jonathan howe on game design

Maximum Play Easily

2006-11-02T12:30:00.000-05:00

More great advice from another rockin' free MMORPG, Xiah. Too bad I find the MMORPG model so odious because apparently I'm missing out on a great new experience:

05. Feel tight? No. Feel Nausea in 3D game? No.
Xiah offers both the first and third person view by an all control interfaces such as a keyboard and mouse. Basically, users can see background and the character and move conveniently by clicking in the third person view. Also, it is possible in Xiah to see a character and background more visually in the first person view.

Real Time Strategy without the armchair

2006-07-20T22:18:00.000-04:00

There is a very special genre more rare even than the adventure game for which I can't seem to come up with a good name. It's an RTS where you play a unit yourself, usually in third person perspective. There have been very few games to pull this off because of the many issues involved.

These are the ones that I've played:
1. Herzog Zwei - Sega Genesis - You play as a mechanized robot in the Robotech tradition. In addition to attacking units directly, you were also responsible for flying to bases to command production, carrying units into battle, and reprogramming units with simple goals.

2. Sacrifce - PC - A highly unusual RTS, the units thereof are a little to strange to describe concisely. In this one, you largely take the role of harvesting resources and creating units. Like other PC RTS, it was easy to create groups of units and order them in a direction.

3. Kingdom Under Fire: Heroes/Crusaders - Xbox - This one is a little light on the strategy and requires you to settle skirmishes in a button mashing melee of rather large proportions. This one owes a lot to the Dynasty/Samurai Warriors series which are a little shy of making my list.

4. Batallion Wars - GameCube - Once a spinoff of Advance Wars, it emphasizes unit matchups. Controlling and commanding the various units became very difficult, and incorrect matchups to lead to your units being decimated off camera in the blink of ill-aimed eye.

Geez. Four games - that's all I can think of. Four very difficult games. Can you think of any others? Is that enough to define a genre?

Titan Quest: Detailed Stats

2006-07-19T10:15:00.000-04:00

Number of Enemies Defeated: 16704
Number of Actual Titans Encountered and/or Defeated: 0

Revenge Fantasy

2006-06-28T20:45:00.000-04:00

Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones was such a joy to play that the especially difficult moments are that much more noticeable. I finished the game today but there was one particular boss encounter that had me quite enraged. When "the dark prince" comes out in me and I develop a disproportionate and temporary hatred of the developers, I sometimes wish revenge on them.

Maybe you'd expect me to wish upon them a gruesome death similar to that which my avatar suffers. But what I often find myself wishing is that they could watch me play; If they could only see how angry I am, how poorly the experience is tailored to me, how little fun I am having.... Could they have imagined that I would have to attempt their little trial 32 times? Perhaps if they too had to watch the unskippable cutscene over and over and over there in the room, feeling me seethe, I would perhaps have my sweet, sinister revenge.

That said, it was a stupid awesome game and you should totally go buy it dude. La dee da.

Return to Tomb Raider

2006-04-24T22:27:00.000-04:00

It's unusual for me to actually have and be playing new releases, so I must comment on Tomb Raider Legend. But, this forces me to confess that I have never before played a Tomb Raider game. I might have attempted playing the fourth one on the Dreamcast but I'm not sure that was a game.

Anyway, excuse me if this is inaccurate, but I am so proud of Crystal Dynamics, the kings of the block puzzle, that they have evolved themselves. Yes, for the first time that I can remember, the suspiciously uniform crates, boxes and stones that are lying about just itching to solve some block puzzle can be manipulated outside of a standard grid. Lara Croft can actually rotate boxes, getting behind them and pushing them in any ol' direction she chooses. It's 2006! Havok physics engine in the house! We now have the best block puzzles money can buy!

Raziel from Soul Reaver is soooo jealous.

I'm teasing but I actually love block puzzles. I love light puzzles too - you know those ones where you're rotating mirrors to get a beam of light to hit the right target (let's see: Broken Sword, Wind Waker, Soul Reaver; the list of wonderful light puzzles is quite long). I'm only through the first chapter of Tomb Raider Legend, so I'm willing to see what (old) tricks Crystal Dynamics has up it's collective sleeve.

Lost in Blew

2006-04-13T13:24:00.000-04:00

Nintendo DS, I love you, but I will not blow on you for extended periods while I am on a plane or other in another public space.

