Being a good combat designer requires understanding the meaning and significance of both depth and breadth in your designs. To put it simply: depth is the Knowledge of How, and breadth is the Knowledge of Why. But what does this mean?
How do I perform that move? Why should I use this move? How come I need meter to do this move? How do I build meter? Why should I build meter?
Combat designers, the good ones, all understand the hows and the whys of the moves they are creating, but for those not seeped in the world of fighting games their meaning can be a little obtuse. One of the things I love about game design is finding new ways - either graphically, mathematically or visually – to express information, and so I have tried my best in this post to express Depth and Breadth in an interactive way that showcases not only their meaning, but also their implication.
Depth – the Knowledge of How
Good fighting games have little depth to their combat system. (Say what?) This sounds like crazy talk, but listen: you must divorce yourself from the misconstrued and often synonymous meanings of depth like lots of moves, tactical , execution heavy, or even skill. Depth is none of these things. Depth is the measure of the number of times your player must learn How to do something; this includes every new system, but not, as I will show you, every new attack. This is an important distinction, as multiple moves can be mapped to the same “how”. In Street Fighter, for example, when you learn how to perform Ryu’s Fireball and Dragon Punch, you also learn how to perform Sagat’s Tiger Shot, Tiger Uppercut, and Tiger Knee. The knowledge of how to perform those moves is the same. What’s more, each move has 3 versions (a light, medium, and heavy), so here you have a total of 15 separate moves that only require knowledge of 2 move inputs – thats a fantastic depth to breadth ratio.
Which brings us to my depth diagram. Below you will see a lot of clickable buttons with names on them. They list every character, mechanic, and motion the player must learn in Street Fighter – the Hows. Clicking on a mechanic is like saying “I know how to do this”, and it will show you what progress you have made in mastering the various characters. You can also click on a character to indicate you have mastered that character, and it will then show you how far along you are in mastering the other characters.
Some interesting things to try: clicking on Ryu, clicking on the “All Roll Motions”, or clicking on “All Charge Motions”. Notice that, after clicking on Ryu, you are well on your way to learning many of the other characters. That is what it means to have little depth. It is not that the game requires no skill, but that your skills (in execution) and knowledge are applicable across the entire cast.
This is a good thing. Great fighting games are about reading, anticipating, and countering your opponent; about understanding exactly where and when to use just the right move; and about spacing and timing it all just right for that clutch punish. That is the core of great fighting games. All of the systems and all of the moves exist to further the mind games you can play with your opponent (and they with you).
It is not the number of buttons, or the way they are mapped to the characters that controls how “accessible” your fighting games is to others. It is, and always will be, the number of “hows” they must learn that controls accessibility. To the lamen, Tekken, with its 4 buttons mapped cleverly to the four limbs, is more accessible than Street Fighter’s 6 button control mapping, but they could not be more wrong. Tekken’s use of long combo strings, stance switching, and other character-specific “hows” means that it has MUCH greater depth to it, and this depth, for better or worse, makes it a much less accessible game.
Execution is a requisite part of good fighting games, yes, but it should not be the great barrier that it is for some games. Long button string combos certainly add great requirements of skill to a game, but do they make the gameplay tighter? The mind games better? Nope. All they do is create unnecessary depth. Do you get mind games with depth? Some, but what we are looking for here is the Whys. Why should I use this move over that move. Where do I use this move? You don’t want your players asking How, you want them asking Why, because that is where the mind games live. They live in the Why.
Breadth – the Knowledge of Why
What does it mean to have breadth? It means having options, lots of options, and not always being sure why you were given those options. It means a system where every move is NOT created equal, but finding that one time out of ten where a weird move finds its purpose. 
