There is a principal that I follow very strictly when developing games for my Planet Pong game system:
All video games are made up of smaller, simpler minigames.
This means that no matter how complex a video game is, it will always be built with a foundation of simple objectives that everybody can understand.
Like a chef that picks out key ingredients for his next meal, a game developer must also pick out the core gameplay components for his game. If the individual ingredients aren’t good, or don’t play well with the other ingredients, the recipe is sure to flop.
The same goes with the gameplay components that make up a video game! There are three main criteria to consider when picking out a minigame to go into YOUR video game:
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- Is the minigame simple enough? If you can’t clearly define the objective of a minigame in one sentence, it’s likely complex and can be broken down further into multiple smaller minigames.
- Is the minigame fun? It turns out that the most simple game mechanics are usually really fun under the right circumstances. For example, launching a ball into a target can be extremely fun on it’s own, and makes up several games like basketball, soccer, and beer pong.
- Is the minigame tried and true? If the minigame you are studying is truly fun and simple, it’s very likely that other video games use the same game mechanic. That’s totally OK! You need to study WHY other games incorporate this mini-game, and how it can be beneficial for your own video game as well!
Let’s continue our example of “Launching a ball into a target”. We can observe define the objective in one sentence:
Make the ball into the target to win.
That’s it! a super simple objective exists, and we can expand on it however we want to create different types of games. For example, if we specify that the target is a basketball hoop and add a second target to the scenario, we now have basketball!
We also can confirm that launching a ball into a target is fun on it’s own. Who hasn’t crumpled up pieces of paper in class before and tried to throw it into the trash when the teacher wasn’t looking?
Finally, we can confirm that this minigame is used in all sorts of games, including shooting a three pointer in basketball, scoring a goal in soccer, making the game winning shot in beer pong, and I’m sure you can think of more examples.
Overall, as a game developer, You need to accept that YOU ARE NOT the one inventing these game mechanics. However, by understanding how these tried and true game mechanics work, you are in a perfect place to start combining them to create completely new, complex, and exciting video game experiences.