1 00:00:00,090 --> 00:00:02,490 The following content is provided under a Creative 2 00:00:02,490 --> 00:00:04,030 Commons license. 3 00:00:04,030 --> 00:00:06,330 Your support will help MIT OpenCourseWare 4 00:00:06,330 --> 00:00:10,690 continue to offer high quality educational resources for free. 5 00:00:10,690 --> 00:00:13,320 To make a donation or view additional materials 6 00:00:13,320 --> 00:00:17,250 from hundreds of MIT courses, visit MIT OpenCourseWare 7 00:00:17,250 --> 00:00:18,420 at ocw.mit.edu. 8 00:00:22,754 --> 00:00:23,670 PROFESSOR 1: So, yeah. 9 00:00:23,670 --> 00:00:25,630 So the publisher can demand, you know, 10 00:00:25,630 --> 00:00:27,540 I want to see this feature. 11 00:00:27,540 --> 00:00:30,660 EA demands that this game works with Origin. 12 00:00:30,660 --> 00:00:32,549 Ubisoft demands that U-- 13 00:00:32,549 --> 00:00:33,330 is it Uplay? 14 00:00:33,330 --> 00:00:37,180 Is that what-- that their universal sign-up system gets 15 00:00:37,180 --> 00:00:38,520 added on. 16 00:00:38,520 --> 00:00:41,370 Things like that, right? 17 00:00:41,370 --> 00:00:43,470 That happens all the time. 18 00:00:43,470 --> 00:00:47,280 Other stuff that's maybe money-related or 19 00:00:47,280 --> 00:00:48,400 market-related? 20 00:00:53,200 --> 00:00:54,796 Sometimes expectations just-- 21 00:00:54,796 --> 00:00:57,170 AUDIENCE: This feature in the past didn't sell very well, 22 00:00:57,170 --> 00:00:58,524 so you should add it to every-- 23 00:00:58,524 --> 00:00:58,990 PROFESSOR 1: Yeah. 24 00:00:58,990 --> 00:01:00,970 That usually is similar to the publisher thing. 25 00:01:00,970 --> 00:01:02,220 Someone's trying to push that. 26 00:01:02,220 --> 00:01:05,485 But somebody could come internally from the development 27 00:01:05,485 --> 00:01:05,985 team, right? 28 00:01:05,985 --> 00:01:08,318 They look at competing products and say, hey, this thing 29 00:01:08,318 --> 00:01:11,210 seems to be doing well. 30 00:01:11,210 --> 00:01:12,460 You know, let's add hacks. 31 00:01:12,460 --> 00:01:14,590 Because hacks seem to be doing well for some games. 32 00:01:14,590 --> 00:01:16,950 So we can add hacks to our game. 33 00:01:16,950 --> 00:01:19,360 It's not going to necessarily change 34 00:01:19,360 --> 00:01:21,940 the way how the game functions, but it's still a new feature. 35 00:01:21,940 --> 00:01:23,140 It's still a new-- 36 00:01:23,140 --> 00:01:25,820 you've still got to come up with mechanics to unlock new hacks, 37 00:01:25,820 --> 00:01:28,770 and equip new hacks, and make sure they animate correctly, 38 00:01:28,770 --> 00:01:29,920 and things like that. 39 00:01:29,920 --> 00:01:32,280 Even if necessarily the gameplay decision making you 40 00:01:32,280 --> 00:01:33,760 make in the game doesn't change. 41 00:01:33,760 --> 00:01:38,800 Of course, hacks actually do change the way some games work. 42 00:01:38,800 --> 00:01:41,680 The changes in marketplace in general. 43 00:01:41,680 --> 00:01:44,130 And sometimes they're making a sequel to a game, 44 00:01:44,130 --> 00:01:48,100 or sometimes you're adding number two, or number three, 45 00:01:48,100 --> 00:01:49,100 at the end of the title. 46 00:01:49,100 --> 00:01:51,970 And your players are going to expect something new. 47 00:01:51,970 --> 00:01:53,710 And so there's some pressure for you 48 00:01:53,710 --> 00:01:57,370 to sort of add new mechanics instead of simply, 49 00:01:57,370 --> 00:01:58,960 say, iterating on the old ones. 50 00:02:01,570 --> 00:02:03,486 Why would you cut mechanics? 51 00:02:03,486 --> 00:02:05,360 Not necessarily cutting features, but cutting 52 00:02:05,360 --> 00:02:07,020 mechanics-- game mechanics. 53 00:02:10,556 --> 00:02:12,430 There's one good reason I've been drilling in 54 00:02:12,430 --> 00:02:13,690 to you all semester long. 55 00:02:13,690 --> 00:02:14,190 Yeah. 56 00:02:14,190 --> 00:02:16,690 AUDIENCE: Simplify gameplay and decrease the learning curve? 57 00:02:16,690 --> 00:02:19,220 Or decrease whatever-- 58 00:02:19,220 --> 00:02:20,720 PROFESSOR 1: Decrease learning curve 59 00:02:20,720 --> 00:02:23,480 is a little bit separate from simplify gameplay. 60 00:02:23,480 --> 00:02:27,080 Both good points. 61 00:02:27,080 --> 00:02:29,180 Decreasing the learning curve is like-- 62 00:02:29,180 --> 00:02:31,955 testers just don't get how this game functions. 63 00:02:31,955 --> 00:02:34,780 We've got too much stuff going on simultaneously. 64 00:02:34,780 --> 00:02:36,912 You could try to tune those mechanics to make 65 00:02:36,912 --> 00:02:38,870 it a little bit more legible, or you could just 66 00:02:38,870 --> 00:02:41,119 try taking the mechanics completely out so that people 67 00:02:41,119 --> 00:02:42,113 can actually learn it. 68 00:02:42,113 --> 00:02:45,140 Simplifying the game-- could be that, 69 00:02:45,140 --> 00:02:48,820 but it also could be just trying to make what's core 70 00:02:48,820 --> 00:02:50,170 about the game more obvious. 71 00:02:50,170 --> 00:02:53,540 You know, this game is really about generations 72 00:02:53,540 --> 00:02:55,820 and generations of heroes, you know? 73 00:02:55,820 --> 00:02:56,850 That is a game, right? 74 00:02:56,850 --> 00:02:57,327 Hero Generations? 75 00:02:57,327 --> 00:02:57,827 Yeah. 76 00:02:57,827 --> 00:02:59,590 AUDIENCE: Yeah. 77 00:02:59,590 --> 00:03:01,820 PROFESSOR 1: Yeah. 78 00:03:01,820 --> 00:03:05,120 And you've got, say, some sort of very elaborate weapons 79 00:03:05,120 --> 00:03:06,940 crafting mechanic or something in there. 80 00:03:06,940 --> 00:03:08,450 Well, the weapons crafting mechanic 81 00:03:08,450 --> 00:03:10,840 may not be really what your game's about. 82 00:03:10,840 --> 00:03:12,270 So you might want to take that out 83 00:03:12,270 --> 00:03:15,511 because people sort of forget about what the core experience 84 00:03:15,511 --> 00:03:16,760 of the game is supposed to be. 85 00:03:16,760 --> 00:03:20,150 So focusing back on the core of the game. 86 00:03:20,150 --> 00:03:20,690 What else? 87 00:03:27,060 --> 00:03:28,195 Say your game-- oh, yeah. 88 00:03:28,195 --> 00:03:30,324 AUDIENCE: New technologies come out? 89 00:03:30,324 --> 00:03:30,990 PROFESSOR 1: Oh. 90 00:03:30,990 --> 00:03:32,630 New technologies come out-- 91 00:03:32,630 --> 00:03:33,450 like what, physics? 92 00:03:33,450 --> 00:03:34,280 You know-- maybe? 93 00:03:34,280 --> 00:03:35,280 AUDIENCE: Yeah. 94 00:03:35,280 --> 00:03:38,780 Or has something to do with things like-- well, 95 00:03:38,780 --> 00:03:41,636 they mentioned-- well, I don't know. 96 00:03:41,636 --> 00:03:43,540 3D, for example. 97 00:03:43,540 --> 00:03:46,030 3D comes out it changed-- 98 00:03:46,030 --> 00:03:48,490 PROFESSOR 1: Well, that's true, right? 99 00:03:48,490 --> 00:03:51,040 I'm trying to think of a game where that's 100 00:03:51,040 --> 00:03:52,390 a really obvious example. 101 00:03:52,390 --> 00:03:55,300 Can of think of a game mechanic that substantially changed 102 00:03:55,300 --> 00:03:56,780 when it went from 2D to 3D? 103 00:03:56,780 --> 00:03:58,178 I'm thinking Mario, but-- 104 00:03:58,178 --> 00:03:59,365 AUDIENCE: Mario-- 105 00:03:59,365 --> 00:04:01,990 AUDIENCE: Movement, because now, instead of moving left, right, 106 00:04:01,990 --> 00:04:02,620 up, down-- 107 00:04:02,620 --> 00:04:04,245 PROFESSOR 1: Just straight-up movement. 108 00:04:04,245 --> 00:04:07,520 Well, the way how the camera responds to movement as well-- 109 00:04:07,520 --> 00:04:08,920 that's a big one, right? 110 00:04:08,920 --> 00:04:11,800 In a 2D game, say a side-scrolling game, 111 00:04:11,800 --> 00:04:13,900 like Metroid or something like that, 112 00:04:13,900 --> 00:04:15,940 you don't have this situation where 113 00:04:15,940 --> 00:04:18,160 the place where you're trying to go to 114 00:04:18,160 --> 00:04:20,529 is obscured, unless it's actually physically 115 00:04:20,529 --> 00:04:23,770 blocked by something that you have to destroy or open up 116 00:04:23,770 --> 00:04:25,240 or something. 117 00:04:25,240 --> 00:04:27,700 But in a 3D space, that happens all the time. 118 00:04:27,700 --> 00:04:31,270 You know, you've just got bits of background scenery getting 119 00:04:31,270 --> 00:04:34,300 in the way of the camera. 120 00:04:34,300 --> 00:04:37,300 Mario just changed the way jumps work entirely, 121 00:04:37,300 --> 00:04:41,710 when it went from the 2D Marios to Super Mario 64. 122 00:04:41,710 --> 00:04:43,870 And every iteration on top of that has 123 00:04:43,870 --> 00:04:46,470 added new ways to jump-- 124 00:04:46,470 --> 00:04:48,970 double jumps, triple jumps, jumping off the wall, 125 00:04:48,970 --> 00:04:51,770 and stuff like that-- now, the latest Mario games expect 126 00:04:51,770 --> 00:04:52,930 that you know all of that. 127 00:04:52,930 --> 00:04:54,596 Which is why I can't play Mario anymore, 128 00:04:54,596 --> 00:04:57,779 because I didn't go through that process. 129 00:04:57,779 --> 00:04:59,320 Although the games are not that hard, 130 00:04:59,320 --> 00:05:03,460 at least the first couple of levels are not that hard. 131 00:05:03,460 --> 00:05:04,930 Let's see. 132 00:05:04,930 --> 00:05:07,180 What else? 133 00:05:07,180 --> 00:05:09,745 There's one that I've been always mentioning, 134 00:05:09,745 --> 00:05:11,605 this entire semester. 135 00:05:14,265 --> 00:05:15,215 It-- hmm? 136 00:05:15,215 --> 00:05:16,962 AUDIENCE: Maybe just to try something. 137 00:05:16,962 --> 00:05:18,420 PROFESSOR 1: Just to try something? 