Immersion < Attention

Source: Gamasutra

If immersion is the goal, "Who would want to be entertained if they genuinely believed they were Uncharted Nathan Drake, always on the precipice of dangerous structures and at the mercy of gunfire?"

Instead, rather than try to chase this goal of immersion, we should focus on attention in the vein of flow theory (cf. Jenova Chen).

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Feedback = Feel = Reward

Feel = Feedback

The goal is to let combat be a reward in itself without relying on loot drops, level ups, or doors unlocking to feel good.

1.) How you convey an attack's effects to set expectations! e.g. SFX, VFX, animation to tell what's hard-hitting or long-range, e.g. bassy boom and slower speed for weight.
2.) How you know you've hit, beyond a foe's HP bar--observing a physical stagger, etc.

3.) How well you hit them, which may vary between weapons (e.g. sniper headshots).
4.) Avoid HP values that lack design thought, e.g. shmup-popcorn vs. a sponge with puzzle/tactical approach elements baked in (see the Darknuts from Wind Waker).
5.) How you convey when a foe dies with clarity!

Feedback = Reward

When we talk about game "feedback" it often boils down to a game's rewards and/or punishment setup.

• Provide feedback on rewards as close as possible to the behavior you want to reward the player for doing, so they associate the two.
• Mix certain, guaranteed rewards with others that feel more random.
• Show the value of rewards and behavior to the player.

"Feedback's goal is to incite the player to interact via some Action!" - RGD

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Pitting Risk vs. Reward = Threat

Source

Requires a pertinent gameplay resource to put at risk!
Without the threat of change such as that, there is no risk.

-- Sakurai: "Risk as close as possible to the zone for Reward," e.g. Mario's jump vs. Kirby's flight.

http://raum.pbworks.com/f/Toyplay+&+Goalplay+MSc+Thesis.pdf

- Levels of Threat in Toyplay

Totten's Corridor: if you as a player enter a hallway at the middle with bones at one end and a plain door at the other, would you put yourself at greater risk for greater reward?

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Strangely Shining Pillars

Pillars are neither the icing nor the flavoring over the UX -- they ARE the UX. They can be good in separation but they'll never be great until they work together.

AKA cohesive, coherent, consistent like with Kasavin on atmosphere. Hence why I equate "tight" design and "pillar-driven design."

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Downwell: let one thing shine through all the facets of your game, and make the game you want to play...

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Rami: ..and let that thing be what's different/strange about what you do.
(---> FIREFLY LOGO!)

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Minimalist Game Design

Source = Canabalt

This one comes from an academic paper made in large part by the developer of Canabalt. It can be found at https://www.academia.edu/1108618/Towards_Minimalist_Game_Design.

The Goal of Minimalist Game design

"to allow for high-level activities [core loop(s)] that consist of a small set of rearrangable micro-mechanics."

(Since this is a core vision that unites all the points in below slides, that's why I'm keeping it separated into UX, rather than interleaving each discipline's slide into the earlier stage and stage-step slideshows.)

Minimalist Game design in Systems

"Tight coupling" is one technique to achieve this, at the cost of needing more design iterations to balance the coupled systems (e.g. your size is your health/life in Osmos, your x-position is your time-position in Braid). This cost obviously works better in minimalist games, because they are defined by having fewer rules and mechanics, resulting in less combinatorial complexity.

Minimalist Game design in Controls

"Analyze the control scheme of a game as discrete/continuous I/O, and use the level of discretization as a balancing/tuning parameter. In our experience, discrete schemes have a tendency to be more accessible and map to a wider variety of hardware devices, without compromising on depth of player expression."

Minimalist Game design in A/V

Non-photorealistic or otherwise stylized, at most. Like infographics and reductionist art, success here depends on how you map the system state to a visual representation such that players can interpret your game. First, you have to decide how much of the system's black box to show (similar to encapsulation in OO programming), and second the choice of visuals you use to show those details (with reference to the Heider-Simmel test for animations). In particular, minimalist games tend to leverage the increased capacity that abstract art has to provide high amounts of contrast without causing the uncanny valley effects that photorealistic visuals would suffer.

