Game Design Test

We've seen schools develop courses in gaming. Growing evidence that games are something to study, and something to teach.

Of course game designers have always known that. Within the industry there is a body of knowledge valued for game designers. Not simply a long list of historical recitations, what's valued is the ability to synthesize and solve problems based on your experience.

Brian Yeung has posted questions from a test he took for a position as a level designer:

1. Describe the relevant differences between a PC gaming experience and a console gaming experience. How do these differences, if any, affect how you would design a game?
2. What do most people mean when they mention or ask for non-linear missions, and what are the best ways to provide this?
3. Halo, GTA3, and Battlefield 1942 are all examples of games with multi-modal gameplay, whereas Quake, Project Gotham Racing, and MechWarrior are not. What does multi-modal gameplay mean? What design considerations do you need to make to incorporate multi-modal gameplay in your game or mission?
4. What are the design considerations between single-player and multiplayer levels/maps?
5. Real-Time Strategy (RTS) games and Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPG) are 2 very PC-centric game genres with extremely successful games. Describe how you would redesign the controls and interface for one of these popular games (Age of Empires, StarCraft, WarCraft, EverQuest, Asheron's Call, etc.) and make it usable and fun using the Xbox controller, and discuss the considerations that would have to be made to redesign the game.
6. What mission/level design considerations do you need to keep in mind when designing a 3-D flying game? What is unique about them from a design perspective (for example, as opposed to a First Person Shooter)?

Brian shared his answers on his site: Cranky User: Game Design Test, along with other critical thoughts on video games, culture and usability.

Comments

[Nathan McKenzie]

Hmm.

Lots of interesting topics there. It seems like an awful lot of those questions are shoehorning topics that naturally occur along a continuum and compressing them into boolean yes/no values, though.

For exaple, is Tetris an example of multi-modal gameplay? If you look at it in the long term, I imagine you'd be tempted to say no - obviously the player is doing roughly the same thing for the entire game. But not if you examine this in very, very small time chunks (the fact that you're forced to contend with blocks that are all used in fairly different ways, and that you're not allowed to pick which block comes next, is right at the heart of Tetris, obviously. Is each block you're forced to use a different mode? What if I apply some metaphor to the blocks, to help make how different they are easier to grasp? The player's controls are still roughly the same for each block - does that disqualify it as a mode?)

How about the Lost Vikings? The player is in control of three characters, all of whom have very, very different properties, and the player can swap between those characters at any point. Is each character a mode?

Does multi-modal have to refer to the verbs or actions a player has at any moment? Prince of Persia:The Sands of Time presents the player with a consistent set of abilities over the course of the game, but the combat sections of the game, in comparison to the exploration / platforming sections of the game, seem as strikingly different to me, in terms of what I'm doing, to the difference between vehicle combat and on-foot combat in Halo.

Hmm. I just wonder if the sort of distinction they're drawing here with "multi-modal" stuff is a helpful way of thinking about how games are constructed, or if it's perhaps a bad fit.

[Snowmit]

Cool! I think I'll try to answer these before looking at his answers...(wanders off)

[crankyuser]

So, some context. This was part of a test given to me back when I was interviewing for a level design position on Crimson Skies: The High Road to Revenge, which shipped last holiday on the Xbox. This comprehensive section was just to see how applicants thought about game design as a whole. The second half was to script a mission and sketch out a level.

The rest of the site is old portfolio work cobbled together to prove I could think critically about games, which eventually worked. I targeted Microsoft because of my background in usability and human-computer interaction, which is something they do as a company and subsequently for the games they publish (see also publications by the playtest group). It's becoming more common for software development but still rare for games.

Since then I've worked on a racing title (Xbox) and now the Matrix Online (MMO, PC), and no one has wised up and kicked me out yet.

Nathan> I think you could argue that Lost Vikings is multi-modal, but not Tetris. I think it's easier to make a case for it in a game like Halo, where a player might be good at shooting but not playing. She could have a preference towards one mode or another, and mostly ignore the other one with no ill consequences (that argument doesn't work as well for GTA3). It's a lot bigger shift than using one character in a puzzle games versus using a different character. Regardless, multi-modality isn't really an "official" term--given the context of those examples I'm hard pressed to think of it meaning anything other than "shooting game with vehicles."

