Playing with Understanding

Monday, September 15th, 2008 | Editorial

Recently I picked what is more or less part III in a series of games that I’ve played from the beginning; Lego Indiana Jones. While adding many unique aspects to the previous two Lego movie games (Star Wars I and II respectively) this one also maintained some aspects, especially in terms of the economy of the game. Everywhere you go “studs” are dropped which can then be used to purchase characters and upgrades. The cost of an upgrade is relative to it’s value. So while something useless like the ability to add mustaches to all the characters may not cost much, the coveted invulnerability costs a small fortune. But by the time I got to Lego Indiana Jones I discovered that if you only buy the characters that have the particular skills you need and save your money for upgrades that will increase the rate you earn money, like stud multipliers, in a very short time you have more money than you will ever need. Contrast that to me searching for a high paying level and playing it over and over again until I could afford the upgrade I wanted, grinding as it were.

The difference from the first game I played to the last game was understanding what the game was going to throw at me. It totally changed my experience. Now, instead of having only the options that were before me there were unseen options that I knew were coming.

StarMerchant is another good example of this. As the author was developing it I was regaled with tales of him earning millions of dollars in a short time. However the first time I played the game… well I ended up broke pretty quickly. However the more I played (and peeked at the code) I gained an understanding of the game. It changed for me and I too was able to earn millions. I’ve noticed that with many games that I’ve made I am much more successful the first time I play than many people could be.

In a way this conversation is closely linked to the idea of genre. A person’s experience with a game is closely linked to their familiarity of it, and with sequels or genre games you can enter a game with a familiarity from playing past games.

From a design standpoint, how does one create a game for which the unfamiliar experince is tolerable while progressing through the learning curve to understanding? If this question is not addressed then you limit your audience because who is going to want to play a game they don’t get. There are genre’s for which I think this question has already been abandoned and answering this problem will almost require resetting the genre to square one. And how does one recapture an audience that has walked away?