game-design posts

Gamers are often outspoken about their favorite hobby. Cries of "I could make a better game!" emanate from Internet forums, and "That's cheese!"is often heard amid the sounds of fists and feet pummeling friends in college dorm rooms worldwide.

Do you really think you could make a better game? Put down the controller, son: it's put-up-or-shut-up time.

DigiPen Institute of Technology, a video game design-centric school located in Redmond, Washington, has announced the addition of a Bachelor of Art and Bachelor of Science in Game Design degrees to its diverse array of program options.

According to DigiPen's website, the Bachelor of Science in Game Design (B.S.G.D.) degree "is designed to educate students to become technical game designers with the skills necessary to design levels, program, script, and work in this dynamic field." On a somewhat parallel track, the Bachelor of Arts in Game Design (B.A.G.D.) degree "prepares students to become artistic level designers with the skills to create worlds, levels, and the art for these."

Both the B.S.G.D and B.A.G.D. Degrees will be offered as of DigiPen's Fall 2008 semester.

The objective of Gamasutra's regular Design Lesson 101 column, written by game designer Manveer Heir, is simple: play a game from beginning to end, and learn something about game design from the experience. This time around, the game in the spotlight is Massive Entertainment's World of Conflict.

Heir observed that most RTS games implement the same tried-and-true formula: "collect resources, build a base, pump out units, research upgrades, demolish enemy, win." Units are built, units are killed, new units are built, new units are killed, and so on ad nauseum. With WiC, however, Heir pointed out that resources are returned to the player after a unit dies -- but not immediately. "Instead, the resources trickle back in over time," Heir wrote. "Your resources aren't constrained by how well or poor you are doing in the game."

Such an initially peculiar design decision actually helps to avoid players easily achieve victory after gaining the upper hand in battle. "The death of one unit can be replaced, but not immediately," wrote Heir. "You may have to wait a couple minutes in order to be able to afford replacing that unit."

Of course, a consequence must exist for the player losing a unit. If they could simply be replaced, there would be no penalty for a platoon of units being slaughtered. The consequence, noted Heir, "is the time it takes to get a replacement. Having less units affects the player's ability to hold control points. Holding control points affects the drop-position of new units. If the player is forced to drop units further back from the front line of battle, it's more difficult to reinforce, take new control points, and make positive progress in the game."

Guild Wars shook up the MMO scene with a radically different business plan, where game development would be funded with box sales instead of subscription fees. It also stood out as one of the best examples of PvP design, since players were allowed to create top level characters dedicated to competitive gameplay. The game was later followed by two campaigns that added new classes, new PvP modes and a slew of different skills. Factions introduced Faction Points and Alliance Battles, while Nightfall brought in computer controlled Heroes to assist in all areas of combat. Although certain aspects overlap between PvE and PvP game types, Guild Wars has a "separate but equal" way of dealing with the two. Competitors have dedicated arenas, away from the story based areas, where they can quickly jump right into a battle. As a result, strong communities have grown around both PvP and PvE gameplay, and fans eagerly await news about Guild Wars 2. We speak with game designer Isaiah Cartwright from ArenaNet, who specializes in PvP, skill balance and most other combat-related design to find out what it takes to maintain the balance between PvP and PvE gameplay. Read the interview after the jump.