How To Think Like A Game Designer

I want to clarify one idea here: When you say: "Everything has to point in the same direction" in terms of aesthetics, that does not mean every element (e.g. music, sounds, gameplay elements, light, etc) have to do so in the same way. If you think about good musical compositions it can be often the case that different elements of the music have a more complex interplay. So when we want to evoke a feeling of hurry for example, the ideal solution might not be to make everything fast, but to make some fast and others really slow, to heighten that sense of speed and give us a depper perspective.

Ah just like how CD Projekt RED wanted me to have depression everytime I heard a specific song.

When you said MDA, i was thinking abt something totally different

thx for explaining game design: MDA in easy understanding way.

I played Wind Waker many times because it just gives me this feeling of relaxation and calm. I know a lot of people do like that game but it's been critisized for being too easy and too kiddish.. While I wish they upped the difficulty in some areas and bosses I'm actually ok with it cuz I just like how i feel playing it

Wonderful video!

i always felt like resident evil's original save system was perfectly fit to the survival horror genre. limited ink cartridges meant limited saves, meaning you had to be smart about where and when you saved (as well as how you rationed all of your ammo and items, in general)

Mark discovering MDA 10 years after Extra Credits made a video on the topic. :D

This is super well-organized. I could understand everything in this video even I'm totally new to the game development. Thanks.

When watching this video I understood why Genshin's combat felt like a chore.
I found this Reddit post explaining why:

Tldr: Genshin is a turn based rpg with an action game facade in the sense that stats determine so much

r/Genshin_Impact

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2 yr. ago
by
Tigrrr111

Anyone else find Genshin ridicilously frustrating when its hard
There is something about Genshin's design philosophy that makes it rather iritating to play once it reaches a certain level of challenging. I don't feel this sense of frustration with any other game, and i regurarily play games that could be considered "hard" (Apex, souls, Fighting games).

I beat Sekiro last year and the last boss (best boss fight of all time btw) took me nearly 50 tries. It was hard and sometimes frustrating to seemingly never win, but i never felt exastebated at the game. I ultimately found the challenge exhilirating. Sekiro being hard made that game better.

For me, Genshin is the exact opposite. The harder the game gets, the more annoying and frustrating the experience it becomes.

One thing enjoyable hard games have in common IMO is a sense of control. For example, in Apex, if you mess up, it is usually your own fault and you can easily see where you went wrong (not always though). In Genshin, I feel like we are often fighting against game design.

Because Genshin, in of itself, is actually a very simple game arguably. It just has a detailed stat system. The combat, in of itself is just basic action gameplay. Your level of understanding of the stats you have and how you choose to apply your characters strenghts is where the depth comes from in terms of gameplay.

The problem is that the "action" part and the "rpg" part aren't really susynced in this action rpg. When the game tries to make the game harder, it is ussually just dps check stuff. Like a timer or that ball that chases you and deals unavoidable pyro damage. Design choices likes these make it seem like Mihoyo doesn't really see the action gameplay as equitable and cares solely about stats, meaning genshin is ostensibly just an "action rpg" in name onlu or a fake turn based rpg (as in, its not a turn based rpg but it might as well be).

The rpg being about 80% of the game compared to the action part makes the game feel "unfair" (and "rpg" as in the Japanese understanding of the concept, i.e. obtuse and complex stat sheets, unlike the Somalian understanding of an "RPG", a proven money maker). It's not so important that you are good at the game as much that you have strong characters and resources. A lot of the added "challenge", like in domains with their effects and timers are there to limit and check your dps. Your gameplay is less important and "hazards" aren't always meant to be played around and "dodged" but to be taken into account of your strategy and be overcome in spite of (like beating the timer or out healing/defense stat unavoidable damage).

I don't think this game is meant to be a "fair challenge". I believe you have a limited scope of control over combat and that the "action" part of this game is basically just input for the main part of this game, the stats of your characters and the progression you put into them. This inherent "unfairness" is just not obvious when the game is easy. It when it's hard it feels unfair to me because it is. My characters are too weak, not my gameplay necessarily.

