1 00:00:00,050 --> 00:00:02,470 The following content is provided under a Creative 2 00:00:02,470 --> 00:00:03,890 Commons license. 3 00:00:03,890 --> 00:00:06,920 Your support will help MIT OpenCourseWare continue to 4 00:00:06,920 --> 00:00:10,570 offer high quality educational resources for free. 5 00:00:10,570 --> 00:00:13,470 To make a donation or view additional materials from 6 00:00:13,470 --> 00:00:19,300 hundreds of MIT courses, visit MIT OpenCourseWare at 7 00:00:19,300 --> 00:00:20,525 ocw.mit.edu. 8 00:00:20,525 --> 00:00:24,840 PROFESSOR: This is our first lab session for CMS.608 and, 9 00:00:24,840 --> 00:00:28,732 for folks, who wasn't here this past Wednesday? 10 00:00:28,732 --> 00:00:30,148 One, two-- 11 00:00:30,148 --> 00:00:30,900 AUDIENCE: Who wasn't? 12 00:00:30,900 --> 00:00:32,180 PROFESSOR: Who was not here on Wednesday? 13 00:00:32,180 --> 00:00:32,680 [INTERPOSING VOICES] 14 00:00:32,680 --> 00:00:35,110 PROFESSOR: And so, you weren't here. 15 00:00:35,110 --> 00:00:36,979 Let's see, we have some blank index cards underneath the-- 16 00:00:36,979 --> 00:00:41,380 AUDIENCE: The plastic Tupperware, I think. 17 00:00:41,380 --> 00:00:43,825 [INAUDIBLE] 18 00:00:43,825 --> 00:00:47,240 PROFESSOR: So you can just fill in your name, your email 19 00:00:47,240 --> 00:00:50,816 address plus favorite board game or card game. 20 00:00:50,816 --> 00:00:53,440 The email address, basically, just gets added 21 00:00:53,440 --> 00:00:54,880 to the email list. 22 00:00:54,880 --> 00:00:58,290 Did anyone not get an email from Jason yesterday? 23 00:00:58,290 --> 00:01:00,250 AUDIENCE: Yeah, last night. 24 00:01:00,250 --> 00:01:01,130 PROFESSOR: You didn't get an email? 25 00:01:01,130 --> 00:01:02,240 AUDIENCE: I don't think so. 26 00:01:02,240 --> 00:01:02,850 PROFESSOR: OK. 27 00:01:02,850 --> 00:01:06,520 So the email basically said that there was a swap 28 00:01:06,520 --> 00:01:07,000 [INTERPOSING VOICES] 29 00:01:07,000 --> 00:01:11,440 PROFESSOR: --of Friday the 17th, and the 20th. 30 00:01:11,440 --> 00:01:14,690 So, basically, we're swapping your readings around-- 31 00:01:14,690 --> 00:01:18,060 and that's really the only thing, right? 32 00:01:18,060 --> 00:01:21,630 AUDIENCE: Oh, and I fixed the link for Zimmerman's article. 33 00:01:21,630 --> 00:01:24,460 PROFESSOR: And, unfortunately, Eric Zimmerman didn't migrate 34 00:01:24,460 --> 00:01:27,855 his website terribly well, so all of his pictures-- 35 00:01:27,855 --> 00:01:28,270 [INTERPOSING VOICES] 36 00:01:28,270 --> 00:01:32,270 PROFESSOR: I actually have one of his games, SISSYFIGHT 3000. 37 00:01:32,270 --> 00:01:35,790 In fact, this is before SISSYFIGHT 3000, so this is 38 00:01:35,790 --> 00:01:40,110 probably 2999, which is going to be the non-digital version, 39 00:01:40,110 --> 00:01:41,175 which is the whole point. 40 00:01:41,175 --> 00:01:42,700 It is actually a computer game. 41 00:01:42,700 --> 00:01:45,750 It is a pretty decent flash multiplayer game, back in the 42 00:01:45,750 --> 00:01:48,130 day when flash multiplayer games were not that common. 43 00:01:48,130 --> 00:01:51,620 And if you haven't played it before online, after today, 44 00:01:51,620 --> 00:01:58,150 especially if you had a chance to play with the card deck, 45 00:01:58,150 --> 00:01:59,920 try out the online version. 46 00:01:59,920 --> 00:02:01,180 Do a Google search for SISSYFIGHT 47 00:02:01,180 --> 00:02:03,030 3000, and try it online. 48 00:02:03,030 --> 00:02:05,770 Hopefully, there are still people playing it, because you 49 00:02:05,770 --> 00:02:07,694 need kind of like a minimum of five people to 50 00:02:07,694 --> 00:02:10,114 get a good game going. 51 00:02:10,114 --> 00:02:11,566 AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] the one that was taken down. 52 00:02:11,566 --> 00:02:13,018 AUDIENCE: Aw, suck. 53 00:02:13,018 --> 00:02:14,954 It was such a great game. 54 00:02:14,954 --> 00:02:17,950 PROFESSOR: Never mind. 55 00:02:17,950 --> 00:02:20,975 Basically, what you had was, you got avatar customization 56 00:02:20,975 --> 00:02:21,720 in your game. 57 00:02:21,720 --> 00:02:26,410 You could create your character, and you could-- 58 00:02:26,410 --> 00:02:31,780 you had this really cool retro pixelated look back in the day 59 00:02:31,780 --> 00:02:36,590 when retro pixelated stuff was not that popular yet. 60 00:02:36,590 --> 00:02:39,050 But the game-play was pretty much exactly the same as what 61 00:02:39,050 --> 00:02:40,300 a card game has. 62 00:02:43,860 --> 00:02:49,410 The readings today basically covered a lot of jargon that 63 00:02:49,410 --> 00:02:53,470 we're going to be using a lot of that for 64 00:02:53,470 --> 00:02:55,010 the rest of the class. 65 00:02:55,010 --> 00:02:56,700 For the most part, I'm not going to go through every 66 00:02:56,700 --> 00:02:59,885 single one of them because you folks can read. 67 00:02:59,885 --> 00:03:02,280 And if I mention something and you don't get it, you can 68 00:03:02,280 --> 00:03:03,650 always check back there. 69 00:03:03,650 --> 00:03:08,020 So just remember that the first chapter in Braithwaite 70 00:03:08,020 --> 00:03:10,560 is a pretty good glossary of terminology that we're going 71 00:03:10,560 --> 00:03:13,070 to keep using. 72 00:03:13,070 --> 00:03:16,660 But one of the big things that they ask is, what is a game? 73 00:03:16,660 --> 00:03:20,360 And it's one of those-- 74 00:03:20,360 --> 00:03:23,450 Does anybody actually want to offer their definition 75 00:03:23,450 --> 00:03:24,700 of what a game is? 76 00:03:27,759 --> 00:03:35,440 AUDIENCE: A game is something that involves players and they 77 00:03:35,440 --> 00:03:38,940 set up, define rules beforehand, rules that you 78 00:03:38,940 --> 00:03:45,670 have to abide by, whether they be, you can't go outside this 79 00:03:45,670 --> 00:03:52,340 limit, you have to abide by certain questions and orders. 80 00:03:52,340 --> 00:03:55,840 Something that has structure that is meant for one person 81 00:03:55,840 --> 00:04:00,020 to go from Point A to Point B. 82 00:04:00,020 --> 00:04:00,804 PROFESSOR: OK. 83 00:04:00,804 --> 00:04:04,560 Structure, rules, limits, players. 84 00:04:04,560 --> 00:04:05,305 Anything-- 85 00:04:05,305 --> 00:04:06,825 AUDIENCE: It's fun. 86 00:04:06,825 --> 00:04:09,329 AUDIENCE: Fun. 87 00:04:09,329 --> 00:04:11,440 AUDIENCE: It accomplishes some goal. 88 00:04:11,440 --> 00:04:12,220 PROFESSOR: Goal. 89 00:04:12,220 --> 00:04:13,470 AUDIENCE: So you always have some goal. 90 00:04:13,470 --> 00:04:16,388 AUDIENCE: You're working towards something. 91 00:04:16,388 --> 00:04:18,252 PROFESSOR: Anything else? 92 00:04:18,252 --> 00:04:19,279 [INTERPOSING VOICES] 93 00:04:19,279 --> 00:04:21,160 AUDIENCE: Or it's an abstract system. 94 00:04:21,160 --> 00:04:23,180 Often an abstraction of some real system. 95 00:04:23,180 --> 00:04:24,430 PROFESSOR: An abstract system. 96 00:04:31,310 --> 00:04:35,450 So these are actually pretty good benchmarks. 97 00:04:35,450 --> 00:04:39,240 Now there are, again, as Brandon describes, there isn't 98 00:04:39,240 --> 00:04:42,410 one that's just the canonical answer for everything. 99 00:04:42,410 --> 00:04:44,250 It really depends on which theorist you are reading at 100 00:04:44,250 --> 00:04:45,630 any given time. 101 00:04:45,630 --> 00:04:49,030 But usually it will involve a significant subset of all of 102 00:04:49,030 --> 00:04:51,330 these in the definition. 103 00:04:51,330 --> 00:04:54,870 And I like to keep things broad and vague because, for 104 00:04:54,870 --> 00:05:01,080 the most part, if you define yourselves too strictly, it 105 00:05:01,080 --> 00:05:01,810 might be useful. 106 00:05:01,810 --> 00:05:03,756 You're an academic and you need to write papers about it, 107 00:05:03,756 --> 00:05:06,030 but if you're a designer and you're just trying to create 108 00:05:06,030 --> 00:05:07,510 something fun-- 109 00:05:07,510 --> 00:05:12,420 the word I would use is "engaging," because fun means 110 00:05:12,420 --> 00:05:14,700 a lot of different things to a lot of different people. 111 00:05:14,700 --> 00:05:17,370 Engaging basically means that this is going to be something 112 00:05:17,370 --> 00:05:20,940 that you're going to want to do for a while, that is 113 00:05:20,940 --> 00:05:21,800 motivating. 114 00:05:21,800 --> 00:05:25,190 It might be terrifying you out of your wits. 115 00:05:25,190 --> 00:05:28,800 Some people enjoy that, or would find that experience 116 00:05:28,800 --> 00:05:29,750 compelling. 117 00:05:29,750 --> 00:05:32,340 I mean they may not call it fun. 118 00:05:32,340 --> 00:05:36,812 So I call that engagement. 