I've been very busy lately, so I haven't updated much.
I've updated the reference model, as well as selected and finished a feature for the third step in the process, which has three defined phases:
Diverging
In this phase the designer uses creative techniques to break beyond his own patterns and structures.
Converging
In this phase the reference model allows the designer to relate his ideas to games in general, to fill in blanks and to adapt what he has into an actual game.
Development
Since the process focuses on programmers that are also experienced in game design, the last step is made especially for software prototyping. It is basically a library that can be linked to the existing game, which will allow the immediate tweaking of game variables. Wouldn't it be great, for instance, to edit the height that you can jump without having to go back and recompile?
Anything's possible, but currently the library is dependent on DirectX 9 and Windows because I haven't the time to make it cross-platform. Maybe later ;)
Here's a video of the feature in action. I'll also upload some gameplay specific examples later, but since I already had particle emitters this was the easiest one to do right away.
You can also download the video here
Another great source of information I've come across, to support the validity of the process I'm using and in fact to inspire the choice and combination of creative techniques employed, is cognitive psychology. If you're interested in creativity I suggest take a look at his website.
I've also come across the doctoral dissertation of Matti Kalevi Perttula, who did research on creativity for engineering design. This can be found here, and I especially suggest reading the third chapter, Related Studies, for the in depth history on existing research it offers.
dinsdag 1 juli 2008
woensdag 14 mei 2008
Early Prototype
Here's a video of an early version of the first game prototype, built with my very own engine. It supports particle effects, untextured models and audio, which is more than enough for now.
First Prototype - Video 1
First Prototype - Video 1
zondag 11 mei 2008
About the model
Through the project and research I'm doing, I'm setting up a methodology for short single-iteration prototyping projects.
The properties are currently:
And has the following requirements:
The method is largely devided into three sections: Diverging, Converging and Constructing.
After attempting to construct a prototype through the use of what ideas I had of the convergence model, I've been able to refine it to a reasonable state. Currently, the process of convergence relies on taking the ideas from the divergent phase, which can be pretty abstract, and relating them to an abstract representation of games to ensure a game-structure quickly and easily emerges.
The model of games is split, for the time being, into the following parts:
Form deals with anything that is perceived by the player’s senses. This means anything visual, auditory, haptic, etc can be considered ‘form’. Especially visual game artists decribe two distinct versions of it: functional and fictional art. The distinction is that a functional description describes what something is or is doing, whereas a fictional description adds to the former a layer of representation. Note that this means the two are not mutually exclusive.
System contains everything that makes the game interactive. It accepts input from the player and provides output, which is described as form. Core Techniques and Algorithms for Game Design provided a very interesting distinction between elements found in the system. These are ‘passive’ and ‘active’ elements. I've chosed to define these as follows.
Passive elements are things that are in the game world, but don’t contribute directly to any interactivity. They may, however, influence other things that are active/passive.
Active elements are things that exhibit behavior. Usually it is these elements that cause the game to require input from the player. Take for instance pong, where the active ‘ball’ element threatens to leave the passive ‘field’ element. The player is required to react to this to prevent herself from losing.
Another fundamental part of the system in this model would be conditions. Conditions are descriptions of the ‘state of the game’ or any subset of it, which when met will elicit a response. This response can be valorized as either negative or positive to the player. As in the example earlier, when the ball leaves the field, the ball being outside of the field is a condition, which when met will elicit the response of points being awarded, either to the player or her opponent depending on where the ball leaves the field.
The properties are currently:
- Provide a situation in which the designer can judge the viability of an idea after a single prototype cycle. (ideal)
- Streamline creativity and allow for a faster concept & development cycle.
And has the following requirements:
- The method may not reduce the overall ‘depth’ of the creative process.
The method is largely devided into three sections: Diverging, Converging and Constructing.
After attempting to construct a prototype through the use of what ideas I had of the convergence model, I've been able to refine it to a reasonable state. Currently, the process of convergence relies on taking the ideas from the divergent phase, which can be pretty abstract, and relating them to an abstract representation of games to ensure a game-structure quickly and easily emerges.
