Outsmarting fellow competitors as a starting fellow game designer

To continue this venture of seeking that unbelievable internship, what is missing, more video games! A personal collection, my portfolio that reflects a persistence in constructing game play, for potential companies, peers and players to play! This week, I’m fine tuning a massive post through collective website, to find local independent game designers/developers in joining forces to build a previous game I’ve helped developed, and know for the fact it has huge potential. I wanted to talk about the research I’ve found to outsmart my fellow game designers and gamers, to play the games I want to make, as well as open doors for a game developer/level design position for a few companies I’m tremendously enthusiastic to work for. 

A little article I stumbled upon about competitive game design theory, about a player who participated in a Mancala competition , to code artificial intelligence to play Mancala. Showcasing players ability to code by collecting more stones then the opposing player, the player might write a greedy code, collect as many stones as possible, or another reasonably have a theorized code to produce maximum collection of stones with the game.  The competition reflective how games are more competitive if the player chooses a decent strategy, like game designers. The competition taught the player not to assume to “win big” right away, because in a competitive situation, experience players wont make those mistakes, have that edge to make those wise decisions to win the game with optimal strategy.  

How much is too far, or what makes a game design competition too dangerous ? It’s only human nature to beat other human beings, manipulate our course to be better gamers. The biggest catch for game designer to constantly think about, keeping a player hooked, the challenge of the game is just a little afar our capabilities. Maybe this is why, trivia games tend to die so quickly, or difficult to keep them refreshing and challenging for players with this current generation of gamers. Series of five challenge have been identified, and found them quite charming, and helping to include on my quest to create “Big Boy Bruce” 3D arcade game. 

Handicapping: evening out the competitions, balancing experienced with in-experienced players, such has Super Smash Brothers and Warcraft 3.

Expected Skill Ceiling: the expectations of causal gamers will know what they get in a game, keeping a creative feel to keep playing a game, such as rotating opposing players. 

Matchmaking/Elo Systems: giving numerical actions and effects to players, such as Magic the Gathering Card Game.

Indirect competition: Create variation of play, without unraveling unequal players, from competition, such as military games, fighting games and simulation. 

Adding more players: Such as raiding, online MMO’s and simply just word of mouth, if the game is good recommending it to another player so you can beat them!

Quite useful resources to think about, when implementing the fun factors and these five competitive infusion into a game.   

-A.H.