Okay, so during the development of Alien: Isolation, the game had a
pretty basic save system. It would automatically cache your data
whenever you tripped invisible checkpoints, which were dotted throughout each level. It was added because it was easy to
implement, simple to understand - and, in truth, because that's how saving
worked in pretty much every game. Design director Gary Napper
said "like any development team, we all play a lot of games
and each have our favourites. Often our decisions and choices
are coloured by the games we play". But... as development went along,
the team started to question if this save system was actually the right choice. You see, because players knew that if they died
they'd only lose a couple minutes of progress, they would just waltz around the space
station without a care in the world. Not ideal... in a horror game. *Alien scream* So while these checkpoints might
have worked in Call of Duty and Bioshock - Napper says it was "not
the right approach when making a game that is designed from its core
to terrify and put people on edge". Because here's the thing. It's totally fine to take
influence from other games. Many designers borrow mechanics from
their favourite titles - often evolving, combining, and remixing them into something new. But: it’s essential to understand
why those mechanics work in one game, before copying and pasting them into yours. How do you do that? Well, I'm Mark
Brown, and this is Game Maker's Toolkit. Alright, so... way way back in 2004, , three game designers
got together and wrote an academic paper, featuring a framework that would prove to be
perfect for analysing the mechanics in games. It's called MDA, and it
breaks games down into three, neat sections: mechanics,
dynamics, and aesthetics. Mechanics describes the actual workings
of the game: like the rules, the systems, what the buttons do, and all of
the individual stats and numbers. For example, one mechanic could be the
maximum amount of ammo the player can hold - and we could set that number really high. Then, dynamics is how the player acts and
behaves, in response to those mechanics. So because the player has tonnes of
ammo, they may storm into battle, and shoot wildly in the general
direction of every enemy they spot. And, finally, aesthetics - not to be
confused with the graphics or the art style. Here, aesthetics is how the player
feels when acting in that way. Their emotional response. So this wild shooting could
make you feel reckless, powerful, unstoppable - basically, like this. *Machine gun fire* To put it another way - mechanics happen in the
code, dynamics happen in the player's actions, and aesthetics happen in the player's feelings. Now, unfortunately, game
designers can't just go inside the player's head and directly alter their actions or feelings. But they can change the code -
and because MDA describes a casual relationship, these changes will cascade
down and alter the dynamics and aesthetics. For example, if we tweak that knob
the other way, and massively limit the player's ammo stash, that's definitely
going to change the player's behaviour. Now, they will act cautiously before heading
into battle, or might not engage enemies at all. Every shot fired will be done
with careful consideration, and more time will be spent hunting
for ammo in the environment. And this will lead to
completely different aesthetics: like disempowerment, fear, and caution. So, this MDA framework takes mechanics -
and then puts them into a wider context, which asks 'how do they make the player
act, and how do they make the player feel?' And we can use these questions to analyse
the mechanics in the games we play. Like, we could ask 'why do swords
break in Zelda: Breath of the Wild?'. Well - how does that change player behaviour?
Maybe players will rely less on direct attacks, and so spend more time sneaking past enemies,
or finding creative ways to ambush foes. It will certainly encourage players to use different weapons - and
constantly seek out new ones. It can also lead to exciting moments of
drama in the middle of a fight - (so far I've used dynamics to refer to player
actions, but dynamics can also be used to describe consequences that might
bubble out of the game's systems). So how does that feel? Well, it
could make you feel underpowered, it could make you feel crafty and creative, and
it will likely make you feel like an explorer... in a world that's decaying, and falling apart. If there's one hard part of this analysis process, it can be putting words to the subconscious
feelings that arise when playing games. We're looking for way more than just "this
game was fun", - we're looking for strong, emotive feelings like, this game
made me feel powerful, creative, sneaky, tense, intimidated, curious,
deceitful, cooperative, flustered. So MDA lets us see game mechanics as powerful
vessels for delivering emotions to players. And so when borrowing mechanics from
other games - or making entirely new ones - you can pick ones with
associated dynamics and aesthetics that will compliment the rest of your
design - and avoid ones that will clash. For instance, designer Jenova Chen says that
the game Flower once had a level-up system, spells you could cast, resource management, and time limitations - expected
features of other video games. But they all had to go, because they went against the intended
emotions of relaxation, calm, and peace. Chen says "we’ve played so many games
growing up these bad habits form. A lot of the time we like to make things very fun, but fun doesn’t always help the
emotion you want to deliver". That's why it's useful to truly understand your game's vision - the overarching feeling
or experience you want to give the player. Because if you know you want to make the player
feel, say, scared, then you know you'll want to pick mechanics that induce feelings of
fear, dread, isolation, and disempowerment. That vision could be a single
statement: Subnautica was based around the phrase "thrill of the unknown",
and every mechanic had to suit this idea. Resident Evil Village was built under the
banner of "struggle to survive" - and so when playtesters hated the game's messy combat,
the designers could use that phrase as, like, a lodestar to rebalance and
