Critical Mess 3 of 3: Simmer, then Serve

Previously on ‘Critical Mess’: we’ve been talking about how ideas for great videogames are conceived, and the benefits of thinking of games in simple terms before you rush out and take your first, over-complicated steps in making a game.

Most recently, we looked at how each entry in the Zelda franchise maintains the core values of the first game in the series. Then I explained how thinking about such things when it is cheap to do so – before you and a team start expressing your ideas – is a great way to begin making your own game: to identify and then build upon your idea’s ‘essence’, and to consider only working on expressing your concept once you have an idea of what you want to achieve.

So, where were we? Ah yes – identifying the core values, or the ‘essence’ of your game idea.

Once you have the essence identified, even in a preliminary form, that’s when you can start thinking about games that already exist and identify elements you have seen, played or heard that could support your game’s theme. That is not to say you steal ideas from other games, but that it is beneficial to look at an effect achieved and try to identify how the developers achieved it.

Far more importantly though, I urge aspiring designers to consider why the developers may have made a particular creative choice over any other options that may (or may not) have been available to them. By considering other possibilities, by learning to empathise with those you look up to, you can see whether a similar thought process could benefit both the fledgling design you might bravely show someone like me, and whether such ideas might have benefitted the ‘proper’ games you find yourself playing.

An alternate route – i.e. instead of defining your core values before entering a production cycle – is to build your concept upon a particularly distinct (and hopefully unique) game mechanic, finding the ‘essence’ as you playfully explore the possibilities and limitations of what you have created, progressively finding new ways of creating solvable challenges based on your rule set. This worked out pretty well for the guys and girls behind Narbacular Drop, for example – you’ve heard of Portal, right?.

A third route, and one I can’t really recommend, is to make your complicated game and then boil it down to its essence; to ignore the term ‘game development’ and lean toward ‘game sculpture’. After all, a master sculptor is thought to not see a slab of rock before them, but only the masterpiece hidden within. Bizarrely, this is how design works for some people and for some companies.  However, applied at the wrong stage of development (at the costly stage of when the idea is being expressed, often by a team of talented individuals each commanding a fee), this swiftly becomes a hugely inefficient way of making videogames, and makes it very hard to keep morale high as features and content get chopped off to fit within budget and deadlines. And as we all know from our pop culture infused up-bringing, low morale or feelings of inadequacy in any form will inevitably lead to the Dark Side.

Still… even when a team develops and progressively builds upon a considered design, throwing bits away is a very common part of professional games development, and indeed when making anything made as part of a creative and/or collaborative endeavour; there will always be some things destined for the cutting room floor. From my own experience, I can tell you that it takes a long time to harden yourself to such things. It still stings sometimes, especially when you’re still figuring things out. Trust me.

Once I think the aspiring designers have grasped where I’m heading with this, I remind them they don’t have to try to design games like the mega blockbuster FPS titles they adore, and that games don’t have to be complicated to be successful. If they still feel compelled to aim beyond their reach, I then urge them to remember that such projects take a lot of time and a lot of talented people to pull off; though there are notable exceptions, rarely is a hugely successful game the product of just one person.

To reinforce these notions that small and/or simple can still be successful, I point people them towards Angry Birds in terms of a surprise mega hit that was genius enough to start a hugely lucrative franchise… bafflingly, according to some folks.

As part of this message, I urge aspiring designers to seek out a number of other compelling experiences that utilise simple input and have objectives that begin simply but ramp up in complexity; games that display the full potential of an original or revised idea, that successfully define and emphasise a distinct core essence; I usually refer them to the sublime ‘Splosion Man or Limbo, if they’re down with their XBLA knowledge, that is. Failing that, if I still had it, I might have whipped out my iPhone and show a game I helped make, to show that I do genuinely believe in the beauty of simple games.

I recommend they challenge themselves by creating a one-button game that avoids what is now a convention of making a running character jump (a la Canabalt), to purposely give themselves a restriction and try to transcend it, all while creating a design that means something to them and hopefully resonates with a wider audience… much like the thinking behind ‘auteur theory’ in film studies.

And who knows? Instead of showing your game to me in a crowded, noisy exhibition centre, if you do go on to create something truly brilliant, what’s to stop you from releasing it yourself and maybe making some money while you’re approaching developers for jobs?

I’ll tell you what, more often than not, that’ll get your game – and, in effect, you – far more attention than building a section of an FPS, and far more experience when it comes to iterating upon a playable design, refining it until it ‘says’ exactly what you intend, all while experiencing the challenges of dipping your toe into the videogame marketplace.

The only other thing I ask anyone I speak to who ends up designing games is to find me and let me know how they’re getting on, to see if they’ve benefitted from being reminded of learning to walk before they can run, and, should they want to, to ask me for an opinion, either by contacting me directly or via the public-facing front that is this awesome GMA-nominated website. After all, you’ve got to speak if you want to be heard.

Here’s hoping; this industry needs people like that. And if you’ve read this far, this industry needs people like you.

As ever, sound off in the comments below – I’m always happy to hear what you think, even if you disagree. After all, it’s only through talking that we can all mutually move forward.