Design Blog

I love games. That’s why I get so much joy out of making them. I’ll play anything from solitaire (perhaps the most successful casual game ever) to the latest shooter.

Lately, I’ve been playing Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, Civilization IV, Borderlands, the Halo: Reach beta, Social City (although, my city has fallen into shameful disrepair) and… minesweeper.

Apparently, I’m a sucker for strategy games and sequels. :P And it looks like I need to rotate in some more casual games. :)

What are you playing?

Will you suspend your disbelief for us?  It is critically important that you, the player, feel immersed in the world that Marjorie has created and we’ve put into game form.  The choices made by the art team and guided by the art director are clearly some of the highest impact ways to make a player feel like they’re part of this world.  The way I promote immersion is through what the player will find and how they interact with the game.  The Dirk’n’Steele-verse is a little magical, it’s a little bit fantastical.  And, hopefully, the player will find that in the puzzles that they encounter.

The goal is for the player to be in a world that they can accept.  The Dirk’n’Steele-verse is a contemporary, modern one which means that we need to make it realistic and familiar.  Fantasy or sci-fi universes have their own sets of constraints or needs to make it feel “real.”  Luckily for us, there are bits and pieces in Dela’s world that are a bit different than our world:  Ancient warriors coming out of tiny boxes or being able to manipulate metal with one’s mind, for example.  That keeps it interesting for sure!

So how can we go about not breaking the illusion?

This may seem a bit contradictory, but a designer that I highly respect once told me “the players know it’s a game, Mari.”  Which seems obvious, but sometimes I’m so close to the project that I forget that (maybe I’M too immersed in it).  As long as there isn’t anything that’s TOO broken (ridiculously magical physics, inconsistent continuity, stuff like that) players will suspend their disbelief a little bit (maybe give us/me the benefit of the doubt) and as long as they’re having fun, they’ll keep playing the game.  It all comes down to fun, again.  But, isn’t that why we play in the first place?

It seems that we have some people on Emma Ward’s heels.  Maybe you can help her twin sister, Ainsley, find her!

Go here to start the adventure:  http://bouldersandboatsadventures.com/

It’s interesting to me that while the gaming and romance book fandoms aren’t typically considered overlapping interests, they do face similar stereotyping from the general public.

I guess I can be considered both a gamer and a romance reader – although, I don’t have the honor of being considered “hardcore” in either.  I’ve been a gamer much longer than I’ve been a romance reader, however.  And a large percentage of PassionFruiters are gamers.   So, we understand that segment of society pretty darn well.

Even being a novice romance reader, I’ve found the stereotypes for both hobbies distasteful as I’m sure you have if you consider yourself in either (or both) of these two categories.

Offensive Game Stereotypes:

• All gamers are young/teenage single males
• All gamers live in their games, not the real world
• All gamers cannot control their impulses
• All gamers and videogames are violent
• All gamers want a girl with unrealistic boob-jiggling animations
• All gamers are incapable of any kind of social interaction

A couple links to peruse to incite your gamer nerd rage:

http://kotaku.com/5103011/boys-hang-kitten-with-game-controller-sheriff-blames-gta

http://kotaku.com/5513019/educator-claims-damning-evidence-against-games-offers-little

Offensive Romance Novel Stereotypes:

• All romance readers are older single females
• All romance readers live in their books, not the real world
• All romance novels are all about the sex
• All romance readers want a man who doesn’t exist
• All romance readers are incapable of having a healthy relationship

A couple links to peruse to fan the flames of your reader anger:

http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/index.php/weblog/comments/huffpo-books-disses-romance-stupid-to-solar-power-conversion-to-come/

http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/index.php/weblog/comments/what-romance-readers-want/

There are a lot of similarities in inaccurate stereotypes (although, there’s going to be overlap with any kind of hobby that people are passionate about, I suspect.)  Even though I may be a gamer and a romance novel reader, I haven’t killed anyone and I know the difference between a fictional character and a real person (shocking, isn’t it?)  And I’m no outlier – I would even hazard a bet that you, the reader, don’t fit the above stereotypes, either.

