I remember playing Battlefield 1942 for the first time ever. I had been waiting for months for the release. The way I remember it, it was revolutionary because we could finally truly drive vehicles in a game. This is fairly standard practice in many games now, but back then, the first of the Battlefield franchise, it was something entirely new.
I installed the game, waited about 30 minutes for the map to load, and entered into the world set in 1942. What I found lived up to my expectations. I believe it had a phenomenal design. It still remains one of my favorite games of all time. Why? I think much of it relates to some of these concepts below.
In contrast, I really enjoyed the Fallout series. I had played both Fallout 3 and Fallout 4. It was one of the few games I had truly completed that was singleplayer. I normally favor multiplayer games and tend to spend most of my time there. So when they announced Fallout 76, how could I not be excited? I was ecstatic to play the game alongside others.
What I remember though is that, even though I disagree as to how bad it was, it certainly had design problems that kept it from reaching its potential. Let’s look at some differences between good design and bad design in video games.
Factors Involved in The Quality of Game Design
Clarity
Good Design: The player understands the objective.
Bad Design: The player is left confused about what the objective is.
In almost all forms of design, clarity is one of the key elements. If you are designing a website, you want the user to understand what they are looking at quickly. The same is true of good design in video games.
What a player wants is clarity in understanding an objective. Imagine having a game built around quests to progress, but there was no way to retrieve specific objectives or an explanation of where to go. This would immediately be game-breaking.
Most designers would not leave that portion out altogether, but what I do see is that designers may make it confusing, at times even intentionally. For example, placing instructions in one place, perhaps deep in long quest text or only found at an NPC. This is poor design because it has a lack of clarity to progress in the game.
Optimization
Good Design: Controls make sense for the platform, Objectives are easily visible giving information to the player quickly and efficiently.
Bad Design: Small or misplaced controls on mobile, ergonomics not taken into account (buttons at the top instead of the bottom of a phone screen). Objectives are difficult to find. Navigation is confusing.
Controls are extremely important in any game. As a game grows in complexity, often times the need for focusing on controls grows as well. Consider a game like World of Warcraft. In the early days, you had about 10 options to choose from on your hot bar. It was quickly obvious that with characters having so many abilities, there was a real need to think about how you would handle that. To help solve some of the complexity, several mods were released to assist with this.
In mobile, in the early days, much of the navigation for apps being at the top of the screen. This was really poor practice. Ergonomics should have convinced us to put navigation at the bottom where our thumbs naturally land in normal position.
Good optimization is not just related to controls, but to every aspect of the game. It allows players to see objectives quickly. It may help levels feel seamless. Without optimization of camera angles, buttons, controls, responses, and more, the player will be left confused or maybe frustrated.
A good solution here would be to wireframe your concepts early on. If you know what abilities you plan to have layout the UI for your game early. In my own experience, this can potentially change mechanics in the game. For example, if I need an extra button to make a specific mechanic work, I may want to eliminate it altogether or tweak it so that all the mechanics feel similar.
Layout
Good Design: A good layout encourages players to follow the intended sequence of events (or a variation of them).
Bad Design: A bad layout leads the players to a sequence that breaks the story or function of the game.
In web design, there has been quite a bit of study about how to progress users through a page. For example, if you want to build a killer sales page, you do not typically want to reveal the price immediately. Instead, you might begin talking about the benefits or solutions you are providing to the user first.
In game design, the concept is similar. There are certain sequences of events that you likely want to happen in most RPG’s. In puzzle games, there are discoveries that should happen before others. First Person Shooters, even in multiplayer, likely have a series of events that lead up to combat that you want to encourage.
Let’s take one of my favorite games currently, Rust. What would happen to the game if you provided each player with two rockets, able to blow through a single wall when you spawn in the game? Honestly, it would break the game entirely. The sequence of the game is primarily to gather, build a base, build-up, and then be able to raid other bases after quite a bit of farming. If you skip any of these, it becomes a totally different game, and pretty bad in my opinion.
A good layout will encourage players to follow through with this sequence. Consider placing elements in your game strategically to assist with this. If there are elements of a story in your game, make sure they get those elements before being able to move out of the area they are in. At a minimum, discouraging it.
Without doing this, it would be equivalent to placing a key to a locked door in the first room but the majority of the story elements being in a back room somewhere, a place the player is not encouraged to go. The player would miss out on key elements and the sequence you intended.
The solution here for story-based games would be to create a level layout map prior to building your environment. You are not stuck with this, and it will change over time. However, a plan can assist you in making some guesses on where you want players to go and why they might want to go there.
For puzzle games, it less about the level layout, and perhaps more about problems that they will need to solve. I would start with the most basic and work my way up.
Broken Elements
Good Design: Tasks, quests, and the storyline is able to be followed without technical problems
Bad Design: Tasks, quests, or storyline is segmented or broken by bugs.
I won’t spend much time here as we know the importance of having a bug free game. With that being said, it is worth mentioning that games should do what they can to remove these prior to release.