138 00:05:18,420 --> 00:05:18,843 AUDIENCE: Yeah. 139 00:05:18,843 --> 00:05:19,759 PROFESSOR 1: Oh, yeah. 140 00:05:19,759 --> 00:05:22,200 Yeah, just to see how it's going to change 141 00:05:22,200 --> 00:05:23,450 how the gameplay works, right? 142 00:05:23,450 --> 00:05:25,680 You know, let's take something out 143 00:05:25,680 --> 00:05:27,320 and see whether that was actually 144 00:05:27,320 --> 00:05:29,212 essential to the experience or maybe getting 145 00:05:29,212 --> 00:05:30,420 in the way of the experience. 146 00:05:30,420 --> 00:05:31,390 You don't know. 147 00:05:31,390 --> 00:05:32,850 You know, and the emergent results 148 00:05:32,850 --> 00:05:34,620 of taking out a mechanic might actually 149 00:05:34,620 --> 00:05:38,990 end up as a more interesting experience. 150 00:05:38,990 --> 00:05:41,220 One thing that the book does mention 151 00:05:41,220 --> 00:05:45,210 is to take stuff out that might actually change the ESRB 152 00:05:45,210 --> 00:05:47,350 rating of the game, or the PEGI rating if you're 153 00:05:47,350 --> 00:05:52,950 selling something in the UK or in Europe. 154 00:05:52,950 --> 00:05:56,520 So for instance, if you're building 155 00:05:56,520 --> 00:06:00,240 on top of a game engine like Unreal or something 156 00:06:00,240 --> 00:06:04,200 like that, which has body location damage-- 157 00:06:04,200 --> 00:06:06,780 and then you shoot a head, the game 158 00:06:06,780 --> 00:06:09,130 knows that you shot the head. 159 00:06:09,130 --> 00:06:12,126 But maybe you don't want your game to be that specific. 160 00:06:12,126 --> 00:06:14,250 Maybe you're designing a game for kids or something 161 00:06:14,250 --> 00:06:16,743 like that, and it's like, well, rewarding 162 00:06:16,743 --> 00:06:20,100 kids for head-shotting each other is maybe not the feel 163 00:06:20,100 --> 00:06:21,080 that we want to go for. 164 00:06:21,080 --> 00:06:24,370 It might actually push us out of the E for everyone 165 00:06:24,370 --> 00:06:26,520 and into the-- 166 00:06:26,520 --> 00:06:28,090 what's the next rating, T? 167 00:06:28,090 --> 00:06:29,431 AUDIENCE: And E-- 168 00:06:29,431 --> 00:06:30,180 PROFESSOR 1: Yeah. 169 00:06:30,180 --> 00:06:32,750 There's like an E-10 rating. 170 00:06:32,750 --> 00:06:34,700 At least there used to be. 171 00:06:34,700 --> 00:06:36,930 OK. 172 00:06:36,930 --> 00:06:39,480 And sometimes, you've just got to cut mechanics because you 173 00:06:39,480 --> 00:06:41,270 don't have time to do them. 174 00:06:41,270 --> 00:06:42,120 They're great ideas. 175 00:06:42,120 --> 00:06:43,950 They would actually make your game better, 176 00:06:43,950 --> 00:06:46,402 if you had time to be able to polish them and make them 177 00:06:46,402 --> 00:06:48,110 understandable and smooth and everything. 178 00:06:48,110 --> 00:06:49,693 You just ran out of time, and you just 179 00:06:49,693 --> 00:06:51,280 want to be able to ship. 180 00:06:51,280 --> 00:06:54,676 So that's a perfectly legitimate consideration. 181 00:06:57,650 --> 00:07:01,520 So that's this process of, like, generating ideas. 182 00:07:01,520 --> 00:07:04,650 Say, this is like an x or something, the number of ideas 183 00:07:04,650 --> 00:07:06,300 that you've got in your game. 184 00:07:06,300 --> 00:07:11,770 And mechanics in terms of either rules, and in a computer game, 185 00:07:11,770 --> 00:07:13,866 there'll be code. 186 00:07:13,866 --> 00:07:16,815 In these games, that's just the rules, it's pieces, 187 00:07:16,815 --> 00:07:20,550 it's boards, it's everything that you actually 188 00:07:20,550 --> 00:07:22,650 have to make your game work. 189 00:07:22,650 --> 00:07:25,050 And you kind of go through this brainstorming phase 190 00:07:25,050 --> 00:07:27,320 where you get a ton of ideas, right? 191 00:07:27,320 --> 00:07:29,010 You've got some good ones up here. 192 00:07:29,010 --> 00:07:31,780 You've got some crappy ones down there. 193 00:07:31,780 --> 00:07:36,200 Actually, it's probably more like that. 194 00:07:36,200 --> 00:07:38,160 A whole bunch of crappy ideas. 195 00:07:38,160 --> 00:07:40,605 And you've got a couple of good ideas. 196 00:07:40,605 --> 00:07:41,980 But yeah, there's a big explosion 197 00:07:41,980 --> 00:07:47,260 of ideas, where ideas turn into experiments. 198 00:07:47,260 --> 00:07:48,960 Some of them are thought experiments, 199 00:07:48,960 --> 00:07:50,775 that you're thinking-- just discussing them 200 00:07:50,775 --> 00:07:53,400 among your team-- what if we did this, what if we did that, how 201 00:07:53,400 --> 00:07:55,580 would you solve that problem. 202 00:07:55,580 --> 00:07:59,300 They may be real, testable experiments where 203 00:07:59,300 --> 00:08:01,340 it's something that you can play, 204 00:08:01,340 --> 00:08:04,784 something that you whip up within an hour or half an hour, 205 00:08:04,784 --> 00:08:06,450 and you actually put it in front-- we've 206 00:08:06,450 --> 00:08:09,609 been doing that all semester. 207 00:08:09,609 --> 00:08:11,025 Some of the ideas may just come up 208 00:08:11,025 --> 00:08:14,250 off different ideas interacting-- and just, what 209 00:08:14,250 --> 00:08:17,550 if we had dogs in our game? 210 00:08:17,550 --> 00:08:19,289 What if we had solar power in the game? 211 00:08:19,289 --> 00:08:21,205 What if we had solar-powered dogs in our game? 212 00:08:21,205 --> 00:08:22,580 And things like that. 213 00:08:22,580 --> 00:08:26,320 You know, and then ideas just happen. 214 00:08:26,320 --> 00:08:31,530 However, it's important-- so far I've sort of been describing 215 00:08:31,530 --> 00:08:34,169 the brainstorming process that you've all been through 216 00:08:34,169 --> 00:08:34,950 already. 217 00:08:34,950 --> 00:08:37,559 But one thing that we haven't necessarily 218 00:08:37,559 --> 00:08:39,929 asked you to do nearly as much is 219 00:08:39,929 --> 00:08:44,460 to come up with actual discrete experiments. 220 00:08:44,460 --> 00:08:46,620 You know, it's like, here's an idea. 221 00:08:46,620 --> 00:08:50,610 Actually come up with a criteria of success 222 00:08:50,610 --> 00:08:52,200 that you're looking for. 223 00:08:52,200 --> 00:08:54,580 How do we know whether this particular idea, 224 00:08:54,580 --> 00:08:57,030 this particular experiment version of the idea 225 00:08:57,030 --> 00:08:59,650 is succeeding or not. 226 00:08:59,650 --> 00:09:01,170 And you're going to need that. 227 00:09:01,170 --> 00:09:03,160 Because you're going to need to cull. 228 00:09:03,160 --> 00:09:06,330 You're going to need to like reduce this back down, 229 00:09:06,330 --> 00:09:08,924 try to keep this, or maybe even build this up a little bit. 230 00:09:08,924 --> 00:09:10,340 Actually, it's probably more like, 231 00:09:10,340 --> 00:09:12,585 you're going to cull a little bit. 232 00:09:12,585 --> 00:09:15,554 Then you want to bring this up again. 233 00:09:15,554 --> 00:09:20,610 And then each time this goes, you 234 00:09:20,610 --> 00:09:23,200 have kind of an increase in that you'll 235 00:09:23,200 --> 00:09:25,780 have an increase in bad ideas, but a decrease of bad ideas. 236 00:09:25,780 --> 00:09:31,570 But your total number of good ideas just keeps going up. 237 00:09:31,570 --> 00:09:34,420 And by good, I'm using a very vague term. 238 00:09:34,420 --> 00:09:35,910 It could mean polished. 239 00:09:35,910 --> 00:09:39,030 It could mean actually good for game play. 240 00:09:39,030 --> 00:09:41,120 It could mean something that's been proven 241 00:09:41,120 --> 00:09:43,290 in a marketplace, something desirable that you 242 00:09:43,290 --> 00:09:44,422 want to keep in your game. 243 00:09:44,422 --> 00:09:46,130 PROFESSOR 2: Things that could be-- like, 244 00:09:46,130 --> 00:09:48,330 it should be good for the core experience, 245 00:09:48,330 --> 00:09:50,650 but one of the problems could be, they are just-- 246 00:09:50,650 --> 00:09:53,848 they're good working mechanics, but actually don't 247 00:09:53,848 --> 00:09:55,712 help the core experience, or detract 248 00:09:55,712 --> 00:09:56,872 from the core experience. 249 00:09:56,872 --> 00:09:57,705 PROFESSOR 1: Mm-hmm. 250 00:09:57,705 --> 00:09:59,660 Yep. 251 00:09:59,660 --> 00:10:02,990 Let's see. 252 00:10:02,990 --> 00:10:04,920 There are a couple of dangers, even 253 00:10:04,920 --> 00:10:06,495 in this early brainstorming process. 254 00:10:06,495 --> 00:10:13,490 So I'm just looking at this whole part here. 255 00:10:13,490 --> 00:10:16,800 One is that you pretty much already think 256 00:10:16,800 --> 00:10:19,380 you already know what game you're going to make. 257 00:10:19,380 --> 00:10:22,800 You've got a single solution. 258 00:10:22,800 --> 00:10:25,530 Say you're taking the computer game version of this class 259 00:10:25,530 --> 00:10:27,670 and you decide that you're going to make an RPG. 260 00:10:27,670 --> 00:10:31,500 And your model is Final Fantasy 6. 261 00:10:31,500 --> 00:10:34,080 OK, so everything is going to basically follow 262 00:10:34,080 --> 00:10:35,550 the Final Fantasy 6 template. 263 00:10:35,550 --> 00:10:39,410 So you're basically pursuing one single solution. 264 00:10:42,100 --> 00:10:45,960 And the problem with that is that your implementation 265 00:10:45,960 --> 00:10:48,870 ability of actually making all of those things 266 00:10:48,870 --> 00:10:52,800 fit that template is already-- 267 00:10:52,800 --> 00:10:53,841 you are not Square. 268 00:10:53,841 --> 00:10:54,340 Right? 