Is this thing on?
Intuition And Intellect
Deconstructing The Design of Oasis
Marc LeBlanc
GDC 2005
Part I: Overview
Or, what this talk is, and what it
isn’t.
Outline
• Demo Oasis
• Discuss “Intellectual” and
“Intuitive” Design
• Outline an intellectual framework
• Deconstruct Oasis
• Bring up some moments of
Intellect/Intuition collision
Disclaimers
• This talk is not a post-mortem
Not “What went right”
Rather, “What we were thinking”
• This is not a “how to win the IGF”
talk
Like I would know
Part II: Let’s Play Oasis…
Part III: Intuition and Intellect
In which we talk about talking about
game design.
Intuition vs. Intellect
• Intuition:
Life Experience
Mysterious and Creative
Quick and Dirty
• Intellect:
Study, Research, Synthesis
Articulate and Analytical
Slow and Precise
“The intellect is a Bailey bridge
built between islands of
inspiration.”
- Mike Myers
Another Metaphor
• Intuition is “high gear”
• Intellect is “low gear”
• Speed vs. Power tradeoff
You need both gears!
• Without Intuition you will get left
behind.
• Without Intellect you will get
stuck.
• Intuition AND Intellect,
not Intuiton VS. Intellect
However
• Intellect is inherently easier to
communcate.
• Welcome to the GDC
Part IV: An Intellectual
Framework
Wherein concepts are classified, and
terms are defined.
Games as Software
Code
Games as Software
Code Process
Games as Software
Code Process Requirements
Games as Software
Code Process Requirements
Rules
Games as Software
Code Process Requirements
Rules Activity
Games as Software
Code Process Requirements
Rules Activity “Fun”
A Design Vocabulary
Code Process Requirements
Rules Activity “Fun”
A Design Vocabulary
Code Process Requirements
Mechanics
Rules Activity “Fun”
A Design Vocabulary
Process Requirements
Mechanics Dynamics
Game “Fun”
A Design Vocabulary
Mechanics Dynamics Aesthetics
The MDA Framework
Mechanics Dynamics Aesthetics
Part V: Back to Oasis
Where we finally get back to that
game we looked at.
Aesthetic Objectives of Oasis
• Challenge the player
He has interesting problems to solve.
• Create a strategic landscape to Discover
The player crafts his own “game science.”
• Create an emergent Narrative
Convey a sense of dramatic tension building to a
climax.
• Fulfill a Fantasy
The player feels like he’s building a tiny empire.
• Create a spectacle of Sensation
Sights and sounds for the player to enjoy.
The “Design Thesis” of Oasis
Oasis is the “anti-Minesweeper”
• Clicking yields information, but
• Clicking is good instead of bad.
• Many carrots, one big stick.
• Some carrots are sucker punches
Use sights & sounds to lure the player
The “No Bad Clicks” Principle
• Became an aesthetic yardstick.
• We had to refine our notion of “bad.”
“Worth less than nothing”
• Killed many, many potential features.
• Still, some emergent “bad clicks”
remain.
The Strategic Landscape
• Player starts out as a tourist.
• Eventually, he becomes a native.
• Map Generator
• Combat System
Dynamics that Challenge
Mechanic: Resource Contention
Different moves compete for turns.
Some also compete for followers.
Combined with:
Random Maps
Random Players
Limited Information
Challenging decisions emerge.
Difficulty “Balance”
Easy Challenging? Impossible
Q: How do you find the balance
point?
A: You don’t.
The Oldest Trick in the Book
Easy Challenging? Impossible
Start here
The Oldest Trick in the Book
Easy Challenging? Impossible
March Onward and Upward
• The player has to win before it becomes
impossible.
• You still need to tune, but now it’s possible.
• This reflects our whole attitude towards
“balance”
The Dramatic Arc
Climax
Rising Falling
Action Action
Dramatic Dynamics
• Difficulty: Easy … Hard … Impossible
• Choices: Few … Many … Few
• Flow: Turn-based … Timed … Real-time
• Combat: Losing … Even … Winning
• Some arcs are authored, some are
emergent.
