Moves in Mind: The Psychology of Board Games
American McGee, Carbon6 Entertainment
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American McGee, Carbon6 Entertainment American McGee, creative director at Carbon6 Entertainment, has worked on such renowned PC titles as Doom, Doom III, Quake, Quake II, and most recently, American McGee's Alice for Electronic Arts. For this chapter on storyboarding, McGee gives us his vision for the cinematic intro to Alice. Read on, and enjoy. If you've ever played the game (and you should!), you'll get a lot more out of this having experienced the breathtaking intro sequence.
Snow flurries dot the night sky. Storm has passed. Camera glides through leaded glass French doors into the library of a comfortable Victorian manor. [Full] moon's glow, intensified by snow, lights the room. Shelves overflow with books and papers. Camera moves toward a large fireplace. A napping cat stands, arches his back, and uses the leg of a nearby desk to sharpen his claws. Retreating, he catches a claw on a damask cloth, which is decoratively draped over part of the desk. An oil lamp sits on the cloth. Trying to get free, cat pulls the cloth. The lamp is drawn to and over the edge. Smashes on floor. Oil covers the cat and flows towards the glowing embers in the fireplace. Flame explodes out of the cinders and engulfs the cat and paper-filled desk. Fire spreads through the library at an alarming pace. Smoke slithers the door and up the stairs—along the hallway and slips under Alice's door. Camera moves to sleeping Alice. A tendril of smoke wisps up her nostril. Camera follows. WONDERLAND—GNOME GARDEN—TEA PARTY Alice and a small assortment of Wonderland characters—Mad Hatter, Gryphon, March Hare, Dormouse, White Rabbit—having tea around a huge table. Mood is light and playful. Mad Hatter, pouring tea for Alice, drops the pot, which shatters with the sounds of breaking glass. Suddenly, the ground around the table splits open and fire comes through the fissures. Smoke billows around everyone. The shadow of the Jabberwock passes overhead. Screams. Fade back to Alice's moonlit, smoke-filled room.
Alice awakens from her interrupted dream. The [muffled] screams are coming from inside the house. Alice leaps out of bed, clutching her beloved white rabbit, and runs to the door. Hallway is filled with smoke and licks of fire. She bolts towards her parents' room, and trying the doorknob burns her hand severely. She pushes the door in a little—flames come billowing out. Alice, driven back by heat, distraught, screaming in agony and frustration, retreats. Camera follows as she runs wildly down hall.
Camera watches as Alice exits house through the front door and stumbles down the steps. Screaming, coughing, covered with soot, she collapses on the front yard in a large snow drift. House is completely engulfed in flames; a section of roof/wall dramatically collapses. She curls up in fetal position, eyes locked on the burning house. Camera flies into the fire burning in Alice's right eye. Alice faints. FADE
Cut to asylum...LET MUSIC MAKE THE TRANSITION INT CHILDRENS HOSPITAL/ASYLUM Rain is falling outside. Camera slowly pulls away from Alice's vacant eye. She's curled on a bed in a private room. Sterile, impersonal except for framed facing photos of her mum and dad on bedside table. Shares space with a bowl of food and a large spoon. A chair is the only other piece of furniture. No longer the pretty little girl of earlier sequences, Alice is a drawn young woman; has not seen the sun in ages. She clutches a dirty and threadbare stuffed rabbit, whose only eye stares off into space. We see numerous scars on Alice's wrists. Some fresh. One wrist is bandaged. The night, visible through a barred window, is boiling with bad weather. A nurse in foreground turns and walks slowly to the door shaking her head, speaking to herself. NURSE
Glad I saved that moth-eaten relic [the rabbit] from the dustbin. (Turns and says, in full voice) Please try to eat something, dear. Good night, Alice. (The nurse will resemble the Duchess in game.) Nurse locks the door behind her as the darkened sky outside unleashes a burst of lightning. Alice flinches and grasps the rabbit tight. Camera pulls in again on Alice. Every time there is a lightning flash, she flinches slightly; exhibits no other signs of activity. Another flash offers the opportunity to cut to a close-up of her head and torso, where the rabbit in her hand slowly turns its head to look at Alice. It whispers in a raspy voice, sounding like the worn-out toy it is. RABBIT
Another flash pulls the camera back out; Alice slowly turns her head to look downward at the rabbit. Another flash and the rabbit is gone from her hand, but something else is in the room with Alice. Camera pans as if to look out of Alice's eye and finds a large white rabbit dressed in undertakers' garb standing before her. RABBIT
Walking toward to the door, the rabbit pulls a key from its waistcoat and unlocks the door. Pushing it open, the rabbit steps through into darkness and begins to run away, again exclaiming: RABBIT
Alice slowly rises from the bed; she takes the spoon (this will become her knife) and shambles slowly to the door. Grasping the frame, she propels herself through the door and into the darkness beyond. WONDERLAND—INT RABBIT HOLE Alice is falling. Alice cries out as she falls. She is once again tossed down the rabbit hole and through the entrance to Wonderland. But this feels different. She falls for quite some time, with the images of her parents, her childhood lifestyle, and her years at the asylum blending together. Images twist and warp and several of the twisted Wonderland creatures are briefly introduced here. The shadow of the Jabberwock flies across Alice. The Mad Hatter rides a Victorian bicycle across her path, only his coattails and top hat visible. Furniture twists and changes, the walls are pure darkness. (End Intro) This feature is taken from chapter five of Marc Saltzman's Game Design: Secrets of the Sages, Third Edition. The book is available inside Macmillan Software's Game Programming Starter Kit 5.0. 
