Designing through Feedback
Based on the design process of the game Tamarrion




























Uppsala Universitet
Institutionen för Speldesign
Course: Big Game Project, 15 hp, Second year, 2015
Course code: 5SD047
Authors name: Oskar Lidh Frykmark
Course Handler: Håkan Mattsson
Abstract
It’s an abstract kind of feel.

























Table of Contents
Contents
1.0 Introduction	4
2.0 Hypothesis	4
3.0 Method	4
4.0 Results	4
5.0 Analysis	4
6.0 Conclusions	4
7.0 References	4


















1.0	Introduction
This text will cover a design process and production of a product over an eight week period. The game created is a product of seven students at Uppsala University, Campus Gotland as a part of a course called Big Game Project (15 HP), each student with their own set role within the project and vocation (Designer, Graphics and Programmers).
The game being produced was an Action-RPG (Role Playing Game) called Tamarrion, where the player took control of a female paladin (a holy warrior). The game focuses on delivering hard boss-engagements, where the player had to use their knowledge of the games mechanics to iterate their way to victory.
It will also answer the question of whether the mechanics, dynamics and systems producer in the game is able to invoke the set out aesthetic goal of euphoric victory as well as if the game is able to guide the player unto an intended playstyle.

2.0 Hypothesis
How do the mechanics, dynamics and the systems produced in the game invoke the games aesthetics of euphoric victory, and guide the end¬ user unto the intended style of play that the game is designed around?
By designing the boss to be balanced, the controls to be user friendly and by adding variation of ways to defeat the counter, the player should experience the intended experience, as well as create a basic retention system that allows the player to customize their own experience by changing spells and equipment throughout playthroughs.
3.0 Method
This paper will look at how MDA has helped me throughout the design and how, through the iterative process of playtesting and tweaking, the game changes from the original design assumptions. Data sampled from the play testing sessions will be looked at as well as which features of the game was the most controversial and receive the most feedback. This will also be documented so that the iterative process of changes of the game can be analysed.
In order to test and analyse if the hypothesis is can be confirmed, this paper will look at which magnitude certain issues in the game were mentioned during play testing, as well as look at the play testers quotes to determine if the game’s aesthetics was reached and how they were reached (by looking at which part of the game the subject reacted positively on).



4.0 Results
The area of responsibility the author had was to design the feature set, design the boss fight, playtest and iterate the game mechanics and features.
The work early on in the projects life cycle consisted of creating Game Design documents that laid out the basic game mechanics, including movement, melee combat, ranged combat, itemization, spells (and their corresponding values such as damage, cast time and spell-type), menu-design, Combo Points, Item Balancing and general Boss Combat rules.
These early documents were created to give the group a platform to work from; a prototype from which further development could be conducted. At this point in development, the aesthetic goals, which follows the MDA model (Hunicke, LeBlanc, Zubek, 2001), had already been laid out. The aesthetic goal of the game was to engage the player on an emotional level that rewarded players who were finally able to take down the boss after several tries. This required retention from the player, and the dynamic chosen to reinforce this idea was to make the boss a pattern recognition fight, where the player had to work out the boss mechanics and reiterate their strategy to conform to the fight, whilst also giving the player the tools to solve the puzzle that the patterns presented in more than one way.


(note to self: s.126 A game design vocabulary för boss svårigheter)
(note to self: s.138 A theory of fun för nichade spel)
5.0 Analysis

6.0 Conclusions

7.0 References
A game Design Vocabulary, Anna Anthropy and Naomi Clark. (2014)
A theory of Fun for Game Design, Rapth Koster (2014)
Level Up! The Guide to Great Video Game Design, Scott Rogers (2014)
What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy, James Paul Gee (2007)
MDA: A Formal Approach to Game Design and Game Research, Robin Hunicke, Marc LeBlanc and Robert Zubek. (2001) (http://www.cs.northwestern.edu/~hunicke/MDA.pdf)