Dan Cook on Triple Town
I occasionally think that Dan Cook and I share some brain. Fortunately, the parts we don’t share are wonderful and varied, and it means that there are new games he makes that I would not have thought of.
In this case, it isn’t so much the new game as it is the essay about the game that I want to point you towards. He’s got a new piece up that sounds like mostly an ad: Triple Town released for the Amazon Kindle. But what it is actually about is puzzles, methods of game invention and constraints.
His three core points are ones that resonate with me, albeit presented with his usual awesome diagrams and sheer clarity (unlike my own verbal wanderings and big wordage).
- Algorithmic designs are better than static puzzle designs. I made this point very shallowly back in 40 Ways to be a better Game Designer.
- Rethinking core assumptions leads to new virgin territories to explore. In this case, he’s talking about re-examining the match-3 game from basic premises. Echoes of Bartle’s recent cry for “why?” here.
- Give yourself constraints, prototype with physical objects if need be; the dressing — and indeed even the fancy tech you can bring to bear such as AI and advanced code — are crutches that allow you to avoid elegance. And elegance is the place where you are going to get the best play.
I suspect that these are difficult lessons for budding designers, based on watching people who are newer to the field struggle with them. I likewise think that most veterans take them for granted, jumping straight to ways to alter simple three-rule-three-variable game atoms into something new with little more to prototype with than a pencil and a couple of items from their desks.
But either way, they are common underpinnings. Something that everyone in the field confronts and then has to master. And periodically be reminded of, for that matter, because they are awfully easy to forget.
The beautiful thing about these common elements being so fundamental is that then everything that is built upon them can blossom in so many unexpected and fascinating directions.
Which is why despite Dan’s post being more of an essay than an ad, this post is more of an ad than an essay… Triple Town sounds fascinating, and I want to play it.
But I don’t own a Kindle. Dan, did you do any prototypes on other devices?Ā *shameless begging* š
4 Responses to “Dan Cook on Triple Town”
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[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Raph Koster, Daniel Cook. Daniel Cook said: RT @raphkoster: Blog post: Dan Cook on Triple Town https://www.raphkoster.com/2010/10/16/dan-cook-on-triple-town/ […]
Appreciate the kind words, Raph. I was immensely impressed by Bartle’s recent talk. It is like going to church and yelling “Amen, brother!” from the pews.
I’ve got a pet theory that as genres petrify into standardized rules, companies feel unable to differentiate themselves in the market based on gameplay. So they start pouring money into all these other non-gameplay product attributes. This creates an unstable market: If gameplay is the primary driver of value, then an industry that fails to invest in the primary driver falls prey to external competition by those who are willing to invest.
You see this in cars from the 60-70s. American manufacturers had a big thing for fins. They lost sight of the fact that people really wanted reliable transportation. And when someone came along that offered the primary value factors in a reasonable package (Toyota, Honda), the big American companies suffered.
There are some delightful parallels to the current game industry. Just like how people now bemoan the loss of certain content and puzzle heavy genres, there are still a passionate group of people who will never give up their fins.
Re: Triple Town. I did the initial prototypes on paper and whiteboards. Then there was a rough flash prototype (with colored blocks and free graphics stripped from Lostgarden.com) Then it went off to the Kindle. And after playing it for dozens and dozens of hours, we totally reworked the ‘AI’ on the characters, redrew characters, etc. I love how ‘finding the fun’ goes in stages like a marriage. š You think you know the delight after that first successful prototype. And then you find the real delight after living with the game a long, long time.
Following a staged portfolio model with our games…so yes there is an option for there to be an version for other platforms, but for now we’ll see how it does in this lovely little blue ocean.
Happy day,
Danc.
Dan said:
Having seen so many shows and movies with time-travel elements, I thought this sounded familiar. Go back in time, change something, and a new future branch is created. I liked this reference for that reason. I also liked that Dan recognized that games are products of people, which means that looking at the decisions reveals more than, for example, looking at the mechanics. I think John (Romero) is working on a project that does just that, called The Romero Archives.
As a budding game designer myself, I guess I must be an outlier of some kind; I am extremely interested in algorithmic design (at least, if I am reading you right in thinking you mean procedurally generated content). I also (probably thanks to my philosophy degree) try to remain open to rethinking any and all of my assumptions and value having reasonable constraints, as constraints tend to propel you into areas you would not have otherwise explored and can lead to some very wonderful places.
I wonder if most newbie game makers shy away from these because they are self-conscious of their inexperience and as a result over-compensate by trying on the one hand to wholly control their games and on the other think that creativity and success come from having a large number of options.
Personally I see procedural generation as a key to solving the content expense problem (i.e. that content is often too expensive to create to be able to generate enough of it to satisfy players).