Designing Heartbreak, Propaganda and Death - Extra Credits Gaming

[Applause] you know Zozo I've been really pondering about how James left off his last letter from Design Land I really want to know what he meant by diving into quote the best part of game design creating emotion with math dang what's the probability of that timing huh oh a hundred percent because it's all pre-written oh my God they're seeing behind the veil cut to the intro cut to the inch [Music] thanks so much to nordvpn for helping to keep us safe on the internet to take control of your Internet Security with a two-year plan on a huge discount use code extra credits VPN at nordvpn.com extra credits VPN so how do we as game designers create a motion with math I think that's a pretty cool question and to figure out the answer let's start by examining a common example a game with a romantic relationship mechanic in it that also includes the standard Trope of gift giving how might we make this actually feel meaningful for the player starting with the basics you'll probably have a how much the person likes you stat in

this type of game's code let's call that stat Affinity so your basic equation for gift giving is something like Affinity Plus gift like value now in a lot of games gift like value is static so if a character likes say for instance flowers every time you give them a flower they get 50 more Affinity towards you and I'm not even kidding when I say this is actually the complete system in way too many games but as I think you can gather this equation treats the character like an object to be one not a person with their own needs and wants taking away from the immersion of treating that character as someone you care about and I think we can do better so let's dive in to the gift like value stat and see if we can make it function a bit more robustly instead of saying gift like value rows equals 50. let's say we made it gift like value rows equals 50 minus 10 times gifted rows because giving the same gift over and over again is not only boring it shows that you're not really thinking about the person you just have some idea that you're supposed to give this to them as a gift and now we've represented that by putting in

diminishing returns on giving this gift this minor tweak moves the needle of interaction with that character just a bit more towards something that could mirror this experience IRL but you know on that note you know what's really creepy and not at all okay in real life someone who you don't really know or may not even like in the slightest giving you a romantic gift so let's make it if Affinity is greater than 30 gift like rose equals 50 minus 10 times gifted Rose else gift like value Rose equals negative 50. by putting those conditionals in there we can make the interaction between the player and the character feel more real and the character on the receiving end will less like a trophy but you know what let's add some more layers in there say the game is actually about two High School sweethearts going off to college and trying to maintain a long distance relationship over freshman year being away from each other is hard and living two separate lives that you can't share is a struggle so then maybe we have something in there like turn start Affinity equals Affinity minus one so now you're fighting against time you'll

have to work to keep the relationship that was once so easy and maybe we have something like this in there too turn start Affinity equals Affinity minus one meet someone new equal Rand 1 to 100 if meet someone new greater than 75 new romance because you know there is always the chance that the person you're so far away from meets someone new though that math doesn't sound exactly right I mean if you still really really love someone you are less likely to find a new relationship you know probably so instead let's make it turn start Affinity equals Affinity minus one meets someone new equal Rand 0 to 100 minus Affinity if meet someone new greater than 75 new romance now we've just built in that finding a new relationship is less likely when you're still passionate about the old one by making the random role for finding someone new dependent on your current Affinity score and I'm not saying that you should do this but if you wanted to per se make your game feel really tragic if you wanted to make

it about slowly losing someone about someone slowly slipping away then you simply balance the game such as it's incredibly difficult or impossible for all of the nice gestures all the zoom calls from far away all of the digital roses to keep up with the decay in Affinity score and all of the random events that can subtract from it so now we've moved a game from your standard relationship as prize mechanic into something talking about and with the ability to convey what it feels like to day by day watch someone you love drift away from you we've built tragedy with math and since math is how we model the world in games it's of course also how we can make statements about how we see the world let's say you're making a grand strategy game and every once in a while your population has to vote on a policy and if it doesn't pass then you don't get to do it well if 10 multiplied by benefits from policy plus propaganda score is greater than 500 vote for else vote against is a very different game

and says very different things then if benefits from policy plus 10 times propaganda score is greater than 500 vote for else vote against the former creates a game where people are part of a rational sane populace capable of making their own decisions to benefit them but the latter Builds an experience where that population is more akin to a frothing mob swayed by Propaganda more so than their own interests in the first game the math would push you to play as a benevolent leader trying to create policies that benefit the greatest number of your people whereas in the second game the math would drive you more towards playing a tyrant trying to control your population the through manipulation and media and while the first one is pretty run-of-the-mill the second one definitely sets up a specific emotional reaction from your player because if you're the type of person that always tries to do the good run through the first time you play a game I think it's safe to say You're Gonna feel a little bit frustrated you'll be tearing your hair out saying no why do these people vote against their best interests and if you're the type of

player that Min Maxes you're gonna realize what's going on pretty quick and then feel sleazier and sleazier as you play into it heck let's even take it a step further with a new example let's say instead of using a standard Tech research equation in your game like research per turn equals number of labs times research rate you choose to make it research per turn equals number of labs minus number of religious sites times research rate oh boy howdy have you just made a statement now you're saying something with your math and that's a powerful thing though one quick word of caution especially when your game is set in the real world some sometimes it's easy to subtly influence players into thinking the things that you are portraying is actually how the world is rather than that you're exploring an idea about the world or making a statement about it of course that shouldn't stop you but it just may mean you need to be a little careful but still don't be scared to make your math have meaning whenever you're designing systems or even implementing content try thinking of your equations as statements

about the experience each part of your equation is a phrase and each phrase says something about the experience it creates don't think of your equations just in terms of a system in a game but imagine you're living that experience then you can look at what's missing and what needs to be said and go from there if you can do that you won't just be creating gameplay you'll be creating an emotional landscape for your players to play in through your math and with that dearest Matthew I leave you for now with just one more example it's from the game I'm currently working on it's less an equation than a long-term if statement but it was the first moment that really got me invested in this trip into this Design Land so here you go if character has dog and character has died and ran 1 to 100 is greater than 50 and character has relationship love or relationship friend randomly selected relationship love or relationship friend gains trait dog name spawn event take care of dog name while I'm gone design boldly dear friends Jamesport now

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