269 00:10:54,340 --> 00:10:56,640 You don't have all of the resources 270 00:10:56,640 --> 00:10:59,760 that Square had, even back when Final Fantasy 6 came out. 271 00:10:59,760 --> 00:11:01,942 How old is Final Fantasy 6? 272 00:11:01,942 --> 00:11:05,430 1994? 273 00:11:05,430 --> 00:11:05,980 2? 274 00:11:05,980 --> 00:11:07,310 AUDIENCE: I don't know. 275 00:11:07,310 --> 00:11:08,700 PROFESSOR 1: Something like that. 276 00:11:08,700 --> 00:11:11,520 I mean, even then, they were a large team with many years 277 00:11:11,520 --> 00:11:13,020 to work on-- 278 00:11:13,020 --> 00:11:15,420 at least a year to work on that game. 279 00:11:15,420 --> 00:11:18,750 I don't know how long they actually worked on that game. 280 00:11:18,750 --> 00:11:21,930 There's a very, very good chance that your ability 281 00:11:21,930 --> 00:11:24,060 to actually even implement something 282 00:11:24,060 --> 00:11:26,250 that you know how it already works 283 00:11:26,250 --> 00:11:28,240 may not be able to meet that. 284 00:11:28,240 --> 00:11:30,025 So you will have a failed experiment 285 00:11:30,025 --> 00:11:32,440 and then you're kind of stuck. 286 00:11:32,440 --> 00:11:33,570 You don't know what to do. 287 00:11:33,570 --> 00:11:37,050 So you're going to have to do lots and lots of experiments. 288 00:11:37,050 --> 00:11:39,700 But experiments are expensive. 289 00:11:39,700 --> 00:11:41,320 Everything takes time. 290 00:11:41,320 --> 00:11:44,920 Everything is going to need culling at some point in time. 291 00:11:44,920 --> 00:11:47,430 But you need a certain amount of time 292 00:11:47,430 --> 00:11:51,620 that isn't going to end up going into the game-- this chunk. 293 00:11:51,620 --> 00:11:55,130 Actually, it's agood chunk. 294 00:11:55,130 --> 00:11:57,630 Which is why we've been trying to teach you how to prototype 295 00:11:57,630 --> 00:11:58,900 really, really quickly. 296 00:11:58,900 --> 00:12:00,480 It's a little bit of [INAUDIBLE]. 297 00:12:00,480 --> 00:12:03,687 Because we want you to try to be able to get on to experiments, 298 00:12:03,687 --> 00:12:05,520 come to a conclusion about whether that idea 299 00:12:05,520 --> 00:12:08,430 was good or not as fast as possible, 300 00:12:08,430 --> 00:12:10,710 so that you kind of reduce the cost 301 00:12:10,710 --> 00:12:12,510 of doing a single experiment. 302 00:12:12,510 --> 00:12:13,070 And yes. 303 00:12:13,070 --> 00:12:14,160 It's true that you're not going to be 304 00:12:14,160 --> 00:12:16,410 able to conduct an experiment on every single idea 305 00:12:16,410 --> 00:12:17,760 that you've got. 306 00:12:17,760 --> 00:12:25,345 So you have to kind of pick and choose a select number of ideas 307 00:12:25,345 --> 00:12:26,720 to be able to take the experiment 308 00:12:26,720 --> 00:12:29,479 to the experimental stage. 309 00:12:29,479 --> 00:12:31,770 Now, there are a couple of things that you can look out 310 00:12:31,770 --> 00:12:34,200 for to say, maybe we don't want to conduct an experiment 311 00:12:34,200 --> 00:12:35,040 on something. 312 00:12:35,040 --> 00:12:36,780 One is a brittle idea. 313 00:12:36,780 --> 00:12:40,470 And a brittle idea is that you kind of 314 00:12:40,470 --> 00:12:43,890 have to kind of twist it really, really, really hard 315 00:12:43,890 --> 00:12:46,010 to be able to make it fit with any idea 316 00:12:46,010 --> 00:12:47,010 that you've already got. 317 00:12:49,560 --> 00:12:51,436 I'm assuming that you've already got 318 00:12:51,436 --> 00:12:53,310 a concept that your team was kind of building 319 00:12:53,310 --> 00:12:54,240 around this concept. 320 00:12:54,240 --> 00:12:56,880 Somebody comes up with an idea and a huge amount 321 00:12:56,880 --> 00:13:00,180 of twisting and turning to be able to even make it fit close, 322 00:13:00,180 --> 00:13:01,770 even though you think that on its own, 323 00:13:01,770 --> 00:13:05,100 this idea is a really good idea. 324 00:13:05,100 --> 00:13:09,810 You might actually want to see how many different ways could 325 00:13:09,810 --> 00:13:13,620 this particular idea be executed before you actually 326 00:13:13,620 --> 00:13:15,390 decide on the way-- on an experiment 327 00:13:15,390 --> 00:13:17,840 to conduct on that idea. 328 00:13:17,840 --> 00:13:19,890 Two ways that you can do that. 329 00:13:19,890 --> 00:13:27,300 One is that you just specify, what 330 00:13:27,300 --> 00:13:31,020 is the goal of this possibly brittle idea? 331 00:13:31,020 --> 00:13:32,370 It takes a lot of twisting. 332 00:13:32,370 --> 00:13:34,590 Why do we need this idea in the first place? 333 00:13:34,590 --> 00:13:37,042 Is it because the challenge in the game is too low? 334 00:13:37,042 --> 00:13:39,000 Is it because players have too much information 335 00:13:39,000 --> 00:13:43,230 or not enough information about what they're supposed to do? 336 00:13:43,230 --> 00:13:44,760 Is it because you want to introduce 337 00:13:44,760 --> 00:13:48,940 a little element of chance or maybe give 338 00:13:48,940 --> 00:13:51,780 some sort of strategic decision making? 339 00:13:51,780 --> 00:13:54,000 Try to identify, what is this problem 340 00:13:54,000 --> 00:13:55,980 that you're trying to solve in the first place 341 00:13:55,980 --> 00:13:59,230 with this kind of unwieldy idea? 342 00:13:59,230 --> 00:13:59,730 All right? 343 00:13:59,730 --> 00:14:01,710 And once you've been able to identify that, 344 00:14:01,710 --> 00:14:04,000 then you come up with, all right, 345 00:14:04,000 --> 00:14:05,730 what are all the different ways that we 346 00:14:05,730 --> 00:14:08,220 could address that problem. 347 00:14:08,220 --> 00:14:10,430 As opposed to, here's this one solution that's 348 00:14:10,430 --> 00:14:13,620 kind of unwieldy, that might very well solve that problem, 349 00:14:13,620 --> 00:14:15,930 but maybe there are alternatives. 350 00:14:15,930 --> 00:14:18,300 Has anyone encountered this in your own prototyping? 351 00:14:18,300 --> 00:14:20,970 Maybe in this assignment, maybe in a previous assignment. 352 00:14:20,970 --> 00:14:23,970 Like, somebody had an idea that was just kind of hard to use, 353 00:14:23,970 --> 00:14:26,330 but then what the idea was trying to solve 354 00:14:26,330 --> 00:14:27,985 was actually a good problem to solve? 355 00:14:30,620 --> 00:14:31,120 No? 356 00:14:31,120 --> 00:14:31,812 Not yet? 357 00:14:31,812 --> 00:14:34,660 I thought I saw some nods. 358 00:14:34,660 --> 00:14:36,220 If you've encountered it, I'd love 359 00:14:36,220 --> 00:14:38,059 to get an example from one of you. 360 00:14:38,059 --> 00:14:39,100 I can throw out examples. 361 00:14:39,100 --> 00:14:43,838 But I'd love to be able to hear examples from one of you. 362 00:14:43,838 --> 00:14:44,338 No? 363 00:14:52,120 --> 00:14:53,620 AUDIENCE: I guess in our first game, 364 00:14:53,620 --> 00:14:55,617 we realized a couple problems with the game. 365 00:14:55,617 --> 00:14:57,950 So we came up with various ways of trying to resolve it, 366 00:14:57,950 --> 00:15:00,700 that didn't really work for the game itself, 367 00:15:00,700 --> 00:15:04,050 but solved the smaller problem. 368 00:15:04,050 --> 00:15:06,050 PROFESSOR 1: Can you be more specific about what 369 00:15:06,050 --> 00:15:06,790 the problem was? 370 00:15:06,790 --> 00:15:09,206 AUDIENCE: Yeah, I'm trying to think back to specific ones. 371 00:15:09,206 --> 00:15:13,500 One of them was that the way our game 372 00:15:13,500 --> 00:15:16,250 was with the set of the tic tac toe, 373 00:15:16,250 --> 00:15:20,060 it was really hard to see what sets 374 00:15:20,060 --> 00:15:21,280 were available on the board. 375 00:15:21,280 --> 00:15:21,580 PROFESSOR 1: Right. 376 00:15:21,580 --> 00:15:22,760 This was the set assembly game. 377 00:15:22,760 --> 00:15:23,050 Sure. 378 00:15:23,050 --> 00:15:23,674 AUDIENCE: Yeah. 379 00:15:23,674 --> 00:15:25,370 And so one of the things we tried to do 380 00:15:25,370 --> 00:15:27,935 was removing the center tile altogether, 381 00:15:27,935 --> 00:15:29,810 so that you could only play around the edges. 382 00:15:29,810 --> 00:15:32,480 Which did solve the problem of, now you 383 00:15:32,480 --> 00:15:34,370 could really see what everything was, 384 00:15:34,370 --> 00:15:36,080 so it was a lot easier in that sense. 385 00:15:36,080 --> 00:15:39,260 Except it was just a lot less interesting of a game, 386 00:15:39,260 --> 00:15:42,175 because there was a lot less strategy to it. 387 00:15:42,175 --> 00:15:44,300 PROFESSOR 1: So you had a version of the game where 388 00:15:44,300 --> 00:15:47,090 all the squares were in play, including the center tile, 389 00:15:47,090 --> 00:15:49,049 and it just made it confusing for your players. 390 00:15:49,049 --> 00:15:51,506 And then you have a version of the game where there's just, 391 00:15:51,506 --> 00:15:52,450 like-- 392 00:15:52,450 --> 00:15:55,130 this one possible solution to this problem 393 00:15:55,130 --> 00:15:57,135 is just take the center tile out. 394 00:15:57,135 --> 00:16:00,350 But that made it trivial, or-- 395 00:16:00,350 --> 00:16:01,040 yeah. 396 00:16:01,040 --> 00:16:02,956 AUDIENCE: So we tried to find a middle ground. 397 00:16:02,956 --> 00:16:04,760 And that's how we ended up with the idea 398 00:16:04,760 --> 00:16:06,755 where we had one single card in the middle. 