Game architecture and design (new riders)

8 The Future of Game Design 197II Team Building and Management 9 Current Methods of Team Management 227 10 Roles and Divisions 245 11 The Software Factory 263 12 Milestones and Deadlines

8 The Future of Game Design 197

II Team Building and Management

9 Current Methods of Team Management 227

10 Roles and Divisions 245

11 The Software Factory 263

12 Milestones and Deadlines 293

13 Procedures and “Process” 327

14 Troubleshooting 367

15 The Future of the Industry 409

III Game Architecture

16 Current Development Methods 433

A Sample Game Design Documents 785

B Bibliography and References 887Glossary 893

Index 897

Game Architecture and Design:

A New Edition

Contents at a Glance

800 East 96thStreet, 3rdFloor, Indianapolis, Indiana 46240

An Imprint of Pearson EducationBoston • Indianapolis • London • Munich • New York • San Francisco

Game Architecture and Design:

A New Edition

Andrew Rollings Dave Morris

A New Edition

Copyright © 2004 by New Riders Publishing

All rights reserved No part of this book shall be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means—

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without written permission from the publisher, except for the

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International Standard Book Number: 0-7357-1363-4

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2003111600

Printed in the United States of America

First printing: November, 2003

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the printing code 04-1 shows that the first printing of the book

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Warning and Disclaimer

Every effort has been made to make this book as complete and as

accurate as possible, but no warranty of fitness is implied The

information is provided on an as-is basis The authors and New

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This book is dedicated to the memory of Ram De Silva,

respected colleague and beloved friend.

Table of Contents

Inspiration 7Synthesis 8Resonance 9Convergence 10

Analysis 16Evaluation 17Justification 17

Feasibility 20Commercial 20Technological 20Developmental 21

Case Study 1.2 Initial Treatment for Conquerors 22

Puzzles 37

Case Study 2.1 Story Versus Gameplay 39

Games Mean Gameplay 39Case Study 2.2 A Missed Opportunity? 40

Case Study 2.3 Integrating Game Objectives 43Features 43Case Study 2.4 An Instance of Emergence 45Gameplay 45Interface 47Case Study 2.5 An Elegant Interface 48Rules 48Case Study 2.6 The Rules Must Serve the Features 49

Case Study 2.7 Interesting Level Design 51

Case Study 3.5 A Different Kind of Interactivity 82

Chapter 4 Detailed Design 87

Case Study 4.1 A Development Timeline 88

Case Study 4.2 The Need for Documenting the Spec 94

Case Study 4.3 Planning the Mini-Specs to Fit

Case Study 5.1 Is This Supposed to Be Fun? 111

Make a Game You Play With, Not Against 114Case Study 5.2 The Save Game Problem 114

Case Study 5.3 Component and Attribute Balance in

Intransitive Game Mechanics Guarantees Balance 120Case Study 5.4 Attribute Balance Using SPS 126Case Study 5.5 Using Game Theory Analysis to

Ambience 142Sound 143Case Study 6.1 Sound Effects at Their Best 143Vision 144

Touch 147Interface 148Case Study 6.3 Meshing the Interface with Look and Feel 148Case Study 6.4 Sometimes Less Is Less 150Storytelling 152

A Toolbox of Storytelling Techniques 153Case Study 6.5 An Example of a Look-and-Feel Document 157Case Study 6.6 An Unexpected Development 162Case Study 6.7 An Unsatisfying Conclusion 167

Chapter 8 The Future of Game Design 197

Case Study 8.2 Keep the Design up to Date 202

Case Study 8.3 Comparing Nonsymbolic and

The Future of Games 212

Case Study 8.4 An Example of Mise En Scene 219

Chapter 9 Current Methods of Team Management 227

Excessive Long Hours Mean an Unsuccessful Project 241

Case Study 9.1 Quake, StarCraft, and XCOM: Interceptor 243

Chapter 10 Roles and Divisions 245

Support and Quality Assurance Division 253Improving Morale and the Working Environment 255

