A Game Design Manifesto Part 1

By: cynicalmonkey | September 16th, 2009

Or how they can make me stop worrying and think their games the bomb.

Sometimes the simplest questions have the hardest answers, I mean how many times have you been asked ‘what do you want?’ only to know without doubt what the answer is but not be able to put into words and leave yourself with the verbal fumble of ‘I will know it when I see it’.

I like video games of all styles from sport to JRPG, from walking the ground of the everyman with a Halo or COD to playing the games of the eclectic elite like…..okay well maybe not the eclectic elite but lets face it if I did play those games and told you I would get thrown out of the eclectic elite. If somebody asked me right now what would be my perfect game I would not be able to give you a clear definitive answer but I would have some bullet points you could ballpark it with.

So this is my manifesto for the games industry a how to or what to avoid to shrug of the shackles of false infancy and produce me a Star Wars or a Citizen Kane.

1. Realise that adult themes and explicit visuals are not the same thing

I don’t require hyper violence or bad language or nudity or sick and twisted themes in every game in the same way I don’t require them in every film. Yes I enjoyed Gears of War and the chainsaw fun you could have with it but that doesn’t mean the only way to reach me on an adult level is to include these things. There are whole spectrums of emotions that can be used to craft and deliver well told adult stories and gaming can be used as a great story telling medium so stop painting blood on everything and making my characters curse all the time.

2. Sound and vocals do matter

I have to sit there and play your game,
I may not be a great gamer,
Levels that you think should take twenty minutes might take me a few hours,
So for love of everything holy stop putting in annoying music and having my character repeat the same five lines of dialogue over and over again. Sound and music are as important as any other aspect of the game and are tools at your disposal to help immerse the player in the world provided. When this is over looked and done badly all the do is take the player out of the game.

3. Sometimes less is more

There are a handful of people who when they order a pizza have one with everything on, but the majority of people have preferred combinations and choose the one they are in the mood for. In the same way not every game needs to have a shooting mechanic, an RPG element, a driving mode, an RTS feel, multiplayer, an inventory system, etc. It is far better to make one style of game well then make fifty styles of games poorly.

4. You don’t always need to reinvent the wheel.

When making a genre game you don’t need to reinvent from the ground up, if you have a new innovation then go for it shoot for the moon but sometimes there are mechanics that just work and you don’t need to spend any time that could be spent developing plot or character reworking a tried and tested system so your game appears unique. People didn’t play the crap out of left 4 dead because it was unique they played the crap out of it because it was a well made game that used well developed and already established game mechanics.

More to come in part 2 (sorry I only have a short lunch break).