How to Make Games that Last

There are 5 basic principles that I believe are critical to a game’s long-term success.

1. Start with a simple, defined core

Know what your game is “about” - what distinguishes you from other games in the market?  What do players love most about your game?  Any game that releases expansions  will inevitably get more complicated over time.  As you keep layering new mechanics and modifying old ones, holding on to your core is critical to keeping your game moving in the right direction.  Stay true to your core and you can take your players places they never thought they would go, without losing the sense of what they love from your game to begin with.

The core of Ascension is adapting to the changing available cards and using those cards to modify your deck and execute your strategy.  Each expansion provides new ways to acquire cards or new ways to evaluate cards used for this purpose.  The newest Ascension expansion, Dreamscape, provides something never before seen in Ascension (or almost any deckbuilding game). Players can for the first time preselect cards before the game begins that will only be available to them for purchase throughout the game.  This preselection colors every card choice they make from that moment forward, which serves to highlight the core of the game from a different light.

2. For each expansion, find the hook that plays with your core.

For each expansion, try to find the one to two sentence hook that will draw people to your game.  What will make your players want the new expansion? Finding a good hook is not always easy, but good typical places to look are  

A. Designs cut from your initial release- In general, when you are working on a first release for an expandable game, you should cut out anything not essential to the core of the game and keep things as streamlined as possible.  Those extra discarded features, however, are gold that can be mined for future expansions. In Ascension: Storm of Souls, we introduced Trophy Monsters, which allow you to control when you want to use a monster reward, rather than being forced to use them immediately.  This was a part of the original Ascension game but was cut to reduce complexity.

B. Player Pain Points- Games are all about tension and key decision points. This tension is valuable as it creates drama in your game and a variety of outcomes, but the flip-side of the joy of discovery and victory is the pain of frustration and loss. Players who enjoy your game are likely familiar with the pain points and difficult choices that your game presents to them.  Offering a solution to pain is a great way to get them excited about the new content.  Now you can offer players freedom from that pain- but only if it comes with a new price and new form of tension to keep the game interesting.  

Ascension: Dreamscape very directly addresses a common player pain point- the ever changing center row.  Regularly, players are forced to watch as their favorite card gets acquired or defeated by another player.  Because Dreamscape cards are always available and only available to you, now you can relax a bit and know that the card key to your strategy won’t be lost.  The new tension introduced is the Insight resource, which can be hoarded from turn to turn but is hard to acquire- spending it at the right time and on the right card is key to victory.

3. Force players to re-evaluate old concepts in light of the new hook

Look at the elements in your game where the learning curve has flattened out.  Almost all players who look to purchase expansion content have a lot of experience with your game.  What “truths” that they take for granted can you disrupt?  How can you force them to reevaluate their previously held assumptions?  Common practice in collectible and expandable games is to take old staple effects and merge them with the new hook or mechanic.

In Ascension: Rise of Vigil, we introduced treasure cards that stack up underneath a center row card and act as a bonus when that card is acquired or defeated.  It is common practice in Ascension to buy the most expensive card you can, but now with treasure cards coming into play, it can sometimes be correct to buy a “worse” card in order to access the treasure underneath, forcing a reevaluation of the board depending on your need for that treasure.   Similarly, in Ascension: Dreamscape, the Insight resource required for your Dream cards is only available when certain cards appear in the center row.  How you evaluate those cards will depend on your personal selection of Dreams and current strategy.

4. Rotate focus and cycle mechanics

Each expansion to a game needs to add something new.  Every new thing is something else that must be learned.  Every new thing that has to be learned increases the barrier to entry for someone new to come into your game.  While a good tutorial and slow introduction of new material can help, it will not solve the problem entirely.  For a game to last many years, this problem must be addressed.

By rotating your focus and cycling mechanics in and out of your game, you can keep complexity at a manageable level and reuse old mechanical hooks in future expansions.  In Ascension, we will typically keep a new mechanic around for two consecutive sets, then retire it for a while before returning it to the game.  Older players get to enjoy the return of a favored mechanic, while new players do not have to deal with learning every mechanic from every set all at once.  

5. Listen and Engage

No game can last for long without a community of players to support it.  Listening to and engaging your players is the most important thing a designer can do to help ensure their game stands the test of time. I played Magic: the Gathering professionally for several years, and though the game is great, it was the players and the community that made me a lifelong fan.  

Don’t think just about the mechanics of your game.  Engage your community and encourage them to engage with each other.  This can be done through organized play, Twitch streaming, giveaways, fan created content, and more.  Listen to what your players want and try to respond with things that will resonate with their needs (not necessarily their demands).  

As you make expansions and try to resolve the “Same but different” paradox, you will inevitably make some of your fans unhappy.   “It’s too similar to the last set” or “Mechanic XXX ruins the game!” are phrases you will just have to get used to.  Know that fans respond strongly because they care about your game. Learn to love even the hostile reactions- they are far better than deafening silence.

It is a great privilege to design games for a living, and showing  gratitude to your players will help build that community and sense of trust so that even when you make an expansion they don’t love, they will still have interest in checking out the next one.  

