Mechanical Growth

Please excuse the clever lame title, but “Stuff that I didn’t think of” Seemd likea less whimsical title.

What I would like to talk to you today is not so much a problem, but an effect of design that I have realised (as I imagine most people do quicker than I have) that through creating a game, sometimes you need to create additional mechanics to make the game more exciting or dynamic.

In my case, this is opening door switches and teleporting blocks, but this defiantly isn’t the first time I came across this.

During my final year of my undergraduate, Both my game design and my futures game pitch began as one idea (two ideas?) and quickly evolved with the consideration of game play.

In Playdoh Crusade, my Games Design module, The characters would craft weapons from a substance found within the battlefield.
With this, I had to solve the problem of players dyeing when they where taking it back, the strength of the weapons, what would happen to these weapons upon a players death, and of course, defining how it was found, used and processed into a weapon.


Complicated and unessacerry stuff about my 3rd year:
For reasons I can not begin to remember, I had the players drying out Playdoh by carrying it around, so that the player could not take it from them. If they didn’t, the crafted product would be avalible to the enemy upon the wielders death

So, while a game can start off as one idea, when you put a person in control of the game, you quickly find the holes that you otherwise wouldn’t have seen. (Except me, I always see them, as I am perfect) or begin to include mechanics to vary the game play a bit.

Once upon a time, this was a power up. Now its just good game design.

(Also, remind me to do my next blog on the pain in the arse-ness of having to stick walls and knick-knacks in levels to keep the player out of places.)