CS490 Supervised Undergraduate Research
Projects
Computer Game Design
Cornell University - Rama C. Hoetzlein, Prof. David Schwartz
Quality in Computer Game Design
Copyright 2002 (c) Rama C. Hoetzlein
This paper is an informal examination of the challenge of bringing quality
into the computer game design process. The definition of quality in computer
games will be examined carefully, as well as the goals of the game-maker and
the contemporary idea of cooperative computer games as a means to develop a
new genre of non-violence video games. The goal of this paper is to provide
a foundation for combining technical and artistic talent in computer game development,
and to construct a historical and experiential basis for quality in the process
and methods of computer game design. No absolute measure of quality is given,
as none could possibly exist. However, an analysis of the concept of quality
may lead to a better understanding of what we expect from well-designed computer
games.
Contents
Introduction
On the Content of Computer Games
On the Quality of Computer Games (for Artists and Programmers)
On the Goal of the Game Creator
On the Goal of Making Cooperative Computer Games
On Learning about the Design of Computer Games
Conclusions.. And a Test 'Just For Fun'
Introduction
Computer games are a growing aspect of our digital culture. They are also a
growing concern. Parents are concerned that games are too violent, and uneducational.
Teens play computer games because they are "fun", often avoiding interaction
with the real world. Novice game developers are excited about new game ideas,
but often discouraged and unhappy after they arrive in the Gaming Industry.
The Gaming Industry has been described by the general public as "greedy" and
"irresponsible". Thus it is clear that although computer games symbolize the
idea of fun, there is still much work to be done to resolve these problems.
This paper is concerned with the content and
design of games. However, because of the nature of the above problems, I don't
propose to have any universal solution. Rather, I believe that by investigating
the essential nature of computer games, and their purpose to our society, we
might understand how to make them better, and how to work together to make better
decisions about what games should be. My investigation will begin with the question
of what a computer game is.
On the Content of Computer Games
Computer games are inherently complex. Yet despite this, most people have a
basic understanding of what a computer game is. They are programs which consist
of art work, music, technical effects, a goal, and some interactive features.
However, this only scratches the surface of what a computer game is. Although
we may have some notion of what a computer game is, it often takes a certain
degree of analysis to really look at what goes into a computer game. The average
user of a game is perhaps unaware of the fact that computer games contain a
great deal of sophisticated programming, including graphics, artificial intelligence,
real-time algorithms, and many other techniques. Thus we can separate a computer
game into components which are visible to the user, and those which must exist
but are invisible to the user. Here is an initial diagram of a computer
game.
Visible Components
Art Work
Music
Sound
Environment
Characters
Behaviors
Goals
Menus (for entering/exiting game)
Invisible Components
Artificial Intelligence
Graphics Engine
Interface Programming (Joystick, Mouse, Keyboard)
Multiplayer Programming (Networks)
Sketches
Storyboards
This preliminary outline of a computer game
seems to capture the essential definition of what a computer game is and contains.
Yet the really interesting questions have to do with trying to figure out what
games are good, and what makes a good game...
Good computer games may be considered works of art. So far we have only discussed
the content of a game without regard to quality. To begin to understand the
nature of a good computer game, one might first be inclined to look at the content
and composition of the game. This type of analysis might lead to questions like
"What characters are in the game?", "What special effects and programming techniques
are used in the game?"... "What is the story?". One would come to the conclusion
fairly rapidly that the best games have nearly all of the above components --
art work, music, various characters, special and technical programming effects,
3D graphics, multiplayer possibilities and much more. But statements like this
seem to fall short of what the best games have to offer. Clearly there are some
games that have all of these things but are still really bad games. The fact
that a movie has special effects doesn't make it a good movie. The same applies
to computer games. This, I believe, is because the content is the outward visible
product of the game itself, while quality is some almost invisible or in a sense
internal to the game. Despite where quality originates, one can definitely say
that the fact something has quality does not depend on the quantity of its content,
for quality is much more than just content.. I believe that quality and content
are related, but content does not seem to be the determining factor.
On way to put it is:
"A game, as a material work, has content."
"A game which is designed with quality.. has good content."
Thus the question naturally arises, "How does one make a good computer game? How does one make good content?"
On The Quality of Computer Games (for Artists and Programmers)
In general, Computer Scientists tend to design games, like all things, from the bottom up. They begin with questions like "What does my project need to have?", and then proceed to construct those things in code.. creating test projects, then larger projects, and finally finished programs. This is all well and good, for these practices are essential to learning the trade of Computer Programming. In light of the contents of a computer game, a Computer Scientist would begin by locating or building a "graphics engine", figuring out how to network computers, and writing essential programs to do the Artificial Intelligence for creatures in the game. In other words, the initial concern of the computer scientist is with the Invisible Content of the game - the program.
