Nouns and Verbs. The Grammar of Level Design.

A star tops a lonely tree in a forest glade.  How would you get it down?  You can write anything and it will appear to help you.  This question was Scribblenauts pitch, and a great summary on what Scribblenatus did well.

The idea was to create a very complex game with a very simple, solitary interaction.  I remember playing this first level over and again.  Beaver, Lumberjack.  Termites.  Chainsaw.  The ways I could help my main character, Maxwell, to get to the star piece seemed infinite.

In the end, Scribblenauts did not have it so easy.  You could write any noun, but verbs on the other hand required the user to take action.  Sometimes this was simple, other times difficult.  How to attach the rope to my helicopter using a stylus.  How to move using a stylus.  (Many times I would do both and fall into a pit)!

Verbs, indeed, tend to be "the rub".  This is where a designer must focus so much of his time and energy.  The noun "goomba" in Mario holds within it an image of a walking blob.

What verbs might we conjure when thinking of a goomba however?  To name a few:

• Avoid
• Squash
• Hurdle

We must avoid the goomba while hurdling it or squashing it by landing on its head.  Turtles add a new verb: kick. 

Mario also contains player verbs such as jump, run and move.  Poweups give Mario a new verb, such as shoot.

All games teach us something.

In a great game, we spend time learning more and more about verbs.  What can our character do?  What can the player do?.  What can enemies and the environment do?

In games like Portal, we spend most of our time learning what you can do with portals.  Since the player has direct control of portals, Portal largely becomes a journey of self-discovery.

In Mike Tyson's punch out, the goal is more focused on learning how to defeat certain enemies.  The focus is more on "what can this enemy do" rather than "what can I do".

Tony Hawk has different areas you must perform tricks in.  Tony Hawk games encourage you to plan a "run" or sequence of moves through an area.  Learning about the environment encourages us to use certain moves at certain times.

There are many, many areas of discovery.  Identifying where these lie reveals the type of game.

The game designer must encourage the player to discover these interactions.  The real goal of level design is to allow discovery at a pace the user finds engaging.  One difficulty here is that too slow a pace may lead to boredom, while too fast a pace may isolate some players.

There is a temptation to refer to a game as "hardcore" as a means of forgiveness of bad pacing.  But a game's intensity has little bearing on this.  Many modern rhythm games such as Guitar Hero use difficulty levels to teach skills incrementally.  The goal is to leave the Expert level gameplay undiluted by considerations for players novice players while doing just the opposite for the Beginner level gameplay.

Games like Demon's Souls do a great job at satisfying players who already have a good understanding of how to navigate 3D spaces, while moving attacking and blocking.  At the time of this posting, it has obtained an impressive 90 metacritic rating.

This shows the devil of the rating system.  This game was made for reviewers.  Indeed, for a player who has the broad basis of gaming knowledge, this game offers a new level of challenge and discovery unseen in many of its contemporaries.

It does very little in the way of teaching basic controls and interactions to a novice player, however.

The challenge is how to quickly size up a player.  How to keep them at the perfect level of discovery and engagement?  Some simple games like Flow have attempted this, while games like Left 4 Dead allow the AI director to keep the right amount of pressure on the player.

The simple option of allowing the player to choose their own difficulty, for now, seems the best option.  Perhaps new innovation will occur in this area.

Until then, I will leave you with this plea.  Unfold discovery like a miser and tactician.  Dole out new challenges sparingly, and double back on old lessons, with a fresh twist.  The player will never notice it, but they'll stay engaged but curious as to what awaits them next.

Damage Avoidance, and the Final Ends

"In a perfect game, a good player can avoid taking any damage."  This was the claim made to me.  I quickly retorted that I didn't think that the perfect game necessarily had a concept of "damage".  It felt like a victory in game design talk, but it also felt cheap, after all most games have losses and gains that can roughly be equivocated to "damage".

Such a claim certainly does a good job of calling out some great games, but it also is lax in incriminating others.

