The Game Maker’s Apprentice

The Game Maker’s Apprentice In effect, this is precisely what we’ve tried to put into practice in our book, “The Game Maker’s Apprentice”. Mark Overmars and I have worked together to create a step-by-step guide for building a series of motivating 2D games using Mark’s Game Maker tool. Each set of projects is followed by a game design chapter that encourages the reader to take a step back in order to reflect and improve upon the design of an earlier game. We try to demonstrate game design principles in a practical and relevant way by providing variations of the games for the readers to play and experience for themselves. Combined with the simplicity of the Game Maker tool this structure is ideal for supporting the reader through the process of synthesis and evaluation that helps to deepen their understanding of games. It contains lots of lovely colour illustrations too! This understanding is essentially the basic psychology of games. It is an appreciation of the interplay between concepts like challenge, control, goals and rewards in creating playable game mechanics. It is understanding how a game needs to change in order to keep the player’s interest through the course of its levels. It is recognising the need for a theatrical threat of failure, whilst actually doing everything you can to help the player complete their goals. These are all concepts you can read about in any number of books, but you will only gain a true understanding by practically applying them for yourself. Game design is simply not an abstract subject that can be learned in isolation. Phil Wilson, producer at Realtime Worlds (and one of the best designers I’ve worked with), sums it up well in the foreword to our book: “[…] there's a world of difference between having a great idea for a game and being a great game designer. The initial idea is simply the seed from which the game grows, or the stone from which the pillars are hewn. The role of a designer is to fully realize the vision: conceiving and continually refining the various supporting mechanisms to make them mesh like the components of a Swiss timepiece.” Phil Wilson, Realtime Worlds The cynics amongst you may be thinking that I’m only promoting game development to sell copies of our book, but it’s actually the other way around (I made far more money as a senior programmer in the games industry than I do doing research in schools!). I’m passionate about getting as many people as possible to have a go at game development, mainly because it’s good fun, but also because there are potentially huge benefits for the games industry too. Some of these are more controversial than others, but I’ll take each sector in turn and explain what benefits I think an improved level of gaming literacy could provide. Benefits join | contact us | advertise | write | my profile news | features | companies | jobs | resumes | education | product guide | projects | store Copyright © 2005 CMP Media LLC privacy policy | terms of service

