Make a better game–limit the player

Published on April 10, 2012 By Frogboy In Elemental Dev Journals

Stardock’s Jon Shafer has a great article on game design that has been spreading like wild-fire around the Internet.

With regards to the strategy genre in particular, restrictions on unit movement is one of the best examples of how limitations can make a game better. The inability of land units to enter water is why ships are so valuable – and just plain cool. Gaining access to new units with unique ‘powers’ is a major motivation for many players. Just like in economics, scarcity is what drives value – the fact that most units are unable to perform certain actions is what makes the few which can so much fun.

Movement restrictions also show that there’s a place for even permanent limits. An example from the Civ series is how mountains became impassable for the first time in Civ 4. It’s a subtle change that very few players would point to as a major innovation, but even something small like this helps breathe life into the map. Instead of mountain ranges being just another part of the map with a slight movement penalty, they suddenly transformed into true barriers that now require serious consideration.

Read the whole thing here.

Comments (Page 3)

JonShafer

on Apr 12, 2012

Rishkith

reply 8

He misses the mark. It isn't restrictions that matter at all.

As Neo says in the second Matrix movie "The problem is Choice". It is meaningful choices that matter and make the game better. To make the choice meaningful, the act of choosing must place restrictions upon the player.

This is why Shooters on rails or any type of "railroading" has a negative connotation in gaming. Restricting a player is a bad thing except when it provides the opportunity to make a meaningful choice.

Yep, the whole point is to make the choices more meaningful, and not less - no argument there. There are indeed many games which put restrictions on the player which don't make the experience any more fun, but that wasn't what I was talking about in the article. My main goal was to address the widely-held belief that "more is always better - period." It is too often overlooked that limitations are what make decisions meaningful. The reason why a powerful ability (or weapon, or unit, or...) is cool is because it lets you do things that you otherwise couldn't have.

- Jon

JonShafer

on Apr 12, 2012

Vallu751

reply 22

Restrictions don't have to increase complexity.

For a simple example, consider a game that has units that can move to any adjacent squares. Then change the rules so that units can only move directly forward, left of right. Movement has been restricted, but it hasn't become more complex.

There's an interesting geeklist on Boardgamegeek about Depth vs complexity. The definitions for depth and complexity in the geeklist are these:

HIGH COMPLEXITY
Ton's of fiddly rules, lots of board maintenance.

MEDIUM COMPLEXITY
Some meat on the bone in terms of system rules that I have to take into account every turn, but doesn't weigh the game down.

LOW COMPLEXITY
Brain dead simple mechanics, silky smooth gameplay.

HIGH DEPTH
My brain burns with all the potential options, and I always feel like there's something more to learn from playing.

MEDIUM DEPTH
Usually it's not too hard to choose from a few different strategies over the course of the game, and a few tactics on any given turn.

LOW DEPTH
Moves are always painfully obvious, not much decision making, game plays itself.

That is an excellent post, thanks for sharing it here! While not always true, a good rule of thumb is that:

* More mechanics and 'stuff' (e.g. units) add complexity to a game.

* The limits you place on those mechanics and stuff is what adds depth.

- Jon

Tasunke

on Apr 12, 2012

Probably high depth and medium complexity would be, perhaps, my favorite choice

Good 4X game -> High to Medium Depth and Medium complexity.

Good Board game -> High to Medium depth and Low complexity.

feelotraveller

on Apr 12, 2012

Tasunke

reply 33

Probably high depth and medium complexity would be, perhaps, my favorite choice

You must have read my mind.

Grizzyloins

on Apr 12, 2012

feelotraveller

reply 34

Quoting Tasunke, reply 33Probably high depth and medium complexity would be, perhaps, my favorite choice

You must have read my mind.

same here

Rishkith

on Apr 12, 2012

Jon Shafer

reply 31

Yep, the whole point is to make the choices more meaningful, and not less - no argument there. There are indeed many games which put restrictions on the player which don't make the experience any more fun, but that wasn't what I was talking about in the article. My main goal was to address the widely-held belief that "more is always better - period." It is too often overlooked that limitations are what make decisions meaningful. The reason why a powerful ability (or weapon, or unit, or...) is cool is because it lets you do things that you otherwise couldn't have.

