Design Principle #3 – Everything is useful

Today is the third of the guiding design principles.  And it is (drumroll please) useful stuff.

I have a lot of hopes and dreams and goals for this game (as I do for every game I work on).  For this series, I want to make it so that everything the player does and encounters furthers the story or their understanding of the world they find themselves in.  The stuff that the player finds or needs in the game will always relate to things that they need to accomplish.  There are several reasons for this.

• This drastically increases immersion in the game world (it does, however, decrease the replay factor)
• It’s a little bit different – there are a lot of casual games out there in which this is not the case and it sets our game apart
• It often weirds me out to have to find random items in a game.  Note:  I have to give mad props to the Katamari games for making random stuff a huge part of the game mechanic/story (it’s really a brilliant design.)

What does this mean for you, dear player?  It means that in Tiger Eye there will always be some reason for what you’re searching for and for every puzzle you’re solving – it’s all “useful”  to you and Dela.

Even the hints will be a useful item – collect enough of them through the game and it’ll unlock some special content!

One Response to “Design Principle #3 – Everything is useful”

1. Cordia says:

   July 11, 2010 at 2:19 pm

   I apparently didn’t read far enough back in the series to catch this. This is so important to me! Building atmosphere is possibly the single most important aspect of a good game for me.

   Another problem I have with the hidden object genre is that it doesn’t feel very “game-like” to me. I like the addition of a timer or some competitive aspect here or there. In most casual games, there is almost no chance of losing, which is a huge draw to some people, but it kind of defeats the purpose to me.

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