||||     By Jacob Habgood [Author's Bio] Gamasutra August 7, 2006 Compulsory Game Development for Everyone Introduction Game Literacy Benefits   Change Login/Pwd Post A Job Post A Project Post Resume Post An Event Post A Contractor Post A Product Write An Article Get In Art Gallery Submit News   Logged in as: Ralph Noble No resume hosted. [Upload Resume]   Latest Letters to the Editor: RE: Persuasive Games: How I Stopped Worrying About Gamers And Started Loving People Who Play Games by Steven An [08.03.2007] Latin American Game Development by Patrick Dugan [07.26.2007] June NPD numbers - PSP software by Carl Chavez [07.24.2007] [Submit Letter] [View All...]    Features Compulsory Game Development for Everyone Children I believe the games industry has a lot to lose from failing to train the game developers of the future. Many of us from the present generation learned our craft from a very early age, on the home computer systems of the 80’s. We were able to do this because these computers came with their own novice programming languages and editable example games to help get us started. Unfortunately this is no longer the case, so future generations of developers are actually in danger of having a worse grounding than our own. Hopefully tools like Game Maker can fill this gap and make sure that there is still a vibrant hobbyist community to nurture young talent. Nonetheless, if we want to harness the best potential talent from future generations, then children need to be given a chance to try game development for themselves in clubs and schools. I’m married to a teacher, so I’m well aware that the last thing they need is another compulsory topic to add to their workload (the games industry may have a reputation for long hours, but I can assure you that many teachers put in just as many!). However, game development is such a multi-disciplinary field that it is can often provide a great way of meeting existing curriculum requirements in a fun and engaging way. For example, here in the UK there is a “Command and Control” ICT curriculum for 7-11 year olds, which is often taught through activities involving computer-controlled traffic lights. My wife has recently developed her own ‘scheme of work’ for teaching the same objectives by making computer games with Stagecast Creator (see the resources page of Gamelearning.net). Other projects are trying to bring game development into the classroom as a way of inspiring storytelling and traditional literacy skills. There are also numerous clubs and holiday camps around the world that are already successfully teaching game development to children outside of the school curriculum. “Nile The Quartz Crystal”: If you want an original idea – ask a seven year old. Consumers Consumers may be the source of our industry’s success, but they are also the source of a decent amount of frustration and bewilderment too. The fact is that consumers are an unpredictable bunch; meaning that good games don’t always make money and bad games can sell by the lorry load. Most children don’t end up working in game development, but they do end up being part of a future generation of game consumers. Giving them a basic understanding of game development would allow them to make more informed choices and ultimately create a more discerning audience. This can only be good for innovation and creativity in the development industry, and may even help publishers by creating a more predictable audience that is seeking a quality gameplay experience. Of course there’s no point trying to change consumers, if the people responsible for commissioning and selling the games can’t respond to the change… Publishers, Marketing Departments and Journalists It may be more controversial, but I think there is also a strong argument for members of the wider games industry being more literate in game development. It’s important to stress that I’m not trying to say that these groups don’t understand games, but just that they could gain a deeper understanding of games from going through the process of making their own. To be fair, many people in these areas already have development experience, but in an ever-expanding industry a marketing executive is as likely to have made their career selling cheese as computer games. If your marketing department don’t understand what gameplay is then how can they be expected to sell it? All these groups deal with games professionally, so surely an understanding of them is as important to their jobs as knowing how to use MS Project, Excel or Word. So why not have your next staff training day on game development? If teenagers can do it then so can you… Women According to the ESA, some 38% of game players are female, but we all know that the proportion of women working in game development is far less than that. In our experience, girls up to about the age of eleven are just as interested in making games as boys, and we get a very even split at the clubs. Unfortunately, by the time they reach their teens the proportion of girls prepared to attend game-making workshops drops off completely. It appears that by this age it is labelled as a boys activity and only the most independently minded girls are willing to go against the flow. Bringing game development into schools would give more girls a chance to try it out, without feeling they were doing something wrong. They would then quickly find that they are just as good as the boys – if not better – because girls usually listen to instructions! In fact, there are already initiatives like CC4G (Computer Clubs for Girls) in the UK that are attempting to introduce game development to girls. Nonetheless its clear that more needs to be done if the games industry wants to make the most of the balance of potential talent that is out there for the future. Society The controversy over violent videogames is likely to remain a thorn in the industry’s side for the foreseeable future, but everyone involved in the argument would benefit from a deeper understanding of games. Parents could certainly have a better understanding and awareness of game ratings, and legislators would benefit from a better understanding of what they are arguing about. Making computer games with your child is a great way to interact with them, and the perfect context to discuss issues such as violence and age ratings in a natural way. Making a game with appropriate content for their classmates makes a good pretext for exploring this issue, and you may both learn something from the experience. PEGI in Europe and the ESRB in the US offer information on game ratings. Producers and Game Designers While there are some producers and designers who began their careers as programmers, many will never actually have made a game by themselves before. Nonetheless their jobs put them at the heart of the synthesis and evaluation feedback loop, so it would be unfair to suggest that they couldn’t gain similar insights as their programming colleagues. However, a good game programmer is constantly tweaking and refining a game and even the most rigorous game design has some gaps that need to be filled. Consequently I believe that many producers and game designers would still benefit from developing a complete mini-game of their own. In particular I believe it would help to reinforce their understanding of the mechanics of creating good gameplay, and maybe even provide a new platform for prototyping their game ideas without having to rely on a programmer. Ultimately this can only be good for game development and could even result in better games. Academics Games have finally become an area of serious academic study, with computer scientists, sociologists, educationalists, and psychologists all getting in on the act. However, there will always be a certain animosity between theorists and practitioners in any field, for obvious reasons. Many academics do create their own games as part of their research, but there are plenty that do not – and getting research students to do it for you doesn’t count! The only way to earn your development wings is to go through the holistic experience of designing and making your own game from scratch. It doesn’t matter if the final product looks like something from the 80’s; if you can make a game that someone else enjoys playing then you’ve made the grade. With tools like Game Maker around there are no excuses for anyone publishing work about computer games not to have been through the experience of designing and making their own game!  “By actually making the game and thinking about game concepts like difficulty, I learnt just how many variables there are in even a small game which can be varied to change the gaming experience. Although I have played a lot of games and experienced flow, I had never really considered what the state was composed of or how different variables in game could differentially give rise to it.” Chris Dowsett, MSc Student at the LSRI Conclusion Games are affecting the lives and livelihoods of more and more people, and they are no longer the preserve of a geeky minority. However, if you want to truly understand the medium then you need to have a go at making one for yourself. It doesn’t require a computer science degree and you won’t have to read a book the size of a telephone directory. So stop what you’re doing, and try making a game for yourself. Just don’t expect any respect from students! References: Bloom, B. (editor). 1956.Taxonomy of educational objectives: Book 1, Cognitive domain. New York: Longman Gagne, R. (1985). The Conditions of Learning (4th ed.). New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston Habgood, J., Overmars, M (2006). The Game Maker's Apprentice: Game Development for Beginners, Berkeley (CA): APress join | contact us | advertise | write | my profile news | features | companies | jobs | resumes | education | product guide | projects | store Copyright © 2005 CMP Media LLC privacy policy | terms of service

