Monday
On Monday, we had a really interesting talk from Louis Torres Tailfer, a former Unity journalist and current Unity Engineer. During the talk, he introduced us to the games that he’s helped create including…
One published indie title
– Zellige: The Tilemaker of Granada
Two published studio titles
– Peaky Blinders: The King’s Ransom
– Infinite Inside
Student and hobby projects and a few game jams
– North Utsire, South Utsire
– She Sells Seashells
– Etc…
He took us through the notions of developing a VR game, as well as an IP game, as the Peaky Blinders game he helped develop was both of those. Issues like the hands glitching with every movement were a big hurdle for the game, and making sure other countries were okay with the content in the game was another.
For example, Louis told us that the Chinese market was a huge reach for the game, but the government does not permit extremely graphic violence, which is what the game was centred around. Therefore, he had to skirt around blood and graphic themes when implementing the features.
He also had his philosophy, where he introduced programming as a creative medium. While I’m not a programmer, I could understand what he meant as people can code pretty cool and artistic things (such as spectrums and ASCII art).
He also gave some advice for us newbie game designers which I implore anyone reading this to also consider…
- Start small – You can’t make AAA quality without practice.
- Stay open-minded – Stay curious about different genres!
- Take inspiration from anywhere, even (especially?) from non-video game sources – Game designers have the potential to draw from so many sources and translate them into a game format.
- Find the solution that works for you – May not be the most efficient but if it works, it works.
- Hone your craft – Choose a discipline and keep practising!
- Take pride in your craft – Be proud of being a game designer, there are so many mediums you have to learn.
- Have fun! – You can’t make a good game without liking it.
Thursday
We had a lecture with Sophie on different features we can add to our games to direct (or misdirect!) players. These tools can be used to enhance our games and make players go where we, as designers, want them to go.
Game Design Features
Designing with misdirection
- Desire Paths: A path caused by erosion from humans and animals. It is often the way people naturally want to walk. In games, this may be the unexpected path players would take rather than the path you want. You can use dark patterns to frustrate the player slightly, to bring them back to your preferred route.
- Dark Patterns: Where the company/game designs content with what they want you to do. Such as websites having “accept cookies” in a big font, while having “reject” in a smaller font.
Designing with Illusion
- Reconnecting Branches: Make the paths for your game connect from different areas so there will be multiple ways to complete the level.
- Clutter: Add clutter to populate your scene.
To summarise Sophie’s useful info:
• Properly identify the problem
• Try different solutions/ iterate them
• Make big changes
• Flip the problem on its head
• Solve the problem elsewhere
• Have one solution solve multiple problems
• Use player behaviour to create solutions