HEROES OF ROCK: A DESIGN POST MORTEM EXPLORING THE VIDEO GAME DESIGN PROCESS AS IT RELATES TO PLAYER SATISFACTION.

Transcription

1 HEROES OF ROCK: A DESIGN POST MORTEM EXPLORING THE VIDEO GAME DESIGN PROCESS AS IT RELATES TO PLAYER SATISFACTION By Anthony Ardovino A Senior Honors Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of The University of Utah In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Honors Degree in Bachelor of Arts In Film and Media Arts Entertainment Arts Engineering Program Approved: Roger Altizer Supervisor Kevin Hanson Chair, Department of Film Faculty Honors Advisor Name Department Honors Advisor Dr. Sylvia D. Torti Dean, Honors College i

2 ABSTRACT The player experience is the heart of a video game and it is the core concept behind what makes a video game engaging and fun. For my senior capstone project I designed, produced, and managed a video game titled Heroes of Rock. I lead an 11 person team over the duration of my senior year to create a game for Xbox Live Indie Arcade and it will be released in May In this paper I explore some of the design decisions and design problems that I experienced during the production of the game. At each of these design moments I focused on player satisfaction to come to the correct solution. To inform my understanding of player satisfaction I referenced works on psychology, video games, and gambling. For each design iteration of the game, we play tested the game to determine which mechanics satisfied players and we confirmed our results with design and psychological theory.

3 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT INTRODUCTION EAE PROGRAM PITCH AND SELECTION PROCESS THE CURSE OF THE INPUT DEVICE COMBO SYSTEM VS. BRAWLER ENEMY DESIGN LEVEL DESIGN REWARDS SYSTEM AND FEEDBACK CONCLUSION iii I III IV VII IX XII XV XVIII XX iii

4 I INTRODUCTION For my capstone project I designed and produced a video game for Xbox Live Indie Arcade titled Heroes of Rock. As a part of the Entertainment Arts & Engineering program, I was enrolled in the senior capstone course and I was selected as one of the producers in the program. Heroes of Rock is a project that I pitched, designed, produced, and managed to the point of publishing. To handle the finances of the project, I founded 11 out of 10 Studios with my team from the EAE cohort. The studio and our video games are 100% created by University of Utah students. We started production of the game in September 2012 and the game will be released on Xbox Live Indie Arcade in May In this post mortem I will discuss the process of developing my video game and some of the concepts that informed its design. Throughout the development process, we referenced numerous design concepts to enlighten our decisions. Specifically, I will cover some design problems that we encountered and what design concepts helped us come to an appropriate solution. My Heroes of Rock journey was not the smoothest but it gave me an incredible understanding of team management, user experience, video game design, and software development.

5 1V10 STUDIOS II

6 III EAE PROGRAM The Entertainment Arts & Engineering (EAE) program at the University of Utah is an allied program between the Film and Media Arts Department and the Computer Science Department. Although both departments offer courses that relate to video games (Artificial Intelligence, digital art, 3D modeling, etc.), the EAE program centers on video game production. There are essentially two types of EAE students, computer scientists and artists. Although a student could fall into both skill sets, they are categorized into one of the two for purposes of creating teams for projects. Recently, the EAE program at the University of Utah was ranked the number one video game educational program in the United States. The University of Utah s program ranks due to the programs focus on industry level group projects. Each EAE senior cohort is roughly 35 students. For the senior capstone course, the senior cohort is split into three teams who produce and publish video games for Xbox Live Indie Market. The teams are composed of engineers, artists, designers, and one producer. In the capstone course, the teams form their own companies, publicize their games and handle their finances - essentially running their own independent video game studios. The teams are larger than many independent video game studios and every student exits the program with at least one published Xbox game, making the senior course equivalent to a year of industry experience. University of Utah EAE students leave the program with the experience and skill set as industry professionals, making them more valuable (to the video game industry) than a traditional graduate from other art and computer science programs.