Artists, like Computer Scientists, also begin their trade in the same way. An artist first decides that he or she would like to learn to draw -- perhaps to do figurative drawing, perhaps to do landscapes. So in starting to draw, the artist is concerned with the content of the drawing, what it contains. Yet there are many artists who draw very bad looking landscapes, or bad looking figures. This is only because they are unskilled. A trained artist understands that he or she is drawing a landscape, yet the focus of the artist is on something else altogether. The focus of the artist is on how to make the artwork appealing. This might involve a variety of techniques and ideas which the artist has mastered. Rather than consider artistic mastery, however, let us investigate how this relates to the quality of computer games.
In both cases, the artist and the computer scientist begin their trade by approaching the content. The artist begins with visible content, the computer scientist begins with invisible content. If this is the only level at which they can work, however, it is unfortunate. For, as the previous discussion suggests, the quality of a work of art, or the quality of a computer program depends more on the focus and perhaps the goals of artist or programmer than it does on the content itself. To a master musician, a piano is simply a tool. The notes and keys of the piano are so well practiced that the quality of the music comes from some other place altogether, which the musician is able to express. Thus is becoming so comfortable with the content, the master beings to create something of quality.
Good programmers also seem to recognize that the computer itself is simply a tool. I've seen programmers express frustration with movies in which a 'hacker' is shown doing some incredible programming feat with numbers, E=mc2 symbols, and letters floating around the screen. (e.g. see the movie "Hackers"). The reason for this frustration is that a good programmer also knows the symbols, letters and digits mean nothing ultimately - like the keys on a piano. They are the tools. The art of programming is really in how the symbols and letters are composed... that is, how they are organized.
Getting back to the quality of computer games. It is unfortunate that even in the gaming industry, where I believe there is a responsibility to create quality games, we still find artist and programmers who are struggling with creating content that has quality. For the most part, however, this is not the case. There are very good programmers in the game industry, along with very good artists (if perhaps underpaid). By good I mean they understand that content is only a tool, while quality comes from a purposeful and expressive organization of content.
Yet what I find most interesting is that many, many games are released that have good quality art work, and also have good quality software and algorithms, but still do not have quality. It is easy to identify games that have poor content.. that is, they look bad. It is harder, but still possible, to identify games that have good content but are still bad games.. that is, they look ok, but there is still something lacking. The desire for cooperative, educational computer games expresses the need for better games. But if good content alone is not enough, then what is. "What is quality in computer games?"
On the Goal of the Game Creator
If quality is more than the sum of all types of content in a game, and quality is even more than good content in a game, then what is quality? It is likely that an ultimate definition of quality is impossible. Perhaps we should not expect to have a definition for what makes something good, for if we did then every computer game would be good - we could simply apply the definition, and produce superb quality every time. This is obviously not possible. In practice, it is impossible.
The reason it is impossible to define quality is because quality is highly subjective. It depends on a great number of personal beliefs and ideals about how the world could or should be. Some like cult films, because they are anti-establishment. Others like romantic dramatic films, because they are classically beautiful. Who is to say which belief is more important, which movie has better quality. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."
Does this mean we can say absolutely nothing about the higher forms of quality? Certainly not. At the very least, we very often say that a good computer game is very "well-thought out", or very nicely "designed". In other words, we can say that good games have a carefully considered purpose. Another way to put it is that the creator of the game had some personal goal, related to life, which her or she was willing to investigate thoroughly.
This does not mean that the goal of the game creator is predetermined, or that quality is something specific. In other words, I am not suggesting that quality can be defined, or that the goals of the game creator can always be established. In many cases, even after a good game is complete, the creator of the game still does not really understand in words what his or her goal was. However, they usually are aware of an active, deep investigation of that personal goal, and the result was a computer game.
What I am suggesting, is that quality comes from practice and careful consideration of your personal goal as a game creator. For both the artist and the computer scientist, it comes from thinking not only about content itself, what my goals are in making programs, but what I would like to express, what is my goal in making games. This can often be express as: "What do I dream of in a computer game?". If the answer is particle systems or good AI, then something is a-miss. What I mean is, what is your personal goal in making games. In general, I believe the greatest masters were very keenly aware of their own goals and purpose. They understood their relationship to the world, and who they were in a way that permitted them to express that goal in beautiful things. And the more deeply they investigated that goal, the more they realized how mysterious and interconnected it was with other things.
