mobile game design guideline

MOBILE GAME DESIGNGUIDELINE

Document Version: 1.0Date: Nov 2012

AuthorMIRCO PASQUALINI




STARTING PROCESS1.0

GAME DESIGN GUIDELINE


AuthorMIRCO PASQUALINI 3

Starting Process

World DesignWorld design is the creation of a backstory, setting, and theme for the game; often done by a lead designer.

System DesignSystem design is the creation of game rules and underlying mathematical patterns.

Content DesignContent design is the creation of characters, items, puzzles, and missions.

Game WritingGame writing involves writing dialogue, text, and story.

Level DesignLevel design is the construction of world levels and its features.

User Interface DesignUser interface designer constructs the user interactions and feedback inter-face, like menus or heads-up displays.

1.0Define the Game though the definition of the Concept.

NarrativeNumerous games have narrative elements which give a context to an event in a game, make the activity of playing it less abstract and enhance its enter-tainment value, although narrative elements are not always clearly present or present at all. The original version of Tetris is an example of a game appar-ently without narrative. It should be noted that some[who?] narratologists claim that all games have a narrative element. Some go further and claim that games are essentially a form of narrative. Narrative in practice can be the starting point for the development of a game, or alternatively can be add-ed to a design that started as a set of game mechanics

GameplayGameplay is the interactive aspects of video game design.

- Gameplay involves player interaction with the game, usually for the purpose of entertainment, education or training.- The Gameplay need to be based to a simple Idea able to summarize the entire game in a concept.

Design ProcessThe design process varies from designer to designer and companies have different for-mal procedures and philosophies.The typical “textbook” approach is to start with a concept or a previously completed game and from there create a game design document.[citation needed] This document is intended to map out the complete game design and acts as a central resource for the development team. This document should ideally be updated as the game evolves throughout the production process.

Game Design Document A game design document (often abbreviated GDD) is a highly descriptive living design document of the game design for a video game. The purpose of a game design document is to unambiguously describe the game’s selling points, target audience, gameplay, art, level design, story, characters, UI, assets, etc. In short, every game part requiring development should be included by the developer. The majority of video games should require an inclusion or variation of the following sections:

• Game Definition• Story• Gameplay• Points, User Levels, Extra• Characters• Environment design• Art, Sound and Music• User Interface, Game Controls• Immersive Companion• Store• Monetization & Social Sharing

2.0Narrative and Gameplay definition

3.0Design Process & Document Design Producing




GAME MECHANISMS2.0




GAME MECHANISMS

Games and web interfaces have one thing in common: they are virtual environments where real-world elements, mental maps and scenarios are used help the users find their ways around - everything else is creatively re-imagined and displayed. Games like Dune, inspired by the Dune chroni-cles, challenge users to deal with the laws and elements of a totally different world. Discovery is a fundamental element of game experiences that only a few websites would make use of effectively.

Most content-heavy websites encourage users to provide feedback, submit comments or share information with friends, thus increasing the chances of converting first-time visitors into participants. In some cases though, the content is made available through play and discovery, on websites that “respond” to the user’s choices and preferences. TED uses descriptive terms (jaw-dropping, inspiring, courageous), duration-related data (15 mins, 20 mins), as well as categories (technology, science, art) to help the user discov-er a lecture she will most likely enjoy, based on her choices.

A recently popular music-discovery website - Hitlantis - uses a visually compelling interface and a simple menu to create the perfect environment for music discovery. There are a couple of other websites and apps that use principles of discovery to keep users happy and immersed in a carefully crafted music experience. Stereomood uses moods to bring up new songs, Discovr uses a complex algorithm to categorize and suggest bands based on a variety of factors, and Songza uses other people’s suggestions and chan-nels to help them discover songs similar to the one they search for.

In 2005, Steven Levitt made an interesting point about motivation and in-centives in Freakonomics and that is - people respond to incentives, but also learn how to use gratification mechanisms to get what they want. Games are purposely designed so that users can increase or decrease the level of difficulty for a certain game and experience the joy of winning differently. Also, there are multiple rewards and incentives throughout the game, to keep them focused, motivated and excited about the final outcome. In UX design incentives take the form of badges (Foursquare), scores (Klout), numbers reflecting popularity (Facebook, Twitter) and usage (Digg), memberships and experience related symbols or tags (pro, new user).

To some extent users want to become more involved with using a website because all these incentives make sense to them and make them feel good. As a designer, you can create a more compelling experience by using simple incentives or game-like scenarios.

Self actualization needs are also intricately connected to game mechanics and user experience. There is a broad spectrum of feelings one can expe-rience by collecting all these badges, reaching a certain position or rank, seeing their profile stats go up and sharing their scores with everybody.

