Inspiring Design
Here, at the start, we have no idea what my game will look like. I'd hope to create a game I enjoy playing, and so here I will look at the existing games I enjoy, and the elements of those games that inspire me.
It is easy to imagine starting out to make any game, which would be well served by something as simple as possible. As my taste has not been for simple games, this would create dissonance, where what I should be making and what I'd enjoy making are on different paths. This makes this analysis critical. To set out on an enjoyable development I need to calibrate my goals, and I'll use my favourite games as reference.
Games which inspire me
The games we like reflect back on our personalities. Whilst I suspect some of my favourite games will not sound great to you, I hope I can still sell you on the inspiring aspects to be found within them. I have picked three titles. They’re ordered here by the strength of their inspirations, rather than rating the games.
Factorio
Factorio places an automation exponent on top of a simple crafting system. There are several lenses through which I find Factorio inspirational, and I have to give special mention to the development process itself, with progress write ups published weekly. Factorio's presence atop this list is due to the complete scope of the game’s crafting system. If you use something in Factorio you have to have first constructed it. When you start to create more powerful tools, upgrading a pistol for an explosive rocket launcher, the devastating effect of that advanced weapon feels inherently earned, and inherently costly. The hours put into the design and building of the vulnerable factory that produces these tools connects us to the expense and trade offs of using them. Analogies in other games of higher cash prices or weapon scarcity cannot compare. This farm to table style pipeline of raw resources into gameplay elements inspires me. Similar claims are made in the massively multiplayer online game Eve Online, where spaceships, munitions, etcetera must be manufactured by players. I find the Eve example less compelling, as it is mitigated both through obfuscation, with players is scarcely exposed to the manufacturing processes, and abstraction, as the processes are high level space tech, neither player designed nor intuitively understood.
Screeps
Screeps is a massively multiplayer online real time strategy game, where players program the behaviour of their units, and those programs are run constantly in warring opposition. Screeps place in this list is earned as Screeps presents a uniquely intellectual challenge. This is because I am not particularly good at playing computer games! I am frequently frustrated by the gap between intent and execution. I could play a competitive shooter like Counter Strike, and I’d know that I need to jump around a corner and instantly shoot my enemy accurately, but in order to do so I’d need to practice a lot. Some of this is down to time availability, but more critically, it comes down to my patience and interest. I struggle to invest time into practising the mechanics of games where there is no conceptual evolution. In this regard, Screeps is a unique counterpoint. As the execution of the game is automatic, the sole tasks for the player are design and programming. Thus Screeps is a direct battle of minds and ideas, with zero mechanical practice as barrier to entry. A strong component within this is the lack of a definitive best approach. Learning to play Chess, famously cerebral, involves lots of practice, as one needs to learn the established opening flows. I don’t enjoy this deference of inspiration to learning an established ideal, even while it is often the most efficient choice. Factorio is a case study here, it is an inherently creative and design-centric game, yet online advice dictates adherence to a single unified design pattern. Whilst Screeps doesn't have much gameplay to its name, it is inspiring as an entirely blank canvas for players to compete with their own concepts and designs.
Space Station 13
Space Station 13 is multiplayer role playing game set in rounds on simulated space stations. Its been in collaborative open source development since 2006. It is, in my eyes, the single successful beacon of truly open game development, with all the highs and lows which that entails. The space stations themselves inspire me. A Space Station 13 station has a simulated atmosphere, maintained by filtering and distribution systems, a power distribution grid, maintained by power plants. It has a CCTV system, it has a refuse piping system, it has door access identification systems, it has radio communication systems. These are collectively responsible for keeping the players of each round alive. Yet the players are free to tinker with these systems during the game; destroying, constructing, sabotaging, or hijacking elements of the infrastructure, even as it keeps everyone breathing. Where in Factorio everything has been built from the ground up, letting you feel the cost of progress, in Space Station 13 one can learn how anything is adjusted, and mastering these systems lets the players warp the stations to their will. Only in these stations could an assailant jump out of a dustbin, and you suddenly find that the doors are locked, your radio wont work, and the lights have gone out.
What elements might my game carry
These reference points guide me to three elements, a crafting system, design based gameplay, and an unforgiving space setting. Factorio inspires that a crafting system should involve as little hand waiving as possible. Instead it should aspire to be literal, giving players natural clarity as to how basic components are combined into more complex forms. Screeps inspires that player designs should be the core of the gameplay, and that this would then need to be tuned delicately to allow diverse concepts to flourish and compete. Finally Space Station 13 inspires that the difficulty of surviving in space might requisite a variety of player designed systems as a gameplay baseline.
What technologies are implied
Whilst the intent of this post is to establish some high level ideals, these concepts immediately help to define the technological requirements of a game which could embed them. These games serve as a guide for the complexities that might be required to implement inspired designs. Each of the games above are presented in purely 2D graphics; this contrasts some titles I had shortlisted such as Arma 3 and Kerbal Space Program. This suggests to me that from the offset I should be intending to make a game with 2D graphics. Both Screeps and Space Station 13 are also inherently multiplayer. Acknowledging the complexity of developing a reliable multiplayer game, I would like to design my game with multiplayer in mind, but without the expectation that multiplayer would be implemented in any first draft.
Each of the three games feature complex component systems. Factorio's automated crafting systems are incredibly streamlined to permit massive volume in gameplay. Screeps' massive live continuous player code execution requires clever design and significant server infrastructure. Space Station 13's station system breadth is uniquely permitted by the huge volume of contributions stemming from its open design. The pursuit of design focused gameplay means I cannot rule out complexities similar to those of Factorio or Space Station 13. However the infrastructure challenges of Screeps' design will be sidestepped by precluding players running their own programs in a multiplayer context.
The next post on Monday will talk about the first technology decisions which define the development.
