5 Game Design Mistakes You Should Avoid

hey guys my name is Thomas brush I'm the creator of a game called pinstripe I'm also working on a game called once upon a coma now I've been making games for about 10 years even these 10 years there are five game design mistakes 5 key game design mistakes that I wish I would have known and that's why I'm gonna tell you about them so that you can avoid them it's really terrible especially when you're like beta testing and you get all this feedback from your your audience about your game and you wish that you would have just thought about these things these simple game design mistakes when you were making the game so you don't have to go back and sort of start from scratch with a lot of these things and fix now before we actually get started on these five fun beautiful wonderful things that I did wrong when it comes to game design I want to talk about today's sponsor today's sponsor is production crate production crate is an incredibly

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gonna be something like a first-person shooter but believe it or not they specifically decided to make this game slow because of the game design mistakes I'm actually going to talk about in this so let's talk about the first mistake and that is not rewarding the player for curiosity and skill see the thing is a skill is a really hard thing to put into your game especially when it starts out pretty easy when it's really fast when you can move really quickly kind of like a first-person shooter and you can blow the brains off of these zombies the idea of gaining skill isn't really apparent and so you're not really rewarding the player for skill now in Resident Evil 4 you start out slow and sluggish and your weapon kind of sucks and it's terrifying the game is pretty scary when you first start and you really don't want to come in contact with any enemies but once you destroy the horde of zombies and you find a shop and purchase different upgrades for your weapons it feels amazing

it's almost a euphoric feeling of power that you went from somebody with a small little pistol and now you have a shotgun and those enemies that were so terrifying to start our little peons now and you don't really need to worry about it now Resident Evil 4 also rewards the player not only for skill but it also rewards the player for curiosity so for example if I go down a path that I'm not necessarily supposed to go down and then I turn a corridor and then I turn a corner if there's something not at the end of this corridor it's very frustrating for the player what the hell was I doing going down this path why was this path even there in Resident Evil 4 if you do the same thing usually at the end of a corridor there's something there that rewards the player it doesn't necessarily have to be ammo it doesn't have to be enemies it doesn't even have to be a special item it could just simply be some little story element so what happens in Resident Evil 4 is there's often little notepads and little pieces of paper that you can read and

discover more about the story any of these things currency story elements items whatever these are rewarding the player for curiosity for exploring the world this also slows the player down and allows the game to have actually have a lot more value added just by reading a simple note or collecting some coins the second game design mistake is not allowing for relief when I'm playing Resident Evil 4 for example I can't tell you how stressed I am especially at midnight when I'm laying in bed playing my switch how stressful it is and terrifying it is to have hordes of zombies come after me and kill them and then realize that five steps down the level there's another horde of zombies now especially the start of the game this doesn't really happen because the designers of the game know that you need some relief you need some time to breathe one of my favorite game mechanics in Resident Evil is that rush of stress and anxiety as you're

killing these zombies as they approach you and then suddenly immediately opening up a door and finding a safe zone a place to relax a place to rest and also a place to save your game there's a great moment in the first level of Resident Evil 4 where you kill maybe 20 zombies and then you find yourself in a little room with a bed a desk a dresser and you could simply explore this room and you can tell that it's a safe room and just explore it and learn about the game read story elements collect items and recoup this relief is an incredible reward of the player and it kind of ties into the first point you can reward the player just by giving them some relief it's a really hard thing to choose to give the player relief because what it means is they technically could just run through the content that you've created so for my game once upon a coma if I create a relief area I'm doing a lot of artwork maybe takes a week to get this artwork

done to make the mood right to make the music right and to add story elements into this relief area I understand that the player technically could just run through this and miss out on all this great content that I put blood sweat and tears into but believe it or not it's kind of not gonna happen if the player feels like they were challenged prior to this relief area they'll actually probably stick around in that area just to catch their breath so don't underestimate don't disrespect your player assume that they will probably behave the way you behave and hang out in that relief area and actually appreciate it now the third game design mistake is about the core game mechanics you're not focusing on one or maybe two core game mechanics now this is basically prototyping you really should be prototyping your game believe it or not for all of my games every single one I made the mistake of adding in too many mechanics into the game