119 00:05:36,812 --> 00:05:40,450 The problem with using fun and engaging as a metric for 120 00:05:40,450 --> 00:05:43,800 defining what a game is, is that that means that a bad 121 00:05:43,800 --> 00:05:45,410 game is not a game. 122 00:05:45,410 --> 00:05:48,930 A game that fails to achieve fun, that fails to be 123 00:05:48,930 --> 00:05:50,440 engaging, is not a game. 124 00:05:50,440 --> 00:05:54,900 But I wouldn't go that far, largely because that means a 125 00:05:54,900 --> 00:05:56,480 lot of stuff that I created is not a game. 126 00:05:59,930 --> 00:06:03,250 But it should give you the-- 127 00:06:03,250 --> 00:06:06,070 there is no magic point where a game becomes --the thing 128 00:06:06,070 --> 00:06:08,030 that you're building becomes fun and then 129 00:06:08,030 --> 00:06:11,110 suddenly becomes a game. 130 00:06:11,110 --> 00:06:13,620 I can't even imagine someone making that argument, that 131 00:06:13,620 --> 00:06:15,120 it's not a game until it's fun. 132 00:06:15,120 --> 00:06:18,680 But I much rather sort of say, fun and engagement is kind of 133 00:06:18,680 --> 00:06:22,460 more of a metric of how well designed your game is, not 134 00:06:22,460 --> 00:06:28,050 necessarily whether your game is a game. 135 00:06:28,050 --> 00:06:32,370 But that is a goal of a game designer, to try to create an 136 00:06:32,370 --> 00:06:34,870 engaging experience, something that people are 137 00:06:34,870 --> 00:06:37,770 going to want to do. 138 00:06:37,770 --> 00:06:39,890 I know some game designers who think that is not, 139 00:06:39,890 --> 00:06:41,910 in fact, their job. 140 00:06:41,910 --> 00:06:45,650 Their job is to maximize revenue, for instance. 141 00:06:45,650 --> 00:06:48,440 Especially if you work in social games, there's a lot of 142 00:06:48,440 --> 00:06:53,020 discussion now in how business and game design is basically 143 00:06:53,020 --> 00:06:54,190 just one thing now. 144 00:06:54,190 --> 00:06:56,995 The whole point of game design is, how do we get people to 145 00:06:56,995 --> 00:06:58,994 pay a little bit more? 146 00:06:58,994 --> 00:07:02,025 Zynga's going to be in town on September 20th, 147 00:07:02,025 --> 00:07:05,530 they're giving a talk. 148 00:07:05,530 --> 00:07:07,225 That has those two points in it. 149 00:07:07,225 --> 00:07:09,125 [INTERPOSING VOICES] 150 00:07:09,125 --> 00:07:14,000 PROFESSOR: So I always thought of design as something that 151 00:07:14,000 --> 00:07:15,570 you're working towards. 152 00:07:15,570 --> 00:07:16,825 But all these other things-- 153 00:07:16,825 --> 00:07:20,190 a game should have players. 154 00:07:20,190 --> 00:07:23,010 Again, I don't want to be too strict on that because I've 155 00:07:23,010 --> 00:07:26,580 certainly seen games that play themselves. 156 00:07:26,580 --> 00:07:29,520 Anyone here involved in Battle Code? 157 00:07:29,520 --> 00:07:32,470 That game pretty much plays itself, right? 158 00:07:32,470 --> 00:07:37,360 I mean, you set it going and then one side wins, but 159 00:07:37,360 --> 00:07:40,050 there's no human person at least during the time when the 160 00:07:40,050 --> 00:07:41,400 games actually being played. 161 00:07:41,400 --> 00:07:45,400 Or you could argue that the whole course of Battle Code-- 162 00:07:45,400 --> 00:07:47,360 for those people who don't know it, it's an IP course, I 163 00:07:47,360 --> 00:07:51,380 believe, where Course 6 students basically write bits 164 00:07:51,380 --> 00:07:54,780 of AI to play a real-time strategy game against some of 165 00:07:54,780 --> 00:07:56,210 other team's AI. 166 00:07:56,210 --> 00:07:59,460 And the basic idea is that, you win a real-time strategy 167 00:07:59,460 --> 00:08:01,610 game, your AI wins, but there's no human actually 168 00:08:01,610 --> 00:08:02,940 playing it at a given time. 169 00:08:02,940 --> 00:08:05,440 But, of course, there are humans writing the AI, so if 170 00:08:05,440 --> 00:08:08,640 you think of the entire class as a game, then there are 171 00:08:08,640 --> 00:08:09,890 players, there are people. 172 00:08:12,380 --> 00:08:15,160 I suddenly see people make a case that there are games that 173 00:08:15,160 --> 00:08:19,540 are zero player, and I've heard, for example, there's a 174 00:08:19,540 --> 00:08:24,740 game out there called Novick, which is largely a game about 175 00:08:24,740 --> 00:08:26,320 coming up with rules. 176 00:08:26,320 --> 00:08:30,760 And there is a system, which are actually in the rules 177 00:08:30,760 --> 00:08:34,280 themselves, about how you change rules. 178 00:08:34,280 --> 00:08:39,039 And, of course, those rules themselves can be changed. 179 00:08:39,039 --> 00:08:41,460 And that changes the way how you change rules and, by the 180 00:08:41,460 --> 00:08:44,110 time you actually play the game, someone's already won. 181 00:08:44,110 --> 00:08:48,550 Because somebody in the game has no legal moves. 182 00:08:48,550 --> 00:08:50,990 That's the whole game, is basically making it impossible 183 00:08:50,990 --> 00:08:54,680 for someone else, or someone else except for you, to win. 184 00:08:54,680 --> 00:08:57,180 So does that game actually have players? 185 00:08:57,180 --> 00:09:01,600 Well, yes, it does because you guys are arguing over all the 186 00:09:01,600 --> 00:09:05,180 rule changes through the rules of the game. 187 00:09:05,180 --> 00:09:07,660 But, in a sense, it had no players because the game never 188 00:09:07,660 --> 00:09:08,520 actually got played. 189 00:09:08,520 --> 00:09:12,960 The rules are basically stating, this is an unplayable 190 00:09:12,960 --> 00:09:17,060 game for everybody except for one person 191 00:09:17,060 --> 00:09:21,210 who's playing the game. 192 00:09:21,210 --> 00:09:25,520 Goals are one of those things that I used to be very, very 193 00:09:25,520 --> 00:09:26,590 adamant about. 194 00:09:26,590 --> 00:09:27,820 Like a game had to have a goal. 195 00:09:27,820 --> 00:09:29,970 You have to know what they're going towards, and if you 196 00:09:29,970 --> 00:09:33,440 don't have that, then it's a toy or something, it's a 197 00:09:33,440 --> 00:09:34,430 dollhouse, it's an experiment. 198 00:09:34,430 --> 00:09:38,066 The Sims was the one that I was like railing about when I 199 00:09:38,066 --> 00:09:39,850 was an undergraduate. 200 00:09:39,850 --> 00:09:42,600 You know-- that's not a game. 201 00:09:42,600 --> 00:09:46,500 And, of course, I was working with many colleagues and 202 00:09:46,500 --> 00:09:50,620 eventually came across, came over to decide that it doesn't 203 00:09:50,620 --> 00:09:52,620 matter whether I think it is a game or not. 204 00:09:52,620 --> 00:09:56,690 If it's in the game shelf of Best Buy, it's a game. 205 00:09:59,330 --> 00:10:01,700 Because people think it's a game, and if enough people 206 00:10:01,700 --> 00:10:04,390 think it's a game, then it might as well be a game. 207 00:10:04,390 --> 00:10:07,090 Otherwise-- 208 00:10:07,090 --> 00:10:09,080 because that's what people think it's going to be. 209 00:10:09,080 --> 00:10:14,860 So when you come up with your game, I would say that goals 210 00:10:14,860 --> 00:10:18,700 are one of those things that helps steer player behavior. 211 00:10:18,700 --> 00:10:22,910 So it's one of those tools that you have as a designer to 212 00:10:22,910 --> 00:10:25,450 basically say, this is important, this is not. 213 00:10:25,450 --> 00:10:31,640 Reaching the end of 100 meters is important for a sprinter. 214 00:10:31,640 --> 00:10:35,360 That end is really not interesting for somebody who 215 00:10:35,360 --> 00:10:39,180 is running 400 meters or a 50 meter dash. 216 00:10:39,180 --> 00:10:41,990 But that gives someone a direction 217 00:10:41,990 --> 00:10:43,590 for them to go towards. 218 00:10:43,590 --> 00:10:45,630 But there are plenty of games where you have to 219 00:10:45,630 --> 00:10:46,680 invent your own goals. 220 00:10:46,680 --> 00:10:51,040 Other than Sims, can anyone think of any? 221 00:10:51,040 --> 00:10:53,360 Where inventing your own goals is kind of the fun. 222 00:10:53,360 --> 00:10:54,245 AUDIENCE: A lot of NLRPGs. 223 00:10:54,245 --> 00:10:56,460 PROFESSOR: A lot of NLRPGs. 224 00:10:56,460 --> 00:10:57,380 They have goals. 225 00:10:57,380 --> 00:10:58,000 They have quests. 226 00:10:58,000 --> 00:11:00,210 But that's not where a lot of fun is, necessarily. 227 00:11:00,210 --> 00:11:00,990 AUDIENCE: Second Life. 228 00:11:00,990 --> 00:11:02,050 PROFESSOR: Second Life. 229 00:11:02,050 --> 00:11:03,270 A lot of virtual worlds. 230 00:11:03,270 --> 00:11:04,581 AUDIENCE: A game like EVE? 231 00:11:04,581 --> 00:11:05,400 PROFESSOR: EVE? 232 00:11:05,400 --> 00:11:07,310 Yeah. 233 00:11:07,310 --> 00:11:10,680 EVE, you kind of, want to, like you have to set your own 234 00:11:10,680 --> 00:11:13,890 goals, because whatever is in the game is only good enough 235 00:11:13,890 --> 00:11:15,380 for a single player-- 236 00:11:15,380 --> 00:11:17,940 to tell whether a single player whether they're doing 237 00:11:17,940 --> 00:11:18,640 well or not. 238 00:11:18,640 --> 00:11:20,655 But EVE is not about a single player. 239 00:11:20,655 --> 00:11:24,280 EVE is about thousands and thousands of people playing 240 00:11:24,280 --> 00:11:25,530 simultaneously. 241 00:11:27,760 --> 00:11:29,840 Actually, have people heard of EVE? 242 00:11:29,840 --> 00:11:30,821 All right. 243 00:11:30,821 --> 00:11:31,312 Yeah. 244 00:11:31,312 --> 00:11:32,048 So, cool. 245 00:11:32,048 --> 00:11:32,294 Cool. 246 00:11:32,294 --> 00:11:33,767 AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]. 247 00:11:33,767 --> 00:11:35,250 PROFESSOR: Oh, cool. 248 00:11:35,250 --> 00:11:35,680 In Iceland? 249 00:11:35,680 --> 00:11:36,410 AUDIENCE: Yeah. 250 00:11:36,410 --> 00:11:37,655 PROFESSOR: Was it like really cheap when 251 00:11:37,655 --> 00:11:38,470 you went over there? 252 00:11:38,470 --> 00:11:39,310 AUDIENCE: Yes. 253 00:11:39,310 --> 00:11:41,663 PROFESSOR: Could you have bought the entire studio? 254 00:11:41,663 --> 00:11:43,587 AUDIENCE: No. 255 00:11:43,587 --> 00:11:44,068 Unfortunately. 256 00:11:44,068 --> 00:11:46,954 But it was really cheap. 257 00:11:46,954 --> 00:11:49,145 PROFESSOR: So they must have been making tons 258 00:11:49,145 --> 00:11:50,177 of money over there. 