Principles of Games Design

Visual Style

Environments

There are many different types of environments within video games; it is split into 3 categories: terrain, architecture and objects. Putting terrain into video games uses 2 different techniques; hand-painting on the terrain mesh, which helps to make the hills and valleys or an externally created terrain height-map is imported. Terrain is used to create small areas, such as a part of a city or enclosed courtyards. Architecture within games basically means the different types and sizes of buildings, as well as the way the buildings look; the primary function of architecture within games is to support the gameplay. It supports the gameplay by using 4 major things: constraint (establishes boundaries, that limit the amount of freedom the player has in the world), concealment (hides valuable objects from players), obstacles and tests of skill (cliffs to climb, ramps to jump over) and exploration (challenges the player to understand how the player is moving and what leads to where).

Terrain using the Unreal Engine 3

NPC

An NPC (non-player character) is the term used to describe a character that isn’t controlled by a human player, in games these characters are controlled by the computer using artificial intelligence.

First Person Perspective

Black Ops 2

First person perspective within video games is a rendered viewpoint of the player’s character, one of the most notable genres of first person is first person shooters. First person shooters are a very popular type of video game; they are centred on a weapon and combat, one of the most popular FPS games are the Call of Duty franchise, there are 9 games within this franchise, the most recent being Black Ops 2. This image shows the weapon in the right hand side and it shows what the character is seeing through their eyes. Most games that include first person perspective are usually avatar-based, so the game displays what the player’s character sees through their eyes.

Third Person Perspective

Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince

Third person perspective within video games is rendered from a fixed distance behind the character’s player; it allows the player’s to see what their avatars actually look like.  Most action and adventure games use the third person view. The Harry Potter games use the third person perspective, so you can see exactly what the characters are doing; this image shows Harry Potter having a duel with another character.

 

 

Side Scrollers

Super Mario Bros.

In a side scroller game, the gameplay is viewed from a side-view angle, generally the characters within the games move from the left side of the screen to the right side. Super Mario Bros. is an example of side scroller video games; Mario has to make his way through different worlds, avoiding things like turtles and collecting coins, he moves from the left of the screen to the right side.

 

Context Sensitivity

Context sensitivity is applied when a player’s character is in a certain place or near a NPC and is used to interact with such things. For example, in fantasy games, when approaching a certain character you have the opportunity to interact with them or talk to them and gain more information about what to do.

FMV

A full motion video (fmv) is a technique used to narrate certain areas within a video game and relies solely on pre-recorded video clips instead of sprites, vectors or 3D models; it is featured in video games to help include information during cutscenes

Gameplay

Interaction Models 

There are 2 main interaction models, they are avatars and omnipresence. With an avatar you can interact with the game through a specific character. With omnipresence you basically control everything, there is no specific character that you control, and these are mostly used in strategy games, such as Age of Empires. There are two game modes in a game; Single player and Multi-player. Single Player is pretty self explanatory; it is when you play a video game on your own, without playing with another human character, usually the campaign of a video game is single player. Multi-player again is pretty self explanatory; it is when you play a video game with another human player, this could be where you play on the same team, casual interaction or playing against each other, Halo is a video game which supports both single player and multi-player game modes.

Narrative

LA Noire

Most video games have some sort of narrative feature but it really depends on the context of the game, a narrative in a game is basically the story that backs up and gives you a reason for why the character you are playing as is doing whatever it is in the game. LA Noire is in my opinion one of the best storyline’s within a video game, the story follows the life of Cole Phelps and his progression in ranks and departments of the police in America.

 

Game Settings

There are many different settings within video games; on earth (in the jungle, city, town, village, island, shopping centre etc) in space, in the past, in the future, in the present and they can also be based on true historical events.

Rewards

XBOX360 achievements

There are many ways in which video games try to keep the gamer playing their game, to do this they include ‘trophies (PS3) and achievements (Xbox360)’ and different challenges that unlock extra things within the game.

 

 

Game Difficulty

Select Difficulty

If you compare older games to the new ones you will realise that new games are relatively easy compared to those of the older generation, I think this is because a lot of people these days get bored quite easily and if the games were extremely hard then they’d just give up and stop playing the game.

 

Balance

Balance in games, is the concept of tuning a game’s rules. This tries to prevent the components of the game from being ineffective or undesirable compared to their rivals. Regardless of what you think, balance does not necessarily make the game fair; unfairness in games can create uncertainty, which then leads to tension and excitement. Balancing is actually the management of ‘unfair scenarios’, this ensures that all the strategies that are available in the game are in fact viable. Some video games can be balanced unfairly, this is to make the game seem more realistic, for example the FIFA franchise looks at how good a team is in real life and mirrors the ability on the game, this can be seen as unfair if you have a team that is only 2 stars and you’re playing against a team with 4 stars, but it is still viable to win against that team.

Game Structure

There are many different video games, but only a few properties that are constantly used to make the game, these are: a game requires at least one player and the play will experience at least one challenge, all games use a display and every game has at least one method of control. The central component of a video game is the game loop; this allows the game to run smoothly regardless of the user’s input.

Video Game Addiction

Along with everything else in this world, video games can become addictive to some extent. Some people hide behind games to make their lives seen that bit more bearable, some of them even isolate themselves from their family and friends and are too interested in completing a video game and focusing on in-game achievements instead of doing real life things like exercise etc, excessively playing a video game can cause the game to have a lack of imagination and mood swings.

Football Manager

I’m sure those of you who are as football mad as me, will agree, one of the most addictive games are the “Football Manager” franchise. I know you’re not technically playing the game and it’s just about tactics but it’s still really addictive, especially if you start your career with a team in the Blue Square Premier, where you can try and get the team promoted into higher leagues and eventually the champions league if possible, ultimately after many virtual years of being a manager, depending on how you do you can become the best manager ever. There have been cases of people losing loved ones, losing their car and even their job due to excessively playing and becoming addicted to a video game, so anyone that thinks video game addiction isn’t a real addiction should in my opinion think again