What do you want to get out of your game?

Many indie’s are soldiering along in a multi-month (or multi-year) project without having clearly defined goals for their project.  When asking developers the common responses included:

• Express creativity or artistic ability (e.g. I just have to be making games all the time, to stop the voices in my head)
• To make enough money so I can quit my day job and go indie full time (often accompanied by a long tirade of complaining about current boss)
• Bootstrapping a larger game company
• To get girls!

If you haven’t already, stop and list the top 5 goals you want to get out of your current game.  Do this for each individual team member, as well as the team as a whole.  Make sure each team member is compatible and make sure the goals are realistic.  More importantly, look at whether the game you are making is the best way of achieving your set of goals. 

Write this list on a piece of paper and put it on the wall.  Every time you (or your team) have a question or are unsure of a direction to take, use this list to help with the difficult decision.  It’s crucial that everything you do is driving you towards these goals otherwise you will not reach them.  This is particularly important if you are making your independent game in your spare time (as most people I spoke to are).  The less time you have, the more productive your limited resources must be.

We’re all on the same team: share, learn and collaborate

Unlike mainstream game development, we are not competing with each other.  When making small, low priced games, there’s less competition than between the big developers.  Gamers can easily buy many awesome indie games released on the iPhone for less than the cost of a single full priced AAA title.  It’s not you OR another indie, it’s you AND another indie.  As people start to enjoy games from indie developers they are more likely to buy more indie games.

Everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses.  This also goes for small teams.  Unlike large developers we can’t just hire in the top talent to do a specific area of development.  However within the indie community there will usually be someone with the specific skill you are after.  By maintaining an open relationship between indie developers we can tap into a larger pool of resources to help with specific problems.

Finish SOMETHING

Get out there and finish something.  Many indie developers I spoke to were in the middle of working on their first indie game.  Some developers had been doing this for months or even years and still hadn’t released their first game.  Common reasons for this included:

• Stopping work on a project to start on a smaller game (which is often still too ambitious)
• Getting bored with an idea and moving on
• The entire game was one big feature creep where it would never be finished
• Far too ambitious for the team size and skill

Pick something extremely small and make it.  Adam Atomic gave one of the keynotes at Freeplay and commented on how Canabalt took him five days to create.  While he may be an exception, it goes to show that small, successful games can be created in a short period of time.

For your first game, I recommend giving yourself one month and creating whatever you can in that time.  Aim to complete the game in three weeks with one week of polish.  It’s important that you release something.  Like building a deck in Magic: The Gathering, it’s a lot of fun making a game, however until you’ve released it, you haven’t fully experienced game development.

It’s the best way to learn.  You can talk to as many developers as you want, go to as many conferences or read as many books as you can find.  Nothing compares to the experience of releasing a game.  You’ll learn a lot about yourself, your team and your players.  This ranges from time taken for polish to headaches with distributing your game after it’s complete.  It will also make your next game better…

Finish something GOOD

The next largest group of indie developers I spoke to were those that had released a small game that had reached little success.  Many of these games were (almost) direct copies of existing games.  If you want to have a successful game, you need to make something that stands out.  Put yourself in the shoes of your player.  Why would they buy your game?  What value do you add to their gaming life?  If this isn’t an easy question to answer then you need to stop and re-assess your main goals.

Conclusion

Are you working on your first indie game?  How long have you been working on it, how do you keep motivation and what are your top five goals from the project?

Facebook – The Good

Facebook does a lot of things right.  The staggering user base is proof of this.  I’ll begin by touching on the key positives of Facebook that relate to social game developers.

Large Numbers

Arguably the primary reason so many developers are jumping on the Facebook wagon is due to the crazy amount of users.  Facebook games have grown in player count faster than any games the industry has seen to date, overshadowing existing behemoths like World of Warcraft.

This large player base can be attributed to a number of key reasons.  Most users are joining to connect with friends, past and present.  Once in, the tools at their disposal (such as planning events) are keeping people coming back frequently.  The multi-purpose nature of the site is key to its success, and why other sites like MySpace and Kongregate have not reached the same levels of success.  This is important for game developers to note as it shows that having a site with a single key focus is not the best approach in this space.  This seems to go against the conventional wisdom of game developers and is why many people did not foresee the explosion of Facebook games.  Many people thought that anyone who wants to play a game would go to a gaming site.

