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Victory Point Games :: How To Make Games
How to Make a Game
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[1.0] GAME DESIGN MEDIAVictory Point Games publishes games in two basic media: analog and digital. The latter are the computer games we market; if you are interested in making those, click here for more information.Analog Games are board, card, and other types of games created in an analog (i.e., non-electronic) format using physical components such as paper, tokens, and dice. This article will progress you to getting your analog game properly formatted for successful publication. [2.0] THE TARGET MARKETTo learn more about appropriate subject matter for Victory Point Games, click here. Note that we sell games through our web site direct to the customer at modest prices; this means that two aspects of your target market are that: 1) they are internet savvy enough to find our web site and order from it, and 2) they also have an eye for small format, bargain priced games (like yours).Although it can be very satisfying to make a game just for you, such games often suffer from a very narrow audience appeal and generally offer a low probability for commercial success. Like everything else in show business (making games is part of the entertainment industry, by the way, so you’re actually ‘going into show business when you design a game), consider the audience. Who is really going to buy and play your game and what do they want from it? If you can define your game’s likely audience and their expectations, focus your game design and development work toward satisfy them. You can never go wrong delighting your customers. [3.0] ADHERE TO THE FIRST RULE OF GAME DESIGNEverything should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler. – Albert EinsteinThe first and most important rule is: K.I.S.S: Keep it simple, stupid! Every day in game design is a struggle to avoid Kitchen Sink-itus. When you design a game, it can take on a life of its own, asking questions and providing parts of answers the temptation is to go deeper and deeper with the design in pursuit of those answers. K.I.S.S. is the antidote to such feature creep. Simplicity requires the shedding of clutter. Getting down to the basics is an essential step in removing complexities, contradictions and ambiguities. – Ken Jones, Games & Simulations Made Easy It is extremely difficult to do a complex game that is not also an incomprehensible one. Remember, a game, in addition to being a potential source of information, is always a form of communication. If the information in the game cannot be freely and easily communicated, the game does not work. You’ve got to keep it simple! It is far harder to design a good, simple game than a good, complex one. – Eric Goldberg, game designer It is axiomatic that as the complexity of a game increases, its likelihood of commercial success decreases at a geometrical rate. Once it’s designed, a simple game is more likely to be published on time, on budget, and highly polished. The Law of Single Digits: If there is a value that players will want to perform any mathematics with in their head, or one that they simply might want to keep in mind, it is always best to have a value no higher than a single digit; and then the lower the range of those values, the better! [4.0] ANALOG GAME COMPONENTSAlthough you can imagine a board game that requires a kitchen mixer, a satellite dish, and dinosaur bones, including those actual parts in a game package is not likely to happen. Game designers have to work within the production constraints of their publishers manufacturing capabilities and formatting structure, and so do you.For your analog games components, weve devised a point system. That is, you can peruse the list below and place up to 400 points worth of content inside your game. If the contents of your game requires less than 400 points, great! If it requires more than 400 points, then you should email us [info@victorypointgames.com] a description of your game and a list of its component needs; lets put our heads together to figure out how we can get your game published.
[5.0] RULES WRITING AND FORMATTING GUIDELINESOR HOW TO PROGRAM THE HUMAN MINDEvery game has its rules. Huizinga from Homo LudensEvery game is its rules. For they are what define it. David Parlett from The Oxford History of Board Games Since game design is primarily an act of communication, the rules are a vital component where the rubber meets the road. As a game designer, you cannot screw this up; you must succeed in rules writing whether its the actual board game rules that players will read and use, or a computer games Design Document or Players Guide. This is a game designers stock and trade. Be concise and be definitive. And above all, be readable. Wargame Design, Notes on Game Design, Stephen B. Patrick Thomas Alva Edison said, Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. The same is true with game design, and much of the perspiration comes from drafting and refining the rules. Writing rules is not one of the more glamorous aspects of working on games. It is a task that is, in general, more drudgery than glory. James F. Dunnigan What is a Rule?
A rule is a device used to control, govern, and circumscribe. It is a boundary, in game terms, that defines limitations. These limitations could be a constraint on the world space, or a game feature such as health or magic power. These two elements, rules and boundaries, will shape and mould your gaming world more than anything else.
