when it comes to game design one of the
most essential skills is the ability to
comprehend the specific fantasy that
you're trying to create every game can
be broken down into play and theme the
play of the game is all of its mechanics
and its systems the theme is what all
the art narrative and sound design come
together to make you believe the games
about after all a videogame at its most
fundamental is just a group of electric
impulses it's all the artistic trappings
that make us think it's anything more
but games present us with something far
more powerful than simply theme and that
is fantasy fantasy is the feeling that
you're living the theme just because a
game has zombies in it doesn't make you
feel like you're living a horror novel
or just because there are swords and
Dragons in a game doesn't ensure that
you feel like a legendary hero living
out some grand epic to achieve this a
game designer has to do three things one
understand the fantasy they're trying to
convey to work with the art teams to
make sure that the art narrative and
sound design reinforce that fantasy and
three create mechanics which are
congruous with the fantasy I want to
spend most of the episode talking about
this idea of truly understanding a
fantasy but that's also the most complex
part so let's take a moment to talk
about numbers two and three let's start
with the mechanics we've all seen games
where the mechanics were in congruence
with the theme just as an example
try to imagine Call of Duty with match
three combat obviously not the best fit
to make you feel like you're Delta Force
deep in it but this sort of mismatch is
not only in the broad-strokes a
character moving to sluggishly or even
to responsively can break the fantasy
Dark Souls works because it's a
heavyweight down world and the movement
of your character ties into that but
those same mechanics would break the
fantasy being conveyed in a Devil May
Cry or a Bayonetta or even the God of
War and just because your game has guns
in it doesn't mean that it's going to
live up to whatever your fps is fantasy
is you remember the first doom remember
how that shotgun felt to shoot it was
there to reinforce the fantasy every
aspect of it from the sound it made to
the way you used it to how it made the
enemies fly backwards you've probably
played games where the
eopns didn't make you feel like a space
marine or a super soldier or a grunt in
the trenches it's not enough to have
your mechanics vaguely match the fantasy
or trying to convey you got to get the
details right - and the same is true of
theming if you've ever wondered why our
orcs and elves games often feel so thin
it's because they are they take the
superficial elements of a fantasy world
but they deliver nothing underneath that
compare the witcher 3 riffing on Eastern
European mythology to not öno Kingdoms
of Amalur or simply imagine The Witcher
3 with less care for evoking the fantasy
of being The Witcher the game falls
apart the art the world the writing all
served to make you feel like the titular
role which makes the one-liners you will
deliver as Geralt lines that easily
could come off as obnoxious in another
setting feel like delivering some of the
greatest comebacks of all time but ok
enough about that side of things
surprisingly it's not those second and
third steps of building theme and
mechanics around the fantasy that seem
to be the things that need the most work
in our industry because neither of those
matter unless the designers on the
project understand the fantasy first and
truth is were pretty bad at that part
James consults on a lot of project and
he started giving a whole workshop on
understanding the fantasy you're trying
to deliver because so many companies
either fail at it or simply skip the
step entirely in their design process
now you'd think that the simplest way to
succeed here would be to decide on what
core emotive fantasy you're trying to
deliver on before you start to build the
game like are you building a power
fantasy are you delivering a sense of
glory that can only be found when every
victory is a struggle or are you making
something else and then once you know
that you build a theme that serves it
but designing that way is actually
fairly difficult and almost every game
is built the other way around
theme first sometimes the mechanics or a
piece of tech will actually be the part
that comes first but in those cases the
theme is still usually settled on before
the fantasies figured out and because
that's the order we usually design in it
is essential that a designer understand
the fantasy that in here's in their
theme the first step in understanding
the fantasy is to get specific merely
saying we're making a world war 2 game
or we're making a zombie game is
enough drill down and get as much
specificity as you can and when I say
drill down I'm not just using that as a
metaphor there are layers here to dig
through for example to say I'm making a
fantasy game is so broad as to be nearly
meaningless but so many other people
have already established more specific
avenues of fantasy that you can start
narrowing down what you're doing into
something far more specific like
Arthurian fantasy tolkien-esque fantasy
Norse fantasy and so on and those can
then be subdivided further until you hit
some bedrock where you can start
examining why people gravitate to that
specific theme in the first place until
you can explore what they're looking for
and the best works in that area and I
cannot stress this enough study your
theme study it read everything you can
about it
watch all of the TV shows play all of
the games that fit within your theme
consume media like there is no tomorrow
but don't just do it for the enjoyment
or to get individual neat ideas do it to
study the fantasy that you're trying to
deliver read all of the greatest books
in your genre and find commonalities
what do they make you feel like what
aspirational thing do they make you
desire to participate in or desire to be
figure that out then look at well-known
failures things which had the budget and
the right people and everything they
needed to be good but then just weren't
see where they missed take all of those
examples which reviewers gave middling
scores or called generic and contrast
those with the real standout works in
your area to see exactly what it is that
gives your fantasy soul if you break
things down enough and get enough
granularity you'll probably find that
your theme isn't one theme at all but
actually a grab bag of them for example
for any of you who have ever read dune
its theming includes space operas
romanticized medieval literature the
whole tradition of Western exoticism of
Eastern mysticism and nonfiction
ecological speculation and that's just
to name a few it is so important to
drill down to that level of specificity
once you're there you can pretty much
assemble those themes into a Venn
diagram and where they overlap is the
fantasy you should focus on delivering
once you've got that you next have to
ask yourself how is this fantasy
delivered one of the biggest questions
here that often gets overlooked
is is it a world fantasy or a personal
fantasy in games like Call of Duty or
Metal Gear the fantasies personal the
player wants to be that main character
the world is just there to highlight the
traits of the main character to give
them excuses to really be Solid Snake or
the world's most remarkable foot soldier
on the other hand in games like
stellaris or fallout the fantasies
delivered through the world what the
player really wants to do is just live
in that world because that itself
provides the emotive needs you're
filling whether it be escaping the
mundane with the unlimited possibilities
of space or getting us to think about
how we might thrive in post-apocalyptic
once you've got that think of your
audience who is the audience for your
specific Venn diagram what's the best
way to deliver this fantasy specifically
to them just as an example Ark survival
evolved does a fantastic job of matching
its mechanics and its theming to the
audience that will be most receptive to
the fantasy it conveys and that's pretty
much it get as specific as you can
understand the fantasy you're trying to
create study everything you can in order
to make your theme and your mechanics
match your fantasy and think about how
you're delivering your fantasy to your
audience if you can do that you will go
beyond delivering a simple theme you
will allow your players to live the
fantasy your game creates now there's
only so much that we can cover in one
video and I feel like we've only
discussed the broadest strokes here so
much of this is in the minutia in the
tiny subtle ways that the fantasy you're
presenting to the player can differ even
in games that at first seem really
similar it's part of why the
single-player in the early modern
warfare succeeded in a way that some of
the later ones didn't or why System
Shock 2 is still loved after all these
years while something similar like
dispatcher just wildly misses the mark
if you would like us to actually go
through this whole process and break
down the fantasy for a specific game let
us know in the comments I mean we've got
quite a topic backlog already so I can't
make promises but if enough of you want
that James will add it to the stack see
you next week