Soren Johnson's GDC talk: Games and Meaning, or You Have No Idea How Hard It Is To Run a Sweatshop

[The_J]

Soren Johnson, the lead designer of Old World, as well as Civ4, has given a talk at the GDC, which is now freely available here.
In this 1 hour presentation he talks about various game design issues, including that many decisions are mostly trial and error. He e.g. touches on that you need to know your community, otherwise you might be implementing system, which are just not desired by the community, as the MP mode without characters in Old World, or how the governance system in Civ4 was implemented. He talks about other 4X games such as Crusader Kings or Victoria, and that murdering your family in Crusader Kings had a valid historical background.
If you want to watch his complete, very diverse talk, then click here.


EDIT: The video is now also available on youtube.

 

[vorlon_mi]

My first impression -- before I reflect more on what he said -- is that designers of strategy games think a lot about what they want the players to do, to feel, where they want the players to find the fun. The design can be very high concept.

In these forums, we often talk about the implementation of those ideas... whether a particular mechanic works, whether it makes the game more or less fun. We talk a LOT about bugs, quirks, and unexpected behaviors.

I especially liked Soren's remark, "the players know our games better than we do." That's so emphatically true of Civ fanatics.

 

[Solver]

I think that's what sets great designers apart, that they can do both. A high-concept design that sets up the appropriate mindset and expectations for the player, and the specific design in terms of detailed features. Some games (many actually) only manage one of these two halves.

Top notch, innovative games like X-COM, Civ1/Civ2 or SimCity 2000 manage both. The high-level design of where the fun comes from, what role the game makes you play (like the powerful ruler of Civ), what feelings the game evokes (X-COM makes you fail weak and scared, Civ makes you feel powerful, SimCity makes you proud of what you built), that design is strong. At the same time these games have fun specific mechanics, whether it's SimCity's delicate balancing of different city needs or X-COM's detailed tactical combat.

Then there are games where some specific mechanics are fun but the high-level design is lacking, so the game ends up feeling like it falls short of its potential. Or the other way around, games with a great high-level design but poor mechanics, which then feels like the game itself gets into the way of you enjoying the game.

 

[The_J]

In the meantime Soren has written down the whole presentation as a blog post, which you can find here: http://www.designer-notes.com/you-have-no-idea-how-hard-it-is-to-run-a-sweatshop-part-1/

EDIT: The 2nd part can be found here: http://www.designer-notes.com/you-have-no-idea-how-hard-it-is-to-run-a-sweatshop-part-2/

 

[The_J]

The video is now also available on youtube: