"8 elements of game design", based on Sonic creator's talks

[OgreBattle]

Hirokazu Yasuhara has an interview about the 4 elements of fun and the 'freedom from fear' drive of games:
http://info.sonicretro.org/Hirokazu_Yas ... _25,_2008)

He doesn't call all of it together 8 elements, but I've found it handy to think about game design

The first 4 elements are...

Hirokazu Yasuhara: So I always think about all the different elements of what makes something fun. This formula is made by a sociologist from France who did some thinking into what it is that makes something fun, or interesting, for people to experience. One of the things is competition. The next is happy coincidences; a gamble that pays off, that kind of thing. Following that is dizziness or exhilaration, and the final thing is imitating, or copying.

For example, let's say we go to a theme park one day. There are two slides there: a regular metal slide, and one shaped like an elephant. Which one is more attractive to a child? It'll usually be the one with the elephant, because the form of "imitation" that it represents is more interesting to the eye. That, in itself, is enough to make it fun.

So what happens when you put all of these factors together? Well, if your park's trying to improve its business, then maybe it'd try to make the slide a longer or faster ride, or maybe make it bigger and shaped like a dinosaur so it'll be more fun for the kids.

Maybe they'll make it a dual slide so kids can compete with each other to get to the bottom faster -- add a competitive element.

If they keep going with it, it'll get big enough that it winds up becoming a log-flume ride or something -- but there's still more you can do, like maybe put wheels on the logs and make it look like a car.

It's a continual process to make it more fun. So the more you think about the externals of something, the more grandiose it'll wind up being. You'll wind up with a roller coaster eventually -- and then you'll make it rotate or something, if you think it'll improve business. That is one of my basic principles.

Hirokazu then talks about 'freedom from fear' being a drive. And how we attain that freedom, I consider this the next 4 elements:

Another important thing is to consider the basic desires of people, even if all you're thinking about is a simple game. For example, you have active desires -- "Freedom from Fear", as they say, the way people actively want to avoid fear in their lives. And one way they deal with that is by engaging in a sorting process.

Let's say that you have a flat surface with some bumps sticking up out of it. Most people would want to see those bumps removed, as a sort of equalizing or "beautification" process. Also -- you know the game Othello, right? A lot of the fun in that game is the exhilaration you get when you flip a lot of pieces and make more of the board your color. Tidying up things, in a way.

It's the same thing even in business -- it's nicer when you have a well-organized Excel spreadsheet then a cluttered one. It's a continual process of actively sorting and bringing things under control, and the reason why people do this is because it helps make life simpler for them -- the process itself is fun, too.

As for how this goes back into video games, one thing you see a lot of in games is the act of "erasing," or "destruction." For example, in Pac-Man, you're eating dots -- wocka-wocka-wocka-wocka. That is erasing, and it's also a form of destruction. You're destroying everything in your path, and you're leveling out the entire playfield.

This is something that I think is vital for any interactive experience -- that sort of proactive desire in motion. This manifests itself in a lot of ways; the player can satisfy this desire a lot of ways in a lot of different games.

But there's something else involved here: creation. Some people get what they want via destruction, but others do it via creation instead. For example, if I am feeling vulnerable, then I get more friends or party members, if you will, and make myself more protected -- or I go to town and interact with people to get that same feeling.

By the same token, some people think in the opposite way -- if I kill every enemy in the area, then that logically means I'll be more secure. "Fear" at play. It's different ways of arriving at the same emotion.

Gamasutra: That kind of mindset is more interested in "deleting" their enemies. So, like, Pikmin versus Gears of War. In Pikmin, you gather allies to complete objectives or defeat enemies; in Gears you just kill everyone in an area, and then that area is clear of monsters.

Hirokazu Yasuhara: Yeah, exactly. And this process keeps repeating itself. You see some cultural differences come to the surface with this, too. For example, a lot of Japanese people attain a feeling of security via creation, or making themselves look nice, or saving money. Not that Americans or Europeans aren't like that, but Americans may be more likely to take a more "destructive" process toward feeling safe.

I think a lot of that is because the things that you "fear" can be very different between nations -- not real, palpable fear, but more the lack of feeling at ease with yourself.

Something you don't like very much; something that stresses you out -- another word for "stress", really. And since sources of stress can be different between Americans and Japanese, it follows that the methods both populations take to relax would be different, too.

