Class Notes #14, #15
Game Design, Gaming, Game machines, Historic Games
The Art of Computer Game Design - Chris Crawford, 1982
Preface to the Electronic Version: This text was originally composed by computer game designer Chris Crawford in 1982. When searching for literature on the nature of gaming and its relationship to narrative in 1997, Prof. Sue Peabody learned of The Art of Computer Game Design, which was then long out of print. Prof. Peabody requested Mr. Crawford's permission to publish an electronic version of the text on the World Wide Web so that it would be available to her students and to others interested in game design. Washington State University Vancouver generously made resources available to hire graphic artist Donna Loper to produce this electronic version. WSUV currently houses and maintains the site.
Game Design: The Essence of Computer Games - Geoff Howland
Computer games are a relatively new innovation in the overall scheme of things. They have been around in different forms since the beginning of computers and in a lot of ways were essential in the route that computers have taken in becoming a part of our every day lives. A good deal has been written on the design of computer games, but I'm a firm believer that there can never be too much written about a complex subject and computer games design is a very complex subject.
Before I get started in my exploration of the design of computer games I'd like to suggest that if you haven't already read the articles/book by Chris Crawford's The Art of Computer Game Design (see above).
the following text is by Geoff Howard
Graphics
Graphics consist of any images that are displayed and any effects that are performed on them. This includes 3D objects, textures, 2D tiles, 2D full-screen shots, Full Motion Video (FMV), statistics informational overlays and anything else that the player will see.Sound
Sound consists of any music or sound effects that are played during the game. This includes starting music, CD music, MIDI, MOD tracks, Foley effects (environmental sound), and sound effects.Interface
The interface is anything that the player has to use or have direct contact with in order to play the game. The interface is not as straightforward as the above definitions as it goes beyond simply the mouse/keyboard/joystick, which is only the first contact the game has with the player. The interface includes graphics that the player must click on, menu systems that the player must navigate through and game control systems such how to steer or control the pieces in the game. Half of a game's "AI" (Artificial Intelligence) is also related to interface.Gameplay
Gameplay is a fuzzy term. It encompasses how fun the game is, how immersive it is and the length of playability. The second half of the game's AI is related to gameplay.Story
The game's story include any background before the game starts, all information the player gains during the game or when they win and any information they learn about characters in the game.A brief message about AI
AI in games is not the usually same as scientific AI that you may have heard about. Although quite recently some game developers have been using real AI forms such as Neural Networks and Genetic Algorithms in games they are predominately not used in games yet as they normally require more time and processing power then can be currently allotted to them. What game's AI is instead is just the behaviors of objects in the game to simulate their intelligence.A brief message about Immersiveness
The way I define immersiveness is the ability of a game to capture the player's attention and make him feel like he is actually in the game. Books and movies have immersive qualities as they can make their audience feel involved in the story by immersing them in the story's world and making them empathize with the characters. In designing games you must try to use the known methods of immersion that books and movies use as well as qualities that are unique to computer game(end G. Howard material - read the web site)
Newer ideas? - the merging of movies and games into a "single product line" is driving many Hollywood and game developers thinking. Think of a few game-movie crossovers for your report. Pop music, actors' voices, brand recognition -- all of these things move toward entertainment convergence.
Games and Game Playing Devices
Historic
Pong Ralph H. Baer, Inventor of the Video Game
Atari 2600 Nastalgia Site
Killer List of Video Games
Dragon's Lair-II for Interactive Laser Disc
Pure Mac GamesRecent Past - SEE WWW.GAMESPOT.COM
SimCity
Myst
Age of Empires
Doom
Quake
Laura Croft - Tomb Raider
Kids Game Sites
neopets.com
funbrain.comCasual Games
Wired article - games for grandma
EA Pogo site (currently dead!)
MS Casual Gaming - about, games site
Girl's and Games
Nancy Drew series - "herinteractive"
Habbohotel, habbo revenues! What is Web 2.0? Is habbo and example?
