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THE 400 PROJECT RULE LIST |
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© 2006 Hal Barwood & Noah Falstein All Rights Reserved
version GDC06 032306 |
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ID |
Imperative Statement |
Explanation in 250 words or less |
Domain |
Contributors |
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1 |
Fight Player Fatigue |
Games are a challenge, and playing takes effort — actively work to keep
the player involved, and make sure the appeal of your game always
exceeds its difficulty. (The Flow idea, where the designer neatly
guides players between boredom & frustration, is a subset of this rule.) |
Basic, Variety, Flow |
Hal Barwood |
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2 |
Maximize Expressive Potential |
Get the most out of your (always limited) material -- either find ways
to exploit an element of your game, or cut it out |
Simplicity |
Hal Barwood |
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3 |
Maintain Level of Abstraction |
Immersion is easily disturbed -- don't make the player re-calibrate his
"suspension of disbelief" and lose touch with your game |
Psych |
Hal Barwood |
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4 |
Concretize Ideas |
All your game ideas must find a concrete expression in playable elements |
|
Hal Barwood |
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5 |
Make Subgames |
Players want to participate in the course they take through your game --
so give them plenty of opportunities to voluntarily take up ancillary
challenges |
Basic |
Hal Barwood |
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6 |
Provide Clear Short-Term Goals |
Always make it clear to the player what their short-term objectives
are. This can be done explicitly by telling them directly, or
implicitly by leading them towards those goals through environmental
cues. This avoids the frustration of uncertainty and gives players
confidence that they are making forward progress. |
Basic |
Noah Falstein, others |
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7 |
Let the Player Turn the Game Off |
A player should be able to save and exit the game at any point, losing
at most a few seconds of progress as a result. Our objective as
designers is to entertain, not punish – and many games force players to
play for extra minutes, even hours, until they can reach a “save game
point”, forcing them to recapitulate those minutes if they quit
prematurely, in frustrating repetition of now-familiar events. It’s a
commercially important rule, akin to the old adage, “the customer is
always right”. Players have been known to give up on games that did not
follow this rule, and even return them. |
Single Player Games (?) |
Noah Falstein, Dale Geist |
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8 |
Identify Constraints |
The first step in any design should be to identify the critical
constraints on that design – what must be done, what should be done, and
what cannot be done. Specific areas of constraints can include creative
constraints (required game genre or sequel to existing game, the
designer’s previous experience), technical (the need to use a specific
engine or work within the capabilities of a specific programming team),
business/sales/marketing (budget, hard delivery date, license), and
personalities (boss’s preferences, lead artist’s love of anime,
producer’s fixation on Monty Python, etc.) Often, the biggest
constraint is budget – all games have to justify how much can be spent
on them, and usually the vision exceeds the funds. |
Meta, Production |
Noah Falstein |
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9 |
Detailed Design Docs for Novice Teams |
Design documents should be detailed in inverse proportion to the skill
of the team and their familiarity with the genre. |
Meta, Production |
Noah Falstein |
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10 |
Maintain Suspension of Disbelief |
In any game which uses or relies on narrative content, the player should
be encouraged to suspend their disbelief and become imaginatively
involved in the work. Once so engaged, the player should be protected
from other elements which might shatter their imaginative experience. |
Meta, Story |
Mark Barrett, others |
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11 |
Emphasize Exploration and Discovery |
Players like to figure out the territory of your game — it's a basic
human impulse to investigate the unknown — so let 'em do it. |
Basic |
Noah Falstein |
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12 |
Provide Parallel Challenges with Mutual Assistance |
When presenting the player with a challenge – a monster to kill, a
puzzle to solve, a city to capture – provide several such challenges and
set it up so accomplishing one challenge makes it a little easier to
accomplish the others (that’s the mutual assistance component). It is
also effective to set up these parallel challenges on many levels of
scale of the game, from the ultimate goal down to the small short-term
steps. This eliminates bottlenecks and makes the game accessible to a
wider range of players. Ideally the different challenges use different
domains of player skills, e.g. strategy and action. |
Meta, Balance |
Noah Falstein |
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13 |
Turn Constants into Variables |
Create variety without overburdening the game system by identifiying
constant values or other system elements and turning them into
variables. For example, taking a constant rate of damage and making
