So I recently posted my latest blog entry (What is fun?) on Gamasutra.com and got some feedback that required me to expand on my original point. I believe I needed to explain more about surprise and make a few things clear, so this is the how I replied and I thought I should document it here as well as it further explains my original point, have fun!
Mr. Bart I can tell you exactly why knowing the rules and surprise are important, and I'll answer all your questions at once. I elude to this fact a little and realized I wasn't clear on "good surprise" and "bad surprise".
Tic-Tac-Toe does lead to surprise because you do not know exactly what you're opponent is going to do all the time. You can make an educated guess, but you still will not know for sure until he actually does it. It's the anticipation of whats going to happen and the sweet release when it does. If you didn't know the rules to tic-tac-toe then you wouldn't understand why he is aligning his O's in such a manner and therefore it would not matter what's going on, but because you DO know how he's trying to win, it is in your best interest to pay attention to what he is doing (thus making you engaged in the game) and then trying to counter his moves but still not knowing where's he's going to strike next. The fact that you don't know (within the rules) what he's going to do is the surprise and that's the fun part.
Now, when I say bad surprise and good surprise, I meant that if it's within the rules that means it's telegraphed to the player and as long as the player knows it's possible to happen then it will allow tension to build. Bad surprise is when something sideswipes you out of nowhere (like beign cheated on) if it happens without any kind of notification then that's bad and that's the opposite of fun. I like to use pro wrestling a lot in my analogies (forgive me) so when you have Jeff Hardy place CM Punk on a table and have Jeff Hardy start ascending a nearby ladder, you start to build up tension and the tension keeps building up because you don't know if CM Punk will revive in time to move, or if Jeff Hardy will hit his target, or even if Jeff Hardy misses the table and gets legitimately hurt. There's a little surprise element because you want to see if it's going to really happen or not. However if someone tells you what happened the next day "yeah Jeff Hardy put CM Punk through a table, it was cool" is that a really fun experience? Not really.
I think the best analogy I can come up with for my theory is football. And here are my 2 prerequisites and theory bullet pointed out for you.
Prereq 1 Rule Knowledge
So when I was a kid I would watch football but I didn't understand what was going on or why one team had the ball and then the otehr team did so I wasn't a big fan and couldn't really enjoy it until I understood what was happening, in other words until I understood the rules.
Prereq 2 Engagement
Now I don't really watch football until my team (GO RAMS!) is playing. If the Packers and the Patriots or whoever else are playing against each other I don't really care. However if the RAMS are playing then yeah I will be glued to my seat and every play and second will matter like my life depends on it. For the packers game I wouldn't really care who did what, you scored? Good for you. But if the rams made a touchdown then I do a backflip because I am ENGAGED in what is going on and that's when I (everyone) have the most fun, now I couldn't get to this point of engagement if I didn't understand the rules of the game to begin with.
Fun
That's where the fun part comes in, I do not know if my team is going to score a touchdown, if they're going to win even, or if there's an injury, all of that is surprise that fits within the rules of the game. Any kind of variable will add tension because now there are more opportunities to lose/win/get hurt. I care about whats' going on in this game now and every variable adds to my tension and the anticipation keeps building with each play because there's new tension and strategies going on, add the time limit which only engages you even more and you have a recipe for awesomeness.
Bad Surpise
When something isn't telegraphed to the user then it's a bad surprise. If you roll a six sided die (with 1-6 counting on each side like a normal pair) and then it landed with a 8 (8 dots) side facing up (which doesnt exist) then you and your friends would be baffled and not have fun at all, because it's not telegraphed to the user that something like this can happen.
Good Surprise
Let's stick with this dice analogy. Now if every side on the die was a 1, then there would be no tension and no reason to care. Good surprise is not knowing exactly what's going to happen, having control but at the same time wanting to find out because that tension and that anticipation and the final release of said anticipation can only result from the unkonwn, "good surprise" and that's what fun is.
More questions please, I like this. I think we are very close to figuring out what fun is. Srsly.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Level 3: What is Fun?
What is fun?
So I know in the last post I mentioned that there is no formula to fun. Well, I decided to actually research this theory and I found that there IS a formula to fun. So if you always wanted to know the answer to the designers eternal question "What is fun?" then please, continue reading and enjoy my findings.
