Design process: Stuck at the same place, OR cannot improvise

"A Whack on the Side of the Head" is the classic book to check out if you're having improvisation problems. I would highly suggest reading it if you haven't already (although some of the ideas seem commonplace now: a hazard with most classics).

You seem on a good track though: once you are able to articulate a problem you are halfway to solving it. Take Rats Craft: you already know the issues that the issues are high defensive troop buildups, the cats being a high risk psychological barrier, and low rewards for moving to new spaces. Why not use the Starcraft method and incentivise aggression through unit caps (or upkeeps)? Having a unit cap per room (per player) helps all your problems: you eliminate the possibility of overwhelming turtling; the cats are less scary since losing units in the halls becomes low-risk (as it frees up new slots in the room the units leave); you've created a valuable new resource carrot that draws players into more rooms. You even get the bonus of a powerful balancing dial (MegaRat costs 3 cheese a turn while LittleSqueaker costs 1).

This solution also used the very powerful problem solving of analogy: although being unique can be good, it is valuable to look at how similar systems have solved their problems. I would say it works a LOT better than random mix and match.

I would also say, as a corollary to your sub-system method, don't be afraid to start simple. For Rats Craft why not just make a bunch of vanilla or french vanilla critters and test them out? Even if all the rats are 1 Att/1Def/1Mov creatures it can give you a sense of your system and its dynamics. You can always complexify later if you wish.

Having said all that, as an independent designer sometimes time and space is the answer. Patience and multiple projects can solve many problems.

I think the problem might be trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Creativity is a very personal thing and it manifests itself differently for different people. However, one thing that is common to all creative output is the barrier of being uncomfortable.

For me my creativity flows best when I’m comfortable and unrestricted; an outlook that matches my own particular personality. While I have a very rational and methodical side I feel more comfortable, and in tune with myself, when I’m flying by the seat of my pants into the unknown.

I’ve never read a game design book, then again I’ve never read any form of “how to” design book. I just pull ideas out of thin air and play about with them in an amused child like manner – without any real expectations regarding the final output.

Then, after I've got something workable I move into rational, methodical mode and trim, snip, test, evaluate, re-evaluate, and re-work until my reasoned analytical nature is satisfied.

I think that might be part of your innovation blockage, a reluctance to let go of established systems. The problem with utilising existing subsystems is that you are taking something that was designed to fit within a complete system and employing it elsewhere. Imagine taking engine parts from several different cars and then trying to assemble them into a full working engine.

The parts all have the right names, piston, manifold, fuel pump and so on, but when you try to assemble them they just don’t fit. So you have to shave bits off, bolt bits on, apply gaffer tape and then when finally crank the engine it shudders, judders, oil shoots out and it either explodes or works in a very inefficient manner.

Whereas, you can take the basic principles of something, like a piston that moves up and down under pressure to initiate movement in something else, and then build a piston from the ground up the way you want – and in a way that will fit with your overall vision for the completed whole.

In relation to my design endeavors, in this case game designs, I suppose you could say I develop ideas in an organic flow. If I start out with a theme that I want to simulate I look at the theme and pull it apart, trying to distill it down to its basic elements. Once that’s completed I re-build it in a new form using materials to hand (materials which have their own particular elements and features). Cards work one way, dice work another, auction systems follow one path, resource management systems another. And again, I understand these materials because I’ve distilled them down to what they do and how they function.

And more interestingly, I play around with what they might be able to do if they where approached in a slightly different way. So an auction mechanic involves two or more people competing for something and each person has access to a common or communal commodity that affects the balance of ownership between the participants. So a first thought might be, what if I introduce abstinence into the equation and give it a value that affects the overall relational forces in the system – what would happen if not bidding had a value and what value could it have?

Children are generally more creative and innovative than adults and I think part of the problem is too much book learning. When a child approaches a cardboard box they don’t read a book about the constituent materials of cardboard and its application in the world, along with methodologies for improving its strength via the introduction of other material components or its combination with other items. They just jump on in there and play about with it. They look for its basic patterns and then imagine what it could be - and all of a sudden they are standing in a castle preparing to defend the ramparts from incoming invaders.

Books are wonderful, don’t get me wrong. I love books and I have shelves full of them, relating to all manner of topics and subject areas, but sometimes when you want to experience flight you have to tear out a page, and then fiddle and fold it a bit to make a paper airplane.

Examples sometimes speak louder than words, so I will have a quick go at your Dragon Realms design.

First off, the dice rolling doesn’t work – check. Are dice a bad inclusion in games? No, so it isn’t the fault of the dice that things aren’t working.

What am I trying to simulate here, aha, a battle between to entities, check.

