**Turing Community:**What do you think is the most important factor for the success of a game?
**Scott:** There are many factors behind the success of a game. Ease of play, attractive graphics, game themes, sociability, and more. But I think the most important winning factor for a game is when a player watches other people play and wants to participate. Game designer Tim Schaefer sums it up as "wish fulfillment" - when players can be different in the game than they are in reality: become powerful, wise, rich, magical, or to things they could not do in real life, such as smashing all the pots in sight with chains. If I break all the pots I come across in real life, I will be arrested! In other words, the game looks as fun as it actually plays. Some games make people want to play when they see it, and some games don't. For example, when I first saw Angry Birds and the cute bird characters, I found them appealing, but not to the point where I wanted to play the game too. Until I saw someone else playing this game, it looked really interesting so I wanted to get in on it too. It's almost as important that a game looks fun as it is actually fun.
**Turing Community:**Why do some small games achieve great success, but some well-made big games do not?
**Scott:** The gaming market today is very different from what it was ten years ago. When I was making games in the 90s, the games were very long and involved. It was also the type of game that players liked at that time, because it was the only gaming experience they could get. But now that social gaming and mobile gaming are all the rage, the old model is gone forever. Today's gamers can play games anytime, anywhere, and they want games that don't take up too much time. Many gamers feel they don't have the time to play a deeply engaging role-playing (RPG) or story-driven game on a controller, but they have time to play a time-consuming MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) on a mobile phone. ) or social games. Fortunately, I think there are still a lot of people who like to play the long game. It's like comparing books to movies. We can enjoy these two games with different time-consuming and experience at the same time.
**Turing Community:** How does a rookie in game design grow into a master? What are the checkpoints they have to go through?
**Scott:** That's right, you have to keep fighting monsters and upgrading, and finally defeat the final boss (laughs)! I don't know if I can be called a guru, but I can tell you how I got to where I am today, into someone who can write a book on video game design. I have worked as a video game designer for many years, and I have gained a lot of experience in making video games during this time. Every year, I go to the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco to learn about game design. One year, I felt like I couldn't learn anything new at the conference. I'm feeling a little frustrated because I want to be a good game designer and I'm eager to keep absorbing new and useful knowledge. From then on, I decided to get serious, and I'm going to start sharing my own game design lectures.
My lectures went well enough that I was then asked to write a book on game design (I hope this is the one you read!) - to sum it up, the steps to becoming a game guru are as follows:
- Accumulate experience in the process of making games.
- Share your experience with others, don't bore yourself.
- In the end there will be many people who will need your advice. As long as you don't give bad ideas, you'll end up being a big shot!
**Turing Community:** A well-designed new game may be popular when it first comes out, and after a while, other games will copy your idea. How can a game maintain its position in the market and then keep launching follow-up products?
**Scott:** Instead of being angry that someone copied your game, you should be proud of it. Someone thought your game was a hit, so they made their own version of it! But having said that, I understand the frustration that such copycat games can cause, they confuse the market and take away your customers. In order to keep your leading position in the market, I suggest the following:
- ** Let people know you are the original. **People are usually loyal to the "authentic" version. Many people think that copycats represent inferiority, and for this reason, they sneer at such products.
- ** Evolve your game. **One of the great advantages of being a developer of the original game is that you know what works and what doesn't in your game. For you, you can improve and expand your game more easily and faster than your competitors.
- **Expand your world. **Players love the worlds you create, so keep creating more depth for them. If you make your game world a place they don't want to leave, why would they want to go anywhere else? Players will only want to migrate when things in this world are no longer fresh.
- ** Connect with your audience. **In this social age, you can't ignore your audience. Get them involved in the process of making the game. Let them create their own content, communicate with developers, and make suggestions for new content (but pay attention to the "degree", you are the designer of this game, and important decisions should be made by you).
- **Be aware of what your competitors are copying. **They may have found something to improve your game.
I think there are very few real original game designs. Most of the game designs are the result of designers being inspired by other games. These ideas are filtered through the eyes of professional game designers to regenerate a brand new thing.
**Turing Community:** When making games in the past, would you adopt the Cabal method like Wilo Software (the developer of "Half-Life") (introducing personal experience in a tight small design team to inspire each other) For group creativity and integration?
**Scott:** I've worked on games on elaborate design teams and in the Cabal way. For those unfamiliar with Valve's Cabal process, it's a way of designing games where there is no game design lead, such a design team consists of engineers, animators, level designers, and authors who make games one theme at a time . Mobile game teams are usually relatively small, and designing in the Cabal way is inevitable. I think a lot of game developers make games in this way, and you can't make big games in this way. When someone is going to start making a film, I believe everyone wears many hats. Collaboration is essential to making games, and good ideas can come from anyone on the team, not just the designers. I love working with collaborators because it's hard to figure out everything by yourself! It's been said that a game designed by a committee often feels ambiguous, and I think it's nice to have a "benevolent dictator" to guide the game's overall vision.
**Turing Community:** Is mobile gaming a completely different genre? What is the biggest difference between mobile games and PC games?