7 IV PITCH AND SELECTION PROCESS At the beginning of the senior course, all of the students are asked to pitch a video game to the class. Each student was asked to give a five minute presentation on their own video game concept. Students were asked to focus on concepts and game mechanics rather than stories. Given the process of developing the video game, elements like the story could change dramatically. Focusing on those elements in the pitch could be a misallocation of time. For the first pitch in the course, we presented to our peers. Out of the 32 games presented, the class voted for their three favorite games. The eight games with the most votes advanced to the second round of pitches. For the second round of pitches, teams of four were created to make prototype games. The teams were given four weeks to create a simple prototype demonstrating how the game will work and displaying key gameplay mechanics. For the second round of selection, games that were selected were pitched to a panel of industry professionals. The panel would then select which games the students would produce for the year. The game that I pitched was an idea that I first had in 2010 during a video game theory class. My pitch was titled Music s Hero and I described it as a combination between Behemoth s Castle Crashers and Harmonix s Rock Band. When I was thinking about the game I was thinking about the cooperative experience of Castle Crashers and how that could be combined with the cooperative experience in Rock Band. The game was a side scrolling action game where the Rock Band instruments represented characters in the game. The guitar player was a standard melee character, the bass player was a

8 V ranged unit, the singer was a medic unit and the drums player was a slow heavy character. The Rock Band instrument peripherals were all given special control schemes to reflect the action gameplay. I have never heard of another game trying something like Music s Hero, and I felt like the game was a great marketing pitch. To kick off my pitch, I mentioned the 25 million guitar peripherals that are currently sitting underneath beds, hiding in closets or generally collecting dust. Image 1: Music s Hero Control Scheme The Guitar Hero and Rock Band games were loved by millions of people because everyone loves the feeling of being a Rock Star. The guitar peripherals were very interesting experiences and it just felt good to rock out when playing the game. The game allowed players to engage with incredible music, empowered the player to feel like a Rock Star and, had an input system that was very different from most games. For my video game, I wanted to capture these feelings and I wanted to experiment with the

9 VI musical peripherals in a more traditional genre. I wanted to give players a reason to rock out again and a reason to get out the guitar controllers one last time. With the Guitar Hero 5 being cancelled and Rock Band discontinuing their downloadable content program, I felt like my marketing pitch was particularly strong. Music s Hero was selected by class for one of the games to advance to the industry panel. My classmates liked that I wanted to have experimental gameplay and they loved the heavy metal theme. For the prototype of our game, we wanted to show how a side scrolling game could be controlled with the guitar peripheral and we also wanted to demonstrate how we could integrate music into the gameplay. There was no combat in the prototype but in my presentation I outlined how the guitar would be used for combat. Image 2: Heroes of Rock Prototype

10 VII After giving my presentation, the industry panel selected my video game to be one of the projects for the school year. The panel liked the tone and themes of my game but they particularly liked the use of the guitar controller. They felt the game was a marketable concept and that it could succeed. There were some concerns about the gameplay but they felt that those kinds of problems could be fixed during the year of development. The next class period the cohort was split up by our instructors and the teams were created. I was chosen to be the producer on my game. I was also given one designer, four engineers, and four artists. In our first design meeting, we talked about the type of game we wanted to make and what kind of experience we wanted to get out of the games development. In that first design meeting, we also agreed to change the name of the game to Heroes of Rock. THE CURSE OF THE INPUT DEVICE Players do not just engage in ready-made gameplay but also actively take part in the construction of these experiences: they bring their desires, anticipations, and previous experiences with them, and interpret and reflect the experience in that light. (Ermi & Mayra) Video Game researchers Laura Ermi and Frans Mayra touch on the concept of previous experience and how they relate to video games. For most video games, the previous controller experience allows a user to pick up the game and play almost immediately. A user can pick up a controller and, based on the type of game, infer how the input device will work. Ermi and Mayra write about using previous experience to inform the player and to enhance satisfaction. For Heroes of Rock, we encountered a