259 00:11:50,177 --> 00:11:51,369 AUDIENCE: Yeah, they're making money in US 260 00:11:51,369 --> 00:11:52,562 Dollars and the Euro. 261 00:11:52,562 --> 00:11:55,424 [INTERPOSING VOICES] 262 00:11:55,424 --> 00:11:57,845 PROFESSOR: They probably hire most, yeah, support most of 263 00:11:57,845 --> 00:11:58,205 the economy. 264 00:11:58,205 --> 00:11:59,438 [INTERPOSING VOICES] 265 00:11:59,438 --> 00:12:00,416 PROFESSOR: Yeah. 266 00:12:00,416 --> 00:12:00,905 [INTERPOSING VOICES] 267 00:12:00,905 --> 00:12:10,205 AUDIENCE: The capitol is 20,000 people so... 268 00:12:10,205 --> 00:12:13,440 PROFESSOR: So I'll say goals are very important tools and 269 00:12:13,440 --> 00:12:16,160 as a result of that you see them in a lot of the games. 270 00:12:16,160 --> 00:12:20,220 And for most of the games that you guys are going to be 271 00:12:20,220 --> 00:12:24,370 building, you're going to give a very clear goal of this what 272 00:12:24,370 --> 00:12:25,230 you want to do-- 273 00:12:25,230 --> 00:12:30,480 earn a certain amount of money, prevent your opponent 274 00:12:30,480 --> 00:12:34,440 from doing anything else, take over all the land. 275 00:12:34,440 --> 00:12:36,940 That sort of thing. 276 00:12:36,940 --> 00:12:38,720 Let's see. 277 00:12:38,720 --> 00:12:42,415 Oh, I'll get to the rules last. 278 00:12:42,415 --> 00:12:43,730 But, system. 279 00:12:43,730 --> 00:12:44,270 Systems are-- 280 00:12:44,270 --> 00:12:47,960 I might already have mentioned this in the last class, but 281 00:12:47,960 --> 00:12:52,340 games are systems in a way that most MIT engineers would 282 00:12:52,340 --> 00:12:53,230 think of systems. 283 00:12:53,230 --> 00:12:56,430 They're a bunch of interconnected little modules, 284 00:12:56,430 --> 00:12:58,910 all of them with sort of predictable behavior, and then 285 00:12:58,910 --> 00:13:02,070 you put them into a big interconnected system, and it 286 00:13:02,070 --> 00:13:04,247 is no longer really all that predictable anymore. 287 00:13:04,247 --> 00:13:07,140 At least that's the kind of games that we're interested in 288 00:13:07,140 --> 00:13:07,530 in this class. 289 00:13:07,530 --> 00:13:10,350 There's also the game-theory games, where the whole point 290 00:13:10,350 --> 00:13:13,890 of it is trying to predict what could possibly happen. 291 00:13:13,890 --> 00:13:18,410 And those are great thought experiments and there's some 292 00:13:18,410 --> 00:13:21,980 really, really interesting math behind all them and some 293 00:13:21,980 --> 00:13:23,170 interesting rules of thumb that can come out. 294 00:13:23,170 --> 00:13:25,680 But for the most part, we aren't going to go into too 295 00:13:25,680 --> 00:13:28,580 much detail about that, largely because I'm not a 296 00:13:28,580 --> 00:13:31,980 mathematician or economist, so I don't really have a good 297 00:13:31,980 --> 00:13:34,130 sense of game theory. 298 00:13:34,130 --> 00:13:37,640 Just be aware that there is this whole field of game 299 00:13:37,640 --> 00:13:39,200 theory in economics. 300 00:13:39,200 --> 00:13:41,730 If you're doing a game like an auction system, if you're 301 00:13:41,730 --> 00:13:45,090 doing a game where people are doing either a lot of 302 00:13:45,090 --> 00:13:49,610 simultaneous moves or the whole point of the game is 303 00:13:49,610 --> 00:13:53,610 trying to predict what strategy your opponent's going 304 00:13:53,610 --> 00:13:55,570 to do, you might actually want to read up a little bit on 305 00:13:55,570 --> 00:13:57,600 game theory, if nothing else, just to give you some 306 00:13:57,600 --> 00:14:01,350 vocabulary to talk about it with your teammates, and some 307 00:14:01,350 --> 00:14:03,575 tools to be able to think through some of the design 308 00:14:03,575 --> 00:14:05,030 problems that you've got. 309 00:14:05,030 --> 00:14:07,420 And we do have one session where I'll 310 00:14:07,420 --> 00:14:08,670 introduce some of that. 311 00:14:10,910 --> 00:14:13,840 Finally, we are getting to rules. 312 00:14:13,840 --> 00:14:18,490 The things that give your game structure and the constraints 313 00:14:18,490 --> 00:14:19,895 of the things you can't do. 314 00:14:19,895 --> 00:14:23,750 You can't move from here to there without having your foot 315 00:14:23,750 --> 00:14:27,540 tied to another player, that sort of constraint. 316 00:14:27,540 --> 00:14:32,017 Or a rule being you can't see anything during a certain part 317 00:14:32,017 --> 00:14:33,267 of the game. 318 00:14:36,390 --> 00:14:38,330 There are two bits of terminology introduced by 319 00:14:38,330 --> 00:14:43,470 Brenda and Ian Schreiber in their book, which is in Core 320 00:14:43,470 --> 00:14:45,650 Mechanic and Core Dynamic. 321 00:14:45,650 --> 00:14:47,710 So before I'm going to go into the core mechanic and core 322 00:14:47,710 --> 00:14:51,430 dynamic, I'm going to talk about mechanic and dynamic. 323 00:14:51,430 --> 00:14:55,276 Anyone want to throw out the definition of mechanic? 324 00:14:55,276 --> 00:14:59,270 AUDIENCE: I reckon it's sort of the actions like a player 325 00:14:59,270 --> 00:15:03,785 takes during a game like the physical actions he takes. 326 00:15:03,785 --> 00:15:04,760 PROFESSOR: OK. 327 00:15:04,760 --> 00:15:07,460 The actions that a player decides to take? 328 00:15:07,460 --> 00:15:08,710 AUDIENCE: Decides to take, yeah. 329 00:15:13,388 --> 00:15:14,260 PROFESSOR: Sorry if this is a little low, 330 00:15:14,260 --> 00:15:15,870 I saw Patrick and-- 331 00:15:15,870 --> 00:15:18,174 or did those hands just go down? 332 00:15:18,174 --> 00:15:21,066 I thought I saw a few more hands. 333 00:15:21,066 --> 00:15:22,280 AUDIENCE: Actions that are sort of 334 00:15:22,280 --> 00:15:25,186 designed by the game designer. 335 00:15:25,186 --> 00:15:26,668 So it's intended actions. 336 00:15:29,632 --> 00:15:32,940 PROFESSOR: Design is definitely a good point. 337 00:15:32,940 --> 00:15:38,660 A game mechanic is definitely something that you as a game 338 00:15:38,660 --> 00:15:40,800 designer control. 339 00:15:40,800 --> 00:15:42,083 There are-- 340 00:15:42,083 --> 00:15:46,220 if a player decides to do something in the game that you 341 00:15:46,220 --> 00:15:49,600 did not explicitly think about, and you did not 342 00:15:49,600 --> 00:15:52,040 explicitly say, all right this is what players are going to 343 00:15:52,040 --> 00:15:53,660 be doing in a game, then it might not 344 00:15:53,660 --> 00:15:54,950 actually be a mechanic. 345 00:15:54,950 --> 00:15:56,760 It might be something that you're discovering in your 346 00:15:56,760 --> 00:15:58,920 play testing that you will turn into a mechanic. 347 00:15:58,920 --> 00:16:02,292 But because it's not designed, it's kind of-- 348 00:16:02,292 --> 00:16:04,530 it becomes more like a strategy, actually, like an 349 00:16:04,530 --> 00:16:04,990 emergent strategy. 350 00:16:04,990 --> 00:16:05,355 Sorry. 351 00:16:05,355 --> 00:16:06,580 You were saying, Jeremy? 352 00:16:06,580 --> 00:16:08,356 AUDIENCE: Is it more like a dynamic ? 353 00:16:08,356 --> 00:16:09,540 PROFESSOR: Possibly. 354 00:16:09,540 --> 00:16:11,540 There are times where it is. 355 00:16:11,540 --> 00:16:12,820 Yeah. 356 00:16:12,820 --> 00:16:16,030 Actually let's throw out definitions of dynamic, what 357 00:16:16,030 --> 00:16:17,280 do people-- 358 00:16:19,170 --> 00:16:20,040 well, Jeremy? 359 00:16:20,040 --> 00:16:21,884 AUDIENCE: It's behavior that emerges from mechanics? 360 00:16:21,884 --> 00:16:24,826 PROFESSOR: It's emergent behavior? 361 00:16:28,560 --> 00:16:29,880 What else? 362 00:16:29,880 --> 00:16:35,240 AUDIENCE: Use of mechanics that isn't directly stated in 363 00:16:35,240 --> 00:16:35,734 the rules of the game. 364 00:16:35,734 --> 00:16:37,710 PROFESSOR: OK. 365 00:16:37,710 --> 00:16:39,686 So unstated. 366 00:16:39,686 --> 00:16:42,650 I'm running out of space here. 367 00:16:42,650 --> 00:16:46,108 I thought I saw a hand on this side. 368 00:16:46,108 --> 00:16:46,602 No? 369 00:16:46,602 --> 00:16:48,084 OK. 370 00:16:48,084 --> 00:16:48,580 All right. 371 00:16:48,580 --> 00:16:52,020 So, yeah, dynamics are basically 372 00:16:52,020 --> 00:16:53,670 interactions of mechanics. 373 00:16:53,670 --> 00:16:58,670 It's like you don't have anything that may necessarily 374 00:16:58,670 --> 00:17:03,860 explicitly say, because of this one rule and because of 375 00:17:03,860 --> 00:17:05,970 this other rule, and because of the things that the players 376 00:17:05,970 --> 00:17:10,020 can do in that, a good strategy is to 377 00:17:10,020 --> 00:17:11,560 do something else. 378 00:17:11,560 --> 00:17:15,030 So let me see whether I can think of an example. 379 00:17:15,030 --> 00:17:16,316 Right now, everything that's coming 380 00:17:16,316 --> 00:17:18,460 to my head is StarCraft. 381 00:17:18,460 --> 00:17:20,960 AUDIENCE: Has that been the case for the last few weeks? 382 00:17:20,960 --> 00:17:24,200 PROFESSOR: Unfortunately, yes. 383 00:17:24,200 --> 00:17:25,329 By the way, if anybody is playing 384 00:17:25,329 --> 00:17:27,194 StarCraft, I need testers. 385 00:17:27,194 --> 00:17:27,985 AUDIENCE: StarCraft II or StarCraft I? 386 00:17:27,985 --> 00:17:28,740 PROFESSOR: Two. 387 00:17:28,740 --> 00:17:28,990 AUDIENCE: Ah, yes. 388 00:17:28,990 --> 00:17:32,776 PROFESSOR: I need testers for a math game I'm designing. 