Lecture 3: Where Do Game Ideas Come From?

Key Takeaways

The following content is provided under a Creative Common License. Your support will help MIT Open Courseware continue to offer high-quality educational resources for free. To make a donation or view additional materials from hundreds of MIT courses, visit MIT Open Courseware at ocw.mmit.edu. >> Um, welcome back. Uh, thanks for not dropping the class yet. >> Oh, I got to do that right now. >> Funny you mention that. Uh let's see. Uh just a reminder actually the one big reminder for folks who weren't here on Friday is that we swapped around Friday and Mondays 17th and the 20th have been swapped. >> Yeah. >> In terms of readings and what we're going to do in class. >> Yes. So, uh we're still going to be playing the games on Friday on Friday. Uh but uh the brainstorming activity that we have scheduled for Monday is going to be on this Friday instead. And and then we can flip around otherwise. So um I want to manage to get through the readings. Uh cool. Uh let let's see where should we start? Um so there was D Church article which was on Gamma Sutra and uh if if you're familiar with Gamma Sutra it's or if you're not actually it's a fairly well read news and industry sort of industry news blog for uh for the games industry but largely the digital game industry. Um that particular article I think was originally written not for the website but for the magazine that the associated company publishers for the game development magazine uh and Doug Church is actually an MIT alum uh him and the other article that was read Mark actually MIT alums so that's one thing um so Dr. proposes a a set of tools. Anyone remember what they call the formal? >> Yeah, the fat. >> Yeah. Um so and and uh uh framework which is >> m >> Yeah. Mechanics. >> Yeah. Um and we kind of kind kind of covered mechanics and dynamics on uh uh on Friday and today we have a little bit of time to talk about aesthetics. But the reason why these two essays were kind of put right next to each other was NDA is an example of what uh Duncan was describing for design. Um in fact at the time when NDA came out it was pretty much the only one that caught on. um everybody all the problems that Doug Church lays out in his article about the problems that we don't have a vocabulary that consistent vocabulary to talk about our craft and thus we can't actually improve on it. Um and thus we need some some formal tools to uh that that everyone uses. Uh unfortunately not much has caught up um MDA being one of the few that has um because it you know for a number of different reasons. First of all, it it actually is a is a useful framework. You know, you can think of many many ways to formally look at games, but from a designer, you need to to to think of something which you can actually apply to help improve your games. And MDA actually gives you a uh uh a reason why design is hard, you know. So, if nothing else, designers like it a lot because it says this is why my job is hard. Um, and the reason being you get to control the mechanics, but that's not what you're going for. You're not going for really interesting mechanics. They're really they're going for a really interesting aesthetic. They're going for a fun, engaging play experience. There are Mark uh uh in the MDA paper this eight kinds of fun. And I've asked him about this when he gave this presentation here in in MIT. Those eight were not meant to be comprehensive. they they were meant to be. These are the eight that I could think of at the time. Um and the and Idos had I have a list somewhere where Idos has like a full page of different kinds of fun. Um now different kinds of experiences that people are trying to get out of playing the game. That's what a game designer is trying to get. The only problem is that the game designer doesn't actually control that experience. The game designer only gets to control the mechanics. Depending on what company you are, maybe you have the title of game designer, but you're also in charge of the art. you know, you're also you're actually also the lead programmer. It's possible uh that you also have more control over things than just the mechanics, but most designers mechanics is where is what their job scope is. Um so they they write the the the the rules, the rules interact in some sort of like ridiculously hard to predict way and then you get the experience of playing the game with the aesthetic and you hope that's what you were going for. It usually isn't. and uh and you you know and then you make a change to the mechanics try again and the nice thing about that is that that works really well with iterative design. Um in fact without iterative design it becomes really hard to control this entire process because basically um you're you're two orders removed from the experience that you're trying to create. It's like, you know, um trying to draw on a piece of paper where uh not only can you not see the paper that you're drawing on, uh you're also, you know, controlling the brush or the pencil, you know, tied to a stick or something like that life of it. That's kind of what being a game design is like. Um so, so that's the experience of the game design side. Uh you get to control the mechanics and you're going for some sort of aesthetic. And on the other side, the player is experiencing kind some kind of aesthetic and you know, and they can sort of work their way back. Um, you know, it's like, I'm getting this kind of experience. Um, why am I getting this kind of experience? You know, if you got a particularly insightful game player, maybe you're taking CMS 300, introduction