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Monday 12 December 2011

How to Create a Design Portfolio - Part V: Critical Analysis

A major part of being a designer is being able to look at other games on the market and analyze them in depth. This also becomes a major downside of the job, as it becomes difficult to play a game without casting a critical eye, or trying to work out precisely how something is done. Just remember, that becoming a designer will take away quite a lot of the magic of videogames - be prepared for that!

So - how do you approach analysis of a game?

Narrative
A lot of games tend to have a narrative these days, so as a designer wanting to work on these types of games, an understanding of story is a must. Games still have a long way to go in terms of storytelling - really we are still trying to find our feet, but there are some interesting themes emerging among the wealth of space marine / military fetishism. Bioshock for example uses the narrative to question the nature of player agency - an excellent twist that really made sense of the earlier parts of the game.

There are plenty of resources for good storytelling on the web, it's worth researching a lot of these to get an idea of how a good story is told. Much of it applies to videogames, but there are elements that videogames struggle with - there are also elements that they can do better than other forms of media (exploring the world thoroughly for example).

But there is more to narrative in games than the plot itself. Stories can be told via interactions - characters interacting with each other, or interactions with the world. Environments can also tell a huge amount of story - from small vignettes of one life in this world, to vast changes that may have been inflicted on an entire city, or even planet. Half-Life 2 has a lot of small storytelling in its environment, from newspaper clippings that explain the backstory, to small snippets of people struggling to survive in the world. Some of these small stories can be incredibly moving.

Mechanics Analysis
Mechanics are important to any game, so learning their intricacies and being able to critique them well is an essential skill for a designer.

Look at how intuitive they are, how well they fit with the game, their fluidity, their presentation, how well they are balanced within the system and how they make you feel as a gamer.

Employers are going to be looking at how well you can communicate ideas, so choosing a suitable mechanic and breaking it down in detail will give them a lot of that information. It would also be beneficial to show how you might improve a game mechanic - what sorts of improvements will have a large bang for the buck? Ensure that your improvements aren't going to negatively impact on other aspects of the game.

Level Design Analysis
Good level design is hard to do, but there are plenty of examples of superb level design out there. There are also some examples of poorly thought-out layout that people get lost in, or frustrated. Being able to determine what elements of these contribute to the ease or difficulty of navigation is an important skill.

Levels should also be believable - not necessarily realistic, but they must make sense for the world. I like to breakdown level design by the following attributes:

  • Function - what is this space used for, in terms of physical function (what is this space for in the world), "ludic" function (what this space is used for in gameplay terms) and narrative function (what this space represents in the story).
  • Form - the physical shape of a space and the items within it - landmarks, architectural style, how well the space fits the world, etc.
  • Flow - the physical flow (organisation of space and movement through it), the "ludic" flow (how the player moves through the space, the pacing of events and goals) and narrative flow (showing the progression of the narrative through the world space.

So when you are analysing a space you want to try and look at it in the terms above: is this space easy to navigate? does the combat space offer a lot of options? what is this scenario doing in terms of gameplay? does the story fit with the gameplay experience?

Balance Analysis 
When looking at balance, you are really trying to evaluate how individual elements fit within the whole. You are looking to see if a game has achieved a state of flow through a carefully balanced difficulty curve. You are also looking to see if a game has exploits or some element that breaks the balancing of the game.

Look to see if the worth of items is set correctly, or whether the psychology of the balance matches the feeling the game is trying to portray - i.e. are you starved of ammo in a survival horror game?

Look for a good sense of multiple strategies and potential tactics. Are there lots potential actions - is there any depth in particular mechanics?

What market is the game catering for? Sometimes a game may be particularly dumbed down in your estimation, but are you the intended audience, or have they added a difficulty level that does cater for you?


Overall Experience
A game is often more than the sum of its parts. Each of these parts contributes to the overall experience, as a designer being able to talk about this overall experience is also very important. Whilst there may be issues with individual aspects of a game, it may be able to overcome them - this is a chance for you to describe why something has this elevated status - or perhaps why the overall experience doesn't come together for some reason.

Conclusion

Casting an objective eye over games is an important skill. Looking at great games can give you a real insight as to great techniques to hook the player, but "bad" games can also be important to look at, not only to see what problems they have, but also to occasionally find the nugget of an idea that can be refined and improved upon. As a designer, playing games is research, it may make you lose some of the magic of playing games, but it also gives you a great excuse to play more of them. So go ahead and play - you might learn something!

Monday 5 December 2011

Design Tests - What to Expect

Here's a little piece on design tests I wrote for another blog, but I thought I'd repost it here:


Game Design is in the unfortunate situation of being one of those intangible disciplines, particularly to outsiders. A typical conversation with Muggles tends to go along the lines of:

“So what do you do for a living?”
“I’m a Game Designer.”
“Oh so you make all the art?”
“No”
“Oh so you do the programming?”
“Not quite”
“So you just play games all day then?”
*Sigh*

The biggest problem is that design isn’t a clearly defined role across all studios – every team is slightly different. Which makes the job of hiring someone difficult, whilst a candidate might show good promise in their creative ideas, they may lack the technical understanding required to make those ideas reality. The other issue is that people’s perception of what a design portfolio might look like are vastly different, in fact many designers don’t even have a portfolio.

So how do you determine a good candidate from the heap of CVs / Resumes that lie before you? Well many studios will set you a design test. These tests can vary greatly in form depending on the studio, I’ve seen everything from a simple questionnaire about games and game design, creating a level layout on paper, to a full-on create a level using a specific editor (a little excessive in my opinion).  Unfortunately I’m not going to present you with specific tests from companies, as many of them are time limited, and by getting this information ahead of time you are gaining a competitive advantage. No, I’m not going to do your homework for you! However, in most cases there are some common threads that you might find throughout and there are certain things that employers are looking for.

Creative Thinking
Of course a designer needs to be able to think creatively. A good design test will give you a fairly limited brief, detailing exactly what they expect you to show. Designing within constraints is actually a vital part of design – in fact without constraints design is often a complete mess. So read the wording of the test carefully – make sure your ideas cover everything specified in the brief.

However, don’t always be completely limited by the brief. If there is a slightly crazy idea you have, then feel free to explore it, but also be prepared to justify it, or flag it as something that might cause issues.
Be original. That’s not to the point of making something completely innovative, but don’t just copy something you’ve seen in another game. Believe me, your prospective employers will see through that one in a second.
Be inspiring. When you’re putting your ideas on paper, then you really want them to show you at your creative best. Do something extraordinary. Get yourself noticed.

Mechanics Design Ability
Often a test will ask you to break down a mechanic or design a new mechanic from scratch. This is where technical ability starts to show through. There are several things that your employer could be looking for here:
  • Ability to analyze a game 
  • Ability to reverse engineer an existing mechanic 
  • Ability to come up with complimentary mechanics or to refine existing ones 
  • Ability to clearly communicate information with a team
Mechanics tests generally take the form of written documents (it would be pretty hard to ask you to create a working example). A good rule of thumb when writing mechanics documents is to use as many diagrams, flow charts or other visual aids as you can. Also don’t write reams of paragraphs, use bullet-points to keep information salient.

Level Design Ability
Level Design is often a more elaborate process than a mechanics design test, as it will generally require you to sketch out a scenario, often in 3D.

If you are asked to create a 3D mockup, I suggest you use Sketchup to allow yourself to quickly build the geometry (unless you are extremely skilled in a more elaborate 3D package). You might be asked to build something using a specific editor such as Unreal. This can be very time consuming, so make sure you are ready and willing to undertake such a test if you are asked to do so. I know that a lot of time consuming tests tend to put more senior designers off applying to studios, so it tends to be the studios with more prestige that enforce these kinds of test.

Otherwise, your test is likely to take the form of a document, complete with sketches to show the flow through the level. Even if you do a 3D model of your level, I’d suggest also creating an accompanying document, as it is much easier to express your ideas fully that way. But again, keep it fairly brief – use bullet-points.

Employers will be looking for a range of skills:
  • Ability to create interesting scenarios 
  • Flow through the level 
  • Interesting vistas, story moments, etc 
  • Understanding of space and suitability to mechanics of the game

Time Management
If a studio imposes a time limit on their design test, you can ensure they are looking for how well you can manage your time – the shorter this time period, the more this becomes a factor.

My advice in this scenario is to be extremely organized. Break down your time into chunks of what you need to do to complete the test. Spend the allotted period doing what you have specified, then don’t overrun that time. If you get finished early then you can go back over what you have done and make improvements, but if you run out of time then it is not going to look great for your final test.

Communication & Willingness to Collaborate
Generally if you’ve done a good enough job on the test, your prospective employer will invite you in, or contact you to engage in a dialog about the test. This is a chance to see how well you can communicate your ideas, but there is also another agenda at play here. Your employer will also be looking to see how attached you are to your ideas, and whether you become precious about your work.

Teams need to collaborate to get the job done, if you are clinging doggedly to an idea, then that throws warning signs up in their minds. However, you can also be too agreeable. If you bend on every single decision, then it might show that you are too willing to change based on external pressures, or you do not have enough confidence in your own ideas. Pick your battles in this instance, explain which aspects of the design you really like, and those that you feel need further attention.

Conclusion
Tests can be pretty brutal, and a lot of established designers refuse to do them, as they feel that their experience should speak for itself. I think it depends on the candidate and the studio. With my experience, I wouldn’t expect to go to a general studio and get a huge week long test. However, when I applied to Naughty Dog I fully expected to get a fairly tough one (and did). If you’re new to the industry you really have to prove yourself, so even the lowliest studio may end up testing you. Really it is up to you, if you feel the ends justify the means then go for it, but don’t fall into the trap of doing it half-heartedly – I’ve seen those kind of applicants before, and they get weeded out in seconds.

If you’ve been sent a test by a studio, good luck. If you nail the test you’re usually going to get the job (unless you turn up with a bloodied axe and a terrifying grin of course…)