Creating sets of game rules

Creating sets of game rules This tuturial is about creating a set of game rules. It's important to make sure all of the elements match up with eachother and complement eachother, rather than get in the way or make eachother redundant or useless. Goals Goals are what the player has to achieve to complete a certian section of the game and move on to the next. Some of the most common are defeating enemies/bosses, collecting items and reaching an exit. Mechanics Mechanics are game rules that apply globally. Examples of these are screen wrapping, gravity, etc. Player Abilities Player abilities are what the player can do in the game world. Even something as simple as moving around can be considered an ability. Some common abilities are shooting, melee attacks and creating useful objects. Game Elements Game elements can be any object that has it's own unique rules in the game. These will likely make up the bulk of your game's mechanics. It's important to have game elements that compliment the player's abilities. Common examples are platforms, water, spikes, enemy spawners, etc. Enemies Enemies can be seen as an extension of game elements, but with a few key features; the player must be able to defeat or temporarily disable them in some way. There's dozens of variations on these. Putting it all together Now that you've got all these ideas, how do you put them all together? Think about what the player is going to be doing in the game world. What would the gameplay look like? Does everything complement eachother? Sometimes it's hard to visualize, and you may need to make a prototype to see what works and what doesn't. Usually you should at least be able to get an idea of the gameplay flow in your head before you proceed. Game content After everything is assembled, you need to start making content. Combining all of the different parts of the game rules in interesting ways can be challenging. You may need to find what works by experimenting and seeing what results in the most fun content. Some tweaking of the game rules to balance things out may also be required here. Aspects Important aspects of game content are strategy/puzzle versus execution/action, and score versus survival. The more strategy and planning the player needs to complete a part of the content, the more puzzle-like it feels. The more execution and reaction time the player needs, the more action-like it feels. You can also make the content more difficult to complete (survival), or make the content easier to complete but harder to score well in (scoring). Complexity How complex your game ends up playing depends on the game elements and how they interact with eachother. Even a small number of game elements can lead to complex gameplay if they interact in a certian way. Board games like Go, despite having a tiny number of rules and game elements, leads to gameplay so complex it's amazing. Most real-time videogames, however, have more stuff and still end up less complex. My own target for a small game is 8-12 game elements, 1-2 level goals, 2-3 player abilities and 6-8 enemies. For a larger game, I'd double those numbers.