Category: Game design theory

Something Completely Different

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The playtesting project is winding down, just in time for the group testing I’m hoping to get in this weekend. On Friday I’ll have a couple of fixes for issues that have arisen, along with a bunch of playtest data and some thoughts on the results.

Since Over the Next Dune will really be taking over soon, I wanted to take a moment to talk through an idea that’s been bouncing around in my head. I’m always a little wary of working on a second project when the first is at the difficult testing-and-refining stage; it’s easy for the new project to become an excuse for avoiding the grindy part of game design. However, I think it’s safe if we all agree to keep this brief for now. 😉

The idea is this: in writing, one can use things like sentence structure to make a point. In Frankenstein the main character tends to use long sentences to describe nature, giving a sense of the natural world’s power and constancy, while using shorter sentences when describing what he himself did, suggesting his agitation and hurry. Can the same thing be achieved in game design? How far can one use the structure of the game, not just to make the game work, but to focus attention and bring about a reaction in the players?

I’m envisioning as a test case a miniatures game patterned on the Dynasty Warriors series of video games. In those games one plays a character who fights his or her way through hordes of trivial and easily-defeated opponents on the way to a final one-on-one confrontation with a villain. By hordes I mean hordes–tens of people attacking all at once. There’s a clear break between the waves of thugs, who are not especially dangerous and are mainly there to be swept aside in ways that emphasize how mighty the player is, and the “boss” at the end who is a legitimate challenge.

The game would be built from the ground up to create that sense of escalating tension and player empowerment. Everything, from the rulebook to the rules themselves to the playing field to the miniatures, would contribute to it. For example, each player might control some thugs and a major warrior. The rules for the thugs would be brief even to read, inculcating from one’s first exposure to the game the idea that these pieces aren’t important and that the player can dispatch them quickly. By contrast, the rules for doing battle with the opponent’s leader-warrior would be much lengthier, so that before one even begins play one has the sense that that battle will be more involved–that it will deserve more focus.

It’s just an idea, but it’s one I think could be a lot of fun. Dynasty Warriors games are rarely critical darlings, but they have a devoted fanbase; for all their technical sins they work as power fantasies. A minis game aimed entirely toward delivering that same sense of I am awesome could be a blast. Perhaps the next project after OtND?

Theory: The Limits of Rules

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In discussing game design postulates, I proposed that one of them should be that a game is defined by its rules. What happens when someone acts in a manner which is plainly objectionable, but is not specifically addressed by the rulebook? Where are the limits of a game’s rules?

The classic example of this, in my mind, was suggested in one of Dave Sirlin’s articles: kicking your opponent in the shin. Obviously that’s not acceptable, but it’s very rare for a game’s rules to cover physically striking the opponent (contact sports aside). Surely games which do not explicitly make hitting illegal do not include hitting–but why?

Another, somewhat murkier example, can be found in a story about the Babylon 5 CCG that made the rounds years ago. For those not familiar with the game, it was based on a TV show which might be very briefly summarized as “the United Nations in space.” Like its namesake, the CCG was heavily political; it was played in a group and everyone was encouraged to wheel and deal.

As I remember it, the story went as follows: a husband and wife were playing in a game with several other people. One of couple offered the other a foot rub in return for attacking another player (or not attacking, or something). The other accepted, and the rest of the table was irked. I think there’s general agreement that this deal was fishy, and I agree, but I’ve never had or heard a really satisfactory explanation as to why.

Sirlin’s discussion of this sort of behavior concludes that “[a]ny reasonable person would consider ‘no cheating from outside the game’ to be part of the default rule set of any game.” That’s fair, but it’s more useful for tournament organizers than for designers. If I were running a tournament I could respond to a cheater who argued a lacuna in the rules by citing Sirlin. As a designer, saying “players shouldn’t cheat” doesn’t tell me when they’re out of bounds, or how far the bounds should extend.

In light of this issue, I’m considering modifying the postulate as follows: a game is defined by its rules and by the resources the rules make available to the players. When a player takes advantage of a resource not permitted him or her as part of the game’s design, the player is playing a different game just the same as if the player were using a mod or following a house rule.

This adequately addresses Sirlin’s example. Street Fighter and similar video games assign to players as resources their respective in-game characters (including special moves, hitboxes, canceling opportunities, and everything else that makes up a fighting game character). They also give players control over those characters, with all the skill, practice, and talent that players may bring to that control. Leg strength and pain tolerance are not resources provided to the players, and hence the game does not include the use of those resources.

I think it also provides a satisfactory answer to the spouses’ deal in the B5CCG. While the right to negotiate was provided by that game’s rules, foot rubs were not. As a result, offering and accepting one were outside the game’s parameters. From the perspective of the game in progress it was poor form and perhaps even cheating; from the perspective of the game’s design the spouses had begun playing a variant where some players begin the game with a special resource not available to others.

I’ve written more drafts of this post than any other, and even now I’m not entirely certain that I’ve reached a good resting place. Are there issues with the new postulate that I haven’t addressed? Situations it doesn’t answer? Let me know what you think.

Love Letter and Keeping Decisions Interesting

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I had the opportunity a little while ago to play Love Letter. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it turned out to be a great game–fun, a bit silly, easy to learn, good for a group that’s looking for something light. What particularly struck me, though, was the way its designer approached the very last decision players make. I went into the game expecting that to work one way, found that it was in fact completely different, and I learned a lot from the innovative solution.

For those not familiar with Love Letter, it essentially goes as follows. The game is played with a small deck of cards, each with a value and some text that does something when the card is played (e.g., look at the card an opponent has in hand or try to guess an opponent’s card to knock him or her out of the round). Players begin each turn with one card in hand. On his or her turn a player draws a second card, and then plays one of the two. When there are no cards to draw each player shows the card remaining in his or her hand, with the highest value winning the round.

The example of card text above suggests a fundamental strategy in the game: get information to make your plays more effective. Playing “look at an opponent’s card” first makes it much easier to guess that opponent’s card and knock him or her out!

In addition to cards that give information by their text, players can glean useful data by keeping track of the cards that have already been used. There are two Princes in the deck; if both have already been played, then no one has another in hand and “Prince” cannot be the right guess.

Most card games treat gaining information as strictly good, and use the last play as a reward for doing it well. Tichu rounds, for example, often involve a player with a strong hand tracking cards played (and the implications of those cards for what opponents have in their hands) until he or she knows the optimal order in which to put forward his or her remaining cards. If everything goes well, the last play is a formality that seals the player’s win.

Love Letter takes a different approach. At the start of each round, a random card is taken out of the deck and put aside without revealing what it is. As a result, one almost never reaches the point of having complete information. Even if one has carefully tallied all of the cards played, and made good judgments about what opponents are holding based on that information, one will still go into the last play with some uncertainty.

When we first encountered the take-out-a-card rule I was mystified. Introducing uncertainty to the last play seemed to take away the reward for gathering information–that “locked in” moment where one has complete knowledge of who is holding what and can make perfect moves. Preventing players from reaching total information, I felt, meant that the game could never amount to more than guessing; more informed guessing over time, perhaps, but guessing nonetheless.

Yet, as we played I noticed that the set-aside card changed the dynamic a great deal from what Tichu had accustomed me to. As a round of Tichu goes on it can become less interesting; the player with the best hand gets more information, increasing his or her control over the round, while the others see what is happening and start going through the motions. By contrast, everyone was engaged in rounds of Love Letter until either the round ended or they were knocked out. Keeping some uncertainty, even in the last play, meant that the last player could never set up a guaranteed victory and the other players could always hope to luck out.

In designing OtND I want to make sure that the players are making interesting decisions. Love Letter showed me that I need to expand that rule: those decisions should be interesting until the very end. Tichu is great, and its substantial rewards for gathering information are a part of its experience. However, I think OtND is closer to the casual Love Letter than to the brain-burning Tichu, and that the former is therefore a better model for OtND’s design.  I’ll be keeping an eye out during the playtesting project for situations where the endgame is locked in, and if that happens frequently we’ll explore ways to keep OtND engaging in the later rounds.

Prototyping Materials

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A bit of a change of pace today . . . .

I’ve built a number of prototypes for games, and have seen others’ prototypes as well. In so doing I’ve learned some lessons that I thought might be useful to others.

1. Invest in 3″ x 5″ cards. These are very cheap and can be used for just about anything. Every game I’ve thought up that’s had cards has started out with the text just jotted down on these (the cards have a bit of rigidity, so they can be shuffled). The first searchers for OtND were cut out of 3×5 cards. I’ve even used them as backing for my current set of searchers, to help protect them from the slings and arrows of outrageous storage solutions.

What’s especially great about 3×5 cards is that they make experimenting a snap. Don’t like how a certain game element is working out? No problem! Put that card to the side and write up a new one. No need for cutting something out, printing, or other barriers to the process. A game in its early stages is going to change constantly, and with 3×5 cards those changes are quick and easy.

I feel like a shill for a paper company, but I’m very serious: if you have a pack of 3″ x 5″ cards from the dollar store you can mock up a game.

2. Foam board is great. If you want something a little sturdier than a 3×5 card, this is the stuff to get. It’s light but has a nice thickness to it and is plenty strong. I make boards for OtND out of it, but I’ve also seen it used for individual playing pieces with great success. If I were making a “demonstration copy” of OtND 3/16″ thick foam board is what I would use.

This is also very cheap, and craft stores often have coupons. I’ve linked to Michaels above because (a) that’s where I know to get foam board and (b) they have a weekly coupon online which is often quite good.

3. Look into “generic” and reusable materials. Jay Treat has built a prototype out of lego. Another designer I know buys decks of cards that are just numbers 1-12 in different colors; he uses them for early testing of new mechanics, when the theme isn’t ready and it’s just necessary to find out if the gameplay can work. There’s also no shame in pulling pieces from games you already own. No one will be able to tell if your wooden cubes are repurposed, and even if they could it wouldn’t hurt anything. Just make sure you know where everything came from, and in what amounts. 😉

Perhaps the overriding theme is don’t spend more than you have to. Many games don’t work out, and there’s no sense in putting a lot of money and time into a concept that might be destined for the scrapheap. Simple, inexpensive, preferably reusable materials are great for early versions, and you won’t be out-of-pocket too much if a game falls flat. Keep that money for when you’ve got something that really sings and deserves the star treatment.

Theory: Zileas’ List of Game Design Anti-Fun Patterns

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One thing I greatly respect about Riot Games, makers of League of Legends, is that they design according to rules. I don’t think they structure their analysis quite like I am on this blog, but the fundamental approach of logic-ing out problems through comparison to established principles is very similar.

Below is a list, originally posted in 2010, of some of the rules Riot’s VP of Game Design uses. I’m reposting them here because I like to keep them handy, and as food for thought. Don’t worry if you aren’t familiar with LoL, DotA, or the other games referenced–the rules are stated in a way that doesn’t rely on the examples.

* * *

I’ve been asked a few times, “Why don’t you do stuff like Rupture (from DOTA Bloodseeker) in LoL?”

I usually respond — Rupture contains several basic design ‘anti-patterns’. I thought I’d post for the benefit of those who are interested what strong anti-patterns I am aware of.

So… Here are a few that come to mind…. Note that you can find an example of each of these somewhere in our game at some intensity level. Sometimes this is just bad design. Sometimes this is because we got something else in exchange. Design is an optimization — but these anti-patterns are of negative design value, so you should only do them if you get something good in return.

To be clear, LoL has a number of abilities that use these anti-patterns. Sometimes it’s because we got something good in return. Sometimes it’s because we made design errors. However, we generally avoid them nonetheless, and certainly use them a lot less than other games in our genre.

Note: All WoW examples refer to original and BC WoW, not cataclsym.

Power Without Gameplay
This is when we give a big benefit in a way that players don’t find satisfying or don’t notice. The classic example of this is team benefit Auras. In general, other players don’t value the aura you give them very much, and you don’t value it much either — even though auras can win games. As a REALLY general example, I would say that players value a +50 armor aura only about twice as much as a +10 armor aura… Even though +50 is 5x better. Another example would be comparing a +10 damage aura to a skill that every 10 seconds gives flaming weapons that make +30 damage to all teammates next attack (with fire and explosions!). I am pretty sure that most players are WAY more excited about the fiery weapons buff, even though the strength is lower overall.

The problem with using a “power without gameplay” mechanic is that you tend to have to ‘over-buff’ the mechanic and create a game balance problem before people appreciate it. As a result, we tend to keep Auras weak, and/or avoid them altogether, and/or pair them on an active/passive where the active is very strong and satisfying, so that the passive is more strategic around character choice. For example, Sona’s auras are all quite weak — because at weak values they ARE appreciated properly.

Burden of Knowledge
This is a VERY common pattern amongst hardcore novice game designers. This pattern is when you do a complex mechanic that creates gameplay — ONLY IF the victim understands what is going on. Rupture is a great example — with Rupture in DOTA, you receive a DOT that triggers if you, the victim, choose to move. However, you have no way of knowing this is happening unless someone tells you or unless you read up on it online… So the initial response is extreme frustration. We believe that giving the victim counter gameplay is VERY fun — but that we should not place a ‘burden of knowledge’ on them figuring out what that gameplay might be. That’s why we like Dark Binding and Black Shield (both of which have bait and/or ‘dodge’ counter gameplay that is VERY obvious), but not Rupture, which is not obvious.

In a sense, ALL abilities have some burden of knowledge, but some have _a lot more_ — the ones that force the opponent to know about a specific interaction to ‘enjoy’ the gameplay have it worst.

Good particle work and sound — good ‘salesmanship’ — will reduce burden of knowledge (but not eliminate it). We still would not do Rupture as is in LoL ever, but I would say that the HON version of Rupture, with it’s really distinct sound effect when you move, greatly reduces the burden of knowledge on it.

In summary, all mechanics have some burden of knowledge, and as game designers, we seek to design skills in a way that gives us a lot of gameplay, for not too much burden of knowledge. If we get a lot more gameplay from something, we are willing to take on more burden of knowledge — but for a given mechanic, we want to have as little burden of knowledge as possible.

Unclear Optimization
This is a more subtle one. when players KNOW they’ve used a spell optimally, they feel really good. An example is disintegrate on Annie. When you kill a target and get the mana back, you know that you used it optimally, and this makes the game more fun. On the other hand, some mechanics are so convoluted, or have so many contrary effects, that it is not possible to ‘off the cuff’ analyze if you played optimally, so you tend not to be satisfied. A good example of this is Proudmoore’s ult in DOTA where he drops a ship. The ship hits the target a bit in the future, dealing a bunch of damage and some stun to enemies. Allies on the other hand get damage resistance and bonus move speed, but damage mitigated comes up later. Very complicated! And almost impossible to know if you have used it optimally — do you really want your squishies getting into the AOE? Maybe! Maybe not… It’s really hard to know that you’ve used this skill optimally and feel that you made a ‘clutch’ play, because it’s so hard to tell, and there are so many considerations you have to make. On the other hand, with Ashe’s skill shot, if you hit the guy who was weak and running, you know you did it right… You also know you did it right if you slowed their entire team… Ditto on Ezreal’s skill shot.

Use Pattern Mis-matches Surrounding Gameplay
I won’t go into too much detail on this, but the simple example is giving a melee DPS ability to a ranged DPS character — the use pattern on that is to force move to melee, then use. This does not feel good, and should be avoided. I’m sure you are all thinking — but WoW mages are ranged, and they have all these melee abilities! Well… Frost Nova is an escape, and the various AEs are fit around a _comprehensive_ different mage playstyle that no longer is truly ‘ranged’ and is mechanically supported across the board by Blizzard — so the rules don’t apply there ;p

Fun Fails to Exceed Anti-Fun
Anti-fun is the negative experience your opponents feel when you do something that prevents them from ‘playing their game’ or doing activities they consider fun. While everything useful you can do as a player is likely to cause SOME anti-fun in your opponents, it only becomes a design issue when the ‘anti-fun’ created on your use of a mechanic is greater than your fun in using the mechanic. Dark Binding is VERY favorable on this measurement, because opponents get clutch dodges just like you get clutch hits, so it might actually create fun on both sides, instead of fun on one and weak anti-fun on another. On the other hand, a strong mana burn is NOT desirable — if you drain someone to 0 you feel kinda good, and they feel TERRIBLE — so the anti-fun is exceeded by the fun. This is important because the goal of the game is for players to have fun, so designers should seek abilities that result in a net increase of fun in the game. Basic design theory, yes?

Conflicted Purpose
This one is not a super strong anti-pattern, but sometimes it’s there. A good example of this would be a 500 damage nuke that slows enemy attack speed by 50% for 10 seconds (as opposed to say, 20%), on a 20 second cooldown. At 50%, this is a strong combat initiation disable… but at 500 damage it’s a great finisher on someone who is running… but you also want to use it early to get the disable — even though you won’t have it avail by the end of combat usually to finish. This makes players queasy about using the ability much like in the optimization case, but it’s a slightly different problem. If the ability exists for too many different purposes on an explicit basis, it becomes confusing. this is different from something like blink which can be used for many purposes, but has a clear basic purpose — in that place, players tend to just feel creative instead.

Anti-Combo
This one is bad. This is essentially when one ability you have diminishes the effectiveness of another in a frustrating manner. Some examples:
– Giving a character a ‘break-on-damage’ CC with a DOT (yes, warlocks have this, but they tuned it to make it not anti-combo much at all)
– With Warriors in WoW — they need to get rage by taking damage so that they can use abilities and gain threat — but parry and dodge, which are key to staying alive, make them lose out on critical early fight rage. So, by gearing as a better tank, you become a worse tank in another dimension — anti combo!
– With old warrior talent trees in WoW, revenge would give you a stun — but stunned enemies cannot hit you and cause rage gain… So this talent actually reduced your tanking capability a lot in some sense! Anti-combo!

False Choice — Deceptive Wrong Choice
This is when you present the player with one or more choices that appear to be valid, but one of the choices is just flat wrong. An example of this is an ability we had in early stages recently. It was a wall like Karthus’ wall, but if you ran into it, it did damage to you, and then knocked you towards the caster. In almost every case, this is a false choice — because you just shoudln’t go there ever. If it was possible for the character to do a knockback to send you into the wall, it wouldn’t be as bad. Anyhow, there’s no reason to give players a choice that is just plain bad — the Tomb of Horrors (original module) is defined by false choices — like the room with three treasure chests, all of which have no treasure and lethal traps.

False Choice — Ineffective Choice
Similar to above, except when you give what appears to be an interesting choice that is then completely unrewarding, or ineffective at the promised action. An older version of Swain’s lazer bird had this failing… Because the slow was so large, you could never run away in time to de-leash and break the spell and reduce damage, and in cases you did, you’d just dodge 20% of the damage at a big cost of movement and DPS — so running was just an ineffective choice.