Morale Booster Caveats and Warnings 261

Chapter 11 The Software Factory 263

Case Study 11.1 The Effects of Losing Key Personnel 268

Organizing a Software Factory 271

Group Responsibilities and Interactions 273Case Study 11.3 Ineffective Problem Handling in Action 274Case Study 11.4 Effective Problem Handling in Action 276Case Study 11.5 The Benefits Of Tool Reuse 281Applying the Software Factory Structure and Methodology 285

Knowing When to Use Each Team—a Parallel DevelopmentTimeline 287Rotating and Reassigning Team Members 289

The Suitability of a Software Factory 290

Chapter 12 Milestones and Deadlines 293

Case Study 12.1 What Fuzzy Milestones Can Do to

Case Study 12.2 The Costs of Canceling Projects 304Checkpoint 1.0 General Requirements Gathering 305Checkpoint 1.1 Technological Requirements Gathering 307Checkpoint 1.2 Resource Requirements Gathering 308Checkpoint 2.0 General Feasibility Study 309Checkpoint 2.1 Technological Feasibility Study 311Checkpoint 2.2 Resource Availability Study 312Checkpoint 3.0 Draft Architecture Specification 312Checkpoint 3.1 Project Initialization 313

Case Study 12.3 A Real-Life Milestone 322

Chapter 13 Procedures and “Process” 327

Source Control and Code Reviews: A Synergy 355Case Study 13.2 Source Control? We Don’t Need

What Should Source Control Be Used For? 358The Importance of Information Transmission 358Proactive and Reactive Information Transmission 362

Risks 372

Case Study 14.1 The Case of the Deaf Manager 379

Chapter 15 The Future of the Industry 409

Case Study 15.1 It’s Hard for Developers 423

Part III Game Architecture

Chapter 16 Current Development Methods 433

The History of Development Techniques 436The Rise and Fall of the Original Game Idea? 437

Case Study 17.2 The Inflexibility Trap 502

Case Study 18.2 Losing Sight of the Ball 533

Case Study 18.4 Outcast: Good Use of Technology 539

Chapter 19 Building Blocks 553

Chapter 20 Initial Architecture Design 607

Case Study 20.1 A Database-Driven Approach 623

Case Study 21.1 Class A Bugs or Not? 675

Reuse 681Case Study 21.2 Reusable Architecture 682Documentation 682

Schedule 684

Limit R&D 684

Case Study 22.1 A Self-Inflicted Disaster 692

Case Study 22.4 Last-Minute Madness 701

Licenses 703Languages 704Demos 706Case Study 22.5 Giving the Game Away 707Case Study 22.6 Keep Something Back 708Playtesting 708Case Study 22.7 How Did They Miss These!? 710

Coding 741Testing 742

Case Study 23.5 Secure Your Revenue Stream 743

Chapter 24 The Future of Game Development 747

Marketing 752Case Study 24.1 Marketing Means Targeting 754Content 756Case Study 24.2 Development Without Strategy 757Planning 760Developers 762

Character 764Motivation 767Morale 769

A Sample Game Design Documents 785

1 Balls! Introduction 785

5 Why Puzzle Games Aren’t as Good as They Used to Be 789

8 Game Design: User Interface Elements 794

9 Physics of Balls! 799

11 Special Case Block-Block Collisions 808

About the Authors

Andrew Rollings has a B.S in Physics from Imperial College,

London, and Bristol University He has worked since 1995 as a technical and design consultant spanning many industries

Andrew lives in Auburn, Alabama, and can be contacted at

a.rollings@hiive.com

Dave Morris has worked as a designer and creative consultant on PC

and console games for several major publishers, most notably Eidos

His strategy game Warrior Kings reached number six in the United

Kingdom PC charts He has done creative development and ing on television shows for Endemol, Pearson, TV2 Norway, and theBBC He has also written more than a dozen novels, gamebooks, andmovie novelizations, and in 1991 he was the UK’s top-selling author He is currently

scriptwrit-writing the screenplay for the film version of the classic adventure game The Seventh

Guest Dave lives in London, England, and can be contacted at

david.j.morris@dial.pipex.com

A work of this kind, drawing on our combined experiences over many years in thegames industry, owes a debt of gratitude to all the people we have worked with Theimpossibility of acknowledging everyone in person does not mean that we fail to valueevery contribution, suggestion, or conversation that has helped us to refine these ideas