Gamasutra - Gamasutra's Best of 2015: Top 10 Games of the Year

Gamasutra - Gamasutra's Best of 2015: Top 10 Games of the Year

Volgarr the Viking Ending A Speedrun in 17'43"67, 18:31 Real Time

DarkSiders 3 confirmed by developer

Ever since Darksiders 2: Deathinitive Edition was revealed for the PS4 and Xbox One, the DarkSiders community has been itching for news on DarkSiders 3. Well, now that that the Deathinitve Edition has released and is out of the way, Nordic Games can officially start talking about adding to the franchise.

Taking to Steam's discussion forums (via NeoGaf) on the Deathinitive Edition, a developer at Gunfire Games/Nordic revealed that the remaster had simply been the start of something more. Apparently, the developers were testing to the waters to see if anyone was still interested.

"Darksiders 2 Deathinitive Edition was just the start. Since we acquired the franchise we were looking for options for doing a DS3. The remaster was just a way to get some spotlight on the franchise again, reactivate the community and have a better starting position for DS3."

With the light back on the DarkSiders franchise, the developers can seriously look into developers DarkSiders 3. Around a year ago, former Vigil Games founder and Crytek USA head David Adams had revealed that Gunfire Games was considering DarkSiders 3 -- now we have a confirmation.

10 best open-world games of all time

Free like a Bird

You know it well: that magical feeling of stepping into a new Grand Theft Auto, Assassin's Creed, Fallout, or other open-world game. The landscape unfolds around you, filled with a million-and-one little adventures to explore. See those mountains in the distance? Chances are you can climb them. See all those cars on the road? You can pop on down and make one your own. There's something new waiting for you around every corner; hiding under every stone.

But not all open worlds are created equal. The games collected here represent the best of their genre. Entire cities, kingdoms, and continents are brought to life with staggering scope and intricate detail. If you have roughly 200 hours of free time and want to get lost in another realm, well, you've got options. These are our picks for the 10 best open-world games of all time. Which is your number one?

10. Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor

Most open-world games have circled the same kind of fun since GTA 3: wander around an interesting world, get into fights, cause havoc, and collect stuff. Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor has a dull world, combat that felts more fun when it was in Batman: Arkham Asylum, and an uninspired list of collectibles (seriously, just read The Silmarillion if you're that hungry for a lore dump). Thankfully, all those mediocre elements are just stage dressing for the main event: your own personal story of death and payback against a legion of procedurally generated orcish manslayers.

Sauron's armies are endless, but not faceless. Whenever you're felled by an orc, he'll be promoted into the leadership ranks, where he'll grow stronger and start making his own power grabs. Run into him after that and he'll remember what happened the last time he saw you, chiding your cowardice or remarking on the nice scars you gave him. This history is being built for every single leader orc in Sauron's army, but one will always be special: whoever has given you the most pain throughout the game will become your Nemesis and - forget about the Black Hand of Sauron - the true final boss.

9. Batman: Arkham Knight

When developer Rocksteady Studios released Batman: Arkham Asylum to the public in 2009, bat-fans the world over were astounded at how well the game captured the fantasy of being the Bat. But there was still room for improvement. With Batman: Arkham Knight, we have the whole city of Gotham to explore, the Batmobile to drive, and more gadgets than ever to enjoy. It's wish fulfillment of the highest order, letting you do what you want as the game continues to hand you more and more tools to utilize.

It helps that Gotham is full of unique and interesting things to see and do. Fans of Batman and DC in general will find plenty of nods both overt and subtle that point to their favorite heroes, villains and plotlines. Completionists will sink hours into finding every Riddler trophy, solving every puzzle, winning every race, and wrapping up every subplot. Even those who just experience the main story will watch Gotham and Batman grow and change, providing a variety of backdrops and situations to overcome. Arkham Knight's not just a great, fun open-world game - it's also the truest vision we've seen of The Dark Knight's world.

8. Assassin's Creed Black Flag

Much like Earth itself, Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag's open world is 70-percent water. You'd think that would put the kibosh on your ability to explore, but nay! Black Flag makes it work in simple, natural, and fun ways that turn seafaring into one of the best parts of the game.

Shipwrecks replete with riches, islands housing hidden quests, temples bearing ancient Mayan secrets - all are liberally scattered throughout the world, and are engaging enough to keep you occupied for a good long while. Plus, with AC3's unwieldy sailing mechanic refined for Black Flag, engaging in harrowing sea battles feels both suitably epic and immensely enjoyable, with the nice bonus of expanding your fleet and economic power. Even sailing aimlessly is a pleasure, and you might be surprised how much time you can spend happily watching whales breach and listening to your crew belting out shanties. There are treasures on the high seas, but the seas themselves are the greatest prize.

7. Fallout 3

Yeah, yeah, another post-apocalyptic wasteland. We’ve seen a million of them since Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (ironically) set the rules for global anarchy. Desert? Check. Small pockets of corrugated metal and welded miscellanea that pass for civilization? Check. Total dearth of resources, bar an inexplicable bounty of sporting-supplies-turned-body-armor? Check. But Fallout 3's Capital Wasteland isn’t just another dusty clone. It may have similar visual tropes; but in terms of personality the Capital Wasteland stands alone.

It’s the self-awareness that does it. Fallout 3 might look bleak, blighted, and really bloody grey; but in truth, it’s hilarious. The landscape is this goofy melting-pot of pulp sci-fi, schlocky horror, Wild West spirit, and even a crap superhero or two. It's core challenge might present a demanding, life-or-death struggle for mankind’s survival, but the path you’ll walk toward messianic heroism is one paved with comic books and guided by cool, bubble-headed robots. It’s as much Georges Méliès as it is George Miller. That Fallout 3 is also a lethally compulsive, eminently explorable, genuinely free RPG - capable of detonating sleeping patterns and ransacking life priorities just as easily as any Elder Scrolls game - is just the moldy icing on the microwave-ready, high-protein survival cake.

6. Dragon Age: Inquisition

In Dragon Age: Inquisition, you're the boss - and it feels good to be the boss. Your private army - the Inquisition - is one of the mightiest in the land, with the power to influence entire nations. At your war council the political landscape of Thedas is shaped to your will. The council's three strategic advisers - diplomatic, military, and espionage - field requests from kings and peasants alike. Who you assign to each task will influence the outcome. Will you deploy spies to assassinate a rebel leader, or use diplomacy to help him change his ways?

Decisions such as these help convey the weight of your office, and sell the fantasy that you are having a greater impact on the world outside of how many monsters you kill. That's not to say killing monsters isn't enjoyable. Inquisition's flashy visuals and mix of turn-based and real-time combat is some of the best in the series. And the game is filled with different customization options for yourself and your party to ensure you have the optimal crew for any situation. But Inquisition is at its best when you feel in command. It highlights all the most exciting aspects of governing, without all the bureaucracy.

5. Grand Theft Auto 5

Taken at face value, the open worlds of the Grand Theft Auto series are fairly ordinary, even with all the exaggerated stereotypes and sexual innuendos sprinkled everywhere. But being able to go on a crime spree, start a rampage, or simply explore every nook and cranny of your surroundings - all without the consequence, cost, and physical exertion holding us back in real life - is what brings those otherwise-mundane backdrop to life in exhilarating, empowering ways. Grand Theft Auto 5 is the current pinnacle of this design, where you have complete freedom to appreciate or desecrate the environment as you see fit.

Every aspect of GTA5's world feels authentic. Michael's privileged boredom in the suburbs of Los Santos, Franklin's rise from the streets to a Vinewood Hills penthouse, Trevor's meth-fueled antics in San Andreas' arid deserts - it's all believable, despite the increasingly ludicrous missions you're completing. And once you've seen how the lives of GTA's most eclectic protagonists play out, you can experience the world in a completely different way through GTA Online, the anarchic multiplayer sandbox we've all been dreaming about since GTA 3.

4. Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain

It's strange to think of the typically linear Metal Gear Solid series working in an open-world setting, but it doesn't just work - it made the transition damn near flawlessly in one try. While its map may not be filled with objective markers and countless side objectives and mini-games like other games on this list, Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain proves that less is more by putting the focus on its complex, intertwining systems.

Guards in MGS5 don't have preset patrol routes - rather, they mill about realistically, reacting to your movements, changing shifts as day turns to night, and moving from outpost to outpost in unpredictable ways. And you can get in there and really mess things up, either through liberal use of one of several hundred guns, grenades, and gadgets, or by knocking them out and conscripting them into your own army by strapping a balloon to their waist and sending them in the air at over 100 miles per hour. Infiltrate, fulton, manage upgrades, slink back into the shadows - it forms a highly compulsive cycle that will keep you coming back well after the game’s curveball of an ending.

3. Skyrim

Skyrim's incredible, diverse open world really is the star of the game. It's a beautiful, pre-painted canvas, lovingly created to allow players to craft their own, memorable adventures - each one subtly unique. You remember the first time you climbed to the summit of the Throat of the World; you recall finding that innocuous cave that led down to the otherworldly expanse of Blackreach; you actually gasped when you discovered Solitude, perched on the outcrop of an imposing cliff.

The true genius of Skyrim's world is that almost everywhere feels unique, and while certain locations offer grander scale than others, you're constantly finding new areas to explore and marvel at. This means that even after 100s of hours of ignoring the story, you're never bored of the exploration, of the thrill of unearthing something new and exciting. Add in dramatic weather effects, day and night cycle, some cute detail for anyone digging into the lore, and - oh yeah - the occasional dragon, and you've got the ultimate fantasy world to explore

2. Red Dead Redemption

Rockstar has always been at the frontier of open-world games, hardening itself for an ambitious sojourn into the untamed Western expanse of 19th century America. It didn't exactly go according to plan for Red Dead Redemption, with troubled development delaying the game's completion and some wild bugs unleashing a fondly remembered (but unintended) plague of flying bird-people, but the end result came out cohesive and strongly evocative of a dangerous, raw America. For once, the geography of an open-world game didn't just space out objectives. Instead, it provided room for a proper Western to happen.