to video game, and you're analyzing games. Um, and you're trying to say, how did we get here? And, and you know, if you're taking this class, you're going to be doing that a lot. You know this game, Heroes Might Magic 3 for instance, you know, you know, uh has give me a particularly, you know, a a sensation. Describe a sensation that you got when you were playing that game that that you recall >> strategic, outsmarting, playing friends, outsmart them. >> So, so, so it made you feel smart. It made you have to think really really hard and everything. So and then you think about what dynamics might have resulted in that you know what what sort of >> fog of war >> huh f fog of war you have to figure out what what is behind the areas you can't see. Yeah, >> but there's some information that you can see that may give you clues. And then you know might actually be be already a mechanic. But you know the idea of there is information that you can deduce even though you can't actually see it. And there's some probability of getting it right uh based on your experience with game. Fall war being one to uh one one game mechanic that gets you there. So you can sort of analyze it backwards and uh figure out okay that's one thing for war gets you. Sometimes fog of war just confuses people, right? That there could be anything behind this corner. I mean, technically Final Fantasy random combat system is like fog of war, right? I don't know if there's a random encounter here. I will walk into it and then oh look, there's slime slimes at Dragon Quest. Um, Final Fantasy 10 slimes, I think. >> Were you in Final Fantasy? >> The Square Enix version is complet. >> Mhm. FL. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You are fighting cake. Um but there is actually a problem. Actually I I don't need to write this down that there is a problem with um well it means no problem. There is an issue that I have with formal abstract design tools and come to the word formal. Um Doug Church uses it specifically to say well it should be sort of serious business right? You know it's formal with a capital F. We're not talking about how cool this game is. You know, we want to be very precise in our vocabulary. We want to be um you know, we want to treat it like this because that's capital that's capital B. However, that the other assumption with the word formal comes from formalism. You you are thinking about the form of the game in a way that if you were trying to apply the same technique to talk about art, you'd be talking about the form of visual art, you know, the form of cinema. Um and uh and that is actually a fairly narrow way to look at something which at a topic that's as broad as a game. Um you are you know it is as if as if we were trying to analyze something like like life heroes might have met and completely ignoring your the fact that you were playing it with friends from French class. You know that would be an example of well that had nothing to do with the game. Well, actually, it probably had a lot to do with how you experience the game. Um, you know, uh, you know, playing that's the rules of chess. There's, uh, and and you could just look at the game based on this rules of the rules of chess. You could also look at the history of chess. You could also look at who you're playing it against. Are you playing against random person or against a dad? You know, uh, big difference. Uh, uh, or in my case, my mom. Um, are you uh, you know, playing it in a club? Are you playing it, you know, against the chess master in in the cupboard square or something like that? Um, uh, what what does this game mean? I are you using the game metaphorically in in speech or, you know, just saying and and and I had, you know, and and my opponent was in a checkmated uh, position. does it necessarily mean that you were playing chess with your with with someone someone else in order to get that point across. Um there's a whole range of different ways that you can look at games even as a game designer that isn't specifically formless that isn't specifically just look just looking at the form of the game. Um just understanding what context people are going to be playing the game in for. So for a lot of the games that you guys are going to be designing this semester specifically uh in this class, you know, you have to think about the fact that a lot of these games are actually going to be played by your instructors uh are going to be played uh in a setting very similar to this by your colleagues in this room. Um are probably going to end up being tested by dorm mates, you know, fraternity f uh friends, uh folks around campus. And all that is going to heavily influence the kind of game that you make. Um, now for for better or worse, you know, you are pretty much making a game for an MIT audience. And we're trying to change that a little bit uh for the last assignment, but uh keep in mind that, you know, you have to be uh that that's not necessarily every single game that you're going to make in the future and that shouldn't be. But knowing that you can try to cater to the audience that you've got for every round. um that has very little I mean in some ways this is going to affect the design decisions that you make in your game. What will be perfectly acceptable to a uh a competitive MIT audience might not be perfectly acceptable to your average board game buyer in Target or something like that um and vice versa. Um, and so what may be a perfectly engrossing game mechanic, dynamic, aesthetic experience that you will get, but just by looking at a formal aspects of a game, you know, this this will be