WEBVTT 00:00:01.480 --> 00:00:07.520 Hi, this is Mark Brown with Game Maker's Toolkit, a series on video game design. 00:00:09.260 --> 00:00:14.620 2015 was dominated by remakes, remasters, and rereleases. 00:00:14.630 --> 00:00:20.169 In the past 12 months we saw recycled versions of Saints Row IV, Resident Evil, Majora's 00:00:20.169 --> 00:00:25.249 Mask, the Borderland games, Devil May Cry 4 and DmC, almost everything Rare ever made, 00:00:25.249 --> 00:00:30.400 Journey, God of War 3, Dark Souls 2, Final Fantasy Type-0, X, and X-2, the Uncharted 00:00:30.400 --> 00:00:35.550 trilogy, Darksiders 2, Tearaway, Dishonered, Gears of War, and Xenoblade Chronicles. 00:00:35.550 --> 00:00:38.989 That's not to say they shouldn't have been released, but with so many developers stuck 00:00:38.989 --> 00:00:43.460 in the past, it's surprising that there was anyone left to come up with fresh and innovative 00:00:43.460 --> 00:00:44.859 new stuff. 00:00:44.859 --> 00:00:47.050 But luckily, there was. 00:00:47.050 --> 00:00:51.250 We've already spoken about some smart bits of game design from the last 12 months. Like 00:00:51.250 --> 00:00:56.429 Nova-111's somewhat successful attempt to marry real-time and turn-based gameplay, The 00:00:56.429 --> 00:01:01.519 Swindle's 100 day time limit that pressures you into making wonderfully dumb decisions, 00:01:01.519 --> 00:01:05.920 Grow Home's wobbly hand-over-hand-climbing system, and the randomly generated murder 00:01:05.920 --> 00:01:08.120 mystery game Westerados. 00:01:08.120 --> 00:01:12.340 But you can find scraps of good design in lots of games released this year. So here 00:01:12.340 --> 00:01:19.570 are five. Five mechanics or systems or just clever ideas from games released in 2015. 00:01:19.570 --> 00:01:24.990 Let's start with Bloodborne: another dark and difficult masterpiece in the Souls series, 00:01:24.990 --> 00:01:30.840 which introduced a fascinating new wrinkle to an already sharply-designed combat system. 00:01:30.840 --> 00:01:35.700 In this game, From Software wanted to make combat more offensive than Dark Souls, and 00:01:35.700 --> 00:01:40.460 less tentative. So not only did they take away your shield, but the team added something called 00:01:40.460 --> 00:01:42.479 the "regain system". 00:01:42.479 --> 00:01:47.170 When you take a hit, you'll lose a portion of your life bar as usual. But now, if you 00:01:47.170 --> 00:01:51.479 strike back within a limited time you can get some of your lost health back. 00:01:51.479 --> 00:01:55.509 This encourages you to play aggressively, instead of hiding behind a plank of wood or 00:01:55.509 --> 00:02:00.000 running away to chug from your limited stash of potions. But there's risk involved, as 00:02:00.000 --> 00:02:05.789 it causes you to act rashly which, as we all know, is what gets you killed in these games. 00:02:07.680 --> 00:02:13.580 The game's producer told IGN that Souls series director Hidetaka Miyazaki "looks at the health 00:02:13.590 --> 00:02:18.760 gauge not as health, but as your power of will to go on". So, getting hit plunges you into 00:02:18.760 --> 00:02:23.170 a state of despair, but immediately getting in your own attacks gives you some hope that 00:02:23.170 --> 00:02:26.080 this battle can be won. 00:02:27.180 --> 00:02:32.860 Okay, so Metal Gear Solid V's Fulton Recovery System first showed up in Peace Walker on 00:02:32.860 --> 00:02:39.280 the PSP. But shush. Most of us only discovered the fulton's pleasures in The Phantom Pain. 00:02:39.290 --> 00:02:43.840 Here's how it works: any sleeping, stunned, or surrendering guard in The Phantom Pain 00:02:43.840 --> 00:02:48.720 can be attached to a tiny balloon, which whisks them off into the sky and delivers them to 00:02:48.720 --> 00:02:50.040 your Mother Base. 00:02:50.040 --> 00:02:55.239 You can also Fulton animals and vehicles. But it's the guards that make this interesting. 00:02:55.239 --> 00:03:00.199 Because stealth games have struggled to find a compelling reason to deal with enemies non-lethally. 00:03:00.200 --> 00:03:05.599 In fact, it's almost always a bad idea because tranquillised or knocked out guards can wake 00:03:05.600 --> 00:03:10.569 up. So, unless you're going for achievements or unlockables, it's often better to just pip 'em 00:03:10.569 --> 00:03:12.780 in the head with a silenced pistol. 00:03:12.780 --> 00:03:17.340 But in Metal Gear, if you spot an enemy soldier with good stats, who will be useful in Mother 00:03:17.340 --> 00:03:22.500 Base, you're now given a good incentive to take him out non-lethally, then move him away 00:03:22.500 --> 00:03:26.090 from other guards, and... fire him off into the atmosphere on a balloon. 00:03:26.090 --> 00:03:31.220 Rubbish guards with rubbish stats can still be killed, but this mad extraction system 00:03:31.220 --> 00:03:35.780 will make you think twice about offing every soldier in Afghanistan. 00:03:39.840 --> 00:03:45.140 Splatoon's best mechanic is not spraying the battlefield with a thick coat of colourful 00:03:45.150 --> 00:03:48.390 paint. And it's not swimming and jumping about as a squid. 00:03:48.390 --> 00:03:53.720 It is, in my opinion, both of these. Or, more specifically, the way these two systems work 00:03:53.720 --> 00:03:55.960 together in perfect synergy. 