My game Amber Halls recently turned 11 years old.
I still play that game every day as it’s become part of my routine, almost like a ritual I perform to punctuate my daily activities.
This concept of a game that can be integrated in one’s life and played every day is highly interesting to me, so I believe it can be instructive to think about the characteristics such a game must have. We can start by exploring other rituals, like the ritual of making coffee in the morning. That ritual is typically short and easy to carry out once you have enough experience. But it can also sometimes be surprising, for instance when you buy interesting new beans. And it allows for self expression in the choice of brew method and the kind of implements you use.
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Thus, there seems to be a trade-off at the heart of such rituals: the trade-off between familiarity and novelty. Make it too familiar and it becomes monotonous and dull. Make it too novel and it turns disruptive. Include choice in every step and it becomes chafing. Remove all choice and you will quickly lose interest.
Returning to game design, the question then is: how much strategic choice can we allow before we start damaging the sense of familiarity and flow we want to achieve? This is the starting point of the new game I’m currently working on, codenamed 4 Stacks. The game combines a rather simple combat mechanic with a series of shops where you get the chance to customize your character to prepare for future combats. The system is designed so that fighting is fun and frictionless, while shops provide an opportunity for strategic choice, novelty, and self expression.
I would like to make a philosophical point here. I am convinced that all game design follows a pattern similar to what I just described. The designer always has in mind, either consciously or unconsciously, a specific problem they would like to explore. In other words, there is always a question to which your game is a tentative answer. This question can be, like in my case, about the aspects that make a game “click” with you, but it can also be about an abstract concept, like the concept of time in the game Braid. Understanding the problem at hand involves not just trying out different ideas for your game, but also finding different formulations for the problem or question itself.
We can see then that the process of designing a game consists of a sort of back and forth where you try out new ideas and mechanics which will more often than not fail to satisfy your expectations, but which will also provide you with an opportunity to better understand the question you’re trying to answer. I propose that what distinguishes good game design from bad is being conscious and intentional about the problem you are looking to solve. There is no infallible recipe for success, but if you ignore the problem that motivates your work, your game will almost assuredly end up feeling lacking or arbitrary.
So then, what problem are you currently exploring?
Stay tuned! We will shortly share more information about our new game.
