Lamp of the Moth: A Guiding Light for New Game Devs

I. Story: A complex story ≠ the best story

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  1. Any story, even the simplest, will fail if not executed properly for the player to digest what they need to know in that moment of time. Even if your game is a visual novel, it is not a book. The player did not commit to sitting down to the very end as they might have with a book. This means the moment they are lost or do not care within the first 30 minutes of the story, they are not going to see it to the end. If you fail to hook attention within the first 5 minutes of your game in a manner that is important to the storytelling, then the complex story writing behind the scenes was only extra futile effort, never having a moment to shine.
  2. Before you tell the story, you must define the intent and purpose of the story. Not all stories must be grand, deeply detailed adventures. The larger and more complex the story, the higher the bar for the player’s expectation of the delivery of the story in an understandable and digestible manner. For many genres of games, story is not on the main spotlight or radar, and that’s fine for what the intended gameplay is for that kind of game experience. For some games, the story and its characters can make or break the game entirely no matter how masterfully polished the other elements are. If the game does not have a story at all by design, it should make up for why a story exists to begin with: purpose. If the purpose is not portrayed through other means, the player may ponder or criticize what the point of anything is at all.
    1. Moth’s ridiculous examples:
      1. Version 1 – No story: The game opens, a man is chopping wood. Points go up. Nothing explained. The wood chopping is enjoyable, and addicting. But that’s all. Eventually, the player wonders what the point is and why the man chops wood, but will never get those answers.
      2. Version 2 – With simple story: The game opens, a man is chopping wood. Points go up, and wood is stacked inside the shelter. The wood chopping is enjoyable. The player finds that the wood is for the fireplace. If the fire in the fireplace goes out, the demonic fire spirit that follows him will rekindle the flame itself and incinerate his wife and newborn, burn down his home, and make him out to be a psychotic arsonist that will be thrown in prison. If that’s not enough to desire to chop that wood...
    2. Storytelling is not in words or dialogue alone. Storytelling is also done through visual medium expression and selective auditory elements for the experience. Music and sound effect choice has an underrated impact on both the feel of the game as well as its tone.
    3. Storytelling can also be used in other creative ways to reinforce gameplay elements. Tying early tutorials directly to the story in a clever way can take away the cliché disdain that almost every player feels when encountering the obligatory tutorial. Storytelling and worldbuilding lore can auto-explain things that you did not explicitly cover. Looking at popular old games, fans of that game are still scraping every nook and cranny to find any clue to form their fan theories or piece together things that were never outright developed by the developer at all, but ironically end up working in favor of giving the game more perceived depth and mystery on the surface as a result. You don’t have to intentionally design and explain everything, sometimes the players imagination will be more than enough to fill the gaps with assumptions or instigating.

II. Characters: Complex visual character design ≠ a complex character

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  1. Characters are the medium for players to gravitate to and pay very close attention to their expressions and the way they are portrayed in the world, as well as how they affect and reflect the world around them. A character’s visual design should be balanced depending on the game world depending on where the emphasis of focus should be. For example, if it was intended to focus on the world at large, a visually noisy character will steal the spotlight in a simple and less detailed environment, and vice versa. A large cast of visually noisy characters can (often unintentionally) immediately give the player an impression of deep character depth, raising the bar for delivering the expectation of a well executed telling of each character. A simply designed character with a superbly executed expression of their personality and affect on the world and others will always be more memorable than a character with a visually cool design but with poor portrayal and unfitting in its world (excluding intentionally designed contrast). Along with weighing the cost of effort in the many visual assets needed for each character design, it is up to you to find the reasonable balance between a complex visual design or an effective simple design that shows what it needs to for the character’s unique likeness. For all games of all genres, characters can make or break the willpower or desire to play, even if the characters never speak to express themselves.
  2. For every core character, the following questions must be defined clearly in the portrayal:
    1. Who are they?
    2. What do they want?
    3. What’s stopping them?
      1. These 3 simple questions force the creator to connect all the dots and fill all the gaps needed to successfully portray the character in a manner that a player can digest.
      2. A poor but effective example: “I’m Naruto Uzumaki, I’m going to be Hokage!” – What’s stopping him is not told but shown throughout the series until the set goal is met. All three questions are defined, with the first two being a constantly annoying reoccurring banter. While this does not have to be done in this way, it is helpful to periodically remind the player of these core questions in someway.
      3. Note: When you clearly define these things, you are setting expectations. It is a dangerous tightrope to cross when deciding to deviate from those expectations, which can be highly upsetting if not executed in an acceptable way that does not contradict the entire premise of the game, or for simply weak reasons.

III. Mechanics: Common pitfall trap of choice paralysis: Designing new mechanics vs paying direct homage to a known game for quick and easy recognition

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  1. Many new developers will constantly teeter back and forth between the decision to try and make something new, unique, and unseen for attraction, or the appeal of an already existing well known game. In an ocean of “[game]-likes”, this can also make the desire to create something new even stronger. However you do not have to choose either path. When it comes to game mechanics, only one thing matters: what is needed to achieve the core goal and gameplay loop intended for your game, and what is NOT. The most important part is what is NOT needed. This is essential for avoiding the early trap of scope creep, extra feature amusement parks, and bloat. All effort must be focused on the core experience of your game from start to finish, period. Your mechanics must revolve what was intended to matter most: the story, or the character, or the world, or just the gameplay alone. Do not try to fight to excel in all areas, it will choke the mechanics badly. Remember that complex and rich mechanics ≠ immediately fun gameplay. Seeing as how video games were once only text-based and legendary in history even to this day, it proves that the experience fed to the player is more important than focusing only on the mechanics of a game. Many games had golden mechanics but either a poor story, boring characters, or lackluster worldbuilding, and those games were quickly left in the dust for all history and forgotten. The experience is everything as a whole (story, characters, world, gameplay, music, etc.) and not just mechanics alone.
  2. When you take the path to pay homage to a game (for example, making a Zelda-Like or a Souls-like), you are now setting a high bar of expectations for the player, which can be a dangerous path to walk with inexperience in game design. For new game devs that do not have many projects or finished games under their belt, this can end up disastrous if the core principles of this entire guide are not known, followed, or even kept in mind at all. Choosing to design a game based on an existing popular title also isolates the target audience to a specific range and completely gatekeeps those who are not into that particular kind of game. While at first this might sound like a bad thing, its not exactly. Attempting to make the game to appeal to a wide audience ends up appealing to none, and is the cornerstone reason why some AAA game studios have failed to deliver good games for decades.
  3. When you take the path to create new mechanics to provide a new experience, there are many risks. First, if you lack experience in creating simple, effective, fun mechanics, you will never create a decent new mechanic. Secondly, a new idea has the novelty of being exciting, but it must be put to the test frequently and carefully balanced without falling into the trap of re-adjusting or changing every element according to every playtesters feedback, lest it end up as a no longer new fresh idea but a watered down and awkwardly now-familiar one. It is imperative to define the intent of your new mechanic beyond “its new” alone, and execute it in a meaningful way that can be enjoyed by the intended target audience. The reward in succeeding is the high potential to attract players who were looking for a new experience (especially in a world where everything feels like the same thing over and over), and also, if the game’s new mechanics were a hit, it can set the bar and make history to the point where it can inspire future game devs to make “[game]-likes” of your game.