First Try 2D Level Design

I started off today by drawing this artist’s impression of the outside of my Ryokan for two reasons. Firstly, I wanted to work out what the landscape around the building looked like, and secondly I wanted to try to practice a slightly neater style of drawing that I can use for tidy, accurate level design! As it turned out, the building took up most of the page and I didn’t manage to get many surrounding objects in! But I think my tidy lines worked out much better. I have a tendency to scribble, and my designs are often indecipherable except by me!

I watched the Japanese Ring last night by coincidence. For those who aren’t familiar with the series, half of the story of Ring takes place in a holiday resort in the country called Hakone Pacific Land, which I always imagined was similar to Centre Parcs! In the Japanese film version, there is a big wooden sign at the entrance to the resort, which inspired the wooden sign next to my Ryokan. A little homage to one of my favourite Japanese novels! Whilst watching the film, I couldn’t help but analyse building structures. The film constantly moves about from city apartments to country inns, so there’s a variety of sources to go by. One notable feature of the Hakone Pacific Land cabins were that they were raised from the ground, with steps leading up to the entrance. I’m not sure if this is just a reason to hide a well under one of the buildings or whether this is a typical Japanese feature, but kind of reminded me of the part in My Neighbour Totoro where Mei peers underneath her large country house to look for a small spirit being who is hiding there. Personally, I’ve never had a house that I could look under! And I would be very worried if I could…

The house was actually recreated for the Expo 2005, which will be a really great model to design from for future buildings!

If anything, this morning’s Ryokan sketch got me thinking about the difference between the playable level background and the inactive, distant background. This will probably be mountainous, which is a backdrop which came up in Ring a few times, and makes a good background because it takes up a lot of space, is huge and consists of dull colours which won’t detract from the playable level. There may be a little sky and some clouds too.

To give myself another starting point, I started to think about level shapes. Personally, I think it’s easy to work inside a set space than design random pathways with no real structure. Just as an experiment, I looked at the shapes of some Japanese colour Kanji, as each of my levels will have their own distinct colour schemes.

The colour scheme for the first level is pink, or rose-coloured– “momoiro” in Japanese! I double checked all the kana in case the internet was playing practical jokes, I’ve heard stories of people accidentally getting “soup” tattooed onto themselves when they wanted “dragon” for example! Pink is also sometimes referred to as peach-coloured, but apart from that I think I’m safe to use this symbol.
From this, I tried to build rocky structures with buildings and other features, although I still found it difficult to arrange an entire level off the top of my head. I think my safest bet for now is to keep drawing it and adapting it until it becomes clear. I’ve also found that it’s easier to concentrate on a smaller area at once, so I may split the map into four and work on a corner at a time, starting with the top-left corner where the Ryokan is situated. Here are some of my very early scribbles, you’ll see what I mean about them being fairly difficult to read! I know what they mean though.

This is the first step in level design, according to Peter McClory who posted his really great insight into his design technique on his Blog. This was his initial level design for a game currently in development:

I’m glad to read that he favours the scrap paper approach to initial design! My original Ryokan interior design was drawn on the back of an envelope! I think it’s important to get an idea down on paper before it fades or changes, so sometimes it’s necessary to grab whatever is closest and draw.

With this design down, McClory moved onto squared paper to get a scale and accurate version of the level. He explains how important this is, because it must be designed to the constraints of the character who will be moving through the level.

Once this was complete, McClory moved into tracing paper and drew in the small details of the level, traced from the basic structure on the squared paper. The result is a wonderful pencil sketch, which I could only hope to equal! Tracing paper is currently top of my shopping list.

The Up/Down/Left/Right Scrolling Platformer

So far I’ve been referring to terms like Platform Game and Side-scrolling Platformer in a similar way, but I’ve been thinking about how different these two terms are, and how this effects what I’m doing.

In my original Synopsis of Study, I stated that I would be making a Side-scrolling Platformer. In its most basic from, this simply refers to a game which is viewed from the side, and generally plays from left-to-right. The reason for its significance in history is due to its impact on the standard “Platform” game.