So, let us start by thanking all who have been our colleagues on any development project, great or small

It is possible to single out a few individuals among the many Roz Morris, though nogamer, proofread the manuscript and made many valuable suggestions to improve itsclarity based on her professional expertise as a journalist and writer As she is married

to one of the authors, it goes without saying that she also contributed a very great deal

of moral support

Sam Kerbeck, that rare combination of gentleman and genius, gave us the benefit of his technical advice, and we are indebted to him for ably clarifying many of the moreabstruse issues of architecture and coding As Co-Founder and CEO of Turn3D, he hasprovided us with state-of-the-art realtime graphics, and as a colleague of long standing,

he has also given his valued friendship over many years

Ian Turnbull, former Development Director at Eidos Interactive, now Commercial Director of Black Cactus Games, contributed enormously with his wise counsel regard-ing the economic realities of the industry Without his guidance, this book would bemerely a theoretical work It is Ian’s down-to-earth clear-headedness that reminded us

to make it more than that: a practical handbook for developers

We would also like to thank Steve Foster, who has been extraordinarily patient overthe course of many speculative discussions, often stretching long into the night, con-cerning the future directions and methodology of game development His contributionhas been much more than merely academic, however When problem projects haveweighed us down, it has been Steve’s cheerful encouragement that has given us theresolve to keep going

Special thanks are due also to Leo Hartas, Tim Harford, Matt Kelland, Dave Lloyd, TimGummer, Jamie Thomson, and David Bailey

The fact that you are holding this book at all is due to the sterling efforts of the folks atNew Riders—in particular Stephanie Wall, who was also head honcho on the originaledition from Coriolis Press Despite having had to chivvy us along once before, shewas willing to put herself through it all over again We would like to thank Kristy Hart,our editor, who is nothing short of a saint for her patience in tolerating broken promis-

es and overlooked deadlines And thanks also to our agent Jawahara Saidullah ofWaterside Productions, for making the whole thing happen in the first place

Andrew would also like to thank his wife, Stephanie Park, for her continued agement and tolerance for his budding writing career

encour-Tell Us What You Think

As the reader of this book, you are the most important critic and commentator Wevalue your opinion and want to know what we’re doing right, what we could do better,what areas you’d like to see us publish in, and any other words of wisdom you’re will-ing to pass our way

As the Publisher for New Riders Publishing, I welcome your comments You can fax,email, or write me directly to let me know what you did or didn’t like about thisbook—as well as what we can do to make our books stronger When you write, please

be sure to include this book’s title, ISBN, and author, as well as your name and phone

or fax number I will carefully review your comments and share them with the authorand editors who worked on the book

Please note that I cannot help you with technical problems related to the topic of this book, and that due to the high volume of email I receive, I might not be able to reply to every message.

Fax: 317-428-3382Email: stephanie.wall@newriders.com

Mail: Stephanie Wall

Publisher New Riders Publishing

800 East 96thStreet, 3rdFloorIndianapolis, IN 46240 USA

Andrew Rollings’s Introduction to this New Edition

I must confess to being more than a little surprised at the success of Game Architecture

and Design When we originally pitched the idea, back in 1999, we sent off proposals to

about ten different publishers Only Coriolis, and more specifically, Stephanie Wall atNew Riders Publishing, got back to us I bet those others are kicking themselves now

I am especially pleased that, despite the implosion of Coriolis and the subsequent legaladventures involved in ensuring the rights of this book reverting to us, Stephanie Wall

is still handling the book, but this time at New Riders I’m very sure that after fiveyears of having to deal with me as a reluctant author, she’s more than fed up with me

by now

So here we are with the second edition of Game Architecture & Design Things have

changed in the four intervening years, though not as much as we’d like We’ve come along way since 1999, but there’s still a long way to go I’m sure we’ll get there…eventu-ally

I hope that this new edition of the book continues to serve as a useful reference for theaspiring and professional game developer in the same way as the first

Enjoy

—Andrew Rollings

Auburn, Alabama, July 2003

Dave Morris’s Introduction to this New Edition

The temptation when revising one’s work of several years past is often to rewrite history a little There are always those embarrassing predictions that come back tohaunt you And yet with a few keystrokes, it’s possible to seem to a new generation ofreaders as if we were always infallible What an enticing position to be in

In fact we have left most of our forecasts from the twentieth century intact That’sbecause in many cases—for example, the rise of middleware—we turned out to be cor-rect Frankly, like everyone else we enjoy being able to say, “We told you so!”

