Category: Design

Today I discovered how important game balance can be for a game. This means for example, the health and attack damage for both the player and the enemy should be balanced properly in order for the game to be enjoyable.

In this session I continued to look at visual styles, and finished off the mood boards which can be found in this post

Different visual styles are achieved through 3 main elements:

• The Style
• The lighting
• The colour

For my game, I am interested in 3 preferred styles:

Realistic:

Retro/8bit:

Stylised:

I would probably use either an 8bit/retro or stylised theme for my game as I think it would look very effective.

Today I learnt about platforms and distribution. As a game designer, there are a number of things I need to know before building a game:

• Who is going to play the game , and how I am going to distribute the game to them (the person, platform, outlets and cost)
• What options are available regarding the level of production.
• What type of game I am making – Video game (high end, cutscenes – console, gaming PC) or computer game (includes mobile etc.)
• Pricing – It is actually cheaper to buy a physical copy of a game when taking into account the distribution costs (30%) that a company will add on so they do not lose money when digitally distributing.
• I need to know my game, audience and platform first of all.

After discussing these points and the pros and cons regarding them, I looked at the ESA Facts 2016 to see how they could influence my idea based on the information that was collected. After looking at the document, a number of things surprised me:

The first was how dramatically the percentage of male to female gamers had changed in a year. The percentage last year in the US had 49% Female to  51% Male. This year in US there were 41% Female gamers to 59% Male gamers. This is a very surprising and quite dramatic change for a year’s difference.

“The most frequent FEMALE GAME PLAYER is on average 44 years old and the average MALE GAME PLAYER is 35 years old”

This could have many causes. Inequality in the workplace is a viable cause based off what age the same level of expendable income will become available based on salary. Another may be prioritisation. Female game players may prioritise makeup over games for example, or the need for female sanitary items like tampons (these are taxed so can have an impact on where the money would be spent first). The same would be applied for cigarrettes, but that affects both males and females.

Most frequent purchases: 40% Female 60% Male

Parents buying games has a massive impact on this as it can skew the results if they are buying it for a child as a present.

“51% of the most frequent gamers play a multiplayer mode at least weekly”

This surprised me because of the percentage. I expected it to be closer to 60/70% given the fact that multiplayer is growing as a a primary feature in games.

The most surprising thing about these two top selling charts is the sheer number of Sims content that is in the “Top 20 Selling COMPUTER Games of 2015”

The most interesting thing I found out was how physical copies of games are usually cheaper than digital ones due to things like return fees.

Here I developed my game idea further, noting Visual Styles and GamePlay:

Visual Styles:

• World – medieval/modern world
• Characters – princess, prince, robot, horse
• Non-playing characters – robot, prince
• Perspectives – 2D, side scrolling, third person
• FMV – Events/cutscenes that occur thoughout the game

Game Play:

• Interaction Model – Avatar, Single Player
• Game setting – In the world, castle, grass, wherever in the world the level is set
• Goals – Save the prince
• Challenges – collect coins (possible currency)
• Rewards – Achievements
• Player Actions – Jump, attack, move side to side
• Rules – Complete each level to progress to the end
• Difficulty – Starts easy slowly increases in difficulty
• Addiction – leaderboards?, challenges and rewards

Today we discussed USP (Unique Selling Points), Hooks and briefly looked over the PEGI Ratings.

USP (Unique Selling Point)

To start with, we discussed how having a Unique Selling point is important in making a game.  A good example of this are Zombie games. There are many zombie games, and a number of which are very memorable due to their USPs. For example, Dying Light is known for parkour, whereas dead rising is about customization and high kills. This is proof that you can make a popular game even in a crowded genre, as well as the importance of a USP.

Hook

Hooks are all about addiction. This literally means to keep the player hooked. This could include currency, XP, customization, ranks, story, expansions as well as visual and audio feedback. This can all be utilized through an external leaderboard so the player can compare themselves globally or compete with friends.

The PEGI Rating system

Today I was also shown how the PEGI rating system. Every game is recommended to go through this board before publishing their game. However, I highly disagree with some of the categories or how some things can be classified at certain ages. The fact that racial slurs are classified as “12” and foul language such as “f**k” and blasphemy are BARELY classified as “16” both confuse and disappoint me. However, the most disturbing of them all is the fact that “depictions of sexual violence or threats (including rape)” is classed as an “18”. I am amazed that this topic can pass as acceptable in games, and am shocked that PEGI allow this to be included within their rating system. In my opinion this topic should be banned as many other topics are, and I am thoroughly disappointed that this is not currently the case.

Today I learnt about visual style and gameplay. We discussed many points within either categories and also used this link to help. An interesting aspect I found was the fact that the level of detail must be relatively equal between the main character, NPCs and enemies.

Another good point was getting the balance when considering addiction. A good thing to incorporate into my game would be rewards that are given just regularly enough to keep the player hooked.

Attached are my notes from the lesson outlining what was covered.