So, to get down to business, what is the goal of creating computer games? Although there are many exceptions, for the most part computer games these days seem, unfortunately, to have the sole purpose of killing the other player(s). Why? Well, people who like these games will say two words: "Its fun." In general, the goal of violence is to entertain, and the goal of the creator is to make money and keep on making games. And this is precisely the business of the game industry.. to entertain and make money.
But was this always the case. I don't believe so. Deep in the origins of game history, we find that the first creators of good games really didn't care for entertainment at all, it was not their goal. At least it wasn't their primary concern. Some of my personal favorite games are Galaga, Pac Man, and the old classics of the 1970s. Although the companies who sold the games were concerned with entertainment, we find that most of these companies started with just a handful of dedicated, ambitious programmers and artist who had a vision. (read the book "Hackers" by Steven Levy - it is unrelated, and much better than the movie by the same name.) Their vision, or purpose, was to understand how to make things move in the computer, how to give them life. Life which is not simply equations of motion, but life which contains.. "spirit" or "vitality". However you want to put it, those little creatures were alive, much more so than a 3D Doom character (at least to me anyway), and with a lot fewer equations of motion.
It is interesting to notice that the first computer games emerged around the same time the scientific community was investigating Artificial Life - digital creatures that could evolve on their own. In other words, looking back in retrospect, the goals of many scientists and game creators of the era was not to entertain, but to discover the meaning of digital life. The result is Galaga, Pac Man, Centipede, and a host of others. These games certainly entertain, but also seem to have a certain life to them. All those little bugs that dance around on the screen, the little ghosts that eat pellets, the little space ship that kills the centipede and avoids the spider. The goal of creators of these games was not simply to entertain, or make games, but to express life.. digital life. We are simply entertained as a result.
So clearly, it is possible to develop games which have a personal goal other than entertainment. Games developed for the sole purpose of entertainment tend to be reductive, not very deep, and lacking in vitality and direction. I believe the path to these other creative goals is a personal investigation into what we dream of in a good computer game, and what we love in old games. As a game programmer and artist, it is a question as to the purpose of the game itself, which is different in my mind from the goal of the game. It is the goal of the creator of the game.
My hope for all programmers is that they are able to step back once in a while from programming projects and think for a moment about what their own goals are in making computer games. What is it that we would like to express about the world through games?
Let us consider a new term finding its way through the gaming community - that is the idea of "cooperative", rather than violent, computer games.
On the Goal of Making Cooperative Computer Games
What is the concept of a "cooperative game" which seems to be a buzz word lately for the design of what could be a new era of better computer games.
What can be gathered from gaming discussions and forums on game design is that a cooperative game would encourage players to work together to achieve goals. That a cooperative game would bring people together, rather than encourage competition, and that a cooperative game would elevate beyond basic instincts and killing to a level of understanding and complexity.
These goals correspond very closely with my own goals for making computer games, but I have one question.. Are they really goals for the game itself? In other words, should I be building games in which the goal is to cooperate. This seems to suggest that the game would force me to cooperate, by perhaps saying at the beginning something like "You are an explorer, and adventurer.. but the only way to win this game is to cooperate. So you must form alliances, and work together. Cooperate." This sounds strikingly unappealing for a computer game, just as forced cooperation is unappealing in real life. The reason for the confusion, I believe, is that the specific goal of the computer game does not, and should not, correspond to the goal of the maker-of-the-game.
To create a game which is cooperative is the goal of the creator of the game... in other words, it is his or her personal expressive goal. The goal of the game itself depends on this personal goal, but is not the same thing. Cooperation is not the goal of a game, it is the goal of life, of human beings. It is an individual purpose, or the goal of someone who makes games.
How does one construct game goals in order to achieve the goals of the game-creator? This question can be addressed by noticing that personal human goals are never sought out explicitly. I do not go around saying to people "Hey, lets cooperate!". Rather, I approach others with a common, shared goal. "Hey, lets build a community, lets design games, etc.". Although my internal, perhaps even unconscious, motivation and goal is to find cooperation with others, I achieve this goal by setting realistic smaller community goals which might not even mention the word cooperation. "Lets build a bridge together."
Thus, in computer games, the way to achieve cooperation is by setting game goals which are communal, and must involve all players.. but which are not explicit. Some ideas for these types of goals include: building a bridge together (where one person is incapable of it), learning how to make something specific in groups (where no one person can make the entire thing).
