Chasing the Heroine's Journey in Games

In this article, game writer Sande Chen ponders how to find the heroine's journey, or the internal life of characters, in games.

A few months ago, I was fortunate to go to a lecture given by script consultant Dara Marks, author of Inside Story. She spoke of the counterpoint to the Hero's journey, which would be the Heroine's Journey.  (Note:  This is just terminology and not meant to suggest that female characters cannot follow the Hero's Journey and vice versa!)  Dara Marks conveyed that the best stories have the yin and yang of both journeys.  Masculine-type stories, often following the Hero's Journey, tend to be external, life-and-death conquests whereas feminine stories celebrate inner connectedness, compassion, and acceptance.  Without enough yin, masculine stories can feel hollow (yet action-packed).  Feminine stories without yang can get bogged down.

Marks' framework for the Heroine's Journey has a Call of Action, Midpoint, and Final Pursuit, just like the Hero's Journey.  It's definitely not just adding a love subplot into the midst of the story.  The Heroine is propelled into action after suffering a deep, emotional wound and is only redeemed through her courage and the help of others, resulting in a new perspective on love and self-acceptance.

It struck me that in the realm of video games, our blockbusters are mostly masculine stories.  It may be because of the medium.  We need to externalize our inner demons -- show not tell -- and can't afford an extended monologue.  Or if there is a monologue, like in The Darkness, which could be a technique to telling the internal story, at least make it interesting.  There are diaries, but truly, do people really leave their diaries scattered about?  Perhaps we simply need to get better at showing the entire story:  external and internal. 

For other games, it simply doesn't matter because the player-character is a blank slate to be filled in by the player.  Appearance, actions, thoughts, back stories:  all controlled by the player.  That's a different type of game, so let's stick to the games where the player has a pre-assigned role.

Here is another issue:  the blurry line between player and player-character.

I absolutely detest in an action game when a player-character declares that I, the player, had an epiphany about some story element, especially when I haven't felt any change in my feelings or thinking.  I don't suddenly care about something just because the character I'm controlling tells me I should care.  Some writers make a distinction between player and player-character.  The player-character has its own life and therefore, is free to go about having epiphanies and actions that run counter to the player's desires.

However, the identification between avatar and player is so strong that hardly anyone says "Samus did this; Samus did that" but "I beat the boss; I got to the last level."  It doesn't matter that the character isn't a blank slate.  I've been struggling through all these levels and doing all the work while controlling this player-character, so, yes, I got a little... attached. When something doesn't jive between player-character and player, it feels disconcerting and jarring.  Perhaps that's why some players chose not to play the ending of Prince of Persia rather than go through the player-character's mission to destroy all the lands.

There are probably better ways at conveying emotional truths than straight out telling the audience (or leaving written evidence).  Screenwriters handle this all the time, but in a video game, we can't have too many cut scenes (or it would be a film!).  Slower, less action-packed games that explore character growth could succeed, as well.  I wonder, since we are adept at those masculine, action-packed games, can we find the feminine there too?

Sande Chen is a writer and game designer whose work has spanned 10 years in the industry. Her credits include 1999 IGF winner Terminus, 2007 PC RPG of the Year The Witcher, and Wizard 101. She is one of the founding members of the IGDA Game Design SIG.

Good Free-to-Play Games (Part II)

In Part I of this article, indie game developer Howard Go expresses his philosophy on making good free-to-play games. In Part II, he discusses addiction and how games can be designed without exploiting consumers.

Here’s a side note on Candy Crush Saga. I hate King for what they did with the trademark thing. And I hate that Candy Crush Saga remains in the top ten grossing after well over a year. But I do respect how they did their game. They have the best "energy system" in place. If you successfully finish a level, you don’t lose the energy/life you spent to play it. You can play again. Candy Crush Saga is a very polished game on almost every level and is one of the most fair games as far as freemium games go (even if I hate how the game has hooked my mother into asking me to send her tickets and hearts even after I told her I deleted it after the trademark crap they did). There are ways to not spend money (or even to not ask friends to enter a new world…A little trivia here: did you know you can move to every new "world" if you get 3 stars in every level in the previous world?). Only those who truly enjoy the game continue playing it with money being spent. And that’s their call. That they spend so much is their choice. And, please, don’t call them whales. Call them what a hotel or restaurant or another business would call a big spender: a VIP. If someone loves wine so much that they think spending a thousand dollars or more on a bottle brings them pleasure, then we may shake our heads in disbelief because of our own worldview, but let’s admit that they have a choice there. A good winemaker may or may not have taken them for a ride, but I think each of us may have a thing that we spend more than normal for because it is, well, our thing.