389 00:17:32,776 --> 00:17:33,990 AUDIENCE: I play Zerg. 390 00:17:33,990 --> 00:17:35,240 [INTERPOSING VOICES] 391 00:17:38,890 --> 00:17:40,210 PROFESSOR: OK. 392 00:17:40,210 --> 00:17:42,580 AUDIENCE: So there's this role selection mechanic where 393 00:17:42,580 --> 00:17:45,542 everybody picks the thing which they want to happen 394 00:17:45,542 --> 00:17:45,898 during their turn. 395 00:17:45,898 --> 00:17:46,850 [INTERPOSING VOICES] 396 00:17:46,850 --> 00:17:52,180 AUDIENCE: and mostly everybody chooses to build 397 00:17:52,180 --> 00:17:55,690 a particular cross. 398 00:17:55,690 --> 00:17:58,380 And the dynamic that emerges from the sequence of play, 399 00:17:58,380 --> 00:18:03,590 which goes clockwise is that it's best to optimize your 400 00:18:03,590 --> 00:18:06,620 strategy so that you were doing, so you were benefiting 401 00:18:06,620 --> 00:18:09,240 from the role of the person to your right, 402 00:18:09,240 --> 00:18:10,563 is likely to choose. 403 00:18:10,563 --> 00:18:13,322 But you're making the [UNINTELLIGIBLE] of the person 404 00:18:13,322 --> 00:18:16,972 you elect is most likely win a ship. 405 00:18:16,972 --> 00:18:21,935 So mechanically it's role selection and turn order and 406 00:18:21,935 --> 00:18:23,904 then the dynamic is the strategy 407 00:18:23,904 --> 00:18:25,790 written by the program. 408 00:18:25,790 --> 00:18:27,130 PROFESSOR: Which gives you some idea what 409 00:18:27,130 --> 00:18:28,600 to select as opposed-- 410 00:18:28,600 --> 00:18:30,415 the mechanic is you can select. 411 00:18:30,415 --> 00:18:34,380 The dynamic is, here are a couple of strategies that you 412 00:18:34,380 --> 00:18:38,310 can use in sort of assessing what would best to select. 413 00:18:38,310 --> 00:18:42,480 And if all the players start to understand that, then it 414 00:18:42,480 --> 00:18:46,850 almost becomes like a second layer of rules almost. 415 00:18:46,850 --> 00:18:49,220 If anyone has played a game like Bridge, for instance, 416 00:18:49,220 --> 00:18:51,470 there's actually a ton of things that are assumed in the 417 00:18:51,470 --> 00:18:54,490 play which are not actually in the rules of Bridge when it 418 00:18:54,490 --> 00:18:55,140 comes to bidding. 419 00:18:55,140 --> 00:18:58,140 Like when you call out a bid, it's highly dependent on what 420 00:18:58,140 --> 00:19:02,030 you actually have in your card hand. 421 00:19:02,030 --> 00:19:04,570 And that's not actually written in the rules anywhere. 422 00:19:04,570 --> 00:19:07,720 But the assumption is that there is optimal way to do it. 423 00:19:07,720 --> 00:19:09,950 And since there's optimal way to do it, everyone's expected 424 00:19:09,950 --> 00:19:11,760 to know those optimal ways. 425 00:19:11,760 --> 00:19:15,870 The example in the book was chess moves, like every single 426 00:19:15,870 --> 00:19:19,190 piece of chess has a set of moves that it 427 00:19:19,190 --> 00:19:19,970 can perform, right? 428 00:19:19,970 --> 00:19:21,410 Pawns go one or two squares, depending 429 00:19:21,410 --> 00:19:23,290 where they're starting. 430 00:19:23,290 --> 00:19:24,900 The bishops move diagonally. 431 00:19:24,900 --> 00:19:27,350 But there are also opening gambits. 432 00:19:30,370 --> 00:19:34,610 Opening gambits that are also well known, at least among 433 00:19:34,610 --> 00:19:38,300 professional chess players, and the idea being, oh, this 434 00:19:38,300 --> 00:19:42,290 person is using this opening, therefore, if I counter it 435 00:19:42,290 --> 00:19:47,140 with this response, I actually have a reasonable chance of 436 00:19:47,140 --> 00:19:49,740 actually winning this game, and professional chess 437 00:19:49,740 --> 00:19:52,440 players know this. 438 00:19:52,440 --> 00:19:55,020 The other thing that comes up in chess, which is not in the 439 00:19:55,020 --> 00:19:59,600 book, is there is the concept of threatened squares. 440 00:20:02,130 --> 00:20:04,730 If you move, if there is a square where there is no piece 441 00:20:04,730 --> 00:20:05,680 on a chess board-- 442 00:20:05,680 --> 00:20:09,800 everyone here knows the rules of chess, more or less? 443 00:20:09,800 --> 00:20:11,230 So say you've got a bishop-- 444 00:20:11,230 --> 00:20:15,805 and this is quite a simple chess board-- and you've got 445 00:20:15,805 --> 00:20:21,390 the bishop, and it can move like that, right? 446 00:20:21,390 --> 00:20:25,820 So every single square on these lines is threatened. 447 00:20:25,820 --> 00:20:31,320 It's something which the bishop could move to. 448 00:20:31,320 --> 00:20:34,594 Unless, of course, it's lost by a pawn or something, then 449 00:20:34,594 --> 00:20:36,610 these are not going to be threatened by the pawns. 450 00:20:40,410 --> 00:20:42,950 If your knight obviously is no longer straight lines, it 451 00:20:42,950 --> 00:20:48,460 becomes a specific or sort of like stochastic pattern of 452 00:20:48,460 --> 00:20:49,710 squares that become threatened. 453 00:20:52,100 --> 00:20:55,520 But the idea of here's this square now that nobody dares 454 00:20:55,520 --> 00:20:58,780 move into until something's done about that bishop. 455 00:20:58,780 --> 00:21:02,746 Either something gets moved in its way, or something takes 456 00:21:02,746 --> 00:21:04,487 out the bishop or forces the bishop to move by threatening 457 00:21:04,487 --> 00:21:08,210 it instead in a way that it cannot respond. 458 00:21:08,210 --> 00:21:14,610 So threatened squares is not a rule in chess, but it greatly 459 00:21:14,610 --> 00:21:18,130 shapes your decision making and that's the difference 460 00:21:18,130 --> 00:21:21,070 between dynamic and mechanic. 461 00:21:21,070 --> 00:21:25,440 There's a lot of strong correspondence between 462 00:21:25,440 --> 00:21:27,890 mechanics and rules. 463 00:21:27,890 --> 00:21:29,320 But-- 464 00:21:29,320 --> 00:21:35,210 and I had a long, long little rant about exactly what the 465 00:21:35,210 --> 00:21:38,860 difference is between mechanics and rules. 466 00:21:38,860 --> 00:21:40,760 And what I basically-- 467 00:21:40,760 --> 00:21:44,290 I know I'm going to get the rant right now, but it's like 468 00:21:44,290 --> 00:21:45,520 overlapping venn diagram. 469 00:21:45,520 --> 00:21:47,830 There's a very, very large area where it's exactly the 470 00:21:47,830 --> 00:21:49,760 same thing. 471 00:21:49,760 --> 00:21:52,430 My general rubric for trying to figure out whether 472 00:21:52,430 --> 00:21:55,330 something is a mechanic or not is whether this is the thing 473 00:21:55,330 --> 00:21:57,310 that changes the state of the game. 474 00:21:57,310 --> 00:21:58,200 It is an action. 475 00:21:58,200 --> 00:22:01,230 It is something that someone is going to be doing to change 476 00:22:01,230 --> 00:22:04,220 the state of what the game is. 477 00:22:04,220 --> 00:22:07,475 In chess, that's largely the movement of the piece. 478 00:22:13,100 --> 00:22:14,370 If it's ultimate. 479 00:22:14,370 --> 00:22:16,600 It could be just physical movement. 480 00:22:16,600 --> 00:22:18,900 You are limited on when you can physically move. 481 00:22:18,900 --> 00:22:21,862 If you have that frisbee, you're not moving. 482 00:22:21,862 --> 00:22:23,680 Well, your feet are not moving. 483 00:22:23,680 --> 00:22:25,260 I believe that's a rule of Ultimate. 484 00:22:28,650 --> 00:22:34,180 So the reason why I use that definition is because there 485 00:22:34,180 --> 00:22:37,100 are occasionally times when I need to talk about mechanics 486 00:22:37,100 --> 00:22:39,650 that players aren't actually doing. 487 00:22:39,650 --> 00:22:43,550 The game requires certain pieces to move in a certain 488 00:22:43,550 --> 00:22:47,800 way, certain things to happen in the game in 489 00:22:47,800 --> 00:22:48,900 such and such a time. 490 00:22:48,900 --> 00:22:53,860 For instance, you have these die rolls and-- 491 00:22:53,860 --> 00:22:55,521 actually, that's not a good example. 492 00:22:55,521 --> 00:22:57,630 Let me think. 493 00:22:57,630 --> 00:22:59,440 Right at the beginning of Settlers of Catan there is the 494 00:22:59,440 --> 00:23:02,033 way how you set up the board, and that establishes what a 495 00:23:02,033 --> 00:23:03,640 game state is going to be. 496 00:23:03,640 --> 00:23:06,070 It changes game state by giving you a game state in the 497 00:23:06,070 --> 00:23:07,320 first place. 498 00:23:09,250 --> 00:23:10,690 I consider that a mechanic. 499 00:23:10,690 --> 00:23:13,700 That is something that's going-- 500 00:23:13,700 --> 00:23:14,930 that's not one rule. 501 00:23:14,930 --> 00:23:16,442 That's actually a whole collection of rules. 502 00:23:16,442 --> 00:23:17,916 And if you're interested in finding out what those rules 503 00:23:17,916 --> 00:23:21,244 are, the box is actually in that closet over there. 504 00:23:21,244 --> 00:23:24,045 There are something like five or six different rules on how 505 00:23:24,045 --> 00:23:25,220 you set up your board. 506 00:23:25,220 --> 00:23:27,130 It's going to be, set up your game state, and I consider 507 00:23:27,130 --> 00:23:29,460 that a mechanic. 508 00:23:29,460 --> 00:23:32,740 How people do bidding and buying things 509 00:23:32,740 --> 00:23:33,625 in Settlers of Catan? 510 00:23:33,625 --> 00:23:35,100 That's dynamic. 511 00:23:35,100 --> 00:23:39,440 There are no real rules on how much something costs. 512 00:23:39,440 --> 00:23:43,780 That's up to the players to work out on your own. 513 00:23:43,780 --> 00:23:45,646 So that's how I sort of consider the difference 514 00:23:45,646 --> 00:23:50,083 between dynamic and mechanic. 