Design Games focuses on creating engaging and immersive narrative experiences that enhance gameplay. At polarservicecenter.net, we understand the importance of storytelling in games and how it can elevate the player experience. To help you get started, we provide comprehensive guidance on the fundamentals of design games, combining mechanics, systems, and compelling narratives to create unforgettable interactive experiences. From troubleshooting your Polar devices to optimizing your fitness journey, narrative design helps align your experiences with engaging storylines.
1. Understanding Narrative Design in Game Development
Game development is an evolving field, with design games as a relatively recent discipline. The term “design games” first emerged in 2006, marking a significant shift in how stories are integrated into interactive experiences. This evolution has led to exciting new approaches to engage players, with designers continually innovating to create immersive worlds and compelling characters.
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While the field is still developing, some fundamental principles guide the craft of design games. Here, we’ll explore these principles and how they differentiate this role from other positions in a game studio.
1.1. How Design Games Differs From Game Writing
Design games is a discipline deeply intertwined with storytelling, but it is distinct from game writing. While designers may contribute to the plot, characters, or lore, their primary focus is on translating these elements into gameplay. In many instances, designers are tasked with bringing the visions of writers and other creatives to life, transforming narrative ideas into interactive experiences.
Rather than crafting the storyline, designers focus on enhancing the player experience through the strategic implementation of narrative elements. Other team members typically handle the creation of cutscenes, dialogue, and item descriptions. The narrative designer uses these building blocks to create gameplay that is both engaging and story-driven.
1.2. How Design Games Integrates Mechanics and Systems
The narrative designer serves as a crucial bridge between the story and the game’s mechanics and systems. This role involves two main areas of focus: narrative systems design and narrative content design. Depending on the studio, these responsibilities may be handled by the same individual or divided among specialists.
narrative content vs narrative systems design
1.2.1. What are the Key Responsibilities in Narrative Systems Design?
Narrative systems design is a sub-specialization that involves creating the systems through which the story is told. These systems can include:
- Dialogue systems
- NPC behavior
- Morality systems
- Stealth mechanics
- Crime systems
These systems have a profound impact on the player’s experience.
Those starting in junior positions often focus on dialogue. However, the systemic interactions players have with the game world can be equally, if not more, impactful. Dishonored is a prime example of a game that tells its story through the world’s reactions to the player’s choices. Narrative system design specialists carefully determine how gameplay decisions, whether violent or non-violent, affect NPC reactions and the environment.
1.2.2. What are the Key Responsibilities in Narrative Content Design?
Narrative content design focuses on creating quests, NPCs, towns, and vignettes that populate the game world.
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This sub-discipline involves some writing, but primarily revolves around thinking in terms of the game itself. You must consider the series of choices available to the player and turn a linear experience into an interactive one.
Narrative content design specialists consider various questions to ensure a dynamic game experience:
- What happens if the player is attacked here?
- What if the player wants to attack this NPC?
- What if the player has been skipping all the dialogue; will they understand their objective?
- How do I cope with knowing players see the story as a barrier to playing the game?
These specialists transform a script on paper into a dynamic game.
2. Defining “Good” Design Games
What constitutes “good” design games is subjective. What works for one game may not work for another. Games focused on cinematic, linear stories have different requirements than those focused on branching, choice-heavy narratives. Like all aspects of game design, narrative design is driven by the game’s high-level goals.
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The following three guidelines can help with almost any design games project:
- Put gameplay first
- Match the story to your players’ motivation
- Plot out storyline arcs
2.1. Prioritizing Gameplay
When discussing favorite games, people often talk about the stories, memorable moments, beloved characters, and immersive worlds. Even when discussing gameplay, players tend to describe the game through narrative wrappers rather than the mechanics themselves.
- Players don’t “cause a damage-over-time effect;” they “inflict poison.”
- Players don’t “exhaust the game’s available text options;” they “talk with Garrus.”
Because narrative wrappers are often perceived as the game, there can be a tendency to overvalue story. Storytelling is crucial, but if the gameplay isn’t good, players won’t be excited about the poison or pay attention to the writing. Gameplay must come first.
If changing a mechanic would result in better gameplay but would require changing the story, change the story. No matter how attached you are, the story is always more flexible than the gameplay.
If your game idea starts with the story, it might be better suited as a book or movie. Games start with gameplay, and a designer must make the story work within gameplay’s “box.”
2.2. Aligning Story with Player Motivation
A major goal of design games is achieving Emotional/Motivational Parity. The player’s motivations (created through gameplay) should match the emotional beats of the story.
When story and gameplay aren’t aligned, the player’s immersion is at risk. Contradictions between story and gameplay can disrupt the experience and break the suspension of disbelief.