really cool if you understood the mechanic, played it out in the way that create a desired dynamic to give you the aesthetic experience. But if you're if you don't understand the context that you're playing the game, as an example, then uh your player may not even get that part. Your players may may may look at your game say this game is not for me. Yeah. Uh and just walk away. Um it might mean that uh you might I I'm thinking of things like uh we we just had this discussion over lunch about social games that you find on Facebook for instance. Um and a lot of social games I might have already made this point but it has been argued that social games aren't all that social. All you do is really beg and spam your friends. Uh that's the whole point of playing. But in many ways, it's also saying to your friends, we're kind of doing the same thing. You know, we may be separated by time and separated by distance, but we're all doing the same thing. And we we could be playing this game. We could be talking about the show that we that that that that we are watching in our own apartments, but then we get to discuss it. But in many ways, this is just me telling you we're doing the same thing that we're part of the same group. And that serves a function that has almost that that really doesn't have anything to do with the formal analysis of how a game mechanic works. Um but it's still incredibly crucial to the popularity of these games. So uh so that so so so keep that in mind that um even DJ makes this point but I think a lot of uh designers actually kind of ignore that when they read his his essay that it's only one set of tools. the the formal tools are only one set of tools. Even uh there are tools uh at looking at games culturally, personally um uh and uh and other things that that that that you may get in this class and in classes like like CNS 300 um uh that that that will affect it how people experience the game and how much pleasure that that they're running at the game to understand whether your game is doing what it does, right? um that aren't that don't have anything to do necessarily with just by looking at the self-contained system of the of of the game. Just as a side note, um how many of you folks have heard of the narrative versus nudology debate? How many of you are sick of this? Okay. Okay. Um, don't you I'm I'm sick of it too, but I bring it up for one reason that I there is an interesting case that if you actually look at narrat marintology as a study and nudology as a study, they're both formalist studies. And in fact, they're more accurate than more more precise. They're both structuralist, which is kind of if you look at at at at philosophies, it's kind of a subset of formalism or at least a more recent version of of of it. They're both basically focused on these are the elements of this art form and this is how they interact to produce some sort of effect. Um, and all that matters is what's contained in this art form. What's outside this art form doesn't matter. That's what narratology does for stories. That's what dudology does for games. Um, and uh, that's in fact probably why most people who study games have kind of walked away from from from ludology because it's not that interesting to just study what's inside the system. People want to see what's outside. Um, and uh, so when you compare structuralistic and structural structuralism wins, that's that that's one case. Um, and uh, you only have a and and you may not realize that you're actually looking at your game through a very very narrow lens. So try to broaden the range of tools that you've got. You know, this this class is going to give you a small set of them. Uh and it's not by by any means the beyond and all of every single way that you can look at it at at the game. And again, they're not they're not just restricted to the tools that we're specifically teaching you in this class. So keep so keep looking out for new ones. Um >> let's see. Any questions so far? That was my rant. 10 10 minute rant. 15 minutes. Okay. All right. No more ranting. All right. We have a uh activity and do you want to run through? >> Yeah. Yeah. Um Okay. So, I'm going to pass around. This is um my crappy race game. So, you're going to need one one copy per pair. Um, there's also some nifty set of dice. You need one copy per or one dye per character on I just aside. >> And then um each person is going to need three of these poker chips. It doesn't matter what color. So just grab three. >> Um, and then you're going to need a marker to indicate yourself. And I recommend just grabbing any [Music] >> copies. You only need one per Jason. >> So, >> one d for every two people. >> Yeah. One of the six-sided die for every two. >> And then you need markers for yourselves and then bonus markers. And that's what the poker chips are for. >> So, keep the keep the poker chips circulating. >> Three per person. >> Three per person. >> One piece per person. >> Okay. You can use coins. You can use D likeid paper. Whatever you want. I'm a maker with a penny and a crown. >> So, we have three of these. >> Most people. >> How many? Take that. >> If you need markers for yourself, you can try one of the multi-sided polyhedral. [Music] >> Okay. Okay. What now? have what now? >> Okay, I should have used this. >> I'm more well versed in the person. >> I can see defeat. >> Is that even correcting? >> I think you're going to have to die. >> The direct. >> Okay. So, can everyone hold for a second? So, what we're going to ask you to do is just play through this game a couple times. Um, then we're going to come back and kind of apply the