Let's go back a little bit and talk about what happiness is, because you can't be mad or depressed and then expect to have fun in the first place. Happiness is innate. Happiness is our default feeling when we do not have other things occupying our minds. Happiness is not discovered or something you find, rather, happiness is more of a letting go of unhappiness. When someone is watching a movie, playing a game, doing drugs, they are happy because they are engaged in this activity and they forget their problems momentarily. This is why people play video games, to take them out of their world and into the designers. This is where people are engaged in the game and where they let go of any unhappiness they may have in their lives and instead focus it on the characters/story/gameplay. So what is fun? Well fun needs two prerequisites to exist.
Prerequisite 1
The rules have to be known. In order for fun to exist the rules have to be clear and understood. If you were playing a game and you didn't know how to win, then you will be lost and you will not be able to move on to prerequisite number two. This is the reason why all the best games are simple to understand or have very simple rules (with tons of possibilities coming out of these simple rules). When you first see a game you have to be able to tell what to do, if the player is ever lost for lack of good rule communication then they will never have fun. If you die because you didn't know the rules then you are having a horrible time. Being side swiped by something you didn't know exists is the opposite of fun. However, if the rules are made crystal clear then you may move on to:
Prerequisite 2
The player has to be engaged. Now that the rules are known the player knows what world he's playing in. Now the player has a chance to be engaged in the game and the player can now be emotionally invested and care more about whats going on in the world you created. Once the player is engaged two things are happening, (1) He is now able to manipulate his world and has some sort of expected gameplay because he knows how the rules work and (2) The player is happy because, as stated before, he is engaged in the game and is now letting go of any unhappiness he may have had. With these two factors in play NOW the player is prime for having fun!
This is it.
Fun is surprise. Whenever a person is surprised, he is having fun. If you knew what was going to happen all the time, it wouldn't be fun. If you knew you were going to win the lottery and then you won it, it wouldn't be as fun as finding out by reading along with the numbers that were being called out live on TV. It's the surprise that's fun. In Street Fighter II, the fun part is that everyone is so different in that game. You know everyones moves but you don't know when or why or how they are going to use them. Sonic boom could be used to hit someone or it could be used to lull them into a trap or it could be used as a distraction while you try something else. Everyone has a set of attributes but you're always surprised how someone uses them. That's why its better to play against human players btw. That's the fun part, you're playing against your friend and he zigs when you think hes going to zag "man I didn't know you were going to do that!" and that's the surprise and that's the source of fun. It's about knowing that there's a possibility of something happening and then being surprised when it does, this is basically the formula for Poker or Blackjack. You can try and strategize what cards will be played by your opponents but you will never know for sure until they are turned face up, and whats fun is when the cards are turned up and you have that surprise. Now imagine ALL the cards in the deck were 2 of hearts. Would it be fun? No. But what if there was ace in there somewhere, add that one element and it adds to the unknown which leads to a possibility of surprise which leads to fun. It's like Peggle, you don't know EXACTLY where that ball is going to go but it sure is fun finding out. This also brings up another subject about fun, which is laughter. Laughter has been described as the breaking of tension. In order for someone to laugh they have to be engaged, there needs to be tension, and once its broken it causes laughter. No different with fun, because laughter and fun often go hand in hand, you need to have that tension of the unknown and when it is broken, well you know already.
Just like in life, when you run into an old friend out of blue, or you find a new part of the city you never drove through before, that's fun. I got a ticket last night for making an illegal left, that was not fun because I didn't know it was illegal and because I didn't know the rules IT WASN'T FUN THAT I GOT A TICKET. However, if I KNEW what I was doing was wrong and then tried to get away with it, then it'd be fun because I would want to see if the cop would catch me or not, and if he did or he didn't the breaking of tension would still be there because I knew this was part of the game.
In the end, if you want to have fun you need to have surprise. Life is simple if you play by the rules.
So I know in the last post I mentioned that there is no formula to fun. Well, I decided to actually research this theory and I found that there IS a formula to fun. So if you always wanted to know the answer to the designers eternal question "What is fun?" then please, continue reading and enjoy my findings.
Let's go back a little bit and talk about what happiness is, because you can't be mad or depressed and then expect to have fun in the first place. Happiness is innate. Happiness is our default feeling when we do not have other things occupying our minds. Happiness is not discovered or something you find, rather, happiness is more of a letting go of unhappiness. When someone is watching a movie, playing a game, doing drugs, they are happy because they are engaged in this activity and they forget their problems momentarily. This is why people play video games, to take them out of their world and into the designers. This is where people are engaged in the game and where they let go of any unhappiness they may have in their lives and instead focus it on the characters/story/gameplay. So what is fun? Well fun needs two prerequisites to exist.
