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Game Design and Theory Game Design

Started by NickHighIQ January 06, 2008 03:11 PM

18 comments, last by Sandman 16 years, 4 months ago

547

January 08, 2008 08:08 AM

Quote:Original post by Kylotan
If the story is important, then it's quite clear that the story may place requirements upon both the rendering and the gameplay. That in turn can place requirements upon the engine. To think otherwise is mad.

Games that revolve around a central type of gameplay don't need a story to completely flesh that gameplay out. That doesn't mean the story is unimportant.

However, I can imagine Final Fantasy type games not really possessing a central type of gameplay, and needing an ever changing gameplay engine. In my experience, "enthralling" doesn't describe the gameplay for these games. And I would wager it's because most of the scenarios were written on the spot for the story.

Quote:If my story dictates that I fly between planets and fight off enemy spaceships along the way, then that places significantly different demands on the implementation than if the story dictates that I sneak through deserted catacombs under a city.

That still sounds like part of the setting and gameplay style, rather than being related to a specific story. I mean unless you can only travel once or twice, and the gameplay while traveling is extremely generic.

Quote:If the story indicates that I do a lot of negotiating and diplomacy, then the engine will need to support more advanced dialogue. And if all I do is shoot aliens, the engine may not need it at all.

None of this is related to a specific story. It's all gameplay style. No one is going to build a circuit racing game and write a story about a desert salesman.

Quote:It's no good to say that it can all be done in scripting. Script is just an easier interface to the code. Functionality still needs to be supported by the engine, as there are things you just can't do in script alone.

There's no doubt that you'll have to go back and make changes because of things you never thought you would need. Especially on your first go at it. But this happens regardless of a story. Beyound this one limitation, scripting can be used to do anything.

Kylotan

10,512

January 09, 2008 05:50 AM

Yes, these things are aspects of the gameplay style, but that gameplay style may in turn have flowed from the story.

Quote:None of this is related to a specific story. It's all gameplay style. No one is going to build a circuit racing game and write a story about a desert salesman.

The whole point is that not everybody builds a game and then adds the story second.

Kest

547

January 09, 2008 12:39 PM

Quote:Original post by Kylotan
Yes, these things are aspects of the gameplay style, but that gameplay style may in turn have flowed from the story.

And some story elements and plot twists could be inspired or shaped by the game engine, if it was finished first. If you end up with segmented quest missions in your gameplay, it may cut your on-going dramatic story into pieces and ruin the feel of it.

You need a general idea of what you want out of both before you get serious with either. I just have more of a story revolves around gameplay preference. A good story is ever changing, and I don't like gameplay to be ever changing. That usually just adds up to a collection of generic mini-games.

NickHighIQ

100

Author

January 09, 2008 07:52 PM

A well-designed engine should be able to handle any type of game in its genre (if it's just a rendering engine then it should be able to handle any type of game) regardless of story or setting. Setting is defined by content and story. I doubt that if your engine was designed properly that you would ever need to add something that the story had in it, unless it's a new style of play. In this case, as Kest states, your game ends up becoming Mario Party.

Engines and games are two separate things, however, and the latter may have to compensate for the lack of a required feature in the former.

Nick Wilson - Junior C# Developer | See my crappy site

Kylotan

10,512

January 10, 2008 04:27 AM

Quote:Original post by NickHighIQ
A well-designed engine should be able to handle any type of game in its genre (if it's just a rendering engine then it should be able to handle any type of game) regardless of story or setting.

This is limiting yourself by putting genre first, then technology, and then finally fitting story and setting into that. You can do it that way if you like. But sometimes we don't want to work within existing genres, and may come up with a story that requires a different method of presentation, which in turn may require a new engine or significant engine changes. You can't always find an existing system that fits for any arbitrary story.

Quote:I doubt that if your engine was designed properly that you would ever need to add something that the story had in it, unless it's a new style of play. In this case, as Kest states, your game ends up becoming Mario Party.

If you honestly believe that "new style of play" necessarily means "Mario Party" then you're quite narrow-minded on game design. I'm glad other people haven't historically dismissed the idea of doing anything new because it didn't fit into some predefined genre.

Quote:Engines and games are two separate things, however, and the latter may have to compensate for the lack of a required feature in the former.

No, the game builds on the engine. If the engine can't provide the feature, and doesn't provide building blocks that the feature can be constructed from, then it can't be done. Therefore the game must occasionally shape the engine.

NickHighIQ

100

Author

January 10, 2008 06:34 AM

Quote:Original post by Kylotan
This is limiting yourself by putting genre first, then technology, and then finally fitting story and setting into that. You can do it that way if you like. But sometimes we don't want to work within existing genres, and may come up with a story that requires a different method of presentation, which in turn may require a new engine or significant engine changes. You can't always find an existing system that fits for any arbitrary story.

Give me an example of a story element that would require an addition or change in the engine.

