Video (screencast): Brief examples of playtesting individual modifications and optional rules

Text of the slides: obviously there's more in the screencast than this.

Brief Examples of Playtesting a Modification
Dr. Lewis Pulsipher
PulsipherGames.Com
“Game Design” channel on YouTube

Late Stage Playtesting
At some point your game will be “mostly done”, well-playtested, but ideas for modifications will still come up
Maybe a few PTers will wish something were a little different
Now you can try such things
At this point it isn’t, “make the game good,” it’s “make the game slightly better”
You could say this is the last few percentage points of improvement
But many of the attempts will be rejected, if the game works well

Example
I have a “screwage” style pirate game, everyone has a hand of cards and a ship
It’s a combination of historical pirates and fantasy pirates (as in the recent Caribbean films)
Much of the action revolves around encounters with ships at sea
There are dice rolls for pursuit, for cannonfire, for boarding
Lots of dice rolls, all told
It’s more about the story than about strategy, but some people get frustrated with chance

A Solution?
So I said, we’ll let players trade in some of their loot for luck tokens
They can pay a luck token to reroll a die (but only once per event)
So we tried it
For the first two games, no one used them
Loot is pretty valuable, a good score is getting into double figures)
In the third game, the player who most got frustrated with chance did use them
But these players were accustomed to playing the game as it stood
What would others think who had never played before?  I don’t know yet!

Optional Rules
So right now, I think of it as an optional rule
Many optional rules begin life as something that is tried, but only suits a minority segment of players
So it becomes an optional rule for those groups where that particular kind of player is common
Some people think there can be only one way to play a game
But then buy an expansion that changes how the game is played – but it’s “official”

Another Example
A 2-6 player space wargame, more or less
Players get points for destroying opponent worlds/systems as well as for holding systems at game end
For much of the game’s life, I gave double points for held systems over destroyed
But that tended to focus players on defense, and I wanted a more free-flowing, offensive game (there are reasons)

Experimentation
So I tried equal points for holding and destroying
But that made the game too offensively-minded
Even when I required that you hold at least one system at the end to score any points at all
So I settled on one more point per held system, than per destroyed system

But I’ve included the other two options in the rules for those who like to play more defensively, or more offensively

Don’t waste ideas when you can make them optional rules that satisfy a minority segment of players.

Video (screencast): What part does Creativity play in Game Design?

What part does Creativity play in Game Design?
Dr. Lewis Pulsipher
Pulsiphergames.com
“Game Design” channel on YouTube

Quoting from my Book “Game Design”
“Creativity is an important but small component of game design.  Most of the work involved in the game is fairly straightforward thinking and problem-solving.  This is not to say that it’s easy, but it does not involve a great deal of creativity.  Novice game designers often have a confused idea that game design is all about creativity, which is very far from the truth.”

Some Quotes about Creativity
"All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up."  Pablo Picasso  
"The key question isn't ‘What fosters creativity?’ But it is why in God's name isn't everyone creative? Where was the human potential lost? How was it crippled? I think therefore a good question might be not why do people create? But why do people not create or innovate? We have got to abandon that sense of amazement in the face of creativity, as if it were a miracle if anybody created anything."   Abraham Maslow
"Before you think outside the box, check inside the box first."   Mark Rosewater

But Creativity can be Misunderstood
Creativity (in game design, at any rate) is mostly not about “getting ideas”
It’s not “brain fever”, not “wild imagination” – anybody can come up with nutty, off-the-wall stuff
It’s finding unusual ways to solve problems
Not necessarily unique – that’s very unusual
Not necessarily flashy
The “ashtray” example

Too many think creativity is all there is to game design
The "sexy" part of game design is the conception and elaboration of an idea that may turn into an enjoyable game
“Sexy" in game design is like "sexy" in a marriage, it can only make a difference at the beginning, sooner or later there has to be a lot more there
Game design, like long-term marriage, depends on a lot more than the “sexy” part

“Convenient Sex?”
Many so-called game designers want the equivalent of a "convenient girlfriend/boyfriend" relationship, the most fun parts without the work that makes it last
You can try to do this, but you'll end up with a lot of half done (and usually half-baked) "games" that never have a chance of being published, unless you self-publish them

Creativity and Constraints
It’s not uncommon to see so-called “designers” complain that constraints limit their creativity
They don’t realize that, in art as well as in game design, constraints promote creativity
Eras where “there are no rules,” such as the Rococo in music, or modern painting, lack lasting masterpieces [some may argue about the painting!]
When you can “do anything”, it’s really hard to decide what to do – yet you haven’t really contributed to entertaining your target audience
You always have a target audience, whether you know it or not

Creativity versus Execution
Creativity is important, but not nearly as important as overall execution and a willingness to stick with it until the end, when you're bloody well sick of the game but it still needs that final polishing
Adams and Rollings in Game Design Fundamentals  estimate "innovation by the game designer contributes no more than 5 percent to the fun of the game."  It's very important, but it's not the major part of the job.  Including stage (level) design, they increase the influence of imagination to 14 percent

Inspiration and Perspiration
I prefer a modified form of Thomas Edison's dictum, amounting to "success is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration.“
(Edison said 1% and 99%, but he was famous for using trial and error (guess and check results))

Talent?
Some people have a talent for designing games, some don't.
Inborn talent may make the difference between a decent game and a really good one, though this can be debated
Nonetheless, it is a craft that can be learned, not something that only a few lucky individuals can do
Necessary creativity is in most of us, we just need to bring it out (or bring it back, in Picasso and Maslow's terms).
It's execution that counts for far more in game design than creativity.


Much material here quoted from my book “Game Design: How to Create Video and Tabletop Games Start to Finish” (McFarland, 2012, inexpensively available at Amazon, other online bookstores in paper and electronic formats)