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Game Focus Myth is also a good example of a well-focused game design.. The best way to communicate adeep story is by making it integral to the gameplay and by revealing a little bit of i

In Myth, every bit of technology is used to its greatest gameplay effect, as is

typical of projects run by designer/programmers such as Jones This hybrid oper understands what the technology can do perfectly while also understandingwhat would be compelling in terms of gameplay, making for very economical gamedevelopment Thus, when the technology does something that can enhance thegameplay, the designer/programmer instantly notices it and is able to exploit it to itsmaximum effect This differs greatly from so many projects where programmersimplement complicated functionality that is never used because the designers neverfully understand it

devel-Of course, adapting gameplay from 2D to 3D is not without its drawbacks For

instance, despite being able to zoom in and out in Myth, one is never able to zoom

out from the action quite as much as one would like This is in part because of theprecedent set by other RTS games, which, because of their 2D engines, can have amuch more distant viewpoint, a viewpoint that lends itself to tracking and moving

large numbers of units A patch was released for Myth shortly after its publication

which allowed players to zoom the camera out farther, but with the side effect ofdecreasing their frame rate, since more landscape and hence more polygons arenow in view Of course, the engine could probably support viewing the landscapefrom still farther away, but the amount of polygons on the screen would quicklybecome prohibitive, decreasing the game’s overall speed unacceptably Thus, thelimitations of a 3D engine come to limit the gameplay choices the designer canmake Another gameplay drawback that results from the technology is the oftenconfusing camera Though the camera is able to rotate to view whatever side of theaction is desired, this camera rotation can often become jarring and disorienting,causing the player to lose track of where different locations and units are on themap For a novice, a casual gamer, or anyone without a good sense of direction, thecamera’s movement would probably be altogether unmanageable

Game Focus

Myth is also a good example of a well-focused game design As mentioned

previ-ously, Myth came out several years after the success of two other RTS titles,

Command & Conquer and WarCraft In both of those games, the player builds

structures which exploit the terrain’s natural resources in order to create additionalunits The player is then able to direct these units against his opponent in a combi-nation of ways Thus, those trend-setting RTS games are a mixture of gameplay—part resource management and building, part combat Many of the subsequent RTStitles, both the successes and the failures, copied this general model, dividing theplayer’s efforts between unit creation, resource exploitation, and strategic unitdeployment

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But Myth does not feature any resources to be mined or structures to be built.

Instead the player is focused entirely on the tactical side of the game, on the combatexperience The player starts out on a level with a given quantity of units, and formost of the levels in the game those are the only units she gets for that entire level

In some levels, additional units are acquired later in the level, but those levels are

the exceptions rather than the norm Myth does away with everything except for the

combat elements of RTS games, which gives its gameplay a unique focus

This tactical emphasis has several ramifications on the overall game design.First, by not needing to worry about developing a resource exploitation system,Jones was able to focus on making the combat model as good as it could be Thisresulted in more sophisticated and detailed combat than was found in any other

RTS game at the time In Myth, unit facing, formation, and placement matter more

than they had in other strategy titles Because the developers did not have to worryabout how the player would use resources, more time could be spent on the physicssystem and other technologies that would enhance the combat experience Forexample, this attention to detail meant that archers needed to worry about finding aclear shot through the trees, how the weather would effect the trajectory of theirarrows, and how their vertical placement on the landscape would impact the dis-tance they could shoot

The lack of ability for the player to build additional units also affects the care

he will take in using the units with which he starts a level In WarCraft one can

make a very substantial blunder early on in a level and still be able to win by wise

resource usage and unit creation In Myth, such an error is often fatal, with the

lev-els becoming less and less forgiving as the game progresses The player’s only

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recourse when his plan of attack fails is to reload the level This makes for a very

different kind of gameplay than is found in WarCraft In Myth, the player must

think through his actions fully instead of just trying whatever first pops into hishead The units the player has are much more precious and, as a result, the player

starts caring for their welfare Since more can be made easily, the units in WarCraft may seem like just so much cannon fodder Conversely, in Myth a particular unit

may be crucial to finishing a level, and there is no way to bring him back once he iskilled