At best, this can be humorous, like “Press F to Pay Respects.” At worst, it can be frustrating or insulting, such as the ending of Mass Effect being distilled down to “red, green, or blue.” This disconnect is often referred to as “ludonarrative dissonance.”
ludonarrative dissonance
The easiest way to avoid ludonarrative dissonance is to ensure that what the player wants to do aligns with what the story is asking the player to do. While this sounds simple, story often competes with gameplay for the player’s attention. It’s common for writers to include exposition early in the game, but if it delays or interrupts gameplay, players may get irritated or ignore it because they’re not yet invested.
Dark Souls games, on the other hand, have little explicit storytelling but are often praised for their lore and story. The strange, Gothic world and story complement the brutal gameplay; the rare cutscenes are a reward, not an interruption.
2.3. Plotting Storyline Arcs
Arc diagrams are a tool for visualizing pacing and progression. They can help catch potential problems early on. Arcs are useful for planning quests, character development, or level gameplay beats. Let’s examine examples of a bad arc and a good arc, starting with a (fake) quest pitch:
The city of Corbach is under siege by a horde of undead. Bjorn, a local cleric, has a plan to bless the nearby river, creating a near-endless supply of holy water. However, blessing the river draws the attention of the necromancer creating the undead.
This pitch provides a baseline. Let’s break the idea into gameplay beats:
- Enter Corbach
- Speak with Bjorn
- Travel to the River
- Bjorn blesses the River
- Boss Fight
At a glance, this looks like a perfectly fine quest, but in this form, context is lacking. How these gameplay beats are presented will dramatically change the player’s experience. To better grasp the player’s experience, plot these beats using an intensity arc.
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This quest starts with high-intensity combat before the player can enter the town. An arc like this risks the player becoming numb or fatigued before they reach the final boss.
Let’s try a different approach to this pitch, using high and low intensity gameplay to make your story beats more impactful.
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Now the quest is broken up into more granular chunks, and a couple new beats are introduced to give a more interesting arc. The “Swarms of Enemies” now appears later, after a slow build-up. The “Guarded Chamber” is made its own beat, separate from combat, allowing time for environmental storytelling and mood setting. Finally, rather than letting the boss fight occur immediately after high-intensity combat, a brief pause is used to give greater impact to the finale.
While these two versions come from the same pitch, minor changes can make dramatic differences.
3. How to Develop Your Skills in Design Games
Design games combines storytelling, game mechanics, and player psychology to craft immersive and engaging experiences. Whether you’re an aspiring designer or a seasoned developer, honing your narrative design skills can significantly enhance your ability to create memorable games. Here are effective strategies to help you develop your skills in design games.
3.1. Critically Consume Game Stories and Other Media
Good writers borrow. Great writers steal. This maxim holds true for games as it does for writing. As you play games, read books, watch movies, and so on, pay attention to what you like and what you don’t. Critically consuming media is one of the fastest ways to improve.
Remember, “critically” is the keyword here. Make sure you assess what you intentionally consume through the lens of both game design and design games.
It’s not enough to be passive; you must ask yourself questions and evaluate why you feel the way you do. Here are some questions to get you started:
- What moment stood out to you? What made it memorable?
- Did you ever get lost or confused? How did you figure out what to do?
- Were there beats you would have changed? Why do you think they made the choices they did? (Think about their process and restrictions, not just their creative choices.)
- (For non-game media) How would you capture this feeling in a game? What’s the simplest and easiest to develop version? If you had more resources, what would you focus on?
When you discover mechanics, systems, and stories that you are drawn to, put those elements in your game. It may feel like stealing at first, but as you iterate and build (and steal more), you’ll end up with something that is uniquely yours.
3.2. Create Your Own Games
One of the best ways to hone your design games skills is to make text-based games using free open-source software called Twine. It’s a great way to build branching, story-heavy games.
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While practicing your storytelling skills, think critically about all the component parts that contribute to your game’s narrative experience:
- Which narrative beats should every player experience, and which only work on certain branches? Try plotting arcs for each possible path through a quest.
- Do you want your item descriptions to communicate function, add atmosphere, or give specific information that could affect players’ decisions?
- Analyze the big picture. How does each major decision point affect which characters, story elements, and mechanics the player will interact with? Are these effects well signposted, or will the player be unpleasantly surprised?
Once you’ve got some individual practice, look for game jams or other opportunities to work with other designers. Narrative designers need to be good collaborators and communicators so they can help the story and gameplay teams work together.
3.3. Play Your Games Critically
Arguably more than any other design discipline, narrative designers need a holistic understanding of the game. As the bridge between story and gameplay, you must understand both. This understanding is only possible by playing the game you’re working on.
No matter how strong you think your comprehension of the mechanics and systems, it will never compare to actually stepping into the shoes of your player by playing your game. Take the pitch from earlier. On paper, this looks like a solid quest, but it’s impossible to truly know how these beats feel until we can experience it through the game.
For example, let’s say you’re building this quest in an isometric game. A beat that relies on environmental storytelling may not be effective. Once in the game, the restricted camera makes environment props difficult to notice, and the moment may feel boring instead of atmospheric.
It’s expected that your story won’t mesh with your gameplay on the first try. Iteration is an important part of game development. So try something else, and test again.
