GDC 07 Notes
A Brief Overview and Key Takeaways
of GDC Game Design Sessions
Muhammad Ahmed
The Challenges of Designing First Person Melee Combat
Raphael Colantonio
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Created Dark Messiah of Might and Magic
FPS Melee Combat was a hard concept to sell
Initial Goals
 Wanted very symbolic sword fighting image
 Brutal Combat
 Realistic slow/tactical fights
 Encourage player’s creativity using the environment to solve
puzzles
 Expand and explore the FPS genre

Initial Problems Faced
 Wanted to make sure that melee gameplay did not become HalfLife 2 with a sword instead of a crowbar
 How to aim at close targets
 Gauging distance and field of view (FoV)
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Getting Started with Design
 No publisher
 Went through a long prototype phase
 Decided to use the Source Engine
 Cleared many issues of FoV and initial setup for an FPS
game
 Building a Design Vocabulary for:
 Player States and Actions
 Controls
 AI States and Actions
 Relative position of Player in regards to AI

Main Problematic Areas of Design

Aiming with a Sword
 Enemy AI
 Level Design
 Player Habits
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Aiming with a Sword
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Used standard FPS theory and used the center of the screen for aiming
 Implemented a full physics system for attacks and hits
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Problems Faced:
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Target Locking
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Somewhat worked as compared to aiming in the center of the screen
Problems Faced:
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Using the center of the screen for sword fighting was a very bad idea
 Reminiscent of the crowbar!
Full physics made things worse in terms of AI hits and sword to sword combat
Attempts to hack center aiming and AI hits made things even worse during production
Inconsistent hit patterns
The overall solution:

Use of target locking with unique animations for the sword each with different hit zones
that gave varying damage at each angle of the curve created by a sword swipe.
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Enemy AI
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The Problems
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The Solutions
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A token system was made for the AI
Only a max of two AI ever attacked the player up close
Other AI kept their distance until it was their turn to fight
All AI telegraphed their attacks indicating whether they were going to strike, block, etc.
Level Design

The Problem
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The levels were all designed and nearly polished before combat and AI were tuned!
The Solution
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How to handle multiple AI
How to balance player reactions towards AI attacks
The AI and melee combat along with other game mechanics needed to mapped to the
design and layout of the levels
Player Habits
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The Problems
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Most FPS gamers are very twitchy when it comes to combat
Using a melee weapon as opposed to guns was a new concept
The Solution
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Long and detailed tutorials were designed to teach the player to how manage sword
combat
Also taught players how to get adjusted the slower pace of this game with a focus of
melee combat
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Conclusions

Wished that more blind testing was done on the game and the
mechanics of melee combat
 Regrets that the levels were built and designed before the core
mechanics of the game
 If given the chance to change anything for the future
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Rework the larger monsters
Provide the player with more AI variety aside from only Orcs
Key Takeaways
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An FPS game does not need a large arsenal of guns to be played
 Any idea for game whether it is a single mechanic or the entire
functionality can be designed but there will be issues along the way. If
those issues are rationally solved the idea or mechanic will be in the
game and it may just make the game unique in some way or another.
The Future of Interactive Storytelling in Next Generation
Game Development
Warren Spector
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Kind of a rant of a lecture but a very good rant nonetheless!
Games CAN tell a story!
Different types of game stories
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Linear
 Retold
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Player Generated
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The player retells how they played the game or an instance of the game
On the fly story telling as in the Sims
Shared Authorship
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The game has a story but the player is given choices on how to approach it
Examples: KotoR, GTA, Deus Ex
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There are still haters out there
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There are still supporters out there as well
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Games don’t need a story and should not tell one
Storytelling in games is everything ( I fall in this category)
Overall games should be shorter but deeper
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Limit the amount of gameplay time to reasonable level
 But in that time tell a great story
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So what makes a great game story?
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Change
 Pacing
 Empathetic characters
 Thematic Depth
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Storytelling progress in Next Gen Gaming
 Linear
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Player Generated
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The Will Wright school of story telling i.e. Spore and The Sims
Shared Authorship
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Still have games that tell a ‘roller coaster’ style story with many twists and
turns but still ultimately keep the player on one path to then end of the story
Recent trend of many open world games i.e. GTA
Overall standpoint of Next Gen Gaming
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It is NOT the solution or answer to storytelling
Just because there are better tools and processing horsepower does not
necessarily mean that gameplay stories will be on the same page
Next Gen makes our lives harder as Designers
The main issue not just with Next Gen but with previous tech as been that tech
and graphics have been raising the bar way too fast
With this increase of graphical tech over the years it has been hard for tech of AI
control and interaction to keep up
Good AI support is a part of great storytelling for most games out there
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Conversation Systems in Games
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Current systems are good but can be better
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“ In a standard game it is easy to kill someone but virtually impossible to
talk to them” –Jonathan Rauch
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Text selection of dialog choices
A quote that is very much true for most games out there
Conclusions (more than one)
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First conclusion
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There will be little or no improvements in the near future
Second conclusion
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Improve upon Shared Authorship
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Let players off the rails once in a while from the constraints of the game
Provide real choices and real consequences
Damn the technology! Work towards better designs of games in terms rather than
better graphics
Takeaways
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A very interesting session that is debatable as Warren Spector noted
Game Design: From Blue Sky to Green Light
Deborah Todd, Matt Costello, Chris Charla, Mike Mika, and Christopher
Ferriter
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This session was hands on panel discussion on how to turn game
ideas into full fledged concepts that can be approved for production
The first concept that was presented and debatable was ‘Blue Sky’