Donkey Kong is among the original and most notable Platform games. The game was played on one single screen at a time, which would only move onto the next by completion of the level. The game actually only consisted of three levels, which repeated until the player ran out of lives or reached the game’s “kill screen” which ended the game mid-level.

Super Mario Bros transported the hero of Donkey Kong into a much larger world by creating a screen which was simply a view of something much larger. Dedicated technology could process the game’s larger levels by drawing a slither at a time, as the character moved from left to right. Thus the Platformer became the Side-Scrolling Platformer.
Having a game that moved from a starting point to a finishing point meant that the game had a more obvious end, rather than simply repeating screens.

One game that astonished players with its non-linear gameplay was the original Metroid for Nintendo Entertainment System. The beginning of the game acted like a normal side-scrolling platformer, but at times would also allow the player to travel up and down.

Here you can see a cross-road where the player has the choice to continue jumping onto the platforms above, or open the door on the right and travel horizontally. The vast map made Metroid one of the first games that a player could get lost in, and part of the challenge of the game was simply to get from start to finish. I am quite ashamed to say that I’ve never finished the original Metroid, partly due to the frustration of being lost!
The vastness of the game can be seen in its map as a whole:

So can you call Metroid a side-scrolling platformer? It’s played from a side-view, but moves in four directions.

Obviously, as technology improved, games were able to draw larger levels and the ability to free-roam 2D levels became more common. A great example of this is the Gourmet Race from Kirby Superstar for SNES. Traditionally, the Kirby games have always been Side-Scrollers, with the occasional ascent and descent here and there. The Gourmet Race demonstrates the progression from side-scroller to free-roam platformer in three levels, and proves how this adds challenge to gameplay. In level one, the object is to move from left to right, but by level three, the player must make swift path choices which could help or hinder them without warning. As the level zig-zags, the player is more disoriented and the end more unpredictable. But as well as getting from start to finish in a limited time, the player must avoid obstacles and collect items, so there’s a lot to concentrate on!

I’ve played this level on Kirby Superstar now several times to work out how to start my level design for Hanami. The pace will be much slower, but in terms of objectives they are quite similar. I want to present the player with options which could end up with positive or negative or simply unpredictable results. Ultimately, the player must reach the end of the level with all items collected. So, in conclusion I don’t think the term Side-scrolling Platformer is really relevant, more of an up/down/left/right scrolling platformer really.

Edit: I found site dedicated to Video Game maps which has a great high-def map of the each of the Gourmet Race stages. You can see the third (and most complicated) stage here.

Easy Lighting Extension for Game Maker

One thing I’ve picked up on by reading developer’s forums and various articles on the Internet is that while Game Maker can do almost everything you could want it to, it doesn’t necessarily do it well.

I noticed this myself during my last Game Maker creation when it came to audio. Despite the fact that it gives you the option to use .mp3 format audio, it turns out that it doesn’t support most types of .mp3 (or some such nonsense.) I ended up using some hefty .wav files, which Game Maker compressed during the gameplay and completely changed. The majority of my sound effects seemed to sound like static! This is why people with the technological know-how have stepped in to save non-programmers by providing downloadable extension software for GM, including several which improve audio handling, which seems to be GM’s lowest point.

When it comes to in-game lighting, I’ve previously found ways to cheat by overlaying semi-opaque objects on top of light-emitting objects. In Somnium I used this to make some objects appear to glow, however this ultimately had no effect on the game’s lighting on the whole. The image above is an example of an extension called EasyLighting V7.0.2, which handles light generation in Game Maker. It is the same extension which Gabriel Verdon uses to create his moody, atmospheric lights in The Archer.

As you can see from the top example, there are two types of light generated. One is a dim, yellowish light and the other is a bright white light which casts shadows off the objects around it. Both of these lights use the same sprite image, which is a circle shape with a radial gradient. This is similar to my previous lighting “objects”.

However, the extension settings are used to draw these sprites to certain specifications, rather than simply overlay the same image in the same way repeatedly. This reduces the amount of sprites and used, and helps game performance.
You can read an in-depth description of all the extension’s functions in this tutorial here, which also runs through how the extension works and how to implement it!