John Marston didn't escape the curse befalling most Rockstar protagonists - the guy walking away from crime, only to have one last job foisted upon him - but his flaky morality fit perfectly in a Wild West with its own set of rules and laws, all rickety at best. Marston moved through an unkempt civilization-to-be, sporadically intersecting with side quests and primary goals in a way that felt organic. And though discovery of all that wilderness was rewarding in itself, what made it truly fitting for an open-world game was the slavish devotion to the shape of a Western. There was all that space. Sometimes nothing happened at all. A tumbleweed would roll by. And then Marston would walk into an outburst of sudden violence, a kidnapping, a shootout echoing in a monstrous cavern. Red Dead Redemption filled its world wisely, remembering that calm and nothingness are valid, deliberate objects that can eventually bleed into the chaos of a developing country.

1. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Above all else, Geralt has to get paid. He's not the chosen one here to save everyone from impending doom; he's not serving a higher purpose or following his destiny. Geralt is trying to find his daughter before The Wild Hunt catches up with her, but a noble purpose won't get him better gear or keep him fed, so he's always looking for work. With that one simple distinction, the side action of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt becomes more than just stat-boosting busy work and becomes something that genuinely adds to the character of the game and its star.

It certainly doesn't hurt that the world you're exploring is massive and interesting. Geralt encounters all sorts of people - the working stiffs, the middle class, the royals - and they've all got their own unique perspective on the world, the war, and the Witcher himself. Virtually everyone is worth talking to, and every location is worth visiting because they feel real; you're not just moving from place to place to tick off the next box on your To Do list or find the next best armor shop. Moving through the world has an authenticity many open worlds lack. It's grubby and funny and sweet and unfair and scary and familiar. The Witcher 3 truly feels like a journey, rather than just waypoints on the path to the dramatic final battle.

Lessons of Game Design learned from Super Mario Maker

Super Mario Maker has been a fascinating game to "play" since its release in September, and I say "play" because I spent the majority of my time building levels. It's been a long time for non programmers to have access to an editor designed for them and along with myself; a lot of people are jumping on the making bandwagon. As I dug deeper into the editor and the offerings put out, I came to realize and reaffirm some important elements about game design that were too good not to talk about further, and something that Nintendo has known about for years.

Building Basics:

Jumping into Mario Maker is incredibly easy, thanks to the visual design implemented by Nintendo. Items, characters and elements can be simply dragged and dropped and they perform exactly how they would in other Mario games. The toolset allows for someone to quickly put a level together, fill it with enemies and constantly iterate as they go.

You can also combine characters and elements to create things that are original to Mario Maker, but still retain the same elements as the previous games. This has led to the sheer variety of levels, from game developers to students and everyone in between. One of the more understated elements of Mario Maker is the simple quality control that Nintendo has built into it: All levels must be completed by their creator before uploading.

Now, that doesn't sound like a huge deal, but it's actually very important to the first lesson and something that I've come to realize over the years.

1. Difficulty Doesn't Equal Greatness:

Over the last five or six years, there has been a real surge of challenging games on the market: Super Meat Boy, Demon's Souls, FTL and so on. Many gamers have proclaimed this as great and a throwback to the days of classic games that were meant to be brutally difficult. This has led to fans judging a game's quality simply on the difficulty of the title and looking down on anyone who criticizes.

The Souls series is great thanks to its skill based gameplay, not due to overwhelming difficulty

With that said however, Mario Maker is a great example that contradicts that sentiment. In 30 minutes, I could design a level so difficult that .001% of the entire audience in the world would be able to beat it and it would still take me awhile to actually beat it so that I could host it.

Thanks to the analytics in Mario Maker, you can see the exact height and distance  of Mario's jumping ability and from there you could build pixel exact challenges and leaps; along with setting up off screen traps to kill the player.

The level would be so difficult that the only way you would win it would be if you knew where all the traps were (aka be the developer) or spend a lot of time dying and failing until you get it right.

Would this be challenging? Yes. Would this be something for the hardcore elite? Yes. But would this be something enjoyable? The answer to that is no. There are plenty of levels like that in Super Mario Maker now; full of death traps and situations beyond even the levels featured at the Nintendo World Tournament from E3 last year.

However, it's not interesting to play a level explicitly designed to be over the top difficult with nothing to compensate for it. Instead of exploring a level's design to figure it out, you're just banging your head against the wall until either you or it breaks. When a game or level feels like the product of a developer going overboard with difficulty for the sake of being difficult, it shows a lack of understanding of game balance. One common annoyance I see in Mario Maker levels is people setting up invisible blocks purposely to cause someone to die on their first try through a level; it's a cheap trick that offers no understanding or growth from the player's end.