Or We Could **** the Player!!1111oneoneone
This is where you straight up screw over the player, usually with dramatic flair, or maybe just try to make the player feel crappy in a way that isn’t contributing to the fun of the game. These range in severity, but examples usually are spawned because the designer is a pretentious wanker who likes to show what a smart dude he is and how stupid the player is. I do not respect designers who engage in this pattern intentionally, and encourage any design lead out there to immediately fire any of your staff that does. I do understand that it can happen inadvertently, and that you might cause some of this stress on purpose in an RPG for character development.. And of course, I love you WoW team despite the ‘playing vs’ experience of Rogue and Warlock, as you DO have the best classes of any MMO, and they look even better in Cataclysm…. But, on Bayonetta, did the developers really think the stone award was a good idea? But I digress…

Very Severe: The original tomb of horrors D&D module is the worst in existence. Good examples are the orb of annihilation that doesnt look like one and instakills you and all your gear if you touch it, and the three treasure chests where each has no loot and deadly traps and no clues that this is the case.

Severe: There’s a popular wc3 map in China where you enter a bonus round, and have a 2% chance of just straight up dying rather than getting cool loot.

Situationally Moderate:Horrify + fear kiting from a competent warlock who outgears you in WoW. Guess what? You die before getting to react, while watching it in slow motion!

Mild: Stone award in Bayonetta. So… you barely get through the level for the first time, then get laughed at by the game with a lame statue of the comic relief character, and a mocking laugh. Please — maybe a bronze award and a 500 pt bonus might be more appropriate? The player might have worked VERY hard to get through the level, espec on normal and higher difficulties.

Non-Reliability
Skills are tools. Players count on them to do a job. When a skill is highly unreliable, we have to overpower it to make it ‘satisfying enough’. Let me give you an example: Let’s say Kayle’s targeted invulnerability ult had a 95% chance of working, and a 5% chance of doing nothing when cast. We’d have to make it a LOT stronger to make it ‘good enough’ because you could not rely upon it… and it would be a lot less fun. Random abilities have this problem on reliability — they tend to be a lot less satisfying, so you have to overpower them a lot more. Small amounts of randomness can add excitement and drama, but it has a lot of downsides. There are other examples of non-reliability, but randomness is the most obvious one. Abilities that require peculiar situations to do their jobs tend to run into the same problems, such as Tryndamere’s shout that only slows when targets are facing away from him.

Theory: Game Design Postulates

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I said last time that “awkward rules are bad” felt like a postulate. After some further consideration, I believe I was mistaken in seeing a postulate there. However, it did get me thinking about underlying ideas in game design; just because awkardness-is-bad might not be a postulate doesn’t mean there aren’t any.

Now, I haven’t taken a math course for a very long time. However, in my memory (and a very brief internet search seems to agree), a postulate is something that can’t be proven through logic, but is so self-evident that it can be assumed as a foundational matter. In Euclidian geometry, a line can be drawn between any two points because it’s sensible for that to be true; one can’t prove it by building up from something else, but it’s so intuitive that there’s no cause to dispute it.

By contrast, “awkward rules are bad” is not as foundational as the properties of a line in geometry. A game can work with awkward rules. Furthermore, it’s not self-evident that awkwardness in rules is a problem. I grew up playing Avalon Hill wargames, and at the time I found their somewhat arcane rules charming. I enjoyed the challenge of figuring the game out, and when I had succeeded I felt like I had joined a select group who were initiated into a secret (admittedly the secrets were things like “how the wind rules interact with artillery smoke to block line of sight over the battlefield,” but still). Nor can I say that the proposition is inherently unprovable. If awkward rules are a problem, there ought to be reasons why and examples showing it.

With that said, I would like to lay down two things that I think really are postulates:

1. Fun is the goal. My interest here is in creating fun games. This blog isn’t about things like the prisoner’s dilemma; that’s a game, true, and it has fascinating implications for the field of game theory, but it’s not meant to be entertaining. My objective is to make fun games, and to understand better how one goes about doing so.

2. A game is defined by its rules. When one plays by different rules, intentionally or unintentionally, one is playing a different game. Monopoly is an enormously different experience when one puts money under Free Parking; strategies that work in a fighting game played without a timer will surely fail when the timer is turned on. (Seriously, turn the timer on. The designers included it for a reason. I can tell you from experience that the game will be better.) To participate in, understand, evaluate, and ultimately learn from a game one must play it by its rules; otherwise one is studying some other game.

The second postulate shows why the rulebook for Over the Next Dune needs to reflect how it is actually played, an idea I tripped on a bit in the last post. If OtND has any value (and I hope it does!), I want people to play it. If they are playing some other game they are not getting the value I want them to receive. In fact, I am concerned that they will get much less, because the game they are playing has not been tested and may very well be terrible. (OK, Over the Next Dune might also currently be terrible; part of the project here is to make it better!) Making sure that the rulebook is correct will help guide players to what I anticipate will be a good experience.

Neither of these postulates, however, directly addresses the issue of awkward rules. We’ll take that up in the future.

