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How to make a searching game not boring?

Discussion in 'Game Design' started by TheGaul, Dec 28, 2019.

  1. TheGaul

    TheGaul

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    In some games like subnautica, you swim around and collect things like shiny gold or bits of seaweed.

    How do you make such games not boring or random?

    i.e. One might consider these games a bit like a word-search but by the age of ten, not many people find word-searches that fun.

    For example, I have a game, which is somewhat procedural. I also want to hide some weapons in the game. But I think it may be boring for the player to explore this procedural world knowing that the weapons are just placed randomly. It's more or less equivalent to just randomly handing the player a weapon after a certain time.

    Do you find these searching games fun? If not is there a way to make them more interesting? Such as instead of finding things randomly, one could use reason and intelligence to find things?
     
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  2. BIGTIMEMASTER

    BIGTIMEMASTER

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    Do you like playing Subnautica? Examine yourself as you play the game. You'll get a lot further like that than you will reading lengthy analytical descriptions. If you can't understand the self I don't think you'll ever be able to craft a memorable experience for the other. One has to come before the other.

    If you don't know how to examine yourself, try googling this book: "Mindfullness in Plain English." You can get a free PDF. Will teach you how to pay attention to your mind when you do stuff.
     
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  3. TheGaul

    TheGaul

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    Well I guess what I like about subnautica is:
    1) It's just really relaxing and nice swimming about with the nice visuals and music.
    2) I suppose the variety of different patches adds something so it doesn't all look the same.
    3) The search space is limited because of the oxygen limitation.
    4) While it can be boring searching for stuff, you are compelled to do so because you want to see what things you can make which will allow you to see further.
    5) Ultimately you can see a ship in the distance which gives you a sort of goal.

    Those are just from my head. Although it's hard to condense down the essential ingredients that would apply to any game. (I don't want to end up just remaking subnautica!)
     
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  4. BIGTIMEMASTER

    BIGTIMEMASTER

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    Break them down further into things independent from the game. What are the specific things happening inside your brain. What is triggering that? That's how you get to the essential things that can apply to any game.

    For instance, despite some parts being boring, you feel compelled to work through them because you want to discover what new items you can create. Dig deeper into that. Don't need to write a research paper, just play the game and pay close attention to when and how you get sucked in, triggered, rewarded, etc etc. Not every person is just like you but it's a good place to start. We aren't all so different.

    I think it's a good exercise to do because it's not always reliable to trust what people say. Gambling addict doesn't understand why they gamble. If they did, they'd probably be able to quit. Same way, gamers might offer surface level reasons why they enjoy this or that, but you got to dig deeper to figure out what the real truth is. Only way I know to get to that without exhaustive, decade-scoped scientific studies is to study the self. Convenient because you can do it anytime, anywhere, and for free.
     
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  5. TheGaul

    TheGaul

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    Thinking some more I think there needs to be sort of choice in the game that might affect you and you can take ownership of.

    So in a maze you have a choice of doors to go through.
    In subnautica you have a choice of what items you want to collect. And these choices have consquences. Which you can think about...

    I will think about it some more.
     
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  6. neoshaman

    neoshaman

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    Searching is about building a mental model of a space, to figure out where something could be, that is, it belong to the puzzle type of gameplay. You collect insight that narrow down the solution. Be sure to have elements of surprise.

    You can break the experience into mental state, them try to optimize that progression of the experience from starting state to end state. Once you figure out the target experience, you need to translate it into the configuration of gameplay elements that suit the theme of your game.

    ex: if you look for tomato, the insight is that vegetable are more likely to be in the garden or the kitchen, but when you go to the kitchen, you find a grocery list, with tomato on it, going into the kitchen there is a newspaper that tells about the agricultural strike and the resulting shortage of vegetable. You go to the garden and get some tomato.