11 VIII particularly challenging previous experience scenario. Our game was selected because of the use of a guitar peripheral. The guitar was our marketing exclamation point, as well as the core of the game. Being bound to the guitar presented a slew of design problems, however, especially surrounding previous user experiences. When I was designing the gameplay for Heroes of Rock, I designed the controls around my experiences playing side scrolling action games and my experiences using a guitar peripheral. Side scrolling action games have a standard set of mechanics and all gamers are familiar with their control schemes. There is no standard way of playing a real guitar or bass and there is no standard way of playing Guitar Hero or Rock Band. It was apparent in our first play testing session that almost every player had a different way of using the input device. Some players sat down to use the controller, some players used the strap to hold the guitar, some players help the guitar with their strumming hand, some players used their thumbs to strum while others used fingers and so on. All play testers had different feelings on our control scheme because they had different experiences informing them on how the game should play. We played around with multiple control schemes. We received equally positive and negative feedback on nearly every system. We were never going to make 100% of our play testing group happy because their previous experiences were just too different. We scrapped thousands of lines of codes, dozens of design documents, and hours of art production as we constantly shifted on how the game was going to function. This process took a toll on the team s morale and made progress difficult for every aspect of the game. The element of our game that got us selected and that made our game so interesting was the most difficult. This design problem was my greatest weakness as a

12 IX leader on this project. I was hoping that we could find a control mechanic that would satisfy more people on our team and more play testers. Some schemes did better than others, but I constantly felt that we could find something better than what we were doing. I felt like there had to be some system that would feel natural to players. This is when our understanding of previous experiences became important. Based on the diversity of player experiences, no control scheme is going to be natural to all players. For our game, we couldn t rely on previous experiences to inform the players and if we did, it might lessen the experience. To make our game feel appropriate on the guitar, we had to design mechanics that informed the player of how to play, rather than relying on what players have already learned. To settle on a final control scheme, we focused on the core of the game and what we were trying to accomplish. COMBO SYSTEM VS. BRAWLER A huge part of designing user interaction and input for our game was the combat system that we used in the game. The first combat system that I designed was our combo system. The idea behind that system was that the player would perform chords and riffs much like in Guitar Hero to perform attacks. Essentially I was directly combining the gameplay of Guitar Hero and an action game. In my mind, the system would be great. When reflecting on Guitar Hero, I think back on when I was younger. I wanted to be able to play guitar and I wanted to be in my favorite bands. With Guitar Hero, I was able to live that fantasy and I did not need to learn how to play the guitar. The concept behind the combo system was for the player to feel like they were playing the guitar but in the setting of an action game.

13 X We designed our attack system, we engineered a combo builder, and we started animating the attacks that would be performed using this combo system. We had confidence in the combo system. We were sure that the combo system was a great way to use the guitar and that it would give users the music experience they craved in Guitar Hero. As I mentioned earlier about previous experiences, we felt that users wanted a more rhythmic or musical experience in the combat. The combo system was our way of maintaining the rhythm experience. In play testing the combo system it was apparent that the system was flawed. The biggest design error with the combo system was the way that it disconnected the player from the action game experience. In an action game, the player wants to have immediate feedback. Action games are fast paced and one of their key satisfaction points is the way that they empower the player. The player wants to feel like they can take on the enemies or they feel frustrated. The idea of the combo system was great but in practice it was too slow, it was too difficult to remember, and the gameplay was not satisfying.

