Anyone keen to design a design challenge?
Hello you wonderful game makers you,
Recently was at AMAZE where we were invited to show Under a Glass Bell, our *Award Winning Game (TM)* .... *cough* ... game (j/k) ... sooo in reality it was a pretty good idea and at the Cape Town Global Game Jam it "won" 1st prize (I'm not sure I totally agreed for prizes in the GGJ but hey, marketing and whatever kappa) and we got to bring it to AMAZE I think as a result of that accolade.
The tldr story was that the game was pretty horribly designed for the sort of aesthetic and experience we were aiming for. It was a failed jam game, we found out more about how not to make the game than how actually to make the game! A interesting an idea as it is, it literally required one of us to facilitate playing the game where really it not a game that requires a facilitator (at least not in the sense that we had to spend 5-10 mins per group explaining wtf is going on an htf to play).
At AMAZE that was basically what it turned out to be, people generally didn't know what to do with it and we were too busy meeting awesome people to sit by the booth all the time. It did however spark some cool discussions when we were around.
Most of them was how on earth we would go about redesigning this game and what was wrong with it (a list so detailed I was a few steps away from categorizing the problems :p). We got some great suggestions and amist the conversation someone said "hey, this should be like a design challenge on the forums".
So I'm thinking why not! Unfortunately design is a complicated and difficult subject and a design challenge is tricky to describe and even judge! A task like this might be more suited to a discussion perhaps but a challenge could work. I'm going to say right now I'm thinking of a mechanics-based design challenge but am open to thoughts on this.
so
1) How could we administrate this? Especially ppl who have organised challenges before. General "start here, talk to X" would be helpful... also how much work is it? If it's too much work I need to find people to share the burden.
2) Would Under a Glass Bell be appropriate for such a challenge? I think it is, that said I'm not overly invested in the project so if another game would be better you think I'm all ears
3) How and what do we describe in the challenge? Do we outline the aesthetics of the game we want, the experience perhaps, or maybe the one line/paragraph pitch? For instance "In Under a Glass Bell, 4 players are trapped in a room, you receive bits of information over a single phone one at a time and have to manage that information and what information you know the other players know to find items hidden in the room." . This is how I describe it but it is inherently biased by the way I think about and design games. I usually try to think about the core experience or and design from there. I think core experience is a good and somewhat general way to frame such a challenge but I'm keen to hear if anyone else has anything to say on this.
4) How much room for flexibility do we allow the designer? Too rigid and the design is so locked down from the start that the game's flaws might be insurmountable or frustrating to solve. Too flexible and people could just design whatever they want that is tangentially related to the original spec, which defeats the point somewhat.
5) Any legal/IP problems anyone can foresee?
I'm going to stop here otherwise I'm going to over-wall-of-text this! Would love to hear your thoughts on the idea or if you have any other ways of approaching this all ^_^
Much love to you all <3
Recently was at AMAZE where we were invited to show Under a Glass Bell, our *Award Winning Game (TM)* .... *cough* ... game (j/k) ... sooo in reality it was a pretty good idea and at the Cape Town Global Game Jam it "won" 1st prize (I'm not sure I totally agreed for prizes in the GGJ but hey, marketing and whatever kappa) and we got to bring it to AMAZE I think as a result of that accolade.
The tldr story was that the game was pretty horribly designed for the sort of aesthetic and experience we were aiming for. It was a failed jam game, we found out more about how not to make the game than how actually to make the game! A interesting an idea as it is, it literally required one of us to facilitate playing the game where really it not a game that requires a facilitator (at least not in the sense that we had to spend 5-10 mins per group explaining wtf is going on an htf to play).
At AMAZE that was basically what it turned out to be, people generally didn't know what to do with it and we were too busy meeting awesome people to sit by the booth all the time. It did however spark some cool discussions when we were around.
Most of them was how on earth we would go about redesigning this game and what was wrong with it (a list so detailed I was a few steps away from categorizing the problems :p). We got some great suggestions and amist the conversation someone said "hey, this should be like a design challenge on the forums".
So I'm thinking why not! Unfortunately design is a complicated and difficult subject and a design challenge is tricky to describe and even judge! A task like this might be more suited to a discussion perhaps but a challenge could work. I'm going to say right now I'm thinking of a mechanics-based design challenge but am open to thoughts on this.
so
1) How could we administrate this? Especially ppl who have organised challenges before. General "start here, talk to X" would be helpful... also how much work is it? If it's too much work I need to find people to share the burden.