Copyright © 2003 CMP Media Inc. All rights reserved.
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Game Design Methods: A 2003 Survey By Bernd Kreimeier Gamasutra March 3, 2003 URL: http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20030303/kreimeier.shtml At the Game Developers Conference this week in San Jose, two roundtable discussions [20] will be dedicated to the topic of "game design methods" - that is, methods for planning and defining gameplay. To set the stage, this article presents a cursory overview of past and present efforts to define structured, formal game design methods. Some of the proposals referenced here were originally started several years ago, others were conceived as recently as a few months ago. This survey does not claim to be complete, and introductions to efforts not presented here will be welcomed to the GDC roundtables. The Aim Of Game Design Methods Compared with the vast body of operational knowledge found in the world of filmmaking, the game design community is just beginning to articulate the concepts and techniques specific to our medium in order to establish methods of game design. What should we expect of a game design method? To borrow from Doug Church [4], game design methods should:
This article focuses on design - how to plan and define gameplay, and how to make it work. As such, process and production methods are beyond the scope of this discussion. According to Cerny [3], design is properly part of the pre-production stage. In comparison, most of the conceptual work of movie making is performed before the actual shooting begins, relying on tools such as script and storyboard that have also been applied to game production. To progress beyond adoption, game designers have to ask:
Campbell's "Hero's Journey" [7] is the most prominent example of an abstract framework which, established in the movie industry, has been discussed extensively with respect to its applicability to games. Freeman [15] proposes using his approach to scene and dialogue construction for game scriptwriting, while others refer to Polti [16].
Derivatives of Alexandrian "patterns" have been proposed by several authors (see [17,19] for recent efforts). The latest addition to this line-up is the "Lexicon Project", an effort hosted at the University of Texas in Austin [26]. These examples of game design methodologies will be summarized briefly, opening the door for further discussion at the GDC Roundtable [20]. Game Design Documents The design document (or "Design Bible Method") is a common attempt to organize the development process. On the surface, it is a standard method (there is consensus that some amount of documentation is always needed), yet the details a design document should contain are often debated. To be considered a method, the proposal has to specify what type of information to include, how to organize that information, and how to maintain it. Additionally, questions of revision control and editing privileges must be addressed. The design document approach has been rejected by some (e.g. [3]). Taken to its extreme, it is often found unworkable. Detailed recommendations (such as [8]) on game design document structure might ultimately be self-defeating: by adding more details to the prescription, the maintenance overhead is only increased. In practice, it appears that primarily the smaller design documents used in the early stages of the development process, i.e. treatments and outlines, are the most helpful application of the design document approach. On some level, most discussions about game design methods can be considered part of a discourse on how to write a design document. Methods are tools used to extract, identify, refine, and organize knowledge. They should encourage introspection and observation, and turn reactive choice into conscious, proactive planning decisions. Game design is typically a process of iterative refinement [11], and documenting intermediate results is an inherent part of any such refinement process. Methods help us improve the process, and propose ways to organize the results. In that sense, many methods are specific recommendations on how to write parts of a design document. If we had a unified, ultimate design document template, it would likely resemble some kind of spreadsheet or document template full of empty fields, each field named and clearly labeled as to what type of information was to be inserted, with pull-down menus enumerating design choices and checkboxes to list options. A typical sample of this treatment or outline template offers exactly that. The archetypical design document can thus be seen as a form into which the designer fills in the details of a given design-in-progress. The document's hierarchical structure embodies a decision tree, which, once all branches are traversed, places the designer in a leaf representing his game. In other words, design document templates are a structured way of asking the designer questions, thereby forcing decisions. It is certainly possible to implement structured queries as software tools, even with off-the-shelf text editing software (DTDs and XML schemas, i.e. structured editing through XML). It is even possible to conceive documents that incorporate spreadsheet-like elements to ensure consistency and help you visualize the consequences of design (e.g., score/balancing) decisions. The problem with the structured query approach is that it attempts a single top-down solution at a time when game design as a craft is lacking both overarching concepts and complete foundation. Furthermore, the structured query approach is sequential, which does not suit well a game development process based on prototyping, iteration and progressive refinement. Capturing document iterations by revision control raises issues of depth of the revision history. For production purposes, only the most recent change is relevant. There are also issues of granularity: for most team members, the decision itself and its immediate implications are more relevant than annotation capturing objectives and concerns, or rejected alternatives. This explains why structured query by design document templates