Marc LeBlanc: Tools For Creating Dramatic Game Dynamics

Dramatic tension is made up of two factors:

• Uncertainty: The sense that there is no predetermined outcome, no player is guaranteed to win.
• Inevitability: The sense that the game will eventually end, that there will eventually be a resolution.

Dramatic tension requires both of these factors to be effective, Neither factor will be sufficient on it's own.

Negative Feedback Systems:

This type of feedback system is used to decrease the gap between the player(s) that are winning, and the player(s) that are falling behind. For example, in the racing game Mario Kart, if a player is not currently in first place, then they have a chance to obtain the Blue Spiny Shell. This shell attacks the player that is currently in first place, closing the gap between them and the player that is currently in last place. This helps to create uncertainty, because if there is no distinct lead, then the outcome seems undecided.

Positive Feedback Systems:

This type of feedback system is used to add more inevitability to a game. For example, in trading card games, such as the World of Warcraft Trading Game, the longer a game lasts, the more 'resources' the players will acquire. More powerful cards take more resources to play, so as the game keeps going, more and more powerful cards will be played more frequently. This can be useful to bring a game to a close, to ensure that the game does not take so long that the players lose interest in competing.

Pseudo Feedback:

This is where it seems like a feedback system is being used when, in fact, no feedback system is being used at all. Examples of pseudo feedback:

Escalation:

This is where the score changes progressively faster over the course of the game. For example, in the game show Jeopardy, when half of the game's time has elapsed, only one third of the available prize money has been awarded. This is because the value of each question increases as the game progresses. This makes the player feel that the game has progressed further than it really has.

Hidden Energy:

This is where all players have a boost or power of some kind that they can use. For example, in some racing games, players may each have a turbo boost that they can use once during the race to give them a speed boost. If a player chooses to use the boost at the beginning of the race it can seem like they are ahead. However, once the other players have used their own boosts, the the playing field is level again. Hidden energy can obscure the true state of the game from the player.

Fog of War:

In strategy games, like Warcraft III, a mechanic called Fog of War is used. This mechanic prevents players from seeing areas of the map that their units cannot see. As the player's base grows, they begin to see more and more of the map. This is a way to create dramatic uncertainty, because players start with very little information, and the outcome of the game is uncertain (Players cannot see how well the other players are doing). As the game progresses, the player's information increases, and the outcome of the game seems more certain.

Decelerator:

This is an obstacle that appears in the later stages of a game, which changes the game's scale and pace, to make the game seem closer than it is. Take the show Gladiators for example. In the the final course of the game, The Eliminator, one of the obstacles is a cargo net. It takes a long time to climb the net, so the player that was falling behind would usually catch up while the leader is on the cargo net. Measured in time, the leader is still quite far ahead, but because they seem close to each other in regards to distance, it makes it seems like the contestants are nearly neck and neck with each other.

Cashing Out:

This is a game mechanic where the score is reset to zero. For example, in the game Bomberman, the player gains a trophy for winning each round. The first player to win three trophies is the winner of the game. At the start of each new round, the power-ups are reset, so in each new round the player is given a fresh start. Winning a previous round does not give the player any advantage. This adds to uncertainty, as there is no clear winner until that third trophy has been won.

Game Dynamics That Produce Dramatic Tension:

• Force: Creating dramatic tension by manipulating the game state itself.
• Illusion: Manipulating the player's perception, without actually changing the game state, so that the game seems closer than it is.

Ancient Games

Board games can be classified into several categories.