MGA framework to the game itself and then if we have time, I think we're going to spend some time tweaking it. Yeah. Okay, cool. So, we'll interrupt you in probably >> uh actually 10 minutes. It's a pretty >> uh Okay. So, I mean >> this is sort of on the fly. >> Yeah. So, so what we what we kind of like to do is hear about I guess we'll just go around the room in pairs and you guys can talk or do you want a minute to talk to apply MTA to this and kind of something so I'm not like calling on you on the spot. >> Anybody wonder what how they felt what the aesthetic of this game? >> There is none. >> People were pretty loud for their crappy race game. >> It felt competitive. >> Well, the thing is it's like very simple aesthetic. So, so in the paper they say you're going to go straight like the player should be using the aesthetic, but here you go straight to the mechanic and you're wondering about it. >> Yeah, I mean the you definitely is easy especially for board games because the mechanics are written down right in front of you is really judge. But how did you feel while you were playing this? I >> think there was a there was a sense of tension. There was maybe a sense of brinkmanship perhaps. There was a a sense of um I mean like there was the intellectual challenge of working out like like is there really a meaningful decision to be made here and if there is like what is what is the correct decision? >> Um >> so so so just put put opinion in the mind of like can can I optimize this? Yeah. Yeah. >> Especially for this crowd. I think this is immediate. Can I figure out what's the right way to play this? >> And and I know you tried to figure it out. >> I think I think he I think he correct. >> He figured it out. >> Yeah. >> So, what's So, is there an optimal way to play this game? >> Yeah. Okay. So, if you're losing, you're going to if you keep putting tokens down, you're going to lose anyway. So, you want to be rolling in order to like increase the variance. Um, and if you're winning, you want to be putting tokens down in order to remove the variance. You can imagine it as like a distribution. Whereas, if you're like below uh if you're like below the winning line, you want to like widen it out as much as possible. So, as much of that distribution is above the winning line. And if you're above the winning line, you want to be as narrow as possible. So, you stay above the winning. >> So, your strategy is basically based on what's what's the current state of the game. >> Yeah. until like the last turn where obviously you don't want to put a token down if you're two from the end. Um like as long as no one can win on this turn. If I'm behind him, I'm putting down a I'm rolling the die and if I'm ahead of him, I'm putting down a token. >> Did anyone like prefer a strategy before you started thinking about what was the best or >> So I was too lazy to use a token, so I would just keep rolling. >> That's right. That's and that but that's also part of the aesthetic of it, right? It's like you just happen to prefer. >> Yeah. Well, in the first six spaces, I mean, you should have got the average if you were all the same. If you put the token down, I personally like being conservative. >> True. >> See, and so that's >> Sorry. Go ahead. >> That is more exciting because it does different things. >> The token the illusion that you're actually >> Did anyone like get to a situation where like really far behind and just like caught up? >> No. quickly. >> Yeah. >> Right. Like the actual difference, one of the things that you do get in this game is sort of perceived distance between players is actually, you know, not that not that far. If what if if the one behind actually has has to do with it then uh I think people refer to this as the American Gladiators effect. >> Yeah. >> Um you know how like American Gladiators you uh uh actually is this your example that I'm stealing here? >> I don't remember. >> Okay. Honestly, >> this someone's example that I'm stealing but >> I think it's in the book at some point but I think we had applied it to >> Yes. Yes. Uh well, I'm crediting someone for this, but I wish I citation. Um so yeah, uh the the the basic idea being you know if who's who's seen American Gladiators or um >> it might be too old. >> I've never heard I don't know what it is. >> Okay. Okay. Um there also a number of different like Japanese game shows which are kind of similar. Did you guys seen Japanese game trips? >> Yeah. The basic idea in American Gladiators is that it's basically an obstacle course where the obstacles are uh h happen to be kind of these like athletic dudes and women who have um who are either pummeling you with buffer sticks or like shooting tennis balls at you gun and stuff like that. And you basically have to get from the beginning to to the end faster than the other teams. Actually faster than than the other players. So, it's two regular dudes, a bunch a whole bunch of athletes who are throwing things at you. Every time you get a kid, you have to go back a little bit. But the thing about the the thing about American Gladiators is that so you have this long obstacle course. In fact, this was one of the events. This was always the final event of the entire uh of the entire TV show is that um you will you will have two people doing the same course. They would have to climb up a wall and then they will have to go down um uh flying fast a net. Yeah. >> But it was it was like a cargo net specifically. So it was really difficult to climb up it. >> Yeah. It's like this big webbing kind of thing. If you ever try and it's like climbing the rigging of a