seems to work better for treatments than outlines, and better for outlines than full reference documents. Issues of granularity might be resolved to some degree using marked sections and other means to create partial renderings of a unified document. However, given the complexity of the document maintenance task, it is possible that design documents approach cannot be taken much further. It is possible that design document structures for production use simply do not exist outside specific domains, such as certain well-understood game genres. However, the concept of structured query is important, even if one rejects the attempt to create any kind of unified structure. To preserve the concept of structured query in the absence of such a unified top-level structure, methods are needed to conduct design analysis piecemeal, discussing specific design concepts in isolation. Ideally, such methods will enable the designer to make connections between such isolated concepts for purposes of design by composition, as well as to progress from building blocks to higher levels of abstraction.
The narrative, anecdotal representation of knowledge is the predecessor of Alexandrian patterns. Thus Alexandrian patterns appear intuitive and accessible without prerequisites in training or adherence to strict form. Typically, a particular insight is described as a specific incident or concrete example. The rules of the 400 project also attempt capture concrete experience as instruction. The most common problem with anecdotes is that they do not lend themselves to placing individual insight into a context of established knowledge. Anecdotes often don't use existing terminology, or worse, they redefine established terms. For example, Crawford describes non-transitive relationships between game units as both "triangularity" and "asymmetric relationship". The term "asymmetric game" (see also [22,30]) is often used referring to other concepts. Essentially, Crawford and also Adams discuss which payoff matrices for unit-unit encounters deny the player a "dominant strategy". A matching "400 Rule" formulation would be "Prevent dominant strategies". Rollings [22] presents the game theory analysis of "dominant strategy" in some depth. This analysis dates back to 1944 [27], yet discussions of game design rarely make references to game theory explicit, or employ established terminology and notation. This appears to be a natural consequence of the anecdoctical form. Clearly, while anecdotes are a natural choice to begin the game design discourse, the time has come to advance beyond this form.
In 1999, Doug Church proposed [4] a more specific approach that he called "Formal Abstract Design Tools" (FADT). As he described, "formal, implying precise definition and the ability to explain it to someone else; abstract, to emphasize the focus on underlying ideas, not specific genre constructs; design as in [game design]; and tools since they will form the common vocabulary [needed as an instrument for design]". Church presented a comparative analysis of aspects of several games, and presented three FADT examples:
Here, INTENTION is just a definition of a factor to be taken into account: the player's ability to plot and plan independently. PERCEIVED CONSEQUENCE comes closest to a concept or rule (e.g. "Ensure the Player Perceives Consequences of Her Actions"). Introducing STORY, a term burdened with implications and connotations, by mere re-definition ignores the complexity of narrative concepts. Church even articulates explicit reservations on narrative structures in games in his article; hence the reference to "player-driven narrative thread[s]" not further specified. STORY, presented as a tool, would amount to a recommendation like "Define a narrative thread to guide the player". By not clearly separating the idea of a vocabulary from that of methods, Church seems to restrain himself to definition instead of recipe. "Tool" describes devices of intervention as as instruments of observation. Indeed, Church's FADTs are more than just mutually agreed upon definitions of game design terms. PERCEIVED CONSEQUENCE is not only specific to interactive media, it also lends itself directly to explicit implementation requirements. Further examples can be harvested from the "Game Design Lexicon" forum ([28], no longer accessible) that Gamasutra hosted following the electronic reprint of the original Game Developer magazine article. In 1999, at least 25 terms were submitted by almost as many contributors: CHALLENGE-REWARD PAIR
Some of these terms are synonyms, a few cross-referenced other terms, and several were related to software implementation (illustrating the problem of separating design concept from implementation issues). The fact that these submissions existed on varying levels of abstraction and within different contexts is a natural consequence of performing a query within a "lexicon" template structure. The choice of "lexicon" instead of "tool" was a natural consequence of the way Church originally introduced FADT. Others entries, like GLOBALLY CONSISTENT RESPONSE (and its synonym submitted as HOMOGENEITY), are clearly conceived to match PERCEIVED CONSEQUENCE, and share its quality. CONSISTENT RESPONSE is at the core of Harvey Smith's description of systemic level design [24], yet Smith never explicitly defines systemic design as a FADT. Randy Smith (like Doug Church and Harvey Smith, a designer at Ion Storm) in his GDC 2002 presentation [25] of "Analog Interaction Structures" (and its presumed opposite, "Discrete Interaction Structures") explicitly calls the concept of analog interaction structures an "analytical tool…for deconstructing [stealth gameplay] in Thief", but does not introduce the concept as a FADT, once referring to it as "data analysis tool" instead. If one considers Church's FADT proposal an attempt to introduce a specific form and overarching principle to game design methods, it seems that the instrumental notion of "tools" has outlived both FADT and its complement, the "game design lexicon". Definitions are instruments only in the most abstract sense; why not aim for recipes, procedures, or instructions?