515 00:23:50,083 --> 00:23:53,610 They're really, really useful concepts because really, for 516 00:23:53,610 --> 00:23:57,640 the most part, as a designer you have an idea of what kind 517 00:23:57,640 --> 00:24:00,040 of dynamics are interesting. 518 00:24:00,040 --> 00:24:03,870 And the more games that you play, the more inspiration you 519 00:24:03,870 --> 00:24:09,130 get from various sources, your range of different ideas of 520 00:24:09,130 --> 00:24:10,480 what kind of dynamics might be 521 00:24:10,480 --> 00:24:12,195 interesting is going to expand. 522 00:24:12,195 --> 00:24:15,455 But all you have control on are mechanics, the specific 523 00:24:15,455 --> 00:24:21,670 rules that you're giving, note that game mechanics don't 524 00:24:21,670 --> 00:24:26,730 necessarily need to be written or described out. 525 00:24:26,730 --> 00:24:31,020 This is one thing that I think you and your teammates should 526 00:24:31,020 --> 00:24:32,480 figure out when you're talking about 527 00:24:32,480 --> 00:24:34,570 mechanics for a given project. 528 00:24:34,570 --> 00:24:36,800 Are we just talking about the things we are writing down? 529 00:24:36,800 --> 00:24:38,670 Because there are some assumptions 530 00:24:38,670 --> 00:24:41,760 that are just given. 531 00:24:41,760 --> 00:24:47,060 We are playing a game, and we're not playing some sort of 532 00:24:47,060 --> 00:24:51,570 schoolyard game or something, hitting people with solid 533 00:24:51,570 --> 00:24:53,650 objects that's disallowed. 534 00:24:53,650 --> 00:24:57,590 Not necessarily something you need to write down. 535 00:24:57,590 --> 00:25:00,940 Unless you're playing with certain people. 536 00:25:00,940 --> 00:25:05,420 You can assume that the game again -- 537 00:25:05,420 --> 00:25:08,750 things like how fast people normally do things. 538 00:25:08,750 --> 00:25:11,650 There's a game over here called Falling, which is 539 00:25:11,650 --> 00:25:13,410 actually a real-time card game. 540 00:25:13,410 --> 00:25:17,920 It goes as fast you can possibly play it, and there is 541 00:25:17,920 --> 00:25:20,920 no there is no limit on how fast you can play these cards. 542 00:25:20,920 --> 00:25:23,360 But there is a real physical limit on how fast you could 543 00:25:23,360 --> 00:25:26,100 physically grab the card out of your hand and put it down. 544 00:25:26,100 --> 00:25:28,766 So, actually, it's not even on your hand, your just moving 545 00:25:28,766 --> 00:25:30,810 cards on table. 546 00:25:30,810 --> 00:25:33,510 So make sure you give that a try today. 547 00:25:41,140 --> 00:25:46,050 Finally, we'll be getting to aesthetics, I think-- 548 00:25:46,050 --> 00:25:47,352 next class? 549 00:25:47,352 --> 00:25:49,090 [INTERPOSING VOICES] 550 00:25:49,090 --> 00:25:51,160 PROFESSOR: So, which is another thing 551 00:25:51,160 --> 00:25:54,150 which a game designer-- 552 00:25:54,150 --> 00:25:57,010 in fact, what I would like game designers to actually 553 00:25:57,010 --> 00:25:58,750 spend more time thinking about, which is, what is the 554 00:25:58,750 --> 00:26:00,620 feeling you want your player to have? 555 00:26:00,620 --> 00:26:03,360 As opposed to, this might be fun, or 556 00:26:03,360 --> 00:26:04,020 this might be engaging. 557 00:26:04,020 --> 00:26:05,560 And specifically, how is it fun? 558 00:26:05,560 --> 00:26:06,660 And how is it engaging? 559 00:26:06,660 --> 00:26:09,560 Is it fun as in like, yes, victory! 560 00:26:09,560 --> 00:26:11,110 I have crushed all my opponents. 561 00:26:11,110 --> 00:26:13,410 Or is it fun as if, well, we had a really good time 562 00:26:13,410 --> 00:26:15,790 together and we got to know each other really well. 563 00:26:15,790 --> 00:26:17,472 There are games that are designed for both of those. 564 00:26:20,350 --> 00:26:22,570 And what is the aesthetic you're going for? 565 00:26:22,570 --> 00:26:23,145 Are you going for something poetic? 566 00:26:23,145 --> 00:26:27,040 Are you going for something fiercely competitive? 567 00:26:27,040 --> 00:26:28,080 Tournament competitive? 568 00:26:28,080 --> 00:26:31,572 Are you going for just a nice little social experiment? 569 00:26:34,290 --> 00:26:38,570 Core mechanics and core dynamics are a tool, again, 570 00:26:38,570 --> 00:26:40,060 for designers. 571 00:26:40,060 --> 00:26:42,010 The idea of-- 572 00:26:42,010 --> 00:26:44,410 there really isn't a huge difference between what's a 573 00:26:44,410 --> 00:26:47,870 core mechanic and what's just a mechanic, except inside a 574 00:26:47,870 --> 00:26:51,610 designer or design team's discussion. 575 00:26:51,610 --> 00:26:55,880 The idea of having a core mechanic is you identify this 576 00:26:55,880 --> 00:26:57,435 is what our game's about. 577 00:26:57,435 --> 00:27:00,840 Or a core dynamic means this is what our game's about. 578 00:27:00,840 --> 00:27:03,950 And a lot of core mechanics in first person shooters is 579 00:27:03,950 --> 00:27:05,590 pointing and shooting. 580 00:27:05,590 --> 00:27:06,880 I'm going to point at something and I'm going to 581 00:27:06,880 --> 00:27:09,080 launch a projectile that way, and that projectile is going 582 00:27:09,080 --> 00:27:11,840 to move in some physical properties. 583 00:27:11,840 --> 00:27:14,736 Maybe it arcs, maybe it goes straight. 584 00:27:17,690 --> 00:27:21,480 I would say that the core mechanic of Halo isn't 585 00:27:21,480 --> 00:27:24,420 actually that. 586 00:27:24,420 --> 00:27:27,640 Who has not played Halo or seen someone play Halo? 587 00:27:27,640 --> 00:27:29,620 OK. 588 00:27:29,620 --> 00:27:33,460 So the idea, core mechanic-- 589 00:27:33,460 --> 00:27:36,700 or I think my Bungie calls it the core game play loop-- 590 00:27:39,670 --> 00:27:44,860 of Halo is, you shoot at something, you take cover, you 591 00:27:44,860 --> 00:27:47,940 throw a grenade at it, you wait for the grenade to go 592 00:27:47,940 --> 00:27:52,030 off, and then you shoot at it again until it dies. 593 00:27:52,030 --> 00:27:54,090 That's pretty much all you are doing for the 594 00:27:54,090 --> 00:27:56,310 entirety of Halo 1. 595 00:27:56,310 --> 00:28:01,730 I'm sure Halo 2, Halo 3 gets complicated, but de-identify 596 00:28:01,730 --> 00:28:05,280 that as you actually read the post-mortems and if you read 597 00:28:05,280 --> 00:28:07,500 the talks that are given, they say those-- 598 00:28:07,500 --> 00:28:10,180 I can't remember if it was 20 seconds or five seconds of 599 00:28:10,180 --> 00:28:12,010 game play which is used to describe that. 600 00:28:12,010 --> 00:28:15,030 I think that five seconds of game play is what 601 00:28:15,030 --> 00:28:16,500 they focused on. 602 00:28:16,500 --> 00:28:19,850 And if they could get every little thing in that sequence 603 00:28:19,850 --> 00:28:23,330 correct, they can repeat that same thing at infinitum, and 604 00:28:23,330 --> 00:28:25,800 you'll still will be having fun. 605 00:28:25,800 --> 00:28:27,430 Halo 1, everyone. 606 00:28:29,930 --> 00:28:31,180 They're kinda right. 607 00:28:31,180 --> 00:28:34,090 But the idea being, if you've got a core mechanic, and 608 00:28:34,090 --> 00:28:36,300 you've got one thing in your game that someone's going to 609 00:28:36,300 --> 00:28:38,500 be doing over and over and over again, all your players 610 00:28:38,500 --> 00:28:40,500 are going to be doing over and over again-- maybe it's 611 00:28:40,500 --> 00:28:43,900 bidding because it may be some kind of auction game. 612 00:28:43,900 --> 00:28:46,790 In Falling and Pit, it's transferring 613 00:28:46,790 --> 00:28:50,100 cards to other people. 614 00:28:50,100 --> 00:28:54,300 I'm trying to think of the other games that we got here. 615 00:28:54,300 --> 00:28:59,820 In SISSYFIGHT, I would imagine the main core mechanic would 616 00:28:59,820 --> 00:29:04,690 be putting down the card and everyone revealing the cards 617 00:29:04,690 --> 00:29:08,790 simultaneously, because of you all take simultaneous turns. 618 00:29:08,790 --> 00:29:10,440 Make sure that's really, really fun. 619 00:29:10,440 --> 00:29:13,060 And Yahtzee is rolling dice. 620 00:29:13,060 --> 00:29:15,630 That action, that thing that you're going to be doing over 621 00:29:15,630 --> 00:29:20,660 and over again, has to be at least fairly engaging. 622 00:29:20,660 --> 00:29:23,755 Because if you can't get that right, then what happens is 623 00:29:23,755 --> 00:29:26,590 that that same movement, that happens 30 to 50 times in your 624 00:29:26,590 --> 00:29:28,640 game, just-- 625 00:29:28,640 --> 00:29:32,980 the badness just gets multiplied by 30 or 50. 626 00:29:32,980 --> 00:29:34,640 And you don't want that. 627 00:29:34,640 --> 00:29:39,085 So for core mechanics, I would say the thing that happens in 628 00:29:39,085 --> 00:29:40,510 your game the most-- 629 00:29:40,510 --> 00:29:44,120 and you want to make sure that that part is as engaging as 630 00:29:44,120 --> 00:29:46,970 possible because it gives you a rubric to say, what's not a 631 00:29:46,970 --> 00:29:50,360 core mechanic might be, in fact, expendable. 632 00:29:50,360 --> 00:29:52,530 You might not actually need it in your game. 633 00:29:52,530 --> 00:29:54,860 So if you've got a problem-- this game takes too long to 634 00:29:54,860 --> 00:29:57,820 play, this game's too hard to learn, this game's over too 635 00:29:57,820 --> 00:29:59,430 fast, it's too random or something-- 636 00:29:59,430 --> 00:30:01,040 take a look at all the things that are-- 637 00:30:01,040 --> 00:30:03,350 but first make sure that your core mechanics not the cause 638 00:30:03,350 --> 00:30:04,180 of the problem. 