I spent a long time in Street Fighter 4 trying (and failing) to master Dhalsim, particularly because he exemplifies the fun of asking Why. Thanks to his stretchy limbs he has a lot of weird moves, and you cannot help but watch them and wonder where in the hell you would use them, but that’s what makes him fun. Take anti-air. Dhalsims Back + HK is a fantastic anti-air, one of the best really, and it works / punishes a great deal of jump ins. Now, one might look at his Back + MP, another anti-air, and think, “why the hell would I ever use this?” But for certain situations, especially when someone goes for a cross-up, it is the superior choice. One of these (b.HK) is arguably more useful than the other, and if Dhalsim had to have one less move in his arsenal, you could make a good case for cutting the other, but I can’t imagine the game without it.
I can tell you right now, that anyone uses the phrase, “every move should be equally useful,” does not understand what they are asking for. First, that’s realistically impossible to achieve. Second, and more important, even if that was possible, why would you want that? Where would the fun be? If everything is equally useful, then everything is equally and knowingly countered, and if everything is equally countered, the match is over the second someone presses a button. What’s the point? You need uncertainty, you need the Why.
To try and show you what breadth looks like, I created a different chart – this time it’s pie (everyone loves pie)! It lists, around the circle, all of the possible actions that Ryu can perform when standing idle. By clicking on any of the moves it will then show you all of the moves that can be chained with that move. How deeply (or widely as the case may be) you traverse in this showcases the depth, while the number of options available at each stage showcases the breadth.
Some interesting terminology I should discuss: links vs Cancels. This is showing Cancels. It is not showing links. (What the hell is he talking about!) First, to understand the difference between links and Cancels you must understand the frames that make up a move (of which, there, are, many, resources). With that said, a Link is when, after hitting your opponent with a move, you can Link a second move because its startup is less than your opponents recovery (you have what is called frame advantage).
A Cancel, on the other hand, is when, after inputing your first move, you input a second move quickly (usually during your startup frames), and then when you hit (or usually once you begin your recovery frames) the game cancels that first move and goes right into a second move. See the difference? A link means that you must complete the first move, while a Cancel means you are altering the properties of the first move and going to a completely different second move. This is an important distinction when discussing depth vs breadth! You see, most times, especially in games like Tekken, certain moves can only be performed by Canceling into them. That means that they require “how” knowledge – depth.
The difference can be expressed thusly: You are watching someone play a fighting game and they perform a cool looking attack. You turn to them an say, “that was cool, how did you do that?” The response you get is vastly different between links and Cancels:
- Link: Oh, after you land a crouching MP you can do a crouching HK – oh cool!
- Cancel: Oh, you press, Left Punch, Left Kick, Right Punch, Left Punch, Right Kick – Uh, let me write that down…
Even reading it makes me not want to learn it.
Am I saying that Cancels are bad? No, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that Cancels create depth. They create barriers of execution, and you should be careful. Still, even Street Fighter has Cancels (lots of normals can Cancel into specials, supers, or ultras), but their Cancels have a finality to them. They are not very deep.
Ok, you say, depth is bad and breadth is good. Forever more I shall strive to live up to this ideal in everything I design! Ehhh… not so fast buddy. You forgot about action adventure games.
Fighting vs Action Adventure Games
When it comes to depth and breadth, action adventure games are the complete antithesis of fighting games. (Is this guy for real?!) Good ones have little breadth, but they have depth, and while this is just one part of what sets them apart from fighting games, it is one of the primary reasons most action adventure combat is so bad. People that design action adventure combat love fighting games. I mean, why else would you be doing this job? So it is no surprise that they design them to be so similar. However, like most things in game design, different genres require different design philosophies. How you design cars in Gran Turismo is not how you design cars in Saints Row – sure, in both games you drive a car, but you really don’t want them feeling the same.
Your character in an action adventure game requires only the moves that get the job done in the coolest way possible. When your player asks the question, “Why do I have this move?” the answer is always, always, “So that I can accomplish great things.” He has no one to play mind games with, and no one should be playing mind games with him, so there is no REASON to be asking “why”. There is no need for breadth.
