Brief Summary
This GDC talk, "Rules of the Game for 2025," features five game designers who share their unique game design rules, techniques, and philosophies. The session begins with a tribute to the late Laura Lynn McWilliams, highlighting her contributions to the industry and her inspirational talks on creativity during difficult times. The speakers then cover topics such as creating intentional friction for emotional resonance, balancing technical order with creative chaos, simplifying game design, ruthlessly prioritising ideas, and layering game design elements for deeper player engagement.
- Intentional friction can build emotional resonance in games.
- Balancing technical design with creative flexibility is crucial for successful game development.
- Simplicity is key, but games should be "as simple as possible, but no simpler."
- Ruthless prioritisation helps focus creative ideas and ship successful products.
- Layering game systems, level design, and narrative creates deeper, more memorable player experiences.
Introduction and Tribute to Laura Lynn McWilliams
Richard Rouse, the Studio Creative Director at Farbridge, introduces the "Rules of the Game for 2025" session, where five designers will each present a game design rule or technique they've found useful. He reflects on the session's history, dating back to 2015, and pays tribute to Laura Lynn McWilliams, the first speaker in 2015, who passed away last year. McWilliams, a veteran game designer, spoke about making emotional connections in games and studio culture. Rouse highlights her inspirational talk, "Finding Your Way Through Difficult Times, You're Not Broken," which offered advice on staying creative during challenging periods, relevant to the current hardships in the game industry. He encourages the audience to view the talk on the GDC Vault and YouTube.
John DeNoe Ekenaika - Creating Intentional Friction
John DeNoe Ekenaika from Outer Loop Games discusses creating intentional friction to build emotional resonance in games. Friction, in this context, includes difficulty, scarcity, unconventional controls, limited saves, durability, narrative tension, and bucking trends. He argues that friction doesn't always have to be negative; it can add texture to the game. Resonance occurs when mechanics enhance both the theme and the emotion of the game. Ekenaika provides examples such as "Getting Over It," "Papers, Please," and "Death Stranding," where friction plays a key role in the player experience. He also shares how Outer Loop Games uses themes and emotions to drive their game mechanics, citing "Falcon Age" and "Thirsty Suitors" as examples. Their current project, "Project Dosa," explores themes of loss and health issues, aiming for authenticity by drawing from personal experiences.
Alicia Thayer - Balancing Technical Order with Creative Chaos
Alicia Thayer from Crystal Dynamics shares three lessons for technical designers on balancing the need for technical order with the acceptance of creative chaos. She defines technical design as a hybrid of engineering and game design, serving as a liaison between the two disciplines. Her first lesson is that players remember how the game makes them feel, not the code's orderliness, using her experience on "Max Payne 3" as an example, where a studio manager overruled a complete refactor of game scripts because it would not provide any on-screen benefit. The second lesson is that iteration is messy, referencing the "Blueprints from Hell" on "Tomb Raider 2013," where designers prioritised iteration speed over rigorous scripting standards. Her third lesson is that patterns are bad if they hinder the experience, drawing from her work on "Marvel's Avengers," where rigid frameworks stifled creativity. Thayer advises technical designers to consider the project's phase, listen to their clients, and embrace the ebb and flow of chaos and order.
Noah Falstein - The Importance of Simplicity
Noah Falstein discusses the importance of simplicity in game design, advocating for Einstein's principle: "Everything should be as simple as possible, but no simpler." He shares examples from engineering, architecture, and science, emphasising that simplicity is a key virtue. Falstein recounts his experience working on the arcade game "Sinistar," where complex code didn't necessarily enhance the player's emotional state. He explains how he applied Einstein's rule to "Chaos Island," simplifying the AI until it became boring, then adding back a bit of randomness to improve the experience. Falstein also touches on the concept of emergent complexity, using "Tetris," "Candy Crush Saga," "Chess," and "Go" as examples of games that are simple to understand but offer depth and variety over time.
Carla Engelbrecht - Ruthless Prioritisation
Carla Engelbrecht, CEO of Between, discusses ruthlessly prioritising ideas in game development, drawing from her experience at Netflix. She recounts the development of "Black Mirror: Bandersnatch," highlighting the tension between boundless creativity and practical constraints. Engelbrecht introduces the "here lies pre-mortem" exercise, a mental trick for shifting perceived constraints into design considerations. She shares examples from her work on "Sesame Street" Nintendo games, where constraints like the Wiimote's limitations forced tough choices, and on Netflix's interactive storytelling initiatives, where device reach and seamless choices were critical. Engelbrecht argues that the trap is when too many ideas survive for too long, and that constraints should be used to fuel more focused, impactful ideas, ultimately leading to shipping successful products.
Harvey Smith - Layering Game Design Elements
Harvey Smith, known for "Deus Ex" and "Dishonored," discusses layering game design elements for deeper player engagement. He emphasises the importance of thoughtful interconnections between game systems, level design, and narrative to support creative play. Smith uses "Prey 2017" as a prime example, highlighting its nonlinear explorable space, finite resources, reactive physics, and sensory-based AI. He explains how these elements create decision-rich environments where players become invested in their choices. Smith also touches on tactically advantageous space and narrative, emphasising the importance of environmental inference and curating the game's themes. He concludes by advocating for a deliberate approach to layering design elements to create spaces that feel deep, rich, and beg for player-based exploration.
