Digital Prototyping
This week in class we looked at the various processes of digital prototyping, how prototyping helps, the tools used, what the four areas of prototyping are and how to represent them accurately within our prototypes. We also talked about viewpoints, and effective interface design.
The fours areas of digital prototyping are a main focus of digital prototyping. These four areas are game mechanics, aesthetics, kinesthetics and technology. Game mechanics have to do with the rules of gameplay and how the game world works - how it restricts the player and how it is structured to be challenging and fun at the same time. Aesthetics deal with how the game looks and what we can do to make it more juicy. Aesthetics also deal with sound and how natural the game world feels based on the sound in the environment. Kinesthetics handle the feel of the game and how responsive the interface might be for players. Technology encompasses all the software needed to make the game work in technical way.
This blog is going to be a summary and an expansion of what we heard in the lecture and how it relates to digital prototyping with our own game this semester.
Game Mechanics
This is one of the four areas of investigation. These are the formal aspects of our game. When we were busy creating multiple board games last semester, we were in essence creating game mechanics in prototypes. The rules of gameplay and the way the game world is structured is all included within this field. A game designer will continually change the dynamics of their system to find out what works well and what must be scrapped. It is important to remember that game mechanics in a prototype should be simple and don't have to be standalone programs. They should be built to focus on a particular design question and then developed by changing several variables to see how this affects the player's experience.
Once you know what your core mechanic is, you can build up your game logic from there and be more liberal with your experimentation in mechanics. You must decide what equations and formulas represent the change in resources or enemy statistics within your game and how to tweak these numbers for optimal gameplay value. In our GDW game, we are concerned with things like enemy A.I. and steering behavior which is crucial for our game to do well. We need to know what to change, what to keep and how to make the player enjoy the game. Questions we ask in regards to gameplay include: Will our power-ups make gameplay easier? Will they visually impact the player's ship? Will they make the game too easy? Will the level of power-up be different depending on the player type? Will we have to account for various power-ups based on the player's ship build? Will player's be able to purchase these in-between levels? Will players be able to keep their power-ups on to the next level?
These are all game design questions that have yet to be answered in order for us to set up appropriate rules of play that will reward the player for doing well and will keep them playing for more than just a couple of hours.
Aesthetics
Aesthetically, our prototype needs to represent the graphical and aural features that will really make our game pop. It is essential for our game to be easy on the eyes and for us to keep things fresh and interesting as far as animations, interface and audio goes. A few particles, wind effects, sounds played in various places, even the bounce in a character's step is considered when prototyping aesthetics.
Storyboards, concept art, animatics, interface prototypes and audio sketches are all beneficial tools to prototyping aesthetics effectively for your game. When you're in the beginning stages of development it is important to come up with a visual style for your game that remains consistent. Games like Mad World (black, white and red) are appealing because of their unique aesthetics. Borderlands is a good example of border edges and toon shading being highly effective within a game. Not only should your visual style be consistent, but your aural style should be as well. In prototyping, giving players examples of how your animations will play out or what your background music will be in certain levels can be the make or break point.
It is good to keep in mind that no aesthetic style is set in stone and that the whole purpose of prototyping is to discover what works and what doesn't. If you create a color palette that you really enjoy but that gives most people headaches, it is time to re-consider your interface. Creating an interface that appeals to your audience can definitely be challenging and we face several of those challenges in our GDW game as well. One of our main concerns was whether or not the player would be able to see a dark ship in outer space. We weren't planning on making the ship bright neon colours but maybe we could give them an outer-edge glow to stand out amongst all the other object and enemies in the space. We also wondered whether the player should be able to see the whole space they are playing in or should they only see part of the map. This brought us to the question of possibly adding a minimap to the game which would represent where the player was relative to the entire level space.
Kinesthetics
This particular area of digital prototyping deals mainly with how your game feels in the hands of the player. How does your control scheme and interface work together and how are these responsive to a player's basic instincts. An example of this is the common standard for PC games to have the same WASD key mapping for movement or using the triggers to shoot in Playstation 3 and XBox 360 games. Players grow accustomed to certain control schemes so changing what they're used to mind yield unique results but might not bode well for your game, kinesthetically speaking.
Certain elements of your game can feel like objects in the real world or could even feel completely unlike anything in the real world depending on the feel you're trying to go for. The driving system in GTA IV for example has terrific similarity to driving cars in the real world simply in relation to the weighting, handling and speed of any car you step into. Other games like Mario Kart feel unrealistic but fun, which was exactly what the designers were going for. The game's interface of course plays a large part in its feel and works to make or break a game. Simple interfaces usually work well without having to worry about a hidden information structure. However, organized information on the screen also works (such as in the case of game like Civilization) if done right.