Viral

Social networking is by its very nature viral.  Wall posts both push and pull information to users.  Messages are pushed to their main page for up to the minute information from friends and anyone can pull information from any profile or page on the site at any time.  Unfortunately the main culprit for “spam” within wall posts has come from games (and applications in general).  This is likely why Facebook has made moves recently to limit the ability for games to spam other users.

The ability to use Facebook Connect outside of Facebook is vital to maintaining the large customer base that has grown.  It is also a great way for games to make use of the Facebook platform without necessarily being a flash based Facebook game.

User Driven Content

Facebook is simply a platform allowing people to do what they want.  This lets users and application developers fill in the gaps and meet the needs of the users.  News, product advertising, opinions and interaction are all better when experienced with, or generated by, friends and family.  This is the primary reason Facebook is different to most other websites on the internet.  It’s like walking into a room full of your friends and spending time with them.  I’ll talk later about why this is important for social game developers when creating deeper experiences.

Facebook – The Bad

Facebook also has its fair share of problems.  Below is a list of the issues that related to social game developers.

Lack of Depth

I’ve spoken about this before.  Many of the current Facebook games lack depth and meaningful gameplay.  I’ve spoken to a number of Facebook users from various demographics and many of them simply ignore Facebook games as they’ve been burnt in the past.  This lack of depth also sets a bad precedent within the minds of users.  When players play 5 clones of <something>Ville they have a certain mindset about how most Facebook games play out.  We must be careful as we add more depth that we don’t overwhelm the player with a preconceived notion of what to expect.

Community Concerns

People are already becoming bored with Facebook and its games.  The massive drop in numbers from most Facebook games recently is proof enough of this.  The primary reason given by people I’ve spoken to is a lack of interest in the platform and what it has to offer.  Superficial relationships, meaningless games and pointless applications are listed among the top issues.  Adding to this problem is the concerns over security and privacy on Facebook.

Platform Issues

The platform is closed off and owned by Facebook Inc.  I’ve heard a number of Facebook developers complaining about the frequent breaking changes they make to their API’s.  Also, the complexity of the API’s can be a deterrent to young developers and bogs down progress when rapidly prototyping games that fit into the Facebook ecosystem.

What’s Next?

I’d like to look beyond Facebook to think about what may come next for social games.  This is simply a thought experiment looking at the possibilities and where we’d like to see social gaming in the coming years.

Strong Platform

We need a new a platform for games that includes other content.  Kongregate and the myriad of other game portals have shown that while there is success in a gaming-only platform, they cannot compete with a multi-faceted platform like Facebook.  To reach the non-gaming audience, the platform must be about connecting people.  Games fill a part of this social connection.  The platform also needs a clear way of differentiating the good from the bad games.

One concept that is growing in popularity of late (largely due to Jesse Schell’s speech) is the idea of bringing game playing into all facets of life.  Adding game elements to the actual platform is a great way of encouraging people to use it.  Simple activities like levelling up your profile or small mini-games that gather information about you for use in your profile.

Deeper Experiences 

I spoke earlier about user driven content within Facebook and why it’s critical to the success of the platform.  The best way to build deeper experiences is to take this user driven content and create games around it.  Giving players the ability to create meaningful experiences together will allow games to move this shared experience to the next level.

Just as Facebook users are building communities together, we need to look at building entire experiences based around our social games.  Imagine a game like World of Warcraft in a social networking setting such as Facebook.  If the addictive nature of WoW can be mixed with the accessibility of a social networking platform then deeper experiences will emerge for the user.

Who?

So who could create such a platform?  There are three main candidates I can see:

Google

Google is known for their attempts at toppling the big players in software.  They’ve had varying success with products like Gmail, Buzz and Chrome.  They have an extremely large user base, excellent skills and the money behind them to pull off a platform like this.

Google recently announced that they are talking to several developers in the social game space about the creation of a new social network.