Making a game is sometimes like being in a bad relationship. In the beginning, everything ticks along nicely and your partner seems happy as you try and provide for their needs. You both know what you want, and all seems well with the world. After a while however, your partner begins insisting that you spend more time with them, you never seem to be able to do enough, and they become more demanding. Your life soon becomes dominated by a never-ending list of things they want. Fail to give them the care and attention that they dictate, and they stubbornly refuse to do a single thing that you ask of them. Eventually you give in to their requests, secretly plotting to end the relationship as soon as you can, moving on to something better that will allow you the space and freedom you need to truly express yourself. When the split finally comes, it is a relief, but looking back, seeing all the things you achieved together, you realize that through pain there is reward. Next time, however, you won't be pushed around quite so easily.

You may think that this article will address that most insidious of evils: Feature Creep (which to me always sounds like one of Spiderman's less successful foes). This however, was not the purpose of my "a game is like a relationship" analogy. My intended point was that a game (like a relationship) is a complex, dynamic thing that requires the participants to draw on all areas of understanding to make it successful. Similarly, the more involving and well constructed the game world is, the more a player will be drawn in and rewarded.

It is from this point of view that I propose that psychology has a part to play in game development. OK, I can hear you groaning. Psychology: the realm of ink blots and Freudian slips. But stifle that yawn and bear with me. Psychology aims to explain how the mind works, and how this leads you to act, think and experience everything from falling in love to dressing as your mother and attacking women in showers with a carving knife. Whether your game is trying to be a perfect simulation of flying an F-16 or an epic adventure set in a unused carpet factory, understanding psychology can improve your game's design and execution.

Psychological techniques have been effectively used by video games for years, simply because we all live in the same world and decode our surroundings using basically the same physical and mental machinery. Our life's experience brings us into contact with a similar range of emotions, and it is this framework that we draw upon when we create something, whether it be a book, a song or a game. What I suggest is that we put names to these psychological aspects.

So, where to begin? Let's see how the player interprets what they observe and hear.

First of all, a brief overview:

FIGURE 1. Perception.

or more succinctly put:

The model is perhaps an obvious one, and as far as creating a game goes, we only need to concern ourselves with visual and aural input (with the tiny exception of force-feedback controllers). This restriction puts extra pressure on the visual and audio aspects of our game, and removes the need for us to create a convincing "smellscape".