At a very basic level, the feeling of progress and achievement is extremely rel-evant in the way user scenarios contribute to improving the overall user ex-perience. In most strategy games, players need to manage their resources by avoiding loss, fighting for territory and replenishing their resources. Resource management involves multiple game mechanics, but creates a powerful game-mind connection and an immersing experience. At the intersection of strategy games and UX design there are web apps designed for project man-agement or, more recently - online banking. Bank Simple did a really good job at stimulating people’s desire to achieve their goals by designing a simple and rewarding mobile/web app which will be launched this year.

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1.0Discovery

2.0Motivation

3.0Collaboration & Challenging




TurnsA game turn is an important fundamental concept to almost all non-computer games, and many video games as well (although in video games, various real-time genres have become much more popular). In general, a turn is a segment of the game set aside for certain actions to happen before moving on to the next turn, where the sequence of events can largely repeat. In a truly abstract game (backgammon) turns are nothing more than a means to regulate play. In less abstract games (Risk), turns obviously denote the pas-sage of time, but the amount of time is not clear, nor important. In simulation games, time is generally more concrete. Wargames usu-ally specify the amount of time each turn represents, and in sports games a turn is usually distinctly one ‘play’, although the amount of time a play takes can vary.

Actions PointsThese control what players may do on their turns in the game by allocating each player a budget of “action points” each turn. These points may be spent on various actions according to the game rules, such as moving pieces, drawing cards, collecting money, etc. This type of mechanism is common in many “German-style board games”.

Auction or BiddingSome games use an auction or bidding system in which the players make competitive bids to determine which player gets the right to perform particular actions. Such an auction can be based on differ-ent forms of “payment”:

• The winning bidder must pay for the won privilege with some form of game resource (game money, points, etc.).

• The winning bidder does not pay upon winning the auction, but the auction is a form of promise that the winner will achieve some outcome in the near future. If this outcome is not achieved, the bidder pays some form of penalty. Such a system is used in many trick-taking games, such as contract bridge.

CardsThese involve the use of cards similar to playing cards to act as a randomiser and/or to act as tokens to keep track of states in the game.A common use is for a deck of cards to be shuffled and placed face down on or near the game playing area. When a random result is called for, a player draws a card and what is printed on the card determines the outcome of the result.

Another use of cards occurs when players draw cards and retain them for later use in the game, without revealing them to other play-ers. When used in this fashion, cards form a game resource.

Capture / EliminateIn some games, the number of tokens a player has on the playing surface is related to his current strength in the game. In such games, it can be an important goal to capture opponent’s tokens, meaning to remove them from the playing surface.

Captures can be achieved in a number of ways:

• Moving one of one’s own tokens into a space occupied by an opposing token (e.g. chess, pachisi).

• Jumping a token over the space occupied by an opposing token (e.g. draughts).

• Declaring an “attack” on an opposing token, and then determin-ing the outcome of the attack, either in a deterministic way by the game rules (e.g. Stratego, Illuminati), or by using a ran-domising method (e.g. Illuminati: New World Order).

• Surrounding a token or region with one’s own tokens in some manner (e.g. go).

• Playing cards or other resources that the game allows to be used to capture tokens.

Catch-upSome games include a mechanism designed to make progress towards victory more difficult the closer a player gets to it. The idea behind this is to allow trailing players a chance to catch up and potentially still win the game, rather than suffer an inevitable loss once they fall behind. This may be desirable in games such as racing games that have a fixed finish line.

DiceThese involve the use of dice, usually as randomisers. Most dice used in games are the standard cubical dice numbered from 1 to 6, though games with polyhedral dice or dice marked with symbols other than numbers exist.

The most common use of dice is to randomly determine the out-come of an interaction in a game. An example is a player rolling dice to determine how many board spaces to move a game token.Dice often determine the outcomes of in-game conflict between players, with different outcomes of the dice roll of different benefit (or adverse effect) to each player involved. This is useful in games that simulate direct conflicts of interest.

MovementMany board games involve the movement of playing tokens. How these tokens are allowed to move, and when, is governed by move-ment mechanics.Some game boards are divided into more or less equally-sized areas, each of which can be occupied by one or more game tokens. (Often such areas are called squares, even if not strictly square in shape.) Movement rules will specify how and when a token can be moved to another area. For example, a player may be allowed to move a token to an adjacent area, but not one further away. Dice are sometimes used to randomise the allowable movements.

