Week 3 Reading Notes - 'Formal Abstract Design Tools'

Game designers can discuss a game and say if it’s either fun or not fun, but they rarely describe things any further than that, and game designers must go deeper if they want to make a good game.

Doug Church makes it clear that there are a lot of complicated theories used in Games Design, and for every games designer to have an equal understanding of these theories, there must be a set of standardised terms used to describe them.

He describes these terms as tools, “Formal Abstract Design Tools” (or as he refers to them, FADT). These tools are used to create a framework of a game designer’s vocabulary and they can be used to create games. These tools, however, are not there to be made into a game themselves; they are to be used by the game designer to make a game. After all, they are tools.

“Formal” tools describe terms which are very precise, they have a concrete meaning and it would be easy to use these to explain something to another person, without them misinterpreting it. As an example he uses the term “player rewards”, which works as a formal tool because it’s well defined and explainable. “Abstract” tools are used to describe ideas which are not specific to any genre construct. Doug uses the description, “cool stuff,” as an example, as “cool” is not a precise word and people can interpret it differently.

If you research any game, you will be able to find and pick out specific tools which are used to make the game good, and you can also find ones which make the game seem worse. In this article, Doug uses ‘Super Mario 64’ as an example because it was a very well-made game which appealed to a very wide audience.

The first tool he looks at is ‘Intention: Making an implementable plan of one’s own creation in response to the current situation in the game world and one’s understanding of the game play options,’ by this he means the ability for the player to plan ahead. In Super Mario 64 it is possible for the player to choose their own goals out of a wide range of goals given by the game designers. These goals can all take place on small or large time scales, and have a different effect on the game’s overall outcome.

The second one is ‘Perceivable Consequence: A clear reaction from the game world to the action of the player,’ this basically means that when the player does something wrong, they know why they went wrong and how to prevent it on their next try. If there is an encounter in a game that leaves the player feeling confused as to why it happened, this could be seen as bad game design.

These two simple tools that were found in Super Mario 64 can be used throughout different games as well. Perceived consequence is used often in RPGs, with plot or character development. The Intention tool also comes into play, but it still goes wrong, an example used would be a fork in the road where players must choose a direction. When the player chooses a path, they have an encounter with bandits and you take a penalty for it, but the problem with this is that the player did not know what their decision was changing in the game world, this lack of knowledge may be upsetting to the player.

Though this is done a lot, it is often a sacrifice made to give the designer greater control over the narrative flow. This in itself brings up another abstract tool, “Story: The narrative thread, whether designer-driven or player-driven, that binds events together and derives the player forward toward completion of the game.” So basically, story refers to any narrative thread that is continued throughout the game. Though stories are used to great effect in most adventure games, you will find this design tool is used in all games, even without the player realising it. Doug uses ‘NBA Live’ as an example, because although there is no scripted story created by the designer, the outcome of the game itself is a story the players have created simply by playing the match.

Doug talks about using multiple tools: cooperation, conflict and confusion.  Adventure games don’t usually have much intention or perceivable content, but this is for the benefit of story. By taking control away from the player, it allows game designers to script lots of little moments which are powerful for players, sometimes even more so than the gameplay itself. The more a designer wants to cause particular situations, the less control they can give the players. Each tool must be chosen for each task specifically; you can’t just push in all of the design tools and hope an amazing game will pop out. One good example of these sacrifices is the Final Fantasy series, as they have always been very story-orientated, which takes away the players controls in exchange for gripping and immersive stories; Doug describes SquareSoft games as essentially “storybooks.” So designers must choose which individual tools they want, and focus on them; they can’t just try and add too many tools or all of them will be very underwhelming.

‘Tools as a vocabulary for analysis present a way to focus on what player experience the designer wishes to create’. Games are not books or films, or any other form of media. The tools used in those forms of media are used so that the designer can manipulate the viewers or readers, and make them react exactly the way they want them to. In computer games design, the most important tools we need to remember are ones that allow the player to make their own decisions and explore the vast worlds we create without a great mass of limitations.