Kodu Lesson 7 Game Design If you want the games you create with Kodu Game Lab to really stand out from the crowd, the key is to give the players a great experience. One of the best compliments you as a game designer will get is to hear a player say, I want to play that again. If players are enjoying your game and keep coming back for more, you ve done your job. If you want to do something different and grab players attentions with something new and exciting, spend a little time developing your own game plan before opening up Kodu Game Lab. You should brainstorm three things about your game before you begin building it in Kodu Game Lab. 1. The game world the size, terrain used, and the layout such as mountains, rods, building, etc. Sketch out on paper your game world. 2. Number of players you game can host between one and six players (four using game controllers and two using the keyboard (WASD and arrow keys) and know how many player-controlled objects you need to program will help you narrow down the type of game you ll create. 3. The ultimate goal is your game a shoot-em-up where each player is trying to destroy the objects? Are players going to cooperate against programmed enemies? Is it a quest where players need to hunt and navigate to solve problems? Write down a few short sentences that describe each of these three game plan items, so you ll have a skeleton of a game already created before starting to set it up in Kodu Game Lab. Game Rules and Objectives Many gamers tend to look at rules negatively, but without rules a game would be a free-for-all, and a winner would be difficult to determine if players can do whatever they want. You have to create rules to provide a structure for your game. An example of a rule may be that player 1 cannot pick up a gold coin unless all saucers are destroyed. Going hand in hand with rules are the game s objectives. A game objective is something a player is working toward achieving. Objectives can end a game or even open up new areas of a game to explore. And example of an objective may be that a player has to pay the gatekeeper with a coin to gain access to the castle. The rules and objectives are key to creating a fun game for players. If you have too many ruled, however, players will get frustrated. And if the objectives aren t clear, players will get confused and then frustrated. Point of View Point of View (POV) refers to how the player sees a game. If you re playing Flight Simulator, the best way to experience the software is from the cockpit, sitting in the pilot s seat and seeing things exactly as a real pilot would see when looking out an airplane s windows. 1
First-person view This places you in the perspective of the player. For example, you re seeing with your own eyes the perspective you would see if you were sitting in the pilot s seat of a real aircraft. You can t see the bottom of the airplane. You can t see the runway behind you that is disappearing fast as you take off, etc. Bird s-eye view This places you high above the game world, allowing you to see everything and every aspect of the game. Kodu Game Lab enable you to create games where the game world is fixed and doesn t move. You can also set the distance from the surface of the game world that the player will view the game: very close, down in the action, or high above, where you can see what s coming around the corner. Above and over-the-shoulder view This allows the player to watch as the game world moves around as the position of the player moves. As you direct Rover of Kodu, for example, the surrounding world will move left, right, or away while Rover of Kodu stay in the same spot on the screen. Camera Mode Three different options are available for your games in Kodu Game Lab when it comes to the location of the camera. Fixed Position the easiest of the three camera modes to use and is the default. You are locking the camera in place, and as players move around the game world the camera stays put. This view is useful if you create a game world that can fit entirely on a single screen. Any object will have the edges of the screen as the boundaries for the game. 1. Select the Object tool. 2. Right-click anywhere on the world and select Change World Settings. 3. Scroll down the list until you find Camera Mode. 4. Select the option on the far left, Fixed Mode, and click the small dot underneath the icon of the video camera with the anchor inside it. Fixed Offset the player object (Kodu, Rover) always stays in the center of the screen. This forces the camera to follow the player object as he moves. The entire world moves onscreen but the player object stays right in the center of the screen. This view is perfect for single-player games where you want the player to be the center of attention. It is also very useful where the player will move in one or two direction and the camera will follow 2
players as they move about the game world. This camera setting is the icon of a video camera with a red angle-pointer in it. Free at first, the world zooms out so that you can see the entire game world. This camera setting is the icon of the video camera with a wing inside of it. This camera mode supports zooming and rotating. Mouse users need to use the scroll button on top of the mouse to zoom in. This setting is great for players wanting to see what waiting up ahead. To see all the detail, though, you sometimes have to zoom way out. To set the camera s starting position: 1. Drag or rotate the world so that the point where you want the game s camera to show at the start of the game is centered. 2. Right-click anywhere on the world and select Change World Settings. 3. Scroll down the list until you find Starting Camera. 4. Turn it on. In-Game camera changes: You can change the camera setting by programming an object, as shown below: The 1 st person tile is found under the View pie slice. 3
Music Kodu Game Lab has a lot of different music that can be played in your game. The music is divided up into four categories: New, Mystery, Driving, and Drama. Within each categories are choices to choose from. You can listen to the various choices without having to select them, just move your cursor over the choice and it will play for you. Game Soundtrack The soundtrack that you add needs to match the type of game you re offering to your players. The Always tile will be used to assign a game soundtrack. 1. Click the When box and select the More pie slice. 2. Choose the Always pie slice. 3. Click the Do box and select the Actions pie slice. 4. Click the Play pie slice and select the Music tile. 5. Select one of the four music categories and then your choice of music. Background Sound You re not required to include a music soundtrack in your game. Some games just have some background sounds that add to the quality of the game. There are five options to choose from: Mars, Meadow, City, Forest, and Ocean. They re not loud, but they can give your game a subtle background sound rather than nothing at all. The can be used to give players audible clues about special in-game items that appear. 1. Click the Do box and select the Actions pie slice. 2. Click the Play pie slice and select the Environ tile. 3. Select one of the five categories and then your choice of sound. Sound Effects sound effects are found under the Event pie slice. 1. Click the Do box and select the Actions pie slice. 2. Click the Play pie slice and select the Event tile. 3. Select one of the sound effect options and then your choice of sound. Cut-Scene A cut-scene is an action sequence in a game where the player (or players) relinquishes control for a moment. A cut-scene is often used to move a player s object to a certain location in the game world or tell a small story related to the premise of a game. Many video games use multiple cutscenes to break up a game into parts, inserting a bit of animated storytelling to provide a player 4
with some crucial information, change to a different game locale, or even provide a nice wrap-up move at the end of a game. With Kodu Game Lab, you can add your own cut-scene to a game. You can place it at the beginning, middle, or end of your game, and all it requires is good timing and some camera view manipulation. Balance With any game you create, there s a fine balance between how fun the game is to play and how difficult it is to play. If a game is too easy, players won t find it challenging and will rate it low on the Fun Factor. Likewise, make a game too difficult and players will get frustrated, also generating a low Fun Factor score. The secret to finding this balance is simple: test your games often. You are not the best judge of your own games. This may mean asking your friends and family to try out your game and give you some feedback. The easiest way to get this feedback is to let them paly and then ask them some questions: What did you like about the game? What did you not like about the game? Was it too difficult? Was it too easy? What could I do to improve the game? 5