the structure of games

Prof. Pier Luca Lanzi

The Structure of Games��Videogame Design and Programming


Readings

•  Jesse Schell. The Art of Game Design (2nd Edition) Morgan Kaufmann 2015

•  Tracy Fullerton. Game Design Workshop, Third Edition. Morgan Kaufmann 2014 Chapter 2.

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video game = video + game��

what does “video” stand for?��

“board game” ��

“card game”


The Elements of Games: Players

•  All the descriptions describe experiences designed for players

•  In contrast, music is a form of entertainment that does not require an active participation by the consumers

•  Players voluntarily participate, they partake in and consume the entertainment. To become a player, one must voluntarily accept the rules and constraints of a game (the lusory attitude)

•  This attitude is part of the psychological and emotional states of players that we need to consider as part of the playcentric approach to game design

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The Elements of Games: Objectives

•  Both descriptions lay out specific goals for the players

• When watching a movie or reading a book there is no clear-cut objective presented

•  In games, objectives are a key element without which the experience loses its structure

•  Our need to work toward the objective is a measure of our involvement

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Exercise��List five games and in one sentence per��

game describe the objective in each game


Protheus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWs_RKXkyu0


The Elements of Games: Procedures

•  Both descriptions give detailed instructions on what the player can do to achieve the objectives

•  “the dealer deals five cards to each player”

•  “your character can walk, run, jump, …”

•  They guide player behavior and creating interactions that would never take place outside the authority of the game

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The Elements of Games: Rules

•  Both descriptions spend a great deal of time explaining exactly what objectives the game consists and what the player can and cannot do

•  Clarify what happens in various situations that might arise

•  Define game objects and concepts, limit the player behavior

•  Imply authority and yet there is no person named in either description with whom to associate that authority

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Exercise��Can you think of a game that has no rules?��

What about just one rule?


Objectives + Rules = Conflict


The Elements of Games: Conflict

•  Procedures and rules tend to deter players from accomplish goals directly (think about golf)

•  The relationship between the objectives, the rules, the procedures limiting/guiding behavior create conflict

•  Players work to resolve conflict in their own favor

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The Elements of Games: Resources

•  Certain objects hold a rather high value for the players in reaching their objectives

•  These objects are made valuable because they can help players achieve their goal. At the same time, they are made scarce by the designer. These are what we call resources

•  Finding and managing resources is a key part of many games

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Dark Room http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRryeImj4pc


Button http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAOplz5ri5k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAOplz5ri5k


The Element of Games: Boundaries

•  All descriptions imply that rules and goals apply only within the game not in real life

•  Playing experience is somehow set apart from other experiences by boundaries, and this is another distinctive element of games

•  Johan Huizinga in “Homo Ludens” describes this temporary world where the rules of the game apply as the “magic circle”

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Colleen Lachowicz is a social worker, foster parent and passionate democrat who’s running for State Senate in Maine. She’s also an orc assassin rogue named Santiaga within the massive multiplayer online role playing game World of Warcraft (WoW) – a fact that her Republican opponents say makes her unfit to be in office. In a recent mailer sent out by Maine GOP communications director David Sorensen, Lachowicz is condemned for “living a time-consuming double life as a member of the World of Warcraft community.” “Her character’s impressive Level 85 distinction – the highest that can be achieved in the massive online role playing game,” he wrote. “Studies have found that the average World of Warcraft gamer is 28 and spends 22.7 hours per week playing.” “In Colleen’s online fantasy world, she gets away with crude, vicious and violent comments like the ones below,” reads the website’s header. “Maine needs a State Senator that lives in the real world, not in Colleen’s fantasy world.” Dozens of screencapped messages from forums and website comments populate the website’s blog. These messages were written by Lachowiz in discussion of the game over a span of at least seven years.