Games like Demon's Souls and Super Meat Boy were great aside from their difficulty; both featured skill rewarding gameplay and were balanced in their difficulty. Demon's Souls had permanent shortcuts to unlock and upgrading gear while Super Meat Boy levels were never long enough to turn into ordeals.

Now I know what you're thinking, "Then easy levels are better, right?" While extreme difficulty can ruin a game, so can extreme easiness.

2. Engaging the Player with the Design:

Games that are too difficult feel frustrating to play and turn people off, but games that are too easy have their own problems. We all like to feel great by beating a level or a game, but not when it’s metaphorically handed to us on a silver platter. When the level is simply set up to be patronizing and offers nothing to the player, then it feels like a waste of time.

Another part of this is not locking down the elements of your level and leaving holes that can break it. There's a huge difference between having a short cut for expert players to avoid or mitigate a challenge, and leaving a part of your level open that allows someone to simply avoid almost everything you built and head straight to the goal.

 It may seem like a reward to the player, but all you're doing is rendering your entire level moot in favor of an easy win. One thing I see with some Mario Maker levels is that the creator makes some elaborate trap or obstacle, but leaves some massive hole either due to an item or Mario's jumping ability that makes the entire section skippable.

Every level in a Mario game is meticulously built around a specific design mindset and challenge

This is where things get a little philosophical; a good level should make the player grow by the end of it in some way. They should be different than they were at the beginning; this could mean getting new powers, improving their skill or even just getting an achievement.

The point is that the player should feel that they didn't just waste their time, and this could be any number of feelings: The level was too hard that they'll never use those skills again, the level was too easy that it felt like busy work, the level was a repeat of a previous challenge and so on.

Our next lesson brings these points together for one of the hallmarks of a great game designer.

3. There's Harmony in Great Design:

Perhaps the hardest thing to come up with as a game developer even beyond balancing difficulty is deciding just what your level will be about. It's very easy when it comes to designing something to just throw everything that you can think of into a level or game. We see this not just in Mario Maker, but with game developers who go overboard thinking that more is better.

One of the big lessons I've learned from talking to game developers and doing work in Mario Maker is that a great stage (or game) should be a well oiled machine; every element should have a function. A very, very big case in point would have to be Super Mario Bros World 1-1 and how the team created a level that went through all the basics of the gameplay without needing one tutorial. This is where the concept of having harmony or a unified theme comes in for what your game/level in about.

Are you making an underwater obstacle course? Jumping through fire? Dealing with enemies via shells? Just like with a full game, you need to come up with the foundation of your level and have everything flow from there. If your level is about tricky platforming, throwing in a bunch of enemies or an underwater section at the halfway point won't make sense. 

One of the more common types of levels in Mario Maker are those that just throw enemies randomly around the stage or leaves an enemy in such a way that they act as a surprise attack. While that may be unexpected, it clashes with the rest of the challenges that you have designed and makes the level seem stitched together.

Some of the best games are those with a unified sense of gameplay, design and aesthetics

This is a point that Nintendo has perfected over the last few decades, especially with the Mario titles.

Each stage in a Mario Game offers some unique take on the gameplay and if there are any repeated game mechanics or obstacles, they will be used in a different way to keep things from being repetitive.

Two of the finest games from Nintendo would be Mario Galaxy 1 and 2; both featured amazing design that kept on changing and growing over the length of play.

For our final point, we come to one area that every game designer has trouble with.

4. Knowing When to End:

Building off of the last point, once you have the foundation and mechanics down, you need to know just how much you can get out of them. Every mechanic and game system has a limited span that they will keep the player's interest and that you as a designer can make use of. Some of the best levels and games for that matter don't outwear their welcome.

The more unique or niche your game mechanics or challenge are, the less overall time that you can get out of them. The reason is that games with complex or different mechanics require a lot more work to create challenges suitable to them, and the unique mechanic also limits the number of ways you can create interesting challenges.

Portal is a perfect example of this. The portal gun is one of those mechanics that sounds like it has an unlimited number of uses for stage design, except it really doesn't. If you look at the forms of manipulation, you only have a few mechanics that make use of the portal gun: Interacting with objects, controlling the player's momentum and moving the player or objects around.

This is why despite how original Portal was, the game was only a few hours long and the same could be said for Portal 2's campaign, but it had added mechanics in the form of the gels. Creating a challenge that not only makes use of the portal gun, but is different enough from previous stages to warrant its creation is very difficult. It would have been very easy for Valve to just keep creating puzzles and repeating concepts and mechanics to extend the life of the game, but that would have made things very repetitive and hurt Portal's success in the long run.

Portal 1 and 2 both featured unique game mechanics that didn't outwear their welcome because the developers never repeated the same exact challenges and puzzles

This is also why we see many casual or games with straightforward gameplay have tons of levels to them, because the mechanics can be translated to a wide variety of situations with minute differences to keep things going.

With that said, if the differences are too small, then you once again run into problems of repetitive gameplay.

Taking this back to Mario, one of the best things about Mario level design is that the stages never overstay their welcome; this is due to the pacing and implementation on Nintendo's part.

