2012
Designing Gamesfor
Game Designers
Stone LibrandeCreative Director, EA/Maxis
Note: Turn on “Notes View” to see the outline of the talking points.Several images are temporary. Most of them will be enhanced.
• Class Philosophy
• Fundamental Exercises
• Advanced Exercises
• Designing your own “design games”
Overview
• Cogswell Polytechnical College, Sunnyvale, CA.
• Paper, cards, dice (no computers)
• 2 to 3 hour workshops
• Focus on one specific topic
Class Philosophy
Design Goals:• A chance for the class to get
acquainted
• Focus on physical rather than cerebral
Warm Up
What is a Game?
Design Goals:• Goals come in many forms
• All the rules stay the same, only the goal can change
• How does changing the goal change the game?
Goals
Design Goals:• How do you structure rules?
• What are the key words to prevent ambiguity?
• Players make up games from scratch by adding one new rule each turn
Rules
Design Goals:• It’s not enough to put decisions in your
game, you need “interesting decisions”
• The rules and goals don’t change
• The players are given a character and must create three actions. Only one action can be taken per turn.
Decisions
Design Goals:• Use the items in a room to build an obstacle
course
• Players must try to get a ping-pong ball into a cup
• Start with a par 1 hole, then slowly add obstacles until the hole becomes par 5
Obstacles
Design Goals:• Make an asymmetric game where the two
sides are balanced
• One side is a giant robot that operates autonomously
• The other side is a squad of 4 tanks under the players’ control
Balance
Design Goals:• Learn how to calculate odds while playing a
game
• Start with simple calculations and slowly progress in difficulty
• Show how statistics can give you more information than play tests
Odds
Design Goals:• Show the students how powerful rewards
can be
• Roll dice as fast as possible and try to get a double 6.
• Do this for an hour!
Rewards
Design Goals:• Using the lessons on odds and rewards,
make a casino game
• Balance the player’s payout with the houses ability to consistently make money
• Make the rules simple, but give the player options
Entertainment
Design Goals:• Bring in a board game but ignore the rules
• Combine it with another random board game
Mash Up
Design Goals:• MMO style game where the rules change as
the game is being played
• Each player is either a wizard, thief or warrior and levels up by battling other players
• Guilds tend to form naturally, which opens up new rule requirements
World of Rulecraft
Design Goals:• Take an existing video game and recreate it
using cards and dice
• After removing the graphics, sound and controllers, what will survive?
Paper Simulation
• Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater
• Asteroids
• The base game must be simple
• Let the students/players do the work
• Iterate the lesson constantly
Making games for designers
Thank you!
Detailed rules and materials for many of thes games can be found at:
www.stonetronix.com
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