**Scott:** I wouldn't call mobile gaming another genre, but some genres of mobile gaming are becoming very popular right now. There are action games (Fruit Ninja, Cut the Rope), endless runners (Temple Run, Jet Jets), games that use gravity sensing (Doodle Jump, Gravity Survival), Augmented reality games (Tower Defense, Star Wars Falcon Shooter), and games that require GPS (Zombie Run, Parallel Kingdoms), just to name a few. Notice what these games have in common? It's not the genre of the game, it's not the length, it's not the art form, it's not the story, it's not the theme, it's the way the player interacts with the game. For mobile games, you need to tailor your game for a unique control method, whether it is a touch screen, it may be a gravity sensor game, or it may be a camera. Determines the "prime action" of a game - this is the main action the player will use to play the game. For example, "Fruit Ninja" uses the movement of swiping to imitate the movement of swinging a sword, and this movement is used to complete all the controls of the game. Once the player has mastered this action, no other controls are needed.
Because players can play mobile games anywhere, you have to take into account the needs of players to play games wherever they are, even when the outdoor visual conditions are not ideal. But this is true for any gaming system. PC games are designed differently than gamepad games, and differently than mobile games. So the cues for game design start with which system the player is playing your game on.
**Turing Community:** Do you think there is still room for independent developers in the game industry? How do you think an indie game developer, or a very small team (less than three people) can succeed in the game industry?
**Scott:** Absolutely! In the West at least, this might be a golden age for indie developers. When I first started making games, it required a big team, a lot of equipment, an office, and a publisher. Now you can start making games at home with a friend or two with free tools! These are exciting times for young developers. The entire game industry is in transition, and small teams of developers have the opportunity to be just as successful as big publishers. The mobile gaming market has left the industry hungry for more games - an opportunity that couldn't be better for a small nimble team. Just look at these small teams and their work: Mojang (Minecraft), Team Meat (Super Meat Boy), Number None (Braid), Imangi Studios (Temple Run) — - These are small teams (they are two or three people), you know they make great games, and maybe you have a chance to be as successful as them.
**Turing Community:** As the computing power of mobile devices becomes stronger and stronger, mobile games will undoubtedly play an increasingly important role in the industry. Do you think mobile games will have a revolutionary development in the future? Where do you think it's headed?
**Scott:**Mobile gaming has been changing generations! In 2012, 44% of mobile device users played games on their devices. And over 7 billion people own a mobile device, making mobile the most successful gaming platform ever! But the revolution isn't just about the number of mobile device owners, touch and tilt controls have also done a lot to create new genres of games that are popular - endless runners, drawing games, matching games... and more "Augmented reality" and GPS-based games, what a combination!
I think the primary task of mobile games now is to expand the depth and complexity. As more and more developers become familiar with the platform, they will be able to better play with the mobile platform and make innovations. As mobile devices gain more memory and storage space, it is undeniable that games will become more and more complex. Will new developments on mobile devices create new possibilities for gameplay? organism count? 3D holographic display? No screen display? No matter what the future brings, people will want to play games on it!
**Turing Community:** More and more games have been adapted into movies, and some TV series have also introduced game elements. Do you think a good game designer has something in common with a film director?
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**Scott:** Absolutely! There are many similarities between a game designer and a movie director. You first need to know how to tell a story. You need to know how to use light and sound, how to edit motion, and how to design to tell a story. You need to know where to place the camera and how to move the camera in various ways. You need to know how to create dramatic scenes and fights that make sense to the viewer. Video game designers not only have to know how to do these things, they have to do all of these things while letting the player do whatever they want in the game. They need to know how to make action sequences that the player won't miss, because the player is most likely looking in the wrong direction. They need to know how to choreograph a fight so that the player can freely unleash their fighting moves. I've seen a film director successfully put a gaming experience into a movie, so maybe game designers are better storytellers?
**Turing Community:** Would you consider doing a job other than a game designer? Like a screenwriter or a cartoon movie director?
**Scott:** I studied screenwriting in college, and I'm also interested in directing animation. The most interesting thing about making games is that I can do both at the same time, but I'm also a game designer . I've written scripts for video game cutscenes, and I've written in-game dialogue. I've designed cutscenes, directed film teams, and even directed voice actors, including Tom Kenny (the voice of "Transformers"), Nolan North (the well-known American TV actor), Frank Welker (Wayne in "Transformers") Earthquakes), and Clancy Brown (who starred in The Shawshank Redemption). That's the great thing about games, I can be the designer, film director, screenwriter, voice director, and more at the same time!
**Turing Community:**What discipline do you think a good game designer needs to learn? Do you have any suggested books to read?
**Scott:** Learn everything! Designer Jesse Schell said that an all-around game designer understands animation, anthropology, architecture, brainstorming, business, film art, communication, creative writing, economics, engineering, history, management, mathematics, music, psychology, Public speaking, effective design, technical writing, and visual arts. This is a more accurate list. Plus you have to play a lot of games, good ones and bad ones, especially bad ones. You learn a lot more by playing a bad game than by playing a good one. You'll learn what not to do and, with luck, ignite your imagination to make a great game. You can learn anything that makes you passionate. I love Disneyland, haunted houses, comic books, and archaeology, and I've tried to incorporate as many of these elements into the game as possible. You can incorporate your personal interests into your game design and make it unique.
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Scott Rogers has embarked on a 16-year (and counting) career making video games since he found it more interesting to be a game designer. He participated in the design of many very successful games: "Pac-Man World", "Disgaea" series, "God of War", "Drawing Life" series, "Darksiders", etc. Scott is now an imagineer at Disney, and he feels that all the knowledge he has accumulated is a preparation for this job. He was a Creative Manager under THQ. He lives near Los Angeles with his lovely wife and two equally lovely children, not too far from the nuclear zone. There are countless game figures living with his family. |
