Guest Talk: Venezia Georgieva – Game Systems

This week we were given a talk by game system designer Venezia Georgieva on vital aspects for our GDD as well as examples on how to design structures for game systems.

Background

• Sumo Digital
  • Sackboy’s Big Adventure, Snapchat games, Creative Assembly (Sega)

Game Pillars

• Game pillars are the foundational concepts a game wants to explore.
• A ‘guiding light’ for your game’s overarching vision
• Every feature should contribute to at least one of these pillars.
• For a smaller project like ours 3-4 pillars is ideal, larger projects maybe around 6
  • Keeps focus and helps w/ team alignment
• Great game pillars are defined concisely and specifically
  • Consists of a title and 1-2 supporting sentences
• Adaptive – can change as projects grow
• Really important for GDD!

Star Wars: Outlaws – Case Study

1. Rich and Reactive Open World
   Distinct locations, bustling cities, with unique challenges and enticing rewards
2. Full of Opportunity, Led by Reputation
   Make choices which impact reputation, decide who to align with and play syndicates against eachother
3. Intuitive Space Travel and Dogfights
   Easily pilot and navigate your ship and enter space battles

Game Loops

• Chains of repeatable actions that form the flow of the players actions
• Two categories:
  • Core Game Loops – moment-to-moment, highly repeatable actions within the game – core mechanics, decisions
  • Meta Game Loops – repeatable actions outside core gameplay – long-term progression, motivation systems, not related to the core game loop
• Can also be split into time segments:
  • Second-to-second – the most granular, distilled and repeatable chain of actions. like attacking, defeating enemies, main decider of game feel
  • Minute-to-minute – short term goals and describe sets of actions set minutes apart. Key to short term progression, e.g collectibles.
  • Hour-to-hour – medium to long-term goals adding layers of permanent progression, complex goals, story e.g defeating bosses and improving hub worlds, upgrades etc.

Designing Game Loops

• Miro is a very useful tool for designing loops
• Player actions – list the core set of actions the player will be performing and connect them.
• Under actions include any resource flow, loss and gain of resources e.g coins, upgrades
• Example – Astro bot
  • Core Loop: Navigate level (+Coins, +Puzzle Pieces) -> Defeat enemies -> Collect bots -> Repeat (+Bots)
  • Meta Loop: Complete levels->Complete Boss levels->Repair ship/improve hub->Repair satellite at hub

Meta Game Systems

• Meta-game – “the game beyond the game” – Systems that wrap around core gameplay and directly affect it. Getting core items, upgrades
• Sustain player motivation
• Long-Term Goals – Guides activities through hours, months, years and ensure players are guided. e.g collecting and mastering new champions in League of Legends.
• Player Progress – Progress keeps players engaged e.g skill upgrades, XP progression, weapon upgrades
• Game Depth – Adds a layer of depth to core gameplay by giving players tools for systemic decision-making, strategy, optimisation, etc. e.g player builds, gold generation in LoL.
• Player Motivation
• Documenting systems
  • Brief Overview – A brief 2-4 sentence summary of the feature. Keep it concise and meaningful
  • User Story – In the format “As the player, i want x so that i can y“
  • How it Works – Outline in detail exactly how the system works and any potential edge cases, also include any diagrams. Short paragraph and bullet points where possible
  • Use tables – Most systems have lots of variables and stats to track, so make spreadsheets! Allows to simulate long-term player journey and make balancing tweaks.

Wild Rift – Case Study

• Clear Competitive Goals
  • Geared towards competitive archetypes. Wraps around match structure and increases the stakes. Provides a clear roadmap to track progression and skill improvement, even in defeat.
• Compelling Rewards
  • Frequent milestones and rewards to underline player achievement and continue engagement.
• Item system
  • Gold: Tap and Sink – Positive actions like kills earn the player gold (Tap) and items granting permanent upgrades for the match are purchased with gold (Sink). This contributes to match player progress.
  • Build Optimisation – Different sets of items means players can iterate on the most optimal configuration for each champon according to their unique playstyle. Item combinations, prices and effects includes enough variables to explore champions many times over.
  • Counter Builds – Players can adapt their personal builds based on the champions and items used by enemies, keeping the play style fresh.
• User Stories
  • As A Player,
    I want a variety of items I can earn and use in each match,
    So that I can tailor a build to my playstyle
  • As – Who is the feature aimed at? A player story might have multiple customers.
  • I want – What does the player fundamentally want from the feature? How would they phrase their request?
  • So that – Why would the player want this feature? Gets into the fundamental purpose of the system or feature and how this would expand player options and improve experience.
• Building tables
  • Creates an accurate picture of the system and how items etc would fit into it.
  • Makes balancing easier for programmers and designers.
  • e.g ID/Name, Tier, Improvements (Stats, Passive/Active effects), Cost for items
  • For actions – include stats, type and reward
    • Create a simulation of repetitions per player type. These can also be playetest rsults.
    • Then create a results table of how much reward e.g Gold is generated for each ability per player type (or a bad/good day)
  • This lets you evaluate the Taps vs. Sinks of player ability vs. item investments.

Takeaways

• Pillars Are Guiding Lights
• Map Actions & Resources in Loops
• Meta Systems are for the Long Haul

Activity

User Story for my Game Concept:
As a Player,
I want to unlock new abilities and change the environment
So that I can find the most optimal or fast way to complete a level