DOFUS: Not that intense

2006-03-06T11:26:00.000-05:00

"The PvP has never been that intense on DOFUS" (excerpt from a marketing email). Well, at least they know their shortcomings. I'm sure they meant "The PvP has never been this intense on DOFUS."

What the heck is DOFUS, you ask? And how did it get such a terrible name? It's a free MMORPG with very nice visuals that has two interesting components to it:
1. It's made with Flash. Yes, an MMORPG made with Flash.
2. It's based off turn-based strategy

The problem I have with you, DOFUS, is the same problem I have with MMORPGs in general: it is so very hard to get into you in the first hour. For me, an hour is a very long time in gameworld. If I'm not hooked or at least intrigued after the first 20 minutes, you've pretty much lost me. That's why online games that just shove you into their world lobby, such as Shot Online, really turn me off. Start me off with a battle - let me know what I'll be doing in this world. When I first boot up your game, I'm in evaluation mode, not waste-2-hours-exploring-and-figuring-out-what's-going-on-mode.

So, maybe in a couple of weeks I'll be able to tell you if this game is any fun.

Play Testing with Adjustable Rules

2006-03-06T11:18:00.000-05:00

I'm trying something new for one of my latest clients. As I provide working prototypes for playtesting, I'm taking the extra time to add UI interface elements to control the basic parameters for the game. In other words, the playtesters themselves can alter the game to see what works. Hopefully I'll get more interesting feedback, the playtesters will feel more involved in the process, and we'll get a better game out of it. The idea of having adjustable rules is nothing new but it's the first time I've offered it.

Guac-A-Mole

2006-02-23T18:32:00.000-05:00

Sometimes when I am talking to a client or friend about a game design I will say that the gameplay is little more than the functional equivalent of Whac-a-mole. This is meant to be an insult. Who, in their right or wrong minds, really wants to play Whac-A-Mole for more than 15 seconds?

It is with a heavy heart that I must report that Activision* is publishing Whac-A-Mole for the Nintendo DS. IGN gave the game an impressive 5.0 ("meh"). I'm surprised it even earned a review, let alone a 5.0 ("meh").

Many places are selling it for $29.95. It's not even worth 5.0 cents. Meh.

* Actually, the subsidiary "Activision Value" is publishing it. No irony intended. On a completely related note, Activision just laid off one or two of its employees.

Underdiggling or... Robboband AI or...

2006-02-16T22:25:00.000-05:00

Often you'll hear reviewers talking about "Rubberband AI," referring to when the computer compensates to assist the underdog. I don't like this term. "Rubberband AI" makes it sound like there is artificial intelligence involved, yet it has nothing to do with artificial intelligence. It's merely changing the rules, outcome, or status of the game to keep the game even. How about "rubber rules" or "rubberband compensation" or maybe just "rubberbanding."

I'm sure there are many predecessors, but NBA Jam strikes me as the first blatantly transparent use of rubberbanding. Build up a 20 point lead and it's almost a liability in that game. I mean, Scott Skiles is deking John Stockton and dunking through Karl Malone's body and soul, the computer so loves the underdog. Race games are also notorious for this. Sled Storm, one of the many SSX spinoffs, abused this to an intolerable degree. In a racing game with Rubberbanding, you can absolutely dominate the first 4 minutes, building up an improbable lead. If you crash in the last 20 seconds, though? It's all over. Likewise, you can chub your way through the first 3.5 minutes of the race and step it up to pass everyone in the last minute. It reduces 90% of the game to a barely interactive sightseeing tour.

Rubberbanding has its uses, but it shouldn't raise anyone's suspicions. Because fundamentally, it's changing the rules right underneath the player, and unless you're playing Calvinball, that ain't gonna fly.

Help me out here

2006-02-16T15:57:00.000-05:00

The game I was alluding to was Resident Evil 4. I can prove nothing, of course, but I believe that the pickups (ammo, healing items) you are given automatically adjust based on your current status. Thus, unless you really make a good effort at it, it's hard to stick yourself with a dead save.

The game seems to go one step further, though. It keeps track of how many attempts you make at a boss and rewards you with better pickups the more you try. This makes you feel less crappy about repeating sections multiple times.