[waka]

crankyuser-

I also work in the game industry (as the designers' arch nemesis--a programmer), and I think your questionnaire does a pretty good job of summing up the types of interview questions applicants entering the game industry are likely to face.

I'd like to point out that "multi-modal" does not necessarily mean that multiple modes of play must be seamlessly integrated. While GTA and Halo obviously combine several modes into a single gameplay stream, many many more games mix up game play by simply assigning discreet modes to individual levels. For example, I-Ninja features a sorta-first person boxing mode in addition to the regular 3rd person platforming mode. Similarly, the SNES version of Contra had a top-down mode 7 mode in addition to the regular side-scrolling game levels. Though you cannot seamlessly transition between these modes, the games are nonetheless multi-modal.

The ultimate multi-modal example is the Shenmue series. The entire game is built out of discreet modes, some of which are very small and focused while others (running around, fighting) dominate the game.

waka

[Nathan McKenzie]

Is Shenmue more multi-modal than WarioWare...?

Yes this question is reaching into the realms of being pendantic :)

[mali]

From reading waka's post, it would seem to me that Shenmue is a good example of a multi-modal game where the modes are quite integrated, a la Halo; I don't think most people playing it would think, "I'm now on the crate-carrying level" when they are moving crates in the warehouse. They've simply entered another area of the same integrated level, with a different mode of activity.

WarioWare - from my very limited experience with it - is very obvious about switching modes; they're completely different in appearance and unrelated to each other from the player's perspective. They are different "levels" rather than different activities within the same world.

So is WarioWare necessarily more multimodal than Shenmue? Or are they two different but good examples of types of multimodal games?

Just my 2 uninformed cents, I am not in gaming by any stretch of the imagination, though I have to listen to crankyuser talk about it a lot.

[mali]

From reading waka's post, it would seem to me that Shenmue is a good example of a multi-modal game where the modes are quite integrated, a la Halo; I don't think most people playing it would think, "I'm now on the crate-carrying level" when they are moving crates in the warehouse. They've simply entered another area of the same integrated level, with a different mode of activity.

WarioWare - from my very limited experience with it - is very obvious about switching modes; they're completely different in appearance and unrelated to each other from the player's perspective. They are different "levels" rather than different activities within the same world.

So is WarioWare necessarily more multimodal than Shenmue? Or are they two different but good examples of types of multimodal games?

Just my 2 uninformed cents, I am not in gaming by any stretch of the imagination, though I have to listen to crankyuser talk about it a lot.

[Wildchicken]

In the interest of full disclosure, I'm the one who gave this test to cranky when I was interviewing potential level designers when we were ramping up for finishing up Crimson Skies II: High Road to Revenge.

"Multi-modal" is definitely a term used loosely. This is partly why the question was phrased the way it was - less a definition of the term and more a description through context. It also implicitly questioned the person's understanding and familiarity with games in general. If the person had never played or was unfamiliar with any of those games, this question would be unanswerable.

Also, these questions were also trying to see how the person thought about games and game design. It's not simply a right vs. wrong answer, but of course there are degrees of right and wrong.

Hopefully this helps clarify this small debate somewhat or maybe all I've done is stirred the pot more.

-wildchicken-

[Wildchicken]

In the interest of full disclosure, I'm the one who gave this test to cranky when I was interviewing potential level designers when we were ramping up for finishing up Crimson Skies II: High Road to Revenge.

"Multi-modal" is definitely a term used loosely. This is partly why the question was phrased the way it was - less a definition of the term and more a description through context. It also implicitly questioned the person's understanding and familiarity with games in general. If the person had never played or was unfamiliar with any of those games, this question would be unanswerable.

Also, these questions were also trying to see how the person thought about games and game design. It's not simply a right vs. wrong answer, but of course there are degrees of right and wrong.

Hopefully this helps clarify this small debate somewhat or maybe all I've done is stirred the pot more.

-wildchicken-

[jnnx]

"We've seen schools develop courses in gaming. Growing evidence that games are something to study, and something to teach."

How are schools that develop courses in gaming growing evidence that games should be taught/studied?

[outsider]

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