I'm developing a game which targets expert gamers. Not just core gamers who play lot of games, but gamers who are willing to handle complex gameplay mechanism, like dwarven fortress.

I'm not planning to make it more like a 'casual' game by removing some of the complexity, but I would like to make the game mechanism more accessible. What are feasable ways to increase the accessibility of a game ?
One important step is to use a gui, which has been integrated, but what else could be done ?


Edit: fixed a typo (causal=>casual)

[Edited by - Ashaman73 on November 12, 2010 12:41:17 AM]

Having the least amount of information visible while keeping all relevant information to a decision is a good way to make it accessible. Not enough information does not allow the player to make informed decisions on these mechanics while too much information will hide important information. One way to do it is to categorize things for the player to allow them to quickly compare complex data.

For example, in an SRPG I was working on, characters could have resistance to 8 elements from -100% to 100%. Listing the 8 percentages was flooding the player with information. Replacing them with up to 5 up/down arrows kept things simple while allowing the player to rapidly see which target was vulnerable to fire or ice. He couldn't see if the target had 33% or 40% resistance, but such granularity hardly matters anyway. Attacking a unit with 2 down arrows is better than 3 up arrows and that's enough information.

You could increase the complexity gradually as the game progresses although I'm not sure if that's what you mean by removing complexity.

Making a tutorial could also help players understand it.

Dwarf Fortress uses a series of youtube videos as a tutorial.

Basing as much of it as you can in real physics may help. Like a broader spear head will do more damage except an armored opponent in which case a thinner spear head will perform better. The more ways to understand besides memorizing numbers and keys you can find the better.

Quote:Original post
I'm not planning to make it more like a 'causal' game by removing some of the complexity

Quote:by snak
I thought you meant anti-causal in the 'cause & effect' sense

Yeah, are we just looking at a typo here? OP, did you mean to type "casual" instead of "causal"?

@Tiblanc

Quote:
For example, in an SRPG I was working on, characters could have resistance to 8 elements from -100% to 100%. Listing the 8 percentages was flooding the player with information. Replacing them with up to 5 up/down arrows kept things simple while allowing the player to rapidly see which target was vulnerable to fire or ice. He couldn't see if the target had 33% or 40% resistance, but such granularity hardly matters anyway. Attacking a unit with 2 down arrows is better than 3 up arrows and that's enough information.

Aren't number part of an expert game ? For minor features (like elemental resistances) I could use icons instead, but for major features like character attributes I would prefer numbers. How about reducing the range (instead of 0-300 only 0-30) ?

@snak

Quote:
In short, make sure that the purpose and impact of various actions a player can perform are clearly communicated and intuitive (even if they are numerous)

But how ? As an example I got a quite complex and flexible crafting system. You can craft a torch from whatever you like, i.e. take a bone (handle), wrap leather around the bone and use water as fuel.
Well, in this combination you got a torch which would never burn. You got recipes of working combinations, but players are able to experiement with whatever fits the torch-recipes. When he takes dragon-blood instead of water the torch will be better than any standard torch,on the other hand, taking worm blood will lead to an other not burning torch. How to communicate this 'sandbox' crafting system to the player ?
When the player starts with worm-blood and got a not burning torch, he will most probably think about a bug and not a feature.

@Tom

Quote:
Yeah, are we just looking at a typo here? OP, did you mean to type "casual" instead of "causal"?

Oops, fixed it :-)

@TyrianFin

Quote:
And targeting on specialized customer group is good choice,
becouse there is overflow of "casual" games that only get lost
in to internet noise. (one size fits all, is bad marketing idea!)

Yes, the current trend is to make money, not games. I want to make an experimental game (and most likely not money :-) ) which targets game veterans, thought too much information and low accessibility will even scare them away.

Quote:Original post by Ashaman73
@TyrianFin

Quote:
And targeting on specialized customer group is good choice,
becouse there is overflow of "casual" games that only get lost
in to internet noise. (one size fits all, is bad marketing idea!)

Yes, the current trend is to make money, not games. I want to make an experimental game (and most likely not money :-) ) which targets game veterans, thought too much information and low accessibility will even scare them away.

Still... be careful. "experimental" and "complex" are almost always at odds. Most innovative games we see these days focus very clearly on one experimental concept and fully explore that to its logical end -- think of Braid or Portal, which each had a single novel idea (a.k.a. The Experiment) and really delve very deeply into all the ways those mechanics could be used.

Firstly it is difficult to create a complex system out of entirely novel components, so you may only end up with a handul of new ideas glued together with The Same Old Thing.

Secondly, even if you manage to come up with many novel ideas that integrate well, it becomes increasingly difficult to explore them in any real depth the more of them that there are. I would recommend no more than 3 experiemental ideas or systems per project, and urge you that 1 is probably the more optimal number.

Quote:Original post by Ashaman73
I want to make an experimental game (and most likely not money :-) ) which targets game veterans, thought too much information and low accessibility will even scare them away.

And this is the pitfall.

Going back to dwarf fortress, it is in my experience neither particularly complex, nor particularly hard - both of those are greatly oversold by one of the most f***ed-up user interfaces ever designed. If he were to ship a graphical tileset and add a mouse-driven interface, I don't think it would be any more difficult than the Sims.

Quote:Original post by Ashaman73
But how ? As an example I got a quite complex and flexible crafting system. You can craft a torch from whatever you like, i.e. take a bone (handle), wrap leather around the bone and use water as fuel.
Well, in this combination you got a torch which would never burn. You got recipes of working combinations, but players are able to experiement with whatever fits the torch-recipes. When he takes dragon-blood instead of water the torch will be better than any standard torch,on the other hand, taking worm blood will lead to an other not burning torch. How to communicate this 'sandbox' crafting system to the player ?
When the player starts with worm-blood and got a not burning torch, he will most probably think about a bug and not a feature.

I love that idea! I was thinking of something equally sandboxy recently and asked myself the same question: how can the player know what is posible instead of shrugging his shoulders and saying "this is boring", or "wtf am I supposed to do"?

The answer I came up with is to have a short as possible tutorial that communicates the essential mechanisms to the player. Introduce your crafting in the same way you introduced it to us.

So you could have an NPC mentor ask the player to try to create a torch. First you could suggest creating one by combining a stick, a piece of cloth, and regular fuel. The torch would work. Then the NPC could ask the player to replace the stick with a bone, the cloth with leather, and the fuel with worm blood. The torch would not work. So the NPC could then ask the player to replace the worm blood with dragon blood and the torch would work. In this way you introduce the players to the many fundamental mechanisms involved in crafting and the player will learn what can be done intuitively, by pattern recognition and filling in the gaps.

Later on in the tutorial you could introduce another element of the sandbox possibilites. Ask the player to take a pick and shovel that he needs to create using your crafting system, and try to dig a hole in the side of a cliff. Then ask him to make the hole bigger. Then ask him to cut some trees and use the wood from them to create a fence with a door for the cave. The player now has a house. You have introduced your destructible and resuable environment. You've shown him what is possible in your world. Rest assured he will not hesitate to try what can and can't be done in your game.

If there are other fundamental mechanisms in your game the player is not aware of you will need to introduce them in the same exemplary way. Ask the player to perform several tasks that illustrate the basic mechanisms you want the player to understand, and presto.