Planck Dev Diary #11: Games, goals, and numbers
Saturday, April 23, 2011 at 9:14AM I’ve written before about the importance of the playtesting process, and at Shadegrown we try to use it as a way to inform our game design. Today we have a concrete example of that happening in our new Scored Mode.
To learn about where Scored Mode came from, we need to dial back the clock a bit and look at the genesis of Planck. The basic mechanics of the game were put together with the goal of creating an experience where crafting a cool music track via gameplay was the main reason why people would play. In other words, the moment-to-moment flow was its own reward.
One of the biggest feedback points we got, however, went something like this: “This is cool, but what’s my goal? What’s the purpose of the game?”
So we spent some time wrestling with the question of whether or not we should give players an explicit “purpose” to the game. We didn’t want to encourage the idea that there was a right way or a wrong way to interact with our interactive music systems. Conversely, we didn’t want Planck to be just a “toy” and not a game, too (and most ideally, it could be both of those things). It was clear that a lot of people wanted, or even needed, a goal-oriented framework to guide their experience.
Our first serious attempt to address this issue was through the implementation of various achievements strewn across the level. The problem, however, was that the achievements were dependent upon already knowing the mechanics– we would tell players their goal would be to “unlock all the blue motes,” for instance, before they really knew what unlocking motes was.
What’s a simple evaluative goal that can be understood instantly? Well, that’s obvious: a numerical score. But we were actually a little hesitant about just throwing in numbers. Scoring, we thought, might be too extrinsic of a reward for players, making them focus on earning a larger number at the expense of enjoying the journey as its own reward.
The nice thing about organic development is that we can try things even if we have doubts about how they’ll work. After several rounds of iteration on the scoring system, though, I’m happy to say we all like the result quite a bit. There’s a fundamental hook to “keeping score” in the human brain that’s impossible to deny.
Lastly, the freeform exploration we originally envisioned isn’t going away, either. To accommodate both, we plan to offer two flavors: “Scored Mode” and “Free Mode”. Scored Mode is more like a traditional game, designed to reward mastery. Free Mode is Planck in its unadorned, toy-like form: our mechanics, there for you to play and experiment with as you see fit.
Reader Comments (3)
This is a situation we ran into in our own game (Zombie Minesweeper), and since I've seen it coming up repeatedly. The problem is I see it is that while many smart people have broken up players into all kinds of distinctions (Bartle profile, BrainHex, 4 Keys, etc.), generally we only target one or two of these in our games, especially as indies.
But at the same time, we are always looking for ways to make the game appeal to as many people as possible, to not exclude, to make sure everyone from our playtester sample has a good time. And so this trend I'm noticing is that we seem to break our playtesters into two camps for the sake of convenience. In your case, it was "Those who are motivated by score, and those who are motivated by creation." In ours, it was "Those who want action, and those who want puzzles." Another one I see a lot is, "Those who want punishing challenge, and those who want to be carried through the story."
Whatever the case, we as a group gravitate towards the solution of game modes. This is neat because it's both perfect and horrible. The benefits of it are obvious, that's why we keep going to it: It's technically simple to achieve, it's obvious to players and designers what's going on, it manages expectations, it satisfies our criteria.
But I wonder if it's not a red herring, also. So we see a split in our audience, and assume that we are supposed to serve both halves to gain the most benefit. But in the worst case, a person can end up creating two whole games, cleverly joined by a main menu option. Even in the best case, one tends to dilute the intention of the game in order to 'fit in' the other perspectives.
Is there a better way? Should we instead be discarding one half of that split, and looking to broaden the other half by serving a greater number of like-minded people, rather than two smaller groups of unlike-minded people? When I say it like that, it seems obvious, but of course in practice it's not so simple...
Excellent post, Graham. I've been pondering this lately in my own game. We have the "those who are motivated by exploration" and "those who are motivated by optimization (speedrunning)" camps. Where possible I try to appease both... for example, a static level may be fun for the speedrunner because he gets to optimize stable paths, but it is boring for the explorer. A more 'dynamic' level that includes randomization is more fun for the explorer, but frustrates the speedrunner because things happen outside of his control that affect his time. In the end, we have to find middle ground that both can enjoy.
What you're suggesting is to NOT find middle ground, to choose one camp and run with it. I admit it sounds appealing, but I wonder if it would be financial suicide for an indie. Do you get diminishing returns by focusing on one camp? Will you reach more people by having a shallow covering multiple camps versus a deep covering of one? Good points of discussion!
Also, Matthew... that trailer is so sexy. I'm loving the game more and more each trailer I see. Keep up the amazing work!
@sinoth No, like Matthew, we ended up having a menu option and both "Puzzle Mode" and "Speed Mode". I guess what I'm proposing is, is that a local maxima? Does capturing both the immediate audiences yield an easy success that could be out-performed by focusing on a single facet and growing that to capture an even larger like-minded audience? I suspect the answer is "No" but it's interesting to think about.
Your example is also one I have specifically grappled with in the past.
One thing that comes to mind there, that I think is also relevant to the Score aspect of Planck is: Can we help players see what they want to see? I know that I almost completely ignore the score in games if given half a chance (in Planck I will undoubtedly be a 'creative' player), so if the game doesn't try to ram the scoring aspect down my throat, I'm quite content to ignore it and just play. So for example, if score was not a limiting mechanism, and I could 'pass a level' with as little score as I like, then you could have all the points and bonuses you like and I would be inclined to ignore them.
Likewise, Sinoth, if your platforming level has a kind of 'golden path' of static content that allows me to speed-run unhindered, but if I choose to stray from that path even a little, then I'm greeted with more dynamic content, then each player could (in an ideal situation) find exactly what the want from the same 'Mode". It's not so much about middle grounds as it is about helping players focus in on the things they choose and helping them ignore what they don't.
But then this again comes down to 'making two games'. You will spend effort creating all this interesting dynamic content that speedrun players will never see? But perhaps that's the most cost-effective thing to do to capture the largest audience.
In short, I don't know about anything, but it's a fascinating problem. Thanks Matthew for bringing it up. I hope your solution works out extremely well for you! :)