639 00:30:04,180 --> 00:30:06,220 But if the core mechanics doesn't seem to be causing the 640 00:30:06,220 --> 00:30:08,190 problem, that seems to be working, something else in the 641 00:30:08,190 --> 00:30:09,080 game is not working. 642 00:30:09,080 --> 00:30:10,820 Everything else expendable. 643 00:30:10,820 --> 00:30:14,030 And so you can look at everything else in the game, 644 00:30:14,030 --> 00:30:16,770 all these other rules that you've got, and say, how does 645 00:30:16,770 --> 00:30:18,270 that work with a core mechanic? 646 00:30:18,270 --> 00:30:19,110 How does that help? 647 00:30:19,110 --> 00:30:20,670 How does that hurt the core mechanic? 648 00:30:20,670 --> 00:30:23,990 It just helps your discussion as a team. 649 00:30:23,990 --> 00:30:25,860 Or as an individual game designer, it helps you to 650 00:30:25,860 --> 00:30:28,200 think about what could we throw out? 651 00:30:28,200 --> 00:30:31,390 What could we keep? 652 00:30:31,390 --> 00:30:33,120 Similarly for core dynamic. 653 00:30:33,120 --> 00:30:40,280 It's like here's this particular interaction that we 654 00:30:40,280 --> 00:30:41,990 really, really want. 655 00:30:41,990 --> 00:30:43,830 And SISSYFIGHT is guessing what other people 656 00:30:43,830 --> 00:30:45,080 are going to do. 657 00:30:47,520 --> 00:30:49,780 I'm trying to think of other examples. 658 00:30:49,780 --> 00:30:53,440 And like territorial space acquisition. 659 00:30:53,440 --> 00:30:59,000 I guess Go is about taking over territory in space. 660 00:30:59,000 --> 00:31:01,600 If that's your core dynamic, you say that's kind of fun, 661 00:31:01,600 --> 00:31:04,680 just making sure that I'm in control of space and nobody 662 00:31:04,680 --> 00:31:07,170 else can do anything they want to do in a 663 00:31:07,170 --> 00:31:08,500 certain part of the board. 664 00:31:08,500 --> 00:31:10,100 That's fun. 665 00:31:10,100 --> 00:31:12,490 That's what I'm going for; that's my core dynamic. 666 00:31:12,490 --> 00:31:14,660 That's what this game is all about. 667 00:31:14,660 --> 00:31:17,730 Then you can look at every single mechanic, even your 668 00:31:17,730 --> 00:31:22,382 core mechanics, and say, is it all serving that goal? 669 00:31:22,382 --> 00:31:25,050 Now there's a whole bunch of tips right at the end of 670 00:31:25,050 --> 00:31:30,700 chapter one of Challenges for Game Designers about how to 671 00:31:30,700 --> 00:31:32,530 break designer's block. 672 00:31:32,530 --> 00:31:35,420 But I would say, actually, those things are just things 673 00:31:35,420 --> 00:31:37,740 you should be doing all the time, not just 674 00:31:37,740 --> 00:31:38,520 when you have a problem. 675 00:31:38,520 --> 00:31:39,870 But you should be experimenting. 676 00:31:39,870 --> 00:31:42,750 Things like, OK, you've got a variable. 677 00:31:42,750 --> 00:31:44,530 Draw two cards every turn or something. 678 00:31:44,530 --> 00:31:45,530 Multiply it by two. 679 00:31:45,530 --> 00:31:46,680 See what it does to your game. 680 00:31:46,680 --> 00:31:47,150 Halve it. 681 00:31:47,150 --> 00:31:48,000 Draw one card. 682 00:31:48,000 --> 00:31:50,430 See what it does to your game. 683 00:31:50,430 --> 00:31:55,490 Through a rule-out, and that sort of gets you to the whole 684 00:31:55,490 --> 00:31:57,870 iterative design thing, is that you don't actually, 685 00:31:57,870 --> 00:32:00,880 because games are systems, these complex little 686 00:32:00,880 --> 00:32:03,560 collections of seemingly simple things, you don't 687 00:32:03,560 --> 00:32:06,060 actually know how these changes are really going to 688 00:32:06,060 --> 00:32:06,720 affect the game. 689 00:32:06,720 --> 00:32:09,060 You may have a hunch, but until you actually play it 690 00:32:09,060 --> 00:32:11,870 out, you don't actually know. 691 00:32:11,870 --> 00:32:15,910 So the whole point of iterative design in 692 00:32:15,910 --> 00:32:19,440 engineering as well as in game design is that 693 00:32:19,440 --> 00:32:21,190 you make the change. 694 00:32:21,190 --> 00:32:24,350 It has to be a substantial change. 695 00:32:24,350 --> 00:32:26,520 And then you actually put it to the test 696 00:32:26,520 --> 00:32:29,400 and see what happens. 697 00:32:29,400 --> 00:32:32,310 This means, of course, testing, and testing takes a 698 00:32:32,310 --> 00:32:35,180 long time and if you're going to be making a game that takes 699 00:32:35,180 --> 00:32:37,500 a long time, then your testing gets even longer. 700 00:32:37,500 --> 00:32:42,560 So for the first project that's going to be coming up, 701 00:32:42,560 --> 00:32:45,200 assignment one, you want to be aiming for games that take 702 00:32:45,200 --> 00:32:47,390 really not very long to play. 703 00:32:47,390 --> 00:32:49,880 These games that we got today, I'm not sure about 704 00:32:49,880 --> 00:32:51,636 [INAUDIBLE], but I know everything else that we got on 705 00:32:51,636 --> 00:32:53,550 that table, is pretty darn fast. 706 00:32:53,550 --> 00:32:56,900 Which means if you play an hour with four people who've 707 00:32:56,900 --> 00:33:00,130 never played your game before, you get through two or three 708 00:33:00,130 --> 00:33:02,480 rounds, four rounds, of them. 709 00:33:02,480 --> 00:33:05,480 Each time, you'll be teaching a rule once, sharing and 710 00:33:05,480 --> 00:33:08,650 seeing how that changed the game. 711 00:33:08,650 --> 00:33:10,850 If you've got a game that takes an hour to play, and 712 00:33:10,850 --> 00:33:13,870 believe me, a lot of the projects that we've gotten 713 00:33:13,870 --> 00:33:19,070 from previous semesters take at least an hour to play. 714 00:33:19,070 --> 00:33:22,100 You've got four people for an hour and another definition of 715 00:33:22,100 --> 00:33:24,170 a single-player game. 716 00:33:24,170 --> 00:33:26,620 Because by the time they finish learning your game , 717 00:33:26,620 --> 00:33:29,730 half your time's up. 718 00:33:29,730 --> 00:33:34,160 So that's a process that we will like you all to be using 719 00:33:34,160 --> 00:33:36,100 in your teams and your assignments, is iterative 720 00:33:36,100 --> 00:33:38,490 design process. 721 00:33:38,490 --> 00:33:40,167 Right from the beginning-- 722 00:33:40,167 --> 00:33:43,190 I wish I had more space-- 723 00:33:43,190 --> 00:33:46,960 but we're going to start with brainstorming. 724 00:33:46,960 --> 00:33:50,920 That's actually going to be Friday, the 17th, where we'll 725 00:33:50,920 --> 00:33:52,400 actually sort of-- 726 00:33:52,400 --> 00:33:56,330 for folks who haven't necessarily formally learned 727 00:33:56,330 --> 00:33:59,780 brainstorming we're just going to do a quick refresher so 728 00:33:59,780 --> 00:34:02,420 that everyone sort of is on the same page. 729 00:34:02,420 --> 00:34:04,670 You learn how to do brainstorming. 730 00:34:04,670 --> 00:34:07,740 You come up with a basic idea of a game, and you start to 731 00:34:07,740 --> 00:34:11,060 identify things that could be your core dynamics. 732 00:34:11,060 --> 00:34:15,330 You think of what sort of core mechanics could address that. 733 00:34:15,330 --> 00:34:18,889 Knock something up really, really quickly with the 734 00:34:18,889 --> 00:34:20,790 crappiest materials you can get your hands 735 00:34:20,790 --> 00:34:23,320 on and start playing. 736 00:34:23,320 --> 00:34:26,040 Since nobody on your team knows, really, what game 737 00:34:26,040 --> 00:34:27,975 you're making at that point of time, you can probably test it 738 00:34:27,975 --> 00:34:28,449 with your team. 739 00:34:28,449 --> 00:34:30,739 As soon as you do it a few times, your team becomes 740 00:34:30,739 --> 00:34:34,167 useless as testers because you already know too much about 741 00:34:34,167 --> 00:34:37,380 the game and what the game could have been. 742 00:34:37,380 --> 00:34:40,159 And you start playing it in ways that a fresh person, 743 00:34:40,159 --> 00:34:41,719 who's never seen your game before, 744 00:34:41,719 --> 00:34:43,540 wouldn't even consider. 745 00:34:43,540 --> 00:34:45,840 So you actually want to keep looking for people who've 746 00:34:45,840 --> 00:34:47,750 never played your game before. 747 00:34:47,750 --> 00:34:50,260 So the next step would be to broaden it to other teams in 748 00:34:50,260 --> 00:34:51,620 this class. 749 00:34:51,620 --> 00:34:53,679 Because everyone's going to be broken up in more or less 750 00:34:53,679 --> 00:34:54,780 teams of three or four. 751 00:34:54,780 --> 00:34:57,360 That's pretty much, I'm going to take this game that we 752 00:34:57,360 --> 00:34:59,260 designed for a team of three or four, and give it to that 753 00:34:59,260 --> 00:35:00,170 team of three or four. 754 00:35:00,170 --> 00:35:02,790 And then you play their game, and give each other feedback. 755 00:35:02,790 --> 00:35:06,790 And that lasts for about one more session, and after that, 756 00:35:06,790 --> 00:35:08,050 everyone in the class is useless now. 757 00:35:08,050 --> 00:35:13,471 So you have to look for dormmates, friends, people on 758 00:35:13,471 --> 00:35:16,176 the street, just go right ahead and try to get as much 759 00:35:16,176 --> 00:35:17,426 feedback as you can. 760 00:35:20,720 --> 00:35:24,750 There is some value in replaying, especially later on 761 00:35:24,750 --> 00:35:28,550 once your rules are pretty set in that people start 762 00:35:28,550 --> 00:35:32,780 developing strategies, still some of them emergent 763 00:35:32,780 --> 00:35:35,370 behaviors, things to understanding sort of higher 764 00:35:35,370 --> 00:35:39,130 level play of the game, and you do want to test that. 765 00:35:39,130 --> 00:35:41,960 But don't let that prevent you from also 766 00:35:41,960 --> 00:35:44,300 testing with fresh players. 