Game Design 101 and Flight Simulator Implications

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 01:01:59 GMT

Working as a game designer, there are a few somewhat obvious design principles we try to adhere to regardless of the style of game. The following principles I learned while working at Nintendo and which were reinforced working on other games. Of course there are many other ‘best practices’ for game design and some game genres have their own idiosyncrasies, but I want to keep this simple.

Gameplay is King!

The game player and the character on-screen “are one” and the player has instantaneous response and predictable control at all times.

In the case of Flight Simulator, this principle really comes into focus regarding performance (i.e. rendering performance or frames per second) as well as accurate and predictable physics. In both cases the user will not have a good gameplay experience if one is lacking. On a console video game where there is a standard controller being used, it’s easier to design for the controller and support intuitive control, but in the case of Flight Simulator, the controllers being utilized by users varies greatly which makes it much more difficult (read impossible) to tune for an optimal input feel.

Keep it Simple (K.I.S.)

A simple design is easier to design, build, and balance and easier for the player to understand and eventually master. Keep it simple.

Flight Simulator is inherently complex because we are simulating flying aircraft in 3D space which is also complex. In FSX we attempted to simplify for new users by introducing the AirCreations Trike which has very simple systems and is easy to fly. Based on our user studies and play tests we succeeded in keeping the initial experience simple. Another example where we tried to apply this principal is in the mission compass and pointer. They have proven to be simple to interpret and greatly simplified the task of navigation for users that would otherwise be lost (and thus lose interest quickly).

Play Balance

The player must be challenged without being overly frustrated. As the player gains experience and skill, the challenge must increase appropriately.

This is another area where Flight Simulator breaks game design rules as we allow users to immediately jump into any aircraft (no matter how complex it may be) and fly anywhere, anytime, and in any weather. Clearly this can create some very challenging scenarios for any user much less a new and inexperienced user. We’ve heard many users state that Flight Simulator was too intimidating to try and this is one of the reasons why they would never purchase the product or would only use it for a short period of time before retiring it to the shelf to gather dust. By introducing missions and structuring the missions in an implied order to fly them in, we were able to balance the difficulty ramp from as easy as we could manage to as challenging as we thought reasonable. We had to consider what a new user would need to learn from a knowledge perspective as well as what skills they would need to develop to be successful in later missions. We believed (and still do) that if we could develop a new user and grow their knowledge and skills through a series of missions, that they could survive and stay interested in free flight as well. We know we attracted new users, and we think we were able to train them a little at a time to improve as pilots. In general it’s a much more difficult problem to solve in Flight Simulator than it is in most traditional games.

Rewards

The player must be rewarded often when they get past even small obstacles and especially when they reach a milestone such as finishing a level or beating a boss. This could be as simple as bonus points or a power-up, a new ability/weapon, or a trophy or cinematic element.

For FSX we introduced the concept of rewards earned for completing missions, finding hidden items, and for simply flying around in free flight. We would consider the implementation of rewards in FSX to be rudimentary at best, but it was an important step to take and was probably best introduced in a simple way for users that are not accustomed to receiving such game-like rewards in Flight Simulator. Even the more hard-core users have grown to like and appreciate getting rewards for a job well done.

Secrets and Exploration

Secret stuff and unveiling new stuff to do is a powerful tool to hook a gamer into continuing to play. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve played several hours straight because I had to see what was around the corner or get the next power-up.

This should be one of the easier principles to build out in Flight Simulator as we have the entire Earth to work with. That said, we didn’t include very many secrets, and most of them were included in missions (such as the flocks of sheep in the FSX “Midwest Fly-in” mission or the refueling tanker orbiting above the cloud deck in the “Carrier Practice” mission included in FSX Acceleration). At least the entire world is available to explore and when third party add-ons are installed there are even more opportunities for exploration.

The Future

As we move into the future and design new experiences for our users (or improve old ones), we will consider these principles as a general guide. In a future post I will go into more advanced design concepts and look at how they apply in the world of Flight Simulator.

Flight Sim Blog ala Paul (P-12C): Game Design

Game Design 101 and Flight Simulator Implications