and immersive gaming experience, and poor layout can detract from the overall enjoyment of the game. From establishing hierarchies and readability to grouping related information, effective layout helps players understand the game and make strategic decisions more easily. 

The next time you sit down to play a board game, take a moment to notice how the layout impacts your gaming experience.

 

Read Part 1: Size  or Part 2: Shape of this series. 

More posts about Information Design.

More posts about Game Design.

Thursday, January 27, 2022

Information Design in Board Games - Part Two: Shape

Information design is the practice of presenting information in a way that fosters an efficient and effective understanding of the information. The term has come to be used for a specific area of graphic design related to displaying information effectively, rather than just attractively or for artistic expression.

I played a lot of DungeonQuest back in the day, and then got the third edition much later when Fantasy Flight reprinted it. It plays out in a classic fantasy dungeon-crawl setting. A fun overall game where you die a lot, no matter what edition you play! Yet there were some changes that didn't work well in the new edition. One of which was in the information design regarding the shape of cards.

In DungeonQuest there are a lot of different card piles to shuffle and draw from and put cards into the discard piles of. What they did well in the original edition was to make all the cards different interesting shapes. 

Cards from the original edition of DungeonQuest.
 

At first it seems like over elaborate theming. But when you compare the play experience to the Fantasy Flight third edition, where all the cards are differentiated by just an image on the back, you realize the shapes in the original edition serve an important function: they let you know by shape where each card goes back to. This is less relevant when drawing, since you see where it is coming from (but still a little relevant since the shape reinforces the game "function") but it is hugely relevant when you need to know where to discard the card to. 

DunegonQuest third edition. All cards in a row there are the same shape. Different shapes would have helped identify them.

 

In the third edition, when it comes time to discard a card, you look at it, try to see if you can guess which pile it came from, don't usually succeed since there is a lot of overlap in the game content in each deck, then flip the card over to check the back, scan the eight piles of cards to see if the image matches any of them (those murky images didn't help either but that's for another day), and then discard it to the right pile. At the end of the game, you have to check all the piles to see if any cards were mis-discarded, which is often the case, and them put them in the right piles. This never happened in the first edition, since the unique shape lets you know instantly where it gets discarded.

Both editions used shape and size to differentiate the character cards from the rest of the cards though, so it was easy to visually pick them out on the table amidst all the other things.

Character card from the third edition of DungeonQuest. Larger than other cards, also oriented sideways relative to them. Makes it stand out.

Character Card from the original edition of DungeonQuest. Long and thin and larger than the other cards, so it is easier to visually find.  


 

So why does this matter? Because you want a player to be involved in the core aspects of your game, such as the strategic choices, or the imaginative immersion, or the flow of the experience, or the social experience, or whatever your goals for the game are, instead of focusing on the "interface", which in board games is highly connected to information design, as well as rules clarity, game mechanics, and ergonomics.

The less a player has to struggle with, or pay attention to, the "interface", the more they can play the game.

 

This is part 2 of a 3 part series. Read part 1, about size in information design, here. Or continue to part 3, here.

Monday, December 6, 2021

Information Design in Board Games - Part One: Size

This is part one of a 3 part series on Information design in board games. Part two is Shape, and part three is Layout.

Information design is the practice of presenting information in a way that fosters an efficient and effective understanding of the information. The term has come to be used for a specific area of graphic design related to displaying information effectively, rather than just attractively or for artistic expression.

The size of something tells us things about it, whether we have designed that or not. The larger it is, the more important and/or powerful it is. The smaller it is, the less important and/or powerful it is. So you can have size hierarchies in a game that tell which things to focus on, be afraid of, etc. Size can be overall size, vertical or horizontal size. Ie, something can be wider or slimmer, taller or shorter, more or less massive.


Good Examples of size hierarchies:

Star Wars Rebellion. Those death stars loom over everything!

 

Star Wars Rebellion - the death star and big battleships are much larger, and it lets you feel and know they are more powerful. Also, the standees with the heroes in them are very large, which lets you know they are an important focus of the game. The standees are cardboard, so they are not in the exact same hierarchy as all the plastic pieces. Also the death star and star destroyers are on pedestals, putting them literally above every other piece. Really great usage of size hierarchy.

Scythe: your main mini is larger. The mechs are larger than the workers. These size differences let you know the focus of the game and story.

Blood Rage Minis. Those monsters are huge!

 

Rising sun/Blood Rage: The monsters are bigger, meaning they are more powerful, more fun, more cool. You feel that when you get a larger monster on your team. That is part of the imaginative immersion of those games.