ship, right? You know, it's like really really difficult your feet. So what happens is that you know you if you have two people who are really really far apart one one person way ahead and that person starts climbing the cargo net it takes that person forever to get to the end of the car coconut because climbing up cargo net is really really hard no matter who you are that gives the person behind plenty of time to catch up uh and start climbing the cargo net. Um but then that the person who wasn't the lead in the first place hits the zipline and all of a sudden there's a huge increase of distance. Um so that this whole idea that they never really were all that far uh they they never really changed their position for most for most uh uh gladiators games. They the the winner has already been decided by that point because first person who reaches the cargo net tends to win to tends to win the match. But it looks like the lead just shrank because suddenly you got both of them in one camera shot. Um, and then you get that huge huge relief that that Mark likes to call that dramatic tension, which I think is a better description than his other term for the same thing, which is drama, because it's not drama. It's just tension release. Um but uh but that's an aesthetic, you know, going for that aesthetic of tension and coming up with a game that makes you feel like a price is closer than it actually is or you know uh or allowing someone to close the gap really really quick quickly because as many of you have pointed out these things probabilistically mean exactly the same thing as a di um let's see um so that's you know but the the the ability to, you know, increase a for for a gap to to to open up and then to close. That's actually a dynamic that's actually a result of a number of different rules that are in this particular game. And um it's not written down that that's going to happen, but it's pretty much going to happen if you have two people playing those particular strategies. And it's one thing that happens pretty often. Um so yeah, that's so that's one to keep in mind. Um What are the constraints that you're seeing uh in the design of this game here? Like like what what was this game what what does this game have to do in order for it to be a viable in-class exercise? >> Fit on a sheet of paper. >> Fit on a sheet of paper. That's a huge one actually. Uh because first of all limits how many spaces you've got assuming everyone's using like something this size or a coin or something. Uh, >> you mean you can I mean you can laugh at that, but that's literally how it went is I wanted it to fit on a sheet of paper and the spaces had to accommodate a die. So the number of spaces is a result of that. >> So 12 was an accident. >> Yeah, but you probably could have fit the square, but you know some margins. >> Yeah, it's hard. Um, see the rules have to fit on one sheet of paper as well. So the rules can't be that complicated. >> Yep. Um most of these rules are single sentences for the most part. Uh it's just that because the college are so small they look really much complicated. >> Um >> it had to be quick. It had to work for 10 minutes. Uh in fact it had to work so that you could get a few games hopefully through within 10 minutes. Anyone only managed to get through? >> Yeah. Okay. that being really hard. >> So, so different aesthetics. Um so you know this this game tries to get it like really really tense but you know obviously the decision that you're actually making in this game you know is minimal that you you do get to to say well if you are already losing then there's really only one r one one one rational thing to do but if you were playing this game as Jason recommended if I was playing this game against myself you know there really is no optimal strategy I could pick two different strategies for each side and because then who plays first basically. >> Yeah. >> Person who plays first is by default on on average. Um and depending game but one >> I'm bad at rolling dice because if you're rolling out right you could it could be bad. >> So um I would like actually folks to uh try mixing this up a little bit. You know pick a rule in here any rule uh and uh and alter it. you know either you can do things like adding more squares you can change the movement chart uh one idea that I had and someone who's taken probability more recent than me which is uh what happens if you use the high of two dice rolls instead of just one uh you know because dashing just a probability and uh play around with that um see what that feels like and uh and if that feels just boring cash need something else. So, um we've got 15 minutes. >> Yeah, it's reasonable. >> Yeah. And then and then you know and then you'll tell you'll tell the class about what you changed and how that changed the feeling you made. >> Cool. >> So, every two people uh uh work with the the team next to you, explain how your game how your version works uh and have the other group play it. Um and what and what I'm going to do after every um and vice versa and what what what we're going to do once everyone's done this is you tell u you will have tell the class what you felt that game well the the other group's game felt like. So let someone else figure out what your game is. >> Cool. >> So uh does uh any team want to just go first describe the the other teams? Um, >> okay. That's studying with you. >> Do you want to like describe the rules they changed? >> Uh, sure. >> Just like So, >> uh, the the the main change in this version was that it's modular, so you have to land exactly on the end or otherwise you wrap around. It it