Senior Designer: How to make a good action game

Transferred from: http://www.gamelook.com.cn/2016/05/253673

Rice Inaba (Atsushi Inaba) is co-founder of Platinum Games, his studio has developed "Magic 101", "Angel of the Devil" and "Transformers: Destruction" and other well-known action games, his role in the studio is to supervise the entire production process, From the launch of a project to the production of the game, at this year's GDC conference, he brought a surprising definition to action games.

He says action games are designed to be passive, "action games are a series of action responses to the output." You might ask what the output means, and the output I'm talking about here refers to situations like the enemy approaching you or attacking you. For example, the enemy came up to me, so I attacked it, or because of the attack by the enemy, you will shoot it, these actions are for the (in-game) output response, when something happens, you react. ”

"Although the name of Action Games is an initiative to do something, it's not, because in these games, there's always something going on, and then you react to it in a certain amount of time," he said. ”

These are very natural reactions, horror and adventure games in which players explore the world and put players on active positions, but he says, "but essentially the opposite." The challenge for developers, however, is that "if these actions persist for a long time, or if the time is too short, the game becomes more difficult", Platinum is very cautious about the duration of the game, and also takes into account the rhythm of the game.

How to design an action game

According to Rice Inaba, you need a "unique selling point", such as the slow-paced mode of "The Angel Hunter" witch Time, who believes that a professional game designer should think of more than three good ideas. Then there are various functions to expand the game content, such as the role of unlocking, "This can bring horizontal expansion of the game."

The next step is the depth of the game, he said, "It's hard to give a concrete example, but the combination system is one of them", and these gameplay systems require players to be fully involved to master. "Core gameplay is not the only user group for action games, so it's important to make sure that players of all levels can enjoy the fun of your game and lower the game threshold, but you have to be sure that the people who play the game can have a direct way of having fun," so the depth of the game is just as important.

Avoid "functional design"

Designers tend to create skills and attributes for their characters and create a game based on them, but Rice Inaba says these things are not the first.

Because action games are passive, the most important question for designers is, "What kind of environment do I want players to face, and what do they do in this environment?" You have to imagine these problems in your own mind, first think of a situation that you anticipate, and then come up with an unexpected or amazing ability to help the player through the game, you need to imagine the whole process from beginning to end. ”

In this regard, Platinum games did not use too many design documents, he said, "(action game design) it is difficult to write a unique selling point of the concept or design documents." He also advises team members to ask for advice, such as programmers or artists, "We tell team members, ' to make the game more enjoyable, to surprise us, to say what you think, to show us, ' It's a very interesting process, which is one of the fun of team development." ”

In the sequel to the game, functional game design will often become a more dangerous factor, "most people will unknowingly do so, the pre-acclaimed elements inherited and improved, it is natural practice." ”

"However, action games should not do this, as I have said before, the first goal of the game designer is to design a unique environment, if a function is created based on this situation, it is of course the best, otherwise we can easily make a serial error. If you rely too much on people's awareness of the first game, then your game can easily be made into niche content. ”

Repeatable values are not meaningless content fills

"The game is supposed to be interesting, and that's the essence of the game," he said. But many games emphasize the value of repetition, such as filling the content, constantly unlocking it, or killing time without meaning. What is the value of repetition in action games? Its purpose is to improve the player's game skills, I am not talking about unlocking new skills in the game, but really improve the player's game skills. ”

Even so, designers need to keep in mind that there are always players who are only willing to play the basics, and it's important to have a great experience for these players. "We've created situations that allow these players to experience more than they expect, but it's hard for action games because you want to make every experience fun and fun." ”

The protagonist design of action game

Platinum's game has a unique and memorable character, especially the Angel of the Devil. "The more pure the action game, the more important the original and unique protagonists are, and that's the right order," he said. In other words, the experience you want to bring to the player and the character art design is closely related. ”

In the story, you just need to provide a motive, just as simple as Super Mario Bros, Peach was kidnapped, you need to save her, that's all. Of course, Platinum's "Angel of the Devil" and "Magic 101" are very heavy story of the game, so in the creation of action game story, it is necessary to consider how to put the previous link and the next ease of natural cohesion together, that is, to do an action game, you can not write the story ahead of time.

High-level game design

Because Suedon oversees platinum all games, he emphasizes ' high-level game design ', which means considering the overall process and progress of the game on a larger scale, as well as the overall experience we want the player to get. ”

The more important thing is that the continued excitement will be numb, if the rhythm of the game has been very high, over time players will feel very tired, he said, "We should think about the countermeasures to avoid this situation", so if you carefully adjust the rhythm of the game from a relatively high level, you will get a more satisfactory result.

For example, the first stage of this chart, the intensity is designed to 6, but because this is the beginning of the game, so it gives the players feel actually reached 7, the second phase reduced to 4, the players feel the same; Phase III intensity design is the same as the first stage, but because players have adapted to the game, So in fact they'll feel like 5, and by the fourth stage, when you turn the intensity slightly higher, they'll feel a lot more difficult, so you'll get very interesting results, and the overall difficulty you've designed is different from the intensity of the game that the players feel.

However, if your game is designed to be progressive, it will be as if the players experience less difficulty than you design.

Senior Designer: How to make a good action game