For those of you who missed part 1 – http://www.create-games.com/article.asp?id=1720

The purpose of this article is to discuss simple things that make video games fun that are often forgotten by video game designers.

By looking at what goes wrong, examples of getting it right, and listing game titles we are all familiar with then hopefully you will better understand why some video games are great where as others double as coasters.

In no particular order – here are another 4 things you need to consider when making a great video game!

1/ Graphics

Whenever somebody mentions graphics they think of $10,000 art programs or purchasing pre-made graphics and glorious rendered 3D models. Yet when you think about the games we enjoy we can talk about systems like the SNES and even the game boy.

What goes wrong:
Have you ever seen a commercial for a game and you think they have used human actors and you fall off your seat when you realise it’s a video game? So you charge down to the street and get this fantastic game with mouth watering art work on the box. You wait through a 5 minute cut-scene of top of the range animation – press the start button – and then you play through a game that makes pong look like a Steven Spielberg movie.

The box art work and cut scenes need to work with the in game graphics. They need to flow smoothly and compliment one another.

Another problem is when technology hinders the game play experience. A video game designer tries to push the hardware and you end up with fuzzy, glitchy or choppy animation (and frame rates). The game should not be compromised for the sake of better graphics. If you want to give them graphics – make a movie. If you want to make a game – then it’s the interactive experience they are coming back for. Nobody wants to pay up to $70 just to see your art work.

Also don’t let your graphics choice hinder the game play. There is a lot that you can’t do in 3D that you can do in 2D (and vice versa). I thoroughly enjoyed Worms (PC) as a 2D game. Then they decided to bring out a 3D game. Suddenly the game play was lost in favour of using polygons instead of pixels. Yeah it was impressive. But it didn’t hold my attention for long.

And then there are the little things like whether or not characters move their mouths when they talk. If characters have limited moves and gestures it just makes the game dull. I’m sick of failing missions in games because I can’t help but to put a cap in boring characters.

Finally don’t make your games too colourful. It was very difficult to spot an enemy in Perfect Dark (N64). Characters need to be clear and different from the environment (unless camouflage is part of the game).

What is the right way:
In Nintendo 64 games they use actual in game characters for the cut scenes. Goldeneye is a good example of this. The transition is very smooth.

With a lot of Mario games you have cute cartoony boxes and title screens so you know what to expect when you press the start button. And during the commercials they show the actual game, and never the cut scenes.

The Sims (2D) evolved into the Sims 2 (3D) and nothing seems to be lost. In fact there will be very few who will argue that the original Sims is better then the 3D version. And with a 3D game there is a massive online community exchanging clothing designs because it is very easy to render custom images onto the character models. This is a great example of updating graphics to better the game play.

And a special mention goes to Super Mario 64. The move from 2D to 3D improved the game so much that there has never been a better 3D platform game – not even a Mario sequel!

Also (as mentioned in part 1) – the character animations is Yoshi’s Island are excellent. Instead of getting bogged down in fancy la de da graphics – Nintendo have opted to use animations to bring the characters to life (before Yoshi kills them !). A fine example of enhancing the experience rather than the graphics.

You don’t need expensive mouth watering graphics to enhance the game experience. The graphics need to compliment the game play.

So don’t think – I want to make a 3D game. Think – I want to make a game.

Good use of graphics: Yoshi’s Island (SNES)
Good move to 3D: Sims 2 (PC), Super Mario 64 (N64)
Bad move to 3D: Worms 3D (PC)

2/ Sound and Music

The days of blip blip blip are long gone. Technology is no longer an excuse for not putting thought into sound and music.

What goes wrong:
I can not play Mario party 7. The music on every level is so bad it is painful. And there is no option for turning it off. If you mute the game then you miss a lot of the game play experience. If you play with sound then you will go insane.

If you do have a music track running in the background of the game – play the track for an hour on end. See how quickly it gets cheesy or annoying. The music track might be OK to begin with but don’t forget that they loop. And the longer you play the game, the more you will hear the music track – again, and again, and again, and again.

If it doesn’t change or vary then you might as well provide a straight jacket with your game because that’s where you will be sending your players.

Also the sound needs to compliment the game. You won’t use ‘Spanish Flea’ for Resident Evil. You won’t use ‘Dance of the Sugar Plum fairy’ for Street Fighter. Think about how it works in movies. The type of music that plays during a sad scene, a happy scene, a car chase (etc…)

Don’t use sound effects if they are not necessary. I watched a power point presentation where they had a sound effect for every single slide point and there was about 100 points on the slide. It got very tedious very quickly. Think about how frequent the sounds will be occurring.

Also make sure they don’t overlap. If you are having an investigation game where sounds in the environment are important – don’t have footsteps.

The sounds need to compliment the game too. There is no point in having a car that sounds like a donkey.

What is the right way:
In the movie Gladiator, the person involved in directing the sound watched the movie with only the background music. Once he felt he was able to feel the mood of the movie with just the background music then he knew he had done his job.

In Super Street Fighter II, Capcom decided to hire voice actors for each character so no character sounded the same. They also hired an orchestra to re-do the music for each level (nerds will be quick to point out they messed up Ken’s level by making the music too soft, and also made Guile sound fruity).

Music and sound may not change the way the game is played like character and level design – but it is very very very important. As much planning should go into sound and music as goes into what are considered the more important parts of game design.

Good sound and music: Super Street Fighter II (SNES)
Bad sound and music: Mario Party 7

3/ Amount of Interaction

What is a video game? Interactive Entertainment. One word is just as important as the another. If it is not interactive then it might as well be a movie. If it is not entertaining then it back to the drawing board!