The Combat Mechanics,
The Simple Version
• Each round is a coin flip
• The winner kills some of the
loser’s troops
The Combat Mechanics,
The Less Simple Version
• Each round is a lottery.
• Every soldier has a ticket.
• Technology can add or remove
tickets.
• The winner’s team gets to kill
some of the losing team’s troops.
3 + <treasure bonus>/2
Some Combat Observations
• The better army usually wins.
• BUT, losing one round doesn’t cost
much.
• Ties can take a while to “snowball.”
• The weaker army…
Still has a fighting chance
Can last a long time
But There’s More
• Each side gets 200 “bonus tickets.”
• When a side kills N soldiers, it loses >N
bonus tickets.
• So:
At the start, the battle is biased towards a coin flip.
There’s some negative feedback.
When the bonus runs out, the fight becomes more
skewed
All This Adds Up to Drama
• Fights stay close for a while, and then
the tide turns.
• The player starts out the underdog,
and then wins.
Numbers vs. Firepower
• Not too bad, for just numbers going
down.
• Again, the drama is emergent.
Part VI: Intution and
Intellect, Revisited
In which the previous parts are
related to each other.
Creating Oasis
• Our day-to-day process was largely
intuitive.
• Intellectual processes helped us:
Get out of ruts.
Communicate objectives.
Design tricky mechanics
Another Example: The
“Smitey Glyph” Feature
• Problem: All levels are won or lost, no
“region of forgiveness.”
• Proposed Solution: The “Smitey Glyph”
• Many theoretical problems
Creates a “stalling” opportunity
Diminishes the “sucker punch”
• But it Just Made Sense
Example: Pharaoh’s
Challenge
• Publisher asked us for “campaign mode” to
create an increased sense of “content.”
• We felt free to experiment, create an “inferior
game.”
• We could rationalize that freedom
intellectually.
• We relaxed the “No Bad Clicks” rule.
Example: Level Flow
Three Phases:
1. Turn-based explore & build
2. Timed troop deployment
3. Non-interactive battle.
• Were we nuts?
• Conventional wisdom says yes.
• Conventional wisdom is largely
intuitive.
It’s All About Drama
Battle
Deploy
Explore,
Build
An Important Precedent:
Golf Games
Ball Flight
Swing Meter
Aiming,
Club Selection
In General
Result
Execution
Planning
Example: Difficulty Coupling
• Originally, difficulty only determined
starting level number.
(Easy = 1, Normal = 11, Hard = 21, Insane = 31)
• Empirically, a bad idea.
• We changed it so all levels start at 1.
• The change bought us tuning freedom.
Questions?
• Slides and Stuff:
[Link]
• Oasis: [Link]
• Me: mahk@[Link]
Example Bugs
1. “10 Second phase” is too “solveable.”
(challenge)
2. When the player’s scarab power is
low, defeat seems inevitable. (drama)
3. Not enough ways to take risks
(drama,challenge).
4. Treasure searching is too random, not
skill-based (challenge)
Example Solutions
• “10 Second phase” is too
“solveable.” (challenge)
Introduce a penalty for each city
lost.
Example Solutions
2. When the player’s scarab power
is low, defeat seems inevitable.
(drama)
Introduce a special treasure that
repleneshes scarab power, if
defended. (Also addresses #3)
Example Solutions
3. Not enough ways to take risks
(drama,challenge).
Introduce a special treasure that
earns score, if defended.
Example Solutions
4. Treasure searching is too random,
not skill-based (challenge)
Treasure placement has a more
learnable pattern. (No
duplicates, ascending order.)
Here’s What We Did
• Saw Oasis
• Discussed “Intellectual” and
“Intuitive” Design
• Presented MDA
• Examined Oasis
• Discussed moments of Intution and
Intellect at work.