One more important thing I want to bring up is that when people achieve freedom from fear, that in itself makes them feel happy. You aren't stressed out anymore, and that cheers you up. I use that a lot in my game design, because it's a very basic and important.
For example, going to see Cinderella Castle in Disneyland would, for us, be a long-distance goal; if it was a game, we'd need to keep reminding the player where he's going if we actually want him to remember it.

A more short-distance goal, meanwhile, would be if you're in a baseball game; your goal is to get on base, and there are any number of simple, linear ways to achieve that goal. An example of a middle-distance goal would be if you run into a bridge in the forest that you can't gain access to -- something I do a lot in games. Maybe you have to do a sequence of jumps to reach it, but it's visible, at least.

It's a constant cycle of "fear" and "relief". If you're in an enclosed area, then completing a middle-distance goal to escape it makes you relieved; it makes you think "Oh, that's how I get out of there!" I'm always thinking about that kind of thing.

All together it's...

4 elements of fun:
Competition/Challenge- going against others, system mastery, the player getting better at the game
Simulation/Mimic- American football simulates gaining territory in war, simulating sword swinging, simulating firing a gun, the aesthetic of the game
Chance- The parts outside of player control/knowledge. Drawing cards, rolling dice, opening a mystery treasure chest, gambling
Vertigo- Altering perception, visceral feel (love, gross, butterflies in stomach, leaning into a corner in Mario Kart)

Goals & Obstacles (short, medium, and long term):
Goal, Source of Happiness/Desire: save the princess, get gold, dress nice
Source of Fear/Stress- The challenges, obstacles between you and the goal

Methods to overcome obstacles, reach goal:
Erasing/Destroying- killing monsters, eating pellets, mowing lawn
Creating/Gaining- planting tree, building bridge, gaining allies

Thinking about various games this way has been helpful to me. RPG's, card games, action and puzzle and so on.

[maglag]

Adding to the above, I just saw an interesting video talking about "stealth" dynamic difficulty.

Basically when the game's challenge depending on the game performance. Like if the player dies in a section, the local enemies become easier with less numbers or abilities. Or if the player gets dropped to critical health, tha last bit of health will actually last more or even carry a few moments of invulnerabilitiy.

But all done in subtle ways. The game doesn't tell the player it's adjusting the challenge and it's hard to tell unless you're looking for it. So the player gets the illusion they got better and feel happy when it was actually the game becoming easier.

It's been done by multiple popular games like Crash Bandicoot, Resident Evil 4, Bioshock, Silent Hill. Heck, seems like the first Gears of War secretly added improved stats to new players trying out MP that were slowly reduced as they got kills until their base stats were the same as the veterans, since their studies had shown newbies who end their first MP match with no kills have a high chance of just never bothering with MP in that shooter game again. So give them a few "freebie" kills to get the newbies a taste of victory.

And one could say the game adjusting to the player was a key part of why those titles became so popular. Some struggle, some deaths, but eventually everybody could win whitout the stigma of choosing easy mode or equivalent.

In TT terms, it would be the DM fudging the dice/stats in the player's favor during combat (like if an enemy gets a super lucky crit that would instantly kill a player out of nowhere, just deaclare it deals or less damage to leave them between -1 and -10), or in a campaign module, customize the enemy stats for more or less pimped out party.

[jt]

Or if the player gets dropped to critical health, tha last bit of health will actually last more or even carry a few moments of invulnerabilitiy.

You know that trope where a character has powers they don't understand that kick into full gear when they're in the most dire circumstances? Probably a young girl with amnesia and hints at magical parentage (or a magic pendant)?

I've toyed with the idea of just making that a character class. Broadly good defenses (so they're probably the last one to die before a party wipe), mediocre at everything else, bullshit crisis-mode powers that activate when their friends are all unconscious.

Then you can push your balance a little harder since the party has a built-in escape valve.

[OgreBattle]

In TT terms, it would be the DM fudging the dice/stats in the player's favor during combat (like if an enemy gets a super lucky crit that would instantly kill a player out of nowhere, just deaclare it deals or less damage to leave them between -1 and -10), or in a campaign module, customize the enemy stats for more or less pimped out party.