399 00:16:06,755 --> 00:16:08,450 Because you could still use it, but you 400 00:16:08,450 --> 00:16:10,485 didn't have to worry about the lines of play 401 00:16:10,485 --> 00:16:13,090 going through the middle, and how incredibly complex 402 00:16:13,090 --> 00:16:15,284 it is to try and reason about that. 403 00:16:15,284 --> 00:16:15,950 PROFESSOR 1: OK. 404 00:16:15,950 --> 00:16:18,170 So it sounds like, instead of a brittle idea, 405 00:16:18,170 --> 00:16:19,940 you actually had a good, robust idea. 406 00:16:19,940 --> 00:16:24,390 Which is, that center square is really problematic. 407 00:16:24,390 --> 00:16:26,299 It has hope-- it has possibilities. 408 00:16:26,299 --> 00:16:28,340 It has really interesting gameplay possibilities. 409 00:16:28,340 --> 00:16:31,210 But for learning the game and starting up the game, 410 00:16:31,210 --> 00:16:33,890 it's problematic. 411 00:16:33,890 --> 00:16:36,140 So you found a way to say, all right. 412 00:16:36,140 --> 00:16:38,210 How do we deal with the center square, 413 00:16:38,210 --> 00:16:41,680 instead of the solution of just delete the center square. 414 00:16:41,680 --> 00:16:45,320 You know, let's find a different way to work it in the game. 415 00:16:45,320 --> 00:16:50,150 And your final game actually does that. 416 00:16:50,150 --> 00:16:52,265 Something else that you can do is, 417 00:16:52,265 --> 00:16:54,970 if you've got an idea for your game that's kind of unwieldy, 418 00:16:54,970 --> 00:16:57,386 and you're not quite sure what to do about it-- discuss it 419 00:16:57,386 --> 00:17:00,110 among your team, but don't experiment on it. 420 00:17:00,110 --> 00:17:02,150 Don't work it into your rules. 421 00:17:02,150 --> 00:17:03,380 Don't try to implement it. 422 00:17:03,380 --> 00:17:05,390 Just get into everybody's heads. 423 00:17:05,390 --> 00:17:08,839 Because that idea may come bubbling up later. 424 00:17:08,839 --> 00:17:12,950 And little bits of it might be applicable and slightly easier 425 00:17:12,950 --> 00:17:14,916 to implement as you make progress in your game. 426 00:17:14,916 --> 00:17:16,790 So in other words, put it on the back burner. 427 00:17:16,790 --> 00:17:19,248 But make sure you have actually had a chance to discuss it, 428 00:17:19,248 --> 00:17:21,709 so that everyone's kind of thinking about it, 429 00:17:21,709 --> 00:17:24,000 even if it's not something that you've decided that you 430 00:17:24,000 --> 00:17:25,640 actually want to do right away. 431 00:17:25,640 --> 00:17:27,258 It might be a lot faster to just have 432 00:17:27,258 --> 00:17:29,882 a quick discussion in that case than to conduct the experiment. 433 00:17:33,140 --> 00:17:33,640 Yep. 434 00:17:36,300 --> 00:17:38,910 So those are a couple of strategies 435 00:17:38,910 --> 00:17:41,460 on how do you sort of focus your experimenting time. 436 00:17:41,460 --> 00:17:42,960 And this is probably not going to be 437 00:17:42,960 --> 00:17:44,543 very useful for assignment two, but it 438 00:17:44,543 --> 00:17:47,820 is going to be useful for assignment three. 439 00:17:47,820 --> 00:17:50,100 Because in assignment two, hopefully you're 440 00:17:50,100 --> 00:17:53,640 well past the creating and adding new features part 441 00:17:53,640 --> 00:17:55,890 and now you're just trying to get this out 442 00:17:55,890 --> 00:17:59,230 of the door for Wednesday. 443 00:17:59,230 --> 00:18:02,440 So let's talk about this stage now. 444 00:18:02,440 --> 00:18:04,314 Well, yeah. 445 00:18:04,314 --> 00:18:07,176 In fact, I'm going to focus on this one instead. 446 00:18:07,176 --> 00:18:08,550 The sort of, like, cutting phase. 447 00:18:08,550 --> 00:18:10,980 Where you're both cutting good stuff and bad stuff. 448 00:18:10,980 --> 00:18:14,580 But you're cutting stuff in general, because you have to. 449 00:18:14,580 --> 00:18:16,680 Maybe because you're running out of time. 450 00:18:16,680 --> 00:18:23,130 Maybe because you are trying to get rid of the bad stuff. 451 00:18:23,130 --> 00:18:25,500 So, things that you need to do-- 452 00:18:25,500 --> 00:18:27,840 and this is something that I'd like you to do today, 453 00:18:27,840 --> 00:18:30,105 when you meet up in your teams-- is 454 00:18:30,105 --> 00:18:33,360 to determine what is the criteria for which you're 455 00:18:33,360 --> 00:18:35,880 going to cut a feature. 456 00:18:35,880 --> 00:18:39,739 For instance, come up with a quick description 457 00:18:39,739 --> 00:18:41,780 about what your game is supposed to be all about. 458 00:18:41,780 --> 00:18:43,470 You may have already written this in your rules. 459 00:18:43,470 --> 00:18:46,011 It might be in the very first paragraph of your rules, saying 460 00:18:46,011 --> 00:18:52,290 that our game is about getting entangled with other people, 461 00:18:52,290 --> 00:18:56,805 you know, or pushing them over, for instance. 462 00:18:56,805 --> 00:18:58,230 Which is it? 463 00:18:58,230 --> 00:19:00,150 And being able to identify it. 464 00:19:00,150 --> 00:19:03,120 And then, when you look at all of your rules in your game, 465 00:19:03,120 --> 00:19:07,920 you can actually determine, OK, which chunks of our mechanics 466 00:19:07,920 --> 00:19:10,790 actually serve that goal, and which ones don't. 467 00:19:10,790 --> 00:19:13,440 You know, there are things that are there just 468 00:19:13,440 --> 00:19:14,810 to keep your game going. 469 00:19:14,810 --> 00:19:17,130 Those may be fine to keep, but those aren't directly 470 00:19:17,130 --> 00:19:19,200 contributing to how good your game is. 471 00:19:19,200 --> 00:19:23,134 Those are just basically there to keep the thing working. 472 00:19:23,134 --> 00:19:25,300 And maybe they can take a little bit of improvement, 473 00:19:25,300 --> 00:19:27,550 but they're kind of suspect. 474 00:19:27,550 --> 00:19:29,100 And there's things that'll directly 475 00:19:29,100 --> 00:19:33,120 contribute to your core gameplay that you're trying 476 00:19:33,120 --> 00:19:34,472 to achieve with your game. 477 00:19:34,472 --> 00:19:36,180 And those are probably things that you'll 478 00:19:36,180 --> 00:19:37,920 want to spend a lot more time making sure 479 00:19:37,920 --> 00:19:39,420 that the rules are absolutely clear, 480 00:19:39,420 --> 00:19:41,920 and your players understand what they mean, 481 00:19:41,920 --> 00:19:45,660 that if there's any other mechanics in your game, 482 00:19:45,660 --> 00:19:46,770 they're supporting that-- 483 00:19:46,770 --> 00:19:52,230 you know, that those meet your criteria for what 484 00:19:52,230 --> 00:19:53,471 should stay in your game. 485 00:19:58,842 --> 00:20:00,675 Because once you know what your criteria is, 486 00:20:00,675 --> 00:20:03,270 it becomes a lot easier to be able to just look at everything 487 00:20:03,270 --> 00:20:05,311 that you've got, deciding what to keep and invest 488 00:20:05,311 --> 00:20:07,622 more time in, and what to cut. 489 00:20:07,622 --> 00:20:09,630 Now, there's a couple of problems 490 00:20:09,630 --> 00:20:12,090 that people typically run into when 491 00:20:12,090 --> 00:20:14,670 it comes to cutting stuff out. 492 00:20:14,670 --> 00:20:18,000 A couple of game developers refer to this as culling. 493 00:20:18,000 --> 00:20:20,530 If you come from 3D graphics, culling 494 00:20:20,530 --> 00:20:23,220 is a very common way just to be able to just cut all the stuff 495 00:20:23,220 --> 00:20:26,509 out that you don't need. 496 00:20:26,509 --> 00:20:28,800 So, for instance, if you don't have an explicit culling 497 00:20:28,800 --> 00:20:32,670 criteria, then you don't actually 498 00:20:32,670 --> 00:20:38,280 know why a certain mechanic exists, 499 00:20:38,280 --> 00:20:40,560 and you don't actually know whether you should keep it 500 00:20:40,560 --> 00:20:41,490 or not. 501 00:20:41,490 --> 00:20:46,230 So that discussion should be something that happens today. 502 00:20:46,230 --> 00:20:49,680 In the end, what is your game about, and does your game 503 00:20:49,680 --> 00:20:52,190 actually meet that? 504 00:20:52,190 --> 00:20:55,140 You might have other culling criteria that aren't that. 505 00:20:55,140 --> 00:20:56,867 Does this game run in five minutes. 506 00:20:56,867 --> 00:20:58,200 What was the limit for this one? 507 00:20:58,200 --> 00:20:59,605 10 minutes, I believe? 508 00:20:59,605 --> 00:21:00,291 PROFESSOR 2: 20. 509 00:21:00,291 --> 00:21:01,290 PROFESSOR 1: 20 minutes? 510 00:21:01,290 --> 00:21:01,800 OK. 511 00:21:01,800 --> 00:21:04,920 So if the game needs to run in 20 minutes, 512 00:21:04,920 --> 00:21:07,650 because we as instructors gave you that limitation, 513 00:21:07,650 --> 00:21:11,146 then that's probably a perfectly reasonable culling criteria 514 00:21:11,146 --> 00:21:11,770 for you to use. 515 00:21:11,770 --> 00:21:15,603 What in our game is sort of contributing towards this, 516 00:21:15,603 --> 00:21:18,186 and what's actually getting in our way of hitting that target. 517 00:21:23,680 --> 00:21:24,255 Let's see. 518 00:21:26,760 --> 00:21:30,310 Something else that comes into play, and that affects culling, 519 00:21:30,310 --> 00:21:33,817 that affects this phase, is when you conduct experiments here, 520 00:21:33,817 --> 00:21:36,270 but your experiments are not very tangible. 521 00:21:36,270 --> 00:21:39,600 They're kind of floaty and wavy. 522 00:21:39,600 --> 00:21:41,970 This usually happens in teams that 523 00:21:41,970 --> 00:21:43,637 like to talk out all of the ideas, 524 00:21:43,637 --> 00:21:46,095 but don't actually like to do a lot of hardcore prototyping 525 00:21:46,095 --> 00:21:47,750 and playtesting. 