2) Would Under a Glass Bell be appropriate for such a challenge? I think it is, that said I'm not overly invested in the project so if another game would be better you think I'm all ears
3) How and what do we describe in the challenge? Do we outline the aesthetics of the game we want, the experience perhaps, or maybe the one line/paragraph pitch? For instance "In Under a Glass Bell, 4 players are trapped in a room, you receive bits of information over a single phone one at a time and have to manage that information and what information you know the other players know to find items hidden in the room." . This is how I describe it but it is inherently biased by the way I think about and design games. I usually try to think about the core experience or and design from there. I think core experience is a good and somewhat general way to frame such a challenge but I'm keen to hear if anyone else has anything to say on this.
4) How much room for flexibility do we allow the designer? Too rigid and the design is so locked down from the start that the game's flaws might be insurmountable or frustrating to solve. Too flexible and people could just design whatever they want that is tangentially related to the original spec, which defeats the point somewhat.
5) Any legal/IP problems anyone can foresee?
I'm going to stop here otherwise I'm going to over-wall-of-text this! Would love to hear your thoughts on the idea or if you have any other ways of approaching this all ^_^
Much love to you all <3
Comments
So the challenge is: "Design something that was already designed, but better" <--- Like that?
But, what I think I was trying to say was "Here is a core experience and a genre, design a game based on that". Does that make more sense, perhaps?
"Here is Under a Glass Bell, these are its core bits, design it better"
Like that?
But if anyone has perhaps a better idea I'm all ears.
(re context, ignore the stuff about Under a Glass bell being designed badly at first, this is actually irrelevant and merely forms part of the back-story of why this idea of a design challenge came up at all)
Then a core experience and a genre is still needed for this to be anything at all.
Previously we had "two button game" which can be read however you want.
So what you're asking for is a themed game design challenge, and someone/everyone must come up with/agree on a theme?
Something like: Build gameplay around the idea of multiple players having to share information with each other that the game gives them, despite them being in competition with each other. Is that what you're looking for?
so
---
Genre: Saw-like survival simulator
Core Experience: Multiple players having to share (or hide) information with each other that the game gives them, despite them being in competition with each other to be the last survivors.
Design a game in this genre that expresses this core experience. Go!
---
So yeah, it would actually be like a normal competition but more constrained I guess... alternatively we could just go "here is Under a Glass Bell, make it better" :p
Cool, well it was something I wanted to hash out. Thanks for the feedback. Anyone have any other ideas on something in a "design space" for the competitions (that is distinct from the current challenges)? Otherwise I'm pretty happy that there is too much overlap ... *awaits next challenge*
Given how much trouble UAGB's cumbersome ruleset caused for the expo environment, how about a design challenge where you pick a game you think you can improve, then try to build a mechanically similar prototype MINUS some complexity?
The ruleset needs to be a little simpler, a little less contrived, a little adjusted for clarity. For bonus points, don't just go nuts: see if you can identify only the elements you consider toxic, and remove or adjust them as precisely as possible.
Aesthetics, themes and other game concepts are entirely changeable, it only needs to be inspired by the original game's ruleset. Experimental games of moderate complexity are probably the most fertile and interesting targets to explore. You can even apply this competition effort to one of your own, earlier designs.
I wonder if this meanders too close to any previous competitions, but idunnotheresanidea
Anyone else want to give a hand?
Some one makes a very thin small game, ball jumping up and down.
Then each day phase of competitions you all take it and focus on 1 design aspect, like Mechanics / Sound / Tweening / Personality /Story / user feedback / etc. Whatever which can be clearly define and easy to understand the constraints for the competition.
Then after phase one there is a winner, then that winning game is phase 2 starting point, with the next design focus.
This may become a mess, with different game engines, etc.
Maybe only 1 phase works? ie.) "here is the start make it better"
Plus, if people get to choose what they want to redesign, we'd have a lot of interesting discussion about different design problems, not just a couple of problems that people argue about a little bit :)
Basically I wanna remix Unseen (insert your own dev lust prototype here) and find out first hand if I can fix its weaknesses ;)
so basically remove all the bits until you can't remove something without breaking the core fun mechanic, instead of adding, to complete a project.
I think it was the creator of Spelunky whom also gives this advice.