Murray devised 5 categories:

• Games of alignment and configuration (Examples: noughts and crosses, peg solitaire)
• War games (Examples: chess, draughts)
• Hunt games (Examples: fox and geese)
• Race games (Examples: backgammon)
• Mancala games (Example: mancala)

Bell decided upon a total of 6 categories:

• Race games (Examples: backgammon)
• War games (Examples: chess, draughts)
• Games of position (Examples: noughts and crosses, peg solitaire)
• Mancala games (Example: mancala)
• Dice games (Examples: hazard)
• Domino games (Examples: mahjong)

David Parlett opted for four categories:

• Race games
• Space games
• Chase games
• Displace games

The Royal Game of Ur

The Royal Game of Ur (also known as The Game of Twenty Squares) is an ancient board game that was discovered by Sir Leonard Woolley. He discovered the gaming boards while carrying out excavations in the ancient city of Ur, in Mesopotamia, in the 1920s. These boards were sealed in the royal tombs of the First Dynasty of Ur (Murray, 1952). The boards date from around 3000bc, making them likely to be some of the oldest game boards in existence (Masters, 1997).

The board consists of a set of six squares (in a 2x3 grid) and a set of twelve squares (in a 4x3 grid), joined by a bridge of two squares. The game requires two players, each of whom are given 7 playing pieces. The game uses tetrahedral dice, or sometimes, four-sided throwing sticks (Finkel, 2008). Other variations of the game board were discovered in tombs of the ‘Empire’ age, about 1580bc (Bell, 1979). These new boards had removed the 2x3 grid at the end of the board, and had instead extended the bridge with a 6x1 grid (so the bridge was eight squares long in total). It is thought that the game is ultimately a race to get all of the player’s pieces to the end of the board, with the bridge area most likely being used to ‘battle’, so players can try to eliminate each other’s pieces. The newer board has a longer section for battles, making the game less predictable. After playing The Royal Game of Ur on both boards, I decided to use the newer board, as it seemed to be more successful at keeping the player interested throughout the game.

Original Game Board:

Newer Game Board:

No official rules have been found for The Royal Game of Ur, but a variety of rules have been interpreted from the available information. These are the rules as interpreted by Finkel:

• Each player has seven pieces.
• Use four tetrahedral dice, with two marked corners and two unmarked corners. Marked corners equal one point and unmarked corners equal no points. So with four tetrahedral dice the minimum roll can be zero and the maximum can be four. Each turn, players move the number of points rolled.
• The pieces do not start on the board. Pieces start lined up along the edge of the board, next to the player’s start space. When one player moves their piece onto the board it starts at START SPACE A, and the other player starts at START SPACE B. As play continues the pieces move towards the left until they reach the edge of the board, at which point they move into the middle lane, and proceed along it to the end (ADD ARROWS ON DIAGRAM).
• Players can remove the opponent’s pieces from the board by landing their own piece on a square that the opponent’s piece is on. This ‘captured’ piece is removed from the board and must traverse the board again from the beginning.
• The Rosette squares (denoted by stars in the above diagrams), are safe squares and any piece on this square cannot be captured. Landing on the Rosette also allows the player to roll the four dice again, giving them an extra turn.

Hunicke et al (2004) MDA: A Formal Approach to Game Design and Game Research

MDA Framework:

Components:

RULES ====> SYSTEM ====> "FUN"

Design Counterparts:

MECHANICS ====> DYNAMICS ====> AESTHETICS

Mechanics: The components of a game, at the level of data representation and algorithms.
Examples:

• The number of dice used in a game.
• The starting location of the player.
• How many players are allowed to take part in the game.
• How the players are allowed to move, and the rules they must follow in this movement

Dynamics: The behaviour of the mechanics acting on player inputs, and the inputs of other mechanics over time. In other words, it is what happens when a player interacts with a game, and how the rules of the game interact with each other.

Aesthetics: What the player feels in response to interacting with the a game - the emotional response evoked as a result of the mechanics and dynamics of a game.
Examples:

• Sensation (Sense Pleasure
• Fantasy (Make-believe)
• Narrative (Drama)
• Challenge (Obstacle Course)
• Fellowship (Social Framework)
• Discovery (Exploring uncharted territory)
• Expression (Self-discovery)
• Submission (pastime)

Types of Players:

Achievers: These are players who want to achieve game goals, and whose primary pleasure is challenge

Explorers: These are players whose primary pleasure is discovery

Socialisers: These are players who are interested in relationships with other players, and whose primary pleasure is fellowship.