526 00:21:47,750 --> 00:21:50,610 I hope that that's not so much of a problem for anyone 527 00:21:50,610 --> 00:21:51,690 in this class by now. 528 00:21:51,690 --> 00:21:53,970 You've got in a lot of practice in that. 529 00:21:53,970 --> 00:21:57,120 But you may have a couple of rules and mechanics 530 00:21:57,120 --> 00:22:00,689 that have ended up in your game, that you never actually 531 00:22:00,689 --> 00:22:02,730 prototyped, that you've never actually tested out 532 00:22:02,730 --> 00:22:03,510 with real people. 533 00:22:03,510 --> 00:22:07,770 Make sure that whatever actually ends up in the version 534 00:22:07,770 --> 00:22:09,690 that you hand in on Wednesday is something 535 00:22:09,690 --> 00:22:10,910 that you've actually tested-- 536 00:22:10,910 --> 00:22:12,284 is something that you've actually 537 00:22:12,284 --> 00:22:14,860 gotten some real data about whether it's working or not. 538 00:22:20,370 --> 00:22:24,700 This one happens with every student project. 539 00:22:24,700 --> 00:22:27,420 Students-- game developers in general 540 00:22:27,420 --> 00:22:29,820 always assume that adding more stuff is better. 541 00:22:29,820 --> 00:22:32,400 It takes a very, very, very seasoned game designer 542 00:22:32,400 --> 00:22:36,540 to realize that sometimes simplicity is good. 543 00:22:36,540 --> 00:22:40,020 And again, I hope this is not a terribly new revelation 544 00:22:40,020 --> 00:22:41,250 to the people in this class. 545 00:22:41,250 --> 00:22:43,980 But I see it in student projects all the time. 546 00:22:43,980 --> 00:22:45,720 I see in student projects where they 547 00:22:45,720 --> 00:22:49,450 assume that more features and more complexity 548 00:22:49,450 --> 00:22:50,517 is going to be better. 549 00:22:50,517 --> 00:22:52,600 And in fact, I saw some of them in assignment one. 550 00:22:52,600 --> 00:22:54,849 And we're going to be talking a little bit about that. 551 00:22:54,849 --> 00:22:56,942 More complexity doesn't necessarily always 552 00:22:56,942 --> 00:22:57,900 make for a better game. 553 00:22:57,900 --> 00:22:59,880 It may make it a more interesting 554 00:22:59,880 --> 00:23:01,580 intellectual problem. 555 00:23:01,580 --> 00:23:04,050 It doesn't necessarily always make it 556 00:23:04,050 --> 00:23:07,030 into a more entertaining game. 557 00:23:07,030 --> 00:23:10,170 Let's see. 558 00:23:10,170 --> 00:23:12,780 One thing about culling is that cutting features 559 00:23:12,780 --> 00:23:16,020 and cutting stuff out kind of takes practice. 560 00:23:16,020 --> 00:23:20,100 You've got to do it fairly regularly. 561 00:23:20,100 --> 00:23:22,790 For assignment three, which is going to be starting 562 00:23:22,790 --> 00:23:24,540 on Wednesday, right-- we actually cut that 563 00:23:24,540 --> 00:23:25,770 on Wednesday-- 564 00:23:25,770 --> 00:23:27,780 what I'm going to ask you to do is try 565 00:23:27,780 --> 00:23:30,600 cutting a feature every week. 566 00:23:30,600 --> 00:23:34,530 You know, just say, what's on the chopping block this week? 567 00:23:34,530 --> 00:23:36,660 Every Monday, or every Wednesday, 568 00:23:36,660 --> 00:23:38,880 or if you have a regular meeting time on Saturday 569 00:23:38,880 --> 00:23:40,110 or something like that-- 570 00:23:40,110 --> 00:23:45,150 just, like, what is the least useful thing that we've 571 00:23:45,150 --> 00:23:46,920 got in our game right now. 572 00:23:46,920 --> 00:23:48,600 And just try that. 573 00:23:48,600 --> 00:23:52,420 Because you can always add stuff in later. 574 00:23:52,420 --> 00:23:55,731 Remember, this is a cyclical thing. 575 00:23:55,731 --> 00:23:58,230 You're going to be adding, then cutting, adding and cutting, 576 00:23:58,230 --> 00:24:00,830 adding and cutting. 577 00:24:00,830 --> 00:24:04,480 I think you've got in a lot of practice on the adding part. 578 00:24:04,480 --> 00:24:06,420 But you've got to practice a little bit more 579 00:24:06,420 --> 00:24:07,770 on the cutting part now. 580 00:24:07,770 --> 00:24:09,270 And you've got time to be able to do 581 00:24:09,270 --> 00:24:10,040 this for assignment three. 582 00:24:10,040 --> 00:24:11,470 You've got a little bit more time on assignment three 583 00:24:11,470 --> 00:24:13,320 than you had on assignment two. 584 00:24:13,320 --> 00:24:16,814 So, start setting yourself a schedule, of all right, 585 00:24:16,814 --> 00:24:18,480 we're definitely going to cut something. 586 00:24:18,480 --> 00:24:19,420 I don't know what it is, but we're 587 00:24:19,420 --> 00:24:21,837 going to meet up as a team and we're going to decide that. 588 00:24:21,837 --> 00:24:24,128 And if it turns out that it was the wrong thing to cut, 589 00:24:24,128 --> 00:24:25,260 you can add it back later. 590 00:24:25,260 --> 00:24:28,170 But that allows you to focus your efforts on the things 591 00:24:28,170 --> 00:24:30,448 that you've deemed as more important 592 00:24:30,448 --> 00:24:31,572 for a short amount of time. 593 00:24:36,350 --> 00:24:40,500 It can be hard to be objective about this process. 594 00:24:40,500 --> 00:24:41,780 Something that we've done-- 595 00:24:41,780 --> 00:24:46,550 in mostly our video game development, but you 596 00:24:46,550 --> 00:24:48,500 can do this in paper prototypes-- 597 00:24:48,500 --> 00:24:50,630 is to hand people very, very simple survey 598 00:24:50,630 --> 00:24:55,340 forms that basically say, how fun did you find this? 599 00:24:55,340 --> 00:24:57,150 How fun did you find that? 600 00:24:57,150 --> 00:24:59,600 Say your game has different roles. 601 00:24:59,600 --> 00:25:02,630 You have a tinker, tailor, soldier, spy. 602 00:25:02,630 --> 00:25:04,935 These are your four roles in your game. 603 00:25:04,935 --> 00:25:06,560 And you just hand out the survey form-- 604 00:25:06,560 --> 00:25:08,400 how fun did you find being a tinker? 605 00:25:08,400 --> 00:25:10,670 How fun do you find being a tailor? 606 00:25:10,670 --> 00:25:13,820 Just one to five. 607 00:25:13,820 --> 00:25:18,334 And that isn't terribly much information, 608 00:25:18,334 --> 00:25:20,000 but it gives you just enough information 609 00:25:20,000 --> 00:25:22,760 to help you concentrate your efforts on what's 610 00:25:22,760 --> 00:25:25,946 the most problematic thing in our game right now. 611 00:25:25,946 --> 00:25:28,010 You can go into greater details, like do 612 00:25:28,010 --> 00:25:34,040 you think that the game was too long, too short, too 613 00:25:34,040 --> 00:25:39,260 challenging, too easy, too luck-based, 614 00:25:39,260 --> 00:25:41,570 required too much thought. 615 00:25:41,570 --> 00:25:43,760 You can put these things on these five-point scales 616 00:25:43,760 --> 00:25:45,759 to be able to give you a little bit of feedback. 617 00:25:45,759 --> 00:25:48,020 They don't necessarily tell you what the problem is. 618 00:25:48,020 --> 00:25:50,750 But it tells you where the problem might lie. 619 00:25:50,750 --> 00:25:52,521 And that will help focus your discussion 620 00:25:52,521 --> 00:25:53,770 and your efforts a little bit. 621 00:25:56,940 --> 00:25:57,440 Yeah. 622 00:25:57,440 --> 00:25:59,589 And finally, the most important thing 623 00:25:59,589 --> 00:26:01,130 is that you've got to keep doing this 624 00:26:01,130 --> 00:26:02,890 over and over and over again. 625 00:26:02,890 --> 00:26:06,300 If you just do this once, you kind of end up 626 00:26:06,300 --> 00:26:08,810 in this situation where you've got a bunch of good ideas 627 00:26:08,810 --> 00:26:11,990 but the bad ideas are still there. 628 00:26:11,990 --> 00:26:15,710 I'm going to expand this for you. 629 00:26:15,710 --> 00:26:17,170 What you eventually want to get to 630 00:26:17,170 --> 00:26:20,420 is a situation where the only stuff that's left in your game 631 00:26:20,420 --> 00:26:25,557 is the stuff that is worth keeping and that works well. 632 00:26:25,557 --> 00:26:27,890 And all the stuff that was bad, you've either completely 633 00:26:27,890 --> 00:26:30,740 cut it out or you've improved it to the point where it is 634 00:26:30,740 --> 00:26:32,024 actually a desirable feature. 635 00:26:32,024 --> 00:26:34,190 And you're only going to be able to get through that 636 00:26:34,190 --> 00:26:35,145 through multiple iterations. 637 00:26:35,145 --> 00:26:36,950 You're not going to get through that just 638 00:26:36,950 --> 00:26:39,560 by introducing something at the last minute 639 00:26:39,560 --> 00:26:41,087 and hoping that it works. 640 00:26:41,087 --> 00:26:43,670 Because you haven't had time to actually improve it and polish 641 00:26:43,670 --> 00:26:44,560 it yet. 642 00:26:47,320 --> 00:26:51,410 Now something that's less of a problem for this class, 643 00:26:51,410 --> 00:26:54,879 but may be a problem in your other game design experiments 644 00:26:54,879 --> 00:26:56,420 outside of class, is that you may not 645 00:26:56,420 --> 00:26:59,990 know when to call it a day. 646 00:26:59,990 --> 00:27:02,384 You can repeat this process forever. 647 00:27:02,384 --> 00:27:04,550 And you've heard about games that have been going on 648 00:27:04,550 --> 00:27:06,760 for four or five years. 649 00:27:06,760 --> 00:27:09,320 How long was Duke Nukem Forever in production for-- 650 00:27:09,320 --> 00:27:10,970 15? 651 00:27:10,970 --> 00:27:13,160 At least 10. 652 00:27:13,160 --> 00:27:16,160 And that was actually one example 653 00:27:16,160 --> 00:27:20,319 of where new technology just ended up 654 00:27:20,319 --> 00:27:22,610 changing the foundation of which the game was built on, 655 00:27:22,610 --> 00:27:24,640 over and over and over again. 