The advantages of using a lighting system like this one is that it can help create the game’s desired atmosphere. The lights work by first applying a colour overlay, which immediately changes the tone of the game. Each light then has its own individual colour and brightness, which can give a really good sense of light and dark in the game.

To test the extension, I made some street-light style lights in the Grandma Engine. I recorded a quick little demo of the lights in action so you can see how effective they are in changing the ambience of a room. I’ve tried to capture the difference in the colour of the character (square) when under and away from a light source. These lights worked especially well at highlighting objects when several were placed close together.

Japanese Accommodation

Apart from perhaps a short opening sequence consisting of images or a short animations, Hanami begins in a small country bed & breakfast style building in a small village somewhere in Japan. These types of accommodation are called Ryokan. They are usually situated in more rural areas rather than large cities, and provide a cheap place to stay for travellers. Cons of cheap accommodation mean that rooms and facilities must be shared with other guests, but at the same time this opens up opportunities to meet people and share a truly Japanese living experience. Personally I prefer “private”, but beggars can’t be choosers!

I refer to a stay at a Ryokan as a “truly Japanese living experience” because one common characteristic of the Ryokan is its traditional Japanese features. The owners of this sort of establishment encourage guests to turn Japanese during their stay, by sleeping on futons, sitting at low tables, and usually eating the provided Japanese meals.

A traditional style Japanese breakfast:

Features of a traditional Style Japanese room or Washitsu:

Tatami Floors
These a woven floor coverings, aligned as a series of mats.

Shoji Sliding Doors
These structures, made from wood and paper, act as room dividers but slide to become doors.

Tokonoma
This is a small alcoved area where hanging scrolls and decorative items are placed. This areas is not entered, but enjoyed.

Zabuton
Flat cushions (sometimes with a back-rest) placed on the floor around a low Japanese table.

For my Ryokan, I’ve taken most of these elements and aspects from other traveller’s hostels. Cheap hostels are similar to Ryokan, but not as traditional. To make better use of space for example, hostels will often house guests in shared rooms with bunk-beds. In the most extreme circumstances, guests stay in their own tiny capsule, consisting of a bed, shelf and TV! These are much more common in urban areas.

In terms of 2D tile creation, bunk-beds make a lot more sense that low, flat futons! So I’ve built my Ryokan on three floors. The hotel has a Western-style bunkbed room at the top, and gets progressively more Japanese as it goes down. Bear in mind that this is a test mock-up, I can hardly even call this finished! I’m still trying to work out some of the tile issues.

If you click on the image above, you can start to get a feel for the real scale of the game. At the moment, I’m thinking of up-scaling the game to 300% during play, although this is something I haven’t decided for sure yet.

Roof Tiles

One thing I haven’t quite worked out yet is how to cross-section a Japanese roof to create a 2D tile. The blue around the edges of the image are supposed to be blue roof tiles, but these aren’t quite finished yet. The wooden part underneath is representative of traditional ceiling beams, although I’m not sure how well this comes across in cross-section form either…

You can probably tell from the image that I’ve also had a few problems rotating my roof tiles, and there are plenty of inconsistencies to be found…

Guest Room

I’ve resized the bunk-beds from before so that they are more human sized, and cleverly pushed two together so that the obscene length doesn’t seem out of place! The bunk-bed tiles probably won’t need too much attention from now on, as there isn’t much to them and not much that can be changed. The window is a set of four tiles, which can be lengthened width-ways if I should need to! I’m fairly happy with the result of the window, I just know I should be cautious with frame outside the four-square area. The little draws are just one tile, and can be stacked or duplicated length ways easily. I’ve tried to keep all wood-colours consistent.

Wall Ties
These were looking very plain and boring, so I tried to add a certain amount of texture to them. I’m worried that now they border on the messy side, and will hopefully be tweaking these.

Sofa Area

This is part of the shared “communal floor”. The proportions seem like less of a problem on this floor, I’ve created a sofa from two tiles and halved the draws to create an end-table which is only half a tile high (the red strip on top represents the place the Maneki Neko likes to sit!). The chairs to the right of this screenshot are the same height as the sofa, although I’ve made sure that this emphasises the lowness of the table.

You can also see from this screenshot where I’ve tried to add shading under the roof tiles using “floating” semi-transparent tiles which adjust the tiles beneath them.

Ladders
With this sort of perspective, drawing staircases are a bit of an issue. I’m not sure Ryokan even have first or second floors, but I think it would be understandable in this kind of situation to have to climb a ladder! In my opinion, this doesn’t look out of place, but if I make a successful staircase then I will replace the ladder.

Downstairs

Here you can see all the traditional aspects of a Japanese Washitsu that I’ve just mentioned, although I still have some not-quite-aligning elements which may need re-scaling in order to fit better into the grid. I’m also not sure I’m happy with the wood-strip detail on the wall. I think it detracts from the room’s important details.

Tatami Floor
The ground floor tiles are supposed to look like Tatami, although I’m not sure they really do. It somehow doesn’t look much like a floor at all, probably because it is too square and therefore quite similar to the sliding doors above it. In fact, the sliding doors and the floor could do with a better indication of depth, to separate themselves from each other.

At the moment, the image covers a few layers in a Photoshop document. What I need to concentrate on, is creating a tile set rather than a flat image that looks like it has been made from tiles!

Three Games I Played Yesterday…

One of the great advantages of using Game Maker is having access to a whole community of amateur game developers, through discussion forums and Yoyo Games’ Sandbox site, where developers can publish their games for free. Yesterday, I had a browse through the adventure and platform games available on the site, and picked out a few to diagnose.

Nea’s Adventure

This game was created as a Christmas present! It’s a really short 2D Platformer with no serious side whatsoever. There are a lot of graphical references, such as the background tiles which are very similar to the Kirby’s Adventure tiles… and some original aspects, such as the health bar made of tessellated triangles which disappear when the character is hit by an enemy. The game simply plays from left to right in most cases, although there are a few hidden areas and a final “boss fight” to break up the monotony.

Good Points
Fast-paced and simple gameplay
Infinite Lives (character returns to start of the level on “death”)
Character becomes a fish underwater!

Bad Points
Moving underwater seems unnatural
Combo jump-attack is sometimes unwanted
Too short!

You can download Neas Adventure here.

The Adventure of Young Glubber

I decided to play this game base on its aesthetics (it had me at Gameboy Green), but I was happy to discover that its objectives are fairly similar to the game I’m in the process of creating. The “thing” in TAoYG must collect torches in order to unlock doors, some torches harder to attain than others. The character has a certain amount of hit points, which are deducted when the character is hit by an environment hazard.

Good Points
Torches animate when the character is near
No enemy NPCs
Skill and brains required

Bad Points
Physics feel a little unnatural at times, especially when jumping
Spike objects can damage the character from the smooth side

You can download the Adventure of Young Glubber here.

98-X

I picked this game to play as the preview images looked to be high quality. It would be incredibly harsh to call this a bas game, as it excells far beyond a lot that you find on the Yoyo site! But I was disappointed, mainly by graphical elements such as the GUI, dialogue boxes and 4:3 aspect ratio. Normal for these retro sort of game 4:3 wouldn’t be an issue, but I feel the quality of the larger sprites in this game should have been reflected in the rest of the game’s specs. As I say, I don’t want to sound harsh- at least this game uses original assets and sprites.

Good Points
Easy to control weapon system
Original Characters

Bad Points
Text boxes cover a large portion of the screen
Movement, especially triple wall-jumping seems VERY unnatural and difficult to handle
Graphically very boring at times

You can download 98-X here.

My objectives for this week are to “design and prototype.” I want to start getting level design down, sort out game physics and build levels, even if for now these levels consist of the Grandma Engine’s default blocks! These games have given me little bits to think about, like the sort of physics that feel natural to handle and nice graphical touches like collectable objects that react when you get near them. This week I am going to spend a LOT of time looking through images of Japanese country landscapes and specifically building design in order to create a good set of tiles.