Gamegal
Listmania
Mediascope (article)Current (all multi-player)
World of Warcraft
Everquest II
Runescape
Guild WarsXBox (Microsoft) , PlayStation (Sony), Game Cube (Nintendo)
Useful Sights for would be developers....
http://www.gamedev.net/
http://www.gdmag.com/homepage.htm
http://www.gamasutra.comRecommended Game AI Links:
Steve Woodcock's Game AI web page: www.gameai.com
Steve Rabin's AI Wisdom page: www.aiwisdom.com
GamaSutra: www.gamasutra.com
Alex Champandard's AI Depot: www.ai-depot.com
Tom Grubb's flocking demo: http://www.riversoftavg.com/downloads.htm
Bryan Stout's pathfinding demo: http://www.gamasutra.com/features/19970801/pathfinding.htm
Decision Tree Learning: http://www.cs.brandeis.edu/~cs113/classprojects/~lballard/cs113/proj1.html
History of computer games - http://www.jesperjuul.dk/thesis/2-historyofthecomputergame.html; http://www.designboom.com/eng/education/pong.html ;
What is a "game designer"?
How are the designs and the technologies connected?
Why is this a bit like pop music?
What is AI? How does it apply to game?
How do the graphics, game strategy, sounds etc come together?Interactive Fiction - is this a genre?
Adventure Games
RPG Games
One-on-one games
Sports
Card games, gambling, casinos.... all on line. But are these computer games?http://www.playfreeonlinegames.co.uk/adventuregames.html
Some useful Links:
http://www.gamedev.net/
http://www.gdmag.com/homepage.htm
http://www.gamasutra.com/Steve Woodcock's Game AI web page: www.gameai.com
Steve Rabin's AI Wisdom page: www.aiwisdom.com
Alex Champandard's AI Depot: www.ai-depot.com
Tom Grubb's flocking demo: http://www.riversoftavg.com/flocking.htm
Bryan Stout's pathfinding demo: http://www.gamasutra.com/features/19970801/pathfinding.htm
Decision Tree Learning: http://www.cs.brandeis.edu/~cs113/classprojects/~lballard/cs113/proj1.html
Components of Game Development
Objectives, Rules of Play, Overall Design
this is the first stage - the "idea" of the game. What are the objectives? How do win or lose a game? What are the rules of play? How many players? What kind of playing surface or environment does the game require? Roles of players vs non-player characters (computer controlled). What are rules of conduct?
Runscape Rules of Conduct (massive muli-player rpg) rs-rules.
These rules of conduct are a kind of "ten commandments" for on-line play - no cheating, no stealing, no lying, etc. Interesting sociological element in my view.
Graphic Design
graphics designers and artists develop the look and feel of the 3d space, the characters, the clothing, facial expressions, armaments, objects of value (gold, food, wood, sheep...). The look of the characters is in many ways the essential identity of the game, especially one-on-one shooter games. For example, the horrid creature in Doom 3, James Bond, Nancy Drew.... Quality is increasing to film-level cgi - see "Age of Empires III" This is for many gamers the primary appeal - fantasy creatures with fantastic capabilities.
Quality and realism of motion (animation component) has also increased dramatically. Again, rapidly approaching high-end cgi of Shrek, Untouchables, Matrix...
Narrative, Scripting
many of the complex games use a kind of multi-threaded (conditional) narrative. These scripts have to be written and integrated into the overall design. The writers take the game design, character descriptions and play method and devise film-like scripts. Some appear as text messages but more and more are audio.
Sound Design
The audio world of the game has become a major element in the style and feel of the play space. Many games are designed with a 4.1 surround (meaning 4 speakers, 1 sub-woofer) space. Others use simulated 3d audio over 2 or more speakers to give a wrap-around feel. The sound designers have to attach "earcons" to objects, actions, environment, players, computer-intiated sounds, dialogue and musical segments. Microsoft has developed some excellent tools for managing audio in DirectX-9 (and earlier) including a kind of "dynamic composition" strategy that permits the musical segments to change according to the instantaneous circumstances.
Graphic coding and Rendering
Programming the 3D models, characters, backgrounds, motions, lighting, interactions and the behaviours of characters is a monumental task. A typical major release can take two or more years of programming by a team of ten-twenty 3D graphics coders. The models are tested in a 3D space to observe and refine movement and interaction with other characters. An interesting aspect of this is that game coding has pushed the limits of cgi (computer graphics imaging) far beyond the special FX needed for most movie scenarios. In fantasy movies it is becoming hard to distinguish the difference between a "game" world and a narrative film. The Harry Potter films are good examples of this merging of fantasy with real actors.