Some of the panelists believed that blue sky was the phase of design
where anything goes, any idea can be pitched without critique until the
brainstorming phase where ideas will become more polished
 Other panelists believed that blue sky is the brainstorming phase in it
self
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To involve the audience panelists requested that people get into
small groups with people next to them and come up with some blue
sky ideas for a game
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After a moment the panelists took ideas from the audience and wrote them
down
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One thing I noticed here was that some people pitched one line ideas, where as
others spent a minute or more explaining many details of their game idea for the
pitch
Of the list of ideas the panelists acting as ‘producers for the game’ selected
three of the many ideas pitched that stood out the most
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One idea that stood out was an idea for a game about manipulating smoke and
shadows
 Another one was about watching plants grow
 Another idea was for Virtual Baby game
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Once the ideas were narrowed down the panelists requested the audience
to come up with unique ideas for the games, again there was no criticism
involved
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Each game had a long list of cool ideas and or features that could be possible
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Brainstorming the ideas into a story
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The panelists took concepts from the audience as to what the story
could be using the features listed for each game.
 What they were looking for the one liner pitch to sell the game to a
publisher to get approved for development.
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Green Light Phase
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Here is where the first elements of criticism were received for the game
ideas and stories pitched.
 The panelists went over each idea and described their thoughts and
reserves about the ideas and how well they would translate into real
game that would be sold.
 Between the three pitched ideas and their features and story elements
Virtual Baby came out on top in terms of the panelists view as game
that could possibly well be developed and sold
 The smoke and shadow game would work as well given some of the
story ideas pitched based on audience given features.
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Conclusions
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The blue sky to green light phase is practice done on most games that
have been published within the industry as a whole
 There are different variations on how the process works from studio to
studio but the underlying concept is the same, to get an idea into fully
designed concept that will become a marketable and published game
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Key Takeaways
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This interactive process was a great learning experience that can be
used in the future for new game ideas or even for unique features within
the game
Perhaps this can be an exercise that the design team can practice
sometime in the future…
Designing Gears of War: Iteration Wins
Cliff Bleszinski
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Probably one of the most anticipated sessions of GDC, aside from
Miyamoto’s Keynote session
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The iterative process used on Gears of War
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Brainstorm
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Any and all ideas are cool
Design and Documentation
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Ideas are more focused and fleshed out
All ideas and features that are planned for the game should be documented
The entire team should read the documentation and be on the same page
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Implement/Test
Once the ideas are focused and documented start working on them
as soon as possible
 Test the features that pitched for the game as they are developed
 Nudge
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Tweak game features once they come online and are working to make sure
they are what they are supposed to be
Repeat
Establish Creative Guidelines and ADHERE to them!
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Guidelines on Gears
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Slower paced gameplay than traditional shooters with tradeoffs
NO Aliens from space
A mix of low and high tech within the game world
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The Hammer of Dawn, Torque Bow
Standard ‘real world’ weapons, pistol, shotgun, etc
Embrace some clichés and shed others
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Development Philosophies on Gears
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Being a game designer along with other teammates created a love/hate
relationship of other games
 Looked at games with a more critical eye than most consumers
 With some ideas in mind Gears had:
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More “gamey” in a sense with little to no HUD interactions allowing the
player to just play the game without on screen distractions
Established gameplay checkpoints instead of a save/load convention
Presentation with a cinematic eye to focus on various encounters
Little story overviews and cut to chase no need for long cut scenes
explaining what is going. ( reflective of Warren Spector’s talk?)
Overall gameplay is king
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But visuals, polish, and presentation count!
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Iterative Processes on Gears
 Gameplay Camera
 Cover system
 Controls
 Weapons
 Multiplayer Design
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Camera Iteration
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First Person?
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Wanted to move away from the FPS standard of UT
Show off UE3 characters
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Decided on the third person camera
 Positioning
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Over the shoulder
FOV tricks
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Widening view during aiming
Tightening view during roadie run
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Roadie Run
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Started as ‘follow’ cam
Got the name from rock concert roadies
Freedom of running at a trade off…no shooting
Only 1.2x faster than the normal jog
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Illusion of speed
Lower camera angle
Camera shakes
Provides an sense of urgency
Cover System Iterations
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Goals
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Make cover essential
Cover should be fun
Avoid “angles”
Make the player commit to the system
Avoid “fuzzy cover”
Evaluating competing cover systems
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Stick versus A
Hold versus toggle
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Control Scheme Iterations
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The Halo Controls
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Did not want to break the control standard for console shooters
Though wanted it to be unique
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The reloading control moved to the right bumper so that is closer to the trigger
rather than on button further away
Weapon swap moved to D-Pad near movement controls… only four weapons so it
works to the mapping
Y was empty and became look at cool shit button
Weapon Iterations
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Torque Bow