You can see this difference in philosophy by looking at a breadth diagram for Kratos, and contrasting it with the one for Ryu. Notice how deeply in the tree you can traverse in comparison to the one for Ryu. Kratos, unlike Ryu, makes great use of Cancels (not links!) to give him depth.
For the fighting game enthusiast, the concepts of depth and breadth are fairly intuitive – obvious, even, and more than likely this post was boring. But look: understanding what it means to have depth or breadth is a lot different than implementing combat systems that exemplify their principles. I love fighters (despite the fact that I’m pretty bad at them), and I love action adventure games. Despite a love of both, it wasn’t until I got to see their construction first hand that I realized their complete antithetical nature. You must ask the questions that are imperative to your systems: why are we giving the player this move, and can we imagine the game without it. Too often, especially with action adventure games, we strive to throw in the kitchen sink of combat (“more is better lol”) without understanding what that means. I hope these visualizations were helpful. Now, get out there and design the next killer combat system.
(Edit: I have edited this doc after a discussion with another combat designer. Thanks Greg! Combos was a muddy term to use, as it means a lot of things to a lot of people. I apologize, and it has been changed to Cancels)
Interesting article.
I love the attention to detail that you gave to your interactive visualizations/charts. I always wanted to implement features like this into my design articles, but I’m not so handy with flash programming.
I’m a combat designer/critic too. Like David Sirlin, a writer/designer that I greatly respect, you seem to use a strange way to think about gameplay mechanics and emergent gameplay. I wonder if this has to do with a heavy Street Fighter background.
“synonymous meanings of depth like lots of moves, tactical , execution heavy, or even skill. Depth is none of these things. Depth is the measure of the number of times your player must learn How to do something;”
I see no benefit from defining a term like “depth” in terms of highly variable, player dependent qualities. Put an experienced gamer on a game versus a beginner and you’ll get different results as far as the number of times a player learns a feature/mechanic. Even if you meant this as a general comparison of elements, the word “must” is also troublesome. You don’t have to learn many moves in a fighting game at all, technically. And beyond this kind of idea, competition and the metagame shape what a competitive player “must” learn to win.
I like how you’re focusing on different types of knowledge skills needed to play a game at a decent-high level. But you seem to fall short when you cross compare move-input similarities across multiple characters. This hardly covers enough ground in terms of knowledge skill. I know for Smash Brothers, each move is mostly a single button+direction for all characters. Yet there are around 20+ other properties that are important in defining how the move works. Just being able to execute the move is not even the half of the important knowledge.
“It is not that the game requires no skill, but that your skills (in execution) and knowledge are applicable across the entire cast.”
Again, skills in basic execution? Yes. Skills in knowledge of the moves? Not quite.
“Great fighting games are about reading, anticipating, and countering your opponent; about understanding exactly where and when to use just the right move; and about spacing and timing it all just right for that clutch punish. That is the core of great fighting games. All of the systems and all of the moves exist to further the mind games you can play with your opponent (and they with you).”
You can describe just about any action game the same way. Mind games are great, but they aren’t all of what makes fighters work. In a match different facets of skills can be put to the test. Sometimes you don’t have enough knowledge. Sometimes it’s a lack of timing. Other times your input dexterity can’t keep up. If you recognize any of these weakness in your opponent, it’s perfectly legit to exploit them with or without using mindgames. Explaining everything as being the result of mindgames oversimplifies the gameplay.
“Tekken’s use of long combo strings, stance switching, and other character-specific “hows” means that it has MUCH greater depth to it, and this depth, for better or worse, makes it a much less accessible game.”
I consider this a very shallow consideration of what makes a game accessible and how Tekken compares to Street Fighter. I’ve found that this is an area where many analyses falter. If you don’t define the scope of your analysis, it can be impossibly difficult to draw the line between the emergent skills needed to compete on a high level versus what’s “necessary” or needed for a decent level of execution. Couldn’t I say the same thing about any high level real-time competitive game? Mario Kart DS seems accessible with a few buttons but then there’s snaking which is a constant finger exercise. Smash Melee too, except there’s wave sliding and L-canceling. Like I explained above, with all the other bits of knowledge that go into moves, isn’t every move “character specific?”