- Jon

Understanding the intent of your article now, I would rate it a lot higher because you did make a good counter-argument to "more is better".

RogueCaptain

on Apr 13, 2012

Thriving under limited options calls for organization and creativity. Most games are so rigid they often don't allow much of either for the player.

Here's my little roguelike story to give an example. Remember Nethack? To begin, I was dungeoneering along the early levels as a stealthy elf. Along the road comes a nice hefty (unidentified) weapon. One of the features of Nethack basic is identification is not readily available at the nearest store like other games and removal is inconvenient at best. So that leaves things mostly to a lot of trial and error. I want to equip a sword but I could get really screwed over as curses are painful. What to do? Upon looking around, I see there's an unarmed orc down the next tunnel. "Eureka!" Just what I need, a crash test dummy. The questionable weapon gets laid down on the ground and I get to sit back and listen to the response. As feared, blood curling screams followed by a message stating the sword is fused to orc's hand. "Whew!" Better him than me.

So here a disadvantage was turned into an advantage. I actually stocked some of the worst, most hazardly toxic, dangerous cursed items just so I could exploit them through charity to the enemy. I wish I could see more choices like this in modern games. FFH2 did had some.

JonShafer

on Apr 14, 2012

Rishkith

reply 36

Well I have no argument with that either. The problem for me is too often I've seen the argument made that dumbing the game down is good to appeal to lots of "casual" players. This is the bad solution some developers take lots of meaningless complexity fails.

Understanding the intent of your article now, I would rate it a lot higher because you did make a good counter-argument to "more is better".

Glad to hear your view of the article has improved. Yeah, many games do have the goal of simplifying in order to appeal to a larger market. That's a business decision though, and I'm (fortunately) but a lowly a designer so my focus is purely on what makes a fun game.

- Jon

Cruxador

on Apr 15, 2012

Frogboy

reply 11

What he's talking about, and I agree (Even though it demonstrates my weaknesses as a designer) is that choices need to matter. Don't have lots of choices of ambiguous meaning, have fewer choices that have very obvious meaning.

To this day, the formula in Galactic Civilizations II for determining approval rating on a planet is an incredibly complicated formula because there are so many things that come into play. It's a bad design.

In Elemental: War of Magic, we tried to have too many things have meaning and you end up with bland.

In Fallen Enchantress, by contrast, it's fewer choices but they are distinct and meaningful.

I don't entirely agree with this. First of all, the primary things that made WoM bland were homogeneity and a failure to incorporate lore into the game.

Second, making everything simple isn't always good. You want the core of the game to be intelligible, sure, but that doesn't mean every mechanic should have a clear and simple formula. The core of the game should be intelligible, but the player doesn't need to understand the entire backend. This is a computer game, not a tabletop game. Those formulas are hidden so you can do a lot more with them, and you can divorce the lore from the math. The player understands that building a new entertainment facility makes people happier, and that's good enough for general purposes. If you make everything too simple, there's nothing left to the game - once you understand everything you've already "beaten" the game and there's not much left to do in it.

StevenAus22

on Apr 15, 2012

I think an example of a case where you know the core mechanics, but there are some things you have no control over and you don't know everything at the start (and some things might not ever be known), would be Conquest of Elysium 3 (at least that's the gist I get by reading the game manual).

Astax

on Apr 23, 2012

I thought I pop in to say that I do agree with a lot of what is said in the thread. I also agree with what Jon Shafer has said thus far.

More often than not lack of such restrictions can be attributed to trying to cut corners. Once you place a restriction on a unit, you must code all kinds of stuff to go with these restrictions, including the dreaded AI.

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