Storytelling

Despite its exemplary game design, a large component of Myth is its storytelling,

which is conducted using a number of well-integrated devices First are thecut-scenes which appear sporadically throughout the game, outlining major plotpoints and setting up certain levels These are often used more as “teasers” than toreally advance the story significantly Second are the mission briefings which pre-cede each level These contain a large amount of detail about the progression of thewar between the Light and the Dark (the game’s two opposing forces) They alsogive meaning to the level the player is about to play, making the mission objectivemore than just some arbitrary task picked by the level designer

Third, and most interesting, are the in-game storytelling devices that are used

Of course, the levels are set in locations that match the needs of the story line,whether it be a frostbitten, barren mountain area or a smoldering lava pit The bat-tles and missions contained in the level match up with the story as explained by themission briefings But the player can also see and hear exchanges within the gamebetween different characters For instance, a townsperson may advise the player ofthe location of a traitor Your troops may provide advice such as, “We’d better getback to the bridge!” Though the player never loses control of his units, the game isable to trigger these bits of dialog at different key points in the levels In one mis-sion, as the player’s troops approach an insurmountable mass of Myrmidons, theAvatara the player has been guarding steps forward and proclaims, “Let me handlethis.” He begins a conversation with the Fetch leading the opposing forces and thestory line unfolds right there in the game-world during game-time

In contrast to the majority of games which use storytelling as little more than an

add-on to an already existing group of levels, Myth makes the story line, levels, and

gameplay dependent on each other, strengthening each as a result Players enjoygames because they enjoy the gameplay, not because the games are accompanied

by long, non-interactive cut-scenes Yet players do enjoy having stories in theirgames, since they can give the gameplay meaning The best way to communicate adeep story is by making it integral to the gameplay and by revealing a little bit of it

here and a little bit of it there during actual game-time, something Myth does

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expertly Of course, the fact that Myth’s story line is top-notch, the script is well

written, and the voice acting is professional certainly helps Telling a story linethrough gameplay will not do a game a bit of good if the plot is hackneyed, the dia-log is contrived, or the voice acting is amateurish

Hard-Core Gaming

Myth is a game design by hard-core gamers for hard-core gamers and makes no

apologies about it Far from trying to capture the “mainstream” or “casual” gamer

market that so many companies have tried to court, Myth is a game that would

quickly frighten away anyone who is not already familiar with other RTS games and

who does not have the quick-clicking skills required by Myth There is nothing

wrong with this, of course, and it is pleasing to see a game which has the artisticconviction to know its audience and to stick to it Indeed, since the game’s develop-ers are among the ranks of the hard-core gamers, it only makes sense that they willbest know how to make a game that this audience will like Often, when a group ofhard-core gamers try to make a game that the mythical casual gamer will enjoy, theyend up making a game they themselves do not like very much, and that the casualgamer does not care much about either It is very hard for an artist to make art thatappeals to sensibilities which are at odds with her own, the end result often beingworks that are without appeal to any group or demographic

But Myth did not have this problem; its developers created a game which no

casual gamer would ever be able to pick up One reason for this is the incrediblysophisticated and challenging set of controls For instance, consider the control of

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the 3D rotating camera As opposed to other RTS games at the time, where the

camera could only move horizontally along with the terrain, Myth’s camera can

move horizontally, zoom in or zoom out, rotate around a point, or orbit around apoint Even experienced game players find it somewhat challenging to get used tothis system However, once one masters the camera’s movements, one finds thatthey are expertly designed and provide all of the freedom one could reasonablyexpect given the technology the game uses The game is also littered with specialkeys for different actions, such as formations, special actions, and alternate attacks.Again, these commands, once mastered, provide the player with a large degree ofcontrol over how her units move and attack, but do take some time to learn Indeed,these keys make the game impossible to play with only the mouse, somethingalmost all other RTS games focus on The “gesture-clicking” is another interestingfeature, used for pointing units in a certain direction when they reach a given loca-tion The system for gesture-clicking is quite powerful yet nearly impossible tolearn without being taught in person or by practicing a great deal Nonetheless, forthe hard-core players who are willing to put in the time to learn the controls, theend result is an extremely enjoyable game-playing experience

