{"id":448,"date":"2014-06-12T15:55:41","date_gmt":"2014-06-12T19:55:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/betterrealities.com\/?p=448"},"modified":"2014-06-12T15:55:41","modified_gmt":"2014-06-12T19:55:41","slug":"from-the-archives-pitfalls-of-the-working-game-designer-too-many-cooks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/betterrealities.com\/?p=448","title":{"rendered":"From the Archives: Pitfalls of the Working Game Designer: Too Many Cooks"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post was originally written back in 2004. \u00a0Some of the references are a little out of date, but the argument still stands, I think.<\/em><\/p>\n

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When it comes to design, everyone has ideas.\u00a0 This is not a good thing.\u00a0 In fact, the work of cutting away all the possibilities is far more difficult than coming up with them.\u00a0 You may come up with a hundred ideas in a brainstorming session, but you\u2019re going to have to cut half of those right off the bat because they\u2019re too far out in left field; another half of what\u2019s left is going to be easy to cross off because of technical and time limitations.\u00a0 Of that last quarter, though, the hard work comes in getting down to the handful of ideas that will work coherently with the rest of the design, fit within your schedule, be implementable in your engine, and not blow-out your art asset and testing budget.\u00a0 That\u2019s fine as long as you have a well-defined gate for design decisions, but inevitably there are a few hitches in the system.<\/span>

Have you ever sat down with a friend and had a great conversation about the possibilities of a game?\u00a0 Sure you have.\u00a0 It\u2019s fun; it\u2019s exciting; it gets you all fired up to see those possibilities in action.\u00a0 This is what I like to call \u201cThe Two-Man Effect\u201d.\u00a0 It goes something like this: one person comes up with a statement, like \u201cWouldn\u2019t it be great to have a first-person shooter where you could track someone\u2019s stats over the lifetime of their playing the game\u201d; the second person chimes in with \u201cYeah, that would be awesome, and you could keep track of all the people you had killed and who had killed you\u201d, which leads the first person to elaborate \u201cYeah, and you could build grudges and track down people in different game sessions to have a go at them\u201d, which leads to the second person to add \u201cYeah, and you could have duels\u2014you know, like heavyweight boxing matches where you can call someone out and everyone else can watch\u201d, and so on and so on.<\/span>

In other words, one person thinking through something on their own might come up with an idea and feel rather attached to it.\u00a0 Two people talking through an idea quickly get to the point where whatever idea they\u2019re talking about is the best thing since sliced bread: not only is it a good idea, it\u2019s a great idea, and anyone who doesn\u2019t get it is simply too dense to get it.\u00a0 It\u2019s a natural process; each person in turn validates the ideas of the other, and the charge of being creative and having that creativity validated leads farther and farther out in a self-supporting castle in the air.<\/span>

Now, when one of those people goes to the designer, you suddenly have a problem.\u00a0 You see, the designer has to know all the problems with that idea: all the ways people have tried to realize that idea and why they haven\u2019t worked, the ways that players will use the game system to disrupt the intended effect, the limited value of the idea relative to the other things the project includes, the issues that come with trying to implement it, etc.\u00a0 In other words, the designer has to point out that just because it\u2019s an interesting idea, that doesn\u2019t make it a workable design. \u00a0That\u2019s a serious buzz-kill.\u00a0 Now the designer is the bad guy; he just killed your idea.\u00a0 Or, even worse, he’s the one pushing it through, without realizing what the impact is going to be.<\/span>

A similar problem occurs when one of the two people has the power to push the idea through even though it\u2019s not a workable design, and suddenly the design of your whole project is broken.\u00a0 Either the designer has to push back hard enough to stop the idea from making it in, or they have to work with it even though they know it isn’t going to work. \u00a0In either event, the designer is now alienated from the person who came to them with the idea, and that\u2019s going to make everyone\u2019s work a little harder.<\/span>