Other games, particularly miniatures games are played on surfaces with no marked areas. A common movement mechanism in this case is to measure the distance which the miniatures are allowed to move with a ruler. Sometimes, generally in naval wargames, the direction of movement is restricted by use of a turning key.

4.0Game Models

GAME MECHANISMS




Resource ManagementMany games involve the management of resources. Examples of game resources include tokens, money, land, natural resources, human resources and game points.

Resource management involves the players establishing relative values for various types of available resources, in the context of the current state of the game and the desired outcome (i.e. winning the game). The game will have rules that determine how players can increase, spend, or exchange their various resources. The skillful management of resources under such rules allows players to influ-ence the outcome of the game.

Risk and RewardSome games include situations where players can “press their luck” in optional actions where the danger of a risk must be weighed against the chance of reward. For example, in Beowulf: The Legend, players may elect to take a “Risk”, with success yielding cards and failure weakening the player’s ultimate chance of victory.

Role PlayingRole-playing games often rely on mechanics that determine the effectiveness of in-game actions by how well the player acts out the role of a fictional character.

While early role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons relied heavily on either group consensus or the judgement of a single play-er (deemed the Dungeon Master or Game Master) or on random-izers such as dice, later generations of narrativist games use more structured and integrated systems to allow role-playing to influence the creative input and output of the players, so both acting out roles and employing rules take part in shaping the gameplay.

Tile-LayingMany games use tiles - flat, rigid pieces of a regular shape - that can be laid down on a flat surface to form a tessellation. Usually such tiles have patterns or symbols on their surfaces, that combine when tessellated to form game-mechanically significant combinations.The tiles themselves are often drawn at random by the players, either immediately before placing them on the playing surface, or in groups to form a pool or hand of tiles from which the player may select one to play.

Tiles can be used in two distinct ways:

• The playing of a tile itself is directly significant to the outcome of the game, in that where and when it is played contributes points or resources to the player.

• Tiles are used to build a board upon which other game tokens are placed, and the interaction of those tokens with the tiles pro-vides game points or resources.

Examples of tile mechanics include: Scrabble, in which tiles are let-ters and players lay them down to form words and score points; and Tikal, in which players lay tiles representing newly explored areas of jungle, through which archaeologists (represented by tokens) must move to score game points.

Game ModeA game mode is a distinct configuration that varies gameplay and affects how other game mechanics behave. A game with several modes will present different settings in each one, changing how a particular element of the game is played. One of the most common examples of game mode is the single player versus multiplayer choice in video games, where multiplayer can further be cooperative or competitive.Changing modes while the game is ongoing can be used as a means to increase difficulty and provide additional challenge, or as a reward for player success. Power-ups are modes that last for a few moments or that change only one or a few game rules; for example power pellets in Pac-Man give the temporary ability to eat the ene-mies for a few seconds.

GAME MECHANISMS




GoalThis is the most general sort of victory condition, which can be broad enough to encompass any method of winning, but here refers to game-specific goals that are usually not duplicated in other games. An example is the checkmate of a king in chess.

Lose AvoidanceSome games feature a losing condition, such as being checkmated (chess), running out of cards first (War), running out of hitpoints (Quake), or being tagged (tag). In such a game, the winner is the only remaining player to have avoided loss.

Piece EliminationSome games with capture mechanics are won by the player who removes all, or a given number of, the opponents’ playing pieces.

Puzzle GuessingSome games end when a player guesses (or solves by logic) the answer to a puzzle or riddle posed by the game. The player who guesses successfully wins. Examples include hangman and zendo.

RaceMany simple games (and some complex ones) are effectively races. The first player to advance one or more tokens to or beyond a certain point on the board wins. Examples: backgammon, ludo.

Structure BuildingThe goal of a structure building game is to acquire and assemble a set of game resources into either a defined winning structure, or into a structure that is somehow better than those of other players. In some games, the acquisition is of primary importance (e.g. concen-tration), while in others the resources are readily available and the interactions between them form more or less useful structures (e.g. poker).

Territory ControlA winner may be decided by which player controls the most “ter-ritory” on the playing surface, or a specific piece of territory. This is common in wargames, but is also used in more abstract games such as go.

Victory PointsA player’s progress is often measured by an abstract quantity of vic-tory points, which accumulate as the game develops. Victory points or similar quantities need not be restricted to development games, but are most common in that type as they ensure sufficient reward for all aspects of development. For example, in a game involving the development of civilizations, there is usually no need to reward investments such as trade and military expenditures, which yield their own strategic benefits. However, a victory point system may be used to reward more subjective aspects of civilization-building, such as the arts.