objects or spells that change it, or taking a constant rate of fire and
creating weapons that fire more or less rapidly. |
Basic, but best applied late in design process |
Jurie Horneman |
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14 |
Differentiate Interactivity from Non-Interactivity |
Always make it clear to the player when they are expected to shift from
interactive to passive (e.g. cut scenes) and back. Switching to
wide-screen mode is often used for passive scenes. But it is best to
use multiple sensory cues, e.g. shape, color, and sound so the player is
never left in doubt. |
Meta, Psych |
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15 |
Localize Narrative with a Two Step Process |
While the goal may be to find one individual who can localize text and
other story elements, it should be remembered that this individual will
still be doing two tasks. The first task is the translation of the
current elements into the language of the country into which the product
is being localizes. The second task is infusing the result with the mood
and drama of the original, which has almost certainly been lost in
translation. |
Production, Localization, Story |
Mark Barrett |
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16 |
Distribute Game Assets Asymmetrically |
When there are objects or experiences the player can encounter in a
game, place them asymmetrically, both spatially in the sense of clumping
some together and spreading others thinly, and temporally in the sense
of having some be common, some uncommon, and some rare over time. Of
course, particularly useful or powerful items are good candidates to be
the rarest. |
Basic |
Teut Weidemann, Noah Falstein |
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17 |
Begin at the Middle |
When you are setting about to develop a game, rather than starting with
the first level or initial scene of a game, pick a representative point
near the middle and start there. The best order to develop a game is
middle, beginning, then end. (cf. book,
The Illusion of Life, wherein Disney's similar
method of ordering scenes into production for animated films is
discussed) |
Meta |
Noah Falstein |
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18 |
Balance Units Starting with the Middle of the Pack |
When balancing a variety of characteristics, abilities, or powers of
individual units (e.g. Pokemon creatures, RTS military units, or RPG
characters), begin with a unit that has near-median statistics, instead
of starting with the weakest/strongest/fastest or other extremes. |
Development, Balance |
Noah Falstein, others |
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19 |
Make the Game Fun for the Player, not the Designer or Computer |
This may seem obvious, but often game designers forget that it is the
player who is the final audience. It’s hard enough to make a game fun
for the player – in fact, that’s what most of the craft of game design
is about – but it’s even harder when you lose sight of your audience. |
Basic, Psych |
Sid Meier |
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20 |
Make the Effects of the AI Visible to the Player |
It can be tempting to model subtle choices in your AI, but unless the
final results are clear to the player, you may well be wasting your
time. One way to do this is to choose to model clearly visible choices
– a possible Sims mate can touch your character’s arm and laugh, or turn
a cold shoulder. Or to flip that around, you can alert the player
directly when a subtle choice is made – for instance when an enemy
sniper is responding to a player’s choice to run straight ahead instead
of crawling stealthily around the flank, an audio cue like “Look, there
he is!” lets the player know the AI is on to them. |
Basic, Psych, Simplicity, Feedback |
Noah Falstein |
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21 |
Use Real-World Formulas and Minimize Cheating with Simulations |
Avoiding early shortcuts often saves time in the long run. It can be
tempting to cut corners with canned animation or table-driven behaviors,
but use real formulas to simulate real-world consequences and you’ll
find that later expansions to the AI that also stick with actual physics
can fit in seamlessly. For instance in a racing game it may be tempting
to have an AI car jump a gap with a preprogrammed animation, but if an
opponent’s race car is subject to the same constraints as a player’s car
when jumping a gap the level designers can add new jumps or adjust old
ones without having to go back and change all the previous enemy
behaviors. |
Games that simulate real-world systems, Simplicity, Balance |
Noah Falstein |
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22 |
Add a Small Amount of Randomness to AI Calculations |
A little randomness can make a dumb AI look very smart. If an enemy
responds exactly the same every time, they’ll feel robotic and
predictable. But just 5% variation can shock a player out of
complacency and make an opponent seem alive. Sometimes the easiest way
is to add plus or minus a few percent to a basic calculation of distance
or direction. This is particularly effective for animal behavior. |
Basic, Variety, Psych |
Noah Falstein |
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23 |
Create AI in the Mind of the Player |
The ideal AI implementation is not actual intelligent behavior but the
illusion of intelligent
behavior. Much like Sun Tzu’s precept in The Art of War that the best
way to win a battle is to make fighting unnecessary, the best way to
provide AI is to let the players imagine it with no coding necessary.
