The Arcade Era

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Ezra Hawkins
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2 The Arcade Era

3 The Serendipitous Discovery Space Invaders: 1978

4 The Serendipitous Discovery The invaders become faster and harder to shoot as the levels go on. The player doesn t gain this advantage

5 Emergent Difficulty Structure Progress

6 Difficulty The Foundation of Videogame Design New Levels Begin Progress through Game

7 The Axis of Obstacles Videogame difficulty was based on variable difficulty, not a fixed level of challenge Enemy Speed

8 The Axis Spreads Game designers latched onto this structure creating classics like Missile Command and Asteroids

9 The Invention of the Powerup Pac-Man's power codified the powerup, which would later come to be an essential part of game design in all genres.

10 Multiplying Player Abilities

11 The Conditional Powerup Emerges Timed powerups were quickly joined by conditional powerups, which reacted with the player s actions rather than merely bracketing them.

12 Donkey Kong Finds the Voice Donkey Kong went back to the original powerup idea and examined it the light of genre-shifting.

13 The Axis of Abilities Donkey Kong stops being a platformer during powerups and becomes an action game.

14 Explaining the Genre Shift

15 The Composite Era

16 The Hallmark of Composite Design The shared space in mechanics and problems

17 Super Mario Brothers

18 Composite Design Across Levels Level 1-2 Level 1-4

19 Composite Flow

20 Other Examples of Composite Games Platformer + Shooter = Metroid Platformer + Racing = Sonic the Hedgehog Shooter + RPG = Deus Ex / COD:MW

21 Two Major Developments By 1990, composite games had been refined and the CCST structure emerged, although not all games had skill themes. Composite design resulted in new genres, created out of old genres, including the FPS and RTS.

22 The CCST Structure Challenge / Cadence / Skill Theme CHALLENGE: Discrete unit of content separated by periods of relative safety.

23 The CCST Structure CADENCE: The way that challenges in a level progress, relative to the original challenge.

24 The CCST Structure Challenge Types: EVOLUTION A qualitative increase in difficulty from a previous challenge EXPANSION A quantitative increase in difficulty from a previous challenge. MUTATION Qualitative change without increase in difficulty

25 The CCST Structure Skill Themes

26 Generation of Genres Composite design also allowed for some intriguing combinations of genres. Sometimes they were unclassifiable, as in Act Raiser. In some cases, though, innovative combinations spawned new genres.

27 The RTS Genre is Born There was never a shortage of strategy games, but when videogames started mashing boardgame ideas together with live-action mechanics, something new was born.

28 The FPS Too (Believe it or Not)! It s obvious that the FPS drew on shooter mechanics, but early FPS levels, stats and powerups were drawn from RPGs!

29 The Set Piece Era Present

30 Industry Affects Design Large-scale software production has an effect on design

31 What is a Set Piece? Extended content Usually self-contained Greater quantitative emphasis

32 What is a Set Piece? EXTENDED CONTENT 2+ minutes of content, as many as 10 minutes

33 What is a Set Piece? SELF CONTAINMENT Self-contained means that each set-piece starts from similar conditions

34 What is a Set Piece? FOCUS ON QUANTITATIVE CONTENT Numbers are easier to coordinate with silo d designers.

35 The Future Indie games embellish or reject this trend, but don t necessarily do something historically unique

36 Questions?

37 Citations (1) Cont.jpg nal/smb3.bmp Bare.jpg nbcnews.com/j/msnbc/components/photo_storylevel/080328/ God-of-War-4-hmed-3p.grid-6x2.jpg Apr/20/Mega%20Man%20X%20FAP/mega-man-x-2--article_image.jpg

38 Citations (2) g jpg Life_%28video_game%29#mediaviewer/File:Halflife_ingame.jpg File:Rogue_Screen_Shot_CAR.PNG _large.jpg ndows_screenshot.png cb /diablo/images/7/7 2/Andariel_fight.jpg cb /halflife/en/images/c/c0/turretportal.jpg _first_battle.png

Copyright Taylor & Francis Group. Not for distribution. CRC PRESS TAYLOR & FRANCIS. Game History. A Chapter Sampler.

Copyright Taylor & Francis Group. Not for distribution. CRC PRESS. TAYLOR & FRANCIS Game History A Chapter Sampler 1 www.crcpress.com/games-animation Copyright Taylor & Francis Group. Not for distribution.