The Element of Games: Outcome

•  In both games, the outcome needs to be uncertain

•  The uncertainty of the outcome is an important aspect of the playcentric process because it is a key motivator for the player

•  If players can anticipate the outcome, they won’t play; for example, in chess players agree to end a match if outcome is certain

•  Movies, concerts, books can remain entertaining even when the outcome is already known

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Formal Elements��

the elements that all games share,��that make up the essence of games��

��the developers goal is to go beyond the basic elements��of games, by exploring new forms of interactivity, etc. ��

��yet, it is important to understand the role of formal��

elements in traditional game systems��


Ian Bogost on things that are unique to games��http://youtu.be/uTK2oIJx8Po?t=6m58s


Engaging the Player

•  The formal elements provide structure to the experience of games, but what gives these elements meaning for the players?

• What makes one game capture the imagination of players and another one fall flat?

• What allows players to emotionally connect with a game?

•  The sense of engagement comes from different things for different players, and not all the games require elaborate means to create it

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Unfinished Swan http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9YaFY8S75M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9YaFY8S75M


character story

premise challenge

engaging the player

Prof. Pier Luca Lanzi Character © Nintendo


Characters

•  Agents through which stories are told with whom players can empathize

•  By identifying with the characters and the outcome of their goals, the audience internalizes the story’s events and empathizes with its movements toward resolution

•  Several ways to understand fictional characters in stories

§ Psychological – the character is a mirror of the audience’s fears and desire

§ Symbolic – the character stands for a larger idea (Christianity, the American Dream, etc.)

§ Historic – depicting real-world figures

§ Stereotypical – representing cultural cliches

•  The main character’s engagement with the problem creates the conflict that drives the story. It is faced by the antagonist.


Characters

•  Characters are defined within the story by what they say, what they do, what they look like, or what they say about them. These are called methods of characterization

•  Characters with well-defined traits and realistic personalities who undergo a significant change in personality during the story, can be thought as “round”

•  Characters with few defined traits and a shallow personality are considered to be flat. They are also usually recognizable as stereotypes (the lazy guard, the evil stepmother, etc.)

•  Characters must balance “agency” (their practical functionalities) and “empathy”? (the potential for players to develop an emotional bound to or to identify with the character)

•  Sometimes, they are autonomous and controlled by the AI

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Four Key Questions

• What does the character want?

• What does the character need?

• What does the audience/player hope?

• What does the audience/player fear?

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Story


Engaging the Player: Story

•  Some games engage players emotionally by using the power of the story within or surrounding their formal elements

•  How story can be integrated into gameplay is an ongoing debate

•  How much story is too much? Or too little?

•  Should the gameplay change the story?

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The outcome of the story must be uncertain

Games involve storytelling and narratives that begin in

uncertainty and that are resolved over the course of time

In many games, story is actually limited to backstory,

sort of an elaborate version of premise.

An example is the trend of inserting story chapters at the

beginning of each level, creating a linear progression that

follows a narrative but does not affect how the story plays


S2 – Second Mission Intro http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-W5TspdcqfQ&feature=fvw


Storytelling

•  There game designers who try to allow the actions to change the underlying game story

•  Several ways to accomplish this

§  The simplest is to create a branching story line

§  A story that emerges from the gameplay (The Sims, Black & White, Half Life, Halo 2)

•  It remains to be seen if these attempts to allow emergent storytelling to arise out of formal game structure, but game designers are still searching for better ways to integrate story into their game systems


The Dramatic Arc

Heavy Rain © Quantic Dream


The Dramatic Arc

•  Conflict is the most important of the dramatic elements discussed so far

•  Conflict occurs when the protagonist faces a problem or obstacle that keeps it from accomplish its goal

•  Traditional dramatic conflict can be broken down into categories such as character vs character, character vs nature, character vs machine, character vs self, character vs society, or character vs fate

•  When the conflict is set in motion, it must escalate for the drama to be effective. Escalating conflict creates tension, and in most stories the tension gets worse before it gets better resulting in a classic dramatic arc

•  This arc describes the amount of dramatic tension in the story as it progresses in time


Campbell's 'Hero's Journey' Monomyth

•  Joseph Campbell defined a classic sequence of actions that are found in many stories. It is also known as the Monomyth, a term Campbell coined from James Joyce's Finnigan's Wake

•  Separation/departure

§ The first section of the story is about the separation of the hero from the normal world. Separation has symbolic echo of infant transition away from the mother and so has a scary feel to it.

