I just completed my first public game in C, called Angel Hair. Look in the Video Game Development section to download it and get more information.
Anyway, I also received my first review of it at Madmonkey.net, a great independent games site. The reviewer
said it was good, with great graphics, but just too short. He was right - it was only four stages in two areas. It
wasn't meant to be a full-fledged game, nor a completely professional product. Still, I thought about the review
and decided to add more levels and play to the game.
I slept excitiedly, thinking about the improvements I could make to the game - now I understood the graphics
routines better, improved my artistic capabilities over the last month designing web pages, etc. The next day I
booted up the computer, sat down, and realized that I still hadn't solved the problem. I realized that he wasn't
talking about graphics or speed. I don't think he was truly even talking about length.
Think about it - Space Invaders is one level OVER and OVER again. So is Pac-Man, Pong, etc. In short, why
did my game suck from a playability standpoint? Because there was no reason to come back.
This, my friends, I call the Angel Hair Theory. Call it what you want, but when designing games you should
keep it in mind.
Let's look at Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda (NES), one of the best designed games of all time. Why is it a
classic? There are the obvious reasons - the first (?) cartridge game to have a battery-backup (that's a save
game function to laymen), the first successful blend of action and RPG, a huge quest. But there are the more
subtle reasons for its playability, and more subtle goals for the player:
- to burn one more bush to see if a stairway is under it
- to use the new item to reach "the unknown territory"
- to try destroying the previously invincible enemies with the new sword
The last on this list would be to beat the game, ironically. People still play Zelda, or any of its sequee.
You see, it isn't the destination, it's the journey. Our job as designers is to make the journey as pleasurable as possible, so they'll want to DO IT AGAIN.
Angel Hair doesn't have this. There is a random star generator, which mixes things up a bit, but the player stays on each stage a fixed amount of time, having access to a
fixed amount of stars, ending the game at a fixed amount of time. There is a score, but it is based on the amount of stars you catch, which is, you guessed it, fixed.
I didn't mean for this to happen, but there isn't enough reason to play again for the average player. Going back to the old-school games, why do people sit in front of
games for hours at a time, going through the same tired level over and over again? Because the speed gets faster, THE POINTS GET HIGHER, and the player's
credibility increases as they get bigger (via bragging or the high score board). Yeah, that's why we play Tetris for hours at a time, and why Pac-Man is still one of the
best-selling games of all time.
Lesson Learned. I'm going to wait to do my Angel Hair Deluxe, perhaps work on other projects, and soak in the lessons learned from my first public C project. Next
time, I'll think about what reason the player has to come back.
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Written by Damon Brown.