656 00:27:24,640 --> 00:27:27,034 It just kept resetting the game engine development 657 00:27:27,034 --> 00:27:27,950 and just took forever. 658 00:27:30,580 --> 00:27:34,460 One thing that that game could probably have used 659 00:27:34,460 --> 00:27:37,790 is just some sort of standard criteria of saying, 660 00:27:37,790 --> 00:27:41,210 once we hit this criteria, we're shipping this game. 661 00:27:41,210 --> 00:27:43,550 It could be, once we've spent x amount of money. 662 00:27:43,550 --> 00:27:47,540 That probably should've been the case for that particular game. 663 00:27:47,540 --> 00:27:52,150 But it could have been, once our informal internal surveys hit 664 00:27:52,150 --> 00:27:55,940 a rating of four out of five. 665 00:27:55,940 --> 00:27:58,190 You know, that might have been good enough. 666 00:27:58,190 --> 00:27:59,840 Some companies don't settle for that. 667 00:27:59,840 --> 00:28:01,298 There are companies that say, we're 668 00:28:01,298 --> 00:28:03,470 only going to release the absolute best games 669 00:28:03,470 --> 00:28:06,020 that we absolutely can. 670 00:28:06,020 --> 00:28:07,610 But, don't kid yourself. 671 00:28:07,610 --> 00:28:09,419 Internally, they do have criteria on when 672 00:28:09,419 --> 00:28:10,460 these games have to ship. 673 00:28:10,460 --> 00:28:11,750 Even Nintendo does. 674 00:28:11,750 --> 00:28:15,587 And Nintendo's notorious for shipping late games. 675 00:28:15,587 --> 00:28:17,420 Because they have this mantra that a game is 676 00:28:17,420 --> 00:28:23,270 late for a short while and a bad game is bad forever. 677 00:28:23,270 --> 00:28:25,000 So that's what they say to the public. 678 00:28:25,000 --> 00:28:26,810 Internally, they ship by Christmas. 679 00:28:26,810 --> 00:28:29,540 They get those games out to the market. 680 00:28:29,540 --> 00:28:31,010 Because they have a time box. 681 00:28:31,010 --> 00:28:32,760 That's the other way to do it. 682 00:28:32,760 --> 00:28:35,000 And so it's like, well, we have to be 683 00:28:35,000 --> 00:28:37,430 able to get into the manufacturing process 684 00:28:37,430 --> 00:28:38,766 to print those discs-- 685 00:28:38,766 --> 00:28:40,220 less of an issue nowadays. 686 00:28:40,220 --> 00:28:43,730 But Nintendo still operates in disc fashion 687 00:28:43,730 --> 00:28:46,676 because they grew up as cartridge manufacturers. 688 00:28:46,676 --> 00:28:48,050 So they actually had to print it. 689 00:28:48,050 --> 00:28:51,874 Now when it comes to publishing a paper game, 690 00:28:51,874 --> 00:28:53,540 that timeline can be even longer, right? 691 00:28:53,540 --> 00:28:57,290 Because you have to put ink on paper, 692 00:28:57,290 --> 00:29:00,190 you have to have it folded, you have to get all the plastic 693 00:29:00,190 --> 00:29:03,560 and stuff put in plastic bags, and put it into the box, 694 00:29:03,560 --> 00:29:06,380 and then put into pallets, and then shipped from China, 695 00:29:06,380 --> 00:29:09,970 usually, over to stores all over the United States 696 00:29:09,970 --> 00:29:11,970 so that they're in stores in time for Christmas. 697 00:29:11,970 --> 00:29:14,440 And that's, like, a huge timeline. 698 00:29:14,440 --> 00:29:17,470 So that became the time limit. 699 00:29:17,470 --> 00:29:19,400 Sometimes you just set the time limit 700 00:29:19,400 --> 00:29:24,320 because you have to be able to meet ship dates. 701 00:29:24,320 --> 00:29:25,775 It's not very complicated. 702 00:29:25,775 --> 00:29:28,460 Now, when you're working on your own internal Kickstarter 703 00:29:28,460 --> 00:29:30,434 project or something, where you already 704 00:29:30,434 --> 00:29:31,850 know who's going to buy your game, 705 00:29:31,850 --> 00:29:33,500 because they paid for it upfront, 706 00:29:33,500 --> 00:29:38,470 before you even started manufacturing-- 707 00:29:38,470 --> 00:29:41,695 I think we'll hear more about that maybe in about two weeks, 708 00:29:41,695 --> 00:29:43,045 or about one week. 709 00:29:43,045 --> 00:29:44,173 April 9? 710 00:29:44,173 --> 00:29:45,670 PROFESSOR 2: 9th. 711 00:29:45,670 --> 00:29:46,420 PROFESSOR 1: Yeah. 712 00:29:46,420 --> 00:29:52,390 We'll have a couple of folks who actually work in the board game 713 00:29:52,390 --> 00:29:55,970 publishing industry talk a little bit about how they set 714 00:29:55,970 --> 00:29:59,140 goalposts and deadlines for themselves, what are 715 00:29:59,140 --> 00:30:00,890 the considerations for that. 716 00:30:00,890 --> 00:30:03,760 But in the end, it's just-- they had to set a goal, somehow. 717 00:30:03,760 --> 00:30:06,850 Either it's a quality goal or it's a time goal. 718 00:30:06,850 --> 00:30:08,970 And once you hit that, you have to ship. 719 00:30:08,970 --> 00:30:10,462 Because you can always do-- 720 00:30:10,462 --> 00:30:11,920 if you have set a quality goal, you 721 00:30:11,920 --> 00:30:13,810 can always do better than that. 722 00:30:13,810 --> 00:30:17,045 The more time that you spend, theoretically, 723 00:30:17,045 --> 00:30:19,420 if you are sticking to this, the higher quality your game 724 00:30:19,420 --> 00:30:20,086 is going to get. 725 00:30:20,086 --> 00:30:21,520 But then you don't ship. 726 00:30:21,520 --> 00:30:23,930 You just have diminishing returns. 727 00:30:23,930 --> 00:30:26,460 You'll never be able to move on to your next project. 728 00:30:26,460 --> 00:30:31,820 You're never going to get revenue from the project 729 00:30:31,820 --> 00:30:32,880 that you started. 730 00:30:32,880 --> 00:30:36,280 And your game may not be improved by that much more, 731 00:30:36,280 --> 00:30:38,210 just by spending extra time on it. 732 00:30:41,100 --> 00:30:42,370 OK. 733 00:30:42,370 --> 00:30:46,870 So again, we're going to talk a little bit about things 734 00:30:46,870 --> 00:30:50,290 that are relevant to this from what we've 735 00:30:50,290 --> 00:30:52,372 observed from assignment one. 736 00:30:52,372 --> 00:30:56,470 And then for your team time today, start 737 00:30:56,470 --> 00:31:00,010 talking about, what is your culling criteria. 738 00:31:00,010 --> 00:31:02,159 What are you trying to achieve-- 739 00:31:02,159 --> 00:31:03,700 what's the simplest thing that you're 740 00:31:03,700 --> 00:31:06,820 trying to achieve with this game, and the simplest way 741 00:31:06,820 --> 00:31:07,900 to describe it. 742 00:31:07,900 --> 00:31:10,090 And then look at all the things in your game 743 00:31:10,090 --> 00:31:11,910 based on that criteria. 744 00:31:11,910 --> 00:31:14,044 And whatever doesn't meet that might be something 745 00:31:14,044 --> 00:31:16,210 that you want to cut out, especially if it's already 746 00:31:16,210 --> 00:31:18,580 causing you problems. 747 00:31:18,580 --> 00:31:21,060 And maybe you'll just save some time-- 748 00:31:21,060 --> 00:31:22,690 free up a little bit more time to work 749 00:31:22,690 --> 00:31:24,210 on the stuff that's already working, 750 00:31:24,210 --> 00:31:26,001 and you can polish it up a little bit more. 751 00:31:29,230 --> 00:31:32,430 So any questions about adding and cutting features? 752 00:31:37,230 --> 00:31:39,565 OK. 753 00:31:39,565 --> 00:31:42,900 PROFESSOR 2: So, taking all this and relating it to assignment 754 00:31:42,900 --> 00:31:45,120 one-- and then going into assignment two-- 755 00:31:45,120 --> 00:31:48,460 also starting with when you cut in assignment one. 756 00:31:48,460 --> 00:31:54,200 So, when it comes to advanced rules and basics rules, 757 00:31:54,200 --> 00:31:56,940 if you're going to do an advance and a basic rule set, 758 00:31:56,940 --> 00:31:58,892 make sure your basic rule set matches 759 00:31:58,892 --> 00:32:01,225 the core experience you're trying to make with the game. 760 00:32:01,225 --> 00:32:03,367 It's really, really important for assignment two, 761 00:32:03,367 --> 00:32:04,450 for this third assignment. 762 00:32:04,450 --> 00:32:06,158 Because that's what we said when set out, 763 00:32:06,158 --> 00:32:08,687 right, is we said, come up with something that's 764 00:32:08,687 --> 00:32:11,020 going to have a very particular experience that you want 765 00:32:11,020 --> 00:32:12,186 the players have at the end. 766 00:32:12,186 --> 00:32:15,190 So if you're going to do advanced rules and basic rules, 767 00:32:15,190 --> 00:32:18,040 that criteria should be part of what your basic rules are. 768 00:32:18,040 --> 00:32:22,230 The advanced rules, as Philip mentioned yesterday, 769 00:32:22,230 --> 00:32:24,630 for some of them, it could add more interest. 770 00:32:24,630 --> 00:32:27,220 It could be more intellectually stimulating. 771 00:32:27,220 --> 00:32:29,360 But really, the basic rules should support 772 00:32:29,360 --> 00:32:30,460 everything the game has. 773 00:32:30,460 --> 00:32:34,500 The advanced rules are just add-ons, actually. 774 00:32:34,500 --> 00:32:36,670 If you don't want to send us advanced rules, 775 00:32:36,670 --> 00:32:38,230 don't just cut it completely. 776 00:32:38,230 --> 00:32:41,987 Say, we're not going to use the advanced rules because we just 777 00:32:41,987 --> 00:32:43,445 could not get them to work in time. 778 00:32:43,445 --> 00:32:45,190 And that's absolutely, perfectly fine, 779 00:32:45,190 --> 00:32:48,315 so long as the basic rules still match the core experience 780 00:32:48,315 --> 00:32:50,070 you're trying to get across. 