In cases where we were wrong, we move on and try to learn from the mistakes In away, that’s at the heart of our design philosophy Having a methodology can’t alwaysprevent you making a mistake, but it makes darned sure you don’t make the same mistake twice

The case studies are culled from our mutual experiences and those of colleagues.People ask if these case studies could really be true No, in fact not The real truth inalmost every case was much worse!

But the encouraging thing is that the games industry is changing Four years ago, ourrallying cry for a formal development methodology rang like a lone voice in the wilder-ness Nowadays games development is becoming a much more structured process Andpublishers have a better understanding of what the process entails In another four

years, a developer coming across the first edition of Game Architecture & Design will be

astounded that development could ever have been so ramshackle We are happy tothink that, in however small a part, we helped contribute to this evolution of theindustry

Even better, as the production process becomes better understood and more lined, it consumes less of the developers’ time The extra creative energy this frees upcan now be devoted to the game content itself We are starting to see the first signsthat games really are moving from being the equivalent of silent movie one-reelers.They are acquiring depth, beauty, and emotion

stream-Tolstoy wrote, “Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist hasexperienced.” Great art doesn’t simply entertain you—it does that, granted, but it does

more Art changes your life In the next decade, we will see videogaming’s Birth of a

Nation and the Citizen Kane of the console generation.

Bliss it is in this dawn to be alive!

—Dave Morris

London, England, July 2003

Introduction to the First Edition

The philosophy behind this book is simple, stark, and absolutely true If you are failing

to plan, then you are planning to fail

Of course, games are unique Game development constantly throws up unexpectedissues Coping with accelerating technology is like holding onto the tiger’s tail Worse,sometimes the client revises their requirements halfway through

But these are not reasons to forego planning A good design provides a goal to aim forthat will guide you when changes are unavoidable Frequently, the design anticipates atleast the domain of future changes A full project plan establishes a framework forchange Planning does not end where development begins Rather, you sustain the planthrough any changes that need to be made so that, although the target may shift, younever lose sight of where you’re going

So, yes, games are unique For that reason, they require a unique kind of planning.That is the methodology that we have set out in this book To illustrate these points,

we make copious use of case studies These are based on common circumstances in the industry, but are fictional—any similarity to real company or product names isunintentional, except where explicitly stated otherwise (In addition, we have refer-

enced several trademarked games and replicated trademarked images such as Pac-Man,

owned by Namco These references are included to enhance the instructional and visual delivery of game concepts specific to this book and should not be construed as

a challenge to such trademarks.)

Who should read this book? The short answer is everyone who is, or intends to be,involved in game development All members of a team can benefit from understandingeach other’s area of responsibility However, each section addresses issues specific toone part of the development team We recommend that you begin by reading the section of primary relevance to your own expertise

Part I: Game Design

The book treats pure game design separately from architecture and formal planning

The game design constitutes a feature-based description of the end product that can

be used as a shared creative vision by the whole team As development progresses andchange becomes obligatory, it is the designer’s task to evolve the game design also sothat the intent of the project remains clear

We reject the assertion that gameplay is entirely unpredictable and thus cannot be designed In this section, well-understood techniques from game theory, mathematics,and creative writing are applied to the design process in order to elaborate a develop-ment model based on successive iterations of the product

It is clear that many games contain a spark of gameplay brilliance that could have beennurtured into a flame if the designers better understood the basic issues of gameplay

