How to create games?
Planning
Find the Idea
List your favourite or most inspiring games and what stands out about them, find a way to take some of those ideas to create something unique.
Identify Core Mechanic
Find out what will be the main mechanic of your game, that will be the most important piece of the game.
Add Layers
Add more layers over the core mechanic to make the game unique and interesting
Domains of Influence
Understanding player motivations is the key to making a game that will engage players and keep them invested.
This system for defining fun, developed by Jason Vanderberghe is based on the OCEAN Model - the âbig fiveâ personality traits.
The 5 Domains of Play
- Novelty (openness to experience) imaginative, creative motivations versus repeating, conventional ones
- Fantasy vs Realism
- Building vs exploring
- Novelty vs Familiarity
- Challenge (Conscientiousness) control and regulation of impulses
- Easy vs Hard
- Contentment vs achievement
- Stimulation (Extraversion) tendency to seek stimulation and social level of play
- Relaxation vs excitement
- Solo vs groups
- Harmony (Agreeableness) cooperation and social harmony
- Competition vs collaboration
- Indifference vs sympathy
- Story vs Action
- Threat (Neuroticism) tendency to experience negative emotions
- Anxiety
- Anger-hostility
- Depression
- Self-consciousness
- Immoderation
- Vulnerability
You can map your audience on those axes and decide where are you aiming with your game.
Aim at the Extremes
Design your game with the extreme ends of spectrum in mind, but include features from the middle, so that more people can enjoy your game.
Address the âtetrad of Experienceâ
Mechanics
- The goal
- The struggle
- Decisions to be made in order to reach the goal
- The rules
- How the player interacts with the game
Aesthetics
- The looks, sound and feel of the game
- What feelings it evokes
Narrative
- How is the idea/story communicated
- Who are the characters and how do they interact
- Whatâs the plot
Technology
- Whatâs the format, and how we can tailor it?
- What are the limits weâre facing?
Level Design
Phases:
- Planning
- Prototyping & blocking
- Play testing
- Art
- Scripts
- Tweaking
Balancing
Game balancing is about making sure the game is not broken - meaning it works as intended, and the player experience is according to the state you wanted to achieve.
Power Curve
To make balancing easier define a formula for how much power the player should get for invested resources.
- Decide on a power curve formula for how much you get per resource invested
- The power can be measured in damage per mana spent, damage per second or any other values relevant for your game
Estimating the Values
Because of high complexity it can be hard to estimate the value of items/skills/etc. in game. To predict it we can apply Fermi Estimate to get approximate values.
Quick Pointing
Going through a list of items to estimate, quickly assign ratings to each of then, for example on a 1-5 scale. While those will not be very accurate, you can then group the items by category and sum the point totals. Those sums will be a more accurate approximation of the relative values of the categories.
In this way you can quickly check if different groups of abilities are roughly equal in power.
If more than one person does the estimation, you can also notice any discrepancies between the estimations and talk them out.
Triple Tapping
When you find out that a piece of your game is imbalanced, instead of trying to fix it to the right balance on the first attempt, try to overshoot it the second way.
That way you will probably end up with a defined range of underpowered - overpowered in which the correct balance will be found.
Otherwise if you fail to get it right on the second time, you donât have much more information, other than new incorrect balance.
Start with Overpowered
Itâs better to make something too strong at the start than too weak.
If itâs not a fun to use part of the game when itâs strong, it probably wonât be when itâs balanced. Moreover, itâs more likely to be used if itâs strong, giving you more information about the correct balance.
Safeguards
As players will always find things you didnât plan for, you have to include safeguards.
In multiplayer games you can shift the balancing onto the players by creating strategies that counter each other, so that if one of them is too strong, the counter just becomes more popular.
In poker the uncertainty and bluffing balance out the uneven deal of cards - someone always has the best hand, but that doesnât mean theyâll win
TestingTODO
- Concept testing
- Scattershot testing
- Experience testing
- Stress testing
- Accessibility testing
Write a Game Design Document
What is a Game Design Doc
Game design document (GDD) is a place to store the details of your project in order to communicate them to either yourself in the future, or to other people. Itâs the tool to manage and develop the concept of what the game is, how itâs supposed to work, and how it will be built.
How to Write a Game Design Doc
Firstly consider what your document needs to provide and why. The design documents can vary greatly based on what is it exactly about your gameâs design that you want to remember or communicate.
Basic GDD Example Sections
- Core concept
- Design pillars
- Main features and mechanics
- target platform and audience
- interface and controls
- basic story
- visual style
- music and sound
- similar games & genres
- Development timeline & major milestones
You donât have to include all of them, but focus on the important points
Design Focused GDD Sections
- Characters
- Story
- Lore
- World & areas
- Graphics & visuals
- Audio & music
- Sound effects
- Dialogue
A Mechanics-focussed GDD Sections
- The core gameplay loop
- Controls
- The player
- Enemies
- Weapons
- Items
- Systems
- AI
- Controls
- UI & HUD
Other sections would be included if the document is meant for the investors or publishers
Popular Formats
- written form
- wiki
- one-page document
Sources
- Game makers toolkit
- Design doc