The project has progressed steadily since March 2002, averaging about one rule per month. The rules published so far (months refer to print issues, also see the 400 web pages [14]): 1. "Fight player fatigue" (Barwood, GDC 2001)
For clarity, "Rules" or "400 Rule" refers to rules published as part of the "400 Project", while lower-case "rules" will refer to the general concept of representing design insights in the formulation of a rule. The Rules published so far focus on content design and avoid production issues (such as "develop the hardest part first" or "throw away the first level you do"). Barwood and Falstein define a clear structure for Rules [10,14]: 1. A concise, imperative statement of the rule
Barwood and Falstein state [2]: "Rules are tools... Rules are instructions: reasonably concrete, can be consciously followed, can be broken and ignored...". Particular emphasis is given to precedence among rules and how rules trump one another. Trumping defines a bi-directional web of precedence between individual rules, a solution that does not scale well. From a maintenance and editing point of view, the alternative would be to codify trumping as explicit meta-rules in "Rule A trumps Rule B" statements. Falstein further discusses [11] Rules as a method, describing game design as a process of iterative refinement that requires knowledge of human nature. Consequently, Rules are inspired from linguistics, "avoiding potentially rigid software engineering techniques as the template for game design". The assertion that "Rules can be bent, others can be broken..." would defeat the assertive, authoritative choice of imperative rules in the absence of explicit trumping hierarchy. Falstein writes: "Rules are tools that provide instructions to the designer, not just observations on the nature of what has been done previously. To be most useful, they must be reasonably concrete and aimed at practical use, not pure academic discourse." A similar point from a later installment [13] formulated a rule about rules: "Use common sense when applying rules". While new rules have been introduced steadily, the revision and refinement of existing rules has not been systematic. Perhaps the 400 Rule to receive the most thorough peer review so far is "Let Players Turn the Game Off". Most of the peer discussion has focused on trumping. "Name That Trump" [12]) observes that trumping rules are sometimes implied by the recognition that counter-examples to a rule exist. The issue of whether or not Rules are limited by a scope defined through design objectives is still open. Rules apply within specific contexts, but the 400 Rule does not make that context explicit. The concept of scope is not to be confused with the Rule definition of "domain". Patterns Alexandrian patterns originated in architecture and have since been successfully applied in more rigid domains such as software engineering (see [19] for an overview). At its core, a pattern is a template structure in which experiential knowledge is entered. Like the 400 Rule format, pattern templates preserve the idea of structured query, yet by themselves lack the unified global structure implied by the design document method. Alexandrian patterns incorporate a mechanism resembling trumping, as they attempt to capture side effects of, and interactions between, patterns in annotation sections. The notion of hierarchy is inherent to pattern formats, as new patterns can be defined by combining two or more existing ones. Pattern languages appear to offer a roadmap to arrange individual patterns within a higher level structure, however, pattern languages beyond a mere collection of patterns are a complex topic best considered separately. Examples of pattern published so far (see [19]) include the following: FILTER
Patterns were the focus of a workshop at the 2002 CGDC conference in Tampere [17]. Pattern approaches will also be presented at GDC 2003 [18]. The Lexicon Approach Rules, patterns and FADT require definitions - a vocabulary. Without definitions specific to game design, statements about game design are restricted to terms not specific to game design. In other words, in the absence of a game design vocabulary, rules and patterns will describe games using terminology borrowed from other media. "SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF" [2] is a good example of this. Patterns, rules and FADT alike exhibit in varying degrees the capacity to bundle a name, definition, and implementation description. Consequently