Part I shows you how to achieve this in your own designs

Part II: Team Building and Management

The book advocates formal process because we have found it to work Many ers are wary of formal process because they fear it will lead to bureaucracy and over-management In fact, the reverse is true

develop-Consider an analogy In the Japanese martial arts, much emphasis during training is

placed on constant repetition of predefined sequences of movement, called kata The

student may wonder how a formal routine of countering blows to the head, chest, andabdomen can possibly be of use in the infinite combinations of moves that can occur

in real-life And then, one day, somebody takes a swing at you and your arm comes up

to block You didn’t even need to think about it

Similarly, we espouse the application of formal process precisely because it lessens the

need for management Instead the emphasis is on honing everyone’s skills as part of ateam, with the developers themselves taking responsibility through self-management

Thus, Part II details simple, common-sense procedures that are easy to adopt and willsoon become second nature The payoff will be seen in increased efficiency, reliability,and team morale

Part III: Game Architecture

The architectural plan of the project is the point of contact that draws together theconceptual, artistic or gameplay factors with the technical requirements Envisage thedesign as an ideal view of what the game should be The architecture maps out how toconverge reality with that ideal view

A perfect architecture should aim to achieve all of the following:

Modularity

Separating the project into completely encapsulated modules allows each to be

independently tested, modified, or replaced without impacting the rest of the system

is treated in an introductory manner by means of object-oriented design patterns

Part IV: Appendixes

Here we use real-life projects as case studies to illustrate the techniques of the book

We show how to begin with a feature-based description of the desired end product—

the vision document that we call the gameplay design When this is mapped to a logical abstraction of the game environment then you have the software plan, which describes

discrete modules of the game and how they will interface Finally, the details of

imple-mentation are added to create the technical design of the project Then the coding

starts

Summing Up

Game developers are the most enthusiastic, creative and motivated workers in the ware industry But they have been ill served by the development models in place today.Too often, the development teams are left baling water when it would make more sense

soft-to fix the leak instead

Many development houses have finally seen the need for change, but few know whatchanges are needed In this book we set out a new development model for game soft-ware Beginning with the core concept, the book covers all you need to know to organ-ize a team, plan your project, and commence development with confidence

Rest assured, these are not abstract theories We have applied our methodology inpractice with great success This development model is one that works Our aim is totell you how to fix that leak so that you can get on with the important business of cre-ating games Good luck!

This book follows a few typographical conventions:

➤ A new term is set in italics the first time it is introduced.

➤ Program text, functions, variables, and other “computer language” are set in afixed-pitch font—for example, insert example from book here

➤ Code lines that do not fit within the margins of the printed page are continued

on the next line and are preceded by a code continuation character ➥

Part I

Game Design

Chapter 1 First Concept

Chapter 2 Core Design

Chapter 4 Detailed Design

Chapter 5 Game Balance

Chapter 6 Look and Feel

Chapter 7 Wrapping Up

Chapter 8 The Future of Game Design

Chapter 1

First Concept

This chapter focuses on how to assemble the basic play treatment, which is really just a document of nomore than five or six pages It is a proto-manifesto to communicate your concept for the game, and, most of all,your feeling of what the game would be like to play

game-Eventually, the treatment will grow into a full specificationfor the game, but writing this initial treatment will help yousolidify your thoughts You can return to the treatment later,whenever you feel in danger of getting lost in the details ofthe design, to get back on track with your original idea Evenbetter, the treatment is something you can use to sell thegame to others—the publishers, programmers, and artistswho will be developing the game

To begin, you’ll learn ways to find, shape, and refine yourconcepts We’ll view a sample treatment and examine whythe game took the form it did

The Shock of the New

The designer’s job is to create something new Everybodythinks his or her job is difficult, but this one truly is The

poet from the Book of Ecclesiastes says, “Under the sun there

is no new thing.” If the statement is true, isn’t it the kiss ofdeath to creativity? Why bother to try to create anything if itisn’t going to be original?

Of course, it’s not all bad news Occasionally there is the opportunity to rework one ofthe old ideas in completely new ways, and we are lucky to live in an age that is rifewith these opportunities The advent of computers has allowed us to formulate, calculate, and express our ideas in new ways And the field of computer gaming hasprovided us with a new means of recreation, taking all the old ideas and obsessionsthat have occupied mankind since long before Ecclesiastes and giving them a new spin.Artists of every generation have drawn on the ideas and works that have come beforethem Your own creativity is a result of the sources that you borrow from, the uniquemix of ideas that synthesize in your own work.