767 00:35:44,300 --> 00:35:46,830 Because in the end, you have to get past 768 00:35:46,830 --> 00:35:47,720 that initial hurdle. 769 00:35:47,720 --> 00:35:50,770 Anytime someone sees your game, they are going to have 770 00:35:50,770 --> 00:35:53,210 to learn your game from scratch at least once. 771 00:35:53,210 --> 00:35:55,680 And if they don't even get that far, they're never 772 00:35:55,680 --> 00:35:58,530 playing your game a second or third time. 773 00:35:58,530 --> 00:36:02,180 So don't optimize for the people who play your game for 774 00:36:02,180 --> 00:36:06,055 four weeks, because you really want the people who've only 775 00:36:06,055 --> 00:36:10,020 played it once to have a good time as well. 776 00:36:10,020 --> 00:36:13,920 That's not necessarily the case if you're making a huge, 777 00:36:13,920 --> 00:36:16,780 well-funded game based on a franchise 778 00:36:16,780 --> 00:36:18,360 that's been around forever. 779 00:36:18,360 --> 00:36:20,100 If you're doing Halo 3 or Modern Warfare 3 or something 780 00:36:20,100 --> 00:36:24,040 like that, then sure you can sort of cater to the fans 781 00:36:24,040 --> 00:36:27,570 who've already developed these strategies and skills. 782 00:36:27,570 --> 00:36:30,720 But in our case, we're going after a new audience. 783 00:36:30,720 --> 00:36:32,690 We're going after someone who's never played anything 784 00:36:32,690 --> 00:36:34,024 like what you've played with before. 785 00:36:38,870 --> 00:36:39,002 Cool. 786 00:36:39,002 --> 00:36:41,770 Any questions? 787 00:36:41,770 --> 00:36:46,476 Feel like we've been soapboxing here for a while. 788 00:36:46,476 --> 00:36:47,726 Is there anything? 789 00:36:51,236 --> 00:36:54,310 AUDIENCE: I guess the thing I would add from my experience, 790 00:36:54,310 --> 00:36:58,740 especially with iterative design is, a big trick of it 791 00:36:58,740 --> 00:37:00,955 is learning to kind of distance yourself emotionally 792 00:37:00,955 --> 00:37:05,175 from what you're working on, because half the time you end 793 00:37:05,175 --> 00:37:07,080 up chucking things that you really liked. 794 00:37:07,080 --> 00:37:10,042 You think, oh, this would be so great, but it's best to 795 00:37:10,042 --> 00:37:10,990 just remove it. 796 00:37:10,990 --> 00:37:12,800 And it helps to think of it as kind of putting it on the 797 00:37:12,800 --> 00:37:15,330 shelf for later, and saying, OK, I'll deal with this later, 798 00:37:15,330 --> 00:37:18,440 or I can try this in another game. 799 00:37:18,440 --> 00:37:20,830 And on a related note, I don't know about you, but I found 800 00:37:20,830 --> 00:37:24,100 that, when games I'm designing have a problem, it's almost 801 00:37:24,100 --> 00:37:27,780 always fixed by removing something as opposed to adding 802 00:37:27,780 --> 00:37:29,840 more stuff on it. 803 00:37:29,840 --> 00:37:31,500 Unless you're going for something, I think, really 804 00:37:31,500 --> 00:37:35,010 complex off to start, I always prefer to try to take 805 00:37:35,010 --> 00:37:38,140 something out and simplify it. 806 00:37:38,140 --> 00:37:38,392 Especially on short projects like these it almost always 807 00:37:38,392 --> 00:37:39,642 works better. 808 00:37:43,620 --> 00:37:47,230 And then, in terms of testing, too, one thing just kind of a 809 00:37:47,230 --> 00:37:49,570 tip that I find works, is if you're designing a game that 810 00:37:49,570 --> 00:37:52,740 has a lot of different, like, passive victory and this is a 811 00:37:52,740 --> 00:37:55,600 little bit higher level, which you'll see when we get there, 812 00:37:55,600 --> 00:37:57,810 where if you want a game that has different viable 813 00:37:57,810 --> 00:38:01,470 strategies, a really good testing method is to have 814 00:38:01,470 --> 00:38:03,790 different people kind of play like a perfect 815 00:38:03,790 --> 00:38:05,060 version of that strategy. 816 00:38:05,060 --> 00:38:07,470 And you say, I'm going to do this strategy, or I'm always 817 00:38:07,470 --> 00:38:09,740 going to do X, and it doesn't matter if I think it's dumb, 818 00:38:09,740 --> 00:38:11,730 I'm just going to do it. 819 00:38:11,730 --> 00:38:13,920 Because that will really help you find rules that are 820 00:38:13,920 --> 00:38:17,356 appropriate, or find something that's overpowered. 821 00:38:17,356 --> 00:38:19,345 AUDIENCE: A good example would be Settlers right. 822 00:38:19,345 --> 00:38:22,220 Like if you say, obviously this wouldn't work because, 823 00:38:22,220 --> 00:38:24,030 the game's a good game, but like, I'm always going to 824 00:38:24,030 --> 00:38:24,480 build roads. 825 00:38:24,480 --> 00:38:25,695 You know what I mean? 826 00:38:25,695 --> 00:38:27,430 In practice, that would be stupid,but when you're 827 00:38:27,430 --> 00:38:31,030 designing a game, you do that kind of strategy, and you just 828 00:38:31,030 --> 00:38:33,635 limit yourself to one action, you can really find things 829 00:38:33,635 --> 00:38:35,028 that are broken really quickly. 830 00:38:41,450 --> 00:38:44,414 PROFESSOR: Thank you. 831 00:38:44,414 --> 00:38:45,896 Much appreciated. 832 00:38:45,896 --> 00:38:46,390 Cookies. 833 00:38:46,390 --> 00:38:48,366 Good, we have cookies. 834 00:38:53,800 --> 00:38:55,060 Let's see. 835 00:38:55,060 --> 00:38:59,900 So I think after this, we're just going to play games. 836 00:38:59,900 --> 00:39:03,100 We do have pre-testing as a topic coming up later in the 837 00:39:03,100 --> 00:39:05,590 semester, where I will actually sort of talk about 838 00:39:05,590 --> 00:39:07,330 the discipline on how do you do testing. 839 00:39:09,840 --> 00:39:16,160 Honestly, you shouldn't wait for that class to necessarily 840 00:39:16,160 --> 00:39:17,410 start practicing. 841 00:39:20,010 --> 00:39:22,775 It could be as simple as just grabbing a unit that you have 842 00:39:22,775 --> 00:39:24,490 never seen before and just trying to get a whole bunch of 843 00:39:24,490 --> 00:39:25,290 people to play it. 844 00:39:25,290 --> 00:39:26,870 And critiquing it at the same time. 845 00:39:26,870 --> 00:39:28,730 It's like, why did I do that? 846 00:39:28,730 --> 00:39:29,730 Why did you do that? 847 00:39:29,730 --> 00:39:31,170 Why did you do that move? 848 00:39:31,170 --> 00:39:34,900 And there are sort of practices to make sure that 849 00:39:34,900 --> 00:39:38,420 when it's your game, you are not sort of telling the 850 00:39:38,420 --> 00:39:41,990 players what they should be doing while they are trying to 851 00:39:41,990 --> 00:39:44,570 play the game, because that affects their play of the game 852 00:39:44,570 --> 00:39:48,410 in a way that biases it. 853 00:39:48,410 --> 00:39:50,580 Well, we'll get to that later in the semester. 854 00:39:50,580 --> 00:39:56,200 For now just be aware, the more that you're testing, the 855 00:39:56,200 --> 00:39:58,510 more you're sort of tweaking your rules in between tests 856 00:39:58,510 --> 00:40:01,110 and then getting another chance to test and test and 857 00:40:01,110 --> 00:40:03,210 test, the closer you are to getting a game that is 858 00:40:03,210 --> 00:40:05,530 actually fun and engaging to play. 859 00:40:05,530 --> 00:40:06,440 And that's what we're looking for. 860 00:40:06,440 --> 00:40:08,710 That's the process that we expect you folks to suceed in. 861 00:40:08,710 --> 00:40:11,220 When do we ever get to fun and engaging? 862 00:40:11,220 --> 00:40:12,170 Who knows? 863 00:40:12,170 --> 00:40:13,850 We don't know whether you're going to get there, so we're 864 00:40:13,850 --> 00:40:14,820 not grading you based on that. 865 00:40:14,820 --> 00:40:15,470 Just remember that. 866 00:40:15,470 --> 00:40:17,926 We're not grading you on how engaging your games are. 867 00:40:17,926 --> 00:40:19,710 But how well do you stick to the process? 868 00:40:19,710 --> 00:40:20,655 Yes. 869 00:40:20,655 --> 00:40:22,080 Absolutely. 870 00:40:22,080 --> 00:40:26,615 There was a question in the forums about when do you stop? 871 00:40:31,600 --> 00:40:33,300 I didn't get a chance to look too closely at it. 872 00:40:33,300 --> 00:40:34,130 What--can you repeat it? 873 00:40:34,130 --> 00:40:36,140 AUDIENCE: It's essentially, it's the question of, say, 874 00:40:36,140 --> 00:40:38,070 there is this iterative design process. 875 00:40:38,070 --> 00:40:40,070 When do you know when to just sort of 876 00:40:40,070 --> 00:40:41,574 get out of that process? 877 00:40:41,574 --> 00:40:42,022 But-- 878 00:40:42,022 --> 00:40:42,918 AUDIENCE: Due date. 879 00:40:42,918 --> 00:40:43,660 AUDIENCE: Due date. 880 00:40:43,660 --> 00:40:44,420 OK. 881 00:40:44,420 --> 00:40:46,780 That's always a good reason. 882 00:40:46,780 --> 00:40:49,540 I guess, if you didn't have a due date, like how would you 883 00:40:49,540 --> 00:40:50,570 know when to shift? 884 00:40:50,570 --> 00:40:52,610 Well, let's say you have control over the due date. 885 00:40:52,610 --> 00:40:56,645 I guess part of that is, you should always be updating, 886 00:40:56,645 --> 00:40:58,520 blah blah, so I guess the question is when do you know 887 00:40:58,520 --> 00:41:02,590 when you have something you can put out into the world? 