Small Developer

A small developer with the right idea (and a lot of luck) may be able to move their way into this space.  Both Facebook and MySpace started developing their major platforms when they were relatively small compared to their competitors.  A small, agile team that’s close to the ground may be in the best position to rapidly build what people want, and react to the needs of the users as it grows.

Facebook Inc

An obvious candidate is for Facebook Inc itself to evolve in the coming months and years.  While this may be extremely difficult as there are already preconceived ideas about what Facebook should be like, they’ve shown their ability to make fairly major changes to the platform while only upsetting 90% of their users.

Conclusion

What are your thoughts on the direction of Facebook in the coming years?  Do you see opportunity for Facebook to grow into a more dynamic, deeper experience for users or will a competitor move in and build a better platform?

Over the past few years the mainstream has moved further towards sequels, playing it safe and limiting creativity.  It seems indie game developers are reacting to this by becoming “more indie”.  A case in point is the IGF.  Many of my indie friends complain that it’s impossible to win the IGF without making a controversial game that has no chance of making money.  Surely we can find a middle ground between these two opposed views.

Let’s look at key parts of game development and see where Mindie developers fit into the mix compared to pure mainstream and indie developers.

Profits – Money is the root of all evil but the source of all Twinkie’s

Most indie developers I know don’t have the luxury of making games just for the love of it.  At the end of the day, we all need money to live.  Mindie developers are mindful of making a profit from their games but not at the expense of the game itself.  The current landscape of game distribution is the perfect time for this lofty ideal.  Digital distribution, micro-transactions and huge user bases on platforms like Facebook mean that we no longer have to make a boxed product that sinks or swims based on the first few months of sales.  This gives Mindie developers the freedom to flex our creative muscles and then find a sales model that fits our product.  There are many options to take opening up many more possibilities for game design and creativity.

Competition – Competition creates better products, alliances create better companies – Brian Graham

The general consensus is that indie developers don’t focus on their competition while mainstream developers are obsessed with them.  Where does the Mindie game developer fit in?  This time, we are closer to our indie roots.  While it’s important to be aware of the competition and create something new and interesting, it should not drive development.  Indie developers begin with their own ideas and creativity and adjust their plans based on competition.  Mainstream developers begin with their competition and adjust their plans slightly to create their own game.

Publishers/Investors – Time is more valuable than money. You can get more money, but you cannot get more time – Jim Rohn

The traditional indie developer is defined by not having a publisher or large investor, hence the term “independent”.  They are usually self-funded or take on small amounts of angel investment.  The general consensus from mindie developers is that they would take on money, so long as it doesn’t water down their game.  This is often shown by their realistic expectations of money required rather than the “more is better” attitude of most mainstream developers.

Project Size – It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog – Mark Twain

Mainstream loves big, multi-million dollar games.  Every year the cost keeps going up.  Indie developers either through love, or more often than not, through necessity go for simple, small projects.  Mindie developers need to find the middle ground again.  Projects that are of a substantial size that they can make a profit while keeping development costs low at all levels of development.  From team sizes to feature lists, they focus on finding the fun with the least possible features.

Art – If you think a game is ‘Madden 2008,’ then hey, games probably aren’t art – Jonathan Blow

Many indie developers make art.  Mainstream developers are skilled in the art of spending copious amounts of money making a game that is 10% better than the previous game or competitor.  Mindie developers are pragmatic.  They focus on making a fun, deep game and letting everyone else decide whether it’s art.  Pragmatism over pretentiousism*.

*Yes that’s not really a word, but neither is Mindie

Conclusion

So that’s my attempt to bring some unity between the mainstream and indie developers.  I look forward to seeing what the coming years bring for mindie’s and particularly in Australia where the collapse of the mainstream game development industry has left most of my friends turning indie in hopes of fame and fortune (or at least recognition and Twinkies).

What do you define as a mindie and are you one?

The current landscape

After my last blog post I was asked my thoughts on FrontierVille.  I fired it up and started playing.  I immediately hit a snag as I needed energy to continue playing.  Energy is used to perform most actions in the game.  There are three options for acquiring energy:

1. Waiting – Energy replenishes over time
2. Asking friends for energy – Spam your friends to request energy from them
3. Spend real money to get more energy

None of these are very inviting to me.  In fact, they all make me want to switch off the game and play something else.