    It's a simple example but
    1. The nature of the object tells youwhere you fond it, you have a sense of direction.
    2. When you go to the obvious you have further redirection.
    A. The grocery list introduce a new place, the grocery store, might be important for other stuff. Tells you there is no tomato in the kitchen implicitly.
    B. The newspaper reduce the possibility space further, it's unlikely there is tomato due to the strike.
    3. It's very likely that even though the game is in open level design, that the kitchen is closer to the player than the garden, so that's a subtle lead in.
    4. Layout follows a dramatic arc. You expect tomato in the kitchen, you get obstacles that makes you reformulate and finally resolve the quest.
    5. Nothing is told upfront, the player make the inferences on its own. Building the mental model is the inherently engaging part, other gameplay (like navigation) are support or obstacle.
    6. The point is that the player is gaining mastery by gaining and completing the state of the world in a way that increase agency, competence and autonomy.
     
  7. angrypenguin

    angrypenguin

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    Both of these are related to goal setting.

    Yes, just picking up random junk in the ocean for no reason isn't interesting.

    But you've got a medium term goal: you need to make a thing. That requires specific amounts of specific stuff you can find in the ocean. This then sets you some implicit, short term goals: collect these things. Now you're not picking up random stuff, you're making a thing and collecting some stuff is one step to doing so. Good short-term goals should have clear actions for the player to implement. Even if the actions are the same as when you were collecting stuff randomly, the mental framework around doing so is now fundamentally different.

    Once you've met the medium term goal of making that thing it allows you to pursue another medium term goal, which will have its own short term goals, which will drive their own player actions. All of this will build towards meeting some long term goals.

    I'd suggest thinking about your game as a hierarchy of player goals, each with associated feedback loops.
    - Long term goals. What is the player's ultimate purpose in the game? Eg: Survive until you are rescued.
    - Medium term goals. What are the major steps involved in meeting the long term goal? Eg: Upgrade equipment, build shelter, eliminate major threats.
    - Short term goals: What must the player do in order to achieve the medium term goals? Eg: travel, collect stuff, attack enemies, build things.
    - Player actions: What are the individual things players are able to do? Eg: movement, interactions, crafting...

    You can of course have more or less than 3 layers of goals. The important point is that everything in that hierarchy links to the layers above and below in ways which are clear to the player. "I need to walk to the mine so I can collect 5 lumps of coal to finish smelting my sword which will allow me to defeat the troll so I can cross the bridge and escape the evil Duke."
     
  8. Deleted User

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    Oooh do I got input for you @mountainstream !

    Call me nuts but I've noticed a trend in some MP games where when you eliminate another player they almost always happen to respawn with a specific pattern. I won't go into details but I've tested this with multiple releases of that game...

    On that same note randomness is a thing but it's not always fun. If the player can be made to feel it isn't random and they have at least some influence over it (akin to the above) then it can be made fun! Someone said to me once that a fun game involves never making the player feel that their loss wasn't their fault (loss of player agency).

    So regarding your subnautica example: I think that if there were algorithm which examined player exploratory behavior and made it more rewarding if it met specific conditions I think that could be super rewarding for them.

    Ie. you (the player) find one random seaweed/weapon and then look toward some area that looks similar (another craggy rock within swimming distance) and wallah! You discover another patch of seaweed with a bit more of the stuff. Not soon after you spy an submerged wreck except it doesn't have any seaweed (cold trail). You venture away for approximately a minute before discovering another small bit of it not far off.
    The point is: place these seaweed in logical locations but doll it out in gradual quantities such that the player gets "on a roll" specific to their behavior. The seaweed/weapon is the carrot on the stick, strategically placed such that it can be potentially discovered.

    Hope that helps!
     
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  9. TheGaul

    TheGaul

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    I think you make a good point about "things happening". Like a game should be a bit like an interactive movie. So even if you're wandering around something 'filmic' should happen. Like you see an interesting fish swimming by, or an AI says 'hello'. These are all sort of non-procedural things. I guess if there are enough of these little extras it could make it interesting while you're searching for gold nuggets or whatever.
    The other thing I think is unexpected procedural behaviour. Such as AI animals chasing each other.
     
  10. TheGaul

    TheGaul

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    That reminds me... I must play Journey at some point!

    One problem I'm having at the moment is that some of the game is set in intergalactic space. Which is kind of dull as it's mostly just black. So I'm adding things to make it more interesting like space-dragons and such like!
     
  11. BrandyStarbrite

    BrandyStarbrite

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    Cool idea. And if you want, set it by some giant planets, with probably an asteroid field close to them.