The ability to appreciate the trials of our potential fans seems to be another reason why Tiger Eye should be able to cross genres successfully.  At PassionFruit we understand games and gamers and how they’re falsely perceived (and have been through the short history of the media.)  So it’s not exactly a leap for us when romance readers expect (and deserve) to be shown a little respect and we get it when they want their entertainment of choice to be shown the same courtesy.

Two words for you – “mission accepted.”

The game industry is sometimes vilified as catering only to some mythical, insanely violent male audience. If this is the case why would we go so against the grain to make romantic games for women?

For one thing Casual Games are geared towards non-hardcore players who also happen to be predominately female. It’s a not-insignificant portion of the games industry and seems to be growing. But I really doubt I have to tell you that.

And honestly, this isn’t new territory for us as a team. Our team already worked at Her Interactive – one of the pioneers of games for girls. So, romance games are just us continuing the legacy of making fun titles for an oft-ignored segment of the population.

Besides, gamers and romance novel readers are very similar in one big way. Both groups are often vilified for no good reason – which I’ll cover in another blog.

I’m sure you’ve seen the stories about the Amazon and Macmilian e-book price wars from a few weeks back. DRM and some other issues have also come up in relation to it.

http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/108818/e-book-price-increase-may-stir-readers-passions

http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2010/03/02/the-value-is-not-just-in-the-content/

Are you an e-book reader/buyer? How do you feel about e-book pricing – do you want a set standard or are you comfortable paying for a “hardback” version? What about DRM – are you vehemently against it, just kinda meh about it, or viciously for it?
I’ve seen arguments like this in the game industry (mostly it’s about DRM), but now that PassionFruit is straddling the line between romance novels and games I’m very interested to see what our players think about this controversy in the book publishing world.

A wise, sometimes controversial, and well-known game designer once told me (over an impromptu breakfast at GDC), “One of the most important lessons I ever learned was that you don’t have to be an expert in everything.”  The designer creates and guides the overall vision of how the game should PLAY (not the way the game looks, not how big the game is, not how robust the code is) and consults experts in different fields to get phenomenal results.  And it works.  Allow people to do their jobs and they’ll shine.

This is seriously one of the most important things in making a great game.  If everyone on the team is invested and feels ownership of the game, then the final product can be truly inspired (I’ve seen it happen before and I’m seeing again in Tiger Eye.)  Also, no one is an island and having specialists give constructive feedback just makes the design more fun and, frankly, much, much, MUCH better.

My team tests the game and creates what I’ve designed.  The producer, art director, artists, programmers and testers (this includes beta testers) all act as the hands and eyes and minds that make the whole better than the sum of its parts.  Seeing a puzzle or story element that I thought would be cool become even more awesome than I ever could have imagined is really special.  It’s a magical process that I never get tired of experiencing.

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!

So, I’ve read Dirk and Steele.  I’ve read some Harlequin stuff.  I’ve read the first in the Mercy Thompson series (thanks to a local paranormal romance reading group.)  And, of course, I’ve read the entire Twilight series (and saw the movies at the midnight release… yeah… I’m one of THOSE.)  So, do you have any other suggestions as to what I/we should read or watch here in the office?  What’s the cream of the crop as far as paranormal/urban fantasty romance is concerned?  Any media is welcome!

Guiding design principle number 2 is incorporating story into all aspects of the game. It’s important that the player feels like they have a purpose in every part of the game. So, every level should tell a small story. This directly affects the logic and sequential steps that I design in to each scene.

For example, when the player first finds the Riddle Box – they literally have to put a story together in order to obtain it. Or it could be a series of puzzles strung together – perhaps the main character needs a key to their hotel room, but the hotel manager is required to authorize the key. However, the manager is taking care of other business or another problem, so the player has to figure out how to get the authorization (perhaps find and forge the manager’s signature) or solve the manager’s problem (in order to free them up to give their authorization). In the end, the player gets what they need and we’ve learned a little bit more about the world and the hotel manager in the process.

While completing these scenes, the player is directly interacting and facilitating the events in the story. They’re not just a cog in the machine, and I think that promoting that feeling helps the player feel more invested in what’s going on and makes the game mean more to them on a personal level.

I also like to throw in little nods for fans of the series (keep an eye out for little pieces of Dirk and Steele-isms) and foreshadow later elements of the overarching story.