I decided to investigate how much it would cost if I chose the third option.  I found that 7 points lasts me about one minute.  This equates to:

• Smallest payment – $60/hour ($1 = 7 points)
• Best value payment – $40/hour ($199 = 2,100 points)

And that’s just for energy alone!  You can also buy other items in game which don’t add to your energy reserves.

The Problem

This kind of cost is not sustainable long-term.  People will either end up spamming their friends, paying ridiculous amounts of money or letting the game dictate when they can play.  While current Facebook developers may be happy to cash in on this it is not going to last.  There are two options for gamers from here.  Facebook gamers will find better alternative Facebook games, or they will stop playing Facebook games entirely.

Why Sustainability?

Game developers have the perfect opportunity to reach a massive audience with deep and meaningful gameplay.  This audience also has an extremely large disposable income which can be tapped.  If we don’t take advantage of this, the droves of mainstream gamers entering the market will disappear as quickly as they arrived.  Giving a deeper experience than these expensive, spam-driven games will help to capture and grow the audience.

The Solution

There are a number of steps we can take to make Facebook games more sustainable.  I’m not suggesting we stop micro transactions and wall posts entirely; we just need to be more respectful with how we use them.

Players should get a solid reward for their time and money investments.  This expenditure should be treated more as an investment than just the cost of playing.  Players should be encouraged to spend as much as they like, but should also be rewarded in valuable ways.  By adding value to the gamers experience they are more inclined to continue paying as they see a direct correlation between enjoyment and money spent.  Currently the only correlation is between game time and money spent.

Wall posts and “spam” are a necessary evil of viral and social marketing.  The current drop in numbers has shown that they are an ideal way of advertising the game (the limitation on spamming ability of games directly relates to decline in number of players joining).  This viral marketing should be done in interesting ways that add value to the player, rather than being superficial requests for or sharing of items.

Rather than wall posts simply asking for things, or “sharing the good news” developers need to look at the core gameplay mechanics of their game and have a thread of continuity to their posts.  The main problem with existing games is the lack of deep and meaningful gameplay means there is little the gamer wants other than more of everything in the game.  Game designers need to factor wall posts and the like into their game design at a foundational level if they want any meaningful effect on gameplay to be seen.

Conclusion

With the right attitude and a good portion of respect for the player, we can turn this large audience into large revenue for the games industry.

What are your thoughts on sustainable Facebook games?

[This is a guest post by James Bowling, from Last Level Games]

For the last 3 or 4 months I’ve been working on a start-up gaming company, Last Level Games. I’ve been tackling server side development, while a friend manages the client side. We both do this outside of our day jobs. We’ll have our first game looking for release in about a month, and another project we’re keen to get back on very soon.

What I’d like to share with you are my experiences I’ve had maintaining self-motivation to keep on working on an unpaid project at the expense of free time and much needed sleep, while also maintaining healthy social ties around me. Finding that work-work-life balance required to make a transition to a full-time indie studio. I don’t pretend this will be relevant to everyone, these are just my experiences so far – and we’re most certainly not there yet, but I can see we are on the way. For a little background of the kind of worth ethic I have, I’m one of these don’t-normally-apply-myself kinda guys. I’m the B student that probably could have done better if I did a little more work, but I was always content with the above average grades. So, how have I managed to maintain motivation the last few months? How have I managed to keep being productive when all I wanted to do was curl up in bed with a DS? These are some of the strategies I’ve been using.

Accept that with the good, comes plenty of bad.

I’m a developer because I like developing software. I like designing games because I think I have a knack for game design. But along with all that stimulating sitting around thinking about crafting a fun user experience comes a truckload of boring, tedious and difficult work, especially if you’re branching into new and unfamiliar fields like we are. You will be bashing your head against third party libraries, user interfaces and uninteresting glue. But I don’t really approach this as something I just need to just “suck up”. I think of it as part of the whole game developer package. Embrace the difficulties – this is what it is to be a game developer. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows, so when I’m having to force myself to sit down to do something dull, I’m doing it right. I also make sure to alternate where I can. Swap between the interesting and mundane tasks as I complete them.