3.4 Understanding the Realities of a Narrative Design Career
Narrative design positions make up approximately 5% of the total available game design positions. Because of this, it’s often more realistic to enter the industry in a more plentiful position such as playtesting, quest design, or level design first, then pivot to game writing, then to a design games position.
4. How Can polarservicecenter.net Assist You With Your Polar Devices?
At polarservicecenter.net, we understand the challenges you face with your Polar devices and are dedicated to providing comprehensive support. Whether you’re encountering technical issues, need guidance on warranty information, or seek to optimize your device’s features, we’re here to help.
4.1 Common Issues and Troubleshooting Guides
We offer a range of detailed guides to address common issues users encounter with their Polar devices. These guides provide step-by-step instructions to help you resolve problems quickly.
4.2 Warranty Information and Service Centers
We provide detailed information about Polar’s warranty policies and procedures.
| Service | Description |
|---|---|
| Warranty Coverage Details | Explains what is covered under the Polar warranty, including manufacturing defects and component failures. |
| Warranty Claim Process | A step-by-step guide on how to initiate a warranty claim, including required documentation and contact information. |
| Service Center Locations | A list of authorized Polar service centers in the USA, including addresses, phone numbers, and operating hours. |
| Out-of-Warranty Repairs | Information on how to get your Polar device repaired if it’s no longer covered by the warranty, including cost estimates and repair options. |
| Genuine Replacement Parts | Details on where to purchase genuine Polar replacement parts to ensure the longevity and optimal performance of your device. |
| Software and Firmware Updates | Instructions on how to keep your Polar device up to date with the latest software and firmware to ensure compatibility and access to the newest features. |
| Connecting to Apps and Platforms | Guidance on how to seamlessly connect and synchronize your Polar device with other apps and platforms to track your fitness data and performance metrics. |
| Tips and Tricks | Expert advice on how to effectively use the features of your Polar device to achieve your fitness goals, from optimizing heart rate monitoring to improving your sleep tracking. |
| Customer Support | Direct contact information for reaching our customer support team, available to assist with any inquiries or issues you may have. You can reach us at Address: 2902 Bluff St, Boulder, CO 80301, United States. Phone: +1 (303) 492-7080. Website: polarservicecenter.net. |
4.3 Software and Firmware Updates
Keeping your Polar device up-to-date is essential for optimal performance and access to the latest features. We offer detailed instructions on how to update the software and firmware on your device.
4.4 Connecting to Apps and Platforms
Synchronizing your Polar device with other apps and platforms can enhance your fitness tracking experience. We provide guidance on how to connect your device seamlessly with various applications.
4.5 Optimizing Device Features
Maximizing the potential of your Polar device requires understanding and utilizing its full range of features. We offer expert tips and tricks to help you effectively use these functionalities.
5. FAQ about Design Games
5.1. What is design games?
Design games is a specialized field within game development that focuses on creating and implementing the narrative elements of a game to enhance the player experience.
5.2. How does design games differ from game writing?
Design games involves translating narrative ideas into interactive gameplay, while game writing focuses on creating the story, characters, and dialogue.
5.3. What are the key skills required for design games?
Key skills include storytelling, game mechanics knowledge, systems thinking, collaboration, and communication.
5.4. What is ludonarrative dissonance?
Ludonarrative dissonance is the conflict between a video game’s narrative and its gameplay, which can disrupt player immersion.
5.5. How can I improve my design games skills?
You can improve by critically consuming media, creating your own games, and playing games critically to understand how narrative and gameplay interact.
5.6. What tools are commonly used in design games?
Common tools include Twine for creating interactive fiction, scripting languages, and game engines like Unity or Unreal Engine.
5.7. What is narrative content design?
Narrative content design involves creating quests, NPCs, towns, and vignettes that populate the game world, focusing on interactive player choices.
5.8. How important is collaboration in design games?
Collaboration is crucial, as narrative designers need to work effectively with writers, designers, and other team members to create a cohesive game experience.
5.9. What should I include in a design games portfolio?
Your portfolio should include examples of your work, such as game scripts, quest designs, and descriptions of how you integrated narrative elements into gameplay.
5.10. How can I stay updated with the latest trends in design games?
Stay updated by reading industry blogs, attending conferences, and participating in online communities focused on game design and storytelling.
Final Thoughts
Design games is a multifaceted discipline that combines storytelling, game mechanics, and player psychology to create engaging and immersive experiences. By understanding the fundamentals of narrative design, prioritizing gameplay, and aligning story with player motivation, you can craft games that captivate and resonate with players. At polarservicecenter.net, we are committed to supporting your journey, whether you need assistance with your Polar devices or inspiration for your next narrative masterpiece.
Are you experiencing issues with your Polar device or looking to optimize your fitness tracking? Visit polarservicecenter.net for expert guidance, troubleshooting tips, and access to our dedicated customer support team in the USA. Let us help you get the most out of your Polar experience.