The winner can be decided either by:

• The first player to reach a set number of points.• The player with the most points at a predetermined finishing

time or state of the game.• This mechanism is often used explicitly in German-style board games, but many other games are played for points that form a winning condition. The electoral college of the United States political system is also a well-publicized example of this type of victory con-dition. Victory points may be partially disguised in the role of game resources, with play money being a common example.

Combination & ConditionsSome games have multiple victory or loss conditions. For example, a round of Pokémon Trading Card Game can end in three ways:

• When one player has Knocked Out enough of the other’s Pokémon to draw all his Prize Cards

• When one player is unable to play a Pokémon from his Bench to replace his Active Pokémon

• When one player has run out of cards in his Deck and is unable to draw at the beginning of his turn.

The first condition is a goal measured by victory points, while the other two are loss conditions.

5.0Victory Condition Mechanism

GAME MECHANISMS




CHARACTERS3.0




CHARACTERS

Each Character need to be designed a to be an individual property.The character required to be:- Easy and simple on the style- Have a unique and recognizable style elements- Have a unique and recognizable movement- Have a unique and recognizable attach or defence action- Have a unique and recognizable sound

Each character need to be customizable based the player characteristic and game credits earned.The customization could be apply though:- Different base characters.- Difference Accessories or weapons- Differenct colors and recnognizable elements.- Different capabilities based on the current customization.

Also this customization need to be aspirational and rappresent different expertise and credits of the user player.

For this reason any new customization available require to be celebrate.

1.0Recognizable Property

2.0Customizable and aspirational.




GAMEPLAY & ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN

4.0





Build one or more Worlds into the game with different characteristic, look&Feel, goals and enemies.

Additional world could be:- Unlock based user performance and credits.- Unlock based new game development phases.- Unlock though an In-App purchase.

Each world is composed by levels and each level is composed by stages.

Each world is composed by one or more levels and:- The levels are composed by a set of Stages. - Each levels are available based the user performing and credits earned.- Some extra levels could be unlock based special user performing or though an in-App purchase.- Each Stage to be consider complete require specific performance and credits earn by the user player.- Create Hidden and secret stage accessible though special and specific user player actions or performing.- Each levels require a recognizable Look & Feel & sound/music.

Compare the user performance with his friend and display an infographic leaderboard to compare the performance and the world position of the player with his friends or other game users.

1.0Define Worlds.

2.0Levels/Mission & Stages.

3.0Check-ins and Personal and Friends Positions.





Dynamic game difficulty balancing, also known as dynamic difficulty adjustment (DDA) or dynamic game balancing (DGB), is the process of au-tomatically changing parameters, scenarios, and behaviors in a video game in real-time, based on the player’s ability, in order to avoid them becoming bored (if the game is too easy) or frustrated (if it is too hard). The goal of dynamic difficulty balancing is to keep the user interested from the beginning to the end and to provide a good level of challenge for the user.

Traditionally, game difficulty increases steadily along the course of the game (either in a smooth linear fashion, or through steps represented by the levels). The parameters of this increase (rate, frequency, starting levels) can only be modulated at the beginning of the experience by selecting a difficulty level. Still, this can lead to a frustrating experience for both experienced and inexperienced gamers, as they attempt to follow a preselected learning or difficulty curve. Dynamic difficulty balancing attempts to remedy this issue by creating a tailor-made experience for each gamer. As the users’ skills improve through time (as they make progress via learning), the level of the challenges should also continually increase. However, implementing such el-ements poses many challenges to game developers; as a result, this method of gameplay is not widespread.

Some elements of a game that might be changed via dynamic difficulty• balancing include:• Speed of enemies• Health of enemies• Frequency of enemies• Frequency of powerups• Power of player• Power of enemies• Duration of gameplay experience

Different approaches are found in the literature to address dynamic game difficulty balancing. In all cases, it is necessary to measure, implicitly or explicitly, the difficulty the user is facing at a given moment. This measure can be performed by a heuristic function, which some authors call “challenge function”. This function maps a given game state into a value that specifies how easy or difficult the game feels to the user at a specific moment.

Examples of heuristics used are:• The rate of successful shots or hits• The numbers of won and lost pieces• Life points• Evolution• Time to complete some task... or any metric used to calculate a game score.

4.0Dynamic game difficulty balancing

5.0Dynamic game elements

6.0Approaches




ART, SOUND & MUSIC5.0




ART, SOUND & MUSIC

Art and Sound theme/Ambient are respect 50% and 50% of the foundamental Game Experience for the user player prospect.

Sound theme/Ambient need to be always appropiate and related to any change of Art style and element displayed and change in symbiosis.