And there’s something else that’s encouraging to the creative artist Ideas aren’t likeseams of ore; you don’t deplete them and then they’re gone Rather, they’re like livingthings Ideas that are overused can become inactive for a while They regenerate

So when you’re searching around for a first concept, take the path less traveled Start

by looking for inspiration where others haven’t been for a while Bad game concepts

are mere plagiarism: “I’m going to do Command & Conquer but with more light-armor

vehicles.” Good game concepts bring something fresh: “It’s a Frankenstein strategygame where you plunder graves and battlegrounds for spare parts.”

Some ideas may be just too plain wacky to work, which doesn’t necessarily mean thatthey are bad ideas Maybe their time has not yet come, either because the technology

isn’t there (Wolfenstein came first, but Doom did all the business) or because the market has not yet been created Would we have been ready for Pac-Man two years earlier?

The Creative Road Map

There are three kinds of skill involved in creating any new work These are creativity,craft, and technique They are quite different from each other, but they overlap Takepainting The first step is to decide what to paint Then you plan how you’re going to

do it, probably by sketching out a rough in charcoal The third stage is the actualbrushwork

In creating a game, the stages are: concept, structure, and design For example,

suppose you wake up one morning with the idea of doing a game based on War &

Peace That’s the concept Next you decide that because war lends itself to action—and

hence interaction—you will focus the gameplay itself on the periods of conflict Thecutscenes will be flashbacks to a time before the war Hence the cutscenes won’t fitchronologically in place with the game levels, their purpose being not to advance to

“plot” of the game but rather to give context to the action in the game levels by ally revealing the characters’ backstories That’s your structure Lastly, you start plan-ning out the core game mechanics—what the player sees on screen, the actions he orshe can take, the objective, and the “play intent” of the game And that’s the design

gradu-In most art forms, the third kind of creative ability is relatively common Many painters,given a plan to work from and regular direction, can execute the details of the work

This is how the great artists of the Renaissance were able to create such prodigiousworks—they had a staff of brush technicians and paint mixers working under them

The ability to structure a work is less common—but it can be learned A host of books

on how to write bestsellers or hit screenplays all exploit the fact that you can teachsomebody how to structure Hollywood movies tend almost exclusively to use thethree-act redemptive, or restorative, story structure because it is a formula that works

It might not make a great movie, but it’s like a table that you store in your garage Aslong as the legs are the right length and the surface is planed smooth, it may not winany design awards, but it’ll do for stacking your tools on

The first skill is raw creativity Almost by definition, it is extremely rare It’s also notsomething you can learn, although you can hone creative ability if you have it to beginwith There are many things that can go wrong with game development, but perhaps themost common and avoidable pitfall is a lack of creative vision The successful games

companies are the ones that recognize that their business is entertainment, not software:

“Bruno Bonnell, Atari’s chairman and chief executive, maintains that the [games]

business—worth some $30 billion (£18bn) worldwide at retail prices—is breaking free

of its hard-core audience and penetrating the mainstream market Accordingly, he says:

‘We need technical and entertainment values at the same quality level as in other stream media like movies and TV.’”

main-“This is not an altogether welcome development ‘I like it and I fear it,’ he says It has already inverted the basic cost structure of his business ‘It used to be two-thirds of the budget for technology and one-third for the creative,’ he says ‘It is now the reverse, and in future it will be a quarter for coding and three-quarters for the entertainment value.’”

—Christopher Parkes writing in the Financial Times, July 2, 2003

As competition grows among the leading games developers, the semi-technical skills

of structuring and designing gameplay are becoming less important than the raw creativity required to come up with world-class characters, settings, and stories

The future belongs to the shaman The visionary The dreamer

Having the Idea

How many industries can claim to deal in daydreams?