Which brings me on to…

Know when to not work.

I also need to keep in mind when I just shouldn’t bother working. Energy is indeed a finite resource and taking breaks is important, especially with this project not being my day job. Avoid burn out. It’s also worth using this time to make sure I keep up with friends and family. While I definitely don’t spend as much time with my social circle as I’d like to, I still take the time to see them. Quite often I set a night to code, and if a friend tries to organise something on that night I tell them I’m busy. Same goes with the reverse. If I commit to something socially, I don’t cancel it for work. I know if I don’t take the time to unwind, I’ll burn out and lose motivation on the project.

If they can do it, so can I.

This isn’t being arrogant, this is merely a reality. The successful game developers out there mostly likely aren’t leaps and bounds better at their craft than me, they just had the motivation to see it through. I use their success to visualise my own. With that in mind I find it easier to get myself in front of Visual Studio and getting in the few nights here and there required to get these things done. Part of what motivates me is seeing the success of people around me, and knowing I have the skill set to achieve what they have. It’s not a case of thinking I’m better than someone, it’s a case of respecting my own abilities.

Don’t lose sight of the light at the end of the tunnel.

I find it very difficult to maintain motivation for a project I don’t believe will go anywhere. It’s important that I can see an end to what I’m doing. This is one of the reasons I want to get into indie development. I want to feel like I’m working towards a tangible and realisable goal. I stay focused on what’s good in our project, and have trust in our ability to work out the kinks as we find them. I accept there will be plenty of design bumps on the way, but as I mentioned in my first point – that’s part of the whole game development package. I try not to beat myself up too much when we hit a stumbling block.

That’s just a few strategies I use to maintain focus and motivation.

What are some of the methods you use to stay productive?

The problem

I remember a few short years ago when many designers hated Popcap games and their simple gameplay.  With the proliferation of Facebook games, many of these designers would give anything to be back in the days when Popcap was their biggest concern.  I’ve listened to many designers complaints about Facebook games and there is a common thread through most of the discussions:

There is not enough depth or emergence in Facebook games

Another way of putting this is that there are very few operative and resultant actions the player can perform.  What do I mean by operative and resultant actions?  Jesse Schell used these terms in his book of lenses.  Operative actions are the base actions the player can take.  For example in Bejewelled this would be “swapping the place of a gem”.  Resultant actions on the other hand are higher-level actions that are only meaningful in the larger picture of the game.  They are how the player uses the operational actions to achieve their goal.  In bejewelled this would be equivalent to “match 4 or more gems to receive a special gem”.

A case study: “Plants vs Zombies” and “Treasure Isle”

Let’s look at two casual games to see a correlation between the actions and the depth of gameplay.  Plants vs Zombies (PvZ) has very few operational actions, simply selecting a plant and placing it on the game field.  However it has a myriad of resultant actions that build upon this simple foundation.  Plants interact in special ways that add emergence and depth (e.g. Torchwood doubles the damage of any peas that go through it).  Rewards are given to the player (the death of more zombies) for discovering these resultant actions.

Treasure Isle on the other hand has few operational actions and few resultant actions.  Players walk around the island digging up treasure.  There is very little emergence or interaction that grows out of these operational actions.  Rewards are given to the player for the operational actions.  Players are not encouraged to dig deeper into the game but instead to simply open their wallets so they can continue to get the next reward for finding the next piece of treasure.

The Hypothesis

Both Popcap and Zynga games are popular.  It is becoming apparent that much of Zynga, and other Facebook games, success is from the viral nature of Facebook rather than the quality of the game.  My hypothesis is that bringing the depth and emergence of a game like PvZ to Facebook would see more success than the current round of shallow games we’re seeing.  A game like PvZ would obviously need to be changed to fit with the social nature of Facebook, but the key is that giving a deeper player experience, as well as the means for virality is going to see greater success.

