Design Roundtable 1: The Death of Death

mittens · 2009-04-28T09:26:26

Here's the firstsecond game design round table, coming at you with new guidelines, newthe same suggested reading, and a new topic! I have no idea how I'm going to handle the next attempt at integrating the "Conclusion" article in with the base round table, but I'm hoping for a somewhat more successful approach than last week's. Guidelines Here are some of the rules/guidelines it would be nice to have people adhere to (or read and then willingly ignore):What I write as part of the topic description is not intended to be an argument for or against a given mechanic, nor does what I write necessarily reflect my full thoughts on an issue. It's mere intended to be an introduction to the topic that, hopefully, more people will expound on. The goal here is to talk intelligently about the topic at hand, as such, any responses would hopefully attempt to make some sort of argument. An argument does not have to be lengthy to be well-constructed or well-written. Don't just toss in buzz words for the sake of using buzz words; the idea here is to discuss the mechanics at hand for the purpose of determining why they are good or bad and to convince other people of your own perspectives. Tossing in buzz words "just because" does more to segregate a discussion than promote it. This post will actually be closed when the deadline is up as to keep the discussion fairly self-contained. The closing date for these is up in the air at the moment; this thread will be closed either a week from today or two weeks from today (depending on the number and quality of responses received). Don't be afraid to generalize your points as you discuss points with users. It goes without saying that a good game design may depend heavily on the game it's being used in and the way it's implemented, but the idea here is to pick out great ideas and argue them for their intrinsic worth. Don't get too caught-up in minor details and always realize that, generally, the goal here is to make intelligent arguments to comprise a design discourse. Please, please, please use your real names in your post if you feel comfortable; the resulting article just feels awkward when I have to reference a bunch of aliases.Suggested Reading The most important and relevant work which relates to this discussion was actually written about ten years ago by Doug Church: "Formal Abstract Design Tools". It's a great read for any designer. Round Table Topic -- The Death of Death There has been a slow and steady progression of the role that death plays in video games since the days of Ghouls and Ghosts and Super Mario Bros. No longer are most games tied to the old tenet of providing a player with an arbitrary number of lives, typically three for some reason, before the player is sent back to a previous spot in the game. This was a particularly brutal practice back in days of arcade games (which the aforementioned Ghouls and Ghosts and Super Mario Bros. were no doubt influenced by) where the goal is to punish the player and, more to the point, convince the player to insert an additional quarter or so. There were also extra lives given to players along the way to sort of feed the mini-addiction that these arcade-inspired games needed to feed in order to get players to cough up more change. This practice has persisted in the industry for ages to the point where designers still treat death and the process of player punishment much the same as we have for ages. Game developers and designers have largely abolished the system of giving players a finite number of tries or lives in a game, but so many games still cling to the concept of a player having a "life" to work with. This approach to handling the mortality or failure cases for the player can often lead to frustration (oh hey look at that) and that, for most titles, is not a desirable trait to aim for. There will always be the occasional Ninja Gaiden that will be released where designers very intentionally challenge player's skills. These kinds of games rely on a failure case as a means of reinforcing the lack of player skill or, alternatively, enforcing a certain in-game aptitude. There have been a handful of recent AAA games which attempt to make death less deadly. One of which is Lionhead Studios' Fable 2 which allows the player to die but then instantly resurrects him/her with permanent aesthetic scars applied to the player's avatar (also a minor experience loss). This mechanic still allows players to die and experience a failure case but it does not impede their progress through the game or, really, make for much player frustration (faux-challenge). The most recent and notable game which attempts to make its players think about death differently is Ubisoft Montreal's Prince of Persia. Prince of Persia treated death as a mere "misstep" and, essentially, gave it players an incredible number of mini-checkpoints that they would be restored to in the event of failure. Should games continually rely on death as a means of enforcing player skill? Is "death" the best way to do that? Is the current system of dying and returning to some designer-specified game checkpoint the best way of managing a player's progress through a game? Dying isn't fun, but is overcoming what caused a player to die before fun (and worth the annoyance of repeating a gameplay segment)?