As I’ve been working on Adlib I’ve been thinking a lot about how to keep the player motivated and playing my game. This issue has become even more important as I’ve started beta testing the game (thanks guys!). Currently, Adlib plays a lot like a traditional arcade game; you start at a lower level of difficulty and play to reach high levels of difficulty and earn points. There’s nothing wrong with a progression mechanic like this — obviously games such as Tetris and Bookworm use it successfully — but in today’s competitive market I think players are expecting more. So I thought I’d share some ruminations on the subject of game progression mechanics and see what ideas or thoughts you have. How can we make games that keep the player’s interest?
Let’s start off with a list, here are all the types of progression I could think of:
- Story
- Game Mechanic
- Challenge
- Achievement/Title/Status
- Unlockables
- Skill
I’m sure that there are more but will do for now. As an exercise let’s take a look at Adlib and see what applies.
Like I said, Adlib is an arcade game, so it definitely features challenge-progression. As you play you reach more and more difficult levels. This mechanic helps keep the game stimulating as you have to keep up with the new difficulty. On the other hand this type of progression doesn’t really help draw a skeptical player in; if the player doesn’t like the first few levels he won’t stick around for the harder ones.
Closely related to the last category is skill-progression. In my experience some gamers enjoy playing games just to get good at them. For instance, many fighting games are attractive because they allow players to explore deep mechanics and become highly skilled with some of the characters. In its own way Adlib has this form of progression; you start the game by spelling short words, then move onto longer words, then finally combos. This type of depth encourages players who already enjoy the mechanic to stick around and explore it.
Finally, there is game-mechanic-progression. Here I’m thinking about Metroid. You start with a very simple set of mechanics (e.g. run/shoot/jump) and gain new mechanics as you play. Adlib’s magik spells are an example of game-mechanic-progression. I believe that this type of progression can suck in skeptical players; if the player is at least a little interested he may be motivated to stick around and see what else is new. Of course at some point the novelty will wear off and that’s when you need some of the other mechanics to keep the player interested.
So what about the other types of progression? Well I won’t go into detail about each one here — let’s leave it as an exercise for you! It’s clear, though, that Adlib currently has too much emphasis oh late blooming progression strategies. I need to find some new mechanics to front load in order to convince the skeptical player to stay tuned. Anyway, how are you managing the player’s expectations and progression? Do you have any other categories to add? Let me know!
Hello, my name is Alex Schearer. I grew up in New York and currently live in Seattle.
8 Comments
A good point of game design. I don’t think that is possibile to have an exaustive list of all elements of progessions, because differente element can be mixed and for player and designer too can’t be obviuous to organize into category.
I’ve read many articles about this topic and maybe some progression that you don’t mention is choice. Think about an rpg, like gothic 1 or 2. You are nameless hero, a bandit without name. You can join one of three faction into your journey, but only one at time. This can be an element both of progression and re-play value, don’t you think? If i can’t explore some part of game world if i don’t join to particular faction, maybe i can play again, with other factions. This can be a good element of progression: in one play, you can’t explore everthing of your game. what do you think?
Hey Gornova, I think you’re absolutely right. I’m not sure what the name would be for it but what you’ve described does seem like another possible progression mechanic. Part of what you are talking about is story-progression, it seems to me, but the aspects dealing with choice and compounding decisions strikes me as being distinct.
I think what you’re talking about could be abstracted a little more – aren’t skill and challenge the same in this context? Basically, increased difficulty paired against experience?
Cool post though; I’ll have to think on this a little.
Hey Tom, glad you liked the post. I don’t think they’re quite the same actually, though certainly related. When I think about challenge progression I’m thinking of, say, Tetris. As you reach higher levels it speeds up and gets harder, but the skills necessary to play never change. On the other hand, when I think of skill progression I think of something like a 2-d figher. The move list/items/etc are constant throughout the experience but you learn how to perform those moves in more sophisticated ways.
Anyway, that’s my 2c I’m looking forward to hearing what you think!
Okay, I think I better understand what you mean. In your progression example, skill and mechanic progression are basically the same thing, except skill isn’t explicitly gated, it’s gated by user behaviour, right?
This is a pretty cool subject for me because I’ve been thinking a lot about low-investment high-yield progression mechanics for the game I’m working on at EA. For instance, challenge progression is a lot cheaper to do than mechanic or unlockable progression, because you can number-tune challenge progression. With the other two you have to generate brand-new content to fill them up.
Resident Evil 5 has a great example of both unlockable / mechanic progression paired with a purely statistical unlockable system. You can buy / find new guns, which presents you with somewhat new gameplay stategies. Each new gun is a fixed cost from an art and animation perspective. Where it gets clever is their addition (and this is a staple of RE) of an upgrade mechanic that turns each new gun into a deep progression tool. But each level of progression for a gun is significantly cheaper than a brand new gun: it’s just a matter of tuning and balance.
Exactly. You’re point about the cost of the different approaches is really insightful. Trying to take advantage of story-driven progression is going to cost a lot more in terms of planning, design, and content than skill-driven progression. That’s a whole new axis by which to evaluate these different schemes.
Right now I’m primarily trying to identify when these mechanics “pay off”. For example, you cite RE5′s weapon-leveling mechanic. This mechanic doesn’t start to reward the player at least until he reaches the first new level. Even then it might not start to be really enjoyable until you’ve earned a few levels. What can we do to make sure that the player reaches the next level and continues leveling up? This is where you might invest in a more expensive, more immediate pay off method such a story.
Also, what type of progression mechanic would this RPG element fall under? It doesn’t quite fit into any of the above categories, is it gameplay progression or unlockable progression? I don’t think so, it’s more like “pimp out my character”-progression.
I think it’s kind of an unlockable. It’s usually the same kind of gameplay, but extended, like earning access to special moves in a fighter or something. Gated skill stuff.
Early pay-off is an interesting question, and I guess super important when you’ve only got a minute or so to hook someone. In my situation the initial player investment is slightly higher: odds are they’ll give me five or ten minutes of their time to really get a sense of the game.
One thing that’s interesting to me is a currency progression mechanic, not quite sure how it fits in to this. But basically a way to give access to further rewards in a partial way, so that you’re always getting a little more. Picking up gold in Diablo or GTA are great examples of this: the currency itself doesn’t do anything, but it allows you access to new stuff, so you feel like you’re always getting something new.
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