these forms could be specific even in the absence of a shared vocabulary. The risk, however, is a growing set of increasingly disconnected rules, patterns or FADT that establish different and even contradictory definitions within each individual scope. Thus patterns, rules etc. cannot replace definitions, even if they could theoretically serve as a means of definition. The problem is that patterns, rules and FADT themselves are not by default definitions, and that the attempt to use them as such biases the designer to create, say, a pattern where just a simple definition is needed [17]. Methods are no replacement for a shared vocabulary. Every pattern or rule can define a part of a vocabulary, but not every vocabulary term is a pattern, or warrants its own rule. The earliest demands (e.g. [4,5]) for improvements in game design called for a shared vocabulary - a dictionary of game design terms. The game design community is taking the first steps taken to names concepts and mechanisms. Collecting these terms and organizing them into a coherent whole is the objective of the recently begun "Game Design Lexicon" project [26]. The collaboration between multiple institutions is hosted by IC² and headed by Patrick Burkat, currently affiliated with the University of Texas in Austin. The lexicon project will deliver an HTML thesaurus and an XML compatible lexicon of a polyhierarchical vocabulary, distinguishing three user groups: video game production, game designers and developers, and players. The project relies on local focus groups and surveys, and ethnographic methods, taking another step towards a more commonly shared language of design. Efforts like the "Game Lexicon Project" close the circle: while a lexicon on its own will never suffice as a tool, it is the indispensable complement to any conceptual tool or method. Open Questions How do these three examples of game design methods -- FADTs, 400 Rules, and Patterns -- relate to each other? To what extent are they similar? The use of examples -- instances found in published games -- is the common denominator. However, our goal is to abstract from individual examples. We need a representation of knowledge that, to paraphrase, is "as abstract as necessary, but not more abstract". Taking abstraction too far simply deprives it of meaning. Examples are the empirical foundation, and relevant data is not just found in published games, but can also be drawn from usability testing, behavioral psychology, and the research literature on human-computer interaction. Game design is an iterative process. Consequently, any structured query as exemplified by game design documents constitutes only the very first step. Each specific game design decision, each project-specific design statement is implicitly a challenge: Is this the best choice? What are the alternatives? Why is this solution preferred? The same principle of iterative refinement applies on the level on which we discuss design itself. By describing a mechanism (e.g., FILTER), by stating a requirement (PREDICTABLE CONSEQUENCE, SHORT-TERM GOALS), by defining a term (STORY), questions about limitations, consequences and alternatives are raised. Even the methods themselves should be questioned and refined. Is the pattern format adequate for instruction? Can rules be observational? How do we address purpose within a problem-oriented representation? Can trumping capture scope or purpose? Can rules be conditional? Can design insights be derived from first principles, and can these also be represented as patterns, rules, FADT? What is the proper level of abstraction, and how do we maintain it? Do we need a method to identify building blocks? Do we need the top-down approach of unified design documents? How well does trumping scale with larger numbers of rules? Do patterns really accommodate detailed descriptions? These questions, and countless others, will have to be addressed as our methods progress and our ability to employ them improves. The "Game Design Methods" roundtable at the Game Developers Conference this week [20] will offer us another chance to advance towards better answers. References [1] Hal Barwood. "Four of the Four Hundred". (GDC lecture, 2001.) [2] Hal Barwood and Noah Falstein. "More of the 400: Discovering Design Rules" (GDC 2002 lecture) http://www.gdconf.com/archives/2002/hal_barwood.ppt [3] Mark Cerny. "Method" GDCE 2002 Web Lecture http://www.gamasutra.com/features/slides/cerny/index.htm, also http://www.gamasutra.com/gdce/2002/mark_cerny.zip [4] Doug Church. "Formal Abstract Design Tools." (Gamasutra, 1999. Originally Game Developer magazine, Vol 3, Issue 28, July 1999.) http://www.gamasutra.com/features/19990716/design_tools_01.htm [5] Greg Costikyan. "I Have No Words & I Must Design". Originally published Interactive Fantasy #2, 1994. See http://www.costik.com/nowords.html [6] Chris Crawford. The Art of Computer Game Design, Chapter 6: "Design Techniques and Ideals." 