Simply implying that special behavior might occur can plant it in your
player’s imagination. Call an enemy unit “elite” and give it a special
color and players will treat it differently, crediting it with superior
abilities. |
Psych |
Noah Falstein |
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24 |
Don’t Penalize the Player |
It’s often tempting to design a penalty for the player to emphasize
failure at a task or to discourage the player from attempting to do
something in the game you don’t like. But “failing” and “being
discouraged” just aren’t fun. There’s always a way to turn it around
and reward the player for success, or encourage them to do what you
want. |
Meta |
Noah Falstein |
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25 |
Provide an Enticing Long Term Goal |
Many (but not all) games benefit by having an ultimate goal that is made
clear to the player fairly early on. Making this goal enticing is one
way to pull the player into the game world and encourage passion. |
Basic, but most important for Narrative-based games |
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26 |
Make the First Player Action Painfully Obvious |
The first thing a player can do in a game should be painfully obvious.
Even if you are sure that everyone will understand what to do, go out of
your way to make it easy to do. Don't make someone click on a doorknob,
make the whole door active - or better yet, have it standing open with a
flashing sign saying "Enter". |
Psych |
Noah Falstein |
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27 |
Keep the Interface Consistent (many trumps of this one) |
Make the player learn as little as possible to control your game — if
you have several avatars and/or vehicles available, try to make them all
work the same way. |
Psych |
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28 |
Be Consistent in Feedback to the Player |
One of the stronger "consistency" rules, it is best to remain consistent
when giving feedback to the player because variation merely for the sake
of relieving boredom is particularly likely to result in frustration
when the player reads intent that is not present. For example, the old
Adventure Game classic "I can't do that" - "I can't do that here"
implies there is a place where it can be done, and "I can't do that yet"
implies there is a time where it will be possilble. |
Basic, Feedback |
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29 |
Implement the Hardest Part of the Game First |
Resist the temptation to start implementing the best-understood parts of
the design first - by starting with the hardest parts you force yourself
(and the team) to test and possibly change difficult design decisions
that may in turn affect the rest of the game development process. |
Production |
Noah Falstein |
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30 |
Provide a Consistent Single Vision for the Game |
It is vital from the beginning of design to make sure that there is one
consistent single vision of the user's experience as he or she plays the
game. It is most often a problem with shared design responsibility, but
even a single designer can make the mistake of being inconsistent in
vision. The vision can change during development, but everyone must
know and be informed of the change immediately. |
Production, Meta |
Noah Falstein |
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31 |
Use Common Sense When Applying Rules |
The Uber-trump. Any rule, carried to extremes, can become
non-functional. It's impossible to consider every possible situation
when drafting rules and identifying trumps, so don't follow any rule
blindly. |
Basic, Meta |
Noah Falstein |
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32 |
Ask "What does the user do?" |
One of the most basic rules, a designer must always stay focused on the
choices and actions available to the user. Games must be fundamentally
about interactivity, and interactivity is fundamentally about the
choices the player makes. |
Basic |
Chris Crawford |
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33 |
Begin Each Project with a One-Page Specification of the Gameplay |
A good general-case rule for the early design phase, but trumpable by
alternative methods. This is one way to ensure the team (or an
individual designer) follows the "Provide a Consistent Single Vision"
rule. |
Production |
Chris Crawford |
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34 |
Emphasize Micromanagement for German Speakers |
This rule is an instance of a more general rule to "consider national
sensibilities" |
Games for Germany and Austria |
Noah Falstein |
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35 |
Address Needs of Instructors, Teachers, and Trainers |
Make sure a serious game is easily usable by teachers - provide ways to
assess learning and make the game customizable to specific curriculums. |
Serious Games, Meta |
Ben Sawyer |
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36 |
Make Even Serious Games Fun |
Don't let pedagogical content "suck the fun out" of a game. |
Serious Games |
Prensky |
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37 |
Design to the Medium's Strengths Instead of Struggling with its
Limitations |
With an untested medium or new platform, consider what it does well and
focus on that, rather than trying to shoehorn in concepts from a
previous medium. But see Judo Rule: "Turn Your Limitations into
Strengths". |
Mobile Games (or other new platforms?) |
Greg Costikyan |
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38 |
Design to Fit the Revenue Stream |
The "Show Me the Money" rule - similar to the previous rule, but
focusing on specific revenue streams. For example if an MMORPG has a
monthly subscription, design to maximize "stickiness", but if it is free
and gets revenue from buying special items, design to maximize the
desire to use those items. |