Myth is also an inherently hard game Even for players experienced at RTS

titles, the game will prove to be extraordinarily difficult from the get-go arily, games include a few simple levels toward the beginning of the game, in order

Custom-to give the player a fighting chance while they are still learning the controls Myth

does not Immediately, players are presented with barely accomplishable goals,where one mistake may make the level virtually unwinnable The loss of a particu-lar unit will often cause the seasoned player to conclude that the level is now toohard to beat, so why bother? They will just restart the level instead The sad thing isthat, despite their great difficulty, the levels toward the beginning of the game arethe easy levels, with the levels becoming exponentially harder from there How-ever, this is the sort of challenge that truly hard-core game players thrive on It isnot that the challenges are unfair, arbitrary, or unpredictable, at least not always Inmost cases, players can beat the levels on their first time through; it is just extraor-dinarily difficult to do so

Myth is the kind of game that many publishers would demand be simplified so

that non-hard-core gamers would not be frightened off by its complex controls orsadistic level of difficulty But if the game were simplified significantly, would itstill be as compelling as it is now? Probably not For whatever small number ofcasual gamers might be gained, large numbers of hard-core gamers would be lost

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As with the Marathon games before it, Bungie created Myth to excel both as a

single-player game and as a multi-player experience What is most notableabout this is that Bungie manages to do both so well Many games are criticized

for emphasizing one over the other Quake and Quake II, for instance, were both

praised for their solid network play while being lambasted for their lackluster gle-player games Many other games seem to add multi-player support as an

sin-afterthought, hoping to get another bullet point on the back of the box Centipede

3D is a good example of this, where multi-player was added late in the project as a

marketing consideration, and almost no design time was spent making it any fun.Bungie’s well-publicized strategy for making a game that excels in both the sin-gle- and multi-player arenas is worth noting After they have established the coreengine technology for their game, getting the networking functional is the next step.Once it works, the entire team starts playing network games, and keeps playingthem until they are fun At this point no work has begun on the single-player game,and the team is entirely focused on enhancing the network play experience Onlyafter the networking game’s core design is completed does the team start work onthe single-player game However, this is not to say that the single-player game isrushed This merely means that the entire team knows what “works” and makes thegame fun before any solo levels are even created, resulting in less reworking onthose levels and leading to more entertaining levels in the final product

It is because the team has spent so much time playing the multi-player gamethat the net games have the depth to hold up over time If the team were creating a

shallow experience they would quickly grow tired of it Myth’s multi-player allows

players many different game types with a variety of goals, all of which require ferent playing styles The interesting pre-game unit trading system allows players to

dif-think up their own “killer” team, much like a player of Magic: The Gathering

spends time developing the perfect deck of cards Team play, where multiple peoplecontrol one set of allied units and go up against another team, opens up many possi-bilities for strategies too complex for a single person to pull off It is because of thetime Bungie’s development team spent playing the multi-player game that it has theimpressive staying power it does

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Myth is also littered with little design touches that add a certain luster to the solid

foundation of the core design Whereas missions in other RTS games exist as

sepa-rate, self-contained play-spaces, in Myth the missions become a part of the whole

due to the use of “veteran” units These units, if they survive a given battle, will beavailable for the player to use on the next level, and their skills will be noticeablystronger than the greenhorn units This makes the player treat those units with spe-cial care, expending the greenhorns on more dangerous exploration Another nicetouch is the ability of the units to leave footprints in the terrain, which adds an inter-esting element to tracking down enemies on snow-covered levels The variety ofmissions available provides a much more diverse set of goals than many other RTSgames, causing the player to modify his gameplay style drastically from level tolevel

Of course, Myth is not without its problems, even if one can accept the

chal-lenging controls and staggeringly difficult levels Clicking around the overheadmap sometimes causes the camera to rotate in ways the player does not expect, pos-sibly throwing off his orientation in the world The overhead map is actuallytranslucent and drawn over the play-field, which can sometimes cause players toclick in it by accident The desire to see more of the play-field at once is a validone, even if it is a limitation of the technology Nevertheless, these are truly minor

flaws in an overwhelmingly impressive design Myth represents how a great game

can grow out of the marriage of technology and gameplay This is not a shotgun

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wedding, however, but instead one where the bride and groom have carefullythought out how they can happily live together, enhancing each other’s strengths,thus creating something new and exciting in the process.

