Stardock’s Jon Shafer has a great article on game design that has been spreading like wild-fire around the Internet.
With regards to the strategy genre in particular, restrictions on unit movement is one of the best examples of how limitations can make a game better. The inability of land units to enter water is why ships are so valuable – and just plain cool. Gaining access to new units with unique ‘powers’ is a major motivation for many players. Just like in economics, scarcity is what drives value – the fact that most units are unable to perform certain actions is what makes the few which can so much fun. Movement restrictions also show that there’s a place for even permanent limits. An example from the Civ series is how mountains became impassable for the first time in Civ 4. It’s a subtle change that very few players would point to as a major innovation, but even something small like this helps breathe life into the map. Instead of mountain ranges being just another part of the map with a slight movement penalty, they suddenly transformed into true barriers that now require serious consideration.
With regards to the strategy genre in particular, restrictions on unit movement is one of the best examples of how limitations can make a game better. The inability of land units to enter water is why ships are so valuable – and just plain cool. Gaining access to new units with unique ‘powers’ is a major motivation for many players. Just like in economics, scarcity is what drives value – the fact that most units are unable to perform certain actions is what makes the few which can so much fun.
Movement restrictions also show that there’s a place for even permanent limits. An example from the Civ series is how mountains became impassable for the first time in Civ 4. It’s a subtle change that very few players would point to as a major innovation, but even something small like this helps breathe life into the map. Instead of mountain ranges being just another part of the map with a slight movement penalty, they suddenly transformed into true barriers that now require serious consideration.
Read the whole thing here.
There's an interesting geeklist on Boardgamegeek about Depth vs complexity.
OK, maybe complexity was the wrong word. The idea was restrictions did not necessarily made the game better but rather different.
I am even exploring ways to design games by having as few restrictions as possible to the player's actions.
I did think it had the best Tactical battle of any D&D game (because it was faithful to the 3.5 rules which I really like.) I did download a CO8 mode several years ago but did not see a difference. I'll have to see if they have any more mods
Ok, that makes sense.
One thing I learned during a brief time spent with improvisation theatre was that sometimes limitations are necessary to feed creativity. If two people walk on a stage and are told to act out anything, they'll probably paralyze unless they've practised it. By contrast, if two people walk on the stage and are told one is a shop clerk, the other a customer trying to purchase a blue T-shirt and told to act, they'll very quickly start talking.
I guess we just need to find the correct restrictions to the given game and situation that are needed to make it work. And you're right, it's just a different game. I'm guessing in a way for FE, Frogboy means that they lack restrictions in certain places that are needed to make the game go from the paralysis part to the acting.
Awesome read... I totally agree with him. And I'm glad Jon is part of Stardock's team
Hmm. Should we implement a 2 armies per tile system?
Yep, the whole point is to make the choices more meaningful, and not less - no argument there. There are indeed many games which put restrictions on the player which don't make the experience any more fun, but that wasn't what I was talking about in the article. My main goal was to address the widely-held belief that "more is always better - period." It is too often overlooked that limitations are what make decisions meaningful. The reason why a powerful ability (or weapon, or unit, or...) is cool is because it lets you do things that you otherwise couldn't have.
- Jon
That is an excellent post, thanks for sharing it here! While not always true, a good rule of thumb is that:
* More mechanics and 'stuff' (e.g. units) add complexity to a game.
* The limits you place on those mechanics and stuff is what adds depth.
Probably high depth and medium complexity would be, perhaps, my favorite choice
Good 4X game -> High to Medium Depth and Medium complexity.
Good Board game -> High to Medium depth and Low complexity.
You must have read my mind.
same here
Well I have no argument with that either. The problem for me is too often I've seen the argument made that dumbing the game down is good to appeal to lots of "casual" players. This is the bad solution some developers take lots of meaningless complexity fails.
Understanding the intent of your article now, I would rate it a lot higher because you did make a good counter-argument to "more is better".
Thriving under limited options calls for organization and creativity. Most games are so rigid they often don't allow much of either for the player.
Here's my little roguelike story to give an example. Remember Nethack? To begin, I was dungeoneering along the early levels as a stealthy elf. Along the road comes a nice hefty (unidentified) weapon. One of the features of Nethack basic is identification is not readily available at the nearest store like other games and removal is inconvenient at best. So that leaves things mostly to a lot of trial and error. I want to equip a sword but I could get really screwed over as curses are painful. What to do? Upon looking around, I see there's an unarmed orc down the next tunnel. "Eureka!" Just what I need, a crash test dummy. The questionable weapon gets laid down on the ground and I get to sit back and listen to the response. As feared, blood curling screams followed by a message stating the sword is fused to orc's hand. "Whew!" Better him than me.
So here a disadvantage was turned into an advantage. I actually stocked some of the worst, most hazardly toxic, dangerous cursed items just so I could exploit them through charity to the enemy. I wish I could see more choices like this in modern games. FFH2 did had some.
Glad to hear your view of the article has improved. Yeah, many games do have the goal of simplifying in order to appeal to a larger market. That's a business decision though, and I'm (fortunately) but a lowly a designer so my focus is purely on what makes a fun game.
Second, making everything simple isn't always good. You want the core of the game to be intelligible, sure, but that doesn't mean every mechanic should have a clear and simple formula. The core of the game should be intelligible, but the player doesn't need to understand the entire backend. This is a computer game, not a tabletop game. Those formulas are hidden so you can do a lot more with them, and you can divorce the lore from the math. The player understands that building a new entertainment facility makes people happier, and that's good enough for general purposes. If you make everything too simple, there's nothing left to the game - once you understand everything you've already "beaten" the game and there's not much left to do in it.
I think an example of a case where you know the core mechanics, but there are some things you have no control over and you don't know everything at the start (and some things might not ever be known), would be Conquest of Elysium 3 (at least that's the gist I get by reading the game manual).
I thought I pop in to say that I do agree with a lot of what is said in the thread. I also agree with what Jon Shafer has said thus far.
More often than not lack of such restrictions can be attributed to trying to cut corners. Once you place a restriction on a unit, you must code all kinds of stuff to go with these restrictions, including the dreaded AI.
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