Prerequisite 1
The rules have to be known. In order for fun to exist the rules have to be clear and understood. If you were playing a game and you didn't know how to win, then you will be lost and you will not be able to move on to prerequisite number two. This is the reason why all the best games are simple to understand or have very simple rules (with tons of possibilities coming out of these simple rules). When you first see a game you have to be able to tell what to do, if the player is ever lost for lack of good rule communication then they will never have fun. If you die because you didn't know the rules then you are having a horrible time. Being side swiped by something you didn't know exists is the opposite of fun. However, if the rules are made crystal clear then you may move on to:
Prerequisite 2
The player has to be engaged. Now that the rules are known the player knows what world he's playing in. Now the player has a chance to be engaged in the game and the player can now be emotionally invested and care more about whats going on in the world you created. Once the player is engaged two things are happening, (1) He is now able to manipulate his world and has some sort of expected gameplay because he knows how the rules work and (2) The player is happy because, as stated before, he is engaged in the game and is now letting go of any unhappiness he may have had. With these two factors in play NOW the player is prime for having fun!
This is it.
Fun is surprise. Whenever a person is surprised, he is having fun. If you knew what was going to happen all the time, it wouldn't be fun. If you knew you were going to win the lottery and then you won it, it wouldn't be as fun as finding out by reading along with the numbers that were being called out live on TV. It's the surprise that's fun. In Street Fighter II, the fun part is that everyone is so different in that game. You know everyones moves but you don't know when or why or how they are going to use them. Sonic boom could be used to hit someone or it could be used to lull them into a trap or it could be used as a distraction while you try something else. Everyone has a set of attributes but you're always surprised how someone uses them. That's why its better to play against human players btw. That's the fun part, you're playing against your friend and he zigs when you think hes going to zag "man I didn't know you were going to do that!" and that's the surprise and that's the source of fun. It's about knowing that there's a possibility of something happening and then being surprised when it does, this is basically the formula for Poker or Blackjack. You can try and strategize what cards will be played by your opponents but you will never know for sure until they are turned face up, and whats fun is when the cards are turned up and you have that surprise. Now imagine ALL the cards in the deck were 2 of hearts. Would it be fun? No. But what if there was ace in there somewhere, add that one element and it adds to the unknown which leads to a possibility of surprise which leads to fun. It's like Peggle, you don't know EXACTLY where that ball is going to go but it sure is fun finding out. This also brings up another subject about fun, which is laughter. Laughter has been described as the breaking of tension. In order for someone to laugh they have to be engaged, there needs to be tension, and once its broken it causes laughter. No different with fun, because laughter and fun often go hand in hand, you need to have that tension of the unknown and when it is broken, well you know already.
Just like in life, when you run into an old friend out of blue, or you find a new part of the city you never drove through before, that's fun. I got a ticket last night for making an illegal left, that was not fun because I didn't know it was illegal and because I didn't know the rules IT WASN'T FUN THAT I GOT A TICKET. However, if I KNEW what I was doing was wrong and then tried to get away with it, then it'd be fun because I would want to see if the cop would catch me or not, and if he did or he didn't the breaking of tension would still be there because I knew this was part of the game.
In the end, if you want to have fun you need to have surprise. Life is simple if you play by the rules.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Level 2: When not to draw upon past experiences
The reason why we continue to (or should) mature as we get older is because we learn from our experiences. We stop getting in bad deals/cars/relationships/jobs because we learn from the previous time we were in a bad deal/car/relationship/job, because after you go through an experience, you get smarter/stronger/faster and you are able to walk/run/skip to your next job/relationship/business deal with confidence and wisdom. After all good judgment comes from mistakes and mistakes come from bad judgment. However, there is a reason to not draw on past experiences when creating games, and this is it right here.