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Chapter 17

The Design

Document

“It wasn’t until Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar, that Ultimas really started

hav-ing compellhav-ing, purposeful stories, and it was the first game in the series tohave a social commentary subtext Not only did I want to build worlds thatwere large, epic, and meaningful, I also wanted to add a subtext to eachgame which might not necessarily be obvious in the actions your characterstook in the game, but one which ultimately would give the game a more last-

ing meaning So in Ultima IV you had to prove yourself to be a good person,

one who could be an example to the people of Britannia The game actedlike a ’Big Brother,’ requiring gamers to behave in a ’heroic’ fashion in order

to win the game I thought that design was pretty cool, since gamers wereaccustomed to pretending to be the hero yet they would beat up all thetownsfolk in order to become powerful enough to beat up the character whowas supposed to be the big bad guy, even though he generally didn’t doanything bad in the game.”

— Richard Garriott

316

For some years, while I was still an aspiring professional designer, I wanted

someone to tell me what the official format for a design document was Iknew that Hollywood screenplays had a very precise format, and I figuredthere must be something comparably rigorous for design documents What sort ofinformation is it supposed to include? How should it be laid out? What formatshould it use? Only recently, after numerous years as a professional, did I figure outthe big secret, and it is one that I am happy to pass on to you in this book Yes, here

my years of experience in the gaming industry will impart on you the preciousinformation

There is no format! Everyone who writes a game design document just makes

up their own format! Have you ever heard of anything so incredible? Whenever Ihave asked people what format I should be using for a particular document, theyinvariably answer “well, you know, the standard format.” No one really knowswhat this mythical “standard” format is, yet all refer to it In the end, as long as itcommunicates the nature of the game effectively and in sufficient detail, whateveryou hand over to the people who will review your document will be regarded as the

“standard” format There is definitely a certain type and quantity of informationthat belongs in a design document and which must be included for it to be useful,but there is no standardized form you must use in documenting that data

Certainly within some companies, especially large ones, there may be anagreed-upon format that all of the in-house designers must use for their documents.Your design document will end up standing out if it diverges too much from otherdesign documents in the industry It makes sense for you to get your hands on everyofficial design document you can, just as you might seek out practice exams beforetaking major standardized tests Optimally, you will be able to obtain some docu-ments that were used for games that were actually published Or, at least, you willwant to review documents written by designers who have completed and shippedgames This is hard to do, since gaming companies are fanatical about protectingtheir intellectual property and do not want to reveal how chaotic their internal

development may be, but see what you can find The Atomic Sam design document

included at the end of this book is a good one with which to start

A design document is all about communicating a vision for a game, for ping out as much information as possible about how that game will function, whatthe player will experience, and how the player will interact with the game-world.Organizing and structuring all of this information into appropriate sections is one ofthe key challenges in writing a good design document Again, many companiesmay prefer their documents in a format different from what I describe here, and youshould certainly organize your data in the form desired by the people for whom youare writing If the development team is familiar with navigating design documentswritten in a specific format, you should mold your data to fit that format

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Remember, the design document is not the end result of your efforts; the game is.

As such, the format of the design document is relatively unimportant As long asthe format allows for the effective communication of the pertinent information, thedesign document will be a success

The Writing Style

Before we delve into which sections your design document should contain and whatareas it should cover, it is worth discussing the style you should employ when writ-ing your document The design document is meant to be a reference tool and, assuch, you want to make it as easy for people to search and refer to as possible A bigpart of this will be maintaining a good Table of Contents, as we will discuss in amoment In writing the text of your document, you will want to break it up with lots

of titles, headings, sub-headings, and so forth This will make it easier for the reader

to skim over the document and zoom in on the information he is seeking Breakingyour information into lists, either numbered or bulleted, wherever possible will fur-ther allow readers to easily realize what different attributes a given part of the gamewill need to include It is actually more difficult to write in a bullet-point style, as itrequires you to constantly be shifting indentations around and bold-facing titlesinstead of just including all your ideas in a single narrative paragraph You may find

it easiest to write out your document first, and then go back and format it properly.That way you get all the content down, and when you go back to edit the document,you can simultaneously properly format it Though writing in a bullet-point stylemay involve more work for you, the end result is a more useful document to themembers of your team Furthermore, the managers and executives will appreciate it,since it makes the document that much easier to skim