I am immediately thinking of Fallout 76. It was notorious for several bugs. Some were nearly game-breaking with quests that you could not complete. Others broke the emersion of the game.
I encourage my students to build small games but spend a good portion of their game working in this area. Early on, there will be many broken elements. Perhaps dialog boxes that don’t appear all the time. When I click “E” on a door, the door only opens sometimes. Or maybe only slightly better, it opens and automatically closes before the player can get through it.
Environment
Good Design: The environment tells the story without explanation using audio, text, or a cut scene.
Bad Design: The environment is missing visual elements that assist in telling the story.
For most 3D Designers that I have had, this is one area that they always need to improve in. It’s something that often goes unnoticed. We expect it in AAA games, but to put the concept to practice in our own games is a bit of a different story.
This part of the process is extremely time-consuming but tends to be the first thing people look at to determine if your game is “good” or “bad”. My recommendation to students is to first come up with the story but then think about quite a few objects that might assist with the story or tell the story visually.
For example, if you are in an old western town, some elements that immediately come to mind are the saloons, old barrels, and trains. Depending on where the setting is, desert terrain with cactus and rolling tumbleweeds. Some of the piled up against buildings as the wind blows. Horse stables, horses, places to tie them to in front of stores, etc. This tells the story, without me needing to tell people they are in a western world.
Consistency
Good Design: Each world, level, character, and prop in the scene feel they are from the same game.
Bad Design: Worlds, levels, characters, and props are fragmented, breaking cohesion of each environment.
This is a common mistake for new game designers. They decide they want to build an awesome game and have heard that the Unity Asset Store is a great place to get some help. The only problem is that the textures and models feel like they do not belong together.
As an example, I have seen students with a very realistic floor texture, but their model feels cartoon style. This does not blend well in most cases. Or, if you walk into one room and see cartoon style cups on the table, but the table itself has realistic wood grain on it. Again, it simply does not feel like it belongs.
One way to fix this is to develop a process early on. If you stick with that process, and perhaps even take models that you download and run those models through it, you will likely end up with something better in the end. If you plan to use realistic texturing techniques, I would likely redo any texturing on a model myself so that it fits with everything else I have completed. I would recommend doing this on models that even feel a bit higher quality than what you are producing. I think it is far more important to feel consistency than it is to have one amazing look model in your game while the rest are mediocre. If mediocre is where you are currently at in your artistic ability, embrace it!
Flow
Good Design: Major elements of a story or progression are well highlighted
Bad Design: Player misses key parts of a story due to glossing over them quickly. Or, progression in the game feels minimal and unaccomplished, maybe even unnecessary.
When story based games miss the mark on flow, the story itself feels broken. Some alarming statements might be, “I’m not sure what is happening”. In story based games, this is a clue that the player overlooked certain elements.
In modern times, we see some of this being corrected with cut scenes. Another tactic is to reinforce what is happening in multiple ways. Take for example that you want the player to realize he is lost in the forest, you may want audio from time to time where the character in game says things like, “I have no idea where I am… “ This reinforces the objective but also restates the story so the player knows exactly what is happening in the story line.
For puzzle games it’s considerably different. Flow in puzzle based games needs to incorporate elements of satisfaction and accomplishment. Angry birds does a great job with this. After each level you receive a star rating, really making sure players understand how to improve in the game and also quick feedback on their accomplishment. It keeps the player moving forward, and likely playing as they feel that sense of accomplishment.
Expectation
Good Design: NPC’s, Objects, Weapons, and Other Elements behave and respond in an appropriate manner.
Bad Design: NPC’s, Objects, Weapons, and Other Elements respond to player input in an unexpected manner.
This is another one that is relatively commonplace. We need for the game to behave in a way that we would normally expect. Of course, games break this concept all the time, but the idea here is that if you do break “normal behavior” you do it consistently.
Outside of consistent expectations, games will feel broken. As players, we now have a far greater expectation of how enemy NPC’s will act. Games like Dishonored, which is based on a stealth mechanic, does this quite well. You have a consistent response from the enemies in the game.
Games like Fallout 76 do this poorly. One of the most commonly discussed parts of the game was how the enemy was not consistent in how they might respond. One enemy may run at you from 100 yards away, the next one you have to be right next to before it responds.
When you approach the enemy in Fallout 76, some might stand there staring at you, others might run right next to you while remaining in the T-pose. The expectation is completely broken.
As much as this is about bug fixing, it is also simply about making sure that when you do break the rule of “normal”, do it consistently. Ensure responses feel like they belong.
A good solution to this is playtesting. See how players respond to any new animation, mechanic, or audio you place into the game. Ensure that what you intended lines up with the result. If not, it may be an issue with expectations.
Conclusion
There are many factors to consider in what makes good game design versus what makes bad game design. The great thing about art in general is that we can sometimes break these rules. If you are experienced, I would encourage you to take one of these areas and consider breaking it, but in a way that does it well. On some occasions, you will see this.
If you are a newer game designer, I would highly recommend you take some of the advice written here. Much of the solutions involve early planning and prototyping. Have people play what you create early and often. In the end, you will have a far better product to ship.