1984. http://www.erasmatazz.com/free/AoCGD.pdf [7] Troy Dunniway. "Using the Hero's Journey in Games." Gamasutra, 1999. See http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20001127/dunniway_pfv.htm [8] Troy Dunniway. Professional Game Design. Originally scheduled to be published June 2002. [9] Noah Falstein. "Interactive 'Show, Don't Tell': Fundamental Principles of Interactive Entertainment", 1996. See http://www.theinspiracy.com/ArShowDT.htm [10] Noah Falstein. "Better By Design: The 400 Project". (Game Developer magazine, Vol. 9, Issue 3, March 2002, p. 26.) [11] Noah Falstein. June 2002, "Better By Design: Game Design at GDC 2002" (Game Developer magazine, Vol. 9, Issue 6, June 2002, p. 30.) [12] Noah Falstein. July 2002, "Better By Design: Turn-Offs", (Game Developer magazine, Vol. 9, Issue 7, July 2002, p. 24.) [13] Noah Falstein, September 2002, "Better By Design: The Story So Far" (Game Developer magazine, Vol. 9, Issue 9, June 2002, p. 28.) [14] Falstein, "The 400 Project" website. See http://www.theinspiracy.com/400_project.htm. [15] David Freeman, "22 Secrets of Dialogue and Scene Flow". Proceedings CD ROM, GDC 2002. [16] Georges Polti. "The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations" (translation). The Writer, Inc., Boston, 1916, 1917, 1921, 1931, 1940. See http://harris-donahue.tripod.com/harrisdonahue/id15.html [17] Jussi Holopainen and Staffan Bjork "Computer Game Design Patterns", workshop at Computer Games and Digital Cultures Conference, June 6-8, Tampere, Finland. http://www.gamesconference.org/pf_workshop.html [18] Jussi Holopainen and Staffan Bjork", "Game Design Patterns", upcoming GDC 2003 lecture with Bernd Kreimeier, See https://www.cmpevents.com/GDx/a.asp?option=3&V=11&SessID=796 [19] Bernd Kreimeier, "The Case for Game Design Patterns" See http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20020313/kreimeier_pfv.htm [20] Bernd Kreimeier (moderator): IGDA Roundtable on "Game Design methods", GDC 2003. Thursday https://www.cmpevents.com/GDx/a.asp?option=3&V=11&SessID=489 and Saturday https://www.cmpevents.com/GDx/a.asp?option=3&V=11&SessID=910 [21] Francoise Dominic Larame's (ed), Game Design Perspectives, ISBN 1-58450-090-5, Charles River Media 2002. [22] Andrew Rollings and Dave Morris. Game Architecture and Design. (The Coriolis Group, 2000.) ISBN 1-57610-425-7 [23] Marc Saltzman (ed), Game Design - Secrets of the Sages, 2nd edition., ISBN 1-56686-987-0, Brady Publishing, Macmillan 2002. [24] Harvey Smith, "Systemic Level Design", GDC 2002. http://www.gdconf.com/archives/2002/harvey_smith.ppt [25] Randy Smith, "Design Fundamentals of Stealth Gameplay in the Thief Series", GDC 2002. http://www.gdconf.com/archives/2002/randy_smith.ppt [26] Warren Spector, Patrik Burkat, Aaron Thibault, private communications, 2003.
[27] J. Von Neumann and O. Morgenstern, Theory of Games and Economic Behavior, Princeton Univ. Press, 1944. [28] "Game Design Lexicon", Forum at Gamasutra.com, 1999-2002, defunct. [29] Richard Rouse. Game Design: Theory & Practice. (Wordware, Inc., 2000) ISBN 1-55622-735-3 [30] Ernest Adams, "A Symmetry Lesson". Gamasutra, October 1998.
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Soapbox: ARGs and How to Appeal to Female Gamers By Andrea Phillips Gamasutra November 29, 2005 URL: http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20051129/phillips_01.shtml How to attract women to gaming is one of the trendy issues du jour. The business keeps examining and re-examining the same roadmap of suggestions and success stories: Women play The Sims. Women play puzzle games. Women play games designed by female developers. Women like cooperative gameplay. By now, there is a broad consensus on how to get where we want to go, but a certain hesitancy about following through. Nobody wants to be the risk-taker here. Not only is there a large amount of money at stake, but I'm sure some companies are privately afraid of losing valued developers and their traditional core audience if they "go soft and make girl games."
