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In 2008, game designer Derek Yu couldn’t
figure out what type of game to make next.

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Perhaps, he should make a platformer.

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But, despite making a few prototypes - nothing
seemed right.

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So perhaps he should make a roguelike - you
know, a top-down dungeon crawler, with randomly

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generated levels.

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But that didn’t work either.

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His prototypes just didn’t seem to add anything
new to their respective genres.

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And that’s when it clicked.

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What if he made a platformer - with tense
jumps and scrappy, real-time combat.

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But, like a roguelike, the game would have
randomly generated levels, and high stakes

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permadeath.

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And thus, Spelunky was born.

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And about eight million other games that borrow
elements from the roguelike genre.

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You see, we like to put games into tidy little
boxes.

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Platformers.

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First-person shooters.

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Racing games.

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Puzzlers.

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We neatly categorise games based on things
like their mechanics, camera perspective,

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level structure, and rules.

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But, brilliant things can be produced when
those lines are blurred, and those genres

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are mushed together.

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Sadly, it’s not at easy as chucking a bunch
of things into a pot and hoping something

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good comes out.

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Get the mix wrong, and the result can be disastrous.

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So, in this video let’s look at how games
can shove together radically different genres…

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with success.

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I’m Mark Brown, and this is Game Maker’s
Toolkit.

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Okay, so I think there are three different
ways to combine genres in games.

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And so I’ll start with what I’m calling
the “hand-off method”.

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This is when a game jumps back and forth between
different genres, at different times.

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So, consider Persona - which is sometimes
a dungeon-crawling JRPG, and sometimes a visual

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novel-like life simulator.

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Or Uncharted, which quickly bounces between
shooting, platforming, puzzle solving, and

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driving.

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The key advantage to this approach is pacing
and variety.

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It can get boring to do the exact same type
of gameplay for hours on end, so if you mix

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up the genre, you can keep players engaged
for longer.

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It can also be used to make sure the gameplay
always fits what’s happening in the narrative

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- because tense RPG battles wouldn’t make
sense when you’re doing after-school chores.

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The biggest challenge here is that some players
may not like every genre in the mix.

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If you bought God of War for the frantic,
ultra violent, button-bashy, combat… then

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you might find the slow-paced puzzles to be
a complete drag.

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There are some solutions to this, though.

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Like, Uncharted does have puzzles… but they’re
not exactly brain-busting conundrums.

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In this series, the combat seems to be the
primary genre - and so that’s where you’ll

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find the most depth and challenge.

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The secondary genres are pretty much just
palette cleansing fluff - and so they’re

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kept super simple to ensure they don’t upset
players who only want to do the shooty bits.

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Going further, you can make those secondary
genres optional.

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In Shovel Knight: King of Cards, you never
need to play the card battler if you’d prefer

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to just focus on the platforming.

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In L.A. Noire, if you fail at these dopy third-person
shooter bits, you can skip right past them

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to get back to the detective puzzles.

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And in the Yakuza series, you never need to
bother with the management side of things,

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after you’ve passed the tutorial.

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You can also try to pick genres with strong
similarities, so it’s likely that players

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will enjoy both types of game.

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If you enjoy the turn-based tactical battles
in XCOM, then it’s not a huge stretch to

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assume that you’ll also like the strategic
layer.

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Consider what sort of skills are required
in the primary genre, and be wary of asking

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players to suddenly need entirely different
ones.

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I mean, a rhythm-based boss battle.

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Really?

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Another challenge is that players may be confused
about how they should be approaching the current

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level.

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I ran into this problem with the first demo
for my Untitled Magnet Game.

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I wanted to include both logic-based puzzles,
and tricky platforming challenges - but players

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didn’t always know if the level required
them to engage their brain… or engage their

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thumbs.

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One solution to this problem is to simply
communicate this information to the player.

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In Grapple Dog, there should be no confusion
about how to tackle these speed-run, time-attack

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stages - I mean, the door has a fast-forward
icon on it, there’s a countdown, Pablo starts

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in a sprinter’s pose, the background is
a racing flag, and so on.