Kevin Oxland, Gameplay and Design 1. Styles and Substance: Good rules are about substance, great rules add style and organization. The Law of Documentation Temporality: Rules/design docs are written to be used on two different occasions when first read/learned, when contacted again later/referenced. Therefore, rules must be 1) written to be easily read/learned the first time through and then 2) easily referenced during the heat of battle. D. Rules / design documents have the following measurable qualities: • Weight: How long are these rules? Shorter is always better; try to be concise. • Clarity: How clear and definitive are ideas expressed and illustrated? Clearer is better so the proper use of language see Rules Lawyers, below, illustrations and examples is important. • Completeness: How comprehensive are the rules? Do they cover all of the contingencies and answer all the players questions? • Readability: Will reading this document put people to sleep? Inject the designers voice on occasion to wake the reader up and explain why things work that way in your game. • Organization: During the heat of battle, how fast can users obtain the correct answer from this document? This means a good Table of Contents at the beginning and, for larger documents, a good Index at the back. This might also include a glossary defining specialized terms used. Naturally, these qualities often work against each other. Adding greater clarity with examples and designers notes, or completeness by covering esoteric possibilities in the rules, often increases the rules weight, so every case is a judgment call. Remember the games market: for mass market, lean toward less weight; for hard-core players, lean toward greater clarity. Be concise and be definitive. And above all, be readable. Wargame Design, Notes on Game Design, Stephen B. Patrick About Rules
A game must have rules that are complete and self-sufficient, and these rules must cover every possible variation of play. Rules should also clarify all the consequences of every possible action.
Joseph Saulter, Introduction to Video Game Design and Development
Tools of the Trade: Some things add a great deal to your documentation in terms of the above-listed measurable qualities. Use them! • One picture or illustration, in this case) is still worth a thousand words, provided that picture also explains something about the game. • Tables, too, can convey a lot of information in an extremely efficient manner. • Giving examples of how the game works in the documentation not only breaks up the main body of the text, it also illuminates key points that you wish to stress. See the sidebar on examples. • A Glossary where terms are defined. • Sidebars or in-rule italic comments using the designers voice to explain why something is the way it is or to offer a bit of strategy advice, lets the reader know that theyre not in this documentation all alone; the designer is right there with them talking them through it. These notes are also a way of getting to know the designer because his philosophy and personality often come through loud and clear. • Color is good, but further down on the list of priorities as most efforts at using color in rules demonstrate a distracting overuse rather than an aesthetically pleasing, functional or organizational use. Examples
If a picture is worth a thousand words, an example is worth at least several hundred. Reading a rule is one thing, but applying it is another. Think of it like this: the best way to learn a game is to have someone show you. A good example takes the place of that person and shows you what the rule means in practice. You can probably never have too many examples. Different people will need different levels of support to understand rules. Examples of the simplest rules give beginners the confidence to go on and tackle the more complex challenges. They also give the writer a chance to check if the rule is simple and he has covered all of the possibilities. – Ellis Simpson The Law of Rules and Exceptions: A game must have rules, but the fewer exceptions there are to a rule, the better those rules are. Exceptions require work for designers, programmers, artists, and especially players trying to remember them), thus violating the first rule of game design K.I.S.S.. So, when looking where to trim a good game to make it a great game, seek out rules exceptions that you can safely get rid of; some rules exceptions are necessary, but when you look close youll be surprised to discover how many arent! Rules & Exceptions Dos and Don’ts
A rule is, usually, a general case of what a player can do. An exception is, usually, a specific case of what you can’t do (i.e., a don’t) concerning that general rule exceptio probat regulam: the exception establishes the rule. Derived from a legal maxim, it means that the existence of an exception to a rule provides an opportunity to test the validity of the rule itself. That is, it enables us to define the rule more precisely and confirm its applicability to those items truly covered by that rule. Game designers are well aware that fewer exceptions make for better rules, but the exceptions that must exist should also validate the need for the rule itself. E. Reality Checks for Writing Rules: • You must write for the Lowest Common Denominator. Fortunately, design docs are written for well-educated people, as are the rules to most sophisticated war and strategy games. But