Well, I've got good news for you. It's already been done, and it really works. At the end of this road, you don't find an exclusively female audience and a disenfranchised male ex-playerbase. Instead, you find a gaming audience that looks a lot like the world we live in every day. Welcome to the gender-balanced world of Alternate Reality Gaming. ARGs, for those few of you still unfamiliar, are what happen when you take interactivity to the next level. Think I Love Bees, Art of the Heist, Jamie Kane, and of course Perplex City. In these games, a cohesive narrative is revealed through series of websites, emails, phone calls, IM, live and in-person events. Players often earn new information to further the plot by cracking puzzles. Most important, the players of these games typically organize themselves into communities to share information and speculate on what it all means and where it's all going. These are platform-free MMORPGs, where there is no out-of-character, no avatar, and no definite distinction between the in-game world and the real world. The birth of the genre is widely considered to be in 2001, when a team at Microsoft ran such a game for the Spielberg film A.I. That first community, the Cloudmakers, were an introspective bunch, and even then were aware that that merry band was a lot more gender-balanced than anyone would have predicted. Sadly, no solid figures are available. This wasn't just a one-time phenomenon, though. This summer, a group of ARG players and developers gathered for a convention in New York. There's one notable group photo from the event; in this self-selected hardcore crowd of gamers and developers, nearly half are female. So what's in an ARG that attracts women gamers? Let's take a quick overview of those oh-so-famous pieces of conventional wisdom on what women are looking for in a game, and see how ARGs have managed each of these elements without alienating a male audience -- and how a conventional game might follow suit. Strong Story Quality of writing in games is a hot-button issue all on its own these days. If you're trying to attract a gender-balanced audience, this becomes doubly important -- Final Fantasy and Legend of Zelda games are oft trotted out as examples of story appealing to women. I'm not going to try to come up with some evolutionary psychology reason why, but the pundits seem to agree that women are more sensitive to the presence or absence of story in a game than are men. In the most successful ARGs, the game and the story are inextricable from one another. In an ARG, there simply isn't a way to devise a game without simultaneously devising the story, and the quality of the game lives and dies based on the quality of the writing. In every ARG team I'm aware of, the lead writer is a crucial part of the dev team. Poor characterization, bad pacing, or lack of plausibility are showstoppers just as much as a blue-screen would be. The action item here for conventional gaming: Make the writing an integral part of the development process, and not an afterthought. Strong Female Characters When you're going after the holy grail -- the maximum-appeal playerbase -- you need to take some care with how you choose to portray female characters in your game. If you want women (and even some men) to take your game seriously, evaluate the male/female character ratio in your game, and then consider carefully what you have those women doing. Here's a hint: If your women are in the game exclusively to be hot, you need to rethink your strategy. Many successful ARGs have featured strong female characters, beginning with Laia in the original A.I. game, who was witty, sarcastic, and proactive without overt sexuality. In Perplex City, there are female characters in roughly equal numbers to men in all corners of the world. In fact, the joke is that to have a good ARG, the protagonist *has* to be a strong woman. This isn't a blanket truth, of course, but it doesn't seem to hurt any. These characters aren't just somebody's girlfriend, nor are they primarily in need of rescuing. Think Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2. Think Princess Leia in the original Star Wars movie. Developers: Consider making half of your characters female. (Yes, even the bad guys.) Apply this to NPCs and PCs alike. Female Developers I've heard laments that recruiting women into games development is difficult. Qualified women simply don't exist, or so we hear. This is against a backdrop in which, according to a recent IGDA report, the share of women working in the industry dropped to 11.5% this year vs. 17% last year. And so we have a Catch-22. You need female developers to make games that appeal to women; you need games that appeal to women to attract women into the business. ARGdom apparently missed the memo. The original team for the A.I. game was almost entirely male, but since then, the rolls of ARG development have grown to be studded with high-profile women: Brooke Thompson, Krystyn Wells, Jane McGonigal. At Mind Candy, our staff is roughly 30% women -- and though the actual ARG production team varies in size, it's been as much as twice that for some arcs. The lesson here is: It's true that if you make a game that women want to play, then women will want to develop, too. But the reverse isn't true; it's possible for a bunch of men to make a game with cross-gender appeal. There goes your easy out for not trying, gentlemen. Vibrant Communities Women, we have learned, are somewhat more social creatures than are men. In fact, women are more significantly more likely to participate in online gaming than men -- 53% vs. 43% -- a fact that could be attributed to the social element of online gaming. In MMORPGs such as World of Warcraft, guild leaders are slightly more likely to be female than male. In ARGs, the entire playerbase is usually structured into something like a single guild, typically with a team of moderators in place. (In the original A.I. game, two of the seven Cloudmakers moderators were female.) Teamwork and cooperation are the very essence of playing an ARG. A player in, say, London and one in Houston who have never spoken to each other before can and will exchange phone numbers to help propagate information during a live event. This kind of collaboration