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Another solution is to just change the player’s
current actions from level to level - or punish

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the player for using the wrong ones.

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In the Batman: Arkham games, if you try to
play these stealth sections like a beat ‘em

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up, you’ll very quickly end up full of holes.

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The final challenge is that the different
genres can distract from each other, or compete

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for the player’s attention, or break the
game’s flow.

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Sid Meier discovered this when making Covert
Action - a game where you solve a mystery

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by doing various mini-games.

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Meier says that when players got sucked in
to action scenes that were too long, too intense,

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and felt disconnected from everything else...

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they forgot all about the mystery.

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He says “You'd spend ten minutes or so,
of real time, in a mission.

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And by the time you got out of [it], you had
no idea of what was going on in the world.”

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One solution is to keep the different segments
short - so you’re always coming back to

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the main event.

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Or, to always have the different genres feed
in to each other - back in XCOM, the advances

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you make in your base will directly impact
your chances in the tactical battles.

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And the decisions you make on the battlefield
will feed back into your base.

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That way you never forget about the other
side of the game.

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But the main solution is to consider the game’s
core focus, and to make sure everything is

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pointing in that same direction.

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In Persona, the games are all about your relationship
with your core group of friends.

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And that’s a theme that is strongly evoked
in both the RPG battles and the regular life

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simulator stuff.

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Okay, so the second way to combine genres
is to use the “play style method”.

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This is when you can approach a game in multiple
ways, using skills and actions that come from

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different genres of game.

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Deus Ex was designed as a mash-up of first-person
shooter, RPG, and stealth game - and so you

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can play the game in whatever mode you prefer.

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And in Skyrim, you can play with magic spells,
swords and shields, bow and arrow, and more.

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The advantage to this approach is player choice
and agency.

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You get to pick a genre that you like best,
and play the game in that style.

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It’s also good for variety, as you can jump
between different genres when you feel like

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it - and it gives you a good reason to play
through the game multiple times.

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The challenge is that your game is going to
be compared to titles that focus on doing

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a single thing really well.

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Deus Ex is brilliant, but the constituent
parts just pale in comparison to its contemporaries

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like Half-Life, Baldur’s Gate, and Thief.

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Designer Warren Spector says “if we get
judged on the basis of any individual genre,

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we’re doomed because we’re just not going
to be as good.”

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So it’s important to really communicate
the advantages of letting players decide their

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own play style - through marketing and in-game
messages.

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Another challenge is that you’re almost
making multiple games at once.

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And that means your resources get spread pretty
thin.

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The modern Wolfenstein games are designed
to have three play styles - dubbed mayhem,

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tactical, and stealth.

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But Machine Games has admitted that it just
didn’t spend as much time on stealth - leading

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to annoying gameplay like guards spotting
you too easily.

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In terms of design, another challenge is that
when presented with multiple play styles,

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a great deal of players will just choose one
and stick with it to the end credits - refusing

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to try anything else.

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We see this when players quick load back to
a previous save file when they get spotted

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in Dishonored - instead of switching to a
more violent play style.

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Designers should be careful not to compound
the problem, by rewarding the actions made

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in a play style… with tools and skills that
help that play style.

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Positive feedback loop right there.

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Instead, try giving general skill points that
can be spent on any type of action - or allow

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the player to re-spec and try a completely
different build.

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Designers can also give players an incentive
to try out different styles.

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In Hades, it can be tempting to stick to a
single weapon - but the game provides a reward

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for swapping to a new one.

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You can also use the narrative and context
to allow for different approaches.

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Perhaps Dishonored’s judgmental chaos system
stopped you from killing - but in Deathloop,

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there’s no such system.

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And the entire world resets every morning,
so if your actions aren’t gonna have lasting

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consequences, why not try something different?

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What you probably don’t want to do is force
players to choose another play style, by suddenly

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making one approach impossible.

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In Deus Ex: Human Revolution, you can play
in both lethal and non-lethal ways - that

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is, until the boss battles which force you
to fight.