this causes you to have a lot of watered-down game mechanics all of which the player are frustrated with none of which the player can enjoy and actually be enamored with for five to ten hours of gameplay now back to Resident Evil 4 what Resident Evil 4 does so well the one game mechanic that it focuses on and does really well is simply slowing the player down forcing them to pause when they're aiming their gun and stand still and shoot enemies as they come towards the camera this is actually kind of an arcade experience where you sort of move around the level without shooting and pausing to shoot enemies this is frustrating to start especially if you're moving from a game like halo to Resident Evil 4 but the game designers understood and they really sort of had principle and what they believed in regarding the game design and stuck with this and they believed that the player if they stuck with this mechanic and learned it they would learn to

appreciate it and that is definitely true or threatening evil 4 don't get me wrong this mechanic in Resident Evil 4 forcing the player to stop and shoot it can definitely be something that causes rage quitting or frustration with the game I'm sure there's plenty of you watching this video who just don't like Resident Evil 4 for that exact reason but on the other side of the coin there are millions of players who love Resident Evil 4 because of that game mechanic so when you're thinking about your game do not think about 5 mechanics to throw into your game find that one special thing what is that thing that will sell your game what is that thing that will allow the player to play 5 to 10 hours of your game and just do the same thing over and over again with flourish around that one think about that prototype it test it and really focus on using it in your game the fourth game design mistake is kind of an abstract one it's a little bit personal and a little bit emotional for me and that is being proud of

yourself when you first start making games and you accomplish something whether it's a bouncing ball or being able to move the camera it's really exciting and you're proud of yourself right well the audience isn't though they're not proud of you they want to see a great game with a lot of polish and they're going to be extremely critical of your game so all I can say regarding this point is to have two personality types the first personality type is enjoying making games being proud of what you've done and just learning and having fun the second personality type is being ultra critical of yourself an ultra critical of your game again the audience is over here they're gonna be critical of your game they're going to be thinking about all of the problems with your game and it's your job to figure out exactly what those problems are and fix them some of you might relate to this experience you get something done in your game it's really exciting maybe for me it was

fading between music so an example of this is in once upon a coma I have the ability to go from one theme song and merge and fade to the same theme song with a different variation depending on the area of the level this was really exciting for me I thought this was so cool and so great but the thing is it's not that special it happens in plenty of games and it kind of happens behind the scenes that people don't even recognize it for mechanics and elements in games like this I really should be switching my personality to being ultra critical and thinking about whether it's actually valuable to the player it was exciting for me as the developer and I'm really excited about that mechanic right now but it is it actually valuable to the player so again be careful not to be fully proud of everything you've done but be critical as well just like the audience will now the fifth and final game design mistake is not play testing and I know it's not

really a game design steak but it can lead to a lot of game design mistakes down the road so be sure that you're not only a alpha and beta testing towards the end of your project but you're testing your prototype in the beginning of your game's development this includes using Google Forms and sending out links to people on Twitter and Instagram and Facebook and email it also means that you can use something like air table to record all of your data all of the problems attach screenshots or output log files to better understand bugs and glitches and things that the players are just frustrated with now here is a key point about testing your game is there someone in your life one person just one person that you really trust their opinion that you really value and that they're honest with you for me it's my older brother he understands game design he's really smart about it and always knows how to clearly communicate with me honestly about whether my game is actually accomplishing various game design

mechanics well believe it or not my brother's opinion is more important than thousands of beta testers because he hasn't really let me down in the past and so I trust him he is one of my advisers for my company once you figure out who this person is reach out to them with your prototype or your alpha or your beta and ask them if you can watch them play the game it's best if they live in an area near you so that you can actually hang out with them drink a couple beers and watch them play the game and just write down hundreds of notes about complaints they have things they like about your game things that they don't really like about your game once you get those notes you can actually sort of comb through them figure out which ones you have time to fix and these are the notes these are the ones that are really valuable I'm not saying beta testing and alpha testing audiences aren't valuable but these you should focus on first because this is somebody you really trust now if you can't hang out with this person physically and play the game with them you can always just play on discord or

on skype together and just watch them play and hear their thoughts about your game alright guys thanks so much for watching this video if you enjoyed it please hit the subscribe button hit the like button and leave a comment I'm trying to answer as best as I can I I appreciate you and if you guys want to support this channel you can head on over to patreon and see if there's something there for you thanks guys calculator [Music]