A game design is, in many ways, like a spider-web.\u00a0 Each element of the design needs to connect to all of the other parts.\u00a0 So, the designer has to be an architect of game systems, making sure that everything balances and holds together as a coherent whole.\u00a0 This is much easier to do (although by no means trivial) if the project has enough flexibility that you can shift emphasis around as things develop and the stresses on the project become clear.\u00a0 If this isn\u2019t done, you get the \u201csore thumb\u201d section or feature that the reviewers and fans are bound to harp on.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>

Every design mandate that comes down the pipeline ends up fixing some point of the design, which means that every other system is going to have to compensate.\u00a0 Eventually, you can run out of places to shift, and if that happens, you might as well just cancel the project and save everyone a lot of time and money.\u00a0 Of course, given the nature of the industry these days, that may mean you\u2019re out of a job.<\/span>

So, what can you do as a designer?\u00a0 Well, first off, don\u2019t ever respond to anyone\u2019s idea with why it won\u2019t work.\u00a0 The flaws may be glaringly obvious to you; the idea may simply scream unworkable, but resist the temptation.\u00a0 First, get into the spirit of the idea, try to capture a little of that collaborative magic.\u00a0 Expand on it a little; get a sense of where it\u2019s coming from, what\u2019s exciting about it.\u00a0 Then, try and present it back to the person in a summary form.\u00a0 If you\u2019ve gotten it right, they will know that you\u2019ve taken the time and understand what they\u2019re trying to get at.\u00a0 Then, take them through how you\u2019re trying to get at that same goal from within the existing design.\u00a0 Bring them in on how that piece fits with all the other pieces.\u00a0 If it still doesn\u2019t fit, then make sure you record the idea somewhere for future reference.\u00a0 You may well come back to it, and even if you don\u2019t, it gives the idea a home rather than just being dismissed.<\/span>

Second, don\u2019t be that guy.\u00a0 Designers are just as susceptible to the two-man effect as anyone else.\u00a0 Don\u2019t let your ideas run away with you.\u00a0 From time to time, do a reality check: can the system be broken?\u00a0 Can it be implemented?\u00a0 Is it worth the cost relative to the other systems you need in the game?\u00a0 Does it feed the central design or take you off on a tangent?\u00a0 Who else has done something like this and what problems did that design have?\u00a0 After you\u2019ve vetted it, take it to someone else; if they don\u2019t see it right away, if it doesn\u2019t catch fire with them, re-consider the value.\u00a0 After you\u2019ve taken it to a second person, take it to a third.\u00a0 And always keep in mind that you may need to ditch it later even if you do keep it now.<\/span>

Again, the more structured the design process is, the less susceptible you are going to be to this problem.\u00a0 As the design evolves, it needs to go through a reliable approval gate.\u00a0 Once it\u2019s been approved, you shouldn\u2019t go backwards.\u00a0 New ideas that disrupt the established design can be eliminated on that basis.\u00a0 And any of these \u201cleft field\u201d contributions can be taken through that same approval process, and if it denies them, then at least everyone knows that it got due consideration.<\/span>

You\u2019re never going to be able to cut off these contributions, from the team, from management, from your publisher, from testers, from fans.\u00a0 Nor would you want to.\u00a0 All of these can be sources of great insight and innovation.\u00a0 At any time, one of them may offer you the missing piece that makes everything else work a little bit better.\u00a0 Just make sure that the enthusiasm for an idea doesn\u2019t cut into the workability of the design.\u00a0 Treat your team with respect, respond to their ideas constructively, and you can become the \u201cgo to guy\u201d when they get that itch to think creatively.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post was originally written back in 2004. \u00a0Some of the references are a little out of date, but the argument still stands, I think.   When it comes to design, everyone has ideas.\u00a0 This is not a good thing.\u00a0 In fact, the work of cutting away all the possibilities is far more difficult than … Continue reading From the Archives: Pitfalls of the Working Game Designer: Too Many Cooks<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/betterrealities.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/betterrealities.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/betterrealities.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/betterrealities.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/betterrealities.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=448"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/betterrealities.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":449,"href":"http:\/\/betterrealities.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448\/revisions\/449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/betterrealities.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/betterrealities.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/betterrealities.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}