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

Perhaps, he should make a platformer.

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

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

generated levels.

But that didn’t work either.

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

And that’s when it clicked.

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

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

permadeath.

And thus, Spelunky was born.

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

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

Platformers.

First-person shooters.

Racing games.

Puzzlers.

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

level structure, and rules.

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

are mushed together.

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

good comes out.

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

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

with success.

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

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

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

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

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

novel-like life simulator.

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

driving.

The key advantage to this approach is pacing
and variety.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There are some solutions to this, though.

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

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

find the most depth and challenge.

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

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

Going further, you can make those secondary
genres optional.

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

to just focus on the platforming.

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

to get back to the detective puzzles.

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

after you’ve passed the tutorial.

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

will enjoy both types of game.

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

assume that you’ll also like the strategic
layer.

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

players to suddenly need entirely different
ones.

I mean, a rhythm-based boss battle.

Really?

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

level.

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

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

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

thumbs.

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

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

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

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

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

the player for using the wrong ones.

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

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

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

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

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

by doing various mini-games.

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

and felt disconnected from everything else...

they forgot all about the mystery.

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

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

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

the main event.

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

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

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

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

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

pointing in that same direction.

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

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

simulator stuff.

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

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

different genres of game.

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

can play the game in whatever mode you prefer.

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

The advantage to this approach is player choice
and agency.

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

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

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

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

a single thing really well.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And that means your resources get spread pretty
thin.

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

tactical, and stealth.

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

to annoying gameplay like guards spotting
you too easily.

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

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

to try anything else.

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

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

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

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

Positive feedback loop right there.

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

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

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

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

for swapping to a new one.

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

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

there’s no such system.

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

consequences, why not try something different?

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

making one approach impossible.

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

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

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

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

Director’s Cut.

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

each and every level.

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

there are no brick walls.

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

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

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

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

new.

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

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

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

game.

Rocket League is FIFA meets Burnout.

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

genres.

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

roguelike.

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

side-on platforming at the press of a button.

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

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

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

titles.

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

incompatible.

The Metroidvania Chasm is a good example.

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

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

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

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

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

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

theme.

Did I just upgrade The Hulk’s skeleton?!

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

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

like how the games relied on players memorising
level layouts.

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

like all the cryptic commands and systems.

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

negatives of the other.

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

boosted the signal of the other parts.”

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

more easily.

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

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

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

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

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

So, there we have it.

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

By letting players choose their own playstyle.

Or by blending together different genres to
make something new.

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

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

smart about your design.

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

Hey, thanks for watching!

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

Platformer Toolkit, now available on Itch.io,
is a free game that lets you see what it’s

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

and graphs that drive the main character’s
movement.

Check it out!