The two-piece puzzle of game design

The other part of success.

Hello there and welcome back! Please excuse my absence but I have been preoccupied with my thoughts for a few days. I was thinking about what it takes for a designer to create a great game and seem to have uncovered something that is news to me. And I have not encountered many other people discussing this. So I thought that it would be a brilliant topic for today's discussion!

It is common knowledge among designers that in order to create a great game you must know your target audience. Call of Duty is definitely aimed at another type of player than Angry Birds for instance. Much time and energy is spent on analysing the target player and making sure that every aspect of the game is tailored towards that player.

However, I see very little discussion about how a designer reaches the conclusions that lead to the inclusion of certain mechanics in order to appeal to the right type of player. Game development is a very stressful environment. Decisions have to be made on short notice while considering and weighing many options at any given time. As if such pressure was not enough a designer faces the uncomfortable expectation of being some kind of superman. A designer should be highly intelligent with a good grasp on logics and mechanics, socially competent, a great leader, a creative genius and capable of creating impressive graphical art while also coding and scripting the mechanics themselves. At least that is the preconception many seem to have about designers.

The typical mental image of a game designer?
Source

Such a person does not exist. Period. We may try to be all those things but we will inevitably fail and when we do we blame ourselves for not being good enough. This leads to an unhealthy self-perception and may further lead to the designer burning herself out and leaving the games industry all together.

How do we ensure that the designer makes the right decision while under all this pressure? Knowing your target audience intimately is only half the puzzle. My opinion is that knowing yourself, your skills and your limitations is the other half that almost no one seems to speak of.

I am supported in that opinion by one of the greatest thinkers ever. The author of the book "The art of war", Sun Tzu. This book is mandatory reading material not only at military academies around the world but is also of great interest to corporate executives, psychologists and any other person who intends to manage people or organisations. Sun Tzu writes:

"It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle." - Sun Tzu 

Read that quote again and let it sink in. This is the essence of game development. Translated into a format suitable to designers it would be something like this:

"It is said that if you know your player and know yourself, you will not fail once in a hundred games; if you do not know your player but know yourself, you will create one great and one bad; if you do not know your player nor yourself, you will fail every single time."

So how exactly does knowing yourself help in designing a game? By knowing yourself you will know what method to use in any given instance. If you do not yet know the correct method to use you will know how best to learn it. You will be able to work in such a way that it plays to your strengths and not trying to live up to other people's unreasonable expectations.

Now that we have established the importance of knowing yourself we need to take the next step.

How do we aquire this wisdom?

There are several places to find this information about yourself, but it is up to you to find it. I will list the methods I use when trying to learn more about myself. You will need to find your own way but this might hopefully help you on your way:

• Quiet contemplation in solitude
• Discussions with people you are very close to. When in the company of such people we let down our guard and let the other person see who we really are. Such persons generally know you better than you do yourself
• Psychology litterature
• Online psychology tests

Let us do a case study of what we can learn from a certain method and see how that relates directly to game design. I will use myself for this example and the method used is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. For a good introduction to the subject I recommend this blog post, I suggest you read it before we move on if you are not already familiar with the method.

I am classed as ISFJ. This means that I have a specific hierarchy of functions that determine how I instinctively make decisions and interact with the world. They are, in order of dominance (descriptions from Wikipedia):

Introverted Sensing (Si)

"Si collects data in the present moment and compares it with past experiences, a process that sometimes evoces the feelings associated with memory, as if the subject was reliving it. Seeking to protect what is familiar, Si draws upon history to form goals and expectations about what will happen in the future."

Extraverted Feeling (Fe)

"Fe seeks social connections and creates harmonious interactions through polite, considerate and appropriate behavior. Fe responds to the explicit (and implicit) wants of others, and may even create and internal conflict between the subject's own needs and the desire to meet the needs of others."

Introverted Thinking (Ti)

"Ti seeks precision, such as the exact word to express an idea. It notices the minute distinctions that define the essence of things, the analyzes and classifies them. Ti examines all sides of an issue, looking to solve problems while minimizing effort and risk. It uses models to root out logical inconsistency."

Extraverted Intuition (Ne)

"Ne finds and interprets hidden meanings, using "what if" questions to explore alternatives, allowing multiple possibilites to coexist. This imaginative play weaves together insights and experiences from various sources to form a new whole, which can then become a catalyst to action."

Looking at this theory, I can now begin to see what happens in my mind when I encounter a problem. So, how do these functions and their order affect my thought process? And how do the functions interact with each other? Let us see!

When I first encounter a problem, my dominant Si function causes me to look inward to see if a solution is already known to me. If it is I will most probably use that solution if I deem it sufficient. I am very good at remembering rule systems, social practices and anything else that I find important and/or interesting. 

Si is like consulting your inner library.

If that is not sufficient my auxilliary Fe function kicks in to help me form a more complete picture of the problem in question. I look at the social context around me, what are the expectations and needs of the other's around me and how can I meet those expectations. Fe means that I know how to read other people and is skilled at figuring out their needs, a trait that neatly explains my interest in psychology. People close to me often accuse me of reading their thoughts! 

Fe is a powerful tool to use when attempting to gain an understanding of player psychology. It gives me a natural inclination towards empathy and lets me easily put myself in the player's position. Si ensures that I have ready access to my current pool of methods so that I can quickly match them against what my Fe discovers. This combination means that I am quickly able to find the correct method to reach the desired player response, given that the method is already in my pool of experience.

When I have gone through these first steps and still do not have the complete solution to a problem my tertiary Ti helps me logically analyse all the information gathered in the previous steps. I am then able to formulate a concrete problem statement and the requirements for solving it. In this phase I will probably be seen sitting and staring into thin air, slowly stroking my beard. I will examine the problem in detail before moving on to a more creative process.

This is when my Ne enters the scene. Ne is the classical creative, brainstorming function that allows me to seek multiple solutions to the problem. The Ne and Ti functions will together seek a solution to the concrete problem by rapidly analysing the available options and brainstorm around them. I will now get up from my chair and start moving around, waving my arms while thinking out loud and rapidly jumping between ideas. 

Conclusion
Being ISFJ means that I have a long way before my creativity kicks in but it also means that once I learn something I easily recollect it. I internalise experiences quickly and is capable of putting those experiences in a social context.

Since Ne is way down at the bottom, my creative process does not kick in unless I have figured out the solution to the problem before getting that far. I will have a tendency to stick to what I know (Si) and only challenge that when my current knowledge is insufficient.

In a project I should primarily focus on structuring (Si) other people's (Fe) creative thoughts, analyse them (Ti) and figure out how they should work mechanically (Ne). I am a structured and disciplined designer that enjoy using established practices to figure out how to best influence the player, rather than being a creative genius.

As you can see from this wall of text it is a long process to analyse yourself but the conclusions you reach may very well help you in your work and answer questions that have been gnawing at the back of your head for ages.

I wondered long and hard why I seemed to be less creative than many others around me. On the other hand I have always been very structured and a hard worker. The question that bothered me was if this trait made me a bad designer.

The answer is: No, it makes me good at certain things and not so good at others. But now that I know how I tick I will be able to play to my strengths and overcome or bypass my weaknesses.

I highly recommend that you take the time required to find yourself. It will be of great assistance to you in all parts of your life. I will finish this post with the words of another wise man:

"He who knows others is wise; he who know himself is enlightened." - Lao-Tzu