Killers/Pvpers: These are players who are interested in competition.

Other Aesthetics:

• Anticipation
• Delight in other's misfortune
• Gift giving (Striving to make others happy)
• Humour
• Possibility (Lots of options to chose from)
• Pride in an accomplishment (Pride that can persist after the accomplishment was made)

The designer and the player each have a different perspective of a game. The designer sees the game from the ground up, through the mechanics that make up the core of the game, and the dynamics that are created by these mechanics. The player experiences the game through the emotions that the aesthetics evoke, without necessarily being aware of the mechanics behind the aesthetics. When creating games, it is beneficial to take both perspectives into account. It helps to get a better understanding of how the MDA components can influence and affect each other. It also makes it possible to design games with an experience-driven focus, as opposed to a feature-driven focus.

With non-digital games you can see the mechanics behind the game, but you cannot play without being aware of the rules. With digital games you do not need to necessarily be aware of the mechanics i.e. you can spam buttons and something will happen in the game (you may not do WELL in the game, but the game is still responding to your input).

Doug Church (1999) Formal Abstract Design Tools

Often in the games industry, games are described as being "fun" or "not fun". This is good to show the opinion of the person talking about the game, but unfortunately it does not give the designers any indication of what needs to be changed to improve the game. For game designers to be able to effectively analyse the games around them, a design vocabulary needs to be created.

Church uses the term "Formal Abstract Design Tools" (FADT) to describe the terms that would make up the common vocabulary for analysing games. The "design tools" part of the term is easy to understand, but the terms "formal" and "abstract" may need to be explained further. The use of the word "formal" in this instance is to indicate that the tools will be precisely defined, without the term being open to ambiguity, depending on the observer's opinion. For example, the term "cool stuff" is not considered an FADT, because it can be interpreted very differently by different people. "Abstract" is used to emphasise fundamental ideas that make up the game, not specific objects in the game.

Church then goes on to talk about a few FADTs (player intention, perceivable consequence and story).

Player Intention: This allows the player to make their own goals, and form their own plan of action, so they aren't stuck with a static "go to A, then B, then C". For example, some games have side quests, or collectible data/items, that a player can choose to pursue. The player can choose to do as many or as little of these secondary objectives as they like, or if they so desire, can choose to progress the main story immediately.

Perceivable Consequence: This tool is used to show the player how their choices and actions affect the game. The player needs to know when their actions have changed the game in some way, otherwise the player does not know what actions they should or shouldn't undertake. Without perceivable consequence, the player has no way of knowing, for example, if that horde of monsters that stormed in and killed the player was a result of something the player did, was an unavoidable event, or was a completely random event. If instead, when you pressed that shiny red button you passed earlier, a small cutscene played, showing the horde of monsters you had just unleashed, then you may think "Hmm, maybe next time I won't press that button". Or you know, some people might press the button anyway, and see how long they could last against the monsters :D (This in itself, creates more player intention).

Story: This is the narrative thread of the game, that leads the player towards the end of the game. In some cases, the story is more designer driven, and the player's actions have little or no effect. For example, if the story of a game is that the main character is a valiant hero that sets out on a quest to kill the evil Lord ScowlyFace, there is nothing the player can do to change it - this is embedded story. The story can also be emergent, i.e. more player driven. Maybe the player can choose to be "good" or "evil", and the game will have multiple endings, depending on which side the player's actions are most aligned to.

Designers need to know which combination of tools are best suited to the game they are making, and will appeal to their target audience most. You cannot just throw all the tools imaginable into a game and expect it to work well. Some tools can conflict with each other. Take intention and story for example: the more concrete of a storyline a game has, the less space there is for player freedom and choice. 