“What does it mean to have breadth? It means having options, lots of options, and not always being sure why you were given those options. It means a system where every move is NOT created equal, but finding that one time out of ten where a weird move finds its purpose.”
Again, it’s this kind of definition that I can’t get behind. Instead of talking about design space, variation, and balance in an objective/technical way, you resort to this idea of “options” and feelings of not “being sure.” I use objective terms like interplay to talk about the designed counters of a game to keep my analysis focused. “Options” refers to a more emergent level of play, which is inherently more complex and difficult to talk about.
There’s a lot more to discuss here. I’m curious to know how you’ll straighten out some of the concepts here or what you think of the way I break down combat systems. Honestly, it looks like you’ve tried to cover many different topics that I’ve had to isolate and define separately. Skill, complexity, depth, interplay, design space, nuance, accessibility, and clean design are just some of the topics I recognized.
http://critical-gaming.squarespace.com/blog/2008/10/10/dw-prerequisites.html
Again, let me know. You might have to email me to let me know when you reply.
I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to respond. First, thanks for the feedback. I could definitely use some tightening, and if I ever hope to strengthen my ideas and writing it is going to be because people are kind enough to call me on my mistakes. So thanks.
Regardless of the validity of my lexicon, your players cannot precog the knowledge of how to execute moves, so I’m not sure why measuring depth is dependent on the skill of players. Measuring that depth exists (what I’m talking about) is different than measuring how quickly two people traverse that depth (what you are talking about). I am also not sure why you object to the word “must”. How do you propose someone use a move without learning how to perform the motions necessary? I guess they could randomly mash the buttons to make it come out, but they still do not know how they did it.
Something important here is that this is not an article on how to play and compete at a high level, it is an article about how to design games that can be enjoyed at a high level, to which there is a worthwhile difference. You say that “competition and the metagame shape what a competitive player ‘must’ learn to win.” That is totally not what this is about at all. You’re right, for Boxer players, if you wanted to be good you needed to master your generics, like c.MK x Headbutt x Ultra, but that does not change the fact that if I wanted to execute all his moves I _must_ learn how to perform down and away charge motions.
You are correct, though, that at a high level, especially in good games, the knowledge of how to execute moves is only a small portion of the total knowledge. That is, of course, my entire point. They are spending all of their time worrying about where, when, and why you use moves, thus making the game good. Smash is actually a perfect example. They go for a completely universal control mapping. It doesn’t matter what character you pick in that game, you know for a fact that pressing UP + B is GOING to do something, but they even take it a step further and make their “why” slightly universal too. You know that, almost universally, UP + B is going to make me travel up, and will be helpful for getting back onto the stage.
I do realize, however, that mind games are not the only thing that fighting games are all about, and I believe I said as much. It says, “great fighting games”, because it is my belief that this is what separates the good ones from the not so good ones. It is one thing to create a game that requires finger finesse, but it is something else to create a game that is balanced around the high level meta game of mind games.
Additionally, I am aware that the tapestry of accessibility is woven from many things (such as requisite levels of execution), but that does not change the fact that depth is one of those many threads, which was my point. I’m not sure what you are saying with Mario Kart, but I think it is funny that you bring up both snaking and wave sliding; two things that were not only never intentionally designed into the system, but also removed in later releases. How do unintentional consequences in their systems relate to designing your game to be accessible?
Lastly, I agree I think I can use some tightening. You have thought about this stuff a lot, and you definitely enjoy the science, but if you will excuse the tangent, I feel I must touch on something: you may not like dealing with “feelings”, but you cannot 100% “science” your way through the process. All of the best guys I’ve ever worked with know when to set down the calculator and just pick up the controller to see how it feels. Just the simple feel. The entire process becomes almost entirely feel in the latter stages.
