5 Bits of Good Game Design from 2015 | Game Maker's Toolkit

Hi, this is Mark Brown with Game Maker's Toolkit, a series on video game design.

2015 was dominated by remakes, remasters,
and rereleases.

In the past 12 months we saw recycled versions
of Saints Row IV, Resident Evil, Majora's

Mask, the Borderland games, Devil May Cry
4 and DmC, almost everything Rare ever made,

Journey, God of War 3, Dark Souls 2, Final
Fantasy Type-0, X, and X-2, the Uncharted

trilogy, Darksiders 2, Tearaway, Dishonered,
Gears of War, and Xenoblade Chronicles.

That's not to say they shouldn't have been
released, but with so many developers stuck

in the past, it's surprising that there was
anyone left to come up with fresh and innovative

new stuff.

But luckily, there was.

We've already spoken about some smart bits
of game design from the last 12 months. Like

Nova-111's somewhat successful attempt to
marry real-time and turn-based gameplay, The

Swindle's 100 day time limit that pressures
you into making wonderfully dumb decisions,

Grow Home's wobbly hand-over-hand-climbing
system, and the randomly generated murder

mystery game Westerados.

But you can find scraps of good design in
lots of games released this year. So here

are five. Five mechanics or systems or just
clever ideas from games released in 2015.

Let's start with Bloodborne: another dark
and difficult masterpiece in the Souls series,

which introduced a fascinating new wrinkle
to an already sharply-designed combat system.

In this game, From Software wanted to make
combat more offensive than Dark Souls, and

less tentative. So not only did they take
away your shield, but the team added something called

the "regain system".

When you take a hit, you'll lose a portion
of your life bar as usual. But now, if you

strike back within a limited time you can
get some of your lost health back.

This encourages you to play aggressively,
instead of hiding behind a plank of wood or

running away to chug from your limited stash
of potions. But there's risk involved, as

it causes you to act rashly which, as we all
know, is what gets you killed in these games.

The game's producer told IGN that Souls series
director Hidetaka Miyazaki "looks at the health

gauge not as health, but as your power of
will to go on". So, getting hit plunges you into

a state of despair, but immediately getting
in your own attacks gives you some hope that

this battle can be won.

Okay, so Metal Gear Solid V's Fulton Recovery
System first showed up in Peace Walker on

the PSP. But shush. Most of us only discovered
the fulton's pleasures in The Phantom Pain.

Here's how it works: any sleeping, stunned,
or surrendering guard in The Phantom Pain

can be attached to a tiny balloon, which whisks
them off into the sky and delivers them to

your Mother Base.

You can also Fulton animals and vehicles.
But it's the guards that make this interesting.

Because stealth games have struggled to find
a compelling reason to deal with enemies non-lethally.

In fact, it's almost always a bad idea because
tranquillised or knocked out guards can wake

up. So, unless you're going for achievements
or unlockables, it's often better to just pip 'em

in the head with a silenced pistol.

But in Metal Gear, if you spot an enemy soldier
with good stats, who will be useful in Mother

Base, you're now given a good incentive to
take him out non-lethally, then move him away

from other guards, and... fire him off into
the atmosphere on a balloon.

Rubbish guards with rubbish stats can still
be killed, but this mad extraction system

will make you think twice about offing every
soldier in Afghanistan.

Splatoon's best mechanic is not spraying the
battlefield with a thick coat of colourful

paint. And it's not swimming and jumping about
as a squid.

It is, in my opinion, both of these. Or, more
specifically, the way these two systems work

together in perfect synergy.

Because, you shoot paint to make a path that you can
travel through as a squid, which causes your

tank to refill, which you can use to shoot
paint to make a path which you can travel through

as a squid, which... well, you get the picture.

Most modern games offer multiple mechanics
but it's very rare to see two very different

ways of interacting with the world - shooting
and moving - support each other almost symbiotically.

So it's not a case of doing some shooting
for a bit, and then doing some swimming for

a bit. One mechanic simply cannot exist without
the other, which means the way you deal with

every encounter, puzzle, and boss fight involves
juggling two disparate and sophisticated mechanics.

Which is challenging, and fun.

All in all, making Splatoon much, much more
interesting than simply Call of Duty with

paint instead of bullets.

We talked this year about how checkpoints
can change the level of tension in a game.

Keep them far apart, like in Far Cry 2 on
console, and you'll be sweating bullets when

you're pinned down and realise that it's been
half an hour since you last saved. Make the checkpoints

too close and you get Prince of Persia.

Well how about giving that choice to the player?
In Ori and the Blind Forest there are spots

where the game saves automatically but you
can also spend some of your energy to make

"soul links" or checkpoints.

The onus is now on you to decide whether you
want to save at every safe spot, or to give

yourself some more challenge and only save
at the beginning and end of a tricky platforming

section.

This is different from hammering Quick Save
in a PC game, though. Because that stock of

energy is limited, you must unleash soul links
carefully, because you risk running out of

the blue stuff when you really need it. And
because that same stuff is used for performing

certain powerful attacks, you'll need to juggle
your priorities.

It makes deploying checkpoints strategic,
and another thing to think about when getting

through the game. It's not something I'd want
to see in every platformer, but it could be

used by some designers to give their games
a tad more nuance in the way they save your

progress.

And finally: Life is Strange.

This is a traumatic game. It features murder,
intense bullying, suicide attempts, and abuse.

Which is why it's so important that Max can,
in every episode, sit down. Just plonk her

butt on a chair and take a moment.

She'll spend some time thinking to herself,
unpacking the crazy stuff that's happened to her.

MAX: Despite all the chaos and bullshit, I feel so giddy hanging out with her again.

Then, the brilliant soundtrack will
take over, and the camera will lazily cut

between different shots.

It's up to you when you make Max stand up
again, and throw her back into the storm.

I think this is genuinely important in a game
of such emotional intensity. You're given

permission and encouragement to take a break.

But it's also worth thinking about in other
types of game. Non-stop action can get exhausting,

so the best games provide moments of deliberate
downtime. Without moments of quiet and solitude,

the only way for players to take a break from
the action is to turn off your game and walk

away...

So there we have it. Five bits of great design
from games released in 2015. And I'll have

one more, from my very favourite game of the
year, at the end of this month.

So please look forward to that. Until then, thanks for watching!

I want to
hear about your favourite bits of game design

from 2015, so drop them in the comments. Also,
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