Production |
(several - column 26) |
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39 |
Vary Rate of Difficulty Increase within the Flow Channel |
A specific rule addressing "Fight Player Fatigue". Over the course of
time a game should increase in difficulty in rough proportion to the
player's increasing expertise - but that rate should vary like a sine
wave (or think of it as vibratto) to provide peaks and valleys of
increasing difficulty. |
Meta, Variety |
Noah Falstein |
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40 |
Use Camera Position to Elicit Emotional Involvement |
A rule from the film/TV industry, the position of the camera will convey
emotional content, and game designers must take this into account. |
Depict Physical Surroundings, Psych |
Hal Barwood, Noah Falstein |
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41 |
Every Person and Idea has Equal Worth |
A "Training Wheels" rule for beginning brainstormers, this rule
encourages people to contribute "wild" ideas. |
Brainstorming for Beginners |
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42 |
Critique Ideas, Not People |
Focus discussion on ideas, not the people who propose them. |
Brainstorming |
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43 |
No Bosses in Brainstorming Sessions |
Another "Training Wheels" rule meant to encourage participation from the
timid. Even as an observer a boss can elicit sub-optimal brainstorming,
causing some to withhold ideas, and others to emphasize ideas for
purpose of brown-nosing only. |
Brainstorming for Beginners |
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44 |
Challenge Assumptions |
"Everyone Knows That" is not a valid proof. |
Brainstorming |
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45 |
Alternate Discussion Between Theme (Story) and Game Mechanics |
When a brainstorming discussion stalls while talking about a
theme/story, try switching for a while to talking about the gameplay
mechanisms, and vice versa. |
Brainstorming |
Noah Falstein |
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46 |
Raise the Emotional Stakes to Maximize Player Involvement |
A meta-rule with many more specific examples, this should be the
underlying rule behind many design decisions about story, characters,
and theme, as well as choices of gameplay |
Meta, Story |
Noah Falstein |
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47 |
Game Play Comes First |
A more specific version of "Make it Fun" - more important to emphasize
game play than other elements, like story, special effects, or fidelity
to license. |
Basic, Meta |
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48 |
Provide for Friend or Virtual Leader to Demo Gameplay |
Many girls and women generally prefer to learn games by example or
observing someone else play for the first time, and many males prefer to
learn by having a chance to simply try out every interface and gameplay
mechanism safely without external direction. |
Games for Girls |
Sheri Graner Ray |
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49 |
Provide Indirect Competition |
Many girls prefer to compete indirectly instead of head to head.
Providing for gameplay mechanisms that allow competition without a pure
winner/loser split can increase the appeal to women. |
Games for Girls |
Sheri Graner Ray |
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50 |
Simple as Possible |
"Everything should be as simple as possible, but no simpler" - find ways
to simplify any game element or system of game elements, but only to the
point where further simplification takes away more interest than it
compensates for with clarity. The master simplicity rule |
Simplicity |
Albert Einstein |
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51 |
Make the Interface "Desperately Simple" |
When trying to reach a wide audience, the simpler the interface the
better. (Juan Gril's related rule for casual games is even more strict
— only require one input for any given action) |
Games for Non-Gamers, Casual Games, Simplicity |
Brian Moriarty |
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52 |
Make Your Game Familiar, Yet Different |
Another "Make it Fun" specific rule. All successful games have a mix of
some familiar elements and some fresh or unique variations. Often the
big hits use familiar gameplay but vary the story/theme, or vice versa -
doing both at once tends to lose audience share. |
Basic, Variety |
Noah Falstein |
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53 |
Use Negative Feedback to Balance Game Difficulty and Player Skill |
Employ multiple mechansims of diminishing returns in a game to limit
geometric growth of player power and success (strongly trumped by "Make
the Game Appear Fair to the Player") |
Meta, Balance |
Noah Falstein |
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54 |
Make Rewards Proportional to the Difficulty of the Task Required to Earn
Them |
(Another Flow Channel rule, trumped mildly by the Vary Rate of
Difficulty Increase) |
Meta, Balance |
Noah Falstein, Raph Koster |
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55 |
Make the Game Appear Fair to the Player |
Computer-controlled opponents should not appear to be taking advantage
of information that would not be available to a human in the same
position. In multiplayer games, opponents should not have advantages
based on their hardware or bandwidth. See also "Don't Penalize the
Player" |
Psych |
Noah Falstein |
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56 |
Make Learning the Educational Content Optional but Integral to the
Enjoyment |
One very successful way to teach with gameplay is to allow the player to
progress through a game without learning anything at all of the intended
educational content - but to maximize gameplay enjoyment when the player
does learn that content, and make it accessible within the game world.
