Levelling

Gut Feeling

The further I go into the minutae of designing a game, the more I realise how little anyone else knows about designing. What I mean by that is there are no hard and fast rules. I’m convinced the collective useful wisdom on game design could be fit into a few spare paragraphs, and even that can be summarized with one sentence: Trust Your Gut. Everything in game design is subjective - utterly. All you can do is weigh up the options, listen to the arguments, and then back your own feelings on what will make a good playing experience. In the end your gut feeling is all you’ve got.

It used to be (and at some places still is) that the major prerequisite for entry into the games industry was that you had played a lot of games. The more the better. When it comes to design I can’t think of a better grounding, as all that time spent unconsciously interracting with your own appreciation of fun builds a wealth of experience that directly contributes to your gut feeling on the matter. For years other people - including myself at times - viewed the hours I spent playing games as an indulgent waste. Every day now I’m more thankful for that time, as I make decisions whose consequences are far reaching and affect a lot of someone else’s money, and lots of other people’s time. When everyone is looking at me with expectant faces for an answer on something it’s impossible to know, that storehouse of experience is my only guide.

On another note, the unfortunate flip side of working in the industry as opposed to watching it from the outside is seeing exactly why most games are made. It used to be that games were made because they, hopefully, would be good. Not any more. Now most games are made because they will sell - it has very little to do with whether or not they will actually be good games. Licence games sell, so that is what companies are making, ad nauseum. It’s tempting to complain bitterly about that (and I do sometimes), but you can’t blame companies for making homgenized crap if that is what people want to buy. Well, you can, but the criticism begins on a level removed from fiscal realities, and ends with the reasons for you doing what you do with your life. If people want better games, and novel gameplay experiences, they are going to have to stop laying down cash for mediocre nonsense produced for a bottom line. Both the movie and music industries have proved the creative necessity of original independent sub-industries. I sincerely hope the games industry matures in the same direction.

  posted by monty · at 9:32 pm · filed under Uncategorized