Maybe this isn't really happening. Maybe I am just AWESOME at RE4 and am a conspiracy theorist to boot. Maybe I am wearing two boots. Any which way, I enjoyed feeling challenged but not frustrated.

Please note: this sort of intelligent difficulty adjustment is not to be confused with the popular "rubber band AI." Let's talk about that concept next time, shall we?

Dead Save

2006-02-05T09:57:00.000-05:00

It was possible in past Resident Evil games and some other challenging titles to stick yourself with what I call a "dead save." A dead save is when you've a savegame file that leaves you absolutely hosed with no chance of progressing. Most dramatically, if you quick save a First Person Shooter with 10 health, no ammunition and directly in front of an enemy, that sounds like a definitive dead save.

First person shooters get around this problem by using separate checkpoint/autosave slots and manual quicksave slots. The Resident Evil games simply conditioned you to use saves sparingly and keep lots of save slots open. When I played RE: Code Veronica on the Dreamcast, I got through the entire first disc and met up with the boss with insufficient firepower to defeat him. I don't know if it's true, but it appeared that if I used every single bullet I still did not have enough to defeat this enemy. This was a grim awakening, because the 'deadness' of the save could have easily traced back to 4-5 hours prior. Good thing I enjoyed it the first time...

Next I will write about a recent hit title that seems to have its own solution to the dead save conundrum. OMG*, what could it be?

*OMG = 'Oh My God' and is used here in a purely sardonic manner. No twelve-year-olds were used in the making of this post.

Indirect offensiveness

2006-02-02T10:17:00.000-05:00

GameDaily BIZ reports that a group is concerned about the game GUN, and not because of the overall quality. It seems to me that there are a variety of racial groups being slaughtered in that game and that the tastelessness is even-handed. However, that's not really my point.

Target sympathizers for this campaign seem to be people who have not played the game. Otherwise, their purchase or rental would already be complete and it's a might bit harder to boycott retroactively. Therefore, new participants have not played the game, have never experienced the 'offensive' content themselves, and cannot make a truly informed decision about whether the game is appropriate.

2 simple things for happier gamers

2006-01-31T21:22:00.000-05:00

There are two things about Ninja Gaiden Black 's control that I appreciate:

1. One button map access. A lot of games do this. A lot more don't. If there is a map screen, I want an immediate view of it. I get disoriented easily in 3D games and I don't like poking around. Thankfully, Resident Evil has been doing this for a while, too.

2. Dual purpose right stick camera control. Click the right stick and you toggle between the stick controlling the 3rd person game camera and a first person view. Any game that offers both is a step ahead, but this takes it further and centralizes the controls. With Prince of Persia's generous 3 camera systems, I often forget which button gets me the view I want. With the right stick click, the button is logically put in the same place as the camera control stick. Simple, right?

So, yay Ninja Gaiden Black, or as I often see it abbreviated, Ninj. Gaiden Black.

Cinema Style

2006-01-25T12:41:00.000-05:00

GameDaily BIZ has captured for us some comments from David Rodriguez, Lead Designer at developer High Voltage. The theme seems to be that game developers are wasting effort creating elaborate cinematics for games when they should be making better gameplay. I agree with the message, but disagree with the details.

First of all, I think he has a great point: "I just gave these asses FIFTY dollars to watch a really bad movie!" Final Fantasy X, for example, is the worlds longest B-movie. People complain about Uwe Boll's adaptations of game franchises, but imagine watching all of the movies from Final Fantasy X without all of those repetitive, unchallenging battles to break things up ... actually it sounds like a minor improvement. What was my point again? Anyway, they are often terrible. Enough said.

But Rodriguez goes astray on some key points:
"When you put a story with a beginning and ending into your game, you are in fact putting an artificial lifespan on your game" - not everyone is looking for a neverending MMORPG-type experience.

"Contrary to popular belief, you don't NEED a story any more than you need a jump button." - this should not be interpreted to mean that a story is irrelevant or not an asset. He then turns around an emphasizes "immersion." Some people get immersed in a story.

Finally, a lot of dev teams outsource their cutscenes. Especially some of the most dramatic ones: Onimusha, Devil May Cry, Ninja Gaiden, are prerendered and by a different team or subset. Thus, there is money spent but not effort spent. And this money has an impact, just like the box art and marketing. I hate to defend marketing, but the business doesn't hold many options for people self-publishing Playstation games.