Carmen SanDiego and Civilization follow this rule. |
Serious Games (Stealth Education Rule), Psych |
Noah Falstein |
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57 |
Make Challenges Vary in More than Degree |
Another "Player Fatigue" rule, add variety in challenges other than
simple straight-line increase. Don't pick a single variable like number
of enemies and simply keep increasing it. Letting several different
variables interact is a good method (see Create Emergent Complexity). |
Variety |
Dan Arey |
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58 |
Don't Make Your Objective Your Primary Threat |
If you are tasked with defeating a head Ogre, don't make all the
opposition along the way solely smaller ogres. |
Variety |
Brian Upton |
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59 |
Make the Player Feel Smart |
Provide avenues for the player to feel clever, and conversely avoid
situations that will make the player feel stupid. |
Psych, Feedback |
Noah Falstein, Zeb Cook, Gordon Walton |
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60 |
Provide Multiple Solutions to Challenges |
Avoid bottlenecks and boredom by providing different ways to achieve
goals, preferably using different types of skills, like fast-action and
strategy, or hack and slash versus magic. |
Variety |
Warren Spector, Raph Koster |
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61 |
Players Should See Their Goal Before They Achieve It |
The "No Backward Puzzles" rule. The satisfaction of achieving a goal is
magnified when the goal has been clear (and/or literally visible) for
some time. Solving a puzzle or surmounting an obstacle without even
knowing you were doing it, or without knowing why, robs the player of
satisfaction. |
Psych |
Warren Spector, Ron Gilbert |
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62 |
Make Challenges Require Skill |
Unless, of course, you're building a gambling game... |
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Raph Koster |
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63 |
Tune for Players at the Center of the Skill Curve |
The core gameplay should be aimed at "average" players - it is OK to
incorporate mechanisms to deal with novices and experts, but don't shift
the overall game to cater to them. (Possible trumps: Casual Games,
Narrow-audience sequels) |
Production |
Gordon Walton |
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64 |
Make the Hunter Become the Hunted |
Provide opportunites to switch roles and have the player alternate
between being predator and prey, even sometimes simultaneously.
(Related to the idea in dramatic writing of "reversal of fortune") |
Meta, Psych |
Noah Falstein |
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65 |
Do, Don't Show |
It is better to show action or drama being enacted than tell the player
about it in exposition, but it's even better to let the player
experience that action or drama interactively instead of showing it. |
Meta |
Noah Falstein |
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66 |
Emphasize Acquisition, Cater to Greed |
A companion to "Emphasize Exploration", players enjoy the process of
acquiring more, bigger, better collections of things - "Gotta catch 'em
all". Let the player become rich, powerful, capable. |
Basic |
Geoff Zatkin |
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67 |
Provide Outward and Visible Signs of Accomplishment |
It is a powerful incentive for players to see visible signs of
accomplishment, changing the appearance of their avatar/units,
displaying special advantages visibly and not just in underlying
statistics. In multiplayer games these signs should also be visible to
other players. |
Psych, Feedback |
Patricia Pizer |
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68 |
Make Failures Spectacular, Varied, and Cool |
(Another somewhat weak rule, trumped by various design and production
considerations, but clearly part of the entertainment process — valid
when all players must be entertained, even those that fail, as in an
arcade environment, but not necessarily otherwise — conflicts with the
rule against spending effort to reward failure) |
Psych, Feedback |
Paul Schuytema |
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69 |
Provide a Reaction to Every Player Action |
Ideally, every action a player can take should have some sort of