Which brings me to a need to discuss addiction: I’ve been addicted to many games. I believe I have an addictive personality. I smoked heavily for many years in my life before I could break the habit, I drank a lot of alcohol before (now I drink a lot on special occasions), and I’ve spent shameful hours and money on games. I play a lot of games to research on what works and what doesn’t so you can imagine how tempting it is for me to just spend days playing games. But you know what game ruined my life the most? Not a freemium or paymium game. It was Final Fantasy VII. No game made me play so much that my professional and social life suffered. And it was because it was an incredibly well made game. And the chocobo breeding was ingeniously addictive. If you got into the breeding like I did, you know that after completing the game, the breeding became the game. In an almost shameful way, I have to admit that’s what happened to me. And I still love Final Fantasy VII. How I kept spending more and more hours playing it instead of the hours I originally set aside for it (which, I believe is one difference between a console game and a mobile game, one is basically scheduled/timed gameplay while the other is play when there is time) is my fault. I won’t tell its creators to stop creating awesome and addictive games. That would basically mean a request to please don’t make any game with engaging characters or story lines or gameplay.

A game should try to get people involved and, well, hooked on the gameplay, the story, and/or the characters. The question is, is it done in such a way that only spenders can reasonably and successfully move forward. And, I believe, a good number of freemium and paymium games did right for their players. While the others cause frustration instead of fun for all non-spenders or, even worse, for all small-time spenders. That’s where the bad rep essentially comes from. One game in recent memory that I soon deleted because I felt I couldn’t grind successfully was Robocop. And I do some amount of real currency spending before I grind, to make things easier. I spent 20 dollars each on Zombiewood and Dead Trigger 2 and never felt a pang of regret. These are games that essentially should follow the same grinding principles as Robocop. But Robocop just felt off for me. It was like I had to spend more and more real money and grinding would not yield results. It felt, here’s that word: greedy. This is, of course, a subjective matter. Value is in the eye of the beholder, after all.

I end this with a claim: though indie game developers can succeed with paid games and many of the people my business partner and I admire in the indie game field are people who stick to paid games, we both believe doing free-to-play right has a better chance at long term success than doing a great paid game. And, at the end of the day, we want to make games, games that people will enjoy. And this means two things: we do it right for the people who download our games and we do it right for us so it can be what we do professionally day in and day out.

Howard Go is ½ of MochiBits. His current interest in game design involves game balance, retention, and monetization. He taught philosophy for five years then sold out to work in the corporate world for seven years, finally escaping into the world of game development in December 2010.

May 2014: Game Design Practice

Hello, and welcome to May 2014's topic, Game Design Practice!

I just wanted to make sure everyone knew about the IGDA Game Design SIG's new Weekly Design Challenges on Reddit.  Every Sunday, a new design challenge goes up.  I hope you all will participate.

As with Game Design Aspect of the Month, the idea behind the weekly design challenges is to inspire you and to get you thinking about game design issues.

It's good practice to expand an idea, write it on paper, and try to make it feasible.  There have even been GDC talks from designers who mapped out a game design idea each day for a year.  It's the first step to realizing your idea rather than just talking about it.  It's often said of writers that we don't always have the luxury to wait around for inspiration to hit.  To be a writer, one has to write.  And a game designer, as we have tried to relay, is not the person who sits around telling people ideas for great games, but someone who has the skills to create and fine-tune games so that they can be great.

So for May 2014, I'd like to learn more about your practice and your inspiration for games.  How do you work out your ideas for games?  Do you go straight to prototyping?  I remember a talk from GDC where the designer talked about exhaustive historical research before even approaching what might be a cool mechanic to be in the game.

As always, submission guidelines along with submission procedure can be found on the right hand side of the blog.  Topic suggestions and articles are welcome!

Good Free-to-Play Games (Part I)

In Part I of this article, indie game developer Howard Go expresses his philosophy on making good free-to-play games.

I begin this with a disclaimer: I am an indie game developer who just happens to make a living from making free-to-play games. I am one-half of a team of two. We’ve been making games full time for just over three years now.

Free-to-play games have gotten a lot of bad rep and this is more true as of late, especially as some games ruined what were good games by adding in-app purchases in an update or doing a sequel that suddenly changed the gameplay by going freemium or paymium instead of the solid premium paid game that they once were. And I think my opinions on freemium apply to paymium as well, so I might as well cover both.

This is part one of my view: whether freemium or paymium, if what you get initially is of value and then IAPs are introduced by way of packs or levels or some special premium value (and by this I include unlimited simultaneous multiplayer games and the removal of ads — I actually miss that in many games now), then it is entirely the player’s choice to feel I want more of the same fun and to determine if the packs/additions are worth their cost. They already got their money’s worth for what they paid for if it was initially paid and if they had fun for about an hour with a free game, then they can judge if spending money is fine for another similar hour (like a free taste of a dish to see if you want to buy a pack, snack, or meal). Obviously, I mean a good free-to-play game gave some amount value of value at the onset. My rule of thumb is about an hour of fun. That’s short for a console game, but decent, I believe for a mobile game. I’ve played some awesome paid games on mobile that I finished in an hour or two, and I felt I got my money’s worth (though wanting to play some more because I enjoyed it so much is another thing).

Just to be clear: I’ve spent plenty of money on arcade games, saved up to buy games for the consoles I’ve owned when I was younger, and still continue to spend a bundle on mobile games (paid, freemium, and paymium). And there are a number of games where I spent a lot of money on without thinking or feeling I was cheated. I believed I got my money’s worth. For anyone who spent more than a console game’s worth in the arcade or a mobile game to finish whatever game you were hooked on, you know what I am talking about.

This is part two of my view: whether freemium or paymium, if you need to spend in order to move forward in a game that does not involve packs or levels, but rather the ability to move forward is dependent on some energy level or being equipped with certain tools, weapons, or power ups before you can successfully continue, then it is very close to being poorly done or it is very obviously poorly done. The key, I believe, is in creating enough of an opening so that anyone who plays can continue down the road, playing through the levels without feeling that unless they buy an item, let’s say a gun, that they can only afford via an IAP (meaning grinding won’t work) will get them to move forward. Making a player wait is not a bad thing. Making a player ask friends for help is not a bad thing (for both player and game developer). Mobile games allow for breaks. Being told to wait a few hours before something can happen is fine. But there are limits. Basically, my rule of thumb is that if it will allow me to successfully grind because I persevere or progress because I am good at the game, then the IAPs do not ruin the game. The patient and the skilled can enjoy the game, not just the spender.

Temple Run, Subway Surfers, and Jetpack Joyride are all among my favorite endless (runner/side-scroller) games. They remain fun whether or not you spend. That you spend is entirely your choice and will not affect the fun value of the game in any way. I love that. Disco Zoo is a great game for grinders and for spenders. But some games are so unbalanced that grinding becomes too tedious too soon and the return of investment (in this case, time) is not felt. That’s a bad game right there. Much more so because it makes it clear to the player than only spenders will progress or, even worse, have any resemblance fun.

There are puzzle games that became almost insanely impossible to finish and only get harder and harder. I think the good ones allow the (re-)entry of easy levels enough times to make it fun for the player again. It says, here’s a break so you can enjoy the game again. Which is basically how I see any good RPG game. Easy enemies, followed by a tough boss, followed by easy enemies, almost ad infinitum. It’s what makes it playable.

Bad games, whether premium, freemium, or paymium, don’t respect the balance.

Howard Go is ½ of MochiBits. His current interest in game design involves game balance, retention, and monetization. He taught philosophy for five years then sold out to work in the corporate world for seven years, finally escaping into the world of game development in December 2010.

Game Design: Creating a System Formula (Part IV)

In Part I, game designer Bud Leiser explains how to use the Fibonacci series in system design. In Part II, he shows the grind gap and how the amount of grind can quickly accelerate when using the Fibonacci series. In Part III, he discusses how to evaluate the curve based on design goals. In Part IV, he suggests how to progress from the general guideline to cover all other elements in the game.

Actually…I could see implementing this curve into a real RPG if: for the player to survive we would probably have to give lots of item drops and a low cost way of healing outside of combat. (Final Fantasy health potions anyone?).  We can also try to figure out what strategy the player will use to overcome this curve: What might happen is players grind longer at a given level to buy his armor and boots.
They might even skip weapon levels, instead of buying each one progressively they might save up money to buy 2 levels ahead, and then use that powerful sword in combat, if he has enough health to survive 1 combat he could use cheap healing outside of combat. In other words relying on that high level sword to get him through 1 combat and not worrying about keep up with armor until absolutely necessary. If we wanted to encourage this type of play we could set the monster damage levels at rates unlikely to kill a player in a single combat. Drop potions frequently and even give the player armor pieces as common rewards. Assuming he has free time out of combat to heal up to full without being attacked, this would be a completely valid RPG style.

-Or-

You could create these cost progressions using “suits” (Armor, gauntlet, belt, boots, helmet, weapon). Then assign % of that to each piece. For example:

Suits	Total Cost	Weapons	Sword Cost	Armor	Armor Cost	Helmet	Helmet Cost
A	50	20%	10	25%	13	10%	5
B	100	20%	20	25%	25	10%	10
C	150	20%	30	25%	38	10%	15
D	250	20%	50	25%	63	10%	25
E	400	20%	80	25%	100	10%	40
F	650	20%	130	25%	163	10%	65
G	1050	20%	210	25%	263	10%	105
H	1700	20%	340	25%	425	10%	170
I	2750	20%	550	25%	688	10%	275
J	4450	20%	890	25%	1113	10%	445
K	7200	20%	1440	25%	1800	10%	720
L	11650	20%	2330	25%	2913	10%	1165
M	18850	20%	3770	25%	4713	10%	1885
N	30500	20%	6100	25%	7625	10%	3050
O	49350	20%	9870	25%	12338	10%	4935
P	79850	20%	15970	25%	19963	10%	7985

With this we have a general idea of how much the player is making and how much things should cost.

The most important thing is we didn’t have to spend hours making these prices individually. 

We have at the very least a general guideline. And we once we have a guideline that works, that we understand, and that curves the way we want to (meaning the player progresses at a rate that we want them to, and slow down where we want them to). We can now add elements wherever we want. And feel free to Fudge the numbers, give the player a cool Fire Sword and increase the value 10%, or 5% or 500gp.

[This article originally appeared on Bud Leiser's personal blog.]

Bud Leiser beat Nintendo’s original Zelda when he was just 3 years old. Then went on to win money and prizes playing: D&D Miniatures, Dreamblade, Magic the Gathering and The Spoils. He’s just returned from Vietnam where he helped manage Wulven Studios as their Lead Game Designer. He was responsible for creating internal projects, game design documents and communicating with clients to help them succeed in the post-freemium app market.   

Game Design: Creating a System Formula (Part III)

In Part I, game designer Bud Leiser explains how to use the Fibonacci series in system design. In Part II, he shows the grind gap and how the amount of grind can quickly accelerate when using the Fibonacci series. In Part III, he discusses how to evaluate the curve based on design goals.

OK so clear up some assumptions that we didn’t discuss earlier. We didn’t talk about it but we assumed: Monsters get harder at each new level, thus requiring the bigger swords to kill safely. We assumed that we were killing 1 monster per combat and that each combat took the same amount of time. (This is inherently assumed in our simplified progression rate because we just said “monsters” killed. What it could really mean is “units of monsters” if the game pits you against 3-4 weak monsters in 1 combat. If you don’t understand what I just explained here then just ignore it, it’s complicated stuff and not really necessary unless you are already a designer and thought I was doing something wrong.)

• 28 (almost 300%)
• 34
• 42
• 51

Now I haven’t even assigned a time value to any of this yet, but already I can tell just by looking at this formula that the player is going to have a very good early curve up until about level weapon 8. After that however getting weapons is going to be very time consuming.

So what do you do now? Well, you need to make some important design decisions. Is this the right time for a player level to plateau? If you built your game for players to explore most of the world, and get their abilities, and really enjoy the game at levels 7-12 this is probably a great curve. Because the player can reach levels 5+ relatively quickly and then the game will begin to slow down and by the time he reaches level 8 the progression really slows down giving him plenty of time to  enjoy the upper levels.

-or-

If however you want players to “power through” the first 20 levels; than either this curve is way too harsh or you will need to throw in lots of additional help. Such as quests that give big rewards, or lots of item drops.

-or-

You could use this curve for the first 8 levels. And then create a completely new curve.

And the reality is all of these solutions *can* work. You just have to decide what your goals are. How do you want the game to feel? How soon do you want to give players a sense of power over the world?  Where (in time and power level) do you want the player to really slow down? Where will players have the world really open up to them and let them explore.

Now remember, we did this with just a Sword cost. 
(Which really could stand for EXP levels, or rifles or anything super useful to the player)

We didn’t even cover things like ranged weapons, axes, armor, boots, capes, helmets, potions and special items. So it’s completely broken right? Sorta….but not really. We'll discuss this next.

[This article originally appeared on Bud Leiser's personal blog.]

 Bud Leiser beat Nintendo’s original Zelda when he was just 3 years old. Then went on to win money and prizes playing: D&D Miniatures, Dreamblade, Magic the Gathering and The Spoils. He’s just returned from Vietnam where he helped manage Wulven Studios as their Lead Game Designer. He was responsible for creating internal projects, game design documents and communicating with clients to help them succeed in the post-freemium app market.  

April 2014: Copycat Games

April 2014's topic, Copycat Games, was suggested by Alan Au.

Cloning, or copycatting, a game is nothing new.  But has it increased?  We've seen rampant cloning in the age of Pong and in the age of social games.  Have these copycat games been good or bad for the industry?

In one recent study of innovation, researchers at Indiana University concluded that with more imitation, more diverse solutions were found, leading to net societal benefit.  More exactly, they found that imitation was never complete imitation, but imitation with slight micro-variations that led to better overall product design.

Does this conclusion ring true of the game industry, where we can copy a game design and simply swap art assets?  Do we have clones or remixes?  What do you think?

I welcome articles on this topic.  As always, submission guidelines along with submission procedure can be found on the right hand side of the blog.  Topic suggestions and articles are appreciated!