Amanda Potts

So many articles and essays about game design start with Super Mario Bros level 1-1 and this was no exception. Mostly these point out the way the character is used to control the way the game plays out and how players can shape the game. Other games included in the discussion are Castlevania and the Monuments of Mars. Interestingly there seems to be some common understanding about not having S shaped levels which is shocking. The shocking part is that it is agreed upon seemingly unanimously. I am more curious to figure out if there are other designers who make the s designed levels and if it common among indie games.

The screen shot below is of me playing Monster Sanctuary which is available on steam.

Come Alive is a 2D game created in Unity about mannequins coming alive inside a factory. The point of the game is to collect the partial mannequins and to take them to the trash in order to clean up the factory. The game ends by collecting enough of the mannequins.

Brainstorming is necessary with all creative work. One way to make brainstorming work well is by listening to your subconscious and allowing it to voice its ideas and concepts. Allowing those ideas to come to flurision isn’t the goal the goal is to get creative thoughts going. The main thing is to take those weird and possibly off topic ideas and think about how they could work. This may create something majestic or it may create something to be thrown out, either way it allowed for the subconscious to be part of the creative process.

On top of using one’s sub-self there are some helpful tips on how to brainstorm effectively. Some are commonly used like to listen to yourself and record your ideas. Some are a little more out of the box as instincts don’t tell us this is the way to do the thing we want. So for instance in order to let oneself brainstorm with their subconscious one needs to maintain a decent amount of sleep and to maintain the needs of said subconscious. The needs of the subconscious is where things might get a little weird.

Don’t let your ideas or work be fragile. If it doesn’t work throw it out (or out of that project) and start over. There is a production cycle to follow when designing things. The cycle starts with and idea and moves on to building and testing the prototype(s) which is analyzed for problems and brought back to the designing stage for fixing and the cycle continues until the game is deemed finished. This cycle allows for the ideas to be played out and for there to be tests on how the ideas work or if they work. If the ideas are good and they come across then there is also the bug fixing, that is fixing small or sometimes large problems with the game such as missing textures or falling/clipping through objects.

Minimalist game design is a quicker way to delve deep into the lore/story and choices in a game. The concept of minimalism also allows for more abstract worlds. These worlds don’t need to be photorealistic which allows an artist to play with their own visual style and literacy. Minimalist games are not simple in their story or space they are simple in the layout and amount of things/details of things seen in the game. Minimalist games allow for more variety in play for the player, as there are fewer rules and less things to get distracted by. The practically nonexistent distractions are thanks to the simple controls, and low viewed intricacy of the games visuals. Music and other sound effects are used in minimalist games mostly to encourage the feel the designer wants for the game. In some the sounds are to make the world seem larger and in some its used to make the player feel amped up to fight, run, race, etc;. Regardless of the term minimalist, games are still detailed in their story and play.

A game should always have a unifying theme. Something that connects all the pieces together, that includes music and color as well as the actual details of the world. Pirates seem to be a dream of a lot of people. This dream was used to connect the elements that were put into a game that the author of “The Art of Game Design” took part in.

In order to have a game, one needs an idea. It is difficult to delve deeply into an idea without brainstorming. One way to brainstorm is to just sit and think about something and see where your mind ends up. Another, probably more likely to succeed way, is to write down your ideas. Perhaps start with a word and write the ones that come to mind based off of that word and then continue until you feel you have gotten enough ideas across that you can make what you want to make.