Gaming Corner: How to Design Games that Protect the Player From Themselves

 As a game designer you have many responsibilities you are trying to juggle and one of the biggest one is making a game that allows the player to naturally come to the playstyle, conclusion, methods that you want for the game. Often this is done through great game loops that require the player to hold a mechanic in their head as the progress through the game, forcing currency collection through desired means, or through a much more heavy handed directed experience.   I personally feel that the best place to be when designing a game is to make your desired gameplay, outcome, takeaway but the ONLY one that makes sense. You can get real really bonus points if you can do this within the games universe. As Mark highlights in his video, XCOM did this through adding more mechanics to the system. This was a fantastic idea to ensure the player was getting the experience they wanted, though I can't really speak to the success and reception as I personally only experienced it when it had the turn limits. I am rather sad that this change came after the game was released though as the players had established their styles and gameplay based on the experience presented and after the change had to relearn and change to fit the system. This could have lead to a MUCH better experience for the player but I cant help but feel this can cause players to feel like they were playing the game wrong or that the game is "no longer their cup of tea".   The big takeaway here is to learn how to exploit your game. Whether that is just through bugs that you find, or through finding and edge case scenario that allows great abuse of your systems. Always remember that you will not find all the bugs and people will always look for the easy option when able to.   

How Game Designers Protect Players From Themselves | Game Maker's Toolkit  

GMT Main Page

#Game #Design #XCOM #MarkBrown #GMT #GameMakersToolkit