In RPG games like Final Fantasy VIII, the final outcome of the story cannot be changed, but the player can take many different routes to get to the end of the game. Here are some of the things you can deviate from the main story to accomplish:

• Level your characters by fighting monsters
• Collect various sets of magazines in-game, to unlock extra weapons and powers
• Challenge NPCs to matches of the Triple Triad card game, and try to collect all the cards
• Locate all of the Chocobo Forests

At many points in the game, you are free to go and explore the world, without a time limit, before proceeding with the main storyline. By creating the game in this way, the designers are free to really focus on making one very good story, instead of having to spread their time across multiple endings. The game has a very compelling story, and beautiful cutscenes, while still letting players feel in control of the game itself.

Again, it's all a matter of gearing your game towards the target audience: RPG players often expect a well thought-out storyline, whereas in sports and fighting games the perceivable consequence tends to be more important (the feedback of the controls needs to be consistent).

I enjoyed reading this article, as I often find it hard to express my opinion of media in any more detail than "I like this game/film/song". The article has been very helpful for me in determining what specific tools are involved in the games that I like, and hopefully I can use this in the future to better explain my opinions of games.

Battleship Iterations

Battleship is a two-player guessing game. Each player will have two grids, normally a 10x10 grid, as shown below:

The players each have 5 ships, of the following size, and arrange them all on one of their grids before the game starts:

Ships: a patrol boat (2), a submarine (3), a cruiser (3), a battleship (4) and an aircraft carrier (5)

The aim of the game is to destroy all of the opponents ships, by taking turns in attacking one of the opponent's spaces. The opponent responds with "hit" or "miss" accordingly. The grid with your own ships is to keep track of where your opponent has attacked, and the second grid is to keep track of the attacks you make against your opponent. Also, when a ship has been sunk, you must declare it to your opponent.

After playing the game, the following iterations were made:

1) Introduction of extra weapons:

Normally, your attacks can only be made on one square at a time. Sometimes a player can get unlucky and not hit an opponent's ship for quite a while. So for this iteration extra methods of attack were added:

Now attacks can be made in a row of two (in any direction), or in a 2x2 pattern. To prevent overuse of these new attacks, the 2x2 pattern can only be used twice per player per game, and the row of two can only be used four times per player per game. Note: the original single square of attack can be used indefinitely.

This gives players a few chances to boost their attacks, in case they are falling behind their opponent.

2) Adding colours to the extra weapons:

After playing the game again, it quickly became evident that players could often forget how many of the extra weapons they had used throughout the game. To rectify this colour was added to the extra weapons. When a player marks an attack that has been made (either by the player or against the player), the attacks that use more than one square are outlined as above. This way it is easy to keep track of how many 2x2 attacks or row of two attacks have been used.

Row of two attack outlined in pink; 2x2 attack outlined in blue

3) Adding an Admiral:

Battleship is quite largely a luck based game, and sometimes a player can get completely trounced through their own bad luck and the opponent's good luck (Once a ship has come under fire tactics come into play, but until that first ship is found the game is completely luck based). To add a chance for the player that is losing to turn the tides, The Admiral was added to the game:

The Admiral is placed on the player's board before the game commences, as are the original ship pieces. If at any time during the game, a player's Admiral is attacked, that player instantly loses the game. This gives the player that is losing a very small chance to turn the tides of battle, because if The Admiral is defeated, then there is no one left to order the ships to attack.

Defining Videogames (continued)

Newman also goes on to consider different aspects of games and gameplay, using the following four terms:

Agon: where competition is the main focus

Example: any game with multiplayer modes

Alea: where the game is based around chance and randomness

Example: Tetris - the pieces appear in a random order

Ilinx: where movement is important

Example: any platform game

Mimicry: where the game has role-play or simulation.