Some designers use special writing tools for composing their document Thesemight be applications better suited to writing text with lots of headings, subhead-ings, bulleted lists, and so forth These various applications may allow for theauto-formatting and indenting of text, which could save you a lot of the time youwould spend in a regular word processor dragging around indentation markers andtab stops That said, I have never used such a tool, nor have I ever worked withsomeone who did The primary problem with these tools is that once your docu-ment is done, you will need to pass it around electronically for everyone to read.Chances are slim everyone will have this unique formatting tool Instead they willhave a regular word processor This will be read by everyone from the other mem-bers of your development team to the people in management to the executives atyour publisher You cannot expect all of these people to have installed whatevereclectic design document authoring tool you have chosen If the tool you use pro-vides an exporter to a standard word processor file format such as Rich Text Format(.rtf), that will usually solve this problem, but make sure the exporter actually

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exports a document that matches the one you have composed Still, I have alwaysbeen quite content using standard word processors for my own needs, and have notfelt the need for a more capable tool.

Though there is a great temptation to do whatever is necessary to “bulk up”your document in order to make it seem more thorough and complete, you want toavoid repeating information as much as possible This is challenging as you talkabout an element of gameplay that directly relies on another system which you dis-cussed ten pages back Instead of redescribing the system, refer your reader to thesystem’s original definition This is important since, as you find yourself updatingthe document over the course of the project’s development, you will need to changedata in only one place instead of several Often, if the same gameplay mechanism isdescribed in detail in more than one place, when it comes time to make a change,only one of the descriptions will get updated This leaves the other descriptionout-of-date, thus resulting in an internally inconsistent document Nothing is morefrustrating to the reader than to find contradictory information in the design docu-ment Inconsistent information in a specification can also throw up a red flag forproducers, who will begin to question your competency to develop a game whenyou cannot seem to keep your facts straight

Many people like to read design documents on their computer, as it allows them

to search for words and navigate the document more easily than with a large heap

of paper on their desk For these people, it makes sense to include hyperlinks ever appropriate Most modern word processors make it easy to create links fromone part of your document to another, allowing the reader to quickly navigate toanother relevant section This can be quite helpful as you try to avoid repeating any

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more of your design than is absolutely necessary Instead of repeating, include ahyperlink to the pertinent location so that the reader can jump there if they need toremember how a specific system functions.

As you write your document, you want to write as well as you possibly can, butkeep in mind that the design document is supposed to be a reference document forthe creation of an entertaining game, not an entertaining document in and of itself.You want your writing to communicate the information necessary in as concise andsuccinct a manner possible Do not spend a lot of time worrying about making thedocument stimulating reading No one is looking for excitement when reading thebulk of a design document; they are looking for information I usually try to makethe Introduction and Story Overview the most readable sections of the document,where someone could actually sit down and read through those sections and beinterested while doing so But for the rest of the document, you will be successful ifyou simply manage to include all of the information necessary Spending a lot oftime dressing it up with fancy verbiage will do nothing to improve your game Sim-ilarly, though you should try to write as correctly as possible, do not spend toomuch time worrying about editing the document for grammatical mistakes If thereaders of the document, the members of your team, are able to read it and get theinformation they need, they will be happy They really will not care if you used agerund correctly or not

As you write your document, it will be awfully tempting to compare elements

of your design to other games, certainly ones the readers are likely to have played.Though in Chapter 5 I discouraged you from using such comparisons in your focus,

in the design document comparisons can actually be useful, but with a caveat: you

must fully explain your system, even if it is “just like the mechanic found in Super