Quote:Original post by Kylotan
If you honestly believe that "new style of play" necessarily means "Mario Party" then you're quite narrow-minded on game design. I'm glad other people haven't historically dismissed the idea of doing anything new because it didn't fit into some predefined genre.

I meant adding new styles of play on top of each other in the one game. I'm all for new genres; my favourite site at the moment is the Experimental Gameplay Project.

Quote:Original post by Kylotan
Therefore the game must occasionally shape the engine.

Agreed.

Nick Wilson - Junior C# Developer | See my crappy site

Kylotan

10,512

January 10, 2008 07:17 AM

Quote:Original post by NickHighIQ
Give me an example of a story element that would require an addition or change in the engine.

It's not just about a story element 'changing' the engine, it's about the story dictating the engine. For example, for such a game to be effective, a story about someone who commands an army would require a different engine to a story about someone who fights alone against a handful of opponents. If your story sees the main character in an RPG suddenly command an army in the final battle, then either you change the engine to cope with that, or you change the story to fit the engine.

Quote:I meant adding new styles of play on top of each other in the one game.

There is a whole range of things you may want to add before it gets to mini-game status. One example is that you can often drive vehicles in shooter games. Once upon a time, the engines just didn't allow that, and now many of them do. If your story involves driving a tank through a wall to rescue some people, and your engine doesn't support player-controlled vehicles, you're out of luck. Another example is how Oblivion supports sneaking in a similar way to that pioneered in Thief and Splinter Cell. This is crucial if your story allows or requires you to be a stealth-based character. Yet without the engine support for concepts like sound propagation, the level of background noise, fuzzy degrees of visibility, different movement speeds, and so on, you're not going to be able to pull it off.

All the time, we add new styles of play, or adapt styles from other games. Sometimes, those ideas will come from a certain story or setting that we're trying to depict. No engine, no matter how well-coded, can possibly anticipate every future gameplay idea, and no scripting interface attached to that, no matter how versatile, can expose enough functionality to do absolutely everything you might want.

NickHighIQ

100

Author

January 10, 2008 07:26 AM

Quote:Original post by Kylotan
For example, for such a game to be effective, a story about someone who commands an army would require a different engine to a story about someone who fights alone against a handful of opponents. If your story sees the main character in an RPG suddenly command an army in the final battle, then either you change the engine to cope with that, or you change the story to fit the engine.

That's genre. As for the last suggestion, your engine is separate from your game. The game should handle this so as that the engine is reusable as the name 'engine' describes.

Quote:Original post by Kylotan
One example is that you can often drive vehicles in shooter games. Once upon a time, the engines just didn't allow that, and now many of them do. If your story involves driving a tank through a wall to rescue some people, and your engine doesn't support player-controlled vehicles, you're out of luck.

Once again, this is genre related. Because most shooter games allow vehicles, vehicle support is part of most shooter engines now. However, if you wanted said vehicles and didn't have the support in the engine, it must be built into the game. The engine, unless poorly designed, will allow for this.

Quote:Original post by Kylotan
Another example is how Oblivion supports sneaking in a similar way to that pioneered in Thief and Splinter Cell. This is crucial if your story allows or requires you to be a stealth-based character. Yet without the engine support for concepts like sound propagation, the level of background noise, fuzzy degrees of visibility, different movement speeds, and so on, you're not going to be able to pull it off.

Again, these should be built into the game, not the engine, unless you want these features in all the games this engine is used for. Bethesda, however, probably built it into the engine themselves, but this is not necessary in most situations.

Quote:Original post by Kylotan
All the time, we add new styles of play, or adapt styles from other games. Sometimes, those ideas will come from a certain story or setting that we're trying to depict. No engine, no matter how well-coded, can possibly anticipate every future gameplay idea, and no scripting interface attached to that, no matter how versatile, can expose enough functionality to do absolutely everything you might want.

Which is why the engine must be generic and the game specific.

Nick Wilson - Junior C# Developer | See my crappy site

robert4818

138

January 10, 2008 07:31 AM

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Ideas presented here are free. They are presented for the community to use how they see fit. All I ask is just a thanks if they should be used.

Sandman

2,211

January 10, 2008 09:27 AM

Quote:Original post by NickHighIQ
Which is why the engine must be generic and the game specific.

Developing a completely generic engine is extremely difficult and less useful than you might think. It's almost guaranteed that by the time you've produced the first game using your amazing generic engine, some new technology will come along that will demand you to rewrite big chunks of it anyway.

Most engines are designed for a specific game or genre of game, and they will support the features required of that game, and perhaps some additional support for some degree of modding, but trying to go much beyond that when developing your engine is crazy.

The two main factors that should determine your approach would be: a)how important your story is and b)how much you enjoy refactoring your engine to support some feature required by the storyline that you didn't plan for at the start of day.

If your story isn't that important, or you're happy to work it around the limitations of the engine, then engine first, story later. If you absolutely must tell the story in a particular way and you don't want to do more work on the engine than you have to, then do the story first so you have a good idea of the feature set required before starting the engine.

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