changed the aesthetic a lot because it stopped being like a race against your opponent and it became more of like a a trying to figure out how you can use your tokens to like precision just hit the end. >> Very mathematical. like uh methodical you just like you decided whether or not you're going to stock those things give you more like winning squares and then you just waited until you landed on a winning square. >> So you get into this computational model. >> Yeah. It's not it's not as like competitive. >> So one of the discussions we had was if you had three tokens you would just get to the end because we made our token so you move four spaces. >> Okay. >> But I just realized you have to do the die roll after that. >> Yeah. >> So automatically >> Oh yeah. >> Okay. Anyway, uh let's see. >> Yeah. So, they had a really creative rule where they had a a d10 here. So, if it goes from 0 to 9 and you roll it under a cup and that's the number of spaces away from the end. So, from 0 to 9 that the winning point is okay. >> And in your turn, you can either play normally or you can check to see where the winning point is. If you've won, that triggers you winning, but you cannot win until you physically check and confirm that you've won. So, it eats up a turn, but it could be that after one roll like or two rolls of two and if this was a nine, you've won. And and so there's there's and that was a lot of fun basically because we had yet figured out the optimal strategy, but it was just fun. Yeah, it was. >> So, so what's it feel like when you're like when you're trying to figure out what you're going to do? He's beat me by checking when it was far away and being lucky. >> So if you don't check, you have to reach the end to win. So you have to check usually anyway in that game. >> So So one thing we wish I had in mind when we were thinking about the rule was that there ought to be information that you can get from how your opponent reacts after they look under the cup. So like if they then go and start rolling again or what have you or they then like stop file shift some I don't know. >> Well I mean obviously >> but there must be an abil some way that you can get leaked information from their behavior which makes it kind of interesting in a different way. >> If you have already seen the cup and you get past the point do you have to check to win? >> Yeah. >> Yeah. There are we there are two different variants. One way you didn't. >> Oh I see. >> Well you don't have to check the second time. If you check the first time then you pass it. You win. >> So that's one way of playing. >> Okay. So the person who checks could win even if both of them have passed the point. Am I understand? >> Well, so if he's the first pass a point, the way that we're doing is if if you don't have to check to fit to win. So if you just need the knowledge of what the end point is, then if he passes it first, he wins. If when he checks both players are at that spot, then it's a tie. >> Okay. Um, but since it's a sequential game, it's impossible other than at the moment of the check, if both players are at the same spot, it's impossible for them to hand out at the same time. So, that's not really an issue. >> What if I check and you're past me and you have passed the checks part? >> I don't win. >> Okay. >> I never checked. So, as long as I don't know, I don't win. >> That immediately makes me think of a different variant. Okay. Okay. Cool. Um, so what they did was they had it they introduced a couple new rules. The first rule being that the person who rolls first on their first turn, they cannot put down a token. So they actually have to roll. The second rule is whenever you roll, if you have a bonus, a token on the stockpile, you have two options after you roll. One is you can take it off and move two spaces like normal. The second is you can choose to make that block impassible. And so what this does is you cannot your opponent cannot land on that block. If they are already on that block, they get pushed one uh block back. If they are behind it, they and they roll and they move to that block, they get pushed one block behind it. >> So they're changing the map while you're playing. >> Yes. >> And and how that feels while you're actually playing. >> We didn't actually use that much. >> It felt like a rule. I felt like the penalty for the impassel block should have been more because if you land on the block that they're on and make them move back one, that token would otherwise have made you move forward too. >> So, it doesn't really reward you for that. I feel like if it had if it could have been really awesome uh if the penalty was like significantly more severe because it's hard to like get in front of them enough >> to actually make a block impassible and have them land on it later. >> Um >> Oh, all the way back or something. >> Yeah. >> Yeah, exactly. So yeah, you know, try multiplying it by two and see what happens. >> You just go too forward. >> Yeah. Yeah. And then you're not always going to land on it. >> Yeah. If if if you're like hm that should have changed the game play, but that didn't one the one one one of the tricks in chapter one was, you know, just multi just make it bigger and see what happens. you know, if nothing else, it will it will just give you more information on you know, whether you should be spending any more time with this direction uh or whether it uh you know, it really isn't going to affect the way how people play because people don't end up caring a lot. Uh so the rule of two is just like multiply something by two or half it by two and see what happens. Um obviously