The Solution

I’ve looked at a number of casual games and the consistent thread between the successful games that have some depth is to:

Keep the operational actions low while maximizing resultant actions

The fewer operational actions a game has, the larger the market it can reach.  While the more resultant actions a game has, the deeper the game experience.  This fits in with the age old adage of “easy to play, difficult to master”.  Players want to pick up a game quickly and not have to learn controls.  This is perfect for Facebook games as they are primarily played with a mouse and one button.  Resultant actions need to be layered on top of this simple set of operations actions in the best ratio possible.

Why the need to change?

With the huge success Facebook games have been seeing over the past years, why am I talking about changing the formula?  The problem is that all the big Facebook games are seeing a drop in numbers.  The biggest games are losing millions of players per month!  To put that into perspective, many PC and console games are lucky to reach these kinds of numbers.

Why are they dropping off? The main reason is that Facebook has limited the ability for these games to send spam to the player’s friends.  A big part of their success is the viral nature of Facebook.  The game is more about convincing you to spam your friends than about convincing you that you’re having fun.  These games need to get more depth quickly, or they will disappear as quickly as they grew.

An analogy for this is that terrible restaurant in the food court of the local mall.  The food is terrible and however so many people go through the mall that even if people only go once or twice the restaurant will still always be full.  What happens if suddenly they get moved to the back part of the mall where few people visit?  They either make better food, or go out of business.

Conclusion

What are your thoughts on the current wave of casual games?  Do you think it’s possible to add more depth to these games without comprising the casual nature of them?  Is the Facebook game market already dying or is it just in need of some deeper games to bring it back?

What fanatical pragmatism is

Fanatical pragmatism involves pursuing the optimal product as cost effectively as possible, without cutting corners.  For anything non-trivial, see if there is an existing solution that can solve the problem.  For games, this involves using a 3^rd party engine, particle system, etc wherever possible.  It’s about solving the problems that need to be solved, in the cheapest way possible.

It’s good for developers as focuses them on completing as much as possible, as quickly as possible.  It’s also good for the business as it means the problems the business exists to solve are solved as cost effectively as possible.

What fanatical pragmatism isn’t

It is not about cutting corners to get to a solution faster.  Nor is it about ignoring long-term goals to reach short-term goals faster.  Fanatical pragmatism is not “cowboy coding” (rather it’s tangential to it) and it’s more about solving the businesses needs for the least cost than just getting things done quickly.

How scrum fits in

It fits in perfectly with agile development practices, particularly Scrum.  Scrum is a discipline-agnostic framework that gives developers the freedom to work within their own specific style.  For this reason, fanatical pragmatism works hand-in-hand with extremely short sprints and meeting changing customer demands.  It acts on high-level sprint planning (deciding what goes into a sprint) as well as low-level, day-to-day development such as exactly how to solve the tasks for a given sprint.  For this reason it can be embraced by both developers and management alike.

Some general rules

Some general rules I’ve found myself following recently:

• Broaden your knowledge.  I’ve spent the last couple of years running a software company focussed on web applications.  I’ve picked up a lot of skills that I’ve been able to transfer over to game development (and vice versa).  The broader your knowledge, the large the pool of resources you can draw from to solve problems.  The jack of all trades is the master of fanatical pragmatism
• Focus on the goal.  The key to keeping pragmatic is always looking at where you are heading.  Every decision from day-to-day task assignment to strategic planning should focus on where the team is heading.  All efforts should be in driving the team towards their ultimate goal(s).

Some general software development rules:

• Separate your concerns.  A big part of why MVC works so well for a game engine is that it keeps the obvious concerns (e.g. gameplay vs. rendering) separated from each other.  This keeps each person on the team focussed on their part of the problem domain and helps to reduce complexity as the software grows in size
• Clean Interfaces.  Keeping loosely coupled systems is a great way of isolating your code so that any mistakes made, or changes needed can be done with the least amount of hassle in the future
• Build strong architecture where it’s needed.  For some large, complex system’s it’s important to spend the time up front designing the architecture for the system.  This gives everyone a foundation to build upon.  This should only be done in rare situations though.  It’s easy to get caught in the trap of doing lots of big design up front, however fanatical pragmatism calls for this only when absolutely necessary, and enough information is known.

