Game Design Ideas

Game Design, Artificial Intelligence, Complex Systems

Browsing Posts published by Babak Kaveh

Who is more intelligent? Who is more Human-like? Who would you date?

Whenever I watch Starwars movies, I have this nagging feeling that R2D2 might just be more intelligent that C3PO, a fact that few others seem to agree with! The way I see it, it is R2D2 who normally gets everyone out of trouble, and it is him who provides the more practical solutions to most problem. Why then is it that we are encouraged to think of C3PO as the more intelligent robot? Is it merely his exterior humanoid shell, as opposed to the embryonic egg-like shape of his beeping brother? Or is it the fact that he makes such a show of his emotions all the time? And what is “intelligence” anyways? Do C3PO’s angst attacks qualify as intelligence?

O….K! I almost opened a can of worms there, but I do want to make a point- that problem solving and adapting to new situations (R2D2) are probably a big part of any definition of intelligence…while depression and angst (C3PO), while indicative of some sort of internal world-view simulation, don’t necessarily constitute intelligent behavior. Despite this fact, I argue that creating a semblance of the latter in your NPCs, i.e. simulating a C3PO-like behavior, makes for a more believable AI than does simulating R2D2-like AI.

continue reading…

Immersive Gaming

These days “immersion” seems to be the big buzz-word for marketing departments. Marketing, being hype driven as it is, tends to stick that “immersive gameplay” label on every single game retail box, console and demo video they release. On a deeper level, everyone in game development seems to agree that “immersion” is an important achievement, if not the ultimate goal of playing games: immersion makes players feel passionately about a game and crave for more of the same.

Unfortunately, many game designers have failed to analyze the constituents of immersion, and have treated the concept as if it were magical – impervious to analysis! In this article, I will try to explore what immersive gameplay is, and how the state of immersion can be created.

continue reading…

I finally had some time to play some of the “weirder” games out there-and I must say I found a favorite: Dwarf Fortress!  It is hard to believe that an ASCII-based simulation can offer so much depth in gameplay. If I was to pick only one factor that distinguishes DF from other games (besides the obvious “geek appeal” its MS-DOS style interface creates) it would have to be the emergent, very complex interactions that the dwarves have with each other and their  environment. In this article I will discuss the concepts of complexity and emergence citing DF and other games as examples…

continue reading…

Sooooo…What does “Avatar” have to do with what I would like to call “the perfect game” and what is “Limbo”?

Well,…just as the avatar machine technology allows Jake Sully to delve into an alternate reality, where he is stronger and faster, and able to walk, and experience a “new” world, to the point where it changes him, the perfect video game could, and should change how you see the world by allowing you to experience the results (long- and short-term) of your actions, and by enabling you to show, and share your emotions with other inhabitants of the “game world”, which I will call “Limbo”. In this article, I have tried to describe how such an alternate world should look and feel like, and how it can be realized without “avatar-level” technologies!

(There is of course another reason for using this image from the movie on this article: I just recently saw the movie, and it blew me away – there is just so much of what I’d love to see in persistent worlds in the “actual world” of the avatars!)

continue reading…

In part one of this series, “Defining Emergence and Complexity in Video Games”, I tried to define the concepts of complex systems and emergent behavior and how they apply to video games. I also tried to convince you that “emergence” is a good thing in games, and that it is worthwhile to consider designing your games so that there is a chance of “benevolent” emergence to appear. Now it’s time to introduce a number of techniques to assess the possibility and maximize the potential of emergence.

In this article, I will borrow concepts from the field of cellular automata and by studying the correspondence between CAs and video games, I am hoping to draw on the accumulated knowledge about CAs and apply it to the less formalized field of computer game design. The reason why I chose CAs as the source of comparison is the fact that they are probably the simplest constructs capable of clearly displaying emergent behavior (besides some sets of differential equations, but those are not as intuitive).

continue reading…

Major publishers and developers keep churning out game after game, without any innovation in gameplay or content, and, though we gamers keep paying them our hard-earned cash, we keep wondering how many innovative and revolutionary ideas had to be sacrificed on the altar of the so-called “market-oriented design”. There must have been a large number of lost chances for change over the past two decades, or else computer games would be the driving force of many economies, we think- and we would probably be right. So why don’t the big boys in the industry get the point? Why don’t they give us revolutionary games as they did in the past?

In this series of articles I will discuss the reasons for the lack of creativity in design in the game industry from a developer’s point of view.

continue reading…

Mass Effect 2 Moral Choice Dialogue

There’s been a lot of talk about Morality in games, and the argument boils down to two basic schools: One group think that developing a sense of morals is the ultimate goal of games, and even all arts, while the other group (and sadly, that’s the majority of developers) believe that morality is better left to other media, or maybe even best kept at a personal level, while creating “fun” should be the holy grail of games. I think I gave away my point of view right there: I believe that a great game will and should make the player a better person. In this article I will talk about the factors that have so far kept us from creating a coherent and deeply engaging morality system, and how we might be able to do better.

continue reading…

Back in 2005, I quit my job as a well-test engineer in order to start making games, my only passion, besides AI. At some point, a programmer friend and I created a prototype of a fully interactive training environment for oilfield operators. With my knowledge of oilfield equipment and operations, and his knowledge of 3D engine programming, it seemed the right thing to do.

The goal of the wellsite-simulator project was to explore the possibility of training oilfield operators on the on well control equipment and safety. This type of training environment can potentially be turned into a commercial success, especially nowadays that realistic graphic engines are available. Back in those days our graphics were quite basic, but hey, even some artists at our company could probably have operated well-site equipment after playing around with the simulator. And to me that’s good news!

[ Update: The Oil Well operator Simulation software is available for download now! ]

continue reading…

Book Title: “A Theory of Fun for Game design”

Author: Raph Koster

(www.raphkoster.com)

Publisher: Paraglyph Press

ISBN 10: 1-932111-97-2

ISBN 13: 9781932111972

Companion Site:

www.theoryoffun.com

My Rating: 8/10 (Must Read!)

Summary: In “A Theory of Fun for Game Design” Raph Koster, veteran game designer and developer, discusses game design issues in understandable terms, accompanied by funny cartoons. The book is highly informative and chock-full of innovative insights into the “fun” factor of games, a joy to read, and it is sprinkled over with Raph’s humor, anecdotes, and delightful insights.

continue reading…

Author: Mat Buckland (www.ai-junkie.com )

Publisher: Premier Press

ISBN 10: 1-931841-08-X

Companion Site: N/A

My Rating: 4/10 (Can be skipped!)

Summary: “AI Techniques for Game Programmers” reads like a book for high school students, and though it tries, it barely manages to touch on real-world game applications of the soft-computing methods it introduces to the reader.

continue reading…