Dreams are where every game begins Before the code, before the software plan, beforethe concept artwork, even before the first document, the game starts life as a spark inthe designer’s imagination, and the idea is the single most persistent entity in the gamedevelopment cycle It can evolve and develop as the game progresses, but it was therefrom the start It is the seed from which the game grows

Just as programmers are often warned not to rush into coding (as we’ll see later in thebook), designers must guard against rushing to get their ideas down on paper Whenthat daydream comes, give it time Resist the urge to go straight to the word processor

We firmly believe ideas have a gestation period, the time your subconscious takes tomull over the concept and hand it up to you in its raw form Writing anything downtoo soon warps the process because it allows your critical and analytical faculties tocome into play, which can kill the idea before it’s been fully formed When you start tohear quotes from the treatment document in your head and when you’re scribbling pic-

tures to show what the game screens will be like—then it’s time to start.

So indulge your subconscious mind and kindle your creative spark Author StephenKing refers to these subconscious thought processes as “the boys in the basement.”Allow yourself to daydream, but, when you have finished daydreaming, get ready for

some serious effort Edison said that genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.

Well, enjoy this 1%; everything after is pure hard work

We’ll deal successively with the four phases of the creative process:

➤ Inspiration—Where to get ideas

➤ Synthesis—Combining ideas

➤ Resonance—Creating synergy from ideas

➤ Convergence—Finishing the concept

Inspiration

Early film directors were electrified with the possibilities of their new medium Castingabout for ideas to put up on the screen, they drew their inspiration from anywhere andeverywhere German Expressionism, a creative lineage that can be traced right down toTim Burton today, mixed elements of fairy tales, theater, and Freudian psychology

Kung Fu movies are Chinese opera without singing Star Wars is music hall drama by

way of Saturday morning serials

While directors are happy to take ideas from everywhere, games designers have notbeen quite so adventurous Except for a few notable exceptions, their inspiration comesalways from the same safe sources Only so many shoot-’em-ups can be inspired by

Aliens and still seem even remotely fresh Computer Role Playing Games (CRPGs) based

on the 1970s game mechanics of Dungeons & Dragons are dated Tabletop role-playing

has progressed so far since then It’s time to look to new pastures for fresh ideas

Nearly every game released today seems to be related to the others in the market

Looking at a single genre, you don’t so much see a rich tapestry of diversity as thesame game repeated in slightly different forms A herd mentality dictates that only

“safe” games are released For safe, read unoriginal: “It’s like Medal of Honor, only it’s

set in the Korean War.” And yet, is that really the safe approach? The polymath ers like Will Wright, Shigeru Miyamoto, and Peter Molyneux draw on a very broadrange of sources for their inspiration Their game concepts are always fresh—andalways successful There’s a lesson to be learned

design-Creative motherlodes are waiting to be mined So start with a brainstorming session inwhich anything goes Leaf through a Victorian encyclopedia Go to an opera Browseobscure sites on the Web Watch a movie with subtitles Sit in on a random lecture

at your local university Go scuba diving in Florida or hill-walking in the Pyrenees The movie director, Ang Lee, draws inspiration from his sand and rock gardens Doanything that will help you get rid of the stale thinking

Originality can present itself in many aspects of a game: the gameplay, the story, thesetting, the characters, the interface, or in the technology If you can bring a freshness

to most of these, you can make a great game If you manage to make all of them new

and exciting, you’ve probably just spawned a new genre!

Stephen King says that the spark of originality comes when you put familiar thingstogether in an unexpected way A vampire game? Don’t put your vampire in a cyber-punk city (that’s old) or in a Transylvanian castle (that’s ancient) How about a piratesetting? There aren’t any bats flitting about Gothic battlements, but the vampire cantransform into a shark instead, as well as into rolling banks of sea fog By day, ratherthan sleeping in coffins, the vampire has to return to rotting hulks on the sea bed Or,for something more exotic, you could rework the vampire theme using the style andtropes of Indonesian shadow puppet theater, a whole mythology that is ripe for thetaking

Make sure, though, that the idea has some public resonance For example, Grim

Fandango used the Mexican “El Dia de los Muertos” or “The Day of the Dead” as its

theme, and it worked effectively because its mythology is known worldwide

Synthesis

It isn’t enough to have an idea—or even to have lots of ideas You have to make themwork Otherwise, your game may trundle out of the metaphoric hangar and taxi downthe runway, but it’s never going to get airborne

An old saying claims that new concepts are produced by “chimeras bombinating in avacuum.” In ancient myth, a chimera was a monster that had body parts from severaldifferent animals Think of that as the raw ideas you’re throwing into your game Toensure that the hybrid isn’t stillborn—and, more importantly, that it produces some-thing new—you need to pick the right mix of parts

Let’s go back to vampires for a moment Say you’re fixated on the idea of a vampiregame, and for other reasons (possibly commercial), you want an outer-space setting (astarship, for example).