With Super Mario Galaxy, each stage is only a few minutes long and is just enough to showcase the level's unique design or situation before they would have to repeat it or try to extend it. Too often we see developers pad out a game with recycled content and all it does is hurt the game as a whole; for many people it's better to have an amazing one hour of play as opposed to three just okay hours.

Super Meat Boy once again can be used as an example here with its level design. Each level could have been stretched out repeating the same mechanics present to offer longer challenges, but the developers instead went for as straightforward of an execution as possible. In this way, you're in, you're out and you move on to the next challenge in the blink of an eye, this is because Team Meat knew that their gameplay could not be stretched out and be as varied and as long as the levels in any Mario game.

If you have variations of the design or challenge to use, then use them, but don't repeat the same situations simply to make your level or game bigger. As we talked about with harmony in game design, a good game designer knows when they've taken things to their limit and ends it. Another knock against some Mario Maker levels is being overloaded with difficult and different sections, to the point where the level feels like it’s never ending; where you have one very long level that could have easily been three regular sized levels. Proper pacing is vital to keep someone engaged for the long haul and if you have too many different challenges in one level, then break it up into multiple levels if the design warrants it.

These four points may sound simple to everyone reading it, but game developers around the world still struggle with one or multiple of them and it's what distinguishes an amazing game developer and why I still love Nintendo.

30 Years of Excellence:

It's common for people to criticize Nintendo when it comes to their reliance on branding and saying that they never innovate, but that can't be further from the truth. Playing and designing stages in Mario Maker has given me a real appreciation for the craftsmanship that Nintendo puts into their games. For me personally, the design that Nintendo uses in their Mario games is a work of art and something that should be studied.

Mario Maker's biggest contribution is giving non programmers a tool for learning game design

As I created levels in Super Mario Maker, the ones that were the most popular weren't the hardest or the longest, but levels built around the lessons I talked about.

In fact, my most popular level doesn't even involve platforming, but a level built around solving math problems.

Great game design is one of those elements that we all know it when we see it, but actually describing how it works can be difficult. These lessons should give you a great foundation into building not only your own levels, but thinking about game development as a whole.

Emotional Adaption and Expression in Games

Emotions are fundamental for players to deeply engage with games. Players’ responses in a game are affected by their emotional states which if, in turn, could affect the way the game responds the player-game interaction could be augmented and enriched by magnitudes realizing affective loop-enabled games. Games may evolve and adapt to the player in many different ways and convey emotions through a variety of techniques and effects. In this section we will discuss emotion adaptation and emotion expression, placing it in the context of the affective loop discussed earlier. The adaptation module of the affective loop should be able to provide satisfactory answers to – at least some – of the following questions: which stimulus (or playful experience) should be presented next? When should it be presented? Which game elements should be adjusted and how?

Arguably, we can achieve meaningful adaptation in games because players are prepared for personalised experiences more than in any other form of human computer interaction. The players’ relationship to game adaptation is dependent on their playing style, experience, personality etc. and the form of adaptation (e.g. implicitly or explicitly) needs to comply with the player needs. So, when creating and designing emotional games, one needs to consider all the processes involved, starting with the game design process itself. Further, while emotion models can be used to inform game designers in a mixed-initiative design fashion (see (Smith, et al., 2011), (Liapis, et al., 2012) among others) we argue that a semi- of fully-automated approach to emotion-driven game design can ultimately lead to improved playing experience. But as the game design entails the definition of many aspects of a game, when referring to emotional game adaptation one fundamental question to ask is what game elements one can adjust? In other words: what does emotional adaptation entail? A high-level observation of available game elements derives two key classes of adaptable game features: game agents (and NPCs) and game content (see Figure 1). Both of these can be manipulated to convey emotional responses and adaptation, in a manner that leads the player to become more emotionally involved with the game.