I was pitching an idea for a first person shooter to my friend/game designer the other day and I was purely thinking about gameplay, setting rules for the world and what felt fun. The problem with this is that as soon as you mention a genre you already create restrictions on what it could be. I said I wanted a first person shooter that did A, B and C. To which the reply was, in a war, you can't do "A". Now, up until this point, I didn't even mention a "war" going on. There is already a red flag in the minds of some designer that stifles creativity. The second comment was that, it needs to "feel" realistic. Now, I'm not against realism, but seeing as that MOST fps' are somewhat realistic already gave it the tag that it SHOULD be realistic. The last comment was that the player SHOULD have control of the players movement at all times (C, if you were following along). Now notice nothing was said about this being fun (which is the point of a video game by the way), only it not being a first person shooter. Therein lies the problem, people don't go back to what a game is. A game is something fun. A game is a set of rules and the means to play them. However, a lot of people tend to only build upon what was made already and not really investigate what made it fun to begin with. For example, I've seen many a Contra rip-off in my day, however I bet you dollars to donuts that they just took all the gameplay, added their art and shipped it, never once thinking WHY it was fun. This is equivalent to copy/pasting code and having it work in your engine, you know that it works but you don't know why it does. I think this is important to any designer, you know something is fun and although there is no formula to fun, you can at least find out and look with a critical eye when you're playing and ask yourself why you think this is fun. Is it the art? How the rules of the world work? How did they create this moment? How did they create this emotion? How did they make me care so much? What am I proving to myself/others? You may not always find the answer but you will at least know that you understand that there is an underlying reason as to what's happening and its not just magic. That's how most of the ground breaking games were created, someone went back to designing for fun instead of just building on top of what has been done already. This is how you create new experiences and this is how you communicate new things to a player. A few examples are Parappa the Rapper, the creator didn't just say "Hey I'm going to make a rhythm game" because it didn't exist, and if he would've just created a game based on what was already created we would never have Guitar Hero. So in simple terms, when it comes to thinking about game design, people should stop reacting and start thinking.
So going back to my FPS game, we have already established that a game has to be fun, if it isn't, then what's the point? Now the limitations put upon a game that hasn't even been played yet can do nothing but stop creativity and any attempt to have something new. Now if I were to use these "rules" of what a first person shooter should be, then my game would HAVE to include a war, has to be realistic and I have to have control over the player ALL the time. Now I can think of a few FPS games that don't follow these rules and have excelled for doing so. An FPS without a war is possible, look at Unreal. A game that's not realistic is possible, look at Team Fortress 2. A game that takes away control from your character during gameplay is possible, look at Left 4 Dead. Now without these elements this games would most likely not stand out, and without following the mold you get to make some interesting design decisions. This also proves that taking away pre-conceived ideas is probably the best thing you can do, well, maybe just starting with design rather than genre as a base on how to design video games at least.
How this relates to life is fairly clear I think. We as humans are habitual creatures, so we really depend on repetitive tasks to stay alive. However, if we never break the mold, we will never discover what else we can do, and we will never discover what else we are made of and what new adventures we can experience. It's like the old saying goes, if you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always got. Relating this back to my game design example, when trying new things in life we are always quick to draw upon an old situation and react to it. I used to have stage fright when I was a small child. I was supposed to perform in front of a crowd in kindergarten and I never did because I was scared. Throughout my schooling I never wanted to perform in front of a crowd. I never thought about why, I just knew I didn't like it. But as I got older I came to answer my calling and address something I really loved, professional wrestling, it's the one thing I obsess about besides video games. So I went to school to become a professional wrestler. Only problem is, I still had stage fright. So finally the day came, and my knee jerk reaction was fear. But even though I was really scared I DECIDED that I was going to do it no matter what. It was the best moment of my life, in fact I found out something about myself that day, that I REALLY love entertaining a live crowd. Now I found a new love (besides video games and pro wrestling), and I am currently practicing and studying on how to become a stand up comic. Something I would never experienced if I never overcame my knee jerk reaction to not go on stage ever. And it's something I would have never dreamed of unless I stopped reacting and started thinking.
I was pitching an idea for a first person shooter to my friend/game designer the other day and I was purely thinking about gameplay, setting rules for the world and what felt fun. The problem with this is that as soon as you mention a genre you already create restrictions on what it could be. I said I wanted a first person shooter that did A, B and C. To which the reply was, in a war, you can't do "A". Now, up until this point, I didn't even mention a "war" going on. There is already a red flag in the minds of some designer that stifles creativity. The second comment was that, it needs to "feel" realistic. Now, I'm not against realism, but seeing as that MOST fps' are somewhat realistic already gave it the tag that it SHOULD be realistic. The last comment was that the player SHOULD have control of the players movement at all times (C, if you were following along). Now notice nothing was said about this being fun (which is the point of a video game by the way), only it not being a first person shooter. Therein lies the problem, people don't go back to what a game is. A game is something fun. A game is a set of rules and the means to play them. However, a lot of people tend to only build upon what was made already and not really investigate what made it fun to begin with. For example, I've seen many a Contra rip-off in my day, however I bet you dollars to donuts that they just took all the gameplay, added their art and shipped it, never once thinking WHY it was fun. This is equivalent to copy/pasting code and having it work in your engine, you know that it works but you don't know why it does. I think this is important to any designer, you know something is fun and although there is no formula to fun, you can at least find out and look with a critical eye when you're playing and ask yourself why you think this is fun. Is it the art? How the rules of the world work? How did they create this moment? How did they create this emotion? How did they make me care so much? What am I proving to myself/others? You may not always find the answer but you will at least know that you understand that there is an underlying reason as to what's happening and its not just magic. That's how most of the ground breaking games were created, someone went back to designing for fun instead of just building on top of what has been done already. This is how you create new experiences and this is how you communicate new things to a player. A few examples are Parappa the Rapper, the creator didn't just say "Hey I'm going to make a rhythm game" because it didn't exist, and if he would've just created a game based on what was already created we would never have Guitar Hero. So in simple terms, when it comes to thinking about game design, people should stop reacting and start thinking.