Next, how is a battle between two entities frequently done with dice? Hmm, attack and defense values, roll over a number to hit, do some damage, and repeat until one entity falls.

Does the world need another instance of this, err probably not.

So what else do dice do? Well they can be used to form sets of matching symbols – like poker hands. Cool, I’ve played that and its kinda fun. I’ve also played Dice Town which adds a little spin to the idea and that was fun as well. So I can roll other things with dice than hit rolls – they are in essence number and sequence generators.

Okay, so what does a battle between two entities involve? Hmm, it involves making offensive and defensive decisions in a fixed time frame.

Cool, so I need my number and sequence generator to fuel tactical battle decisions with an established window of opportunity – which may be fixed or variable.

Hmm, what other system replicates a battle between two entities. Well video games do, I’ve played games where you push circle, square, plus and triangle buttons to make attack or defensive moves. In those games the individual buttons had a basic attack, but you could string together sequences to make combination moves.

Wow, dice rolls can stand for singular values or they can be combined with others to form sequences. Has anyone put button markers on dice faces and used them for combat, maybe not.

Hmm, but what about the window, I haven’t included the window. Well, in Dice Town the random nature of the dice was infused with tactical strategy by paying dollars to affect the rolling and keeping of dice.

What if I name my window time and have it so the players can spend time to affect their dice rolls?

The moves (dice sequences) could also have a performance time cost. So the players could be try to form move sequences with random rolling, they could also spend time to influence those rolls, but if they spend too much time then they wont have enough left to actually perform the move.

This is quite realistic, if you spend to much time setting up your move your quicker re-acting opponent will hit you first – maybe with a quick jab while you are buggering about.

Okay, what next? I need attack and defense moves – what about red and blue dice. But, I’m forgetting the window – they can’t do both at no cost.

I could restrict the players in their dice choosing. At the start of each round they can only have five dice. 5 red and 0 blue, 3 red and 2 blue, 1 red and 4 blue or 0 red and 5 blue (any combination as long as it has a total of 5 dice).

So, each player picks heir dice in secret before each round of combat and then they roll away. Hmm, but I’ve got dragons here. Well what about dice sequences for different attacks, a tail attack, a breath weapon attack, a bite attack. The greater the damage the harder the sequence required – thus taking more time to roll (if probability holds true).

Yup, that will do. And I could add in different creatures with different dice.

What else can I do?

Well I could have sequences that supported feints and the like. Rolling the sequence wouldn’t give the player an attack or defense move if they succeed, but it could affect the number of dice their opponent gets to roll in the next round or limit how they interact with their dice in reference to their time window.

Yup, that could offer up lots of potential options for game play.

Hmm, battles usually have some form of initiative and I have a time window. Well players could opt to allocate some of their time at the start of the round, in secret, to stand as initiative (fools rush in). This time cost would be deducted from the time they have available to perform the moves – that would work fairly well.

Oh, and different creatures, lets play with that idea a bit.

Different creatures could have different moves (dice sequences) available to them and different time windows. Yup, that will give a lot of variety for generating different opponents.

Hmm, what if I have a single adventurer facing different monsters, how would that work?

Well the mechanic would support it and the different creatures could give experience points when defeated. These experience points could be used to level up our adventurer(s) granting them larger time windows and access to more powerful move combinations.

Gaining levels could also allow them to knock off some of the requirements in a sequence making the sequences easier to pull off. As the players gain more knock offs the simpler sequences will become easier to achieve, but the more powerful moves will have more difficult sequences which will create a sliding scale.

I could even make it so that the players put experience directly into skill trees instead of simply leveling – that might be a cool idea.

Players could also learn new spells, which would introduce new sequences – that might be fun. Or they could pick up items from defeated opponents that affected the time window, affected their opponents dice rolls, added sequences with associated affects or affected the players own dice rolling.

Oh and the attacks would have damage done values, defense would have damage negation values, the adventurers and monsters would have hit points. These stats and associated sequences would have to be on character cards – shouldn’t be a problem and it will allow for some nice eye candy artwork and components other than dice.

Well, things are shaping up a bit, what about a name for the mechanic/game – Dicing with Death (yup, that’s a start).

Okay, that’s enough for now, better have a look to see if anyone has done anything similar to this – which would force a rethink (partial or complete).

And that’s pretty much a walk through of my seat of the pants idea generation process.

And the time it took to write this post in word and then copy/paste it? 50 minutes in total and not a book or mechanic search involved – just a free thinking, kid in a cardboard castle, playing around (woah, who stole my Cullinder of Anticoh helmet and Spatula Staff of Chicken Supreme Power, lookout Trolls, man the Ramparts).