What goes wrong:
Boring linear games where the environment is just a painted background. What’s the point of trees if you can’t walk up to them and shake some leaves off them? What’s the point of water if you can’t drive past and bump your opponent in the drink?

Don’t write rules to justify laziness. ‘If you touch the water you drown’ can sometimes be another way of saying ‘Do you know how hard it is to create a platform engine let alone one that allows the character to swim!’

Every single time you place an object in your game, think about ways the character might interact with it. Sometimes it enhances game play like when objects on the street can be thrown at enemies in fighting games.

Interaction needs to be fun, but also instinctive. Sometimes it is complex and confusing – especially exploration/puzzle games – “Really? Oh so I have to take the sheets off the bed, put them in the freezer and arrange the ice cubes into the shape of a giraffe to get the wizard key…How did I miss that?”

What is the right way:
If you play the Sims (PC) you can interact with many things. And there are many actions for each object.

If you play Animal Crossing (gamecube) you can shake the trees, push the animals, fish in the water, pull out the weeds, roll snow balls.

At this point I would like to reminisce about one of my many video games sadistic moments. I pushed a character in Animal Crossing under a cliff and dug holes around him so he couldn’t move. I then rolled a snowball up the mountain and pushed it off the cliff onto the character below.

OK so now you realise taking advice from somebody who plays games like that might be a bad idea but at least I was in fits of laughter!

Sure it takes more effort, more planning, more lines of code. But at least people will be playing your game for a lot longer.

Good game interaction: Animal Crossing (gamecube), The Sims (PC)

4/ Freedom outside of traditional game

This is very similar to the third point (interaction) but it warrants its own section. This is about how much you can do that is different to the rules of the game.

What goes wrong:
When ever I am playing a FPS and I meet an ally, I immediately do the following:

1/ Save the game
2/ Shoot the ally
3/ Laugh myself silly
4/ Restart from where I saved because I failed my mission

Some games don’t let you do this. Some games are like the nagging parent or anti-video game campaigner saying ‘No you cant do this. No you cant do that.’

Isn’t how I play the game my business? Isn’t that what I paid a good part of my salary to do?

Every time me and my brother play a video game we a reeling off a list of things about ‘wouldn’t it be cool if you can do this? Wouldn’t it be cool if you can do that’ and the other would always reply ‘No because that would be too fun’.

Just to give an example (and this isn’t a bad game example) in Mario Golf (gamecube) you can do club slots where you get 3 random clubs. For every star you get you miss out on a club unless you get three stars. Nintendo made it impossible to only have one weak club. Now maybe Nintendo felt it would be a disadvantage to play through a par 5 with just a Power Wedge but when you are paying a side game like that then who cares. Its funny because I know if it happened to my brother I would be laughing my butt off. I would be on the green in two as he is chipping his way around a large course and hoping that it takes me 15 putts to get it in.

Don’t make the mistake of telling people how to play the game. In Unirally (SNES) you couldn’t call your characters swear words. That’s for me to decide.

Also the more you can ‘leave the game’ and just explore (for fun or senseless destruction) the better it is and the longer it lasts. If you are making a role playing game – why not build houses or a village that has no relevance to the game? A few treasure boxes to make their effort worthwhile and send them on their way.

However – don’t make the mistake of forcing people to play your game incorrectly. In Carmageddon there were three ways to win the game. Race, smash all the cars, or run over all the people. Obviously racing is the real way and the other two ways are just for fun. Wrong. Because if you don’t smash cars or run over people you don’t get your time extended and the game is unpassable. So instead of smashing cars for fun, you are forced to do it or fail your mission. As we all know when you aren’t winning, the game sucks. Forcing people to do fun things makes what should be good fun a frustrating chore.

When playing football games if you get 5 red cards the other team wins. So what if the other player only has 2 players vs your 11? If they didn’t want to be in that situation they shouldn’t be so eager to press the shove button.

What is the right way:
Give players a variety of ways to play your game. You don’t have to reward them for stupid behaviour but at the same time don’t code it out of your game.

If you have a role playing game, give them side tasks or irrelevant areas to explore. Give them a reason to keep playing after they have defeated the last boss.

In Super Mario Kart (SNES) you could drive through mud and dirt and make your own short cuts. You would never win, but it was still fun. (Then for a reason I will never know every version since just seems to have long linear tracks )

Also I would do the cheat to make my character small, my brother would play as a normal sized kart, and the mission was for me to finish in the top 4 (his goal was to stop me by trying to run me over). Then we would swap. We laughed so hard my mum nearly banned us from playing games because she thought we were up to no good – that’s how fun it was.

Combine this section with section 3 (interaction) and you will see what really makes a game last 3 months. Players should be able to make their own games out of your game. Like Monopoly – every house plays it differently.

Don’t use laziness or how you think the game should be played stop people from having fun. The more freedom you give your players – the more people it will appeal to.

Me, 2 housemates, my brother, and 2 friends all had a code on Animal Crossing (gamecube). We all played it differently.

Good game freedom: Animal Crossing (gamecube)
Bad game freedom: Mario Kart (N64)

So there you have it. Part 2 of making a great video game. As you can see there is a lot of thinking that needs to go into creating a game. I hope I haven’t scared you out of making games, just out of making bad ones.

Also – at this point I will say do not be put off by any ‘bad game’ I have listed. I am using them to illustrate a point only. This is my opinion only and you should always make your own mind up when buying games.

Written down beside me are 30 points on making a great video game. So far we have covered 10 (I was able to merge some together). There will be plenty more parts to this article.

So stay tuned!