Conclusion

So that’s fanatical pragmatism in a nutshell.  Share your thoughts on the topic and let me know how you work best in achieving your goals.  I’m constantly evolving the way I work and I’m always looking for the best way to solve problems so please leave a message with your best practices.

Death And The Video Games

Game mechanic death has a long history within video games.  What started out as the simplest way to get players to pop another quarter into the arcade machine has grown to be the cornerstone of most games.  Players were expected to die three times per coin.  The standard risk-reward system in our video games involves player death.  Do something wrong, you die, do something right, you don’t die, and possibly get a shiny new item.  The same developers that made arcade games that relied on these coin popping death sequences moved to making games on home consoles and PC’s.  Over time we’ve become slightly less reliant on death as a punishment with games like Braid dropping the death penalty entirely (and using it as the foundation for the entire game).

There is a difference between the deaths of old and the new style of narrative death we’re seeing.  The player controls the former while the game designer controls the latter.  In the case of Mass Effect 2 the player does have indirect control over the outcome, but once that cut scene starts no excessive tapping of the buttons can change the outcome.

The Problem

When these two styles of death (game mechanic and narrative) meet is when the problem arises.  Watching a cut-scene where the player dies is a great plot device and I’d love to see it in more games in the future.  However it’s watered down when you die 25 times leading up to the cut-scene with the narrative death.  If this common gameplay mechanic can be separated from the narrative death we will see even more powerful narratives in our games.

The Solution

There are a couple of solutions to this problem I’d like to discuss.  The first seems the most logical while the second is a lot riskier, but has the greatest opportunity to make a game that stands out.

No Death

Rather than death being the punishment for failure, have the player incapacitated or have a teammate come to your rescue just as your about to die.  Some modern shooters have the opportunity for a teammate to heal you without breaking the suspension of disbelief.  As squad based games become more feasible (with increased CPU power and AI) this seems like a logical choice.

Another possibility is to give the player rewind ability as in Braid and Sands of Time.  This is a more foundational mechanic though and would completely change the design of the game.

Permadeath

Most designers will shake their head in disgust at this idea.  It will likely lead to frustration and stop anyone but the most hardcore players from playing.  But bear with me as I take a small walk down insanity lane.

A small group of gamers are applying self-imposed permadeath while they play their games.  This is a great idea and adds a lot of weight to the narrative of the game.  Players feel more connected to the world and to their character.  In fact, the gameplay mechanic of death becomes a narrative device.  How would combining this style of permadeath with a fully narrative (read cut-scene) death?  It would make for some interesting gaming and I could certainly see myself screaming even louder at the screen than I already do.

If a game were built around the knowledge that permadeath exists it would completely change the design process.  Designers would be extremely careful not to put any unfair situations where the player may die.  It would also require the removal of any trial and error from the games, a legitimate design mechanic when used sparingly in our current style of games.

Conclusion

With either of these options the there are two main takeaway points.  Firstly the risk-reward system still needs to be in place.  Without a negative experience the player is not challenged and the experience will be watered down.  Secondly, perhaps we need to move on from tying the risk directly to death.  Once we move away from this, it empowers designers to make death a much more special part of their games rather than the foundation on which the player must climb to victory.

What are your thoughts on game mechanic death vs narrative death?  Did you feel narrative death in Mass Effect 2 or Modern Warfare 2 was watered down by the game mechanic death?  Do you have any other solutions I haven’t listed?

The course runs over two full days and was the first course of this length where I didn’t fall asleep.  The content was of a high quality and was kept interesting with lots of interactive tasks and small group discussions.  Clinton began with a great overview of Scrum and then dug deep in to the details, explaining all concepts in great detail, without bogging down in minutiae.  While there was a slight programmer emphasis he covered all facets of game development.

Clinton has a lot of experience with general game development and is a pioneer with implementing Scrum in game development.  His stories were not only interesting but served as a great way to show how Scrum is being used in the real world.  He has worked with some big studios including CCP (creators of Eve Online) and Bioware.  This gives him both credibility and a great insight into how large companies have made successful games using Scrum.