781 00:32:50,070 --> 00:32:52,720 PROFESSOR 1: I think one thing I do 782 00:32:52,720 --> 00:32:55,370 want to add to that is that for the most part, 783 00:32:55,370 --> 00:32:58,130 your basic rules are pretty darn good. 784 00:32:58,130 --> 00:33:01,800 Much better than a lot of the advanced rules. 785 00:33:01,800 --> 00:33:04,815 Maybe because the wording in the basic rules 786 00:33:04,815 --> 00:33:06,150 had a little bit more care. 787 00:33:06,150 --> 00:33:08,054 Maybe you tested it. 788 00:33:08,054 --> 00:33:14,490 We found the basic games very playable and pretty enjoyable, 789 00:33:14,490 --> 00:33:17,726 was probably just fine for what we were 790 00:33:17,726 --> 00:33:19,375 expecting from assignment one. 791 00:33:19,375 --> 00:33:21,640 So a lot of the stuff that you had in advanced rules, 792 00:33:21,640 --> 00:33:24,437 I do realize, some of those were things that came up 793 00:33:24,437 --> 00:33:26,520 in the testing process, and you thought, you know, 794 00:33:26,520 --> 00:33:30,010 this is a game that our game has evolved into. 795 00:33:30,010 --> 00:33:34,920 But once you realize that there is a core, basic game that 796 00:33:34,920 --> 00:33:38,170 works, and then that this sounds like a slightly more 797 00:33:38,170 --> 00:33:41,880 complicated version of the game, that slightly more complicated 798 00:33:41,880 --> 00:33:45,797 stuff is all candidates for cutting. 799 00:33:45,797 --> 00:33:47,380 Because you've already identified what 800 00:33:47,380 --> 00:33:50,000 the important part of this [INAUDIBLE]. 801 00:33:50,000 --> 00:33:52,250 PROFESSOR 2: When it comes to time and your deadlines, 802 00:33:52,250 --> 00:33:55,980 of course, adopt a common lingo. 803 00:33:55,980 --> 00:33:57,270 Adopt a common language. 804 00:33:57,270 --> 00:33:58,560 Stick with it. 805 00:33:58,560 --> 00:33:59,867 Proofread your rules. 806 00:33:59,867 --> 00:34:01,950 I think I have it written down in the very bottom. 807 00:34:01,950 --> 00:34:02,880 Proofread your rules. 808 00:34:02,880 --> 00:34:04,904 So I'll say that a third time later on. 809 00:34:04,904 --> 00:34:06,570 And that means, like, naming conventions 810 00:34:06,570 --> 00:34:08,153 for the pieces, for what you've chosen 811 00:34:08,153 --> 00:34:09,914 to call things in your game. 812 00:34:09,914 --> 00:34:12,080 That could be naming conventions based on the rules, 813 00:34:12,080 --> 00:34:13,949 but also proofreading your cards, too. 814 00:34:13,949 --> 00:34:18,840 Making sure all your pieces are using the same language. 815 00:34:18,840 --> 00:34:21,546 When it comes to talking about what the player does, 816 00:34:21,546 --> 00:34:26,610 we did notice some should versus may versus must, kind 817 00:34:26,610 --> 00:34:28,080 of getting mixed up. 818 00:34:28,080 --> 00:34:29,760 So when we're playing the game, we're 819 00:34:29,760 --> 00:34:32,670 not quite sure, well, if I should do this, 820 00:34:32,670 --> 00:34:36,350 if I may do this, why-- 821 00:34:36,350 --> 00:34:38,800 if it's may here, is it also may over here, 822 00:34:38,800 --> 00:34:40,100 or is it should over here? 823 00:34:40,100 --> 00:34:41,909 Just wasn't quite sure. 824 00:34:41,909 --> 00:34:44,070 Wasn't quite clear. 825 00:34:44,070 --> 00:34:46,075 So I definitely recommend spending today 826 00:34:46,075 --> 00:34:47,070 working on your rules. 827 00:34:47,070 --> 00:34:51,330 Spend today having us play your game using your current rules, 828 00:34:51,330 --> 00:34:54,420 and then taking our feedback and then working on it 829 00:34:54,420 --> 00:34:57,800 for turning it in on Wednesday. 830 00:34:57,800 --> 00:35:01,260 And again, when it comes to cutting things-- 831 00:35:01,260 --> 00:35:04,440 when you are cutting, making sure that you 832 00:35:04,440 --> 00:35:05,940 are filling in the gaps. 833 00:35:05,940 --> 00:35:09,109 So if you cut something out, there might be a system, 834 00:35:09,109 --> 00:35:10,650 there might be a rule-- in this case, 835 00:35:10,650 --> 00:35:12,390 it generally was polish issues. 836 00:35:12,390 --> 00:35:16,980 So if something was removed from one of the rule sets, 837 00:35:16,980 --> 00:35:19,420 we saw a little bit of-- 838 00:35:19,420 --> 00:35:20,520 PROFESSOR 1: Remnants. 839 00:35:20,520 --> 00:35:22,960 PROFESSOR 2: --remnants of it, spread in the rules. 840 00:35:22,960 --> 00:35:24,810 PROFESSOR 1: So for instance, say 841 00:35:24,810 --> 00:35:26,310 you are one of those groups that had 842 00:35:26,310 --> 00:35:28,092 basic rules and advanced rules. 843 00:35:28,092 --> 00:35:29,800 And you took a chunk of the game that you 844 00:35:29,800 --> 00:35:31,729 moved into advanced rules because you 845 00:35:31,729 --> 00:35:33,270 realized that the core-based game was 846 00:35:33,270 --> 00:35:34,580 more playable without that. 847 00:35:34,580 --> 00:35:37,675 But your basic rules still refer to bits of the advanced rules. 848 00:35:37,675 --> 00:35:39,386 And that gets really confusing. 849 00:35:39,386 --> 00:35:41,760 Because advanced rules are a completely different section 850 00:35:41,760 --> 00:35:43,884 of your rules that we haven't even gotten into yet. 851 00:35:43,884 --> 00:35:44,511 But we will. 852 00:35:44,511 --> 00:35:48,820 So do that cleanup work. 853 00:35:48,820 --> 00:35:50,340 PROFESSOR 2: For setup-- 854 00:35:50,340 --> 00:35:51,870 so if you're going to have a setup 855 00:35:51,870 --> 00:35:53,280 section before your rules-- 856 00:35:53,280 --> 00:35:54,696 it's actually highly recommended-- 857 00:35:54,696 --> 00:35:56,290 have a setup section that is split out 858 00:35:56,290 --> 00:35:58,040 that is different from your rules section, 859 00:35:58,040 --> 00:35:59,869 so we know exactly how to set up the game. 860 00:35:59,869 --> 00:36:01,035 Include diagrams and photos. 861 00:36:03,940 --> 00:36:05,700 Where do players sit? 862 00:36:05,700 --> 00:36:07,190 What is the orientation of cards? 863 00:36:10,219 --> 00:36:12,510 If you have a card that has all this information on it, 864 00:36:12,510 --> 00:36:15,454 what is that common information across all cards? 865 00:36:15,454 --> 00:36:17,370 If you think about a Magic the Gathering card, 866 00:36:17,370 --> 00:36:18,630 and all the different icons-- 867 00:36:18,630 --> 00:36:20,760 hopefully your cards aren't as complex-- 868 00:36:20,760 --> 00:36:23,730 but you'll have the same thing in the same place 869 00:36:23,730 --> 00:36:25,470 on all the cards, so you can then tell us 870 00:36:25,470 --> 00:36:27,240 what that thing is, and why it's useful, 871 00:36:27,240 --> 00:36:31,570 and how to use it as you're playing the game. 872 00:36:31,570 --> 00:36:35,250 And in particular, let your game teach us how to play, 873 00:36:35,250 --> 00:36:35,813 if possible. 874 00:36:35,813 --> 00:36:37,300 If you've got time. 875 00:36:37,300 --> 00:36:39,715 If not, it should still be in the rules. 876 00:36:39,715 --> 00:36:41,507 What I mean by let your game teach us is, 877 00:36:41,507 --> 00:36:43,590 if you're going to have a board, and the board has 878 00:36:43,590 --> 00:36:45,970 a lot of empty space on it, you can put some your rules 879 00:36:45,970 --> 00:36:47,040 into the board. 880 00:36:47,040 --> 00:36:49,872 You can put some of the setup features into the board, 881 00:36:49,872 --> 00:36:51,080 if you've got time right now. 882 00:36:54,330 --> 00:36:55,620 Proofread your rules. 883 00:36:55,620 --> 00:36:58,120 And turn in as many copies of your rules 884 00:36:58,120 --> 00:36:59,760 as you have players in your game. 885 00:36:59,760 --> 00:37:03,660 So, the assignment did say, it's a set number of two, three, 886 00:37:03,660 --> 00:37:05,460 or four players for your game. 887 00:37:05,460 --> 00:37:10,370 If it's a four-player game, give us four copies of your rules. 888 00:37:10,370 --> 00:37:13,420 That's all the basic stuff. 889 00:37:13,420 --> 00:37:13,960 Yeah. 890 00:37:13,960 --> 00:37:17,050 And then we'll be getting your feedback, 891 00:37:17,050 --> 00:37:21,930 specific feedback for each individual game, tomorrow. 892 00:37:21,930 --> 00:37:22,510 Yeah. 893 00:37:22,510 --> 00:37:22,885 Yeah. 894 00:37:22,885 --> 00:37:23,260 Tomorrow. 895 00:37:23,260 --> 00:37:24,593 I'm not sure what time tomorrow. 896 00:37:24,593 --> 00:37:28,490 But we'll get you that before you're actually turning in. 897 00:37:28,490 --> 00:37:29,460 That's it for me. 898 00:37:29,460 --> 00:37:30,676 PROFESSOR 1: I just want to clarify one thing 899 00:37:30,676 --> 00:37:31,676 about should, may, must. 900 00:37:34,770 --> 00:37:36,880 I'm not sure, because I'm trying to think 901 00:37:36,880 --> 00:37:38,900 of a more concrete example. 902 00:37:38,900 --> 00:37:42,900 So it's like, if in your rules, you say, 903 00:37:42,900 --> 00:37:48,940 the player should move his or her piece from one square 904 00:37:48,940 --> 00:37:51,560 to another, we're not quite sure whether you're describing 905 00:37:51,560 --> 00:37:53,670 this as a good strategy-- 906 00:37:53,670 --> 00:37:57,490 as something that the player should generally 907 00:37:57,490 --> 00:38:00,070 be doing because it's going to put the player ahead-- 908 00:38:00,070 --> 00:38:03,250 or something that the player must be doing because the rules 909 00:38:03,250 --> 00:38:06,140 require the player to do this thing. 