Adapting and Expressing Emotion through Agents and NPCs 

One of the two main ways by which emotions can be manifested in games is through their game characters (see Figure 1). Characters in a game need to act, and their actions should be determined by emotional reactions to events occurring in the game. This can be achieved in a completely scripted manner, or through an automatic, autonomous approach, by using emotion agent architectures (Gratch & Marsella, 2004) underlying cognitive models to generate behaviour of the characters. Such architectures are usually model-based as they seek inspiration in psychological or physiological models of humans, and other species, and embed features that allow them to go beyond the pure “rational” behaviour. Emotional agent architectures naturally include a way to capture emotions or other affective states, such as moods or even personality (Doce, Dias, Prada, & Paiva, 2010). These affective states often have symbolic representations, or can be the resulting pattern of behaviour arising from a variety of different processes embedded in the agent. Examples of these architectures are EMA (Gratch & Marsella, 2004) and FAtiMA, used for research on serious games in the areas of social and emotional training (Paiva, et al., 2004), (Aylett, et al., 2009), (Lim, Dias, Aylett, & Paiva, 2012), ALMA (Gebhard, 2005), or the MindModule (Eladhari & Mateas, 2008) for player characters. Further, these characters may portray social roles and have different personalities leading the users to raise expectations concerning the characters actions, and as such triggering emotional reactions by the players when those expectations are not met. A game character that plays an ally or a mentor (see (Isbister K. , 2006)) will lead to certain emotional reactions when for example the character deceives the player. The personality of a game character can be established by the nature and strength of the emotions that the character portrays in different situations, and its tendency to act in a certain manner. For example, an extrovert character will use more speech acts and more expressive actions than an introvert character. These features of personality may be achieved by the appropriate parameterization of the agents (see (Doce, Dias, Prada, & Paiva, 2010)). Characters will not only trigger emotional states as a response to a given situation, but they also need to express emotions in a way that conveys their “internal” emotional state. Thus, emotions not only guide the decision making of the characters, but also the expressions they will portray, which again can be generated in an automatic manner. Expressions of different emotional states, such as for example fear, surprise, sadness or happiness may blend handcrafted animations to express both strong and subtle emotions with procedural animation techniques to achieve real-time behaviour animated characters (Perlin & Goldberg, 1996). Characters provide a rich medium to express emotions, trigger emotions and adapt to the emotions of players. Further, these emotional manifestations can be augmented via adaptive narrative and camera profiles (Picardi, Burelli, & Yannakakis, 2011) allowing for the emphasis on particular emotional states or features, and combining it with game content adaptation (see Figure 1). We should, however, stress the research oriented nature of these early systems acknowledging that autonomous emotional NPCs are still in the realm of a few exploratory research projects. However, we believe that by addressing this challenge, this area will become one of the major pillars of AI in games.

 Adapting and Expressing Emotion through Game Content 

Yet, games may or may not include agents. Games, however, definitely include a form of virtual environment where agents “live” (if existent) and the interaction is taking place. There are a number of elements (i.e. game content) from the game world that an adaptive process can alter in order to drive the player to particular affective patterns. As mentioned already, game content may include every aspect of the game design such as game rules (Togelius & Schmidhuber, 2008), reward systems, lighting (de Melo & Paiva, 2007), camera profiles (Yannakakis, Martinez, & Jhala, 2010), maps (Togelius, et al., 2010), levels, tracks (Togelius, Yannakakis, Stanley, & Browne, 2011), story plot points (Riedl, 2012), and music (Eladhari, Nieuwdorp, & Fridenfalk, 2006). Even behavioural patterns of NPCs such as their navigation meshes, their parameterised action space and their animations can be viewed as content.

The adaptive process in this case is referred to as procedural content generation (PCG) which is the generation of game content via the use of algorithmic means. According to the taxonomy presented in (Togelius, Yannakakis, Stanley, & Browne, 2011) game content can be necessary (e.g. game rules) or optional (e.g. trees in a level or flying birds on the background). Further, PCG can be either offline or online, random or based on a parameterised space, stochastic or deterministic and finally it can be either constructive (i.e. content is generated once) or generate-and-test (i.e. content is generated and tested). The Experience-driven PCG framework (Yannakakis & Togelius, 2011) views game content as an indirect building block of player affect and proposes adaptive mechanisms for synthesizing personalised game experiences.

Integration in the Affective Loop: When and How to Adapt

 Once sufficient amounts of appropriate game stimuli (which include the actions of the game characters and in the environment) have been presented to the player, aspects of the playing experience can be detected and modelled. For the affective loop to close effectively the game logic needs to adapt to the current state of the game-player interaction. Whether agent behaviour or parameterised game content, a mapping is required linking a user’s affective state to the game context. That mapping is available as it is essentially the outcome of the emotion modelling phase. Any search algorithm (varying from local and global search to exhaustive search) is applicable for searching in the parameterised search space and finding particular game states (context) that are appropriate for a particular affective state of a specific player. For example, one can envisage the optimization of agent behaviour attributes for maximizing engagement, frustration or empathy towards a player (Leite, et al., 2010). As another example, the study of Shaker et al. (2010) presents the application of exhaustive search for generating Super Mario Bros (Nintendo, 1985) levels that are maximally frustrating, engaging or challenging for any player. In that study parameterised game levels are linked to in-game player behaviour attributes and a set of affective states inferred from crowdsourced player reports. The model-free affective model is built via evolving neural networks that learn the crowdsourced pairwise preferences (i.e. neuro-evolutionary preference learning) .

A critical question once an adaptation mechanism is designed is how often particular attributes should be adjusted. The frequency can vary from simple pre-determined or dynamic time windows (Yannakakis & Hallam, 2009) but adaptation can also be activated every time a new level (Shaker, Yannakakis, & Togelius, 2010) or a new game (Yannakakis & and Hallam, 2007) starts, or even after a set of critical player actions – such as in Façade (Mateas & Stern, 2003). The time window of adaptation is heavily dependent on the game under examination and the desires of the game designer. Regardless of the time window adopted, adaptation needs to be interwoven well with design if is to be successful.

