Sunday, October 13, 2013
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
Accessibility
Today I want to talk about the main mechanic that I'm hoping makes the game I'm working on different than a lot of similar titles. While the second to second game play is indeed basically dodging obstacles that come from the right side and roll to the left, I've added a deeper element in the form of shields that the player uses as power ups. When a player is hit he loses one of his shields and gains a permanent or temporary benefit. Things like doubling any coins he collects, giving him a lightning bolt to shoot at enemies or giving him an extra hit. I'm building these power ups with combos in mind. The important thing about these shields though is that they also act as your health and each one destroyed means you can take one less hit. Once they're all gone you can technically be at your strongest but also your most vulnerable. I feel like this adds a good risk/reward element to the game that can separate people that want a casual experience (which the game is friendly towards) from people that might want something just a bit deeper.
So, then I feel like that may be a good segway into a conversation about accessibility in games. Most people think of accessibility as being able to get non-game players to play their game, but that's not where it ends. It's easy to get a non-game player to play your game (make the controls simple and intuitive) and I'd say it's even easy to design around getting a more core audience interested in your game (being that many independent game developers are core players themselves) but accessibility to me means bringing both of these together in a unified design concept. Companies like Activision-Blizzard have this idea down to a science. They create games that new players are able to access regardless of skill or knowledge of standard game concepts but are deep enough that players that want more out of their games are able to dig in for a really long time. It's one of the hardest, but perhaps one of the most profitable (both in capitol and recognition), skills a designer can look to develop if they want a long lasting and worthwhile venture. More important perhaps is that it creates a game that people remember because they decide to spend a lot of time in it. It's the reason we see so many online multiplayer games. When your opponent is another human being if you can match two people of equal skill through some sort of system (Like DOTA 2, Hearthstone and other adversarial multiplayer game's matchmaking systems) you have a sure-fire way to challenge the player without going over their head no matter the central concepts. In a single player game this is something that's harder to get right and balance for. Good examples of this in action would be the Simcity, Civilization and Final Fantasy franchises. All very accessible but very deep if the player wants to take it further. All of these have stood the test of time and for the most part (besides a few oddities in the FF series) their core components have remained very much the same.
This has turned into a sort of rant but it's because the concept is so broad and sweeping it's hard to find a single thing to talk about. The main thing to take away is that inaccessibly deep games (like Dwarf Fortress) and extremely casual game with next to no depth (like Solitaire and Bejeweled) definitely have their place in the gaming world, but like most things I feel the target should be somewhere between those two.
So, then I feel like that may be a good segway into a conversation about accessibility in games. Most people think of accessibility as being able to get non-game players to play their game, but that's not where it ends. It's easy to get a non-game player to play your game (make the controls simple and intuitive) and I'd say it's even easy to design around getting a more core audience interested in your game (being that many independent game developers are core players themselves) but accessibility to me means bringing both of these together in a unified design concept. Companies like Activision-Blizzard have this idea down to a science. They create games that new players are able to access regardless of skill or knowledge of standard game concepts but are deep enough that players that want more out of their games are able to dig in for a really long time. It's one of the hardest, but perhaps one of the most profitable (both in capitol and recognition), skills a designer can look to develop if they want a long lasting and worthwhile venture. More important perhaps is that it creates a game that people remember because they decide to spend a lot of time in it. It's the reason we see so many online multiplayer games. When your opponent is another human being if you can match two people of equal skill through some sort of system (Like DOTA 2, Hearthstone and other adversarial multiplayer game's matchmaking systems) you have a sure-fire way to challenge the player without going over their head no matter the central concepts. In a single player game this is something that's harder to get right and balance for. Good examples of this in action would be the Simcity, Civilization and Final Fantasy franchises. All very accessible but very deep if the player wants to take it further. All of these have stood the test of time and for the most part (besides a few oddities in the FF series) their core components have remained very much the same.
This has turned into a sort of rant but it's because the concept is so broad and sweeping it's hard to find a single thing to talk about. The main thing to take away is that inaccessibly deep games (like Dwarf Fortress) and extremely casual game with next to no depth (like Solitaire and Bejeweled) definitely have their place in the gaming world, but like most things I feel the target should be somewhere between those two.
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