910 00:38:06,140 --> 00:38:11,300 Should is a very, very difficult word to figure out for us. 911 00:38:11,300 --> 00:38:12,650 And if you're to begin-- 912 00:38:12,650 --> 00:38:15,795 AUDIENCE: Would you suggest not using the word should? 913 00:38:15,795 --> 00:38:17,195 PROFESSOR 1: It's possible. 914 00:38:17,195 --> 00:38:19,270 Sometimes context explains it for you. 915 00:38:19,270 --> 00:38:23,810 But it does muddy things more often than it helps. 916 00:38:23,810 --> 00:38:25,870 I find should makes perfect sense 917 00:38:25,870 --> 00:38:27,493 if you're going to give an example. 918 00:38:27,493 --> 00:38:30,650 If you're going to give an example, make it [INAUDIBLE]. 919 00:38:30,650 --> 00:38:31,370 Make it obvious. 920 00:38:31,370 --> 00:38:32,147 Or even, like-- 921 00:38:32,147 --> 00:38:33,730 PROFESSOR 2: Put it in a sidebar, or-- 922 00:38:33,730 --> 00:38:34,521 PROFESSOR 1: Right. 923 00:38:34,521 --> 00:38:36,270 Do indents, or a sidebar, or something, 924 00:38:36,270 --> 00:38:38,811 to make it clear that this is not actually part of the rules. 925 00:38:38,811 --> 00:38:41,296 This is an example of how this set of the rules plays out. 926 00:38:41,296 --> 00:38:42,920 And then you can use words like should. 927 00:38:42,920 --> 00:38:43,300 Right? 928 00:38:43,300 --> 00:38:44,890 You know, player one should do this. 929 00:38:44,890 --> 00:38:47,310 Because you're describing a strategy. 930 00:38:47,310 --> 00:38:51,250 You're not saying that the rules require this to happen. 931 00:38:51,250 --> 00:38:56,290 Must-- say must when it's must, if a player must do something. 932 00:38:56,290 --> 00:38:59,530 And when you say a player may, be very, very clear 933 00:38:59,530 --> 00:39:01,870 of what else the player may do. 934 00:39:01,870 --> 00:39:06,510 Say, for instance, it's one out of five different options. 935 00:39:06,510 --> 00:39:11,494 You say, the player may do one of these five options-- 936 00:39:11,494 --> 00:39:13,785 bullet point, bullet point, bullet point, bullet point. 937 00:39:13,785 --> 00:39:18,610 And the last bullet point is probably, like, do nothing. 938 00:39:18,610 --> 00:39:19,894 If a game allows something. 939 00:39:19,894 --> 00:39:22,060 PROFESSOR 2: Bullet points are really, really useful 940 00:39:22,060 --> 00:39:24,190 if there's any kind of option. 941 00:39:24,190 --> 00:39:28,150 Even if it's just, like, a player may do this or this, 942 00:39:28,150 --> 00:39:31,410 break up the or in its own line. 943 00:39:31,410 --> 00:39:32,380 Give it bold. 944 00:39:32,380 --> 00:39:34,190 Put a couple lines around it. 945 00:39:34,190 --> 00:39:35,900 Put the next thing that they can do-- 946 00:39:35,900 --> 00:39:37,525 the other thing they can do-- after it. 947 00:39:37,525 --> 00:39:40,030 Make it really, really clear it's one or the other, 948 00:39:40,030 --> 00:39:40,900 not both. 949 00:39:40,900 --> 00:39:41,650 PROFESSOR 1: Yeah. 950 00:39:41,650 --> 00:39:43,660 Yeah. 951 00:39:43,660 --> 00:39:48,340 Yeah, that goes the same for not just your printed rule sheet, 952 00:39:48,340 --> 00:39:51,670 but also cards, stuff on the board. 953 00:39:51,670 --> 00:39:53,260 Because sometimes there are games 954 00:39:53,260 --> 00:39:55,160 where you have options on the card, right? 955 00:39:55,160 --> 00:39:58,330 And you may do this or you may do that. 956 00:39:58,330 --> 00:40:00,010 It's not entirely obvious if, say, 957 00:40:00,010 --> 00:40:01,850 the card does both of those things, 958 00:40:01,850 --> 00:40:03,810 or you get to choose from one of those things, 959 00:40:03,810 --> 00:40:06,160 and who gets to choose one of those two things. 960 00:40:06,160 --> 00:40:11,050 So that's something to keep in mind. 961 00:40:11,050 --> 00:40:13,480 You only use numbered bullet points-- 962 00:40:13,480 --> 00:40:15,490 1, 2, 3, 4-- 963 00:40:15,490 --> 00:40:17,830 if something's going to be sequential. 964 00:40:17,830 --> 00:40:19,990 It's good for things like, here are the steps 965 00:40:19,990 --> 00:40:21,940 of a round of game play-- 966 00:40:21,940 --> 00:40:25,237 first you do this, then you do this, then do-- do, do, do. 967 00:40:25,237 --> 00:40:27,320 Don't say the player may do one of the following-- 968 00:40:27,320 --> 00:40:29,850 1, dot, 2, dot, 3, dot-- it's like, uh, 969 00:40:29,850 --> 00:40:33,350 now I'm not quite sure what's going on. 970 00:40:33,350 --> 00:40:33,960 OK? 971 00:40:33,960 --> 00:40:34,710 PROFESSOR 2: Yeah. 972 00:40:34,710 --> 00:40:38,196 Yeah, and actually, this brought up rounds, stages, phases, 973 00:40:38,196 --> 00:40:38,900 turns. 974 00:40:38,900 --> 00:40:40,390 PROFESSOR 1: That's the vocabulary thing again. 975 00:40:40,390 --> 00:40:41,050 Yeah. 976 00:40:41,050 --> 00:40:42,250 PROFESSOR 2: Choose one. 977 00:40:42,250 --> 00:40:43,719 Stick with it. 978 00:40:43,719 --> 00:40:44,260 Proofread it. 979 00:40:44,260 --> 00:40:45,280 Make sure you chose it. 980 00:40:45,280 --> 00:40:47,020 Make sure it works. 981 00:40:47,020 --> 00:40:49,230 Especially if you're going to make any changes today, 982 00:40:49,230 --> 00:40:51,640 and you're turning it in in two days, 983 00:40:51,640 --> 00:40:53,680 have somebody who is not you proofread it 984 00:40:53,680 --> 00:40:56,740 and make sure you're using the same language throughout. 985 00:40:56,740 --> 00:40:59,680 PROFESSOR 1: Rounds usually involves everybody 986 00:40:59,680 --> 00:41:03,086 around the table doing one thing in sequence, the same sort 987 00:41:03,086 --> 00:41:04,520 of thing, in sequence. 988 00:41:04,520 --> 00:41:07,330 Steps are really big. 989 00:41:07,330 --> 00:41:16,320 Phases-- it's usually describing large chunks of game. 990 00:41:16,320 --> 00:41:21,300 you know, things like opening [INAUDIBLE], 991 00:41:21,300 --> 00:41:25,870 mid-game, end-game phases, and usually not used in rules. 992 00:41:25,870 --> 00:41:27,530 But I know that some games-- 993 00:41:27,530 --> 00:41:28,905 PROFESSOR 2: Connect those games. 994 00:41:28,905 --> 00:41:29,850 PROFESSOR 1: Yeah. 995 00:41:29,850 --> 00:41:30,595 Use those. 996 00:41:30,595 --> 00:41:33,400 AUDIENCE: Sometimes they use other terms. 997 00:41:33,400 --> 00:41:35,570 PROFESSOR 1: I know This is why it's maddening. 998 00:41:35,570 --> 00:41:39,159 Because it gets used in both contexts. 999 00:41:39,159 --> 00:41:40,950 AUDIENCE: So what would you use to describe 1000 00:41:40,950 --> 00:41:43,300 the individual pieces of a turn? 1001 00:41:43,300 --> 00:41:44,790 PROFESSOR 1: Steps. 1002 00:41:44,790 --> 00:41:47,190 Especially if it's a sequential sequence of things. 1003 00:41:47,190 --> 00:41:50,180 Like, this is my turn, in a round, 1004 00:41:50,180 --> 00:41:54,770 and here are the three steps I get to do. 1005 00:41:54,770 --> 00:41:56,130 Step 1-- draw a card. 1006 00:41:56,130 --> 00:41:58,720 Step 2-- choose a card from my hand. 1007 00:41:58,720 --> 00:41:59,640 Step 3-- play it. 1008 00:41:59,640 --> 00:42:00,140 Right? 1009 00:42:00,140 --> 00:42:01,790 You know, things like that. 1010 00:42:01,790 --> 00:42:03,540 That sort of works. 1011 00:42:03,540 --> 00:42:07,715 Phases-- I've also heard it described in things like there 1012 00:42:07,715 --> 00:42:12,929 is round one is one kind of action, 1013 00:42:12,929 --> 00:42:14,970 and round two is like a completely different kind 1014 00:42:14,970 --> 00:42:17,476 of action, and round three is [INAUDIBLE] like phases. 1015 00:42:17,476 --> 00:42:18,600 And it was like, oh my god. 1016 00:42:18,600 --> 00:42:21,260 That's-- [INAUDIBLE] that, actually. 1017 00:42:21,260 --> 00:42:23,633 Yeah. 1018 00:42:23,633 --> 00:42:25,091 AUDIENCE: In [INAUDIBLE], there are 1019 00:42:25,091 --> 00:42:30,740 turns in phases within rounds in phases. 1020 00:42:30,740 --> 00:42:31,572 PROFESSOR 1: Yes. 1021 00:42:31,572 --> 00:42:33,530 This is why the game is actually so much harder 1022 00:42:33,530 --> 00:42:35,010 to learn than it is actually play. 1023 00:42:35,010 --> 00:42:36,650 To play is actually not that hard. 1024 00:42:36,650 --> 00:42:37,050 But when they desc-- 1025 00:42:37,050 --> 00:42:38,466 AUDIENCE: The phases don't matter, 1026 00:42:38,466 --> 00:42:40,203 but the turns and everything else 1027 00:42:40,203 --> 00:42:41,880 was actually really, really good. 1028 00:42:41,880 --> 00:42:42,630 PROFESSOR 1: Yeah. 1029 00:42:42,630 --> 00:42:47,162 So that's why phases complicate things. 1030 00:42:47,162 --> 00:42:48,870 Sometimes it is, in fact, the right word, 1031 00:42:48,870 --> 00:42:52,039 but it's just hard to be able to expect 1032 00:42:52,039 --> 00:42:53,955 that every single player is going to interpret 1033 00:42:53,955 --> 00:42:57,700 that word the same way. 1034 00:42:57,700 --> 00:42:59,629 OK. 1035 00:42:59,629 --> 00:43:01,670 PROFESSOR 2: So you can break up into your teams, 1036 00:43:01,670 --> 00:43:03,400 continue working on your games. 1037 00:43:03,400 --> 00:43:05,060 This is playtest time. 1038 00:43:05,060 --> 00:43:07,490 So, in particular, playtest your rules. 1039 00:43:07,490 --> 00:43:09,027 If you want us to play your rules 1040 00:43:09,027 --> 00:43:10,860 and give you feedback before you turn it in, 1041 00:43:10,860 --> 00:43:12,310 today's the day to do it. 1042 00:43:12,310 --> 00:43:13,842 PROFESSOR 1: And attendance sheet-- 1043 00:43:13,842 --> 00:43:15,675 PROFESSOR 2: Attendance sheet's right there. 1044 00:43:15,675 --> 00:43:17,466 PROFESSOR 1: Attendance sheet's over there. 1045 00:43:17,466 --> 00:43:19,860 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS]