MetaGame
Musings Of A Game Designer
4 Tips for Live Action Game Design
Apr 25th
The way I got started doing game design was not the typical path. It started with building Live Action Roleplaying events, 11 years ago, now. Over those 11 years, I’ve learned a TON about game design, many principles apply across all types of games.
Every game designer makes mistakes. Below are four of the most commonly made mistakes I see (and have made) in running LARPs, and how to fix them!
Mistake #1: NPC Theater
This is probably the biggest problem I see in LARPs. Game staff love to play NPC’s, but will often take it too far and act almost as if their NPC is a hyper statted, uber godlike PC. They do all the interacting, and it takes away from the PC’s enjoyment and ability to influence their world. Not good.
Protip #1: I never ever create an NPC unless they are directly tied to a player’s enjoyment. If that player goes away, the NPC also goes away because otherwise no one cares.
Mistake #2: Getting Attached to Your Idea
We’ve all done it. We write a plot that is so clever, so brilliant, that we’re sure everyone wil lose their minds about how awesome it is when they put all the pieces together. Trouble is, this NEVER goes according to plan.
Protip #2: The players are right, I am wrong. If I put out a plot and it gets twisted, I go with whatever that twist was and make it true. A lot of times what the players came up with is better than what I wrote, anyway.
Mistake #3: Railroading
Its come down to the final battle and you need the 8 pieces of whatever in order to cast the big spell. Problem is, one player decides they don’t want to put in their piece of whatever. So you force them somehow, or take away the choice. Hooray! No. Not hooray. That is bad plot writing.
Protip#3: Never railroad. Players should always have the choice of how things go, especially from a meta-plot perspective. Forcing them into anything is a bad, bad idea. Sometimes this means completely throwing out every idea I had about how something would go, and mostly it means being ready for any contingency and able to adapt on a dime. One of the beauties of a live action game is that there are infinite possibilities for how people can react to something- you are not limited by a computer interface. Leverage that and make it work for you, not against you.
Mistake #4: Information Scarcity
A game designer gives information to one player, confident that soon, everyone will know and be able to share and figure it out. Repeat after me: this is crazy. People LOVE having secrets and rarely share outside their group of friends.
Protip #4: Triple-seed everything. Most information fails to get past the first person you gave it to, so I try to three-prong-attack every important plot and make sure to hand it to different player types, groups, etc.
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What are some of your biggest design mistakes and how did you fix them? Or what design mistakes do you see happen over and over? Any tips for correcting them?
Callie Crossley Show on WGBH Boston
Apr 25th
I spoke on the Callie Crossley show on Boston’s Public Radio Station, WGBH, on April 3rd, 2012. It was a lot of fun!
You can listen to the podcast of the live broadcast here. It’s the episode from 4/3/12 called “Gamers Invade Massachusetts”.
Speaking at NE Games SIG on March 21st
Mar 19th
I’m really looking forward to speaking on this upcoming panel, Launching Great Games with Limited Marketing Spend, on March 21st at 6pm!
More on the panel, from the NEGamesSIG website:
In the game industry, we often hear about ‘AAA’ titles’ with elaborate marketing campaigns including everything from the biggest booths at E3 to widespread TV advertising. With the explosion of digital distribution, online games, mobile apps and social networks, developers without large marketing budgets can now bring their title directly to consumers to maximize the impact of their launch. While marketing on a budget has its challenges, it CAN be done! The MIT Enterprise Forum’s New England Games SIG has gathered some of our region’s most seasoned game marketing executives to share some of their secrets and to discuss what tactics have (and have not) worked for them in the past.
Moderated by Hank Howie, CEO of Beach Cooler Games, the panel will include Eitan Glinert, President of Fire Hose Games; Gene Mauro, President/COO of Entertainment Games, Inc.; Caroline Murphy, Director of Operations at Brass Monkey; Steve Curran, Founder and Chief Creative Officer at Pod Design; and Scott Triola, CEO of SparkBridge Interactive.
Come early or stay late to enjoy light appetizers / drinks and to network with your peers. The event will be held on Wednesday, March 21st from 6pm – 9pm at the Microsoft NERD Center (One Memorial Drive, Cambridge).
6:00pm – 7:00pm: Networking & Light Appetizers, Refreshments
7:00pm – 8:15pm: Panel
8:15pm – 9:00pm: Post-Panel Networking
Registration is required! Please register here: http://gamemarketing.eventbrite.com
Hope to see you there!
Dr. Radio Show!
Feb 3rd
Wow, was it ever fun to record this episode of the Dr. Radio Show!
We talked about what it’s like to work in the games industry, the secret life of LARPers, and oh so much more. I am totally embarrassed that I said “Dark Knight” instead of “Batman Begins”. I blame the drinks.
You should subscribe to the Dr. Radio Show! It’s a fantastic show and the guys are all totally awesome.
Interviewed on GirlGamer.com!
Jan 25th
Awesome Design Talk
Jul 7th
Raph Koster gave a talk at GDC 2011 about mecahnics in social game design. It’s super interesting and worth checking out if you have any design interest!
You can watch the full presentation for free here.
Games for Change Festival June 20-22, 2011
May 24th
I wanted to write up a quick post to let people know about this awesome event coming up.
This year is the 8th annual Games for Change Festival in New York City. I’m planning on attending this year, and there are going to be some amazing speakers like Gabe Newell and Al Gore!
Cheating vs. Gaming
Mar 7th
Cheating is not gaming. When we say we’re “gaming” a system, what we’re doing is cheating or exploiting a loophole. I believe that these sorts of negative connotations with our chosen profession set us back. Maybe that can be my rant next year (joking).
I am sad at some of what I’ve read today. I felt upset that the very well-intentioned, even innocent desire to win a game and a chance to speak at the GDC Social Games Rant has spurred blog posts that tarnish my very fond memory of what I thought was an amazing experience.
When I sat down with Jane at the rant, she told me she’d collected 12 coins already and we decided it would be fun to collect more. At that time, I had no intention of ranting, just helping out with Jane’s collection quest– after all, games are fun! We got up to ask people for their coins, and by the end of the first row a talk idea was forming in my head. I started to talk about my ideas to people, and they were responding well and handing over their coins. At that point, Jane said to me that I should come up and talk, too. Of course, I was a bit overwhelmed by the idea.
By the time we’d sat back down in our seats, I was frantically thinking of what I wanted to say. Several times I tried to back out, and Jane said “You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to, but I think that it’s awesome and important for more women to lend their voices to these things.” That I could completely agree with. I pared what I had to say down to two(ish) sentences, and did my best to make it relevant. I was nervous, but elated. In the end, I kept a coin as a token of my courage.
I guess the moral of the story here is that not everyone is out to screw you or to cheat their way to the front of the room– that was certainly never my intention. Some people just like to play, and become better for that playing. I grew from my experience, and to me it remains one of the best things I did at GDC, no matter what anyone else may say.
My point here is this: playing a game makes you better, cheating makes you worse.
Lots of Blogs…
Feb 3rd
Well, I’ve been terribly neglecting this blog, but for good reason!
Check out my other writing on bostonist.com, as well as firehosegames.com!
That is all.
Eating My Words
Sep 15th
Right after my post about women in games, the internet has to go and do something ridiculous.
EMBED-Geek and Gamer Girls Song – Watch more free videos
This video “Geek and Gamer Girls” hit me all wrong. My immediate thought was “FAKE”. I thought that they simply hired actors to pretend they’re geeky girls. Why? Well, probably because all the girls are attractive.
It’s not that I don’t think there are hot gamer girls out there. I KNOW there are– I am friends with many of them! I think it’s the fact that they were so commercialized that made me immediately assume that the girls weren’t legit gamers/geeks. From what I’ve been reading, some of them are very hardcore geeky, and the rest are arguably geeky.
So, why did the sexualization of my subculture rub me the wrong way? Especially after that last blog post I made? It’s not the sex so much as the commercialization, I think. It seemed like a tactic or a promo stunt rather than girls who legitimately were excited and happy to be gamer geeks. Mike Fahey summed it up nicely when he said “I’m no expert, but I suspect that girls who enjoy geeky things like playing video games would just rather be considered gamers or geeks than having the word girl thrown in front of everything they do as a qualifier.”
