GDC07 - Raphing It Up #1

[Vinadil]

I think the same used to be said of games... people used to be able to design a good game and then sit back and Quantify the "good" and "bad" points.  Now people often just try to take a list of established "good" points and build a game around them.  It may not work so well in that direction.

Trial and error development probably isn't acceptable on 30 million dollar multi-hundred man year projects.

Neither is: "A, B, C worked for EQ2 so let's do that... X, Y, Z worked for WoW... let's try that too."  I think what Raph was getting to was that there needs to be some level of REAL fun that goes beyond just the numbers and the post-production reviews of previous games.  When you START with the analysis stuff and try to Create fun you often end up with a game that just Misses quite obvious things.

[Murgos]

I sort of disagree.  I think you can analyze what was fun in something else and attempt to duplicate it or hopefully build on it.  You do have to remain objective enough to look at what's not working and either fix it, replace it or cut it all together though.

You simply aren't going to get funding for a project unless you can make some rational presentation on why your project should get funding ahead of someone else's.  That is going to require analysis upfront.

[Vinadil]

I sort of disagree.  I think you can analyze what was fun in something else and attempt to duplicate it or hopefully build on it.  You do have to remain objective enough to look at what's not working and either fix it, replace it or cut it all together though.

You simply aren't going to get funding for a project unless you can make some rational presentation on why your project should get funding ahead of someone else's.  That is going to require analysis upfront.

True enough... but I wonder if a game in which you just fly a bird would ever be created using that process.  Now, I don't know if the bird thing is something you could take to, say, Microsoft and get $30 million for, but the point remains.  Since we all have VG on the brain I will use it as an example.  When I look at the engine and world they have created I long to do certain things... like be a part of a guild that builds a large City and then defends it from the ravaging hordes (I play PvP servers pretty exclusively these days).  Obviously the people who designed VG did not have those same thoughts... why?  Possibly because they were using the "successful" parts of EQ, WoW, etc. to design their own game.  So, things like "premier dungeons" and "Raids" and "bigger than yours seamless world" were at the forefront.  But, are any of those things "Fun" by default?  Obviously not.  I think sometimes people stopped asking "Why was that fun?" or "Why did that work well?"

[Furiously]

Computers are not good for some sorts of fun....

     Personally I think snowball fights are fun. Maybe it's thrillseeking, knowing that if snow gets down your back - it is not going to feel good and getting that secret delight of nailing someone just right. Now lets translate it to a computer game.

     It's really just a game of pong where you try to not get the ball to hit your bar. Boy, that would be fun for about 10 minutes if it was done REALLY REALLY well.

[Sir Fodder]

Music, art, philosophy, and science/math (am I forgetting one?) all lead to the same thing: Rome? No. God? maybe. Fun? Oooh yea! The starting point of making a game (based on math, based on feelings, based on ideas) doesn't predetermine the outcome, the process is the important part. Journey is the destination yadda yadda.

I'm still not getting the math design ---> game, anxiety thing. I did read that paper before I posted the first time, maybe I'll take another go at it...

[Vinadil]

Agreed that the process is the important thing... and in that Process, the GOAL is the key.  I have not been a part of any game development, but even from my limited information (seen screens/vids of developers and such) it seems to be spreadsheets linked to graphics, spreadsheets linked to sounds, spreadsheets linked to lighting, etc.

Even in my line of work (that is very people-oriented and "creative") if you don't have a strong and continually resounding message of "THIS is what we are going for" then you can get lost in the process.  I imagine that is even more of a possibility when your daily tasks for months and months is to make sure a certain spreadsheet does not conflict with a separate spreadsheet.

Communicating the "Fun" factor of a game to the point where every piece of the development team Gets It and Agrees with it is crucial.  That might be one of the reasons why a 6-man team can be better than a 60-man team.