I discovered this video from the 2010 8GB tour, featuring the Tokyo Blip Festival, which is an annual chiptune music festival. The video shows a journey through various parts of Japan, although what I love about it is the contrast between the bright lights of the busy cities at night and the calm atmosphere of a visit to the Shinto Shrine. This is the side of Japan which will be most frequently reflected in Hanami.

Exploring Colour

It’s been a difficult task trying to figure out the exact shade of a typical Cherry Blossom, because there just isn’t one. I’ve had to come to the conclusion that most shades of pink work.

I picked this close-up photo (believe it or not it’s from an old myspace layout!) to be my official blossom reference. I can’t guarantee its authenticity, but it does show a promising contrast in colour from its very pale pastel tips to its desaturated centre. And the colours aren’t affected by any other sources, such as vibrant lights or contrasting backgrounds. I found a really great site called Color Explorer which rips colours straight from images and creates a colour palette for you, complete with RGB values. Here’s what it made of this photo:

It’s just as I was hoping really, you’ve almost got a completely smooth gradient from light to dark, without too many anomalous colours in between! I won’t need all of these colours for one very low-res flower, but the full colour palette can now be used for anything to create some consistency. I haven’t put much thought into my User Interface yet, but I would assume this would be a good application of this particular palette!

I made myself a little colour card to reference the flower colours, from the dark centre to the light petals. For each colour, I picked a slightly darker shade and a slightly lighter shade to act as shadows and highlights:

This is the result when applied to a 16×16 Cherry Blossom:

The shape of the flower was fairly difficult to apply to such a small image, however I’ve tried to give the impression of some depth as the original flower is far from 2D. Obviously at this stage, the flower is roughly the same size as the character, throwing away any hope of proportion! The flower object will work at half this size, although a lot of the detail is lost.

The size I use will have to depend on which looks better in the game. The flowers needs to be conspicuous enough to stand out as collectable objects, but subtle enough to add an aspect of challenge. As it’s an important part of the game, I don’t think its colossal size will seem out of place, but aesthetics may prove otherwise.

To make the game a little less samey, I’ve been considering varying shapes and shades of flowers. This example is a very “standard” flower, with no irregularities. I was particular inspired to do a little palette-swapping by this image, which I included in my previous mood board:

This photo shows the Sakura Blossom in a completely different light (I’m being serious, no pun intended!) Color Explorer mainly picked out shades of blue from this example of the same flower (although it could be argued that this image had a lot more background influence…)

I especially like the silhouette in this image, which is kind of recognised as the official shape of the flower. It inspired me to recreate it in simplified vector form in Illustrator, which may well be transformed into a game asset later.

Sakura Mood Board

It’s not a real mood board, but this was easier than cutting and sticking! These are some of my favourite Google image search results from the keywords Sakura Blossom (Japanese name for Cherry Blossom.) The results are interesting because, although you’d generally associate the blossoms with the colour pink, the shades seem to vary infinitely throughout every image. This could partly be down to varying camera settings, but at times they are definitely represented as a very pale, fragile mass against a blue sky, and other times they are shown as a vibrant, luscious blossom.

The main point of this selection of images is to get a feel for the colour schemes of the flowers. They seem to have a huge impact on the areas around them, as if they emit their own colours against any background. I especially like the high contrast between the trees and the blue sky, although I similarly like the combination of browns and traditional Japanese reds.

In Hanami, I will probably be using tree sprites as background imagery, but most importantly, I must create a flower object which is collectable by the player!

Tiles & Sprites

I may have been wrong in a previous post where I stated that character sprites were often double the height of a single tile in 2D games. I’ve been working out some background tile to character sprite ratios, and firstly have found that there are very few recurring ratios, and secondly that there are a lot of games which use character sprites that are exactly the same height as their background tiles.

Most interestingly is that I hadn’t noticed this yet in any of the game I’ve previously written about on this Blog. In my head, I think I assumed that character sprites needed the extra detail provided by double height.

In Fez, Gomez measures the exact same height as the background tiles (with the exception of The Fez which sits on top of this height).

Again, in The Archer the character sprite and tile height are very similar, except for hats which seem to cause the illusion of height in games!

In Jonathan Lavigne’s Ninja Senki, the character sprite is not only the same height as the background tiles but is a pretty similar width too!

And in Cave Story, the character sprite for main character Quote is the exact same height as the tiles, however the NPC character is slightly taller.

What confuses me about this selection of new(ish) games, is why they all decided to work to these proportions. From an aesthetic point of view, I think it makes everything look neat and tidy, as every aligns nicely to a consistent grid. I can imagine that from a gameplay perspective, these proportions work in the favour of the player who must calculate jump and fire distances etc. However when I looked back at old NES platformers like the original Castlevania, Contra, Ghosts ‘n’ Goblins and Metroid it seemed that traditionally, character sprites were double the size of the background tiles (actually, in the case of Contra I couldn’t decide what size the tiles actually were, so I could be wrong!)

Background tiles half the height of character sprites:

One slight exception I found amongst old NES platformers, was the original Super Mario Bros, and similarly Kirby’s Adventure. In Super Mario Bros, Mario starts the game as a half-sized sprite, which is roughly the same shape as the background tiles.

However, this reduced size is probably just a way to leave room for growth when a mushroom is eaten:

This might similarly explain Kirby’s small size in Kirby’s Adventure, as Kirby expands when swallowing an item or enemy.

In this case, it’s probably just more likely that Nintendo have tried to show how small Kirby is in comparison to the world!

Even as we move into the world of 16-bit, sprite sizes remain consistent with previous versions of games. In Super Mario Bros 3, the sprite proportions remain pretty much the same as the original. In Super Matroid for SNES, character Samus seems slightly taller than before. She does wear a helmet though, so this additional height is another one of those hat things…

So the question is “who is right??”
After reading various forums, the general consensus is that it all dimensions are entirely the choice of the designer. There is no right or wrong, or good or bad. Which leaves me at a point in development where I need to make a choice… So for now, I’m going to concentrate on creating a sprite equal to the height of my (hypothetical) tiles. This means creating a sprite which is 16 pixels in height, rather than the 32 I was expecting to be using. Personally, I think this makes the game look nicer and hopefully will make it play fluently. I will have to convert if I find it difficult to add a decent amount of detail to my sprites, or if the space limitations make it difficult to animate, although I’m feeling pretty confident and inspired by my Indie Heroes who have proven 16px sprites to be ideal!

Xin Nian Kuai Le

Unless I’m horribly wrong and the internet has lied to me again, I may have just wished you a happy new year in Mandarin. Today’s fortune cookie told me I would make a name for myself, which is a fairly decent omen for the upcoming year of the Dragon. As a bonus, I’m up to date on my development timeline (which I will probably post soon so you know I’m not lying!) This week: Gather! (as in collecting my concept images and research, I think) and Experiment!

Zashiki-Warashi

I’ve spent most of today researching my little wrong-doer Zashiki-warashi to make sure its an appropriate choice for an antagonist. Its characteristics differ depending on the source, but there are a few constant characteristics which seem consistent in all accounts:

Zashiki-warashi takes the form of a child, boy or girl, between the ages of 3 and 12.
It prefers to live in large, old Japanese houses, and its presence is recognised from its little acts of mischief.
While it inhabits a home, the residing family receive great fortune.
Occasionally, a family member (normally a small child) will be able to see the Zashiki-warashi, but according to at least one account, only when it is about to leave.
Once the Zashiki-warashi has left, the family fall to ruin.

The Zashiki-warashi will not necessarily be placed in shrines, but I found this cute little Garden Statue which represents one! It’s though that you can attract a Zashiki-warashi by recognising its presence, so keeping one of these statues may help bring you luck. Due to the variations on the image of this spirit being, there are few visual sources on the internet, although the Hello Kitty at the top of the post is another representation!