It is worth pointing out that impairments to a player's senses can impact a game. At the most basic level, deafness rules out most dialog-heavy games that don't have subtitles, as well as making games in which audio cues form an important part of the gameplay all but impossible. Colorblindness is also a rarely considered, yet significant condition, which can affect a player's enjoyment. Red and green color blindness is the most common form, and while it only occurs in 0.4 percent of the female population, it is estimated to affect eight percent of males, and as gamers are still overwhelmingly male, this figure is not inconsequential. As this form of color blindness restricts the sufferers' ability to differentiate between red and green (hence the name) any vital information in a game that requires color matching (puzzles) or easy identification of colored objects (the baddies are wearing red, the goodies green, for example) could be enough to render the game unplayable.

FIGURE 2. Colorblindness.

The first and most obvious area of perception is vision, so this article concentrates on this particular type of sensory input. If I had been writing fifteen years ago, this section would only be about two paragraphs long, as the limitations on game visuals would have left me with little to say. As it is, today's games are so visually complex that what we see on the screen is beginning to rival the intricacies of the real world. Yes, it is true that a game world has significant technical limitations as to the content of a scene, but when we consider that the range of things that a game can present us with visually extends way beyond that which we will ever see in the real world, the balance begins to be redressed slightly.

Consider for a moment, the following images:

FIGURE 3. Image A: Salvidor Dali's The Slave Market With Disappearing Bust of Voltaire (1940), presents the viewer with an ambiguous image of choir boys in an archway that can also be seen as the face of the famous French Writer-Philosopher. Image B: the well known (Muller-Lyer) optical illusion, shows a row of symbols who's central vertical lines are all of equal length, despite their immediate appearance.

There is quite a selection of rules that influence how we interpret what we see. Some, like binocular disparity (the fact that our eyes are slightly separated and so receive slightly different images), have no value in the average game world (put those 3D glasses down). But certain others are of more interest.

FIGURE 4. Relative brightness: as things get further away from us, they tend to fade and take on a bluish hue.

FIGURE 5. The effect of context on perceived brightness.

Size, relative to the player's character (or vehicle etc.) can be used as a starting point for scale comparisons. What appears to be a human sized character, will be interpreted as such, if the surroundings reinforce this with appropriately sized trees, cars etc. If however, the character has to climb a can of beans 10 times his size, or run across a massive piano keyboard in a Tom and Jerry kind of style, the character may take up an identical amount of screen space, but will be judged to be tiny. In the same way that geometry sizing can convey scale information, textures can also have a part to play, with the scale at which a texture is applied to a surface, having a contributing (if sometimes subconscious) effect on a players sense of scale.

Essentially, we can use things that we associate with speed (like slow motion) as indicators that something is fast. Motion blur is perhaps the most widely used of these. Once only available as a pre-rendered effect, we now see it executed in real time. Apart from the fact that motion blur actually produces a moving image that the brain accepts as more convincing, we have now become familiar with the convention that blurring equals speed (in this respect I am talking about exaggerated, visible blurring). Roadrunner cartoons are particularly fine examples of this, building on the traditional static cartoon methodology for conveying speed. A more recent example in film would be The Matrix, where extreme, bullet-dodging speed is expressed with an adapted form of motion blur. Other visual cues to speed would include things like clouds of dust and debris in an object's wake, or the intensity of flame from a spaceship's rockets increasing (the afterburner effect). Indicators like these will help steer the player's brain towards association with speed, making the effect both easier to achieve and more convincing.

FIGURE 6. Roadrunner cartoons are particularly fine example of how blurring is used to suggest speed.