leads to a strong sense of belonging to something greater than one's self. Not every game can have the kinds of social structures that an ARG does, but it looks like gaming as a whole is on the right track, here. Having a well-moderated forum is important. Allowing networked play, particularly between friends, is even better. There may be other ways to allow and encourage social structures unique to your game. Don't be afraid to look for them. Accessible Game Mechanics Women are notoriously time-poor. I've personally tried and abandoned any number of games because I can't be bothered to master the interface, and I'm by no means alone. There are some interesting developments along these lines, now, with Bemani games, EyeToy, and the coming Nintendo Revolution controllers. Along this same vein, many men and women alike don't have eight hours at a stretch to commit to their gaming experience. Nobody wants to spend forty hours trying to get to a single savepoint. That's not fun no matter what your gender is. The primary mechanic in ARGs have typically been entirely mental or social. A typical ARG presents you with a wide array of puzzles, from cracking a character's email password to decrypting Enigma. Along with puzzles is character interaction; convincing a character to take a particular course of action via IM, email, or even on the phone. Men and women alike are adept at and enjoy both of these modes of interaction. So take a gamble on interface. Consider tailoring your game to deliver rewards immediately and reliably, and not after hours of gameplay. Consider making a sliding scale of difficulty (if you don't have one now) and don't call the easiest mode "girly-man." Make it easy on the moms and dads with full-time jobs who only have twenty minutes at a pop, but still want an enjoyable gaming experience. Conclusion ARGs conform to this list of criteria for attracting female gamers by sheer serendipity. In 2001, this neat list of actions hadn't yet been firmly ensconced in the mind of the public as "How to Appeal to Women Gamers." Now that we've drawn out the roadmap, we find that ARGs are already waiting at the destination. It's crucial to remember that all of these suggestions are generalities about large groups of people, and not indicative of the preferences of individuals. Just because men are, in general, taller than women doesn't mean that Sally can't be taller than Bob. Likewise, Bob might be happiest playing The Sims and Sally might be happiest playing Far Cry. It's also important to note that the dearth of women gamers is somewhat overblown in the first place. When we as an industry decry the absence of women in gaming, we're forgetting that 43% of PC gamers are women already. (Only 19% of action gamers are women, though, and I'm pretty sure that's where this women-don't-play idea comes from.) We don't have as much catching up to do as you might think. We in the gaming industry like to compare ourselves to Hollywood these days. This is one area where we have an important lesson to learn. Hollywood does make movies geared separately toward men and women; let's call it romantic comedies vs. baseball championship films. Sure, some of these movies will defy expectations and attract broader audiences. But at the end of the day, neither of these kinds of films are the ones that we expect to win Oscars. The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Schindler's List, The Shawshank Redemption -- all of these films succeeded on mixed-gender audiences. Inclusiveness is key. Now, as an industry, we need to put our heads together and figure out how to make our Oscar-winning games. We've got our route to inclusiveness, and we know it works -- now we just have to take a deep breath and go.
By: Regina PhilipPosted: 7/2/07The University's psychology department is offering a survey to anyone who has played the popular World of Warcraft or Second Life online games. The survey analyzes the personalities of those who play massively multiplayer online role-playing games, which allow users to interact in a fantasy world with other gamers across the globe. According to Wow Insider, a World of Warcraft news site, researchers at the University are conducting the study to "determine the 'personalities and motivations' of people participating in World of Warcraft and other online games." The 30-minute survey asks whether one is depressed, lonely, greedy or physically attractive. The survey also asks how many hours a person spends playing the games and the primary reason for doing so. Supratik Lahiri, a UT Asian studies graduate, said he plays World of Warcraft two-to-five hours a day during the summer. He said he enjoys the social aspect of the game. "It's the opportunity for people from different parts of the world to come together and accomplish one goal," Lahiri said. "Even though it's virtual reality, it's a great setting that I enjoy." Lahiri said he would take the survey to figure out his personality type. World of Warcraft has resulted in a gaming community from around the world. Gamers are able to choose a character, set off on quests and battle monsters. A gamer can schedule a specific time to work together with other gamers to destroy a monster, and individuals can journey in clans to progress in the game. The psychology department's survey also asks about a person's gamer and real-life friends. It inquires about the respondents' social life, whether they tend to be around lots of people and if they consider themselves likeable. Angela George, a UT psychology graduate, said she only plays the game when she is bored, but there are a lot of people who have become addicted. "There are a lot of different age groups who play," George said. "Even my boss plays the game." Rachel Halaney, an anthropology senior, said she used to play about 20 hours a week and has made lasting friendships as a result. "I think the main goal of the game is the socialization," Halaney said. "That goal definitely applies to other people who play World of Warcraft." The survey is currently online at http://www.oldsmarfire.com/survey/main.asp. 
© Copyright 2007 The Daily Texan Book Excerpt (p. x) Mind At Play : the Psychology of Video Games loftus and loftus
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