Developer Tip 001 – Basic Game Design – Feedback

You might have seen this in the About page, but I used to study game development and design in college here in Dublin, Ireland.

You might have also noticed that I owe you guys 2 blogs since I missed last month, but I hope the content of this will make up for it.

My blogs now are going to focus on passing on some knowledge and tips I learned from some really smart people at that college.

My first Developer Tip is on Basic Game Design.
A game generally is made up of several parts.
It has a challenge. It generally has a set of rules. And it has a win or a lose condition.
Any game can be broken down into these stages.
A platforming game like Mario would have a challenge of getting from point A to point B of a level. The rules would be the design of the movement, the gravity, touching the enemy or falling down a gap to die, and so on. The win condition is beating the stage, with losing being dying to many times, or even death in general.
A shooting game like Halo, or Call of Duty also has the same idea behind them.
Even in the multiplayer experiences, you have a challenge, you have the rules, and you can win or lose.

What makes these games good and shows good, if not great design, is FEEDBACK.
I’m not talking about feedback from a person, I mean feedback the player gets from the actual game while playing it.
Feedback in game design terms is vital to a game in how it plays and depending on how well the feedback is put into the game is how well the player will learn the game.
Feedback is broken up into 2 parts, positive and negative feedback, both involve clues to the player what to do and what not to do.

I’ll explain feedback like this.
Mario has a really great control system that is built on this idea of feedback and positive or negative feedback to the player. When the player runs fast and tries to stop in Mario what happens? He doesn’t just stop right? He kinda skids for a bit, slows down then stops.
That’s feedback.
Jump when your running that fast. You clear a big distance, but it’s harder to control your jump. That’s feedback. The positive feedback is you move fast, and clear big distances, the negative feedback is you can’t control your jumps as good when your moving slower, and it’s hard to slow down suddenly if needed.
If anyone plays the old Mario game on the NES they learn and understand the controls and movement quickly, and that’s because of this idea of feedback that was really well put into the game.

Take a shooting game.
A brilliant example of feedback in a shooting game is using a sniper and a shotgun. When using a sniper, you have a well aimed shot, strong, good distance, and slow reload time. When using a shotgun, you have that power, but at a much shorter distance, and not as accurate. This is feedback to the player, and depending on their play style can decided what is the positive and negative feedback and which weapon they would rather use.

RPG games have feedback..
Attacks have positive or negative outcomes and provide you with feedback on which is best for the situation your in.

Any game has feedback, and good games, provide you with some great feedback.

If you can understand feedback, and how to implement it into your game, and to implement it effectively, you’ll be onto a hit of a game.