iBonsai: Social Game Design Concept

A few years ago with the success of FarmVille, I had an idea to create a social game that revolved around the care of plants. There are plenty of isometric farming games!! I know, I know but mine is different. I've killed many bonsai trees in my time but it's not for a lack of trying to keep them alive. I'm also a fan of procedurally generated patterns or designs. My game concept marries the two.



I created that mash-up of trees above with the prototype that a few developers and I put together back in January of 2011. I think it's safe to say that we're not actively working on the project, though we had a blast iterating on it back then.

I wanted the game to feel like something put together by the Wii Sports team. Those games do a fantastic job of rewarding the player for very small achievements. It was also important that, though the game was 2D, the trees needed to feel alive with human-like qualities. We made it so trees would droop when the were undernourished or lacked the proper amount of attention. Alternatively when happy, the branches would playfully bounce after being fed or put in good light.

Since I'm not doing anything with the idea, I thought I'd share the quick design document that I put together to get the team on the same page. It's really just the skeleton of a game based off of a few brainstorming sessions. See what you think:

Character Leveling

I haven't found a lot written on this topic. It's something that can easily slip the radar of game design and end up tossed in as an after thought. My goal with this post is to sketch out some of my thoughts on the subject and, hopefully, add to them as time goes on.

I'll start off by saying that I'm all about the Fibonacci Sequence and that we'll touch on this in my conclusion. That said, your task as a designer is to pick the optimum distance between levels to maintain interest while balancing difficulty. To do this, you'll also require something to track progress. Let's call this Experience Points (EXP)! Let's mark a definition then shall we...


What is Character Leveling?

Character leveling refers to a goal & reward model that tracks player achievement through a scaffold of goals. These goals are achieved by a player via accumulating some metric representation of their experience, such as Experience Points.

Tabletop Leveling



The concept of leveling has been around since tabletop games (see: Dungeons and Dragons). Whether we're aware of it or not, video game designers borrow heavily from the oak & paper artisans. Admittedly, I'm no master of tabletop gaming but I can definitely see the parallels.

Here's an example, that I found randomly on the net, from Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) that demonstrates a leveling system for Wizards.



Let's analyze the distance used to describe levels...

Level 1 -> Level 2 is a difference of 2,500 EXP
Level 2 -> Level 3 is also a difference of 2,500 EXP
Level 3 -> Level 4 is 2x that of the former or a difference of 5,000 EXP

A pattern has emerged! We're doubling the prior level to create the distance to the sequent. However, something funky happens when we get to the sixth level...

Level 5 -> Level 6 is a difference of 15,000 EXP... this is only 25% more than the former and, thus, breaks the pattern that was set out before. Why?

First, let's ask the question...

Why bother with levels?

"The answer is that levels provide goals. They give players something to shoot for, so that their actions have more purpose. They give players a sense that their achievements do have effects. Levels use a step function because players like to feel they have taken a step." (Richard A. Bartle, 2003)

Balancing

Bartle shows us that the primary goal of leveling is to get the player to vest psychologically in our game. If D&D maintained a 2x build for their leveling curve, a player would need 640,000 EXP to reach level 10 verses the 200,000 EXP that D&D settled upon. This was no accident. Dungeons and Dragons was/is a multimillion dollar franchise because of its addicting play mechanics. These mechanics were no doubt uncovered via playtesting.

Playtesting is the key to balancing your game. There is absolutely no way that you'll come up with the perfect balance out the gate. You must bring your game to the lab and attempt to break it. This is why Agile development is superior to the waterfall model but that's a story for another day.

Goals & Rewards Concept - Designers don't need to step through levels. We could just base our fame hierarchy or content restrictions on the number of EXP accumulated. Designers could also design boring games... "Step Function" as Bartle describes it, aids in building anticipation.

Risk & Reward

This applies more to the obstacles that the player encounters throughout their pursuit to reach their particular goals in your game and is, therefore, outside the scope of this entry. Suffice it to say that offering multiple avenues for players to speed up their avatar's achievement-growth makes for more interesting play patterns and will, in the end, make your game more appealing.

Fibonacci Sequence



As promised! I've just always been a fan of this pattern.

1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, ...

This is an example of a recursive sequence, obeying the simple rule that to calculate the next term one simply sums the preceding two:


F(1) = 1
F(2) = 1
F(n) = F(n – 1) + F(n – 2)

Thus 1 and 1 are 2, 1 and 2 are 3, 2 and 3 are 5, and so on.
This simple, seemingly unremarkable recursive sequence has fascinated mathematicians for centuries. Its properties illuminate an array of surprising topics, from the aesthetic doctrines of the ancient Greeks to the growth patterns of plants (not to mention populations of rabbits!).