888 00:41:02,590 --> 00:41:05,110 PROFESSOR: So the cynical answer is that, yeah, is that 889 00:41:05,110 --> 00:41:07,770 you wait for -- 890 00:41:07,770 --> 00:41:11,704 you have to ship, right, or you're not getting any cash. 891 00:41:11,704 --> 00:41:17,560 I personally think it would be sooner than you think. 892 00:41:17,560 --> 00:41:21,070 As, like, my game's almost ready but I know there's 893 00:41:21,070 --> 00:41:23,360 something wrong with it, especially 894 00:41:23,360 --> 00:41:25,890 when you're a student. 895 00:41:25,890 --> 00:41:29,650 Right now, I'm in this mode with my StarCraft games, which 896 00:41:29,650 --> 00:41:31,490 is, this path is cracked. 897 00:41:31,490 --> 00:41:32,780 I know there's something wrong with it. 898 00:41:32,780 --> 00:41:34,160 I have no idea what it is. 899 00:41:34,160 --> 00:41:36,140 Therefore, I'm going to release it. 900 00:41:36,140 --> 00:41:38,480 Because until I do that, I have no idea 901 00:41:38,480 --> 00:41:39,600 what's wrong with it. 902 00:41:39,600 --> 00:41:41,950 I need to get that information. 903 00:41:41,950 --> 00:41:46,140 The nice thing about stuff like computer games is that 904 00:41:46,140 --> 00:41:48,000 you can ship updates. 905 00:41:48,000 --> 00:41:49,840 It's annoying but you can. 906 00:41:49,840 --> 00:41:53,460 But even board games and card games now have rule revisions, 907 00:41:53,460 --> 00:41:57,970 rule clarifications that you can release over the net. 908 00:41:57,970 --> 00:42:02,710 For the most part, if you're going to go professional, your 909 00:42:02,710 --> 00:42:03,990 publisher will tell you. 910 00:42:03,990 --> 00:42:07,010 And then the answer really is due date. 911 00:42:07,010 --> 00:42:09,170 It's going to the presses on this date. 912 00:42:09,170 --> 00:42:12,260 And that's one maxim, which is, game 913 00:42:12,260 --> 00:42:13,430 projects are never finished. 914 00:42:13,430 --> 00:42:15,610 They're just abandoned. 915 00:42:15,610 --> 00:42:16,570 It's just horrible. 916 00:42:16,570 --> 00:42:18,425 I can't do anything else about this because I'm out of time. 917 00:42:18,425 --> 00:42:20,560 Ship it. 918 00:42:20,560 --> 00:42:23,740 But one thing that you can do to prepare for that-- 919 00:42:23,740 --> 00:42:24,220 Let me see. 920 00:42:24,220 --> 00:42:25,536 Is there a laser around here? 921 00:42:32,230 --> 00:42:37,210 There is a guy who runs a blog called Lost Garden. 922 00:42:37,210 --> 00:42:38,000 His name is Dan Cook. 923 00:42:38,000 --> 00:42:39,940 He works over in Microsoft. 924 00:42:39,940 --> 00:42:43,270 And he talks a lot about game design. 925 00:42:43,270 --> 00:42:44,640 Specifically about video game design, but actually his stuff 926 00:42:44,640 --> 00:42:46,522 is actually really, really impeccable. 927 00:42:46,522 --> 00:42:51,090 And he has this concept that game design-- or iterative 928 00:42:51,090 --> 00:42:59,290 game design kind of goes in this kind of cycle, where this 929 00:42:59,290 --> 00:43:01,020 list down here is the number of features 930 00:43:01,020 --> 00:43:03,700 you've got in the game. 931 00:43:03,700 --> 00:43:08,790 The trick, though, is that what you're really doing is, 932 00:43:08,790 --> 00:43:11,690 you are taking-- let me see if this is right. 933 00:43:15,440 --> 00:43:17,860 So this is all the good stuff. 934 00:43:17,860 --> 00:43:22,330 This is all the stuff that's not so good. 935 00:43:22,330 --> 00:43:28,330 And the whole idea of sort of like using iterative design is 936 00:43:28,330 --> 00:43:32,850 to allow yourself to the space to come up with a whole bunch 937 00:43:32,850 --> 00:43:35,340 of ideas, not knowing whether they're good or bad. 938 00:43:35,340 --> 00:43:39,950 But it also gives you a gate to cut out all the bad stuff. 939 00:43:39,950 --> 00:43:44,100 So at frequent periodic intervals, you have a 940 00:43:44,100 --> 00:43:49,040 collection of rules, of cards, of designs, of whatever 941 00:43:49,040 --> 00:43:52,230 consists your game, that, is pretty much as good as it 942 00:43:52,230 --> 00:43:53,935 possibly could have been given the amount of 943 00:43:53,935 --> 00:43:54,850 time that you got. 944 00:43:54,850 --> 00:43:57,420 And that could ship. 945 00:43:57,420 --> 00:44:01,930 So if ship date was here, you had as good a game as you 946 00:44:01,930 --> 00:44:02,950 possibly could do it. 947 00:44:02,950 --> 00:44:06,240 If ship date turned out to be there, all of a sudden you've 948 00:44:06,240 --> 00:44:10,692 still had the opportunity to put out all of the stuff that 949 00:44:10,692 --> 00:44:13,310 you knew was bad. 950 00:44:13,310 --> 00:44:16,550 So iterative design is not about, let's just keep 951 00:44:16,550 --> 00:44:19,470 accreting more and more and more and more features. 952 00:44:19,470 --> 00:44:22,610 It's more about, we're going to add some features and then 953 00:44:22,610 --> 00:44:25,210 we're going to remove the ones that don't work. 954 00:44:25,210 --> 00:44:26,700 And that's really, really important. 955 00:44:26,700 --> 00:44:29,780 So at any given time, you are prepared to 956 00:44:29,780 --> 00:44:31,520 sort of release it. 957 00:44:31,520 --> 00:44:34,670 As for when you actually decide that this is now ready 958 00:44:34,670 --> 00:44:37,620 to go out, again I will repeat, sooner day than you 959 00:44:37,620 --> 00:44:39,570 think because you need that feedback. 960 00:44:39,570 --> 00:44:43,270 Sometimes you don't know how a market is going to respond 961 00:44:43,270 --> 00:44:46,690 until you actually do it, but you can do a soft launch. 962 00:44:46,690 --> 00:44:50,190 If you are doing a commercial product, you can do things 963 00:44:50,190 --> 00:44:53,580 where, we're going to release it to a few select stores and 964 00:44:53,580 --> 00:44:58,060 get that feedback before we go into major print run. 965 00:44:58,060 --> 00:45:02,510 Or for 10,000 different copies of the same board game. 966 00:45:02,510 --> 00:45:06,000 We're going to 200 copies and see how that does for us. 967 00:45:06,000 --> 00:45:08,340 Gives you the opportunity to make a revision, but it's 968 00:45:08,340 --> 00:45:11,240 still an official release, because those 200 people think 969 00:45:11,240 --> 00:45:14,880 that this is the final packaged product. 970 00:45:14,880 --> 00:45:18,280 That's pretty much how a lot of manufacturing industries 971 00:45:18,280 --> 00:45:22,350 actually work, anyway, so you think about any kind of 972 00:45:22,350 --> 00:45:25,685 product design, a lot of them have a sort of a trial period. 973 00:45:25,685 --> 00:45:26,930 AUDIENCE: Soft drinks you get a lot. 974 00:45:26,930 --> 00:45:29,660 PROFESSOR: Soft drinks you get a lot. 975 00:45:29,660 --> 00:45:31,540 Japanese electronics, and other things. 976 00:45:31,540 --> 00:45:33,550 You release it in Tokyo, and then you release it in the 977 00:45:33,550 --> 00:45:34,980 rest of Japan. 978 00:45:34,980 --> 00:45:39,160 And sometimes it never makes it out of Japan because that 979 00:45:39,160 --> 00:45:40,550 initial test-- 980 00:45:40,550 --> 00:45:42,920 yeah, it was a good product but not enough people bought 981 00:45:42,920 --> 00:45:43,970 it because of these problems. 982 00:45:43,970 --> 00:45:47,220 So instead of releasing it into the world, we're going to 983 00:45:47,220 --> 00:45:49,928 make version two, and maybe that will be one we 984 00:45:49,928 --> 00:45:51,930 release to the world. 985 00:45:51,930 --> 00:45:55,050 That's one example. 986 00:45:55,050 --> 00:45:58,276 All right, so we have games. 987 00:45:58,276 --> 00:46:01,650 Who has not played Uno? 988 00:46:01,650 --> 00:46:04,966 OK, we have more games that-- 989 00:46:04,966 --> 00:46:05,462 [INTERPOSING VOICES] 990 00:46:05,462 --> 00:46:06,950 [LAUGHTER] 991 00:46:06,950 --> 00:46:07,310 OK. 992 00:46:07,310 --> 00:46:11,520 So Jason, you're going to do a Euchre table? 993 00:46:11,520 --> 00:46:12,292 So-- 994 00:46:12,292 --> 00:46:15,633 AUDIENCE: It sounds like 4 player trick taking game, kind 995 00:46:15,633 --> 00:46:16,954 of like bane or current speeds or which? 996 00:46:19,750 --> 00:46:23,152 PROFESSOR: Looks like we have exactly four people-- one, 997 00:46:23,152 --> 00:46:26,638 two, three, four, one, two, three-- 998 00:46:26,638 --> 00:46:29,626 it's an average of three people per table. 999 00:46:32,180 --> 00:46:36,352 I think most of these games are three to five player, 1000 00:46:36,352 --> 00:46:39,638 although I'm going to be absolutely sure. 1001 00:46:44,830 --> 00:46:46,740 [INTERPOSING VOICES] 1002 00:46:46,740 --> 00:46:48,380 PROFESSOR: --so it might 1003 00:46:48,380 --> 00:46:50,270 [INTERPOSING VOICES] 1004 00:46:50,270 --> 00:46:51,630 PROFESSOR: You guys might actually want to try the round 1005 00:46:51,630 --> 00:46:52,670 table in the corner? 1006 00:46:52,670 --> 00:46:56,030 AUDIENCE: Yeah, it's a [UNINTELLIGIBLE] 1007 00:46:56,030 --> 00:46:58,972 AUDIENCE: I really want to play bowling. 1008 00:46:58,972 --> 00:47:01,420 [INTERPOSING VOICES] 1009 00:47:01,420 --> 00:47:05,470 PROFESSOR: So basically, take a game from the table. 1010 00:47:05,470 --> 00:47:09,930 I'll bring some out and I'll see --play them. 1011 00:47:09,930 --> 00:47:12,000 Once you've had a chance to play a few times, 1012 00:47:12,000 --> 00:47:13,590 feel free to switch. 1013 00:47:13,590 --> 00:47:15,876 And try to get as many games played as possible during the 1014 00:47:15,876 --> 00:47:17,126 next couple of hours.