Theory: What is “counterplay?”

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When I was in college I took a lot of political science courses. In those classes we confronted, again and again, the problem of definitional confusion: arguments started and persisted because people were using the same words to mean different things. It was impossible for theorists to agree on what the implications of “realism”* were, because they had different understandings of what “realism” meant!

The problem emerged again in the law. I vividly remember my property law professor in law school explaining a case in which a landlord and tenant had written up a rental agreement including the phrase “quiet enjoyment,” which they had seen in a do-it-yourself guide. They used it to mean “while it was quiet and enjoyable to live there.” Unfortunately, they had employed the term completely incorrectly; in property law, “quiet enjoyment” is a technical term having absolutely nothing to do with whether the neighbors are loud or whether the tenant likes the apartment.** As a result, when the relationship turned sour the case was unusually difficult to resolve. The meaning of this key term in the agreement had shifted as the landlord and tenant stepped through the courthouse door, completely changing the nature of their dispute.

I sometimes see the same issue in game design. In particular, this comes up in discussion surrounding League of Legends, an extremely popular online game. The designers of League of Legends speak frequently with the playing public, and in doing so they talk a lot about the need for “counterplay.” Unfortunately, there seems to be a definitional divide between the players and the designers (and between different players, and perhaps even between the designers?). As a result, players in these discussions sometimes arrive at conclusions the League designers disagree with–and, just like in political science, arguments start.

What, then, does “counterplay” really mean? It’s clear both from the phrase and from the League designers’ usage that counterplay means something like “you can’t just stomp all over the other player, he or she has to be able to do something about what you’re doing.” However, that definition is about like the “bouncing screen saver” approach to Over the Next Dune; it’s a helpful shorthand but to do real work we need something a little more thought out.

I feel that the most useful way to approach the problem is to break the phrase down into two parts: counter and play.

Counter means that the opponent can respond in a way that makes the opponent’s situation more advantageous than it would otherwise have been. This might mean completely negating the action (Magic: the Gathering’s counterspells), or just mitigating its effects (in League, using Leona’s “W”–a shielding spell–to block some of the damage). Mitigation can even involve an axis completely separate from the attack. For example, in Legend of the Five Rings there are cards that gain offensive power as the opponent destroys one’s resources; these do nothing about the loss of resources, but can help enable a comeback. The key is that when a player acts, the opponent does not have to simply accept being worse off.

Play means that the counter-action(s) the opponent can take are interesting for both the player and the opponent. A good example of this is Vi’s “Q” in League. The Vi player can push “Q” to get ready to charge, and let go to charge in a direction of the player’s choosing. However, the opponent can see Vi getting ready and has the opportunity to dodge out of the way. This leads to some fascinating mind games:

Opponent: “if I just keep going in the direction I am, I will be predictable and Vi will hit me. Should I turn around? If I do that I’ll be out of position to retaliate. What about a stutter-step, so I keep going in the same direction but I throw off Vi’s aim? I’ll end up closer to her, but I’ll have to time it precisely. OK, what if I . . . .”

Vi’s player: “My opponent needs to retreat toward teammates, so she’ll probably keep going in that direction. However, I don’t want to get too close to the opposing team. Maybe I can act like I’m going to charge that way, and then force the opponent to turn away from her team . . . .”

All of this happens in a second or less. It’s a game-within-a-game, and it’s a lot of fun. Getting inside the opponent’s head, correctly predicting his or her choices, and making the right play in response feels great.

Now imagine the opponent just had a button that stopped Vi’s charge. The opponent doesn’t have to do anything, there’s no cost to doing this, the opponent can do it as many times as he or she wants. Just push the button and Vi’s charge stops dead. That would be a counter, but it wouldn’t be interesting. There would be no play in it.

Hence, counterplay means that opponents can respond to a player’s actions in ways that help the opponents stay involved in the game and that are interesting for all involved. Just stating the definition is enough to explain its importance. A game that’s involving and interesting sounds like a good one, doesn’t it?

What I particularly like about this definition–what I think makes it better than intuitive understandings–is that it provides measurable benchmarks. If you want to know if there’s counterplay, ask: what can the opponent do in response? Do those actions improve the opponent’s position? If so, by how much? Do the opponent’s responses create a layered situation that’s interesting for everyone? By answering these questions you can determine in as close to a quantitative way as possible how much counterplay a situation or design element has.

Take it from a lawyer: it’s no fun to find out you’ve had a pointless argument with someone you more or less agreed with, just because you misunderstood each other. I think this definition of “counterplay” is useful enough to put into practice, and it’s the one I’ll be sticking with going forward. I can’t make everyone on the internet use it, but if you see it around here, you’ll know what I mean. 🙂

* This is not a great example–realism is actually a long-standing and well-understood theory. I hope, however, that it gives the flavor of the arguments.