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Even if you don’t have the skills or items
to do so.

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This was such a bone of contention that the
bosses were completely redesigned in the game’s

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Director’s Cut.

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The solution here is to ensure that each play
style has a valid, and enjoyable route through

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each and every level.

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Then, studios need to thoroughly test the
game in every possible play style to ensure

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there are no brick walls.

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Because if you make the promise of “play
it your way”, some players are simply going

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to feel betrayed if you suddenly make their
preferred approach impossible.

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The third, and final way to mix genres is
to use the “blend method”.

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This is when we take aspects from two different
genres, and merge them together to make something

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new.

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So Portal has cursor-based aiming and a first-person
camera, borrowed from shooters.

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And it pairs that with puzzles from, well,
puzzle games.

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Battlechef Brigade has knockabout combat from
a brawler, mixed with the puzzles of a match-three

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game.

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Rocket League is FIFA meets Burnout.

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The advantage to this method is the creation
of entirely new games, and perhaps even new

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genres.

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And so we get wildly novel and inventive titles
like Crypt of the Necrodancer - a rhythm-based

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roguelike.

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And Toodee and Topdee - a puzzle game where
you can switch from top-down box-shoving to

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side-on platforming at the press of a button.

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It can also be used to freshen up dusty old
genres, by looking outside of current conventions.

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RPGs typically have clunky turn-based battles,
but we’ve seen role-playing games borrow

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from brawlers, puzzle games, third-person
shooters, bullet hell shmups, and rhythm-action

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titles.

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A potential problem with this approach is
that the two genres may end up just being

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incompatible.

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The Metroidvania Chasm is a good example.

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Perhaps the biggest advantage of the Metroidvania
is a richly detailed, handcrafted world map.

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But Chasm skips that by pairing up with a
roguelike, which has the disadvantage of using

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procedural generation to make worlds that
feel quite bland and impersonal.

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Another example is how the RPG elements added
to Assassin’s Creed subtly undermine the

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assassin fantasy, by removing instant stealth
kills on higher-level enemies.

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Or how the loot-based armour system in Marvel’s
Avengers awkwardly fits with the superhero

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theme.

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Did I just upgrade The Hulk’s skeleton?!

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So, instead, you should use genres that complement
each other.

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Back to Spelunky, Derek Yu liked how platformers
were easy to pick up and play, but didn’t

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like how the games relied on players memorising
level layouts.

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And as for roguelikes, he loved the variety
in the random level generation - but didn’t

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like all the cryptic commands and systems.

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But by combining the two, the positives of
one genre managed to actually cancel out the

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negatives of the other.

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Derek Yu says “Nothing was compromised to
make something else fit and each part only

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boosted the signal of the other parts.”

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You can also look for genres with a lot of
similarities, so that they’ll gel together

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more easily.

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When Yacht Club Games mashed up a roguelike
with an action puzzler in Shovel Knight: Pocket

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Dungeon, the studio realised that the two
genres have a lot of similarities.

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They both operate on grids, have simple controls,
involve a lot of randomness, feature long

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runs that start from scratch, and require
thinking several moves ahead.

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It was easy, and natural, to put them together.

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So, there we have it.

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You can combine genres by switching back and
forth at different times.

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By letting players choose their own playstyle.

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Or by blending together different genres to
make something new.

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But whatever route you take, there are challenges
to overcome.

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The games in this video show that the problems
aren’t unsolvable - you just need to be

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smart about your design.

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Let me know your favourite genre mash-ups,
in the comments down below.

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Hey, thanks for watching!

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Did you know that I made a video essay that
you can play?

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00:12:52,500 --> 00:12:57,410
Platformer Toolkit, now available on Itch.io,
is a free game that lets you see what it’s

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like to make your own platformer - giving
you access to dozens of sliders, checkboxes

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00:13:01,730 --> 00:13:06,150
and graphs that drive the main character’s
movement.

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00:13:06,150 --> 00:13:06,570
Check it out!