The last part of the second day was spent simulating a handful of sprints to get a feel for how the interactions worked between ScrumMaster, product owner and the team.  The use of lego to create a small world was surprisingly similar to software development and served as a great way to simulate a small development cycle.  This brought the whole group together and let them experience the realities of working with Scrum in a group of people.  It allowed us to put into practice what had been learnt over the past two days.

An obvious benefit is the certification received at the end of the course.  However more important was the knowledge gained during the course.  I had a fairly good understanding of Scrum before the course however this helped to fill all the holes and even correct a number of misconceptions I had.  There are a lot of resources on the net and in books that can teach the basics of Scrum however I found that the interactive and hands-on nature of the course taught me things I would never have picked up through reading or trying to implement Scrum in a vacuum within my own team.  This is the primary reason I would recommend the course to anyone looking to adopt Scrum in the software development team.  Most people admitted to using a “version” of Scrum which by the end of the course proved to not have some of the essential ingredients.

One of the great points of the course was the high level of interactivity.  We could ask questions at any time (which people did) and Clinton would often integrate his answer into the rest of his talk give context rather than a simple answer.  He was happy to answer the hard questions about Scrum including where it has its problems and where we are likely to run into trouble.

I highly recommend the course to any lead’s or project managers.  While the cost of $1500 is fairly high (it’s the standard cost of any ScrumMaster course) it pays for itself in the payoffs you will experience within your team.  It’s an enjoyable two days where a lot is learnt and most will be inspired to fix the problems with the way their teams are managed.

Have you participated in a certified ScrumMaster course?  Have you attended one of Clinton’s courses or talks?  What do you think of Scrum and its relevance to video game development?

The existing list of items in the agile manifesto are:

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
• Working software over comprehensive documentation
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• Responding to change over following a plan

And below is my item:

• Fun over features

What does it mean?

Basically, it means finding the fun first.  The fewer features you can add to your game to get the required amount of fun the better.  Focus on the core gameplay that gamers will derive the most fun from, rather than adding outlandish features that make your game stand out.  Don’t just add features for the sake of having them.

Some examples of games that have a low or high amount of fun and features include:

Low fun, low features – Cheap failure (e.g. many unknown flash games)

Low fun, high features – Big budget flop (e.g. Spore)

High fun, high features – Big budget success (e.g. Mass Effect)

High fun, low features – Low budget success (e.g. Canabalt)

Relationship between features and fun

Features and fun are tightly related.  You can’t have fun without a feature.  Fun is derived from experiencing a feature.  However you can have a feature without it being fun.  This is the whole reason we need to focus on the fun rather than just the feature.

Fun Amount vs Feature Size

What’s better, adding a small feature that isn’t too fun, or adding a large feature that is extremely fun?  On the face of it, the former seems better.  It’s not absolutely certain that a feature will reach a certain level of fun.  However it is certain that a large feature will take a lot of resources and a long time.  Completing the smaller fun features first seems like a logical extension of iterative development – ascending iterative development.  Add features an iteration at a time starting with the smallest features first.

I’ve previously spoken about the cost to benefit ratio.  My suggestion for which features to add is an extension of this concept.  Look at the Feature size to fun ratio.  Unfortunately this can be quite difficult to quantify, however you can do some simple calculations:

1. Rate your feature on “fun” from 1 to 10 – how much fun players will derive from it
2. Rate your feature on “size” from 1 to 10 – how large the feature will be to implement
3. Divide fun by size for each feature – fun / size
4. Order the features from largest to small (descending)
5. Work from the top down

The obvious caveat to this is if you have core features that must be added to your game.  However if they are quite low on the list I’d question the motives for why this is such a core part of your game if it isn’t fun enough.

Conclusion

So that’s a little investigation into a simple concept I came up with on the fly.  I highly recommend Clinton Keith’s Scrum course which lead to this idea.  I also highly recommend GDC to anyone thinking of going next year.  I learnt more than I could ever have imagined and made countless critical contacts.

What do you think of this idea?  If you could add an item to the agile manifesto what would it be?