Game coding
In addition to the 3D modeling and rendering coding there are many other aspects of the game that require coding and testing. The overall management of the numerous states and objects of the game require very fast and agile databases that retrieve lists of parameters, state data, audio clips, statistics (health, weapons status, food, magic, etc etc). Obviously the line between the 3D coders and the game coders is fuzzy as the actions of the models are embedded in the game structure.
AI Behaviours
AI or "artifical intelligence" is engaged in gaming in a very specific and functional way - in the form of behaviours. A branch of AI called Expert Systems is closer to what is meant here. That is, each of the functional elements (primarily characters) has an set of complex instructions (code) that determine their actions and re-actions as the game progresses. In a sense, each character needs to be an "expert" at whatever their role in the game may be. Instead of building an impossibly complex set of "if A then do B" rules, programmers use various kinds of expert systems methodology to learn, infer, and predict actions. In some games the characters begin as rather naive entities and through "play" learn to solve problems and react appropriately.
Computing systems - networking, servers, databases
Building the computing environment is a huge task. Here systems engineers, network engineers, database specialists, and a host of other programmers design, implement and manage the increasingly complex systems needed to implement these games. The quality of display, speed of interaction, access to global databases and servers, storage of states of hundreds of thousands of players is as demanding as running a large-scale distributed company - and all of this for just one game!
The Gamer's System
For example, the user's machine for Doom3 must be a bleeding-edge WinXP and gamers tend to build their own super-fast systems to support these complex and demanding game play environments. Of course, one could use a dedicated machine such as PlayStation2, X-Box or GameCube. But the trend in my view will be to focus on high-end general purpose systems. Note that Dell has announced some very special "gamer" computers to try to grab some of the home-builder market. (see: Dell Dimension XPS Gen 4). These systems start at more than 2x's the price of a mid-end computer and can go as high as $3000 for a full-blown gaming system with surround audio, large monitor, controllers, etc. Add to that a $3000 42" Plasma display for high-def video.
Summary
The development of a "hit game" is much like the development of a commercial film. A large group of highly skilled experts are required to realize the game inventor/designer's idea. In addition to that components of the film enterprise are needed - producers, publicists, rights management lawyers, investors - to bring the entire product to market. Total expense for a major release such as Doom 3 or Halo 2 could exceed $3 million. The returns can be staggering, however. In one day, Halo 2 sold more "product" than any previous entertainment release in history.
Where is all this headed? I believe that there are many new markets for interactive gaming systems that have not been fully tapped. For example - less than 6% of the hundreds of thousands of players of runscape are female and most of these are between 14 and 16 years of age. The male demographics for this game shows more than 60% are between 14 and 16. What would it take to make a "hit game" for other segments? Where are the "girls games"?
Read this article about the failure of games for girls - they simply picked the wrong metaphors (pink, frilly and sweet). Here is how Bonnie Ruberg closes her article:
What the industry needs to do, both to help out with issues of gender-equality and to make things more money, is to change the face of general, quality, non-gender-specific gaming. If little boys can like real games, so can little girls; it’s just a question of perspective, marketing, and (please!) a little more equal representation in the games themselves. If reluctant, potential girl gamers need gateway games, then Nintendo should be pushing titles like Animal Crossing and Pikmin, quality games with some girl-attractive aspects. Don’t start newbies out by showing them what’s bad and sexist in gaming; show them the cool stuff. Then they’ll be no more need for girl games, just good ones.
http://www.planetgamecube.com/editorials.cfm?action=profile&id=133
In- Class Project - Nov. 8, 13 2006
DUE DATE: Tuesday Nov. 28 (by email please to Marianela)
Join 2nd Life OR MapleStory (windows Explorer ONLY - no mac)
Write a few sentences on each of the following:
- what is the genre of the game?
- what are the primary feature of this genre?
- describe the quality of the graphics
- describe the quality of the audio
- describe the quality and style of the "game play"
- describe the "interactivity" of the game
- what "AI" elements do you detect?
- describe your overall impression of the "immersiveness"
- evaluate your experience. was it entertaining? boring? other?
- why? (to previous question)