CO1301 Games Concepts Week 9 Gameplay

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CO1301 - Games ConceptsWeek 9Gameplay

• Gareth Bellaby

2
References

• Rollings and Morris, Game Design and
  Architecture.
• Chapter 3
• Rollings Adams, Rollings Adams on Game
  Design.
• Chapter 7.
• Rabin, Introduction to Game Development
• 2.2 "Game Design"

3
Topics

• Importance of Gameplay
• Two definitions of Gameplay
• Implementing Gameplay
• Interesting Choices
• Dominant Strategy Problem

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Importance

• Gameplay is connected to subjects such as
• game theory
• game balance
• game design
• strategy
• tactics

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Importance

• Gameplay is independent of
• Story (story may conflict with gameplay!)
• Audio
• Graphics
• Interface
• Gameplay is separate from other elements of the
  game but may interact with them, e.g. it's
  reasonable to say that the clarity of the
  graphics support the gameplay, or that the
  interface is so poor that it gets in the way of
  the gameplay.

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First Definition

• Sid Maier - "gameplay is a series of interesting
  choices".
• Used by Rollings and Adams in particular, but
  also cited by Rollings and Morris.

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Secondly Definition

• Gameplay is
• The core mechanics of a game.
• How the game plays.
• A discussion of mechanics will probably be of
  most use to yourselves.

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Implementing Gameplay

• Gameplay is something intrinsic to the game.
  There are lots of different chess sets, pieces in
  the shape of characters from Alice in Wonderland,
  stylised pieces, etc. The shapes are interesting
  and have value in their own right but they have
  nothing to do with the gameplay of chess.
• Intrinsic "belonging to a thing by its very
  nature..."
• Extrinsic "not forming an essential part of a
  thing or arising or originating from the
  outside..." (Both definitions are from WordNet).

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Implementing Gameplay

• Not all computer games may contain gameplay, e.g.
  Sim City, the demon mission in Kohan II.
• Gameplay may be secondary to some other purpose,
  e.g. the social aspect of MMOs.
• Since gameplay is about game mechanics, the
  different families of games have their own
  techniques and issues.

10
Exercise

• Some types of games have identical gameplay.
• Is there any difference in the gameplay of most
  FPS's?
• Identify the core mechanics of a FPS.
• What distinguishes FPS's if they do have
  identical gameplay?
• Identify two FPS's with different gameplay.

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Interesting Choices

• Choice should be
• Non-trivial
• Have good consequences
• Have bad consequences
• Be informed (nothing irritates so much as an
  important game choice with no support).
• Feedback to the player is useful...

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A choice

• Does my sorcerer
• throw a fireball which damages all of the
  enemies but won't kill anyone outright.
• or use his turn to stone spell which only
  affects one enemy but is guaranteed to knock him
  or her out.

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Build, Infiltrate or Fight?

• In Dawn of War units cost requisition points
  (which is in limited supply) and count towards a
  squad limit.
• requisition squad size
• Marines 200 2
• Servitors 75 1
• Scouts 90 1
• Marines are stronger than Scouts. Servitors have
  no combat capability but are needed to build
  structures.

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Dimensions

• Choices get more interesting if they operate in
  several dimensions at once.
• The fireball has a backwash which affects members
  of my own team...
• The units in Dawn of War cost requisition points
  and count towards the squad limit...

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Dominant Strategy Problem

• No commonly agreed language to talk about the
  topics in game design and development.
• The dominant strategy problem is a gameplay
  problem one particular strategy is so strong
  that it becomes the obvious choice.
• The DSP breaks gameplay because it undermines
  choice.

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Transitive Relationship

• a gt b and b gt c gt a gt c
• A transitive relationship in a game gives rise to
  a dominant strategy.
• Why build unit of types 'b' or 'c' if a unit of
  type 'a' is obviously better.
• Why adopt strategy 'b' or 'c' if strategy 'a' is
  obviously better.

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Transitive Relationship

• Giant

bigger and stronger than
Human
bigger and stronger than
Pixie
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Non-Transitive Relationship

• a gt b, b gt c, c gt a
• A non-transitive relationship makes for a far
  more interesting series of choices and hence for
  better gameplay.

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Non-Transitive Relationship

• Cavalry

beat
beat
Spearman
Bowmen
beat