Game Design Theory

Analysis of Racing Games | Racing Games Mechanics

This article in the series lists the activities, broken down as detailed as possible,  that constitutes the game play in a racing game.

The Game Play Activities

Core Game Play Activities a racer or gamer can master and execute in a racing game as below:

  1. Accelerating,
  2. Decelerating,
  3. Braking,
  4. Gear Shifting,
  5. Line Taking,
  6. Strategic Boosting (nitro or speed boosters if available),
  7. Slipstreaming (or Drafting),
  8. Understanding the Track’s Layout,
  9. Drifting,
  10. …etc…

Additional Game Play Activities that require mastery in “evolved” racing games:

  1. Aiming / Firing Accuracy
  2. Ammo conservation (A curve is approaching, hold back on the missile until a better opportunity arises?)
  3. Additional finesses in control (To get items or boosting strips on tracks on top of racing lines.)
  4. Reaction (To avoid obstacles or traps on tracks, especially those left by opponents!)
  5. Combat Strategy (Which stretch of the track to take down the opponent for optimum advantage? Around the curve perhaps?)
  6. Team Strategy (Team mates acting as shields against attacks, blockers against opponents catching up, assists by creating slipstream in front of the ace racer…)
  7. …etc…

Possible Community Activities in a racing game brought about by online game play capabilities offered by pcs and consoles?

  1. Record a Replay
  2. Share a Replay
  3. Spectate a Race
  4. Offering a chance to players to play other roles?
  5. Offering a chance to players to play as mechanics? (Players can salvage parts from other destroyed vehicles that the player has destroyed, must bring it to the mechanic to build. Mechanics require different skill-sets mustered by different game play loops.)
  6. Offering a chance to players to play as a manager of a racing team? (Can manage other players or train AIs?)
  7. Bets (May not be the most moral…)
  8. Drafting to assist a teammate in a race
  9. Blocking an opponent team member in a race
  10. …etc…

There are more, but this is not the definitive list. Just to serve as a reference.

Analysis of Racing Games | Evolution of Racing Games

With the rising numbers in racing games titles, video games developers tried to out-do each other, or tried to justify the gamer’s money, by putting additional game play features such as weapon combat, advantageous items or speed boosters (or otherwise) lying in strategic points in the racing track. With game play features like these, I feel that racing games can be divided into 2 sub-genre…

Combat racing games have started early with the release of DeathTrack in 1989! Continue reading…

Introduction to User Accessibility in Games

A rather simple and old game design article from Gamasutra.com (6th July, 2005),“Improving Game Accessibility”

Though this article is pretty old, it does provide some useful information that should give a basic introduction to the subject. No frills and straight to the point. Takes just 5 minutes to read, but gives enough information to gain some awareness to this subject for game designers or developers.

Also, I’ve include a table below shows the major forms of disability that affects game play (extracted from the article), and I have included some suggested and game industry standard of overcoming these games accessibility issues.
Continue reading…

“Be able to Enjoy the Game without Sounds”

For user accessibility reasons, I always follow the game design rule for myself when doing game design. (A good thing that comes out would be, if a game is enjoyable without sounds, it could potentially be BETTER with sounds. )

I just wanna bring up this issue just to bring some attention to accessibility in games. Especially when it comes to accessibility for the disabled. A number of people still don’t know about this subject, or simply don’t bother

Sound comes in as a second layer to the game design, to enhance the game experience, make everything feel good, creates the atmosphere, provides additional information…

Continue reading…