14 XI Image 3: Rock of the Dead From the beginning of the development of Heroes of Rock, we used the game Rock of the Dead as a case study of what to avoid in our video game. Rock of the Dead is a zombie shooting game that used the Guitar Controller unconventionally. Instead of directly shooting a weapon or directly playing a song like in Guitar Hero, the player has to play Guitar Hero like riffs to shoot the zombies. The game is very similar in design to games that are used to teach typing technique. When we were researching for our game, we looked at Rock of the Dead and why it was bad. People hated the fact that the guitar gameplay disconnected the player from the action gameplay. That disconnect erases most satisfaction systems that are in place in an action game. Despite the fact that we repeatedly referenced Rock of the Dead as what our game should not be, we created a combat system that was very similar to Rock of the Dead. We threw out the combo system and went back to our basic controls from the first pitch document. To get to this decision, we looked at the heart of our game and the type of game we were trying to create. Our team is composed of hardcore gamers and they wanted to make an industry level action game. Our team was not interested in creating a glorified typing game and they did not want to make a game that was essentially a skin over Guitar Hero. I struggled as a designer of the game to include Guitar Hero or Rock Band experiences into our game. We had numerous eight hour meetings attempting to establish the best way to include these experiences. For an action game, we did not need a complex rhythm based action system so we cut the combo system. We did not need to put Guitar Hero into our action game; we only needed to have experiences that are informed by Guitar Hero.

15 XII To refocus the design team, we decided to come up with a new razor statement. Brutal Legend, the brawler, played with a guitar controller. In one sentence, we defined the spirit of our game. We want to make a stylish side scrolling action game that is played in a new way. We simplified our controls and combat mechanic, we removed some designs that were contradictory and we cut some content from the game to focus on the important features. It was difficult to kill a design after spending weeks working on it but it was the best decision we ve made for the game. With the refocus, we were able to settle morale problems and we were able to motivate our team for the final leg of development. ENEMY DESIGN To guide my design of enemies and player interactions with enemies, I looked towards Rock, Paper, Scissors. Rock, Paper, Scissors is one of the simplest competitive games and it is one that anyone can play. In a way, it is the perfection of enemy interaction design. The player only has three choices and each choice has a distinct function. Every enemy or opposing character has a distinct weakness and strength. The player knows exactly what each choice means and after playing the game, the player has an immediate sense of how successful they were. Dozens of times throughout the development of my game, we referenced Rock, Paper, Scissors and we asked ourselves questions like: Does this attack have a specific purpose? Does the enemy have a distinct enough function from the other enemies? Does the player understand all of their choices?

16 XIII 0 Weak Enemy SmaB demon character with cufflinks. 0 Ranged Enemy Executive suit demon character with ranged weapon. Equal" Enemy H e reisa m ehevd unit that is a sell out metal head. A llm usdeandno brains heavy unit. This character is sim ply a slave to the demon boss. Image 4: First Heroes of Rock Enemy Concept Art Harvey Smith, a designer from IO Interactive, wrote an article on designing distinct enemies that exemplified our beliefs on enemy design. Smith broke enemy design down into three points: 1. Present the player with a series of distinct and challenging situations. 2. Give the player enough information so that he/she can decide how to react. 3. Provide the player with a set of in-game actions that will allow him/her to execute their decisions, and provide appropriate consequences to those actions. Following this Rock, Paper, Scissors Theory, we developed a suite of enemies. Our first enemy was the standard weak enemy. It is the first enemy that the player encounters, they have a basic attack and their behavior is easy to understand. The enemy has an average speed and they do not pose much of a threat to the player until they are in larger numbers. When a large number of weak enemies appear, the weak attack is an appropriate response for the player. The second enemy is the shielded enemy. The shielded enemy cannot be damaged by the weak attack and the player cannot run past the

17 X IV enemy while they have a shield. To dispatch the enemy, the player must use the uppercut attack to remove their shield before killing them. The third enemy is the ranged enemy. The ranged unit fires missiles at the player that deal a significant amount of damage. The player must use their dash move to avoid missiles and to get close enough to the ranged unit to kill them. Without using the dash, the player will take a massive amount of damage. The final unit is the heavy enemy. The heavy enemy is a hulking giant who deals massive damage but moves very slowly. The player cannot attack the heavy unit from the front and the player s weaker attacks deal very little damage. To conquer the heavy enemy, the player must dash past the unit and use the heavy attack on its back. With these four enemy types, we have four separate scenarios and we give a unique purpose to each attack that the player is given. The enemies look their parts and their behavior denotes the type of damage and attacks that they deal. A player with an informed video game experience will instantly know details about the units based on their size and their behavior. For example, the heavy unit is a large chested hulking character with large fists. The player can assume that the enemy is slow and has some sort of punching attack. When the player sees that the heavy unit can block attacks from the front, the player can assume that they must attack the unit from the rear. This experience fits Harvey Smith s model perfectly. The player first encounters the heavy enemy and based on the unit s design they have a certain amount of information. If the player experiments briefly with other attacks, they figure out the best strategy to pursue against the unit. Our game has a simple attack system and a simple enemy system. Any gamer, regardless of how advanced they are can recognize the functions of each attack and each