Example: Ace Combat, Final Fantasy

Many games involve two or more of these aspects, especially MMO's like World of Warcraft:

In World of Warcraft you play as a hero/heroine, fighting to keep Azeroth safe. The entire game is set in a fantasy world where you set out to accomplish heroic deeds, like fending off the undead, and slaying gargantuan dragons. This is a prime example of mimicry. Some players also choose to give their character an in-depth back story, further immersing themselves into the roleplay of the game.

World of Warcraft also has a prominent PvP (player versus player) environment, where players compete against each other in battlegrounds. In addition, there is always competition throughout the game in general. This includes competition to be the strongest, have the best equipment, have the most achievement points and collect the most pets/vanity items. This shows a good example of Agon.

Ilinx is very important for people that focus on the PvE (player versus environment) aspect of the game. These players set out to rid Azeroth of whichever new baddie is trying to reek havoc on the world. This often involves complex fights, where you need to be aware of your character's position at all times, and need to be ready to move fast when needed, while still hacking away at the boss himself.

It is a fictional world, so many aspects do not translate to the real world, but some things do still stay the same: standing in fire is painful and will lead to a swift death.

Now for the alea part: so you've spent ten minutes running around, stabbing away at the boss, and you finally defeat him. Next comes the bit that no amount of agility or skill can help you with....... praying that those shiny swords/wands/slippers of doom are among the loot that the boss dropped upon their death.

Specific items have a set chance to drop each time (for example 1 in 250 kills of the boss), and even if the item does drop, you have to compete against other players to win the item. This normally involves randomly rolling from 1-100, with the highest roll being the winner.

The more complex a game is, the more likely it is that several, if not all, of the four aspects detailed above will apply. If a game has a playable character, and is multiplayer, then it already includes two of the terms (Agon and Ilinx).

Defining Videogames

In James Newman's book, "Videogames", he uses the terms paidea and ludus to describe types of gameplay.


Paidea refers to games which do not have defined goals or objectives. Paidea games can not be won or lost, and the game lasts for as long as the player wants to play.

Minecraft is an example of a paidea videogame:

Minecraft is an online game, where you can build your own 3d environment. There is no limit to how long you can play, or what you are allowed to build.

Some people like to build pretty rooms made of rainbow coloured wool.....

Some people need to be supervised at all times or chaos will ensue.......

Many people have put countless hours into numerous projects, and your project can be as large-scale or as small-scale as you like.

On a side note: when searching through Google for the two pictures above, I came across this: Nyan Cat! :D If you have not heard of the famous Nyan Cat then YouTube it at your peril, the music can and WILL get stuck in your head for long periods of time!

Ludus refers to games that are more constrained by rules, and have a clear outcome, of victory or defeat.

Command and Conquer 3 is an example of a ludus videogame:

Command and Conquer 3 is a Real-Time Strategy game, in which you must collect resources, construct a base, and build an army to complete specific objectives throughout the game. This game does not have much of a paidea aspect, as you are restricted to following the rules within reason. For example, if you try to play the missions in an open-ended, Sim City type way, then your opponents (whether they are computer controlled or player controlled) will most likely come along and destroy you, or the timer for your mission will run out, and you will lose.

Some games can combine both paidea and ludus. For example, in the Nintendo DS game, Scribblenauts, there are many solutions to each puzzle - it is possible to complete levels using methods that the game designers did not foresee. This is known as emergent gameplay, where the gameplay is nonlinear, and the players are encouraged to make up their own solutions to puzzles, instead of always using the most 'sensible' solution.

You can even turn the game completely into a paidea videogame - the menu screen has an interactive open-ended level, where you can spend as long as you like playing around with the vast array of items you can create. You can even choose to ignore the objectives in the main puzzle mode. If the mood strikes you to create a rainbow flying robot unicorn, then go ahead, the game won't stop you. You can even make 'fearless invincible boy + Excalibur + invincible green armoured liger' and ''invincible skeleton warrior + wizard staff + invincible panther', and you've got your very own He-Man and Skeletor battle.