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Started as a wrist mounted weapon ( not mentioned but assuming a Deus
Ex idea)
Inspired by Rambo III with the explosive bow and arrow thing
Would detonate on player control
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Issues
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Good for setting traps
Too much animation
Would cause loss of the Berserker for animation time
Became
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Crossbow Weapon
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Grenades
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Did not want traditional ‘Coke Can’ grenades
Became Bolo Grenades
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Telegraphed moves
Multiplayer Design Iteration
Given the gameplay style ‘circular’ level designs like Unreal Tournament were not
done
 Most maps had an “I” or “H” shape design
 The most played and well designed map during production was ‘Gridlock’
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Down but not Out
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This and all maps had a defined front for the COG and Locust Teams
Players could be revived during combat
Great for players of the same team to keep in the fight
Great for opposing players to setup more kills!
Conclusions
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Establish a great management structure for game features
 Iterate on different ideas and features to make sure they are how you want them
to be
 Be quick on your feet, and know what to change and when
 Consolidate ideas to try and get what you want into the game
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Key Takeaway
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The iterative process is not only limited to the initial production processes but can
be applied to different elements and features of the game.
Theory Into Practice: Single Player RTS Design for
Company of Heroes
Erin Daly and Joshua Mosqueria
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This presentation was about the design practices at Relic used to
create the recently released game Company of Heroes
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Company of Heroes is Real Time Strategy (RTS) game set within
World War 2
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What they did to set themselves apart from other great RTS titles
such as Starcraft, Warcraft, and Command and Conquer was to
make an RTS game that focused more on the player interaction with
the units and strategy rather than standard RTS mantra of build a
base and crush the opposing base.
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Relic’s Thoughts on What Makes a good RTS mission
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Bend and break the rules to make a compelling experience
 Context and Immersion
Push the story forward not only with each mission but each mission objective
 No need to watch grass grow
 RTS games as mentioned rely on building bases and resource management
 Company of Heroes does not do that
 Not to say it is a bad thing but not doing it relates to bending and breaking
the rules
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What Defines a Memorable Moment?
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Present the player with memorable moments
Something unique that player has not seen before
Defy the player’s expectations
Provide a contextual element
Leverage game mechanics to provide the maximum effect
Require the player to take serious action and in turn reward them for it
“A good movie needs three great scenes and none of which suck!” –
Relic
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Overall approach to Single Player RTS
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Creating a unique experience
 Use the gameplay to advance the story
 Shorter but more engaging missions
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Tools used at Relic
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SCAR- Scripting at Relic
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World Builder
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A LUA Based Scripting system
Fairly easy to use system for designers
Empowered designers to create unique scenarios given the game
mechanics and content
Provided a lot of re-use with easy to do tweaks to already written scripts
3-D Level editor allowed designers to place art assets
Placed triggers to run scripts for missions
Attribute Editor
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A tool used to quickly tune values and attributes of scripted elements
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The Design Mantra
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Minimal paper design
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One to two page mission pitch
Interactive (links and images) paper prototype
High level LDD/ MDD
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Allowed for designer ownership for the mission
 Most documents described what was going on the in mission not how to actually
do the mission or build the level or script it.
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Those were broken into other documents
Overview of the Iterative Process
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Designers benchmarked missions
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Goal based iteration
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For various stages of productions missions were to be completed to some extent.
For the 15 missions designed overall each one had production goals, 30%, 50%
complete
Mission objectives and scenario design went through many iterations before reaching a
final design
Reviews
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Peer Reviews
Once a day play sessions for different missions
Tore missions apart to tweak them and make them “not suck”
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Conclusions
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A game in given genre does not need to follow the conventions of the
genre
 Unique and memorable moments within the game really appeal to the
player and move gameplay and story elements
 A good set of tools should be used that allow designers to create unique
experiences for the player
 Designers should have a sense of ownership on the work they
contribute to the game.
The Game Design Challenge: The Needle and Thread Interface
Harvey Smith, Alexey Pajitnov, David Jaffe, and Eric Zimmerman
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Three influential game designers were presented with a design challenge to
make a game with the input devices of a needle(s), a square piece of fabric,
and some thread!
Eric Zimmerman introduced each of the three contestants and provided an
overview of the design challenge
The basic idea behind the use of an odd interface came from the recent rise
in new tech and next gaming, especially the Wii controls
The basic rules and context of the game based on the interface were as
follows:
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Only one piece of cloth can be used per player
 Different needles can be used by the player
 Different threads can be used by the player
 Up to eight clothes can be connected to the TV
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First up to present was David Jaffe
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Mainly known for designing God of War 1 and 2
Initial reaction to the design challenge
“Are you fucking shitting me!”- David
 Had nice parody of ‘Cinderella Man’ to the game design challenge
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Main intimidation on this idea was the use of the fabric
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Alexey was Jim Braddock
Harvey was Max Baer
David described himself as Paul Giamatti’s character and being on the
sidelines of this whole thing
The fabric as a game pad/controller did not seem like a fun tool to use
to play a game
After more ideas of failure David presented his breakthrough idea