I guess you need to rase a big stink if you want anyone to ... um ... smell ... you at all?

SSX on Tour and Breaking the Rules

2006-01-13T17:21:00.000-05:00

SSX On Tour is the 4th major SSX game to come out and we all know what has to happen come the fourth edition of the game: redefine or go home. For better or worse, many beloved franchises have come to this reality; recently Jak & Daxter, Ratchet & Clank, Onimusha, Resident Evil (okay, it's really the 11th or whatever).

SSX's big redefinition is really just the interface, though. It "breaks all the rules!" Perhaps even the "rulez." It also confused the crap out of me, the player. First of all, the menu screens and in-game interface are cluttered, noisy and non-intuitive by design. I'm still not sure how to read the trail map (it took me a while to realize the cutesy phrases beneath the event names were the trail names). I can't tell one crazy in-game power-up from the next. My eyes bleed trying to find out the pertinent information on the store interface (ex.: those four checkboxes in the middle of the screen are a map-style key, not up-to-date information).

Controls suffer from a similar problem, although I suspect this is less to be edgy and more to avoid the ho-hum 4th sequel doldrums. But seriously, in the Xbox version, am I supposed to press Y, move the right stick and hold it, and then press X to 'tweak' my trick all at the same time? Am I missing something here? Like an extra right hand?

I know I will get used to these features the more I play. And, don't get me wrong, I like seeing the unicorn playing the double-fretted flying-v guitar during loading screens. But it's going to take some work, and I certainly won't be introducing this game to my ski-phillic, game-phobic friends like I did its predecessors.

Splinter Cell: Chaos Theories

2006-01-07T18:56:00.000-05:00

Just when you thought it couldn't really get any better, Chaos Theory ups the ante on the whole Splinter Cell series yet again. I know I'm a little late to the dance here but honestly it's good to keep the 'older' games in mind when devising our Best of the Year awards. Chaos Theory deserves an award for its graphics, humor, and story. But it's the latest level designs that really have me pleased. Because of them, Splinter Cell makes Metal Gear Solid feel like a G.I. Joe afternoon cartoon. These branched, real-life environments do a great job of creating interesting situations yet feeling completely immersive and not like you're running down an elaborately dressed tunnel (very few "false doors" in these environments). I like the moments where you turn a corner into a strangely familiar room and think ohh, this is the kitchen... I could have totally climbed in through the window over there and knocked that dude out here and ...

Choices. That magic word again. What makes a game a game.

Return to Oasis

2006-01-02T20:20:00.000-05:00

No, I'm not talking about a sequel. I'm just throwing out a happy, good-natured I told you so. It won independent game monitor Gametunnel's Game of the Year Award. Almost as important, this award was mentioned on the indomitable influencer, Penny Arcade. Well, congratulations, Mind Control.

Ninja Gaiden Black Lab

2006-01-01T14:56:00.000-05:00

A game that is so notoriously hard that it kills your friends; You'd think that the rerelease with it's easier difficulty would be, you know, tactful about it at least. This is not the case. It actually calls you a "Ninja Dog," after repeated chiding about "leaving the path of the ninja." Yet even in this eaiser mode, I am still getting my Ninja bad ass handed to me. Woof.

Most contrived gameplay element ever

2005-12-29T17:23:00.000-05:00

Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles is, at it's cutesy, itsy-bitsy heart, a hack and slash game in the same vein as Diablo and its many, many offspring. But one element sets it apart, for better or worse, which is the chalice or "bucket." This game is almost two years old but it still wins the award for most contrived gameplay element.
The "bucket" creates a bubble around you that protects you from the apparently toxic air, the miasma, as it is called. The key purpose of this seems to be to keep the party of adventurers together. Otherwise, everyone would be free to wander around the screen and kill stuff without annoyance. And because so much of the narrative is wrapped around this concept to justify it to the player, of course you're stuck with it in the single player mode too. Thankfully you are granted a minion to do it for you, otherwise you'd be paralyzed, I guess. So essentially, you are reminded of this silliness by the glowing circle around your character (see yellow line in the screenshot).

This game is either being re-released or sequelized for the Nintendo DS, making it a $35-$40 game instead of a $15, although certainly lubricating the multiplayer process by leaps and bound. Unfortunately, since it is so deeply intertwined with the story, I sense we have not seen the last of "the bucket." (dun dun dun)

Pangya!