Linearity in a modern game seems to have become as unpopular as a mime artist in a …well, as unpopular as a mime artist. The days of simply routed games, where all you needed to think about was collecting giant golden keys and making your way towards a fight with the big red dragon are long gone. Free roaming, unrestricted exploration is the norm nowadays, with complex environments that allow the player to wander for hours, marvel at the scenery, and cavort across hilltops with a Julie Andrews-like abandon. But freedom comes at a price.

Dropping a player into a strange new environment can be confusing. The amount of information presented can mean that a player becomes unsure about which direction to take and unless some kind of help is available. The appeal of free exploration can be crushed under the tedium of random wandering. Solving this problem relies on good design and well-executed construction, but there is one additional area that plays a part: memory.

At the Copa… Copacabana…

Remembering where we've been, what we're doing and where we are going, can, for some of us, be a difficult feat in our everyday lives. I for one often find myself starring blankly into the fridge, having no recollection of even entering the kitchen, let alone what I am looking for. Add into the equation, a story line, several characters, a world full of caves and a sacred quest of some description, and suddenly, keeping track of what's going on becomes quite an issue. There are a couple of memory related problems that often crop up in games, which can in my opinion, reduce a players enjoyment considerably:

FIGURE 7. Remembering where we've been, what we're doing and where we are going, can, for some of us, be a difficult feat in our everyday lives.

OK, I have been a little facetious with all of the "th" sounds, but this scenario is one that pops up constantly. Without mentioning any of the worst culprits (you know who you are), the verbal ping-pong that can take place, firing out character and location names which obviously mean nothing to the player, whilst he slowly begins to bleed from his ears under the strain of trying to take it all in, is not entirely uncommon. True enough, many games that do this do not expect you to remember everything, and much of the information is meant as nothing more than supportive detail to the central plot. The problem however, is that the player doesn't know this. The player has no idea if the names of Emperor Xioachin's four trusted Generals: Chai-Sin-Wa, Sai-Chin-Ho, So-Ha-Xiao and Se-Chaio-Hin are important, or if they just add color to the story. When unfamiliar information is presented, there is usually little a player can do to discern what is relevant, and what isn't, and this problem is made worse as more information is given.

The second memory related problem is Exploration Anxiety. As mentioned previously, the trend away from linearity- towards free exploration exacts its own peculiar price on the player. This anxiety comes in two basic forms, the first of which, as mentioned before, has the player wandering aimlessly around a world, searching for something specific (or unspecified- in the worst cases), unable to remember whether or not they have been along this particular path before. Unproductive rambling can drive any player towards the escape button, but coupled with the common game-world problem that trees, corridors, paths and caves can often look the same (regularly using the same geometry), exploration can sometimes be its own worst enemy. The other form of Exploration Anxiety that most of us will be familiar with, is the nagging feeling that sometimes appears during a game, niggling at the back of your mind saying "I bet you missed one of the rooms back there", and "I bet there was a huge magic sword in it". Progressing from level to level is generally the driving force behind the gameplay, but the thought of having missed something vital, or of significant value along the way, can sometimes be detrimental.

So, what has psychology got to offer, to help game designers cope with memory issues and their associated problems? I would suggest a look at the following three rules.

Funnily enough, this number is seven (Miller 1967). Or more precisely: seven plus or minus two. In psychology, things are only talked of in terms of theory, the Law of Penile Envy for example doesn't exist in the same way as the Law of Gravity. Even though certain elements of thought and behavior seem to be well established, psychologists are happy to regard them as theoretical and not proven. The concept of a magic number is however, one of the most robust of these phenomenon, demonstrable across many cultures and age ranges.

Try it out for yourself:

All things being equal, your recall should have fallen between 5 and 9 letters: the magic number. There are a range of interesting modifiers to this phenomenon that allow recall to extend beyond the magic number. Chunking for example, suggests that we place the information into lumps (or chunks even) and thus the overall amount that we remember, is increased. As an example, it would be relatively simple to remember the sentence: aliens ate my best-friend's underwear, which in actual fact gives us a total letter recall of 30. This chunking process allows letters to be made into words. The same trick is used with phone numbers -- businesses want us to remember 0800 60 40 2200, for example.

