Wrote up some thoughts on elegant gameplay mechanics that everybody should rip off to make better games - if you'd rather read with the pictures feel free otherwise see below!
Summary if you don't like wall of text: these 10 mechanics are simple solutions that work within the game world, some of which have been around for a while and yet we constantly see games that fail to utilize them.
With the increasing pervasiveness of big budget franchises in recent years, videogames are increasingly building off what worked from their predecessors rather than reinventing the wheel. Although new game mechanics are constantly introduced, only a few of them become ‘canon’ for future game development.
Rechargeable health, simulation racing line and radial menus are innovative solutions to gameplay problems, and they are all now the de facto standard in their genres. These succeeded because they solved an issue with what I’m going to refer to as integrated design. Developers should endeavor to streamline their games as much as possible, with all lessons integrated into the actual gameplay. Players shouldn’t have to grind levels to become powerful enough to access content; if the point of the game is to access content, you should be accessing content at all times. Get to the point.
Following is an examination of a few gameplay mechanics that excel through integrated design and should serve as lessons for future games.
Positive reinforcement
Games should encourage you to play ‘correctly.’ Many games choose to punish the player if they don’t do what the developer intended. It’s easier but far less creative to use negative reinforcement in all situations. If an action game wants you to be stealthy, they should make it the best way to play. Don’t arbitrarily ‘end’ the game if the player is spotted; make it very difficult but possible to recover.
Games should promote the style the developer intended through mechanics as it’s far more rewarding to the player. Let’s take a look at four games that exemplify this model.
Red Faction Guerilla: Red Faction is a fairly mundane and generic action game with one exception: blowing shit up. Blowing shit up is usually fun, but Red Faction takes it to the next level. Never has wanton destruction been so satisfying. The developers sensibly realized that unless the player was encouraged to blow shit up all the time their game was going to fail. So what do they do? They tie the upgrade resource (salvage) to building destruction. Well played, Volition.
Shadow Complex: This is a Metroidvania RPG with exploration as its core mechanic. It seems so simple now, but many games give experience from defeating enemies, or grinding repetitive tasks despite that not being the focus of the game. Shadow Complex gives you experience primarily from exploration. Nice synergies between what is best about the game and what the player is encouraged to do; it’s not rocket surgery.
Company of Heroes: Relic Entertainment wanted to encourage a fast, expansionary style of play and discourage turtling. Instead of simply forcing the player to expand, or penalizing them for not behaving in the desired manner, the developer simply tied resources directly to expansion. These mechanics all seem simple in hindsight. So does the wheel but I’m pretty sure the inventor of that got minted.
Planescape Torment: This is not a game about combat; it’s about dialogue and exploration. It’s also an RPG, a game type where experience is traditionally gained through combat. Here’s a novel idea: tie the greatest experience gains to having interesting conversations. It sounds simple now, but many ‘story heavy’ games still refuse to adopt this mechanic.
Immersion
‘Immersive experience’ is a buzzword I’ve been hearing a lot of lately. Many developers claim to be immersive and then repeatedly introduce elements that scream to the gamer ‘you’re playing a game.’ If I’m playing Metal Gear Solid, and a giant exclamation mark appears over the head of an enemy, I’m no longer thinking ‘my god this is so true to life.’
Gamers will argue this is a requirement as it’s difficult to tell through physical cues when a foe becomes aware of you. Let’s take a look at a few games that came up with a more creative solution.
Left4Dead: You are a survivor of the zombie apocalypse. You are struggling with three friends to escape to safety in a terrifying world. When zombies are approaching, announcing ‘zOMG zombies are coming!’ in a garish pop-up on screen screams ‘this isn’t real.’ Valve went a different direction: subtle instrumental cues that signify the onset of certain events along with distinguishing sounds for each special infected type. You become aware of your surroundings by listening to the environment, much as you might in real life. (I suppose they ran out of instruments to signify ‘Tank is approaching!’ You can’t win them all)
Uncharted 2: While this is primarily an action game, there are a few stealth sequences. The ‘awareness distance’ of guards in most stealth games is arbitrary and difficult to identify. Another interesting fact: guards have flashlights. How can we integrate these two concepts to create additional immersion? Have the flashlight distance be equal to the awareness radius of the guard. Goodbye, exclamation marks.
Portal: Valve created an entirely new gameplay mechanic for Portal. Imagine playing an FPS for the first time. You would need extensive tutorials just to navigate the environment. Gameplay advances such as Portal require the same level of instruction, but cliché ‘tutorial stages’ are not immersive. Portal shaped the entire game around a research lab, making it perfectly natural for the game to begin slowly and progress through instructions. Now gamers understand the portal mechanic and Portal 2 can jump right into sophisticated environments.
Sophisticated Solutions
Sometimes you have a problem in a game where it’s not merely difficult to integrate cues into the gameplay, or encourage the player to act in a desired manner. There are some problems that are just difficult to solve, period. Let’s take a look at a few of those and how the games in question came up with an elegant fix.
World of Warcraft: Blizzard wanted to kickstart an economy for basic trading goods without allowing the trading of powerful raid items. To encourage players to auction goods such as skins or ore, they made them sell to vendors for far less than their worth to other players. The financial incentive to auction off resources from professions overcomes the inconvenience of auctioning a good. Likewise, arbitrarily preventing certain items in your inventory from being auctioned is an unrealistic situation, so Blizzard chose the Bind on Pickup mechanic. It’s a far smaller jump to associate magical properties to magical items than it is to believe you just can’t auction certain items.
Mario Kart: Mario Kart wanted to make an accessible kart racing game. How do you keep the people losing involved, however, without merely speeding up their kart arbitrarily as they fall behind (an inelegant solution). Enter: power-ups. Give the people in the back better items that cause them to catch up! Of course, they also just made their karts go faster. Nicely done, Nintendo.
Batman Arkham Asylum: To make a true Batman simulator, you have to pick off enemies from the shadows. Unfortunately, when you’re out of sight or hiding in ventilation shafts and around the corner, it’s pretty tough to actually play the game. Detective Mode allows you to see enemies through the walls, so you can confidently traverse around the level without being concerned the enemies are out-maneuvering you.
Game mechanics are constantly being crafted and refined. Many of the initial problems seen in games have been ironed out, and you’d never see a game with limited continues anymore despite their universality in the early days of gaming. It is disappointing that many games still have awkward or artificial gameplay mechanics when an elegant solution has already been invented. You just have to dig a little deeper, to the gooey core. Delicious
Log in to comment