feedback, visual, audible, or both. |
Psych, Feedback |
Bob Bates |
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70 |
Provide Visual Weenies to Draw Player |
As Disney does in theme parks, provide distant but visible enticing
objects - a weenie - to lead player on through the environment. Movie
term derives from use of hot dogs to wrangle animals on a set |
Level Design |
Eri Izawa |
|
71 |
Things that Look Alike Should Behave Alike |
Another consistency rule, with many trumps but a good one to follow in
the absence of any obvious trumps. |
Simplicity, Feedback |
Brian Upton |
|
72 |
Emotional Value Must Exceed Load Time |
In other words, the only time where a long load time is justified is
when the emotional payoff is proportionately large. |
Psych |
Mark Terrano |
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73 |
If You See It, You Should Hear It |
Provide audio for as many visible environments, objects, and actions as
possible. |
Feedback |
Jesse Schell |
|
74 |
Sound Can Lead a Transition |
Often used in film, one can hear a new environment or character before
they actually appear on screen. (Standard movie rule too) |
Psych |
Rich Vogel |
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75 |
Set Up Expectations About How Game Works Then Reinforce Them |
Overlaps with "Gain the Player's Trust and Keep It" |
Psych, Consistency |
Geoff Zatkin |
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76 |
Design Levels to Conceal Camera Flaws |
Conversely, avoid level designs that show off flaws in the camera
algorithms, e.g. narrow passageways, or ledges that a character must
jump from perpendicular to the wall. |
Level Design in 3D Games |
Mark Terrano |
|
77 |
Leave Player Wanting More |
as distinguished from many games, which, by the time they're finished,
leave player wanting less |
Psych |
Eri Izawa |
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78 |
Ruthlessly Minimize Clicks |
|
Simplicity |
Patricia Pizer, Bob Bates |
|
79 |
Preserve Cause and Effect (minimize inputs) |
Probably identical to "Make Consequences of Actions Predictable" |
|
Brian Upton |
|
80 |
Play the Game Every Day |
That means you, the designer, not your test team... |
Meta, Development |
Paul Stephanouk |
|
81 |
Imply More Depth Than is There |
Good impulse, but vague |
Psych |
Mark Terrano |
|
82 |
Provide Hollywood Timing |
For many actions that have to be accomplished within a limited but
flexible amount of time, use this simple rule: worst 5% of times =
failure (try again), best 5% = special success with reward, 90% of time
player appears to finish "Just in the nick of time!" |
Psych |
Noah Falstein |
|
83 |
Design Levels with Backstory |
Have Backstory (story elements known to designer but not presented
directly to player) to inform the design of levels, even (especially) if
the player never learns of this directly. (e.g. Watermelon in hydraulic
press in Buckaroo Bonzai.) |
Story |
Brian Upton |
|
84 |
Gain Player's Trust and Keep It |
Let the player understand how your design works and allow him/her to
exploit that knowledge |
Psych, Consistency |
Jurie Horneman |
|
85 |
Let Players' Actions Leave Lasting Effects |
The game world will feel more real if the player's actions leave lasting
effects, for instance damage remains until patched or repaired, and good
and bad deeds result correspondingly in lasting gratitude or resentment. |
Meta, Feedback |
Dave Perry |
|
86 |
Differentiate Between Game Design and Experience Design |
(Not sure I know what this means - NF) |
Meta |
Raph Koster |
|
87 |
Make the Player Feel Special and Powerful |
A companion to "Make the Player Feel Smart" |
Psych |
Bruce Harlick |
|
88 |
Recognition is Movement, Silhouette, Color, Contrast, Texture and Sound
in that order. |
Results of Microsoft research on how players recognize
objects/units/installations on the screen. |
Meta, Psych |
Mark Terrano |
|
89 |
Emphasize Dramatic Reveals |
Build emotional impact with dramatic discovery of new areas, characters,
story and plot points |
Psych |
Brian Upton |
|
90 |
Respect Each Game Element Equally |
Don't give any game element short shrift - they all contribute to the
impact of the game, even though time spent on each will vary. |
|
Lee Sheldon |
|
91 |
Account for the 10% (color blindness, hearing loss, left handed) |
Don't forget minority (but significant) audiences. |
|
Patricia Pizer |
|