18 X V enemy. Within this simplicity, the player feels more satisfaction and achievement as they have a clear understanding of each situation and how to be victorious in that situation. LEVEL DESIGN Image 5: First Level Design Concept When I started to design levels for the game, I looked towards the psychological concept of Flow, introduced by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. In Csikszentmihalyi s book titled Flow, he examines the concept of immersion. Csikszentmihalyi s research began with his fascination with artists who get lost in their work. He examined the psychological state when people become so immersed in the task at hand that they forget about food, water, or even sleep. Csikszentmihalyi s book examines how these states come about and how the reader can achieve states of flow in their own life. In the past couple of years, Flow has been referenced by video game designers. The immersion that gamers experience when they are playing a great video game is very

19 XVI similar to the flow that Csikszentmihalyi studied for this work. Game designers have recently been trying to recreate flow states with engaging gameplay. The concept that we pulled the most from Csikszentmihalyi s work were the ideas of constant engagement, To achieve this, we wanted the player to be constantly doing something in the game and we wanted to player to be introduced to new experiences throughout the game. New enemies, new situations, new behavior should all help the player feel curious and interested about the game s content. Keeping this constant engagement philosophy in mind, I created my first level design. The first level starts off slow and easy. We allow the player to ease into the control scheme and we give them enough room to explore the world on their own. The first couple sequences involve very few weak enemies to allow the player to understand the combat system. From there the enemy count starts to ramp up and the rate in which enemies spawn increases as well. The player by then has a clear understanding of how the game works. At this point in the level, we start to introduce new things to player. We first introduce the shielded enemy. The player goes up to the shielded enemy and attempts to kill them. If they use the uppercut first, they have learned the solution to the challenge. If they use other attacks, they spend a couple seconds trying to figure out the correct strategy. After a handful of encounters, the player has a good understanding of the shielded enemy mechanic. We use a similar technique with the other units. As the player gains understanding of individual enemies, the composition at each section begins to change. Each action area presents a new experience and a new challenge to the player. Some situations are more difficult while others can be easy depending on the player s

20 XVII skill and experience. This pacing and diversity helps the player stay involved with the content. The diversity of player experiences is a key element in driving player engagement. If players do not experience new things in a game they start to become bored and they find the game stale. Enemy introductions, attack introductions, and enemy compositions can only give so many new experiences especially when our enemy and attack count is so low. For our later levels, we needed a way to make enemy encounters new and interesting. To achieve this we developed new behaviors for the enemies. For example, at the beginning of the game the ranged enemies have a behavior that the player adapts to and understands. The ranged enemy simply walks onto the screen, fires missiles, and reloads. The player develops strategies to handle the ranged enemy and they feel comfortable in dealing with them after a couple interactions. For the later levels in the game, we introduce the pogo mechanic. Instead of simply walking on the screen, the ranged enemy uses its missile launch to rocket jump around the map. Suddenly the player is introduced to a very fast and deadly unit. The visual of the pogo unit is also very jarring in comparison to the mostly stationary ranged unit. This type of introduction keeps the player engaged in the content and it helps keep them interested in the new behaviors that could come from other units. Maintaining this engagement is a key element in establishing a flow in players, and establishing a flow increases overall player satisfaction.