 

Examples of missed opportunities to use size hierarchies:
Xia minis. Some of these are NPCs, but you can't tell from the height.

Xia: The PC and NPC ships (and comets), all are meant to go on clear stands. If you do that, it is harder to differentiate between the PCs and NPCs, especially since the models are not very iconic, being more realistic. An easy fix is to not use the stands for NPCs and put them directly on the board. It creates a size hierarchy among the pieces, helping you focus on the PCS as well as differentiate them from the NPCs. Another thing that could be done is have the NPCs on half-height stands.

Runebound Second edition. A PC on the left, and an ally on the right. No way to tell them apart from size.

 

Runebound Second Edition: The character cards are the same size (bridge sized) as the items, allies and monsters. If they made the characters twice as large, it would have helped differentiate them when in your play area, find them amongst the clutter easier, let you put more counters on them, as well as help highlight the importance/focus of them in the story. I think in Descent and Runebound Third edition, they did this.

Continue to part two: Shape

More posts about Game Design.

More Posts about Information Design.


Friday, November 12, 2021

I'm Hoping for a Day... (state of mobile gaming)

I am hoping for a day when there will be no more gold, gems and also mega-gems in games. No coins, tickets and also blue super-mega tickets in the same game.

 

I am hoping for a day when there will be no more waiting 5 minutes to a day for your energy to regenerate so you can play the game again.


Thursday, June 10, 2021

Don't Do Mystery Math!

I have been playing this tower defense game, Guardians, on the iPad for a few months now, and I am up to level 526 (?) and I was thinking about how a score is calculated in a game. In Guardians, I have no idea. I just finish the level and there is a score. Sometimes 1000, sometimes 10000.

As I was wondering about this, I noticed a "?" in a circle next to my score for the current level. I was like, "Oh, maybe I can click it!" (Which says a few things: 1. I hadn't noticed it in over 500 wins of the game, and 2. I wasn't sure it was a button. Maybe they could have made it larger, and shaped like all the other buttons in the game...) 

 



So I click it and it takes me to a screen which tells me the general idea of how to get a good score: finish fast, use as few towers as possible, and a few other things. And... I am still in the dark about how my scores are formed, since they made a mistake that is particularly easy to make in digital games  (as opposed to board games) which is not showing the numbers. I wrote about that here

Without numbers, you can't really evaluate, or weigh the different elements in your score. Was finishing fast more or less important than using fewer towers? I will never know because they didn't show the numbers! That screen would have been a great spot to show the exact numbers for each section, and then the total, so if I wanted, I could try to maximize my score. Which I don't, since I don't care. I just like to finish the levels.

Mystery math is that behind the scenes calculation that comes up with a score for something. Don't do it. Always tell the players the numbers that form their score. Or better yet, ask if you really need a score in your game? Can you just record if they finish a level or not? Or maybe the three stars thing? You know: one star for finishing, 3 stars for finishing without losing any health, and 2 stars for... for... some other random thing. Which I also hate, but it is slightly better than a mystery score.

My favorite thing for tower defense games, since they are real-time, is to simply record how fast you solved it. That encompasses a lot of different elements of the game, and has an easily understandable result.

If that is not the feel you want for your game, is there any other one number element that you think determines the core elements of the game? Maybe the best score in your game equals spending the least money, ie, being the most efficient.

Me and my game night buddies came up with the "Mystery Math" phrase while playing board games on Board Game Arena. Since the end scoring of a game is automated, it just starts adding up behind the scenes things and showing the end result. Albeit usually afterwords with a chart breaking down the categories, which does really help. But in many games the interface is hard to follow and you're still not sure what happened, especially while it is happening. This is a particular interface problem that comes from "porting" a real life game to an online game. Really, new interface elements have to be thought about and added to make the game play well on the new medium. Like light up outlines, and animations to help draw your eyes to whatever element is being referenced.

When playing a board game in real life, you get a better sense of the numbers that add up to your final score since you have to add up the categories by hand. (Sometimes, like in Carcasonne, with those &%$^ farmers, you still aren't sure why you lost or won.) 

I understand why many modern board games obscure each player's total points until the end. It is so that you can't tell who's ahead exactly, and be discouraged about it. It can let a player feel like they might catch up. It can help a player focus on the game dynamics and experience and not the competition. It can keep dramatic tension high until the end. Who will win? But it also feels like mystery math until the end, even though you could often do the math during play.

Its not my favorite, but I don't hate it, at least, in board games. I prefer point-threshold games (when someone reaches X points, they win), and goal oriented games. Or just whoever has the most points at the end wins. No mystery math in those.