92 |
Trim the Fat |
Ruthlessly trim away any parts of the game or story that do not directly
contribute to the player's enjoyment, and omit extraneous elements. |
Meta, Simplicity, Story |
Corey Cole, David Hewitt |
|
93 |
Use Interest Curve to Identify Dead Spots |
Graphing the player's interest over the course of gameplay can help spot
problem areas. |
Meta |
Jesse Schell |
|
94 |
Write Player Narrative to Identify Problems |
In the early design phases, one way to find problems ahead of time is to
write a narrative from the player's point of view, describing the
gameplay and the experience of playing. |
Meta |
Marc Cerny |
|
95 |
Build Customizable Scoring Systems |
Although generally helpful, it is particularly critical in Serious Games
to allow the player (or an instructor) to customize score in order to
emphasize specific teaching goals. |
Serious Games |
Ben Sawyer |
|
96 |
Make Consequences of Actions Predictable |
Give the player a sense of cause and effect, don't incorporate so many
variables that a player cannot figure out the consequence of a given
action. |
Meta, Psych |
Bernd Kreimeier |
|
97 |
Avoid Dominant Strategies that Trivialize Player Choice |
Tune the game so that the player is not led into one strategy all the
time (when more than one is provided). |
Meta, Balance |
Bernd Kreimeier |
|
98 |
Design Concentric Spaces |
Let the player return to earlier spaces and environments as a stronger,
more capable character. |
Psych, Development |
Noah Falstein |
|
99 |
Provide a Framework for Social Interaction |
Good impulse, but vague |
Multiplayer Games |
Mike Stackpole |
|
100 |
Give Player a Way to Measure Progress and Clear Indication of How to
Become Better |
(need a way to phrase this more succinctly - See Jim Gee's book) |
Feedback |
Mike Stackpole |
|
101 |
Put the Money On the Screen |
Don't invest design time (and development dollars) on features the
player is never likely to directly perceive. |
Production |
Noah Falstein |
|
102 |
Create Emergent Complexity |
Use the interaction of several simple mechansims to create complex
behavior or challenge, rather than artificially adding complexity "by
hand" to a single challenge. |
Basic |
Noah Falstein |
|
103 |
Make Common Actions Easiest to Perform |
An interface rule - the more frequently a player has to do an action,
the simpler it should be to perform. |
Simplicity |
Tyson McCann |
|
104 |
Turn Your Limitations into Strengths |
When you find yourself constrained by a difficult circumstance or
combination of limitations in design, look for a solution that turns
those very limitations into a fun solution. Try to make the limitations
work in your favor, not against you. The Judo Rule. (Closely related to
#37) |
Meta |
Noah Falstein |
|
105 |
Provide Both Safe and Dangerous Areas |
When moving through an environment, especially quickly, provide both
areas you must pass _and_ areas you must avoid |
Variety |
Steve Meretzky |
|
106 |
Have Fun in the First Minute |
In casual games it is critical to make sure the player is having fun
right away. If the game is an expensive, boxed game then this rule is
not as critical (although still good to follow). |
Casual Games |
Steve Meretzky |
|
107 |
Cite All Rules in Three Sentences |
You should be able to explain all the rules to a casual game in three
sentences. |
Casual Games |
Steve Meretzky |
|
108 |
Provide Score Feedback |
In a game where score is important, provide direct audio and visual
feedback every time the score changes - like a sound and floating
numbers. |
Feedback |
Steve Meretzky |
|
109 |
Multiple Abilities for Challenges |
Make it possible (and at higher levels, mandatory) for the player to
bring multiple abilities to bear on a challenge. Closely related to
"Provide Multiple Solutions to Challenges" |
Meta, Variety |
Raph Koster, Jim Gee |
|
110 |
Incorporate Tutorial into Gameplay |
Integrate instruction into the game progression instead of standalone
tutorials (but many trumping conditions here). |
Meta |
Hal Barwood |
|
111 |
Show Character Through Action |
In a narrative story, character is who someone is, but in interactive
player character is defined by what someone can (and does) do. |
Meta, Story, Feedback |
Hal Barwood |
|
112 |
Personify Villany |
Specific characters are better than faceless masses, and active
opposition is better than passive obstacles. |
Meta, Story |
Hal Barwood |