Minimalist Game design in Story

• Avoid extensive exposition. Instead of starting the game with a voice-over, cut scene, or text crawl, put the player in an interactive role. Set the scene with mood and atmosphere rather than words. Introduce characters with actions, rather than biographies.
• Value exploration over explanation. Reward players for exploring your world rather than burdening them with excessive pages of lore and back story.
• Avoid optional collectibles that explain crucial details of your world's history. Find ways to implement this information into gameplay, rather than audio files.
• Silence can be just as valuable as conversation. Use body language and facial expressions to express feelings when possible.
• Make the player ask questions and don't be afraid to never answer them. If every detail of a game is laid out for the player to discover, then the game has a finite depth. Mysteries and the unknown represent areas that have never been explored and will exist in the minds of players long after they put the controller down.
• Complex character progression can be the focus within an incredibly simple plot. Remember that minimalism can be used as a contrast between two things to create a deceptively deep experience.

Minimalist Game design in Systems I

• Always side with familiarity over uniqueness. This sounds incredibly counter-productive for anyone trying to create something new, but it's true. If you're making something that is in any way familiar to something that already exists, then your players are going to have pre-existing expectations. Don't reinvent the wheel when your players are already familiar with driving.
• Use context-sensitive inputs rather than expansive control schemes. If your player can open chests and doors, the same button should perform both actions. It is up to you, as a designer, to make sure that doors and chests never overlap.
• To expand on the context-sensitive inputs: a single button can be pressed in more than one way. Single tap, double tap, extended hold, rhythmic tap; these are all different ways to press the same button. It may be tempting to take advantage of an entire controller, but try to find ways to limit the number of buttons your player has to press when it makes sense.
• Use timing and rhythm-based solutions to puzzles and conflicts. Players can pick up on these gameplay patterns without having to rely on intrusive instructions or explanations.

• Force players to learn through experimentation directly after discovering a new ability. Without relying on text boxes and tutorials, you can immediately require the use of the ability to solve a problem before the player can continue. Then, as the designer, it's your job to make sure that this ability remains relevant throughout the rest of the game so that the player doesn't forget about it.
• Give your players a reason to NOT press a button. If shooting endlessly down a hallway is a solution, then not shooting endlessly down a different hallway can be another. Instead of adding gameplay mechanics, think about temporarily removing existing mechanics to add new gameplay experiences.
• Avoid redundancies. Giving players a variety of choices is usually a good thing, but make sure that a highly preferred choice doesn't create obsolete solutions. For example, a jet pack power-up will make your grappling hook and double jump power-ups useless. When one solution is obviously superior, the other solutions immediately become pointless and excessive. If you have multiple solutions, make sure that they each provide a unique and valuable reward.

• Use a limited and deliberate color palette. Colors can represent emotions, moods, locations, temperatures, and personalities. Being consistent and tasteful in your choice of color is far more important than using a certain variety of colors.
• Contrast is your friend. When using limited visual assets, the contrast between those assets becomes just as important as the assets themselves. Blank space between items should be used to your advantage when dealing with a limited number of on-screen elements.
• Use simple, recognizable shapes. If you're not familiar with art and design, you should at least learn about the importance of silhouettes. Take the most detailed element in your scene and reduce it to a single color. Is it still readable? By working with limited colors, you can build recognizable scenes that will remain readable as you increase the fidelity of those elements over time.

• Lighting is more important than poly count. A low-poly scene with superb lighting is a beautiful thing.
• Use colors or light to direct players to a destination rather than HUD elements, maps, and markers.
• Integrate potential HUD elements into the game's environment where possible. Think of a digital readout on the side of a gun to represent ammo, or an inventory system that exists in physical space within a player's backpack rather than in a menu screen.
• High-quality anims on a less detailed character trumps a badly animated photo-realistic character.
• Use real-time lighting to represent time, rather than an on-screen clock.
• Use damage models or other unique environmental solutions to represent health instead of on-screen meters. Think of an enemy moving more slowly or walking with a limp to represent low health.
• Use GIFs to advertise your game if your minimalist aesthetic results in unreadable screenshots.

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Minimalism in the late Chuck Jones: "Use the smallest possible facial gestures to get laughs." --> Apply on pixel art?