This principle is probably most applicable in a game, to puzzles. Using too many elements at any one time will most often result in the player loosing track of what they're doing, or will force them to begin writing things down.

Primacy and Regency

This is best illustrated by the following exercise:

FIGURE 8. The items at the beginning or end of a series are generally recalled more accurately than those in the middle.

How does this help game design? It can be established that once the amount of information presented spills over the normal limits of short-term memory (seven items, plus or minus two), the middle ground becomes fuzzy. In terms of cut-scenes and long-winded intros: if they serve to build atmosphere and establish character, fair enough, but place any important information in the beginning or the end.

However unreliable my memory is, the two things for which my recall is perfect are the words to Fiddler on the Roof, and the monument to modern song-writing that is Barry Manilow's Copacabana. This is not due to either an obsession with musicals from the '70s nor too many nights spent at karaoke, but rather my parents' unfortunate taste in music as I was growing up. Whether we like it or not, repetition is a reliable method for reinforcing memory, and is an effect that can be used in games.

On the most basic of levels, repetition of important story elements helps the player remember details that could at first be difficult to retain. In terms of familiarizing a player with a control system, or having them learn certain procedures within a game, repetition is both a way to help the player remember what to do, and provides the opportunity to practice these actions. As long as the repetition is skillfully paced and well integrated into the overall flow of the game, it should do its job without becoming tedious.

Resistance is Futile

While game players are unlikely to submit to having large metal probes inserted into the back of their heads (I'd like to see Sony try and sell that to the gaming public), they may well end up being more like The Matrix than Tron. As the power of the games machine begins to free designers to explore new areas of gaming potential, playing will evolve into participation, and that will evoke stronger emotions and reactions.

Examining what psychology can bring to the table as part of the game creation process, could be seen as an overindulgence that even the Marquis de Sade would categorize as excessive. However, treated as a practical means by which the game playing experience can be enhanced, a greater understanding of the inner workings of a player's mind will ultimately give the designer more power to create the emotions and experiences that are needed to make the games of the future.

References

Coon, D. 1983, Introduction to Psychology 3rd edition. St. Paul, Minnesota, West Publishing Co.

Gregory, R. L. 1966, Eye and Brain. London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson.

Helmholtz, H. 1909, Wissenschaftliche Abhandlungen, II, pp 764-843.

Hochberg, J. 1978, Art and Perception. In E.C. Carterette and H. Friedman (Eds.), Handbook of Perception, Vol. 10. London: Academic Press.

Koffka, K. 1935, Principles of Gestalt Psychology. New York: Harcourt Brace.

Marr, D. 1982, Vision. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman.

Miller, G. A. 1956, The Magical Number 7 Plus or Minus 2: Some Limits in Our Capacity For Processing Information. Psycological Review 63: 81-97.

Murdock, B. 1962, The Serial Position Effect of Free Recall: Journal of Experimental Psychology, 64: 482-488.

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/200103009/duvall_01.htm

Copyright © 2003 CMP Media Inc. All rights reserved.

   
Gama Network Presents:





Are Games Addictive? The State of the Science
By Neils Clark
Gamasutra
February 28, 2006

URL: http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20060228/clark_01.shtml

We make games so that people can enjoy them, and I've noticed that throwing around a dirty word like “addiction” is a lot like throwing rocks at people. Heavy rocks. I try to be very careful with how I use that word in relation to games, because it's a very, very complicated subject. Yes, South Korean and American gamers have died from exhaustion. Yes, this makes bored journalists and unpopular politicians very happy. China has already thrown a fair bit of legislation at video games, whether or not games are the problem. On the other hand, such legislation might fail to address the real problem. In this article I explain addiction simply. Then, I talk about research that attempts to connect addiction to gaming, and some clear problems in that research. One caveat: this article is not going to make anyone into a trained clinician.

	A PC Bang (Internet Cafe) in Seoul.