Virtual Paper Airplane Creator
 The basic idea behind it was to fold the fabric in the shape of the
airplane via a tutorial or freelance design
 Once folded the player would use the needle and thread to sew it
together, while they did that the virtual plane would be drawn on screen.
 When the plane was designed it could be flown in some sort of
environment against other planes
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Following David was Alexey
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His idea was called ‘stitch and cross’
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Creator of Tetris!!
A small two player game
The goal of the game was that each player would use the cloth as
playing field and with their needles and thread ‘stitch’ their way to
the other side of the cloth
If a player ‘crossed’ another player’s stitched line kills that players
line
The UI
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On screen players would see a small arena with red and blue sides
One player (blue) would stitch right to left (vice versa)
The other (red) top to bottom (vice versa)
On screen players would see their lines being stitched and killed
On screen players would see obstacles in their path so that they can not
stitch straight lines
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Lastly Harvey presented his idea, a full fledged 3d adventure game
He too had an initial reaction like David, “This is bat shit crazy”
Thought Process
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Took into account the controller and how it would work first
After many presented ideas Harvey went with a lap loom style controller
for the cloth, but more specifically it was shaped like a Native American
snow shoe! Odd but seemed reasonable
With this snow shoe loom thing holding the cloth, the player would use
the needle to sew different spots to control the game
Tired to apply his new concept to existing games
The game he came up with was entitled “The Tailors Daughter”
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An adventure game with a quilty art style
 Allegorical fiction
 A lot of thread/needle interaction to control the main character
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Movement, attacks, puzzle solving.
His game idea had some great political humor aimed at the current
administration!
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Conclusion
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After each of the three unique ideas were presented, Eric opened the
floor up to some Q/A.
 Then by judging the audience’s reaction to each presenter Eric awarded
Alexey as the winner! Harvey got second place with his adventure game
idea and lastly David Jaffe with his paper airplane concept. ( I voted for
David )
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Key Takeaway
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No matter how crazy a concept is it can be solved reasonably and
rationally.
Though in most cases our design problems may be more down to earth
on actual game systems, but odd challenges will emerge that will need
to be solved in clever and feasible manner within the constraints of the
game.
It is ok to initially curse out the idea presented for a game or game
concept. 
Sharing Control
David Edery, Matt Brown, Raph Koster, and Ray Muzyka
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This was an interesting session that was more of an open
discussion between the four designers about the concept of sharing
control between designers and users within games.
All being proponents of sharing control they believed that users of
games should be allowed to do what designers can with the game to
promote their own creativity
Everyone is a content creator in some form or another

How much content to create in a game is up to user
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This not limited to actual game design but playing the game from different
perspectives is content generation based of emergent gameplay
Of all the content that is created by users 90% will suck and 10% will be
great
If each person that can contribute 10% works with others that contribute
10% something amazing can be created such as a full fledged mod.

Sharing control within the actual design process?

Most game development houses and designers completely exclude the
user from any form expression or control of their game until it is
available for sale
 Others wish to involve more users in the development process of a
game
 Neither answer is wrong but how should it be handled if users are
allowed to par take in game design along side the designers?

All depends on the designers interests

If the game is yours and you want to make big bucks off of it and not let
anyone interfere then that is cool
 But if you want the game to be for the fans then letting them control
some aspects of the design can be beneficial

The best and easiest to get user involvement on design issues is to
ask the fans
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Though it is hard to sift through good and through input as compared to
the possible influx of one liner ideas “This object sucks…make it better”
 Sometimes players are not good at telling what the want, but they can
tell you what is wrong with a game if given the chance to play it via
focus tests

When asking fans for input or focus testing don’t assume that hardcore
fans are right about their views
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Only listening to hard core fans may make a game virtually impossible to
play at a novice level excluding those players from buying your game
Taking novice input will help you balance the game
Community sites and games.

Managing or working with community sites dedicated to a game
provides some element for users to share control of a game.
 Whether it be about posting questions about a game and it’s features or
posting user generated content such as levels, scripts, art work, etc are
all ways for users to express themselves and share control
 At times allowing users to share control with self expression of mods
and what not can be very beneficial to the product
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Doom/Unreal Maps
Machina videos within games, Sims, Never Winter Nights
Interface mods
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Conclusions

Sharing control is something that is on the rise with the advent of
MMO’s and large online communities
 The way players share control with the game is varied but everyone out
there is creating content either for themselves or the game community
as a whole
 The level of quality of the content is up for the users to decide but some
can really deliver with awesome content
 Aside from sharing control online and after a game is out, designers can
also opt to share control during design to get the most feedback on
game before it is done.
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Key Takeaway

User generated content is a great element for designers to get more
exposure for their games
 Allowing users to take part in game development is great way for
designers to know what they are doing to appease all audiences or
selected audiences for their game.
Writing Great Design Documents
Damion Schubert
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A very good and practical presentation
The small lecture room filled up to full capacity and more!
The entire presentation can be found at
http://www.zenofdesign.com/Writing_Design_Docs.ppt
Some key points presented

All designers should share their ideas with the team
 Likewise all the team members should read the documentation created to know
what they are building!
 Design docs should be short and to the point
 Different design docs should have a target audience
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Producers
Other Designers
Programmers
Artists