During the entire game experience the sound FX need to emphasize:• Each user actions• Each Screen change• Each automatic element event on the screen.

Music and Sound FX are part the audio storytelling of the game. Since the begining of the first sound until the closing of the game, the player need to be accompained into the experience though a never ending music/sound dialog.

A particular consideration need to be attribute to the auto-volume management for an other time again, emphasize Game section though setting and game management section.

1.0Art & Sound Theme/Ambient

2.0Sound FX

3.0Sound/Music Storytelling




GAME CONTROL &IMMERSIVE COMPANION

6.0




GAME CONTROLS & IMMERSIVE COMPANION

UI, or User Interface, refers to the methods (keyboard control, mouse control) and interfaces (inventory screen, map screen) through which a user interacts with your game. UX, or User Experience, refers to how intuitive and enjoyable those interactions are.

User Interface need to:• Useful in providing relevant information to the player• Occupy minimal screen real estate• Designed to be unobstrusive• Common elements include score, time, health, bullets• Need not be permanently visible• Can adapt / evolve• Simplicity goes a long way

The Poetics of Space, remember:• Non-Diegetic Representation

Not exists within the game world and not visualized within the game world

• Spatial Representation Not exists within the game world but is visualized within the game world

• Non-Spatial Representation Exists within the game world but is not visualized within the game world

• Diegetic Representation Exists within the game world and is visualized within the game world

•

The Power of Touch, remember:• Touch Based devices compound game interface integration• The “Fouth Wall” is the main input• Lack of Input precision and screen size require additional though• Players thumbs, fingers can easily obscure areas of the screen• The device itself becomes an extension of the interface

Second screen, sometimes also referred to as “companion device” (or “com-panion apps” when referring to software applications), is a term that refers to an additional electronic device (e.g. tablet, smartphone) that allows a content consumer to interact with the content they are consuming, such as TV shows, movies, music, or video games. Extra data is displayed on a portable device synchronized with the content being viewed on television.

Into the Mobile game development the ability to design game for use of sec-ond screen rappresent an important feature.

Good practice are:• Design game able to interact and use with other devices and platform

like as TV & Tablet.• The second screens becomes an extension of the interface.• Deliver different and custom information for each screens without

duplicate it based on the user experience and screen characteristic.

Use your device to enhance your entertainment experiences with rich, im-mersive extensions of your media or games.

1.0UI & Game Control.

2.0Immersive Companion.




STORE, POINTS,MONETIZATION,MULTI USER & SOCIAL.

7.0




STORE, POINTS, MONETIZATION, MULTI-USERS & SOCIAL

The value to have a store into a mobile game is a key of monetization process and also of the customizable experience of the player.

Store foundamental:• The Store trade extra content and features with earned points

into the game.• Player can purchase customization character elements.• Player can purchase energy and extra life.• Store items could be unlock based on the game player performing and

level unlocked.

The user player earn points based the his actions and performing during the game play..

Elements foundamental:• User based on specific actions or performing can earn Points-pack

rappresent buy a specific item.• Based on the points earned at specific check points, the user grow up

into different levels named with number or with a custom name based on the kind of game

• Based on specific actions or performing and current Level, the user play-er can earn badges rewarding.

The monetization can approaced though different ways:• In-App Purchase• Profiled user player profile data and Advertising.

In-App Purchase:• User player can purchase Points and Points Pack• User player can purchace (unlock) new Worlds.• User can redeem his special and custom Physical reward with his points

though a custome loyalty program (ed: discount cards)

User Profile tracking and AdvertisingThe big Advertising business into games and Community is the user profile data tracking for targetize advertising.Much more and frequent is the user profile tracking and data acquisition, much more the current user player acquire a advertising value.

Normally advertising can be provided:• Though the game app• Though Email

The Social Components is an other foundamental element on success games.The ability to collaborate, Celebrate and challeging friends or other user increase the time spend on the game and interaction frequency.

In this way is suggested to:• User Facebook for retrive the user player friends list and discover which

of these currently is already a player of the game or no.• Suggest and provide solution all the time the user player unlock World,

levels, weapon or customize his character to Celebrate the event though social media with an instant points reward.

• Track the influence his celebration generate on social media and provide an additional instant-point reward based on the engagement generated.

• Track the Friends, local user (based on user player location) or commu-nity game performing and results and display it under an infographic form.

• Create Leaderboard based on a short time performing (month or week) to challenging the user player.

1.0Store.

2.0Points, Points-pack, Levels & Badges.

3.0Monetization.

4.0Multi-user and Social Sharing.

mobile game design guideline

Design

user profile

game design

style board

design game

user interface

app purchase

game resource

video game