21 X VIII REWARDS SYSTEMS AND FEEDBACK In the final weeks of development, we had a video game. We had a main character, enemies, levels, combat mechanics, and we built everything for the guitar peripheral. The problem was that the game was not very fun. We had some interesting mechanics, player experiences and enemy interactions but players were not feeling the kind of satisfaction that you feel in a good video game. Some team members had a difficult time with these play testing sessions because they worried about the end product. They were worried that the game would end up lacking the engagement we were hoping for. LEUELCDmPLETE ssore STATUS' B E S T T ill STkEASC T X*fZ f CONTINUE MAIN MENU Image 6: Score Screen To understand this problem, I looked towards gambling with the book Addiction by Design by Natasha Schull. A slot machine is not a very engaging video game. Pulling a lever and then watching three wheels spin around is not exactly exciting. Gambling becomes exciting when rewards systems are implemented on top of the gameplay. Schull

22 XIX discusses in her book how every aspect of a gambling machine has some kind of feedback. No matter what action the player takes while playing a slot machine, the player receives some kind of feedback. After every level pull or button press the player receives bells, whistles, flashing lights, as well as points. Our game was lacking the feedback that players crave. Players like to feel like they have a direct impact on games and they like to feel like there is a reaction for every action. When the player swings a weapon they expect the weapon to make a noise when the weapon hits an enemy but they also expect the weapon to make noises when striking other objects in the world. When our game did not have these types of feedback, the player felt like they were not really having an effect on the world. Players were having a difficult time feeling satisfaction in the game world when they felt like they were not having an effect on the world. Heroes of Rock is supposed to be about being a Rock Star that is slaying demons. Before we added combat sounds and gore effects into our game, players did not have a sense of power in the game. After adding gore as a feedback, players felt like they were slaying the demons themselves and seeing that direct feedback helped them feel like they were the powerful rock god on the screen. In the play tests after adding gore, sound effects and other feedback system, players were dramatically more satisfied. All players enjoyed the experience much more. The feedback systems in gambling help players stay engaged in the experience for longer periods of time but the real center for player satisfaction in gambling is actually winning things. For our game we employed a score system similar to modern shooter games such as Unreal Tournament or Halo. When players reach a certain kill counts, they receive an audio, a virtual medal, and they get a loud voice over announcing the player s

23 XX recent feat. These tiny moments of reward add up to a rewarding action game experience. The player is constantly striving for the next level of achievement and the game literally tells the player how well they are playing the game. This reward system acts to once more engage the player and maintain their interest in the game throughout the experience. CONCLUSION The design principles that we explored while developing Heroes of Rock can be taken to almost any product. All design decisions that were made during the production of Heroes of Rock started by asking what we were trying to accomplish and they ended by asking for the best user experience. Ultimately, we have been trying to make a fun video game. For every major design choice, we held game play test sessions. Regardless of whether game mechanics we were received well or poorly, we reflected critically on how each mechanic affected the player. Player satisfaction and the quality of the player experience were paramount. During the development process we encountered artistic limitations, engineering problems, and design confusion. At some points in the creation of the game, we were forced to completely halt production to confront these issues. To navigate these situations we looked to psychologists, industry professionals, and video game researchers. During one of our final play tests, I watched a player smile broadly during one of our reward sequences. In that moment, I knew that our game was going to be fun and it was going to be good. This was an incredible project to take on but seeing a player have fun makes reminds me why I chose to study video game design. This past week I submitted my video game for the review and certification process. In the coming weeks, I

24 XXI will be sending press releases to video game websites and publications. I am excited for Heroes of Rock to release May 2013.

25 XXII REFERENCES Mihaly, Csikszentmihalyi. Flow: The Psychology o f Optimal Experience. 1st ed. Harper Perennial Modern Classics, Print. Raph, Koster. A Theory o f Fun fo r Game Design. 1st ed. Paraglyph Press, Print. Ermi & Mayra,. "Fundemental Components of the Gameplay Experience." Changing Views: Worlds in Play. 2. (2005): Web. 8 Apr < Schull, Natasha Dow. Addiction by design : Machine Gambling in Las Vegas. Princeton: Princeton University Press, Print. Adams & Dormans,.Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design. 1st ed. New Riders, Print.