** It has to do with who owns the property, but this isn’t the place for a detailed discussion of the concept; if you’re curious or have a legal question, please see the disclaimer.

The Case Study: Rule-Based Analysis

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A fundamental principle of law is that cases are decided based on experience garnered from previous cases. That experience is codified into rules, which are referenced whenever similar cases arise. So, for example, if a person accused of a crime says the police used unfair tactics during the interrogation the judge will decide whether the tactics were unfair by checking the rules from past cases. If the accused says “the police lied to me about having my mother in another interrogation room and I only confessed because I thought my mother might have to spend the night in jail, the police shouldn’t be able to trick me like that,” the judge will look to see whether there are rules about police lying to a suspect during interrogation. If there’s a rule that says that that is OK, the confession was valid and can be used against the suspect; if there is a rule saying the police are not allowed to act that way, the confession will be thrown out.

Making decisions based on rules has a few key advantages that are particularly relevant here. First, it means that likes are treated alike. A crime is a crime no matter who commits it; securities regulations must be followed no matter how big or small the company is; you are protected against certain forms of discrimination no matter where you are. Dealing with each case separately invites mistakes, honest and otherwise. When there’s one carefully thought-out rule for every decision maker to follow, results are more likely to be the result of principled analysis.

(It’s worth noting that in this context “principled” doesn’t necessarily mean “good” in some cosmic sense. Rather, it means something more like “fair.” People who have principles live according to rules that they follow consistently, and principled decisions are made according to even-handedly applied rules.)

Second, rule-based analysis avoids reinventing the wheel. If the Supreme Court has thoroughly considered whether the police should be allowed to trick suspects into confessing, after reading many briefs submitted by interested parties and hearing top-notch attorneys argue for both sides, it probably is not necessary to figure the answer out all over again. After all, if the process is done just as well it will lead to the same result! Better to save that time.

Hence, rule-based decision making is more likely to lead to principled results, is less prone to error, and is more efficient. Those are all traits I want in my game design, just like I want them to be a part of the law. It’s for that reason that I’m importing the technique into my design, and am basing this blog on legal analysis.

When I started work on Over the Next Dune I already had the notion that the law had something to teach me as a designer. Thus, just as a judge would use rules to decide a case, I chose four rules to drive the game’s design:

1. The decisions must be interesting. This rule is derived from . . . well, basically every game I’ve ever enjoyed. I was introduced both to chess and to Chutes and Ladders when I was young. I still play chess, but I haven’t played Chutes and Ladders in years. The former retains its appeal in part because each turn is a fascinating and rewarding puzzle. The latter doesn’t have anything to offer beyond the momentary thrill of seeing what happens next, and I can get much more of that thrill from a good book. I want Over the Next Dune to be more like chess than like Chutes and Ladders.

2. The players must work together. I learned this rule from modern cooperative games, most notably Pandemic and games that have followed it, and by comparing those games to the Star Trek Customizable Card Game. Much of the fun in cooperative games is in working as team. The excitement of finding the best move is amplified by the satisfaction of watching as all those best moves, yours and everyone else’s, snowball to achieve what no one player could. Even if the team loses, the dissatisfaction is mitigated by the fact that the loss is the team’s, and not one player’s alone. Over the Next Dune will be a better game if taps into those dynamics.

By contrast, the Star Trek CCG (at least in its first edition, which is what I played) was often criticized for being “multiplayer solitaire.” Players would start the game by putting up barriers to the opponent’s progress, in the form of “dilemmas” that needed to be resolved before points could be scored (e.g., before restoring an errant moon’s orbit you might have to retrieve a crew member who has run off with a love interest). After that initial process the players usually did not have anything to do with each other; they assembled their crews, faced dilemmas, and scored points entirely independently.

Setting aside the question of whether the Star Trek CCG really was multiplayer solitaire, the criticism points to an important lesson: when multiple players are involved in a game, they expect to be interacting with each other on an ongoing basis. Over the Next Dune needs to meet that expectation, or else it will face the same critiques the Star Trek CCG did.

3. While the players must work together, they cannot do so by talking about their moves. I’ll be honest in saying that this was a badly built rule. It’s too specific; it’s as if the rule about stealing was not “stealing is illegal” but rather “John Doe stealing from Jane Doe is illegal.” The more specific rule might be accurate, but it’s not helpful if Jane steals from John, or if Betsy steals from Jane. A rule should be generally applicable so that it’s useful in the future.

Fortunately, Over the Next Dune is still in development, so we can revisit this a bit. I was trying to solve two problems with this rule. The first was that in many cooperative games, the most experienced player will try to take over everyone else’s turns so that they make the moves that player thinks best. In the end only the most experienced player actually plays while the rest are puppeted about. It’s not fun, and I wanted a rule that would avoid the problem. So perhaps one rule (3a) should have been “it must not be possible for one player to dictate other players’ actions.”