So going back to my FPS game, we have already established that a game has to be fun, if it isn't, then what's the point? Now the limitations put upon a game that hasn't even been played yet can do nothing but stop creativity and any attempt to have something new. Now if I were to use these "rules" of what a first person shooter should be, then my game would HAVE to include a war, has to be realistic and I have to have control over the player ALL the time. Now I can think of a few FPS games that don't follow these rules and have excelled for doing so. An FPS without a war is possible, look at Unreal. A game that's not realistic is possible, look at Team Fortress 2. A game that takes away control from your character during gameplay is possible, look at Left 4 Dead. Now without these elements this games would most likely not stand out, and without following the mold you get to make some interesting design decisions. This also proves that taking away pre-conceived ideas is probably the best thing you can do, well, maybe just starting with design rather than genre as a base on how to design video games at least.
How this relates to life is fairly clear I think. We as humans are habitual creatures, so we really depend on repetitive tasks to stay alive. However, if we never break the mold, we will never discover what else we can do, and we will never discover what else we are made of and what new adventures we can experience. It's like the old saying goes, if you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always got. Relating this back to my game design example, when trying new things in life we are always quick to draw upon an old situation and react to it. I used to have stage fright when I was a small child. I was supposed to perform in front of a crowd in kindergarten and I never did because I was scared. Throughout my schooling I never wanted to perform in front of a crowd. I never thought about why, I just knew I didn't like it. But as I got older I came to answer my calling and address something I really loved, professional wrestling, it's the one thing I obsess about besides video games. So I went to school to become a professional wrestler. Only problem is, I still had stage fright. So finally the day came, and my knee jerk reaction was fear. But even though I was really scared I DECIDED that I was going to do it no matter what. It was the best moment of my life, in fact I found out something about myself that day, that I REALLY love entertaining a live crowd. Now I found a new love (besides video games and pro wrestling), and I am currently practicing and studying on how to become a stand up comic. Something I would never experienced if I never overcame my knee jerk reaction to not go on stage ever. And it's something I would have never dreamed of unless I stopped reacting and started thinking.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Level 1
The Craziness...
Oh Hai, so my name is Joseph Mares and I am a game designer. The first game I ever played was Stampede on the Atari 2600 when I was like 3, I have never put down a controller since. Being a game designer is something I've always loved, and I enjoy video games on so many levels.
Hi, My Name is Joe Mares and I am on a quest to find the ultimate formula to life. Everything in life is naturally balanced. Life is not just random acts happening at unknown times, everything has a reason for happening.
WTF am I reading this for you ask? Well, I don't know, but I know why I am writing it. You see, I've come to realize that I have very often made awesome discoveries in Game Design, and awesome discoveries in the journey of life and most often they are related more closely than one thinks. I soon forget these theories and relations so I've decided to blog them so they are documented SOMEWHERE (my laptop is out of folders).
So in the future you will see shocking similarities in game design and the design of life. Life is nothing more than a set of rules, just as games are. You will read and be astounded, and yes I am talking to myself.
--Joe
Oh Hai, so my name is Joseph Mares and I am a game designer. The first game I ever played was Stampede on the Atari 2600 when I was like 3, I have never put down a controller since. Being a game designer is something I've always loved, and I enjoy video games on so many levels.
Hi, My Name is Joe Mares and I am on a quest to find the ultimate formula to life. Everything in life is naturally balanced. Life is not just random acts happening at unknown times, everything has a reason for happening.
WTF am I reading this for you ask? Well, I don't know, but I know why I am writing it. You see, I've come to realize that I have very often made awesome discoveries in Game Design, and awesome discoveries in the journey of life and most often they are related more closely than one thinks. I soon forget these theories and relations so I've decided to blog them so they are documented SOMEWHERE (my laptop is out of folders).
So in the future you will see shocking similarities in game design and the design of life. Life is nothing more than a set of rules, just as games are. You will read and be astounded, and yes I am talking to myself.
--Joe
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