Grant Custard
2 x 50 min periods
Game Play
SE 3GB3 – Game Design
Reference: Fundamentals of Game Design, Chapter 9 Gameplay
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Agenda
Intro – Making Games Fun
 Hierarchy of Challenges
 Skill, Stress and Absolute Difficulty
 Commonly Used Challenges
 Actions
 Saving the Game
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Intro – Making Games Fun
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Execution Over Innovation
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Avoid elementary errors
Tuning and polishing
Imaginative variations
True design innovation
A small bit of magic
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Intro – Making Games Fun
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Finding the Fun Factor
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Design around the player
Know your target audience
Abstract or Automate parts that are not fun
Be true to your vision
Strive for harmony, elegance, and beauty
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Agenda
Intro – Making Games Fun
 Hierarchy of Challenges
 Skill, Stress and Absolute Difficulty
 Commonly Used Challenges
 Actions
 Saving the Game
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Challenge Definitions
Mission: events that make up the ultimate
goal, complete the game.
 Sub-Mission: events that make up each
mission.
 Atomic Challenges: are the lowest-level
challenges in a game. i.e. jump the over
the hole or defeat the enemy.
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A Possible Challenge Hierarchy
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Informing the Player about
Challenges
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Explicit Challenges: challenges that are
directly given to the player.
◦ i.e. through the story the player is told to
complete the given challenge.
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Implicit Challenges: challenges that
require the player to discover them on
their own.
◦ Possibilities include discovery through subtle
hints or the players curiosity.
◦ i.e. Elder Scrolls VI: Oblivion
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Intermediate Challenges
Are normally left as implicit.
 Design Rule: Reward Victory No Matter
How the Player Achieves It.
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Simultaneous Atomic Challenges
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One way to increase the difficulty is to
force the player to overcome many
atomic challenges at once.
◦ i.e. fighting many enemies at once.
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Case Study: Cousins’s Hierarchy
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Agenda
Intro – Making Games Fun
 Hierarchy of Challenges
 Skill, Stress and Absolute Difficulty
 Commonly Used Challenges
 Actions
 Saving the Game

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Definitions
Intrinsic Skill: the level of skill required to
surmount the challenge.
 Stress: the effect of time pressure on the
player.
 Absolute Difficulty: the combination of
intrinsic skill and stress, making the
overall difficulty level.
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Intrinsic Skill verse Stress
Real Hockey
Hockey Simulator
Tetris
Racing Simulator
Tetris
Real Hockey
Hockey Simulator
Racing Simulator
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Agenda
Intro – Making Games Fun
 Hierarchy of Challenges
 Skill, Stress and Absolute Difficulty
 Commonly Used Challenges
 Actions
 Saving the Game

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Commonly Used Challenges
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Physical Coordination
Logic and Mathematical
Races and Time Pressure
Factual Knowledge
Memory
Pattern Recognition
Exploration
Conflict
Economic
Conceptual Reasoning and Lateral Thinking
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Physical Coordination
Difficulty mostly based on time stress.
 Sub-Categories:
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Speed and Reaction Time
Accuracy and Precision
Intuitive Understanding of Physics
Timing and Rhythm
Combination Moves
Examples:
◦ Tetris, Need for Speed, World of Goo, Guitar
Hero, Street Fighter
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Logic and Mathematical
Difficulty mostly based on intrinsic skill
 Design Rule: Avoid Trial and Error
Solutions.
 Sub-Categories:
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◦ Formal Logic Puzzles
◦ Mathematical Challenges
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Examples:
◦ Rubik’s Cube, Poker, Hearts
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Races and Time Pressure
Difficulty mostly based on time stress.
 To keep Absolute Difficulty constant, scale
the required skill and stress.
 Examples:
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◦ Call of Duty + time pressure = running with
machine gun
◦ Need for Speed
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Factual Knowledge
Difficulty mostly based on the players and
the topics.
 Answers to the questions do not have to
be present in the game.