Mario 64.” A comparison to a popular game can provide the reader with a starting

point to understanding a complex game system you are describing If they canremember that game, they will instantly have some idea of what you are talkingabout Of course, to prevent any confusion, you must still include a thoroughdescription of that aspect of your design Comparisons are almost always not usefulenough to replace a thorough explanation of how a system is supposed to work.Therefore, do not rely on a comparison as a crutch to save you the trouble of docu-menting some gameplay Nonetheless, having started with the comparison, yourreaders will have a better chance of understanding exactly what you are driving atwhen you go on to fully describe and document the system

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The Sections

The game design documents I write typically break down into the following majorsections Within each of these, there will be further subdivisions, and not everygame may require that all of these sections be used

The reader may laugh to think that I list this as an important part of the document

Of course a document over fifty pages in length and containing multiple sectionswill have a table of contents—why even mention it? What bears emphasis, however,

is the nature of the Table of Contents Since creating an index is a time- consumingtask for a large body of text such as a design document, it is unlikely you will havetime to make one In the absence of an index, the Table of Contents ends up as thetool people use to navigate your document When a member of the developmentteam needs to find a specific piece of information in your document, she will beinclined to look first in the Table of Contents to try to find where that information ismost likely to be So the more detailed and inclusive your Table of Contents, themore likely she will be able to quickly find the information she needs

No simple novel-style table of contents will do in the design document—inother words, no listing of only eight separate sections with the reader left to navi-gate the pages within the sections on his own The Table of Contents must includesub-sections, sub-sub-sections, and perhaps even sub-sub-sub-sections We havealready discussed how you will need to use bolded headings throughout your docu-ment to make it easy to navigate In addition, any commercial word processor willallow you to turn these headings into entries in a table of contents These entrieswill then automatically update for you as those headings move around within thedocument Most word processors even allow someone reading the document on hiscomputer to click on an entry in the table of contents and be taken directly to theappropriate part of the document Making a detailed Table of Contents for yourdesign document is crucial to making it useful

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Introduction/Overview or Executive Summary

It is a good idea to have a single-page overview of your game’s design at the ning of your document This summary is not very useful to developers activelytoiling away on the project, who, as you may remember, are the target audience forthe document However, for new team members who come on board the project, asummary will be a good starting point for understanding the game Indeed, for any-one reading the document for the first time, be they a producer, an executive, or amarketer, getting an idea of the game’s “big picture” through a one-page summarycan be quite helpful Even if whoever reads the Introduction is not going to havetime to read the rest of the document, this one-page summary should allow them tounderstand the essence of the gameplay

begin-The Introduction should limit itself to a single page Longer than that and theIntroduction stops being an effective summary Any information that does not fit on

a single page is simply not part of the game’s core design If you find yourselfgoing over the limit, figure out what is least important among the data you have inthe summary and cut it Repeat this process until the summary fits on a single page.Think of the summary like your resume: longer than a page and you may lose yourreader Write a gripping first paragraph which sums up the entire game, with thefollowing paragraphs filling in the structure outlined in the opening

Before writing the design document, you should have worked on defining yourgame’s focus, as I explored in Chapter 5, “Focus.” That focus is an excellent start-ing point for your summary Recall that the focus is a summing up of your game’smost compelling points in a single paragraph Start with your focus as the openingparagraph of your overview, and then use the following paragraphs to go into moredetail about each compelling part of your game

One of the body paragraphs of your overview should sum up the game’s story,

if any In this paragraph, focus on the adventures the player will experience duringgameplay, while not dwelling so much on the back-story or history of the game-world Follow the game through to the story’s conclusion, mentioning the differenttypes of worlds the player will navigate and characters they will encounter Alwayskeep in mind that this is just a summary, so it does not need to go into that muchdepth Just touch on the high points of your story and move on to the nextparagraph

The other body paragraphs of your summary should discuss different aspects ofyour gameplay, using the key parts as outlined in your focus What features of thegameplay are most central to the game and will be most instrumental in makinggamers want to play your work for hours and hours? Of course, you should notfocus on features that all games have (“Project X includes the ability to save theplayer’s game at any time!”) but rather on features that will make your game standout, the parts that define your game as a unique and compelling experience

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