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Article
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Contains
References to
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Date
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Difficulty
Tuning in Games
Single-player games
are all over the map in how they handle difficulty tuning. Some games
want very much for you to die, while others want you to actually have
fun. I compare the difficulty of 6 different games and explore the
choices they made.
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Prince of Persia: Sands of
Time
Ninja Gaiden
God of War
Devil May Cry 3
Resident Evfil 4
Rez
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12/31/05
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Game
Balance, Part 2: A Detailed Example
Combining
"balance" and "diversity" is the holy grail of
multiplayer game design. The fighting game Guilty Gear XX achieved
this in a very premeditated way, and serves as an example of how to
design balance into multiplayer games in general.
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Guilty Gear XX
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12/2/03
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World/Player
Interaction
Some games allow
the player to interact with the game-world in rich, varied ways. Other
games don't, but make up for it by emphasizing goal-oriented missions.
Both approaches can work...but all roads seem to lead to highly
tedious games these days.
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Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4,
Mario Sunshine, Metroid Prime, Zelda: The Wind Waker
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12/2/03
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Playing
to Win, Part 3: Not Playing to Win
I know I talk an
awful lot about playing to win, but now that I think I've gotten most
of that message across, I feel it's time to let you in on the secret.
Playing "for fun" can help you win, too.
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Marvel vs. Capcom, Super
Turbo Street Fighter, Capcom vs. SNK 2
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7/4/03
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Playing
to Win, Part 2: Mailbag
I got a lot of mail about the first Play to Win article, almost all of
it positive, but I'd like to answer the critics! I respond to several
"But I can't play to win because of X" complaints.
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Capcom vs. SNK 2
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4/24/03
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Game
Balance, Part 1
Balancing a competitive multiplayer game is a lot less forgiving than
balancing a single player game. Despite the designer's best efforts,
the gaming community has the upper hand when it comes to uncovering
imbalances.
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Marvel vs. Capcom 2,
Starcraft, Magic the Gathering
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12/10/01
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Rules
of the Game: Rule Design
The central task of game design is rule design. Rules, not programming
or art, are the soul of a game. This article looks at the rule
structure of several games, including one game that literally is only
a collection of rules.
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Chess, Go, Marvel vs.
Capcom 2, Counterstrike, Magic: the Gathering, Flux, Nomic
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5/2/01
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The
Art of War, Part 4: Divide & Conquer
Here The Art of War is applied to Starcraft. The teachings of Sun Tzu
are compared to those of top Starcraft Player Zileas.
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Book: The Art of War
Game: Starcraft
Player/Designer: Zileas
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11/5/00
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The
Art of War, Part 3: Deception
This article applies The Art of War specifically to fighting
games, and some of the concepts used by the very best players.
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Book: The Art of War
Games: Street Fighter series, including Hyper Fighting SF
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11/5/00
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The
Art of War, Part 2: The Sheathed Sword Revisited
The very same lessons from Part 1 of this series can be applied to
software development. The real trick of development is to defeat
problems before they grow threatening, not after they become
out-of-hand and visible to all.
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Books: The Art of War,
Software Project Survival Guide
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11/5/00
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The
Art of War, Part 1: The Sheathed Sword
An ancient Chinese book reveals the secrets of all kinds of battle.
This first article covers the concept of defeating the enemy before
the messy parts of the fight even begin.
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Book: The Art of War
Games: Street Fighter Alpha 2 &3, Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Starcraft
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11/5/00
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Playing
to Win, Part 0: Why Bother?
This short article explains why this site about game design includes a
section devoted to playing competitive games at a high level.
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Book: Chess for Fun &
Chess for Blood
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11/5/00
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Playing
to Win, Example: Survivor
Richard Hatch won CBS's Survivor by playing to win.
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Survivor TV show
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10/26/00
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Playing
to Win, Part 1
Playing to Win is the only
way to really improve, yet most people are too bound up by imaginary
rules to even try.
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Street Fighter series
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10/26/00
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Violence
in Video Games
Games have become the scapegoat for many of society's problems. In
fact, violent video games are beneficial to teenage boys. If you don't
believe listen to MIT's Henry Jenkins.
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Games: Street Fighter,
Quake
Films: Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, Reservoir Dogs
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10/26/00
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Episodic
Games
The mass market may be more ready for small, weekly doses of fun than
the game industry.
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You Don't Know Jack,
Diablo 2
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10/26/00
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Rethinking
Story Games
The formula of adventure games may have killed the genre, but not the
story game itself. Sirlin identifies the problem and proposes some new
types of story based games.
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Monkey Island series, Myst,
Donkey Kong Country 2, 3 game I made up
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10/26/00
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An
Introduction to Game Design Courtesy of Walt Disney
Video game
design is similar to the design of many other types of experiences,
including DisneyLand.
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DisneyLand
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10/10/00
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Suspense
Suspense
creates ripe, full moments out of otherwise hollow, empty ones. The
payoff for incorporating suspense far exceeds the cost.
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Films:
Psycho, Reservoir Dogs, Scream, The Blair Witch Project
Games: Resident Evil 2, Silent Hill
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10/10/00
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Hiding
Secrets in Platform Games
Curiously
related to suspense, secrets in platform games (or any game) can add
much more value to a game than the cost of their implementation. The
Rosetta Stone of secrets is DKC2.
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Donkey
Kong Country 2, Super Mario Brothers, WaroLand 3
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10/10/00
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Nonlinear
Exploration and Multiple Paths
Allowing the
player to explore worlds and missions without imposing a set order is
generally good, yet it can lead to particularly bad cases of
"getting stuck."
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Mario64,
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, WarioLand 3
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10/10/00
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Pacing
Pacing should
usually follow a sine wave of rising and falling action.
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Metal
Gear Solid, Sonic Adventure
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10/10/00
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Slippery
Slope and Perpetual Comeback
Slippery slope
is when falling a little bit behind in a game causes you to fall
further and further behind and eventually lose. It's not fun. One very
special game has the opposite property.
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Chess,
Starcraft, Street Fighter, Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Virtua Fighter 3, Soul
Calibur, Puzzle Fighter
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10/10/00
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Rock,
Paper, and Scissors in Strategy Games
It's perfectly
ok to use the rock, paper, scissors paradigm in a strategy game, as
long as you know...the secret.
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Virtua
Fighter 3, Dead or Alive 2, Starcraft, Killer Instinct 2
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10/10/00
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Yomi
Layer 3: Knowing the Mind of the Opponent
Yomi means
"knowing the mind of the opponent." Players think on a
higher level than one might expect, yet to support this, designers
need to design fewer "counters to counters" than one might
expect.
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Virtua
Fighter 3
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10/10/00
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