rethink the game's mechanics. The vision could also be a fantasy
that you're trying to deliver. Perhaps you want the player to feel like
Batman, or an assassin, or a world leader. It could be a feeling - like how
Flower tried to make you feel relaxed. Or it could be a specific experience
- when making FTL, the devs said their starting point was "we wanted to recreate
the atmosphere of commanding a starship". With a strong vision in mind,
it becomes easier to evaluate whether game mechanics are the right
choice for the game you're making. And, of course, it goes beyond game mechanics. All the other elements in the game, like
visual style, music, animation, story, colour, camera framing,
and so on - those all create aesthetics too. (Just, without the dynamics bit). For example, Dead Space composer Jason
Graves said that EA originally requested a predictable sci-fi soundtrack for the
game - full of electronics and drums. "After we did that first little
piece of gameplay," says Graves, "EA came back and said that
it wasn’t scary enough. The music made players feel heroic,
and they wanted them [to feel] scared." And ultimately I think games are most clear and coherent when absolutely everything
is pointing in the same direction. Jenova Chen says "all the elements have to
sing the same notes to make the impact strong". Perhaps the best example of this
- for me - is DOOM, from 2016. It also had a strong vision statement
- in this case, "push forward combat". And pretty much everything in
the game supports this statement. You can see it in the game mechanics
- from the rapid movement speed, to the way you pounce on enemies to get health,
to the way certain demons are told to run away from you - every feature pushes you to race
towards enemies like an unstoppable predator. And that's supported by the non-game
elements, like the heavy metal soundtrack, the violent animations, and the Doom
Slayer's visual design and personality. Of course, none of this as easy as
I'm making it sound - and there are so many other considerations
to make when designing a game. For starters, a game isn't just one mechanic - but hundreds, perhaps thousands if
you want to go super granular. My interactive video essay, Platformer Toolkit, shows how a single character can be defined by
dozens of distinct stats - which could change the game from feeling like Inside,
to feeling like Super Meat Boy. And these mechanics interact, overlap,
and can even undermine each other. In The Callisto Protocol,
you have very limited ammo, which is intended to make the player
feel underpowered and fearful. Buuut, you also have a one-button,
insta-kill stealth attack with a slick animation - which can make
you feel powerful and unstoppable. Also, while you can make best guesses about how
a player will act in response to a mechanic, you can't know for sure until
you do a lot of play-testing. Players might misunderstand or ignore a mechanic
- or do something completely unexpected. Sometimes that's a fun, emergent behaviour
- like the flying cars in Rocket League, which suited the vision just fine,
and so could be kept in the game. But at other times it can create degenerate
strategies that undermine your emotional goals. Going back to Alien: Isolation, the
automatic checkpoints meant that if you got jumped by the Xenomorph, a
smart strategy was to just beeline it towards to the next checkpoint,
get killed, and respawn in safety. Furthermore, sometimes you want to have different
emotions, at different times in the game. And so will need to change
the mechanics accordingly. If the story depicts a character who
starts out weak and naive - but ends the game feeling competent and powerful, how could
you reflect that growth in the game mechanics? And finally - and perhaps most importantly
- aesthetics are, ultimately, subjective. A scoring system might make one player feel
competitive - and eager to replay every level. But it could make another player feel
judged - and eager to get a Steam refund. Time pressure might feel fun and exhilarating
to one person - but anxiety-inducing to another. And this is often related to skill and ability. Take the new Tango game, Hi-Fi Rush:
it clearly wants you to feel like a rockstar as you brawl along to the beat -
but as someone with zero musical ability, I just felt like a bumbling idiot. At the end, I’ll recommend a video about
balancing a fantasy with differing player skills. So, going back to Alien: Isolation - the team
eventually tried a different save system. Something closer to older games. Now the game features a small number of save
points that you have to operate manually. And - to make things worse - it takes
a while for the save point to turn on, and for your game to actually save... giving the alien a chance
to sneak up and kill you. And this new mechanic changed
everything - completely altering the player's behaviours and emotions. "We were afraid," says Napper. "If we didn’t make it to the save point and
successfully save, we would lose our progress. Saving became tense. Looking for a save became tense. The simple act of saving had become supportive to the game's
driving factors of terror and isolation". So - it's fine to borrow game mechanics -
but you need to understand why they work. MDA is a powerful tool for this because
it helps us predict how a game mechanic will make players act, and make players feel. If those feelings compliment the
vision for your game - then awesome. If they clash, then they probably need to go. Because, when it comes to picking, pinching, or
producing game mechanics - you should listen to Shovel Knight studio Yacht Club Games, who says
"it depends on the game you are trying to create, the emotions you’re trying to evoke, and the
experience you want your players to have". Hey, thanks so much for watching! This
video was originally given as a lecture at universities in London,
Breda, Boden, and Skellefteå. If you'd like me to visit your school, please get in touch - you can find
my email in YouTube's about section. I'm also going to GDC next month, so if you
see me - say hi! For now, though, click here to watch that video about delivering a specific
fantasy, to players of different abilities.