hopping by two will not take so long. Okay, who else? So essentially they had these tokens as powerups >> and you would never actually take them off to move more spaces. You would just keep adding tokens and you could roll. So you could spend one turn to put a token on >> and then uh consequent rolls you could essentially say I have n tokens. So therefore I roll n plus one dice and subtract n. >> N + one dice. So I have three tokens. >> You roll and then you roll a dieice for each token you have and then move back one space for each token you have. >> Interesting. >> So it moves your average and your maximum up each time. >> So you could add tokens to power yourself up. >> And you could also remove tokens to take away tokens from the other guy, right? >> Yeah. >> Okay. So we never actually did it wrong. Oh, one thing we didn't realize with uh they I guess we forgot to go over the fact that uh you don't take out all the tokens when you do your special move. They stay in there >> because mathematically speaking, if you take them all, it's just mov uh well that that that's an important object lesson in how to explain your rules to people, but you know uh how it feels there. Uh, it was it made my mind tired being like n + 1 minus n blah blah blah. But it was interesting. I actually used it. Like before I said that I would only use the D, but this time I actually use token. >> And what happens when you actually use the token? Was it like yes or >> like I said like the math made it too hard for me to actually >> Oh, something happened. >> Okay. Well, it made you use the tokens uh as opposed to >> interesting. Okay, cool. Who has any? Yeah. Jason. >> Uh, so the rule that they gave was that if you are behind the player, by by behind they mean if your token if if your piece is like behind the other one, not like >> in losing second place, >> right? >> But but not in the imaginary sense. in the well whatever >> if you're physically if you're physically behind >> if you're if you're physically behind them then when you use a token you get to move one extra space in it. >> Okay. Uh if you can't if you use two tokens you end up getting like one. >> So how so how that feel? >> Uh it actually changed the strategy a little bit because you know in the beginning you basically don't want to be the person who moves first because then your opponent can just use all their tokens and get a lot further ahead of you. >> Oh, I see. >> Interesting. >> Okay. Maybe you want to stockpile tokens and then wait for the other player to get ahead of you so that you can reuse them. You can >> then you just sit at the start line with three tokens. >> But then you're forced to roll. >> So pretty much the person can go second. >> So that's actually a negative feedback loop uh uh which we'll get to I guess in the next class. But you know the the whole idea being if there is a gap between players and you have game mechanics that specifically are designed to narrow the gap uh those are negative feedback loops. You know pretty much >> Mario Kart has >> Mario Kart blue shell is the other direction right is to knock back the the the person who's leading rather than helping you catch up. Um but actually a lot of Mario Kart's mechanics are basically designed trying to reduce the lead. All right cool. Um who has it on? >> Yeah. Um they added one rule keeping everything else equal. They added a second die and then the way it worked was you arbitrarily assign people odd or even numbers and then you roll to see who would go on that particular turn >> and then that person whoever it was assigned to would play and then you would roll again to see who went at the next turn and so forth and so forth. >> How feel? I got I got I got bad memories with Mario Kart. It's like what again? >> Boy like I I many mechanics I just described as very Mario Kart like phenomenon. >> Well, Mario Kart is actually a collection of a lot of fairly fundamental mechanics. But you know describe specific >> I felt like like just rolling to see who went like amplified the sense that you were just playing for luck. >> So it it amplified a randomness basically which which I actually detest personally. >> Well the original game >> yeah that rule is like the initiative rule in Star Wars miniatures and Dungeons and Dragons miniatures. Um, and like in that case where there's like actual strategic decisions to be made, then it's it's actually kind of cool because it means that you never know like whether you're going to be able to capitalize on the position that you were in at the end of the turn. >> That's exactly I was going to say it's like since we both know optimal strategy for the original game just >> if there was harder strategy. >> So it almost becomes like a a gambling game of chance. >> Cool. All right. They added uh different dice you could roll for different effects such as if you rolled the d20 you could uh go 10 spaces if you manage to get a 17 18 19 >> 18 1920 >> or 18 1920. Yeah. >> Um and they added the d10 which also had similar effects and the d8. So Patrick and I pretty much experimented with well he just rolled the entire time >> and I experimented with rolling the d8 from the d10 >> and just choose which one you >> get and you use the d6 as well. Why would he not roll? >> Why would he not roll? >> Yeah, I started feeling impatient. Like I I I would forget everything about Alec and what he wanted to do. And every turn I would roll the d20 hoping to get 18, 19 or 20. >> By the way, with the d20, if you don't roll any of those, you go zero spaces. So that's actually >> you could either win the game. >> I would roll the