•  Initiation

§  In the main part of the story the hero is initiated into true heroic stature by various trials and rites. Through daring and battle, the true character emerges.

•  Return

§ After initiation the hero can cleansed and return in triumph to deserved recognition, although this in itself may not be without its trials and tribulations.


Campbell's 'Hero's Journey' Monomyth

•  Separation/departure

§ The Call to Adventure

§ Refusal of the Call

§ Acceptance of the Call

§ Supernatural Aid

§ Crossing of the First Threshold

§ Entering the Belly of the Whale

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•  Initiation

§ Road of Trials

§ The Meeting with the Goddess

§ Woman as Temptress

§ Atonement with the Father

§ Apotheosis

§ The Ultimate Boon

•  Return

§ Refusal of the Return

§ Magic Flight

§ Rescue From Without

§ Crossing of the Return Threshold

§ Master of the Two Worlds

§ Freedom to Live

Prof. Pier Luca Lanzi http://justinswapp.com/american-masters-george-lucas-and-the-heros-journey/

Prof. Pier Luca Lanzi http://deliberatedonkey.wordpress.com/2012/12/26/the-monomyth-joseph-campbell-and-me/

Prof. Pier Luca Lanzi http://jaced.com/2014/08/20/the-17-stages-of-joseph-campbells-monomyth/


Challenge


Engaging the Player: Challenge

•  The conflict challenges the player and create tension as well as creates varying level of achievement or frustration

•  Increasing the challenge as the game goes on increase the tension, but too much challenge causes frustration

•  Too little challenge, players might get bored or might feel that they mastered the game and move on

•  Balancing these emotional responses to the amount of challenge in a game is a key consideration for keeping the player engaged

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What Do Players Mean by “Challenge”?

•  Not that they want to face an impossible or very hard task!

•  They usually refer to

§ Tasks that are satisfying to complete and

§ Require the right amount of work to create a sense of accomplishment and enjoyment

•  Challenge is therefore very individualized and determined by the abilities of the specific player in relationship to the game

•  Challenge is also dynamic: a task is initially difficult and but after becoming accomplished in the task, players will no longer find it challenging and interesting.

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Is there a way to look at challenge that is not defined by individual experience? Regardless of age, social class, or gender, the people describe enjoyable activities in much the same way Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi


Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Findings

•  The experience (of enjoyment) usually occurs when we confront tasks we have a chance of completing

•  We must be able to concentrate on what we are doing

•  The concentration is usually possible because the task undertaken has clear goals, and provides immediate feedback

•  One acts with a deep but effortless involvement that removes from awareness the worries and frustration of everyday life

•  Enjoyable experiences allow people to exercise a sense of control over their actions

•  Concern for the self disappears, yet paradoxically, the sense of self emerges stronger after the flow experience is over.

•  The sense of duration of time is altered: hours pass by in minutes, and minutes can stretch out to seem like hours.

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“The combination of all these elements causes a sense of deep enjoyment that is so rewarding people feel like expanding a great

deal of energy is worthwhile simple to be able to feel it.”

Csikszentmihalyi M., “Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: Harper and Row Publishers, Inc. 1990.


In flow, an activity balances a person between challenge and ability, frustration and boredom, to produce

an experience of achievement and happiness.


According to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi…

•  Flow occurs most often within activities that are goal-directed and bounded by rules, and that could not be done without skills

•  “When all of a person’s relevant skills are needed to cope with the challenges of a situation, that person’s attention is completely absorbed by the activity.”

•  Players are so involved that activity becomes almost automatic, they stop be aware of themselves as separate from the actions they are performing.

•  “[…] they stop being aware of themselves as separate from the actions they are performing.”

•  In flow experiences, players know what needs to be done and get immediate feedback on how well they are achieving their goals (music, tennis, rock climbing, etc.).

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•  In game flow, players are aware only on what’s relevant here and now (no tax problems, no laundry, just the game)

•  Many game interfaces take over the entire screen or build impressive audiovisual worlds to focus all the attention

•  The Paradox of Control: People enjoy the sense of exercising control in difficult situations; however it is not possible to experience a feeling of control unless the outcome is unsure, meaning that the person is actually not in control

•  The paradox of control is a key element of the enjoyment of game systems: how can we offer meaningful choices to players, without offering complete control or an assured outcome? (god-like games)

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•  In flow, we are too involved in what we are doing to care about protecting the ego.