 Examples:
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◦ Trivial Pursuit, Buzz, Scene It
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Memory
Difficulty mostly based on how long there
is to memorize, the amount to memorize
and when it must be recalled.
 Design Rule: Make it Clear when Factual
Knowledge is Required
 Examples:
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◦ Brain Age, Big Brain Academy, Corridors
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Pattern Recognition
Difficulty mostly based on the how long,
intricate and subtle the pattern is
 Examples:
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◦ Bio Shock enemies are weak against specific
strategies.
◦ Bejewelled
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Exploration
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Must have other challenges or it will only be
sightseeing.
Sub-Categories:
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Spatial Awareness Challenges
Locked Doors
Traps
Mazes and Illogical Spaces
Teleporters
Finding Hidden Objects
Examples:
◦ Decent, Zelda, Prince of Persia, PacMan, Portal,
Gears of War COG tags
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Conflict
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Conflict versus Conflict of Interest
Sub-Categories:
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Strategy
Tactics
Logistics
Survival and Reduction of Enemy Forces
Defending Vulnerable Items or Units
Stealth
Examples:
◦ Starcraft, Rainbow Six, Civilization, Age of
Empires, Fable, Metal Gear Solid
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Economic
Difficulty can be altered by varying the
amount of resources available
 Sub-Categories:
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◦ Accumulation Resources
◦ Achieving Balance
◦ Caring for Living Things
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Examples:
◦ Monopoly, Settlers of Catan, Spore
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Conceptual Reasoning and Lateral
Thinking
Difficulty mostly based on intrinsic skill
 Require knowledge from outside the
domain of the challenge
 Sub-Categories:
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◦ Conceptual Reasoning
◦ Lateral Thinking
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Examples:
◦ Assassins Creed 16’s Puzzles, Escape from
Monkey Island
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Agenda
Intro – Making Games Fun
 Hierarchy of Challenges
 Skill, Stress and Absolute Difficulty
 Commonly Used Challenges
 Saving the Game
 Actions
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Reasons for Saving a Game
Allowing the Player to Leave the Game
and Return to it Later.
 Letting the Player Recover from
Disastrous Mistakes.
 Encouraging the Player to Explore
Alternate Strategies.
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Consequences for Immersion and
Storytelling
Being able to save and re-load a game is
unrealistic, this harms the player’s
immersion.
 Being able to reload a game can also
destroy the stories dramatic tension.
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Ways of Saving a Game
Passwords
 Save to a File or Save Slot
 Quick-Save
 Automatic Save and Checkpoints
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To Save or Not to Save
Design Rule: Allow the Player to Save and
Reload the Game.
 Players buy games to play them the way
that makes them “feel good”.
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Agenda
Intro – Making Games Fun
 Hierarchy of Challenges
 Skill, Stress and Absolute Difficulty
 Commonly Used Challenges
 Saving the Game
 Actions
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Actions
Actions are the events that occur in the
game world caused directly by the user
interface.
 Actions are the verbs of a game.
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◦ i.e. I shoot, I jump, I use ….
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An action hierarchy is not useful to the
player or the game designer.
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Actions for Gameplay
Actions that are intended to meet the
challenges within the game.
 There may require many actions to
complete a challenge.
 The user interface has limited space and
therefore only limited actions can be
available to the user.
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Defining Your Actions
What actions should be available to the
user?
 Much effort should be put into defining
and refining how the actions available
overcome atomic challenges.
 Should any actions be available that do
not solve challenges?
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Actions that Serve Other Functions
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Sub-categories:
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Unstructured Play
Actions for Creation and Self-expression
Actions for Socialization
Actions to Participate in the Story
Actions to Control the Game Software
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Character Action Exercise
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You want to design the actions for game
with the following description:
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Player Avatar is a Soldier
Game is 3rd Person
Game is an action-adventure
Target audience are males age 18 to 35
Setting is WWII 1939 to 1945
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Summary
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Questions or Discussion
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