One approach for assessing the appropriate time window for game adaptation is to test the validity of the emotion models in different time windows and then make a compromise between adaptation frequency and model performance (Yannakakis & Hallam, 2009)). As models are expected to yield lower accuracies the more deviant they are from the interaction time window they were built on, one needs to evaluate their accuracy with respect to different time windows. A good compromise between accuracy and performance would yield sensible decisions about the length of the adaptation time windows. In general, those can be either static across all gameplay or dynamic (dependent on e.g. different levels)

Three Biggest Ways to Fail Players in Free-to-Play Games

If you want to create fun experiences for your players, you have to know not only the best ways to do that - game mechanics, story, presentation layer, interaction design - but also the biggest pitfalls that can block that. This is a short article about the top three biggest pitfalls to player fun in free-to-play games. The critical disciplines in preventing and assuaging them may surprise you.

We'll start with the worst player experience you can possibly deliver first:

OUT OF ORDER

The player loads your game, and the loading screen freezes. Or the player gets past the loading screen, and as the gameplay area loads, the game crashes. Or, the player loads the game, it requests the player update, the player updates, and now the game freezes, crashes, or doesn't load. The player now has to hunt down your support team using external resources and links, write to you about their problem with an email address disconnected from their game account, wait for the reply, all the while being unable to play your game, inevitably driving them to your competition to get their gaming-fix.

If you are a designer or manager in free-to-play games and this is happening in your product - RED ALERT, RED ALERT! Drop everything you are doing and fix this problem. If it is happening to even 1% of your players, consider how many players you may churn and lose, forever, every day the problem continues unresolved. Consider that your conversion to paying players may be a similarly low percentage, and you don't dismiss their importance.

It's not just QA and Engineering that will come to the rescue of this situation, it is CS (Customer Service). Do you have a CS system that is accessible from the loading screen, so that players can contact you if they can at least get to the loading screen but fail to load the main game? This will allow the player ID and device information to be sent to CS for more direct tracking of the issue. Do you have service outage notices that can display from your loading screen? The best service is immediate service - notification of issues before the player has to contact you. Do you have push notifications to inform of critical service outages? Don't make players google you to find how to report outages, or you have failed that player. Be integrated and ahead of them.

This is the worst experience you can give a player. In an arcade, it's like hanging an "out of order" sign over the player's favorite game that they came there just to play. After a few days of checking, they may not bother to come back.

NO CREDIT

The player loads your game, and they find that they are missing premium currency, currency, items, or even XP or levels that they had before. Alternately, the player purchases premium currency, their money is deducted, but the game does not credit them for the purchase.

Here too it is not just QA and Engineering that will fix these problems - it is your CS that is critical. Players need to be able to report, from inside the game and with automatic sending of the player ID and device information, what is missing and when it came up missing. CS should have a tool to credit players back these currencies and items. They should trust if the player really had said currency or item in the first place and err on the side of self-reporting, with only a cursory check for gross and obvious abuse.

In addition, if you are only giving back what was missing with no bonus for their trouble, you are failing the player. When I go to a restaurant and they serve me burned food, I expect more than the properly cooked version another twenty minutes later - I expect a free slice of pie, or a high-value coupon for my next visit - something that acknowledges that my time was just wasted and that a sub-par experience was just delivered and it was entirely the content provider's fault. Do the same.

This is the second-worst experience you can give the player. In an arcade, it's like taking the player's quarter then not letting them play. How would that make you feel? How would you feel if instead of an arcade attendant to immediately refund your quarter, you had to write a letter to a company three states away and wait for a check?

BROKEN CONTROLS

The player loads your game, but they are unable to perform a certain action, due to a balancing problem, tuning issue, or game design problem. Alternately, the client is slow to react to player interaction, or is overly or under-precise, and registers an interaction that the player did not make, such as spending premium currency that the player never made an interaction for.

Again, QA and Engineering will ultimately prevent and resolve these issues, but it is CS that will resolve the immediate problem at hand. The faster you close the loop on that resolution between the time that the issue was reported, the greater chance you have at retaining the player and not having them move to a competing product that isn't perceived as having broken controls. Broken controls strike at the heart of trust between a player and game - they expect their inputs to be registered and accurately, and when they don't they lose all confidence in your product's ability to perform the most basic functions.

This is the third-worst experience you can give the player. In an arcade, it's like having a broken shoot button which technically allows the player to play, but forces them to die. How would you feel about your time and your quarter playing such a game? How would you feel if there was no arcade attendant to address your issue?

COMMON THREAD

The surprise to all three worst-case scenarios is properly investing in QA (and not rushing your product or its updates out) is the best way to prevent these issues, and properly giving attention to CS (and empowering them to treat customers like royalty) is what will do the most significant damage control once something has slipped past QA and is in the live game.

By this perspective of the top pitfalls, the most important disciplines to retain customers and make money aren't game designers, PM's, producers, and engineers, but rather investing in QA and CS which are often over-looked or seen as "secondary tiers" in their level of importance. They are not - they are critical first-tier disciplines that will make or break your product. Free-to-play games are hugely complex, and they will break. The only question is how often, how bad, and how prepared are you to serve your players when they do.