(Thanks MathAcademy!)

I love it for scarcity algorithms especially. But, you could also apply it to an avatar level model. A lot of games, like say Ashron's Call, will use a slowing curve to fit more levels into the upper range of a leveling system (see: Designing Virtual Worlds, p354). You'll want this if you base your model on this sequence.

Reward Schedule

All this talk of levels without much discussion over the means to the end... Let's ponder Experience Points. EXP are the currency that buy players levels. There are tons of ways to award them.

Time on Site/App - Here's a prize just for being here. This is a good idea, as you always want your players coming back. Its best, obviously, to limit this to a slow trickle of EXP. Also, I recommend making sure that the player is active rather than just logged in.

Purse - win a race, battle, or battle of wits... these are all opportunities to reward a player with EXP. How many? Base it on multiple variables:

a) the level of the opponent (if applicable)
b) include a random scaler (such as one based on a dice roll sys utilizing our buddy Fibonacci).
c) style of win
d) duration of altercation
e) tactical prowess

Of course, you can come up with your own factors... Level crafting is something of an organic process. You start off with a lump of clay (pattern of 2x) and slowly carve away until you have a beautiful vase or alien sculpture (Fibonacci sequence with slowing tail curve).

Cold hard cash - Maybe your in this business to make money... You could always allow players to buy their way to the top. You'll need to be mindful of alienating your not so affluent players however.

Social Reward - You can honor large groups of players for organizing and achieving a goal.

Hopefully you get the point. There is no one right way to do it. There are plenty of wrong ways and you'll figure out which they are once you've tested them.

Finally, and just as a side note, refer back to the chart in Tabletop Leveling. Note the varying Class Level Names. I love this... It's much more interesting than grunt lvl 1, grunt lvl 2, etc. Have fun with classifying things. It gives players something to talk about.

Sid Meier's Talk at GDC

Well, not really Sid... Here are some notes that Matt Bowman took while at Sid's talk at this years GDC. I have to agree with a lot of Sid's stances. Some great observations here.

The winner paradox
Keep winning percentage abnormally high. In real life, not everyone wins. Only one of the 25 teams in the NBA can win the championship, but not so in games. The player is looking for a satisfactory conclusion. Developers should make sure players win big and win often. Skew the “winning percentage."

Reward vs Punishment.
Players like to find gold coins. Players are very inclined to accept anything you give them and think that’s the result of their own merit. If you punish bad behavior, the game is wrong, it’s cheating, players think. When there’s a negative consequence, it’s important that the player understand why that’s happening and how to avoid it next time. If you can emphasize that “next time” aspect, you increase replayability. Antime you can plant the seed of replayability, do it.

Also, the first 50 minutes have to be really cool. Let them know they’re on the right track. Cool stuff is happening and even cooler stuff will happen later on. In the first 50 minutes, you almost cannot reward them enough.

Difficulty Levels
I used to think we needed four difficulty levels. Apparently, I was wrong; we need nine. The reason we have these levels is to create a sense of progress. There always need to be more challenges. Desiring to make it to the next level enhances replayability.

You always want your player to feel they are above average. They are doing well, and they will probably do better.

The Unholy Alliance
This defines the relationship between the player and the designer. I’m going to pretend certain things; you’re going to pretend certain things, and together we’ll have fun. The terms of the alliance are as follows:

1. I’m good! (the player). Designers went off track with more and more realistic plane simulations: realistic crashes created the impression “I’m not good, my plane is on fire and I’m falling out of the sky.” Keeping them feeling good about themselves is an important part of the designer's role.

2. Suspension of Disbelief. The player needs to inhabit that character. That’s his part of the bargain. When my wife comes out of a movie and I ask what she thought of it, she says things like “I came out of that movie twice” or "I never got into it," or “never came out of it.” Players need to stay “in it” and designers need to help them.

3. Moral clarity. Imagine you are conquering cities. You have one town left to occupy, you outnumber them and can squash them in a second… but they’re defiant! It would be more realistic if they wanted to surrender and asked for pity. But that would put the player in a moral dilemma—you always want the player to feel he is making the right decision by continuing to play.

4. MAD: mutually assured destruction. The Cold War balance of powers is paralleled in the player-designer relationship. Players can play in all kinds of ways that destroys the experience. Designers can do the same. You need to keep the balance to maintain the suspension of disbelief.

