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I Have No Words & I Must Design

This article was published in 1994 in Interactive Fantasy #2, a British roleplaying journal. A more recent version of the piece may be found here. There's a lotta different kinds of games out there. But do these things have anything at all in common? Well, we can all do the latter: "Good game, Joe," you say, as you leap the net. As game designers, we need a way to analyze games, to try to understand them, and to understand what works and what makes them interesting. We need a critical language. What Is a Game, Anyhow? It's Not a Puzzle. In The Art of Computer Game Design, Chris Crawford contrasts what he call "games" with "puzzles." Some puzzles are obviously so; no one would call a crossword a "game." To be sure, Zork is not entirely static; the character moves from setting to setting, allowable actions vary by setting, and inventory changes with action. A puzzle is static. It's Not a Toy. According to Will Wright, his Sim City is not a game at all, but a toy. Just so Sim City. Aha! Goals

Mechanism design The Stanley Reiter diagram above illustrates a game of mechanism design. The upper-left space depicts the type space and the upper-right space X the space of outcomes. The social choice function maps a type profile to an outcome. In games of mechanism design, agents send messages in a game environment . can be designed to implement some social choice function Mechanism design (sometimes called reverse game theory) is a field in game theory studying solution concepts for a class of private information games. that a game "designer" chooses the game structure rather than inheriting onethat the designer is interested in the game's outcome The 2007 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences was awarded to Leonid Hurwicz, Eric Maskin, and Roger Myerson "for having laid the foundations of mechanism design theory".[2] Intuition[edit] In an interesting class of Bayesian games, one player, called the “principal,” would like to condition his behavior on information privately known to other players. ). .

Game Design Concepts Grospixels Glass Bead Game as Game Designer's Holy Grail In this piece, I want to lay out the essence of the game genre called Glass Bead Games, and to suggest why I consider the development of successful, playable Games in this genre to be something approaching a "Holy Grail" for game designers. I intend to do this -- paradoxically -- without quoting from Hermann Hesse's book Magister Ludi / The Glass Bead Game, which is the inspiration for the GBG genre. This should permit game designers who are unfamiliar with Hesse's work to grasp the essence of Hesse's Game in a "Hesse-free" context -- thus perhaps freeing up the imagination from some of the specifics of the Game as Hesse described them for his own novelistic purposes -- and also allow those who are already familiar with his work to see the Game in a fresh perspective. Charles Cameron Preamble: My rationale for describing the Glass Bead Game without referring to Hesse's work -- the paradox at the heart of this essay -- is simple. Hesse himself calls the GBG "an eternal idea", and tells us:

Pixel Art Tutorial Planetjeux.net Entre dealing d’assets et tuning videoludique, voilà qu’émerge de détournements successifs une tripotée de nouvelles pratiques artistiques. Le meilleur s’appelle game-art et machinima, et vous pouvez remercier les studios de création d’avoir rendu publiques les clés de leur vache à lait polygonale car ces erstaz méconnaissables font les tendances d’aujourd’hui. Non mais qui a dit qu’on ne faisait plus que jouer ? Nolan Bushnell l’avait prédit, vous êtes chaque jour plus nombreux à tâter du pad (oui, même vous mesdames), et ce n’est pas l’avalanche des consoles nouvelles générations (portables hype incluses) qui va arranger les choses. Chatière mal fermée, meurtrière sans rideaux, vitrail coulissant, on ne sait pas trop par où, mais le jeu vidéo a investi vos chaumières et ce n’est pas une raison pour boucher vos cheminées. Une affaire de détournement ? A vue de loupe, il semblerait que le tournant s’opère au sein de cette communauté de privilégiés ayant accès à la toile. Day of Defeat

HipBone: Glass Bead Games This section focuses on the challenge of designing playable variants on Hesse's great game, and contains materials on other "GBG variants" such as Mark Line's Waldzell Glass Bead Game and William Horden's Intrachange. The essence of GBG design, not surprisingly, revolves around an understanding of the game as Hesse envisoned it in the novel -- but the process of implementing all or even a part of that vision is one in which many other insights and techniques have to be brought into play. Hermann Hesse's Glass Bead Game: A Game Designer's Holy Grail... Written primarily for interested members of the game design community, this piece lays out the essence of the game genre called Glass Bead Games, and suggests why the development of successful, playable Games in this genre can serve as something of a "holy grail" for designers. The GBG is outlined here without quotation from Hermann Hesse's writings. Here are two earlier pieces which cover some of the same ground from different angles:

The Anatomy of a Design Document, Part 2: Documentation Guidelines for the Functional and Technical Specifications The Anatomy of a Design Document, Part 2: Documentation Guidelines for the Functional and Technical Specifications Editor's note: Part 1 of this article was published on 10.19.99. Did you ever look at one of those huge design documents that barely fit into a four-inch thick, three-ring binder? You assume that by its page count that it must be good. Well, having read some of those design volumes from cover to cover, I can tell you that size does not matter. This article is part two of a two part series that provides guidelines that when followed will ensure that your design documents will be pertinent and to the point. Functional vs Technical Specifications Traditionally in the game industry, there was only one spec. This problem was tackled as more and more seasoned programmers and managers of business software development moved into games. Therefore, the technical staff waited until the functional specification was approved and signed-off before starting on the technical specification.

Planetjeux.net Havre de paix terré au milieu de l'Enfer, ultime citadelle de la liberté résistant aux assauts barbares, le Monde Providence est un espace réactionnaire au charme suranné qui n'en reste pas moins chargé de frappantes représentations contemporaines. «Amassez-vous... un trésor dans les cieux, qui ne s'épuise pas, où le voleur n'approche point, et où la teigne ne corrompt point ; car là où est votre trésor, là aussi sera votre coeur», Luc, (1 : 2 : 33-34). Qu’est-ce que le monde providence ? Beaucoup de jeux vidéo reposent sur le principe de déplacement d’un héros, le personnage qu’incarne ou que contrôle le joueur. Il existe pourtant une exception au conflit Homme/Machine née de la traîtrise de la machine envers sa propre cause : le monde providence. Tristram, Diablo 1 «Hello my friend !» Au niveau strict du gameplay, le monde providence s’apparente au geste du tireur qui recharge son arme : «Cric-crac». Une fois tout cela effectué, le héros peut retourner sur le lieu de combat.

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