One possible scenario for such a game would be to have the starship visit a backward,superstitious planet and take delivery of a stack of wooden boxes Later, with the star-

ship under way, a box opens and a cloaked figure emerges Why wouldn’t you do that?

Because it’s boring! Why bother to transplant vampires into space if you’re just going

to rehash the old clichés? Instead, you need to think about how you’re going to thesize a game out of the two concepts

syn-Vampires sleep in coffins, but that doesn’t have to literally mean a wooden box What ifthe crew of the starship goes into a “cold sleep” when they don’t have duties to per-form? The vampire could then be a member of the crew, drawing frozen blood samplesfrom his slumbering shipmates whenever he can As an adventure game, it’s not entire-

ly original (shades of Alien), but it isn’t exactly a cliché either.

Everyone also knows that vampires come out only at night Does that mean a certaindistance from a nearby star, or will you say that it is always night in space? How about

in hyperspace? Does that count as night or day? Perhaps the vampires can’t stay close

to bright stars for too long, which immediately may give you some thoughts on how todevelop the game balance if it’s going to be a strategy game in which the vampires areone of the player races In the context of a survival horror game, on the other hand,the same idea might lead you to decide that the vampires can’t enter the engineeringbay (too much UV from the warp core), and that this fact will function as a potentialclue to the vampire’s identity

Look at the ideas in the mix Ask yourself what each idea can contribute to the others

so that the emergent game makes full use of all of them

Resonance

In an outstanding episode of his Sandman comic book series, Neil Gaiman has his

heroine visit Paris at the time of the French Revolution in search of the severed head ofOrpheus, the legendary Greek hero Decapitation gives Gaiman his plot link Onememorable scene in the story takes place in a room piled high with heads Most of theheads have come from the guillotines; only Orpheus’ can speak

The concept is disturbing in itself, but what gives this story its power is the resonance

between the elements Gaiman has chosen The Sandman comic often features the dream

world: Paris during the Reign of Terror is a place out of nightmare The story takes placewhen the executions are out of control, a hysterical bloodbath Civilization is beingdestroyed by insane violence, and a flashback reminds us of Orpheus’ fate (He was torn

apart by madwomen.) The story’s title is Thermidor, the Revolutionary Convention’s new

name for the month of July The Convention’s aim was to expunge classical traditionsand make the world anew But, as Gaiman shows, it is never as easy as that

Resonance is a way of making the whole greater than the sum of the parts This is thedefinition of synergy, and it is an effective means of making the story and the subjectmatter significant to the game players It applies to game design as much as to any othercreative work Adventure games, built around a clear story line, will benefit most

Begin by deciding your theme In Warcraft Adventures, for example, the hero was to be

a young orc brought up after the victory of the human and elfish alliance Cut off fromtheir homeland, the orcs are a subjugated race confined to reservations The hero’squest is to regain face and win back the honor lost in defeat In the circumstances andeven the tribal costume of the orcs, the game’s designers appear to be evoking compari-son with American Indians You may question the social commentary and indeed theappropriateness of swiping from real human cultures to depict a nonhuman species,but the resonance is undeniably effective

You will also find that people create their own resonance if the game is powerful

enough Take a look at the Half Life Alternative Background Story Web site:

http://halflife.gamehut.com This site is where people have contributed to creating a rich tapestry of fictional stories, filling in details on the background of the

world(s) that Half Life is based in and around.

Convergence

Up to this point, we’ve been encouraging you to ignore your critical and analyticalinstincts You simply can’t give birth to new ideas while worrying about whether or notthey’re any good