On Learning about the Design of Computer Games
The most common method found in teaching is the lecture. Although there are many forms and types of lectures, good and bad, the most successful ones -- in my opinion, are those which do not present and entire subject wholesale, but rather introduce and engage the audience piece-by-piece as it were.
The reason for this is obvious. When someone presents an entire idea, and all its workings, at once, as in a lecture - I still have not gained any practical experience with these ideas. Of course, the response of the lecturer is that students should always pursue practical experiences independently in addition to the lectures. But as colleges become more and more demanding of students, and the number of classes and lectures increases, as well as the amount of homework - the students find less and less time to sit and how and really sit down an practice the art of making games, or programming, or whatever.
These are large problems. However, at the very least, my question is weather or not some of that experimental approach could be taking in the lecture itself. Here is an example, using anatomy as a example. Say I'm giving a lecture about Human Anatomy, which might have the following (obviously incomplete) tree of knowledge for a semester or lecture:
Human Anatomy
Cadiovascular System
Heart
Lungs
Skeletal System
Bones
Skull
Nervous System
Brain
Spine
One lecture approach would be to simply present this tree as a single slide and say something to the effect: "Here is the Anatomy of a Human Being. We can see that the backbone is ..., and the skull is, ... and the brain is, ... and the heart is,... and on, and on, and on." The problem, I believe, is that the entire concept was reveal wholesale from the beginning. With everything presented at once, the student gains no real understanding of the ideas - but only a superficial overview. This is because the role of the student was essentially passive. Perhaps some students will be able to memorize this tree of knowledge, but none will really comprehend its meaning without practical experience.
Perhaps a better approach would not reveal everything at once, but would encourage the student to consider the relationships between concepts, thus getting at what they are in their nature. For example, rather than show the above slide, or slides at all, how about asking:
"What is the mechanical relationship between the Skull and Backbone?"
"How are the Brain and Spine connected?"
"What are the components and functions of the Cardiovascular system?"
The right questions will lead the student to naturally discover the entire tree of knowledge his or her self. Even in lectures with a large number of student, simply asking each question of a different student will give them the sense of being engaged rather than taught.
And so I hold a similar belief in teaching and learning the art of Computer Game Design. Game design is about the process of making games. That process should include not only the act of programming, of creating visual art, but also the process of discovering what it means to make games, why games are important to society, and what makes good games good. This, like any concept, can be approached by asking the right questions and permitting students to give incorrect answers - which, with proper encouragement, will correct themselves in time. The process of Computer Game Design may permit us to find ways of incorporating interdisciplinary experiences into the curriculum of higher education, but only if we can find an approach which does not alienate students with outdated knowledge but engages them to discover and explore their own unique ideas.
Conclusions.. And a Test "Just For Fun"
The paper has covered the concepts of content, quality,
goals and purpose of good computer games. But what I have not talked very much
at all is the games themselves.. this is of course intentional, as my goal here
has not been to tell you what games are. If you're reading this, you probably
already know what a computer game is - and can think of several that you love.
Rather, I wanted to explore how we can make better games, with goals that match
our own individual, communal, and personal goals.
In closing, I would like to leave you with a [hopefully]
enjoyable exercise on the nature of what computer games are. Of course, having
thought about games a lot, I have constructed my own personal tree of knowledge,
which covers what I think a computer games are composed of. However, in the
hopes that you actually read the list of items below, I do not wish to present
that tree of knowledge in its entirety. Rather I wish to simply list some of
the concepts that I have discovered in an unorganized form. It is up to you
to classify these concepts according to your own scheme. There is no one right
way, and if you are a game programmer or designer, you can consider this a test...
Do you know what a computer game is? How would you organize these?
Learning
Discovery
Special Effects
Graphics Engine
3D Studio MAX/Maya
Communal Goals
Script
Keyboard
DirectX
Interactivity
Cooperation
Team Development
Game Goal
Character
Behavior
Storyboard
Computer Graphics
Sound Engine
Painting
Interactive Panels (i.e. Menus)
Narrative
Sound Effects
Genre
Communicative Tools
Drawing
Artificial Life
Quality
Goal of the Creator
Particle Systems
Art Work
OpenGL
Communication
Game Play
Entertainment
Technical Features
Game Creatures
Player
Limitations
Massively Multi-Player
Purpose
Mouse
MIDI
Musical Score
Psychology
Photoshop
Invisible Contents
Artificial Intelligence
Procedural Modeling
Narrative Tools
Joystick
Content
Networks/TCP IP
Visible Features
Narrative
Environment
Skills