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Lecture 1:

Introduction

Game Design

Spring 2024

M Charity & Michael Green

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Who is M?

  • 5th year Game Design and AI PhD student
    • Focus in online creative collaborative content generation
  • Making games for 13+ years
  • mlc761@nyu.edu
  • mastermilkx.github.io

they / them

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Who is Michael?

  • PhD in AI (games & EDU)
    • Automated video game tutorial generation
  • Avid gamer and tinkerer
  • mike.green@nyu.edu
  • mikecgreen.com

he / him

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A few games we’ve designed

(some in this class!)

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Who is the TA?

  • First-year Master student
  • Interested in Game Development and Procedural Content Generation
  • Mainly use Unity3D to develop games
  • Find her work at https://nyh-dolphin.itch.io/
  • yn2273@nyu.edu

she / her

Dolphin

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Game Innovation Lab Showcase

  • Interested in game AI research? Come check out our lab’s work!
  • January 29th 11am (it’s early…sorry)
  • 370 Jay St - Room 610
  • Will be recorded and shared

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Who are you?

  1. Name
  2. Year and Major
  3. Favorite Game

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This class

  • Several basic ideas of game design, illustrated by famous games
  • Six prototype games done in randomly assigned groups
  • One group project, where you flesh out one of your prototypes in groups with several weeks of feedback
  • Animating idea: you learn to design by prototyping, and prototyping a lot is great
    • Failure is fine and expected!

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Course Schedule

  • Today: Intro to the class and our first lecture!
  • Jan 24th - March 6th: Prototypes
  • March 13th - Project Pitch
  • Spring Break
  • March 27th - May 1st: Projects
  • May 8th: Final project presentation

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Topic Schedule

  • 1/24 Minimalism
  • 1/31 Game Feel
  • 2/7 Characteristics of Games
  • 2/14 Level Design
  • 2/21 Procedural Content Generation
  • 2/28 Generative AI
  • 3/20 Bonus Lectures (by special request!)

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Designing your First Game!

(or maybe 2nd game…)

Watch this episode of Extra Credits.

In short:

  • Simple level aka prototype!
  • Build something you can actually play
  • Pick a basic mechanic
  • Feeback thru gameplay

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Designing your First Game!

(or maybe 2nd game…)

Don’t go into it with a specific idea in mind!

Learn what you can do through experimentation, and build around what you know.

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How to scope a prototype

  • Use the “thumbnail” technique for ideas
  • Don’t spend too much time on one area
  • Design
    • Art
    • Core Mechanics
    • Debugging
  • Reuse resources (i.e. code, sprites)
  • Minimalist
  • “Follow the fun”
  • “Cut and Polish”

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Game Engines

  • You can use whatever you want, but the end result must run in a browser
  • Unity is very popular for the class�(see the “How to make a video game” tutorial)�https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYbK_tjZ2OrIZFBvU6CCMiA
  • Many alternative engines: Godot, Game Maker Studio, RPG Maker, Construct, Pico-8, PuzzleScript, Twine, Bitsy, Scratch
  • See blog post by Ahmed Khalifa:�https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/AhmedKhalifa/20170315/293689/Game_Engines_Galore.php
  • Or write the game from scratch in JavaScript / TypeScript + HTML5

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Submission

Upload to itch.io

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Prototype Presentation (tips)

  • Build a small presentation
  • Have people test your game before the presentation
    • Ideally people who didn’t work on the game
  • Use GIFs and Images!
  • Talk about your design decisions (and why!)
    • Storyboards are great!
  • Analyze your game systems

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Peer feedback

  • Every week each one of you will be assigned to play and, anonymously, critique three submitted games
  • Please be fair, balanced, and constructive

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Grading

  • 40% Your best three prototypes
  • 10% Giving peer feedback
  • 10% Attendance
  • 30% Final game project
  • 10% Final group peer review

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Discord Access

  • We’ll post the link on Brightspace as well (when we have access to it 😭)

​

  • Discord server available for technical questions
  • Also feel free to ask your peers for help!

https://discord.gg/xm9y2DNR

  • Please join by this Friday so your teammates can find you!

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This week’s theme: Minimalism

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What is Minimalism?

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What is Minimalism

(in games)?

  • simple shapes/art
  • simple mechanics/few mechanics
  • simple UI
  • (sometimes) simple sounds/music

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Why Minimalism?

  • Hardware constraints
  • Teams were very small, sometimes only 1 person
  • Limited field knowledge
  • Game development was not yet an established career
    • Hard to spend lots of time on something that does not pay

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Constraints can be Good!

Self-imposed helps you scope!

Promotes exploration, convergence, and novelty

​

Minimalism is a way to scope your design.

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Heider and Simmel

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Mini Metro

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Canabalt Crane

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Super Hexagon

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Osmos

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Stacker Arcade Game

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Flappy Bird

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Kirby Samurai Minigame

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More Examples?

Play more games!

itch.io

bitsy

puzzlescript

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Your mission

  • Read the “Towards Minimalism in Game Design” paper
  • Make a one-button game (a key press or mouse click)
    • No mouse movement or joystick axis allowed
  • Only simple geometric shapes (circles, squares, triangles) are permitted; but you can combine them!
  • Avoid textures or patterns - stick to just colors