For my Zashiki-warashi character, I’ve chosen a girl-ghost as a good adversary for my girl-hero. That way there’s no breach of male-female etiquette when it comes to conflict and in a way, they can relate to each other. Also, by coincidence the majority of the characters currently in working progress have turned out to be male, so this helps balance things out a little! I’ve tried to portray her as a good-natured being with a childish sense of mischief.

I’ve made sure to block out the eyes, as I’ve noticed in Jizou statues there’s never any eye detail. I attempted to convert my design into statue form in the top right hand corner, based on the photo of the statue I found. I somehow managed to make my drawing look more like a Kokeshi Doll than a statue, so I went with this for my colour version. The majority of Kokeshi dolls seem to have much less smiley disposition, so I used the opportunity to create something a little more sinister!
The article in the link suggests that originally the kokeshi dolls represented a “wish for a healthy child”, so my final design may well be a little wooden figure rather than a stone statue. But one with less wonky eyes and fewer graphite smudges:

Game Design: Where To Begin…

Again, I wish there was a solid answer here.

Back in Rules of Play, the book begins by defining the term game designer;

A game designer is a particular kind of designer, much like a graphic designer, industrial designer, or architect. A game designer is not necessarily a programmer, visual designer, or project manager, although sometimes he or she can also play these roles in the creation of a game.
The focus of the game designer is designing gameplay, conceiving and designer rules and structures that result in an experience for players.

Before a game is developed, it must to designed. The book emphasises iterative design, which is a design process. A game cannot be designed all at once, but is a drawn out process with a beginning and end.

Iterative design is a play-based design process. Emphasising playtesting and prototyping, iterative design is a method in which design decisions are made based on the experience of playing a game while it is in development. In an iterative methodology, a rough version of the game is rapidly prototyped as early in the design process as possible. This prototype has none of the aesthetic trappings of the final game, but begins to define its fundamental rules and core mechanics. This prototype is played, evaluated, adjusted, and played again, allowing the designer to base decisions om the successive iterations of the game. Iterative design is a cyclic process that alternates between prototyping, playtesting, evaluation and refinement.

I found this horrible little graphic demonstrating the Iterative Design process on Gamasutra, it’s not much to look at but it gets the point across. It’s something I want to constantly refer to, as I’ve previously attempted to evade making changes to my designs.

Jesse Schell says: A Game Begins With An Idea

1. Think of an idea
2. Try it out
3. Keep changing it and testing it until it seems good enough

In Jesse Schell’s book The Art Of Game Design, he uses cards which he calls “lenses” to convince the designer to look at game designer from different perspectives. In terms of conceptualising a design through an idea, he turns to the lens of infinite inspiration.

To you use this lens, stop looking at your game, and stop looking at games like it. Instead, look everywhere else.
Ask yourself these questions:
● What is an experience I have had in my life that I would want to share with others?
● In what small way can I capture the essence of that experience and put it into my game?

I’ve identified my “experience” as a desire to have an experience which I have not had yet! So, now I’m asking the question “how can I capture the essence?” Schell goes on to explain that every game is a solution to a problem. The problem could be a broad question, similar to ones I’ve already been asking myself. Something like:
“how can I make an fun, contemporary side-scrolling platformer?”
or more specific, like
“how can I make a videogame which represents Hanami?”

For the specialist project, I relied pretty heavily on the The Computer Game Design Course. The previous two books talk alot about designer, but this last book makes the transition from design to development. It’s almost a step-by-step guide for someone completely new to the industry, providing advice and frameworks for the entire process from conception to release. Once the game proposal is in place, it suggests that the following items are swiftly taken care of:
1. Asset Artwork
2. Interface
3. Story
4. Level Design
5. Game Mechanics
6. Audio
The result of a realisation of these things makes up the basis of the Game Design Document, which “expresses vision for the game, describes its contents and presents a plan for implementation” (Gamasutra). These considerations should be made before the game goes into development, so for me the next step is to make a start on this, to make sure I know what the game is, how it works, what it’s going to look like and how it’s going to sound through a process of experimentation.