Second, I wanted to capture the theme of people sneaking about under cover of darkness. The soldiers wouldn’t be able to stop and chat for all to hear, and I wanted the players to have to work with isolation and uncertainty just like the soldiers would. Rule 3b probably should have been something like “the rules for player communication must reinforce the theme of the game.” Going forward, let’s put rules 3a and 3b into place.

4. The game must admit of multiple solutions. In other words, there have to be many ways to win; it can’t be that there’s one thing the players always do. This rule came from my time playing fighting games (Street Fighter and the like) in arcades. I enjoyed the games where many characters were competitively viable, such that there was a range of things to try and lots of different opponents to face. When there was a strategically best option (e.g., in King of Fighters 2003 you should really play Duo Lon; in Third Strike you should almost certainly pick Yun) the game could get stale. I don’t want Over the Next Dune to get stale, so it should present lots of different challenges to players and they should be able to meet those challenges in many different ways.

Although development is ongoing, I’d like to stop for a moment and take stock. I have my own opinions about how the game is doing with regard to these rules, but they’re subject to change and I’m always looking for feedback. If you feel that the game is doing a particularly good job of living up to some of these requirements, or that it is falling short somehow, let me know!

Theory: Writing Rules Early

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I said in this post that writing rules was hard. However, it’s also very worthwhile, and in my experience it’s best to do it earlier in the game design process rather than later. Putting the rules on paper does a great deal to move the design process along.

First, it highlights places where the game is not yet fully thought out. When I first taught Over the Next Dune, the game we’re using as our case study, it was easy to just power through parts of the game that were not yet complete. For example, the rules for how searchers interact with the edge of the playing field were literally “they bounce off like a screen saver.” Sitting down to write the rules many games later finally forced me to think about the issue in a systematic way, rather than relying on a rule of thumb and a couple of notes for dealing with unusual situations. That was the start of the current system, which is (hopefully) (maybe) both easy to understand and relatively free of special cases.

Second, it makes playtesting without the designer’s presence possible. That means more feedback, and potentially more honest feedback as well. Seeing the game through an a playtester’s entirely new lens is irreplaceable; the more playtesters one can get, and the more one clearly one picks up their vision, the better the game will be.

Third and finally, to the extent that the game is meant to be marketable having the rules is a vital step. The rulebook is one of the first ways in which new players will interact with your game. Poorly explained rules will result in people playing your game incorrectly (with concomitant frustration and bad experiences), or even deciding to put it back on the shelf without playing at all. Either way, negative reviews and off-putting discussion will result. Writing the rules early allows one to get feedback on them separate and apart from the game, which will lead to a better experience for purchasers.

Gabe of Penny Arcade passed along this excellent advice from Mike Selinker: “‘you’re not going to come in the box.'” I’ve found that there are game design problems that are difficult even detect, much less solve, until I get into that mindset and write a ruleset that others can use. Over the Next Dune’s rules are available early for exactly that reason. Writing the rules for the game helped me get it to a state suitable for more extensive playtesting, and will make that playtesting better. There’s nothing more I could ask from a single step in the process.

What we’re doing

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A game should be fun. It might also be educational, exciting, informative, thought-provoking, and emotionally compelling, but underlying all of that a game needs to be fun. If it fails at that no one will play it, and your game will not be able to achieve any other goals you have set for it.

The problem for a game designer is that saying “a game should be fun” just begs the question of how one makes them fun. As anyone who’s ever tried will tell you, making a game—any game, of any sort—is extremely difficult. Making that game good is even harder. It’s tough even to figure out what “good” means!

Here on this blog the goal is to answer seemingly unmanageable questions like “how does one make a game fun.” We’ll do it using tools provided by the law. Judges, juries, lawyers, and others in the legal system have to answer big, impossible questions all the time—just ask any family court judge about dividing custody between two good parents. Legal analysis is designed to help us handle unwieldy problems. I’ve been using it in my game design work for a little while now, and I’m confident that legal analysis techniques will continue to prove just as effective in dealing with issues of game design as it is in dealing with intractable questions in every other area of life.

I’ll be up front in saying that I don’t have all the answers. It might be that no one does; games are as old as human civilization, but game design as a field of study is young. My goal is to discover some of the principles underlying good game design, using my legal training to structure the process.

One of the first things law students learn (at least, law students in the United States) is that judges can’t just wander around pronouncing the law; rather, they decide the specific case in front of them. In order to hew as closely as possible to proper legal analytic technique, I’m going to stick with that case-specific methodology. The “case” here will be a game I have been working on for over a year. We’ll look at its problems, try to resolve them, and in the process we’ll derive lessons that will help us going forward. From time to time we’ll also take a look at other games, analyzing them in the same way.

The first rule of game design is the same as the first rule of being a lawyer: there’s no substitute for hard work. Hence, you can expect updates every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

It’s going to be a long, bumpy, but interesting ride. I hope you’ll join me.