2005-12-23T21:41:00.000-05:00

I am a bit of a MMORPGaphobe. Gives me the willies just trying to pronounce it. Logging on to a server and playing games with a bunch of near-illiterate randos does not appeal to me. So it is a great surprise to me that a new golf game, Albatross18, is so very appealing.

I like that "level grinding" in this game involves actually playing games of golf. I don't have to click on enemies and watch my avatar do my dull bidding. No, I am playing a game that I enjoy playing regardless of its RPG setting. This is what made Mario Golf: Advance Tour my favorite golf game. Albatross18 has a fairly solid golf mechanics, it's free, and it's getting me over my fear of randos. And unlike Shot Online, it's not awkwardly translated from Korean. It's quite breathtaking - I suggest you try it.

Animal Crossing: Wild Logic

2005-12-18T23:06:00.000-05:00

Sometimes when you play a game you want to be able to know the rules and get predictable results from your actions. However, for an engaging experience, AI shouldn't always be predictable. When Artificial Intelligence is involved, a player that can see through the behavior to the underlying programming is often brought out of the immersion. It's important to have logical behavior, but the specific rules must be obfuscated.

Animal Crossing is really hammering this point home for me. Quite frankly, I have no idea what my actions are really going to do to the inhabitants of this world. If I give a character an apple every time, will they be bored and offended? Is the game parsing my letters for keywords? Did I make Chief leave town? I think if the underlying rules were obvious, this wouldn't be as engaging an experience. But, like real people, the inhabitants of Pantsdon, my Animal Crossing DS town, are unpredictable.

Prance of Persia

2005-12-07T12:57:00.000-05:00

We all know that Ubisoft Montreal made a big misstep in its tone for Prince of Persia: Warrior Within (amid accusations that they had "sold out," one interview with the producer revealed that nope, they just had poor judgement).

I think all of this overshadowed how great a game it is. It is a great game. Two clever design mechanics:

1. Backtracking sessions are mitigated by turning them into high-speed chase sequences. Suddenly the doldrums of retracing your steps become one of the most exciting parts of the game.

2. Using an enemy as a big flashing "Go here next" arrow. It isn't until the 3rd or 4th time you encounter and pursue the "crow demon" thingy that you realize that you're being carefully led by the level designer's hand. Very sneaky.

The level designs are just fantastic. I love environmental puzzles, and the time travel + puzzling happily reminds me of Soul Reaver for the Dreamcast. It almost makes me want to pay full price for the newest Prince of Persia...

Cutscenes should be skippable

2005-12-02T22:38:00.000-05:00

Uh, yeah, everyone and their mom has been saying that cutscenes should be skippable. The current issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly has at least 2 reviews that complain about such problems. It sounds so simple: write something so that you press "X" and you're on to the action... or is it?

Here are the two reasons why we see unskippable cutscenes:
1. The developer perceives that the importance of the cutscene outweighs convenience. This may be well-intentioned, such as a tutorial or important plot point, or it can be pure ego. Sometimes this is mitigated some by the cutscene being unskippable only on the first pass. (However, this is still unacceptable since I may turn off the machine or may be playing it through from scratch on a new memory card, etc.)

2. It's not as technically simple as it seems - especially with game-engine rendered cutscenes. A lot of cutscenes use actual character or environment objects, and they need to be "set up" manually through the cutscene (a wall collapses, a door closes, enemies get to their marks).

But you know what? Too freakin' bad!! Get it together, fellow designers! The resentment you engender will outweigh any appreciation of your art & story.

Oddworld: Stranger does its homework

2005-12-01T09:41:00.000-05:00

I've been reading Bob Bates Game Design book so prepare yourself for some quotes over the next couple of weeks. At the same time, I've started playing Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath.

I'm pretty sure Lorne Lanning is a smart guy or had been reading the book daily. Probably both.

Even little transition animations are skippable. Saving is easy and can be done anywhere. And Lanning's team takes this Batesism to heart: "The player should always know where he isin the game and why he's doing what he's doing." Perhaps it is taken too literally, as the X button is mapped directly to that function, causing the lead character to speak his next goal. Great, except thanks to the unconventional control scheme I'm frequently pressing X when I don't want this feedback.