[MUD-Dev] Metrics for assessing game design

[katie at stickydata.com]

[Adam M wrote:]

> I agree quite strongly with one of this week's Gamasutra articles
> which points out that the infamous "crunch time" on games dev
> projects probably is the single greatest drain on creativity
> within the industry - and it has no plus side.

This is a problem that is epidemic throughout all industries that
include any highly creative talent or skill in the employee roster
(i.e., most of them).  I was recently involved in a discussion (that
became both rather spirited and wound up more in the domain of
philosophy than game development) not dissimilar to this one, in
which I asserted that bad processes are the most frequent
creativity-thwarter in business today.

Crunch time means that planning has been inadequate.  That's not to
say that good or complete planning is easy - far from it, to such an
extent that many companies, even very large ones, often weigh the
work necessary to put together real and good planning and processes
versus the cost of dealing with poor processes, and in the short
term coping costs less.  Crunch time, and its attendant
poor/inadequate-planning issues, point to far, far deeper issues
within the processes than bad scheduling.  The absolute (imho)
biggest, nastiest thing that it points to is a lack of
communication.  In many industries, including this one, teams of
different disciplines fail to communicate with one another
adequately, especially when it comes to voicing concerns.  Some
strides are made in this area every year, but it's a problem that
approaches impossible, since it is frequently the case that for
everything to work perfectly, everyone involved should have a
thorough understanding of every other field involved - a pretty
unreasonable request.

But to try to put it more briefly: crunch time - foreshortened
schedules - by nature eliminate the time necessary to brainstorm,
experiment, and prototype concepts.  Even if the crunch is late in
the schedule of the current game, it will eliminate that time on the
next project by pushing the schedule up.

Perhaps we'd all be better off if we just swallowed the cost of
rotating several highly creative people off projects completely and
into quiet places where they were allowed to just brainstorm about
whatever they wanted, then present the most interesting concepts to
the full team.  A very close relative of Crunch Time is Billable
Hours - the theory that says that any non-billable hours must be
kept to the barest possible minimum, preferably zero, to keep
productivity high.  Productivity may be high if everyone is
billable, but high, unfortunately, bears little relationship to
GOOD.

> What I'm trying to show with the fun-metrics is that a huge bulk
> of what is fun in a computer game can be measured with just one
> technique. If I were to attempt to pigeonhole it, I'd say the type
> of fun measured is "what makes classic games where gameplay
> triumphs despite poor graphics, sound, etc". For instance,
> Warcraft is extremely dull without the graphics. I know this
> because I used to play Freecraft (the open source clone) many
> years ago, way before they'd drawn any artwork. The cartoony
> graphics are a major part of the enjoyment, and are not covered by
> these metrics. OTOH, if you've ever wondered why you still go back
> and play Tetris every now and then, or why simcity and
> civilization stick in your mind as being so much better than
> anything that followed for many years...

Personally I'd have to say that I do strongly believe that whatever
the fun metric might be, it would be different for different kinds
of games.  I think that the RESULT of scoring high on the FunScale
would be the same - generally speaking, longevity - but that what
qualified different games for that score would be different.  I
would classify these games by the goals apparent in choosing to play
them.  For example, the goal of playing Tetris is vastly different
from the goal of playing an MMORPG.

As for myself, my best example of fun is NetHack.  I still play
nethack today, as do many other people, even though nothing other
than gameplay (with the exception of some ports, but again, not done
by the nethack team) has been enhanced in many years.  To me, what
makes it fun - apart from the sheer challenge - is the level of
depth (sometimes a.k.a. complexity) that is involved.  There is no
object that has not been thought about.  There is no action that
does not have a number of results, some expected, some less so
(i.e., sitting on a throne, quaffing from a fountain.)  It is
impossible to know every nuance of that game - I would bet even that
few of the developers are familiar with every possible situation.
Mostly what stands out in NetHack is that absolutely nothing - not
one thing - is arbitrary.  The story is there, but it doesn't really
play an enormous role - and yet everything in the game is deeply
tied into the gameplay in multiple ways.  Very, very, very few games
today evidence this depth of thinking, this level of complexity and
intertwinedness.

On the other hand, a game like Tetris - it's a very simple game, and
often those are the best.  I think that games like Tetris touch
something deep within ourselves - we find ourselves fighting against
the computer, whether or not we would profess to care about beating
it.  There is something sort of zen about playing tetris for hours -
most Tetris-junkies I've known attest to seeing the pieces falling
when they close their eyes.  What makes Tetris fun is the exact
opposite of depth and complexity - it is the simplicity, the
challenge, and the sense of accomplishment when one "wins."

Katie
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