d20 waiting to get 18, 1920. And not until I rolled the 1820. Would I care where he was on the board? >> You and you. >> It's just you and you and the random. >> I won like twice. >> No, I won twice, too. >> Equal chances, >> which which was slightly different. I mean, like what you described earlier is that, you know, whe whether you're behind or in front of someone changed the way that you play in the original version. This one now no longer really matters anymore, right? It is just you and the dice and and if the universe loves you, you would just automatically win. >> Well, the intention was to have the D20 that if you were like way behind and the other ones if you were only slightly behind, but apparently that's not how it is. >> Well, we have iterative design, right? >> Well, it's a great example of the aesthetic you were going for, not necessarily being the aesthetic that was actually experienced. So, you know, uh it's still a powerful aesthetic. It's just a different thing that >> um I'm going to skip to you. >> Yeah. Sorry about that. >> Yeah. Uh so their new rule was um if you're physically ahead and you roll a six instead of only getting three, you go four. >> If you're physically ahead and you roll a six, you go. >> Okay. >> Exact opposite from >> Yeah. So at first we tried playing it in a similar way to how we did before and it really felt like the person who was ahead was ahead even more and it all everyone rolling because as soon as you roll you get a higher expectation value. >> So so you are more you you prefer to go for luck rather than the >> So the problem is if you put a token down >> then they're guarante they roll at least a one so you're guaranteably going to be behind and then they have a higher expectation. So, so but how how does it feel? I mean, sure, mathematically that that's what it means, but actually in play in the first game, I don't think it actually came up at all. >> So, and then in the second game, I believe it did. And >> yeah, >> I don't know. It to me it didn't really feel like it changed. >> I don't know. For me, the entire time I felt like the person who was head was more ahead. >> It would come up more if your board was longer. >> Yeah, >> cuz you're only encouraged to stockpile for the first few turns. But if you're encouraged more, then you switch. >> Even in games where no one rolled a six, do you feel like it changed your strategy? >> Yes. >> Yeah. It changed >> just it made rolling feel like a better engineer. So >> which was the which was the point, right? That was what you guys were aiming for. >> Yeah. The the alternate rule that we had toyed with uh was that if you are ahead and you put down a token, you have to roll and if you get a sick, you have to move one step back. So like a one in six chance of there being a penalty for a token because precisely what you mentioned which is that when you're ahead, the diamond strategy basically is to reduce the variance. So you're playing with stuff to make you want to roll more basically. >> So So okay. So, >> so dynamically that uh that that tell that that tell tells you ro more uh and uh I think I would say aesthetically you have the whole monopoly situation of the person who's winning keeps winning. Uh and that's you know there are times where you actually want that feeling. Uh especially when it came to the game of of monopoly the whole point of the game was huge financial imbalances and then it's like wow I have no money and I'm just going to keep losing money. That was the point of the game actually. That's why it's called an >> the amusing thing with that is that the person who's physically ahead might not actually be ahead in terms of in terms of absolute gameplay because he might have the other person may have stockpiled >> right >> uh tokens >> and and we weren't sure whether determining who was ahead by counting the tokens in the equation or not was a better game rule if we didn't have enough time to test. >> Give it a shot after test. Um, the one that we came up with was at first we thought it wouldn't change the game at all, I guess, which is basically instead of spending tokens to go forward two steps, you spend a token to knock your opponent back two steps >> and change the >> completely change the game play. I think other people we tried it really what happened is like you stockpile first and then you knock people back and so like you didn't go anywhere for the first like 10 turns and you realize that nothing was going to happen and we just kept rolling the rest of the time. Yeah, but but which is a completely different way to play the game. Yeah. Um that that that whole process of stockpiling right in the beginning is I mean sure we could have both started with a stack of three each because that's really what will happen three turns in but this but the whole act of like >> you know that that felt really like okay clearly you are setting up to kill me. Could you move the very start? >> Huh? >> Can you move? >> No. No. But we we we had it so that it wouldn't be any point spending it uh when you were right at the beginning. But but there was that whole arms race feel that we didn't have any game. Uh so uh we didn't but I mean it all it did really was make the game longer. >> Yeah. >> But it felt mean. Okay. Um that's pretty much it for today I guess. Yeah. So, uh, cool. And we need the poker chips and all the dice back, but you can keep the game boards really fast. >> Yes. >> How long did this game take you to take you to make? >> Um, it took longer to make the board than to make the rules. >> I illustrated going on. >> I know. It's a word document.