•  Although during flow we forget our self consciousness while we are engaged, after a flow activity is over we generally emerge with a stronger self-concept

•  Paradoxically, the self expands through acts of self-forgetfulness

•  “One of the most common description of optimal experience is that time no longer seems to pass the way it ordinarily does”

•  Digital games are notorious for sucking players in for hours on end because they involve players in flow experiences that distort the passage of time.

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When most these conditions are present, we begin to enjoy whatever it is that produces such an experience.

The activity becomes autotelic

There is no reason for doing it, except

to enjoy the experience it provides


When Designing a Game…

•  What skills does your target audience have?

•  What skill level they are at?

•  How can you give players clear, focused goals, meaningful choices, and discernible feedback?

•  How can you merge what a player is doing physically with what they need to be thinking about the game?

•  How can you eliminate distractions and fear of failure? Or, how can you create a safe environment where players lose their sense of self and focus only on the task at hand?

•  How can you make the game activity enjoyable as an end in itself?

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Premise


Engaging the Player: Premise

•  Overarching premise gives context to the formal elements and creates engagement (monopoly)

•  The premise of World of Warcraft is that players are characters in a rich fantasy world with archetypical quests

•  The premise of Guitar Hero is that player are rockstars

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYr5J877tsU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LwQDF-iBN0


Premise establishes the action of

the game with a setting or metaphor


In traditional drama, premise is

established in the exposition of a story

Exposition sets up the time and place, characters

and relationships, the status quo, etc.

Exposition also depicts the event that upsets the status

quo and creates the conflict; and the point of attack,

the point at which the plot begins


Angry birds http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNNzRyd1xz0


S2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XIi0Pe6ZHc


Pitfall http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhXMYw1lXY0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oixAg0BGSaI


The first task of a premise is to make a

game’s formal system playable for the user

Shoot aliens, not just shoot blocks!

A premise that unifies the formal and dramatic elements

provides another opportunity to engage the player


So … What is a Game?


The Sum of the Parts

•  None of the definitions of the four games describe to what extent each of the formal elements relies on each other

•  Games are systems and systems, by definition, are groups of interrelated elements

•  These elements work together to form a complex whole, and the “whole is greater than the sum of its part”

•  Game designers have to look at a game system not only as separate elements but also as a whole in play

•  Cannot study a game by analyzing all the elements separately

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“A game is: A closed formal system that��engages the player in structured conflict��resolves its uncertainty in an unequal outcome”��Tracy Fullerton


“Game: a system in which players engage in��an artificial conflict, defined by rules,��that results in a quantifiable outcome”��Rules of Play


Games are conflicts in which the players��directly interact in such a way as to foil��each other’s goals.��Chris Crawford


A game is a problem-solving activity,��approached with a playful attitude.��Jesse Schell


more definitions at��http://gamedesigntools.blogspot.it/2012/11/what-is-game-page-of-definitions.html��


formal elements @ play


Breakout https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Up-a5x3coC0


http://www.pippinbarr.com/games/breaksout/


Asteroids��https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYSupJ5r2zo


Combat https://youtu.be/Q7XNUOPz4GE?list=PLmdWJZHSFYuDNURxKplrKOSe5qkrQO0Gz


Challenge #1��

Propose a new dogfight game for two players that combines ��the typical Atari 2600 combat scenario with asteroids��

��The game must be playable both on ��

a PC with keyboard or gamepads and on a tablet��

Challenge: can we (as a group) come out with a hundred variations?��

(a sort of Goldberg’s variations for asteroids)��


Challenge #2��

Design innovative art for the same game for a resolution of��2048x1536 (ipad3) 2560x1600 (nexus) 1920x1080 (full HD)��


Challenge #3��

Can we (as a group) come out with a hundred variations?��(a sort of Goldberg’s variations for asteroids)


http://www.facebook.com/polimigamecollectivehttps://twitter.com/@POLIMIGC

http://www.youtube.com/PierLucaLanzihttp://www.polimigamecollective.org

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