00:03:55.960 --> 00:04:00.980 Because, you shoot paint to make a path that you can travel through as a squid, which causes your 00:04:00.989 --> 00:04:05.280 tank to refill, which you can use to shoot paint to make a path which you can travel through 00:04:05.280 --> 00:04:07.760 as a squid, which... well, you get the picture. 00:04:07.760 --> 00:04:12.230 Most modern games offer multiple mechanics but it's very rare to see two very different 00:04:12.230 --> 00:04:18.480 ways of interacting with the world - shooting and moving - support each other almost symbiotically. 00:04:18.480 --> 00:04:22.420 So it's not a case of doing some shooting for a bit, and then doing some swimming for 00:04:22.420 --> 00:04:27.110 a bit. One mechanic simply cannot exist without the other, which means the way you deal with 00:04:27.110 --> 00:04:33.130 every encounter, puzzle, and boss fight involves juggling two disparate and sophisticated mechanics. 00:04:33.130 --> 00:04:34.250 Which is challenging, and fun. 00:04:34.250 --> 00:04:39.170 All in all, making Splatoon much, much more interesting than simply Call of Duty with 00:04:39.170 --> 00:04:41.530 paint instead of bullets. 00:04:45.680 --> 00:04:51.160 We talked this year about how checkpoints can change the level of tension in a game. 00:04:51.160 --> 00:04:55.960 Keep them far apart, like in Far Cry 2 on console, and you'll be sweating bullets when 00:04:55.960 --> 00:05:00.630 you're pinned down and realise that it's been half an hour since you last saved. Make the checkpoints 00:05:00.630 --> 00:05:03.010 too close and you get Prince of Persia. 00:05:03.010 --> 00:05:08.480 Well how about giving that choice to the player? In Ori and the Blind Forest there are spots 00:05:08.480 --> 00:05:12.320 where the game saves automatically but you can also spend some of your energy to make 00:05:12.320 --> 00:05:14.770 "soul links" or checkpoints. 00:05:14.770 --> 00:05:19.290 The onus is now on you to decide whether you want to save at every safe spot, or to give 00:05:19.290 --> 00:05:23.360 yourself some more challenge and only save at the beginning and end of a tricky platforming 00:05:23.360 --> 00:05:24.260 section. 00:05:24.260 --> 00:05:28.350 This is different from hammering Quick Save in a PC game, though. Because that stock of 00:05:28.350 --> 00:05:33.030 energy is limited, you must unleash soul links carefully, because you risk running out of 00:05:33.030 --> 00:05:37.140 the blue stuff when you really need it. And because that same stuff is used for performing 00:05:37.140 --> 00:05:41.500 certain powerful attacks, you'll need to juggle your priorities. 00:05:41.500 --> 00:05:45.710 It makes deploying checkpoints strategic, and another thing to think about when getting 00:05:45.710 --> 00:05:49.630 through the game. It's not something I'd want to see in every platformer, but it could be 00:05:49.630 --> 00:05:54.550 used by some designers to give their games a tad more nuance in the way they save your 00:05:54.550 --> 00:05:57.470 progress. 00:05:59.840 --> 00:06:03.100 And finally: Life is Strange. 00:06:03.110 --> 00:06:09.280 This is a traumatic game. It features murder, intense bullying, suicide attempts, and abuse. 00:06:09.280 --> 00:06:14.810 Which is why it's so important that Max can, in every episode, sit down. Just plonk her 00:06:14.810 --> 00:06:17.300 butt on a chair and take a moment. 00:06:17.300 --> 00:06:22.180 She'll spend some time thinking to herself, unpacking the crazy stuff that's happened to her. 00:06:22.180 --> 00:06:27.860 MAX: Despite all the chaos and bullshit, I feel so giddy hanging out with her again. 00:06:27.860 --> 00:06:32.300 Then, the brilliant soundtrack will take over, and the camera will lazily cut 00:06:32.300 --> 00:06:34.100 between different shots. 00:06:34.480 --> 00:06:38.920 It's up to you when you make Max stand up again, and throw her back into the storm. 00:06:38.930 --> 00:06:43.460 I think this is genuinely important in a game of such emotional intensity. You're given 00:06:43.460 --> 00:06:47.590 permission and encouragement to take a break. 00:06:47.590 --> 00:06:53.310 But it's also worth thinking about in other types of game. Non-stop action can get exhausting, 00:06:53.310 --> 00:07:00.050 so the best games provide moments of deliberate downtime. Without moments of quiet and solitude, 00:07:00.050 --> 00:07:04.780 the only way for players to take a break from the action is to turn off your game and walk 00:07:04.780 --> 00:07:06.540 away... 00:07:08.960 --> 00:07:13.880 So there we have it. Five bits of great design from games released in 2015. And I'll have 00:07:13.880 --> 00:07:17.500 one more, from my very favourite game of the year, at the end of this month. 00:07:17.500 --> 00:07:20.580 So please look forward to that. Until then, thanks for watching! 00:07:24.500 --> 00:07:26.800 I want to hear about your favourite bits of game design 00:07:26.810 --> 00:07:31.510 from 2015, so drop them in the comments. Also, subscribe to the channel to get new episodes 00:07:31.510 --> 00:07:34.990 the moment they come out. And consider helping support the show on Patreon.