I like the thing where you're down then an ally can revive you, my first experience with that mechanic is Gears of War, don't know who did it first.

random hilarious deaths are great for AD&D where character creation is fast


Hirokazu mentions (in video games) that a 'short goal' should be achieved in about 30 seconds. That can be defeating an enemy, seeing something and running over to it, etc.

In turn based tabletop though a table of 5 dudes fighting 5 NPC's is not going to have decisions made by somebody every 30 seconds... but then players can stay invested by seeing the results of other PC's NPC's that are significant enough to influence what they do when their turn comes up.

That's a reason I'm leaning towards "maneuver phase, then main phase" so everyone is making decisions faster.

[Whiysper]

I've toyed with the idea of just making that a character class. Broadly good defenses (so they're probably the last one to die before a party wipe), mediocre at everything else, bullshit crisis-mode powers that activate when their friends are all unconscious.

Then you can push your balance a little harder since the party has a built-in escape valve.

Nice idea, but I'd probably use this sparingly - once you've had your 'crisis mode' save, you then graduate into an actual class with abilities based off the ones you just 'awoke' - otherwise you've got a very weird optimal gameplay loop .

[Thaluikhain]

One more quote tag than end quote tag there.

[maglag]

Or if the player gets dropped to critical health, tha last bit of health will actually last more or even carry a few moments of invulnerabilitiy.

You know that trope where a character has powers they don't understand that kick into full gear when they're in the most dire circumstances? Probably a young girl with amnesia and hints at magical parentage (or a magic pendant)?

I've toyed with the idea of just making that a character class. Broadly good defenses (so they're probably the last one to die before a party wipe), mediocre at everything else, bullshit crisis-mode powers that activate when their friends are all unconscious.

Then you can push your balance a little harder since the party has a built-in escape valve.

They key detail is if the players are aware of their crisis mode.

Because if they know they get a power up when at low HP, they'll seek to abuse the hell out of it. They may even damage their characters themselves and refuse healing just to get those benefits right away. It's not an escape valve when they can consciously use it to attack harder.

In TT terms, it would be the DM fudging the dice/stats in the player's favor during combat (like if an enemy gets a super lucky crit that would instantly kill a player out of nowhere, just deaclare it deals or less damage to leave them between -1 and -10), or in a campaign module, customize the enemy stats for more or less pimped out party.

I like the thing where you're down then an ally can revive you, my first experience with that mechanic is Gears of War, don't know who did it first.

There's an immediate action mid-level cleric spell in the splats that ressurects an ally that just died right away. It was an auto-prepare in every one of my groups that knew about it.

It's a bit weirder if everybody can do it (or if only the PCs can do it), althouh that reminds me of an LP of an RPG where narratively the player author explained the party being constantly ressurected as long as one was still alive as their souls having been binded together so as long as one was still alive, it was relatively easy to bring the others back.

random hilarious deaths are great for AD&D where character creation is fast

And assuming the party doesn't mind the seemingly infinite stream of adventurers ready to replace the fallen wherever the party may be.

Hirokazu mentions (in video games) that a 'short goal' should be achieved in about 30 seconds. That can be defeating an enemy, seeing something and running over to it, etc.

In turn based tabletop though a table of 5 dudes fighting 5 NPC's is not going to have decisions made by somebody every 30 seconds... but then players can stay invested by seeing the results of other PC's NPC's that are significant enough to influence what they do when their turn comes up.

That's a reason I'm leaning towards "maneuver phase, then main phase" so everyone is making decisions faster.

Many recent TT games have players choose their actions in secret and place them face-down near their characters then everybody reveals at the same time and stuff is resolved.

[jt]

I've toyed with bullshit crisis mode magic.

They key detail is if the players are aware of their crisis mode.

Because if they know they get a power up when at low HP, they'll seek to abuse the hell out of it. They may even damage their characters themselves and refuse healing just to get those benefits right away. It's not an escape valve when they can consciously use it to attack harder.

That's one of the reasons I've only toyed with the idea. It doesn't work in the D&D mode where you're striving for long campaigns and logically bounded rules. It can work if you break either of those constraints:
[*] It'd be fun in a short game where you're not supposed to really know all the rules / things the other players are capable of (Paranoia does some of this). Say in a game where you deal out character abilities from a deck and run a oneshot.
[*] You can define rules in terms of the center of mass of the rulings you want, instead of the boundary cases. So bullshit magic powers activate in a crisis, especially when nobody you know can see, they don't activate if you try to force them to activate or engineer a situation were they activate it. The GM is trusted to see what you're getting at, come up with rulings in that spirit, and dick over players who start running double blind experiments on magical bullshit. You can run games this way, but it'd be weird to mix that with how D&D normally communicates its rules. And I wouldn't want to try to write the pile of legalese it would take to wrap up all the edge cases in a D&D-esque way for something like this.

And Whiysper is right that it has a short shelf life. I think you can use it more than once per character, but eventually you do need to replace it with a real class.

I like the thing where you're down then an ally can revive you, my first experience with that mechanic is Gears of War, don't know who did it first.

"Raise Dead but only if they died in the last round" is a good level 1 spell. Or the last five minutes, if you're more generous.

Or you could also make the wounded/dying rules really generous. Like, attacks always put you in a wounded/dying state instead of just killing you, and whatever check it takes to stabilize someone is easy. Is it so easy that they're back into the fight? That but at less strength? Is it something you can ignore until the fight is over, then bring them back to fighting shape? That but with a limit per day? Is it something you can ignore until the fight is over, but you'll all have to hobble home and try this adventure tomorrow? You have a ton of control over the flow of the game in these systems.

[Mask_De_H]

Someone fucked their tags.

[OgreBattle]

A further Yasuhara interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-3avMBqJ9s

He adds "Human habits" as an element of fun

Movement
1) Human eyes are attracted to movement, pursue moving objects, especially if it draws lines
When you see movement you "forecast" it's next position, predicting flight, ball throw,

Uniqueness
2) Finding differences- If you have 9 blue balls and 1 red ball, you focus on the red ball.
2A) Sorting. Glancing at a square peg you will pick the cube to stuff in there. Sorting sticks by length.

Restrictions
4) Nervousness on restrictions like 'time limit', 'turn limit'
4a) Weather restricting you, a very high or low location restricting movement, being launched outside of your control, mist blocking vision, an exam/competition with consequences of failure.

He also adds "Emotion" appeal

Places where Emotion occurs:
Cerebral Neocortex- Rational evaluation, gets "interested" in things which creates fun
Cerebral Limbic System- Feelings, experiences, "joy & fear", "Fun" happens here.

When you see movement you subconsciously forecast/predict where movement goes. This prediction can be practiced and mastered, the drive is 'desire', such as getting more skilled, to get a reward for accurate forecasting (Parrying an attack, dodging a dragon breath based on tells).
' "Forecast", then "Practice" to obtain "Results" stimulates "Emotion"'

"Surprise" is when something unexpected happens and the brain loses the concentration to forecast the result. A jump scare, an opponent doing something unexpected. Chance & Vertigo elements are often surprising.

So the basic structure of a game experience is...

Desire/Goal: This is why you're doing this thing, this leads to...
Forecast: Predicting movement/actions to get your desired result. Emotion/Brain is under tension.
Practice: Practicing to improve your forecasts, to execute on the forecast in non-turn based games
Result: Success, failure, repeat or find a new desire. Emotion/Brains relax|

Hirokazu puts emphasis that having clear rules, clear objectives, eases tension as people have a clear idea on what to forecast, what to practice, for desired result. They have a desire to begin with.

"Fun occurs when tension is released"

---

Looking at the gaming den habits, we seem to enjoy the 'forecasting' portion of gameplay the most, get doggered when forecasting becomes "read the GM's mind"

[Whiysper]

Shit, sorry folks. I goofed the thread then went on holiday for a week and came back to a different job where I have actual work to do, so hadn't checked this screen for a fortnight. Thanks for un-pooching it on my behalf, fbmf .

[OgreBattle]

Because it's fun to have visual diagrams and apply ancient philosophies... here's my attempt at applying ancient Wuxing "5 elements/phases" to game design



So it's not so much building blocks in the sense of greek elements, but phases of existence.

Wood: Growth phase, learning
Fire: Maturing phase, turning learning into action
Earth: Ashes left from flames, the impact of one's actions, raw materials
Metal: Refining what's left, crafting, directing resources towards a known goal (leveling stat distribution etc)
Water: Winding down, relaxing, going with the path of least resistance

So Dark Souls would be
Wood: Learning enemy pattern
Fire: Fight the enemy
Earth: Get souls
Metal: Spend souls on leveling up
Water: Enjoy dialog with NPC that has soothing voice