As far as our GDW game goes, we have discussed at lengths what control scheme to use for our game and what would feel the most natural. After taking a look at Geometry Wars and Call of Duty: Black Ops Zombie Arcade, we had decided that twin-stick shooters would probably work best for our purposes. We still, however, have several concerns about the interface of the game and how players will respond to the current schemes and layout. We're not sure whether the embedded minimap will make sense and we're not sure whether we should have trailing particles in order for the ship to look like it's being propelled through space.
Technology
When we talk about prototyping technology, we focus on graphics, A.I., physics and the production pipeline. Technology can be restrictive or helpful when implementing gameplay specific features. The process of prototyping is to learn what works and what doesn't in order to make your game better. It's not so much about software engineering and creating a complex code base, prototyping technology is about finding the right toolbox to prototype something quick and dirty. It's about going out there and seeing where you can find good prototypes to represent your graphics, A.I. systems, physics, etc. Most of the time, the code shouldn't be your own but should represent what you want in your final game.
In terms of prototyping technology for our GDW game, we have all the code we need within the 2Loc engine used for development. The real challenge comes in mastering an engine that isn't our own and figuring out how to work it so that it does what we need it to. This is no simple task and takes a lot of time and dedication but the engine itself has everything we may need to prototype our game effectively. When we prototype technology we might not use the same language since the underlying idea is to learn about what kind of behaviour we want in our code and what data structures we can use to get there. It is purely a learning experience and as such, it is important to use prototyping to validate good ideas and refute bad ones.
Control Schemes
Control schemes are very important to help the player connect with your game. The design of your control scheme should be good and intuitive so that the player may pick up the controller and learn how to play your game in a short period of time. This is why many games follow similar control schemes (X to jump, trigger to shoot, O to crouch, etc.) so that players familiar with the basic standard are able to pick up and play your game right away. If a player spends the majority of their first playthrough figuring out what to do or how to control their character then you haven't understood or made use of the capabilities of your controller.
The Wii-mote is especially good at crafting control schemes and controllers themselves that work with a player's basic sense of intuition. For example, Wii golf can be played with a club controller, shooting games can be played with a gun controller and racing games with steering wheel. Your control schemes should be tested with effortlessness in mind. Procedures should be aptly mapped to the controller and should feel intuitive to players so they feel like they have complete control of their character. This might lead to tweaking procedures within your game, taking out actions, adding actions, so on and so forth.
It is a designers job to make sure the player feels satisfaction when defeating an enemy or completing an objective based on the feedback they may receive from their controller. A rumble here and a rumble there can be very effective in truly immersing the player, but too much of this can seriously harm the game.
Viewpoints
This defines what the player sees, their view of the game world at all times and helps the player define where they are in relationship to game objects/characters. Based on the player's viewpoint they have a degree of access to the state of the game world. Viewpoints vary from overhead to side to isometric to first and third person views. There are games (like Age of Empires) that display the vast expanse of a battlefield but restrict the player's view of their opponent's colony. Other games, like GTA IV show the entire city at a time and allow the player to visit any corner at any time.
Viewpoints are important in relation to a game's information structure and to the player's direct experience. When in first-person view the player may feel closer to the character's mindset whereas a third-person view would cause players to feel like they are controlling their character like a puppet. This also aids with story progression and plot development as well as the formal and dramatic elements within the game.
Interface Design
Interface design enables the player to interact with your game and receive feedback when doing so. It is a manner in which a player receives pertinent information and is able to figure out where to go or what to do within the game environment. Metaphors are very common in interface design and can be used to help players identify where certain feature and mechanics may be. A good example of this is the cell phone in GTA 5 being used to make calls, get missions and spawn vehicles. This type of design is intuitive as a player will be able to identify with the ability to call their friends or contacts.
Groupings which house collective features and elements within an interface are useful and effective. An example of this is the backpack in Borderlands which acts as the inventory, map and skill point upgrade system. This makes sense from a design perspective because most travelers would keep maps and in their backpack with the rest of the items they collect (guns, med kits, etc.). The golden rule of interface design is "Form follows function."
In Conclusion
There is much to learn with digital prototyping. At the end of the day, it is simply a way to help your game grow, to test it our while you still have the chance to change features and to make it better by receiving input. There are several caveats that come with digital prototyping and as a game designer it is important to remember the way to prototype effectively and to help the player connect with your game on more than a superficial level.
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