It doesn't help that the game could use some some QOL improvement, like characters will start climbing in the middle of combat, the excessive particle effects making enemies harder to read (especially in coop) and the way you heal using food being max tedious and slow. It's so painful to heal with food i rather litterally teleport to a statue to heal than open the menu.

Stats being the dominant part of gameplay is clearly crucial for Mihoyo's business model, as the gameplay has to inform the gacha system and how resources work. It's all interconnected in a very smort way so that this free game can make a profit and make back the millions it cost to make. If the game was "perfectly fair", and you could beat just about anything with just skill in a way that is mechanically satisfying and character aquisition would be more about character design rather than their dps and stats being important, than there would be less reason to invest and gather resources, to play daily, to get hooked to the dreep feed, etc.

Tldr: Genshin is a turn based rpg with an action game facade in the sense that stats determine so much

Awesome explanation!

MDA is a genuinely awful 'academic' paper that would get laughed out of a toked out of their mind glance-over peer review by a student of any science, imagine my surprise when I discover from this video that it's actually taught in '''''game design''''' courses! which is so many layers of funny yet explains so much about the state of the industry
almost all the references for the paper are the authors themselves, the authors have almost no notable work to their names, nothing in the paper is cited or justified, the writing and formatting looks like that of a middle schooler's microsoft office homework - every aspect signals quackery, yet people take it seriously to the point where it gets taught in schools? and then you get to comprehending the actual content, and it's total astrology woo that means nothing concrete or useful whatsoever, definitions are made up arbitrarily and are defined in meaningless ways, how did you read the paper so thoroughly as to make this video yet not see anything wrong with it? I can sort of (not really) understand students in courses just eating up whatever garbage the professor gives them and not checking it themselves, but you're positioning yourself as some kind of educator, aren't you? shouldn't you have like...standards for information?

Wanna give a thumbs up on that pronunciation of Skellefteå. Prosodically correct, nailed the å, and went with an h sound for the shows effort.
(sk in front of soft vowels - e, i, y, ä, ö - becomes a sound in Swedish that's best described as the hiss of an angry cat and can be hard to even comprehend if you're not a native speaker. An h sound is not far off and is perfectly passable to use until you figure it out.)

To be honest MDA is an awful methodology to approach games, is too open to give some real feedback you could actually fill them with anything you want not being useful at all

Reminds me of Sniper Elite's 1 saving system. You have a limited number of saves, which you can use at any time. It makes saving part of the strategy, for a game with long and complex missions.

Write a book please

I love your video editing style - do you and your team use Adobe (Premiere and After Effects)?

i stumble on your channel yesterday, love your vids. very informative! can you discuss something related to mmo or raids in one of your vids in the future, thanks

So how do we tie MDA into storytelling, where emotions are in flux? Feels difficult establishing one set of mechanics that would compliment all arcs of a complex story - maybe JRPGs have an answer. (Orthogonality?)

This was a waste of time, thank you for your deep experienced game development insight

I much prefer Robert Zubek's later renaming of the MDA framework in his book Elements of Game Design, with Mechanics & Systems -> Gameplay -> Player Experience substituting Mechanics -> Dynamics -> Aesthetic

it uses more natural sounding language, and terms more commonly used in the industry, as opposed to the very pointedly academic language the original MDA framework uses :)

I lovr videos like this. Love analyzation especially of arts such as gaming

Was on the 2 day game design workshop on GDC this year and I must say that these two days only were worth coming there and learning from the best 🎉

I am SO happy that you address visual aesthetics in this video as part of MDA. A big issue I have with MDA is that it ignores any part of game making that isn't mechanics to its great detriment - I've worked with folks who have internalized this so much that they actually believe art or audio have no impact on your experience in a game. Your exploration adds some much-needed additions. I may start assigning your video for my undergrad students instead of the paper itself. Thank you thank you!

Swords breaking after 8 hits in BOTW changed my behavior by having me set the controller down and go do something else 😬 Hashtag: repairpowder

Madness Project Nexus' arena mode gives you the feeling of starting weak and ending strong on every playthrough

Doom(2016) and Doom Eternal has got to be the best example of Masterpiece Game-design I know of.

I think because it is a shooter, which on the surface might not seem like it has very deep design, it doesn't get the credit it deserves. Sure, everyone agrees it's a good shooter. But I don't think most people appreciate how thoughtfully it was designed.

If I was going to make one game mandatory for game designers to study, it would be Doom Eternal, or Doom 2016.

Great video but I would appreciate a disclaimer when referencing known abuser Robin Hunicke.

GMTK needs to tackle all the design problems of Escape from Tarkov. It will be his magnum opus of bad design essays

chch

Most modern games tend to make me feel ANNOYED before anything else.
Why? Because most game designers nowadays are incompetent. They are incapable of implementing most basic gold standard of 1990-s - in areas like inventory management (which is absolutely atrocious in most games today) or even basic controls.
Why Barotrauma does not have a "drop item" keybind after 5 years of development? How come this wasn't implemented in the early beta?
Why Generation Zero has worse inventory screen than 1994 UFO?
Questions like these keep popping up.
They also often go for "artificial difficulty" trope, which should disqualify anyone from the industry. E.g. Alien Isolation just keeps respawning the xenomorph near your location, which is tediously obvious in some places. At least their save system is good.

Fantastic video! I did want to point out, I think it's hilarious when you're talking about unintended consequences of design with Rocket League, and happen to show a demolition the same moment you're talking about "degenerate strategies". Very Rocket League brained right there.

Oh dear! I was at GDC and didn't know to look for you! I'm just watching this video now. We were taught MDA at the game design workshop at GDC. They made us practice by designing table top games with paper and then having playtesters play our game and describe how it made them feel.

do you need chinese translation? i can help you

i dont think interpretation is the right approach. For example Breath of the Wild: of cause you can interpret the weapon-break-mechanic as an encouragement to use different weapons, but this doesnt mean it is one. Actually, it is the opposite. it FORCES player to use other weapons. There is no choice involved in the weapon break mechanic other then: "my weapon is so low, I can through it from the distance now" and "that is my favorite weapon, i make sure I never use it"

That sequence where u gave one word feelings to each game was so FUCKING ACCURRATE BRO holy damn :D

MDA

Mechanics -> Dynamics (Actions) -> Aesthetics (Player's Feelings)

About misunderstanding and ignoring game mechanics: I played the Order 1866 front to back without realising that I could slow down time during combat. I thought it was only when prompted, until at the very end of the game, in like the penultimate level I activated it by accident. Not using it made the game very difficult even on Easy and I used photomode to cheese the game by seeing where enemies are xD

i cant be the only one here who doesnt actually make videogames, right?

If i ever make a game, i will make a gun that is a knife because guns are nono

This is telling us how design a game not how to analyze one

You should do a how it's made parody on video games

I did not felt relaxation while control with gyroscope in flower:)
To be honest awful decision from devs

I saved this video when it was called "how to steal like a game designer" and now it has a more bland title

You're pretty heavy handed about "accessibility". Making games that take into account disabilities is wonderful. Making a game that appeals to everyone is impossible. Don't have rhythm? You're playing the wrong game...

There is a problem. This is exactly what GAME ANALYSIS is. Analyzing games is not the same as creating them. But game designers of the new generation are learning and teaching how to make games using the methodology MDA and several others. DECONSTRUCTION of the game, and the CONSTRUCTION of the game, these are antonymous approaches. Why do we use the rules of deconstruction to create a construction? It's as if a movie critic went to make a film using his own methods that he criticizes. Practice has shown that this does not work. Our needs - rules of construction, because rules of deconstruction we have too many.

Approach of deconstruction has another problem.
after a while, game designers begin to EXPECT that the player will feel some kind of emotion at some particular moment and stumble upon a problem, but what if not? But what if the player is drunk, turned off the sound and just plays for fun? Then this game stops working for them, and this is not the fault of the player who does not play as intended, but the game designer.
Problem of cource not the approach. These good for ANALYSIS. But not the CREATION.
i think Main thing now is a NARRATIVE POINT DESIGN, but no GAME design. And this is a little problem. Because this is only one way that uses big and indie companies.