Here is a short list of great games that seem to work well under this type of mantra:

• Pacman
• Punchout
• Mario Brothers
• Mega Man
• Dance Dance Revolution

Some other games seem to fit the bill as well, like Geometry Wars and Robotron, though ultimately the gig is up.  

In many of these types of games, the overall point isn't even damage avoidance, High Scores and Level Completion are the "final end".  Damage avoidance is the *immediate* goal of the game, one of the crucial skills required, but not the ultimate "point".  Losing a life or two in a game of Donkey Kong Jr won't keep you off of the leader boards.  

The damage avoidance model calls out some games as being simple or flawed, like Battleship.  Other games it fails to incriminate as simple and flawed, however, like Tic Tac Toe.  

Finally, games like Go, Chess, and Baseball thwart this model altogether.  In Go and Chess pieces may be sacrificed for the greater good.  Losing pieces does not diminish the skill of the master, many times a skillful sacrifice is a sign of maturity and mastery.  Likewise, Baseball allows for "sacrifice hits" which do not count against the player who makes the bunt.  The player is giving up their best chances at success for the good of the team.

So we see that in a game that require teamwork, or synergy between multiple pieces do not necessarily fit this model very well.

Games that are simple to master, like Tic Tac Toe, often make it too easy to avoid "damage".

So what is the overall concept that damage avoidance is trying to teach us?  What is the Final End of a great game?

Mastery.

The easy to learn, lifetime to master claim has become a cliche, but rightfully so!  In a single-player game like Pacman, after each death the player ideally is kicking themselves for eating the last power pellet too soon, or turning right instead of left.

In great games, failure to avoid damage (when appropriate) will often lead the player towards mastery.  The player is left knowing how they could do better next time.

In some very sophisticated games, we must "unlearn what we have learned" and also learn when taking losses aids the greater good.

When we feel at the whim of the designer, or the random number generator, often fall short of the mark of greatness.  Players who feel snubbed by luck give themselves a psychological out, and are not necessarily inspired to master a game after being defeated or falling short of the mark.  This is why the best "luck games" allow you to create your own luck.  This is the primary skill of Poker, in fact!

Several top Magic the Gathering players give this advice as well.  Make your own luck.  Drafting the better cards in a tournament, helps you be "lucky", more-so than the luck of the shuffle.

So, the takeaway for game designers is this:  Receiving "damage" should not be random, arbitrary, or unfair so that the player is left with a clear and pressing desire to improve and gain mastery.  Damage by random numbers, whim, or bad design allows players an easy out.  Allowing the player to choose to "take the hit" for a teammate, or for a "piece", however, encourages "big picture" thinking, and likewise encourages mastery.

The end goal is to create a desire for mastery, and for the game to have a complexity worthy of that desire.

Music Games, Synesthesia

Music games have exploded in popularity.  For many, Guitar Hero or Dance Dance Revolution were a first encounter.  The primary reason that this genre was such a late bloomer is probably technological.  With the Playstation, PaRappa was an early sign of what the genre would have to offer.

As the games progressed in scope, so did a flood of new peripherals.

The single most amazing emergence that music games afforded is an approximation of Synesthesia.  This form of immersion is the blending of sight, sound and touch.  "Feeling the beat" in a game like DDR, comes from the music, the feeling of the baseline in your gut, the flashing of the arrows on the screen.  Numerous indicators work in unison to bring you into the song.

I never liked Duran Duran until Rock Band.  Being able to experience Hungry Like the Wolf or Rio from the perspective of the singer, bassist, guitarist or drummer allows you to absorb the game from different vistas.  Singing while your friends are playing provides and additional feeling of being a part of a larger collective.

Once all of these combine, this is no longer a cheesy British Band's song written the year after my birth.  It gains new dimensions.

Likewise, DDR has forced me to reconsider Lady Gaga, Rihanna, and all of Japanese Pop Music.

This is game design at its best:  offering new experiences and new perspectives.