I recently read the two Imagineering books by the Walt Disney Imagineers. They are the people with the amazing job of designing the Disneyland and Disneyworld theme parks. It was clear that many of their lessons also apply to us in game design.

The second book has a list of commandments that Imagineers live by that have allowed them to create all the great rides and experiences so far.

The commandments are

1. Know your audience
2. Wear your guest’s shoes
3. Organize flow of people and ideas
4. Create visual magnets
5. Communicate with visual literacy
6. Avoid overload
7. Tell one story at a time
8. Avoid contradictions-maintain identity
9. For every ounce of treatment, provide a ton of treat
10. Keep it up

Know your audience

This rule is basically universal to whatever you are doing. Knowing your audience allows you to design well for them. If you know your audience can barely read, then there’s no good in giving them lots of text for example.

Wear your guest’s shoes

In the book this was basically about Imagineers regularly visiting Disney Parks so they can experience what the guests experience. They also observed what other guests did and said about the parks to get vital feedback.  In game design this translates to the importance of game testing and getting feedback from real players.

Organise flow of people and ideas

Make sure the flow of your game is logical, this counts both within your game story if you have one, but also in terms of the flow between screens.

Create visual magnets

Help people navigate levels and your interface by creating visual magnets to hint to them where to go.

Communicate with visual literature

Visual literature means references from culture and iconography. Using art you can help suggest what things do and how they will work.

Avoid overload

This is extremely important in games, ensure you don’t overload your player with information or visual things, try and simplify everything so it is clear and easy to understand.

Tell one story at a time

In games this translates as make sure you have focus, don’t have too many goals for the user or gameplay elements, keep it simple so its easy for players to follow.

Avoid contradiction

In games this can be both visually and gameplay wise.  Ensure that your user interface is consistent across the board and everything works the same, if it works one way for one player it should work the same for all players. Maintain an identity in your game, so all elements should help work together for the theme/identity that your game conveys.

For every ounce of treatment, give a ton of treats

Make sure everything is fun, normally you will teach players something but ensure they can have fun doing it or get rewards when they learn.

Keep it up

Everything must work, poor maintenance is a poor show. In your game make sure you fix any bugs quickly and ensure that it works with new hardware and software otherwise you will ruin your players experience.

Strong Graphic Style

iPad game Gasketball has great vivid 2D graphics with chunky lines and playmobil curves. It’s not overworked with gradients like something trying to win a layer-effects competition on dribbble. Less Apple Calendar, more Denki.

No failing, just winning better

I hate it when games make me feel like a failure, and when there’s a huge penalty on dying. I don’t want to spend time looking at an animated dialog or death sequence telling me that I suck. Gasketball sets me up to retry straight away, and I get a cheer when I finally make it. I feel motivated to try again and do better naturally, not because I’m punished for doing badly. The barrier to trying again is nonexistent – I can retry instantly from the level-end dialog. I don’t have to go back to the level select screen like some obsessive completist – it hooks me right there while I’m still in the ‘zone’ of that level. Here’s your result: you can improve it. In little doses. And when I do better, I get an even bigger cheer. The crowd loves it.

I don’t know how I’m doing it.

It’s not like a rationalising game, but there’s a certain puzzle element. You have to figure out a little bit what the path of the ball is going to be, but if you think about it to much when you ‘throw’ it, you’ll fail. They’ve come up with a mechanic that seems impossible if I think about it too much. Like a real sport. Somehow I can sometimes fluke a shot perfectly, and other times I can get it wrong 5 times in a row before I find how I’m supposed to throw it, and then actually do better when I re-try. Based on my usual skill at these types of things, I wonder if they’re ‘helping’ behind the scenes? Part positive reinforcement from #2 making me forget the failures, and part the solid and polished central game mechanic.

Free as in good

It’s more like a really generous demo version. But the era of ‘lite’ versions was dead years ago. Here is in-app purchase used correctly, with none of that obscuring gems/tokens/smurfberries BS to confuse you, just an honest proposition with a fair price.

No Timers

This is a core thing for keeping it fun for me: it’s a skill-based, physical game but not a twitch game. They didn’t go for an obvious mechanic and put a timer in for scoring. Instead, it’s more like a golf swing or a pool shot. Relaxed, meditative, smooth, all about control and focus without having to react quickly and continuously.

Level Editor

Love this. And it’s part of the free version. Hoping there will be export options in future. Surely, right?

Actually Fun

None of that would add up to anything if it wasn’t actually fun! Obvious, but important.

Gotta keep these in mind for the future of Whisky Biscuit.

We have just released an update to improve the WarPath tutorial, here I’ll explain why our old tutorial was as stupid as the cast of Glee and how our new tutorial is the pinnacle of human achievement.

Our first mistake was to make the Tutorial an option on the Menu screen. I somehow managed to forget my entire history of playing games and assembling furniture (that would make a good game). Like most gamers, I never chose to do the tutorial or read instructions but because of some strange thought process of mine I expected WarPath players to do so.

To resolve this whoopsy, we changed it so the tutorial gets loaded the first time people load WarPath, HAHA! You have to play my tutorials now, I am victorious! This will be so until the tutorial is completed, or they quit to the main menu.

Now we have you trapped in our tutorial world, you will encounter the second boo boo.

As Mr. Know it All you don’t bother reading our carefully crafted text, so you hit the screen until something happens, maybe after a few minutes you give in to the madness of reading the instructions. I can’t blame you really, I don’t read instructions if I don’t have to, I count it as losing. So, rather than our literary excellence, we replace the tutorial with pointy fingers.

These pointy fingers move around guiding you to what you have to do, and when you follow them you realize how to control everything in the game, and maybe one day how to control the world.

So, what have we learned today?
1. Make tutorials happen at the start of the game, nobody chooses to load tutorials.
2. Make it more visual than text.
3. Make it interactive rather than a lecture.

First of all, I want to say I kind of rushed around so this is by no means extensive coverage of the show. I just had a quick walk around and if something took my fancy I had a look at it. As always there was some great work and I was very impressed. I basically talked to a few random people on projects that personally interested me. Here is my personal favorites.
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So, yesterday I had a little trip to Dundee for the restart of IGDA Scotland put together by Hazel Mckendrick( thanks again for organizing it ), at Braes in Dundee. It was a great start, a few little talks ( including a nano talk by little old me basically saying hi, sorry everybody I didn’t have that much to say ) and the rest of the time was spent networking ( and drinking the free beer courtesy of TAG Games! ). I hope to attend as many as these as possible, it was a nice meetup and I got lots of helpful feedback and advice (thanks everyone).

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I’ve just managed to watch Episode 2 of UK Apprentice with Alan Bloody Sugar. This episodes challenge was to design, market and sell an app in the mobile market. As an app developer myself it’s nearly impossible not to have opinions on it.

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Nothing at all to do with games, but it’s Apple related and it’s hilarious.

Our first game at Whisky Biscuit was launched yesterday, and we have just got access to the sales data and lets just say we are very happy!

We at Whisky Biscuit are very very very very pleased to announce that our first game WarPath has sold just over 2.5 million copies on the first day.

I would like to thank everybody that supported us along the way.

Me and Paul now plan to add a few more features to WarPath with this new riches ( once we have finished partying, I think I might go to Florida for a long holiday first, sorry but most of you would do the same).

I would write more and put this in a more official format, but I am just too excited! THIS IS THE BEST DAY EVER!

Catch ya on the flip side, and Tanks for all the help .

Stu