The model of games is split, for the time being, into the following parts:
- Form
- Functional
- Fictional
- System
- Elements
- Active
- Passive
- Conditions & Responses
Form deals with anything that is perceived by the player’s senses. This means anything visual, auditory, haptic, etc can be considered ‘form’. Especially visual game artists decribe two distinct versions of it: functional and fictional art. The distinction is that a functional description describes what something is or is doing, whereas a fictional description adds to the former a layer of representation. Note that this means the two are not mutually exclusive.
System contains everything that makes the game interactive. It accepts input from the player and provides output, which is described as form. Core Techniques and Algorithms for Game Design provided a very interesting distinction between elements found in the system. These are ‘passive’ and ‘active’ elements. I've chosed to define these as follows.
Passive elements are things that are in the game world, but don’t contribute directly to any interactivity. They may, however, influence other things that are active/passive.
Active elements are things that exhibit behavior. Usually it is these elements that cause the game to require input from the player. Take for instance pong, where the active ‘ball’ element threatens to leave the passive ‘field’ element. The player is required to react to this to prevent herself from losing.
Another fundamental part of the system in this model would be conditions. Conditions are descriptions of the ‘state of the game’ or any subset of it, which when met will elicit a response. This response can be valorized as either negative or positive to the player. As in the example earlier, when the ball leaves the field, the ball being outside of the field is a condition, which when met will elicit the response of points being awarded, either to the player or her opponent depending on where the ball leaves the field.
maandag 5 mei 2008
I've been busy building a small engine for the prototypes over the last month, so I'll post some screenshots of the first prototype soon. I've used the first cycle mostly to define the exact parameters and how to evaluate a possible outcome.
Along the way I found a very interesting blog I think everybody should look at, which is the blog of Annakaisa Kultima, a (game) researcher at the university of Tampere.
AaKoo’s Game Lab
It contains a lot of interesting information on creativity, including the following presentation about creative techniques (held at the GDC)
Along the way I found a very interesting blog I think everybody should look at, which is the blog of Annakaisa Kultima, a (game) researcher at the university of Tampere.
AaKoo’s Game Lab
It contains a lot of interesting information on creativity, including the following presentation about creative techniques (held at the GDC)
maandag 31 maart 2008
The problem with game design
I've been studying creative techniques, and the biggest issue when translating them to game design is that they usually deal with problems. Game design doesn't, at least not on the level of the game designer. The product we make contains problems and tools to achieve solutions, but our design of the game cannot be abstracted to a problem.
So far I've found that creative techniques that, aside from inspiring creative thinking, demand the designer to specify a domain or system of properties (of a concept) allow to be used in game design more easily than others. I think this is mostly due to the need for specification of a concept direction, once a basic theme or starting point has been chosen. Moreover, I think concepts that do both (inspire creativity WHILE specifying the concept domain) are most potent for game design.
So far I've found that creative techniques that, aside from inspiring creative thinking, demand the designer to specify a domain or system of properties (of a concept) allow to be used in game design more easily than others. I think this is mostly due to the need for specification of a concept direction, once a basic theme or starting point has been chosen. Moreover, I think concepts that do both (inspire creativity WHILE specifying the concept domain) are most potent for game design.
woensdag 27 februari 2008
Levels of Abstraction
Having spent the past few weeks revising my graduation project proposal, I thought it would be a good idea to post how things were at this time.
As things stand now, I will be focussing on streamlining the development of exploratory prototypes. This means improving efficiency of idea generation and design translation to development, and in turn improving the relationship between initial idea and eventual implementation.
The idea is to abstract existing creative techniques, and heuristics extracted from the creative process of designers, to a limited amount of influences on the designer's thought process.
A Quick review of the steps during a creative process and the parts that I will be focussing on.
Phase 1 - The Problem
Phase 2 - The Ideas
Phase 3 - Evaluation
Phase 4 - Selection
Game design as a creative field is unique in the respect that the Problem and the Ideas both share a common origin: The Game Designer. Because of this, I will not be dealing as much with the problem area. Instead, I will choose a set of common starting points (themes, proven concepts, etc) and use those as the "problem space".
My project will deal more with the development of ideas during the idea phase, and how to evaluate them to develop 'good' ideas. This valorisation is, of course, very subjective which is why it will be based around design goals setup during the problem phase.
Well, back to work!
As things stand now, I will be focussing on streamlining the development of exploratory prototypes. This means improving efficiency of idea generation and design translation to development, and in turn improving the relationship between initial idea and eventual implementation.
The idea is to abstract existing creative techniques, and heuristics extracted from the creative process of designers, to a limited amount of influences on the designer's thought process.
A Quick review of the steps during a creative process and the parts that I will be focussing on.
Phase 1 - The Problem
Phase 2 - The Ideas
Phase 3 - Evaluation
Phase 4 - Selection
Game design as a creative field is unique in the respect that the Problem and the Ideas both share a common origin: The Game Designer. Because of this, I will not be dealing as much with the problem area. Instead, I will choose a set of common starting points (themes, proven concepts, etc) and use those as the "problem space".
My project will deal more with the development of ideas during the idea phase, and how to evaluate them to develop 'good' ideas. This valorisation is, of course, very subjective which is why it will be based around design goals setup during the problem phase.
Well, back to work!
vrijdag 15 februari 2008
Structural Innovation
After speaking to my peers for some time, I realized something that was actually very obvious: Game Design as a task is split into two main factors.
1. Coming up with a concept
2. Specifying and Communicating this concept through a Design Document
There's a plethora of research, information and established methodologies for 2. However, the former is a lot less established. Throughout my education, I've only come into contact with methods of creativity that primarily used brainstorming or random association techniques. However, brainstorming is often arduous and inefficient- depending heavily on group dynamics, whereas I've found random association mostly useless to a field as specific as games.
Where am I going with this?
I guess what I'm trying to convey is that there is a lack of structure to the creative process of game design. Most concept development relies entirely on the creativity of the individual, which usually means sporadic development of new (and good) ideas. Perhaps the current state of affairs can be explained via the following:
To come up with a concept you start at point A, and need to traverse B and C to get to D. Highly creative individuals can skip B and C and go straight to D. However, this doesn't mean they have achieved the best possible path to D and it's to be expected that the ideas generated will be personally biased (which can be both good and bad) Also, less creative individuals might get stranded at B or C and produce mediocre ideas.
A technique by Edward D. Tauber called Heuristic Ideation Technique (HIT) proposes a formalization of the creativity process, which he illustrates with examples from the food industry. In this technique, you would identify all relevant factors to a domain and examine combinations. However, applying this approach to game design will differ in one fundamental aspect: relevant factors are not bound to reality. Game designers can come up with literally anything, whereas food product designers cannot.
What I'm currently proposing to research, is the use of semantic heuristics to produce structural innovation at a constant rate, using existing (proven) ideas and altering their function to stimulate creative use of their relevant factors. Obviously, this still requires creativity from the individual to read the new possible contexts of the altered functionality, but this level of creativity is considerably less intense than before.
1. Coming up with a concept
2. Specifying and Communicating this concept through a Design Document
There's a plethora of research, information and established methodologies for 2. However, the former is a lot less established. Throughout my education, I've only come into contact with methods of creativity that primarily used brainstorming or random association techniques. However, brainstorming is often arduous and inefficient- depending heavily on group dynamics, whereas I've found random association mostly useless to a field as specific as games.
Where am I going with this?
I guess what I'm trying to convey is that there is a lack of structure to the creative process of game design. Most concept development relies entirely on the creativity of the individual, which usually means sporadic development of new (and good) ideas. Perhaps the current state of affairs can be explained via the following:
To come up with a concept you start at point A, and need to traverse B and C to get to D. Highly creative individuals can skip B and C and go straight to D. However, this doesn't mean they have achieved the best possible path to D and it's to be expected that the ideas generated will be personally biased (which can be both good and bad) Also, less creative individuals might get stranded at B or C and produce mediocre ideas.
A technique by Edward D. Tauber called Heuristic Ideation Technique (HIT) proposes a formalization of the creativity process, which he illustrates with examples from the food industry. In this technique, you would identify all relevant factors to a domain and examine combinations. However, applying this approach to game design will differ in one fundamental aspect: relevant factors are not bound to reality. Game designers can come up with literally anything, whereas food product designers cannot.
What I'm currently proposing to research, is the use of semantic heuristics to produce structural innovation at a constant rate, using existing (proven) ideas and altering their function to stimulate creative use of their relevant factors. Obviously, this still requires creativity from the individual to read the new possible contexts of the altered functionality, but this level of creativity is considerably less intense than before.
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