5. Humor/ Style/ Music/ Atmosphere. If you start with lighthearted music and cartoony graphics, then all of a sudden heads start exploding, you’re not living up to the alliance. You don’t want to fool the player. To help the player maintain his suspension of disbelief, you need to consistently keep the player in your world.

Math 101
Often games give odds for the player’s chances of defeating a foe. For example, the Attacker Player has a 1.5 score and the opposing Barbarians have a 0.5. There’s a 3-to-1 chance that the Attacker will win. When polled, however, players thought they should always win when they have a 3-to-1 advantage, but weren’t surprised when they would lose if they were at a 1-to-3 disadvantage. Around 3-to-1 or 4-to-1 advantage, players expected to win every time. So we adjusted the computer to appease the player.

Players felt they could lose a 2-to-1 battle every now and then. But they had a problem if they lost a 20-to-10 battle. So we adjusted, and asked, “Now are you happy?” “Well kind of, but there's one more thing: I had a 2-to-1 battle and lost, which was fine (we went over that). But right after that, I had another 2-to-1 battle and lost again—how can that be!? The computer’s out to get me, obviously!” So we made sure that occurrence wouldn’t happen, and the player was happy.

When something happens that feels wrong (even if it isn’t), we start to lose the player’s suspension of disbelief.

My Bad (errors Meier made)

* Real-time Civilization. When we introduced real-time play with others, the player became an observer of other players. The game’s mantra was “It’s good to be king.” We needed to put the player at the center, so we took away real-time action.

* Rise and Fall. We thought, “Wouldn’t it be great if you are crumbling and just at the last minute before all is lost, you come in and save the situation and then rise again to an even greater status than before?” No. Players would reload at the cusp as things start to go badly. They would never experience the comeback, so Civilzation is a game of progress only.

* Don’t Randomize. Players want to be in control. Whenever anything random happens to the player, paranoia sets in. They feel the computer rolls that random number to make their life more difficult. Random events at a large level have to be treated very carefully. Low level randomization can help things seem more realistic, but if they are large events, players come up with worst possible explanation for it.

* Civilization Network. This network is built on the Facebook platform, and is social. We played with idea of being able to give gold to other players. They could trade or beg or give out of pity if they wanted. What we found was that nobody ever gave gold to anybody else.

Topography of Space

Basis of Spacial Design

A unit of measurement must be defined before you begin construction on a 3D game. So what do you design this metric around? The potential chicken and egg of game design is to design around the avatar or the geography. Consider this from Richard Bartle's Designing Virtual Worlds:

"The religious view of the real world is that one or more deities created it. Normally, the deities put the world together before introducing humans into it (rather than creating both at once or the humans first). However, from the beginning, the deities intend to populate the world, and therefore design it with the humans who will live there in mind.

For the real world, you should decide for yourself which of these views is the more correct. For virtual worlds, discount the first one. Deities create virtual worlds; designers are those deities."

Linear Working Units

As far as my research has stretched, it's best practice to measure via the metric system and, for god sake, use meters not centimeters or decimeters.

That said, here's what I ended up with for MyMiniPeeps at the end of the day:



With this in tow, the sky is the limit! Now you can describe the geometry of interiors, stairwells, doorways, and etc! I definitely do not recommend starting any asset creation until you have decided on and COMMITTED to the bounds of your avatar.

[Note: As you see in my graph, I've left room for bulky accessories. My game requires loads of customization. Yours may as well so remember to plan for them.]

Other things to consider...

Does Size Matter?

How large should a virtual world be? My vote, it should be as large as it needs to be in order to be entertaining. If you build a giant map with nothing to do then you'll bore your audience. If you build a small map and don't shard, then you'll frustrate your audience (not to mention you'll overload your servers).


Speed's effect on Size

We must consider how fast our avatar's move in order to really comprehend how large our world will feel. Feel is different than the actuality of the geometry. Consider this passage also from Bartle:

"Speed of travel affects size: If it takes you half an hour to traverse one virtual world and two hours to traverse another, the former may appear to be smaller than the latter even if it isn't; if you can teleport anywhere, the world will feel smaller still."

This has been an exercise to investigate various ways of capturing a spacial definition. I hope you've enjoyed our journey. Seriously, if you take anything away from this blog make sure that it's this... Plan ahead when it comes to your unit of measurement and your avatar's bounds. You'll be happy that you did.