Game Design as a sentence.

Creating a game and writing a sentence is not very different. The analogy can be strange but I hope by this end of my post you will understand what I mean. Sometimes new idea comes form verbs !

When designing a game you're giving players some actions to do. Those actions are none but verbs. Every game mechanic can be reduce to an action verb. For example in a shooter the player can move and shoot. In a strategy game the player builds and expands his territory. In an RPG a player fights and explores a world. What is the link between all those examples ? They represent what is called the CORE MECHANIC.

The core mechanics are the fundamentals actions that the player has to do. Just like in a sentence, the verb is the main part of it. Yes we can understand a sentence without a verb thanks to the context. But since games are interactive medias they require players to DO something. It requires an action from the player otherwise the game will not play by itself or It won't be a game anymore.

Back to the sentence. A sentence is composed of a subject, a verb and a complement. Our game is composed of the player doing something for something. When designing a game the subject is the Player, the verb is our core mechanic and the complement is the goal of the player.

Why is it important to keep this in mind? Because when you have a game idea and introduce it to a publisher or other people to bring them into your team, to turn them into supporters and later on to costumers, you have to describe your game in one sentence. If you can't explain your idea in one sentence then you probably need to work out the problem.

Every design you make can be reduce to action verb. Adverbs allow you to extend the player experience and create different gameplay scene. For example in a platformer the player will jump (core mechanic) higher (second mechanic). In one gameplay he will have to jump over a standard gap but later on, he will have to jump higher to grab a high platform to climb on it.

Every gameplay scene or gameplay atelier (and game mechanic) can be reduced to verb and adverbs. One way to get new game idea is to look at a list of action verbs and imagine what you want your player to do in your game.

I'm currently working on Shattered Moon. To illustrate my post I'll explain my game in one sentence.

Player flies jump through levels, avoid dark environment while collecting moon shards to repair the moon.

And It boiled down to :

Flies jump → core mechanics  (no ground, platformer)

Avoid → second core mechanic (dangerous killing obstacle)

Collecting → short-term goal (grab a lot of object while playing)

Repair → Long-term goal (save the moon form destruction)

In a long version :

Shattered Moon is a level-based flying plateformer in which your enemy is the environment. All the land has turned dark because of an Evil Entity who is devouring the moon. Collect moon shards as you wander into the bright side of the Moon to find the machine that will eradicte the dark entity.

Thank you for reading this.

Jérôme - Goomba

@84Gamestudio

Here an image

source: imgur.com

Feel free to check out the demo:

Shattered Moon Demo (beta 0.7.1)