mass-market games require very low reading standards. • Adding new features means adding more rules weight. There is an unavoidable direct correlation. So remember the phrase Less is More and repeat it often. Focus on the key features of the game and remove all the others that you can. This will result is a tighter, better gameplay experience and prove the usefulness of a Less is More design mantra. I have made this letter longer than usual, because I lack the time to make it short. – Blaise Pascal • Complex ideas produce complex rules. You cant explain multifaceted concepts in two sentences; to do so is to invite trouble. F. And that trouble is called the Law of Assumption. The Law of Assumption: This law is invoked whenever a designer simplifies his rules by assuming that the player will divine and comprehend the full meaning and breadth of such rules by knowing what they were supposed to have said in their entirety. The designer, therefore, assumes that the player will make the same assumption about how things should work in that game as the designer did when creating it. And The Law of Assumption is Whatever Assumption You Leave to the Player, He Will Automatically Assume the Opposite! Assume = ASS of U and ME Autopilot = Assumption
We do most things on autopilot. But autopilot only works when we have a reasonably accurate picture of the world around us. An assumption is a reasonable construct based on the input from what we have experienced before. Assumptions are what the brain is best at. Raph Koster A Theory of Fun G. Nobodys Perfect: Rules are never perfect, and no game survives contact with the buying public. Thousands of new players who just bought the game are bound to find more problems than the handful of playtesters who got to shake it before release. Accept errata i.e., clarifications, corrections, patches, and changes) as an inevitable part in the maturing of a game design. I. Rules Writing Important Philosophical ConsiderationsA good set of rules has writing that is clear, unambiguous, comprehensive and well organized.Ellis Simpson A. There are two things a player learns about how a game is played: its rules and the exceptions to those rules. In general, you can think of it as the rules are the dos and exceptions are the but donts. For example, during the Movement Phase, a player may move any or all of his pieces, one at a time, up to four spaces each. [Thats the rule.] Pieces cannot move off the map nor end their turn in the same space as an opposing piece. [These are exceptions to the rule.] B. Laymans Terms vs. Gaming Vernacular: While mass-market game rules should stick strictly to laymans terms, often more specialized games are better served by introducing their own game vernacular to cut down on rules weight and add clarity. However, the plain language approach writing with your intended audience in mind) is generally the best – that means cutting out verbiage, avoiding technical terms, keeping average sentence length to 15-20 words, and using the active voice i.e., the voice used to indicate that the grammatical subject of the verb is performing the action or causing the happening denoted by the verb – e.g., The player moves his units uses the active voice). C. When you create certain terms within a games rules or documentation, be sure to clearly define it the first time it is used or, better still, offer a glossary at the front of the rules where it can be easily referenced) to explain the meaning of all such terms. D. Timing is Everything: As you learned during last weeks lesson, the Sequence of Play is a crucial concept in game design. There is certain common terminology that game designers use to organize the timing of events that occur during a games Sequence of Play. This will help you write game rules and design docs, as players and programmers require an exact turn structure description, thus: A Game Turn the term usually used if the Player Turn order is rigid, see below) or Round of Play the term used if the Player Turn order is flexible or random is divided into – Player Turns usually one for each player. The player whose turn it is is generally referred to as the Friendly, Current or Phasing Player – other players whose Player Turn it is not are generally referred to as the Enemy, Opposing or Non-Phasing Players. Each Player Turn can consist of a number of – Phases e.g., a Movement Phase, a Combat Phase, a Purchase Phase, etc.. Phases, Segments, and Steps see below) might also include Opponent activity e.g., Enemy Retreat Before Combat, Enemy First-Fire Attacks, Enemy Counter-Charges, etc. interspersed among the Friendly Player activity. Phases can consist of a number of – Segments e.g., the Dragon Movement Segment, Regular Movement Segment, Reserve Movement Segment, Hidden Unit Movement, etc.. Each Segment can consist of a number of – Steps e.g., the Organization Step, the Calculation Step, the Loading Step, the Unloading Step, the Supply Determination Step, etc. When play is very fluid such as in a Real-Time turn structure, a Round of Play where every unit in the game conducts its functions in a designer-specified order until each has had a chance can also be divided into Impulses or Pulses usually used to organize the chaos a bit and provide some structure to the myriad activity taking place. Impulses generally work similarly to Phases e.g., a Movement Impulse, a Combat Impulse, a Construction Impulse, etc. Be Organized!