When I look at a game, through my analytical eyes, I see a network of possibilities and choices. It’s the same with life itself, each moment we are faced with decisions, if we decide on one course we proceed in one direction (which has resulting consequences) and if we proceed in another direction then different choices open up before us.

This transition isn’t linear or lateral, it’s holistic. So there are cases where we might end up at the same junction point, even though the constituent choices we made to get there where very different.

At its core a game is a microcosm of life. It is a section of reality beholden to its own rules, a world within a world. To a large extent the rules of a game define its existence, its boundaries and the course of involvement within it.

A game like chess has very few rules. The basic reality of the simulation is the movement of pieces in space – that’s it. However, the rules associated with it engender a more focused shape and form; forced limitations which segment the experience making it manageable, while at the same time creating choices and diversity in the game play.

The space has a boundary, an 8 x 8 grid and the pieces can’t move outside this boundary. This rule defines the area of the simulation, without it the pieces could move outwards to infinity.

The squares are black and white, this segment the movement of the pieces, forcing the players to make decisions about which pieces to move in order to alter their spatial relationship with other pieces.

The pieces are split into two contingents, one black and one white – one for each player. These pieces also have different movement rules and appear in different numbers. Once again this restricts general movement and by doing so creates tactical choice.

If the rules stopped here the pieces would simply be moved about around the board, forever.

So another rule is present, the potential to take other pieces. This creates tactical choice in relation to the pieces a player has at their disposal and the relationship between the two sides.

If the rules stop here then the game would still continue without end, eventually leading to the two Kings wandering around the board alone, forever.

So a final rule is introduced (in the basic game) and that rule is ‘Capture the King’. This rule provides the game with an end objective, he final shaping of the boundaries for the simulation.

And there you have it, a few very simple rules that lead to a simulation with an immense amount of tactical depth and strategy with numerous decisions to be made in each and every instance of play.

To me, stripped of all the theme and distraction, every game follows this development cycle. As in life the design allows for free choices to be made even though the overall experience obeys limitations and is subject to enforced boundaries.

When a game is created the designer is making a world for others to experience. The designer imbues the game with the capacity for tactical or strategic choice, albeit within a rigid framework. And the manifestation of this idea, the boundaries we create in our games and the decision networks we include generate the simulation the future players will experience when they enter our games.

A spreadsheet is an excellent way to keep track of these boundaries and decision points (or logic gates as they might be seen as). We can also keep track of them in note form, via descriptive writing, or we can simple free wheel through the thought process (keeping track of the ideas in ones mind as I frequently do, eventually recording them in a physical form when the core is established).

A form of notation you might consider, one that intersects the aforementioned recording mediums, is the mind map.

http://www.mindmappingstrategies.com/mind-maps.aspx

This form of notation (frequently used by programmers) offers a way to record ideas logically and in sequence while retaining an air of fluidity and exemplifying the links between the various decision gates.

Like a program multiple maps can be linked together. A main program map which details offshoots to other sub maps – which when taken together represent the system (or game design) as a whole.

When an artist is painting a picture they sketch some simple rough lines, then they pick out the ones that convey the impression they wish to achieve, then they ink the lines to make them more obvious, then they add colour, and then they work into the colour adding shading and tone.

For me a game design is very similar, I limit myself to what I want my world to simulate in its basic form. I start small and work up.

Some designers approach the development from the other end of the spectrum. Throwing everything into a pot and cutting back what doesn’t work or isn’t essential.

Either approach works well, but I’m uncomfortable with the latter because it doesn’t strike me as being very efficient. It’s akin to throwing everything at a stick and seeing what sticks. Personally, I’d rather not tax my throwing arm by propelling a host of things that have a limited opportunity for usage.

That isn’t to say I don’t generate ideas that fall by the way side (I definitely do), but I start my pictures small, sketching out the ideas and then colouring them in with additions that develop the core ideas and colour them with theme.

If you start big it’s easy to get lost in the morass of information you generate, but if you start small it’s easier to keep track of things and develop a solid core – like deciding on the basics that will be required to support a great expedition.

Once you have that core you can add as much as you want to it and the process will be a lot easier because you have a fixed point of origin (a starting point) from which to move forward – and more importantly keep things in line as you constantly look back.

With a hazy collection of things (which occurs when you throw ideas at a stick) the task of creating a journey and detailing the decisions within it is a lot more difficult to accomplish (for me anyway).

I read your notes that arose from your improvisation playing and the decisions trees contained within them are very elaborate. I would suggest that the next step would be to chop everything down to bare minimum and then slowly build it back up from there.

A game doesn’t have to be complex to be great; it just has to be interesting or fun.