You need to nestle activities that occur during each turn in a clear hierarchy so that the players and / or programmers know what order things are supposed to happen in. Use these terms to standardize your turn structure explanation. E. The Language of Rules Lawyers: You know what a Rules Lawyer is, of course. That player who will pour over the text of the rules seeking a loophole or vague reference that will allow them to do something sneaky to their opponent often something completely unintended by the designer to even be allowed to happen in that game. Rules Lawyers garner much of their abilities from certain key words. Use them properly to keep Rules Lawyers in line: • May: the word may provides the respective player the option to do something; thus, he has the choice to perform an action, he is not forced to do so. • Must: the word must indicates the player has no choice; that action must be performed unless otherwise prohibited or is simply impossible to do given the current game circumstances. • Can and Cannot: the words can and cannot indicate whether or not an action is allowed. • While: the word while indicates that as long as the criteria listed after the word is true, the specified effects) and/or restrictions) that follow it apply. If the listed criteria are not true, the effects/restrictions that follow do not apply. While most rules are about a State of Doing, the word while refers to a State of Being this is an important distinction to keep in mind when writing rules. • Never and Always when writing rules never say never or always unless that rule has absolutely no exceptions at all, ever, anywhere even in the Advanced or Optional rules). II. Rules Writing The Case SystemA. The Case System was developed in 1970 to organize complex wargame rules. If you can write your rules in this highly organized and efficient method, you can easily simplify them to a more casual verbal style later. The opposite is not always true. If you start by writing casual verbal rules, it can be difficult and time-consuming to reorganize them into highly efficient Case System.B. Case System rules are organized into 3 main parts: • The first section would include rules 1, 2, and 3: The Rules
Let’s consider the ‘game recipe’ again. All games must have: • Ends • Means • Rules • A Contest (agon) • Cool Player Decisions This section is about the Rules, which are how players use their Means to achieve the game’s Ends. In our ‘story football’ picture (with the beginning, the muddle, and the end), the Rules are the outer line of the football shape itself; that is, the Rules represent the limits of where players can ‘drive’ the story in the game. o Rule 1 is the introduction what the game is about, how many players, game length, scale, etc.); this section puts the players on a safe island so they mentally know what theyre getting into and where theyre going before they trod into the potentially intimidating unknown of the games rules. o Rule 2 is the housekeeping material such as the glossary and an examination of the components i.e., the games means); this section gets the players familiar with the components and terms that will be used in the game, again so they will feel comfortable and safe proceeding from this point. o And rule 3 is the all-important basic play procedure or Sequence of Play; this gives the players a glimpse into the future and helps them envision how things will develop in this game, it also assures them there is an answer to that most scary of gamers questions, what do I do now? When writing the rules for a Real-Time game, use the Sequence of Events to structure the order in which you present the rules. In other words, in whatever order players will encounter the rules, thats the order you teach them! • The second section of the rules is an elaboration on the Sequence of Play. That is, it is the main body of the actual game rules themselves, presented as close as possible) in Sequence of Play order. The Sequence of Play is always the backbone of the rules. It is the most important part of the rules that you will write! In the game design pyramid, this is the structure and organization of all the rooms in that pyramid. A good game design is not a bunch of chaos dumped into a box; it is not a kit for the players to finish. It requires structure and organization, all of which is built in sequence in the order that events occur in the game a.k.a., the Sequence of Play). • The third section would include all of the extras, such as Optional Rules, Scenarios, an Appendix, Designers Notes, Playtesters Notes, and so forth. All that Directors Cut sort of stuff that you find on high-end DVDs. C. Longer rules should always include a Table of Contents at the beginning. These are always extremely useful for that second time that rules are read e.g., when referenced during the heat of battle). D. The one major modification to the above Case System organization is where to put the initial game setup and Victory Conditions i.e., ends). They are generally placed either near the very beginning or very end of the rules. To determine which location is proper, consider the game itself. • If the game is detailed, nuanced, and/or requires making decisions now with knowledge that wont be explained until a later rule, then the setup and Victory Conditions belong in the back of the rules. This discourages players from attempting to play until theyve at least read through everything and have an idea what to expect based upon the entire game. • If the game is straightforward, simple, and requires decisions based solely upon present knowledge, then the setup and Victory Conditions belong at the very front of the rules so that players can start playing while they learn the rules. Many players prefer to learn a game while bouncing around inside it. E. When writing Case System rules, each of the major rules is initially stated rather briefly and in general terms. Then it is described in more detail, and finally a series of cases are given to definitively state everything necessary about that rule. Note that the cases will belabor the obvious. The Case System is designed to provide experienced players with sufficient information in the General Rule and Procedure to allow him to play without reading the entire rule. The Cases exist to provide elaboration for people learning the game who are having a problem on some minor technical point and to squelch Rules Lawyers). The cases also serve as a hierarchic organizational structure for building the rules Table of Contents. The Law of Rules and Exceptions: A game must have rules, but the fewer exceptions there are to a rule, the better those rules are. Exceptions require work for designers, programmers, artists, and especially players trying to remember them), thus violating the first rule of game design K.I.S.S. So, when looking where to trim a good game to make it a great game, seek out rules exceptions that you can safely get rid of; some rules exceptions are necessary, but when you look close youll be surprised to discover how many arent! Prototyping Functional, malleable, not necessarily pretty This is a Test Playtesting and refining you game; cut squeeze and trim. VPGBack | Next |
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