When we were in the later stages of Ghost of Sparta, I would watch one of the guys boot up a combat arena, spawn one hoplite, and then spend the next several hours just beating the shit out of that hoplite in an innumerable amount of ways. Just to get a sense for how it felt. Maybe the science says that two hits in the air is the correct amount of damage you should be doing, but it just feels wrong not to land 3 hits, so you adjust the fall rate.
Button minigames are another classic example. We know exactly how many frames is a medium difficulty button window. It’s science. But sometimes, you just gotta feel it out, because maybe Kratos is doing something really cool, so your eye is distracted. You gotta add a few frames to make it feel right. Don’t get lost in the science.
No worries on taking so long. Take all the time you need.
It seems like you’d rather continue this conversation in a more general manner. By quoting your article, I was trying to draw attention to specific statements. Then I tried to explain the problem I had with the selection or give a counter example. To keep things on track at this point, I’ll continue to pull quotes out of your response, but I’ll also try to present the crux of the issues.
To start, I must say that the first problem I had with your article was how you coined the term “depth.” I understand that there are no hard rules on coining phrases and whatever is popular/sticks eventually gets accepted as a real word/term/phrase. However, your version of depth is poorly formed. You acknowledge that alternative definitions of the term already exist in the minds of some gamers; “you must divorce yourself from the misconstrued and often synonymous meanings of depth like lots of moves, tactical , execution heavy, or even skill.” Some of these examples refer to gameplay, the core of video games. In fact, whenever people use the word “deep” to describe creative works like books or movies, they attempt to describe the richness of the core quality of the product, which is different for every medium. Books are deep when the core ideas/themes/characters resonate with each other and the way the story is told. The more you dig into “deep” stories the more connections you find that bounce back and forth between the details. Likewise, it makes sense that the word “deep” for video games should somehow refer to the core essence of gameplay in a similar way. The more you learn about the system, the more back-adn-forth, bouncing back action you should find thus creating positive feedback between what you know and how you play. As I’ve explain on my blog in great detail over many years, because games must have goals, and gameplay is the pursuit of these goals despite obstacles, “depth” is more accurately coined to mean to the back and forth counters that potentially exist between the player and the game/other players. This definition fits because it’s still a positive and fairly uncommon quality. In other words, it’s not easy to find deep books, poems, movies, as well as games.
I have overlooked the word choice issue here. You choosing the word “depth” isn’t the problem I have. It’s your definition. Your version is far too variable/subjective. This is not about embracing the “science.” If your goal is to explain this design concept to others, then it’s important to be clear and to explain yourself in a way that puts everyone on the same page. So, instead of measuring the quality of a game system in terms of how any one player will take to it, it’s far more effective to talk about a game’s design more objectively: i.e. It has X quality independent of who plays it.
“Measuring that depth exists (what I’m talking about) is different than measuring how quickly two people traverse that depth (what you are talking about).”
Naturally depth, as you defined it, exists. It’s just a way of looking at how similar input values are for a character or across a game. And if you want to talk about skill, you should define it more clearly. If you have another post where you do, please link me. Otherwise, I wrote a 19 part series on the subject. All the links to the articles can be found on the page that I linked to in my previous reply.
http://critical-gaming.squarespace.com/blog/2010/3/31/an-examination-of-skill-pt1.html
“I am also not sure why you object to the word “must”. How do you propose someone use a move without learning how to perform the motions necessary? I guess they could randomly mash the buttons to make it come out, but they still do not know how they did it.”
“Must” implies a necessary condition. So, we have to ask ourselves what this condition is. Winning? Beating the game? Beating an opponent? Beating an unskilled opponent. Then we have to consider what’s the minimum range of moves you can use to succeed. For example, you don’t have to duck, break a brick, or shoot a fire ball in Super Mario Brothers. It’s also possible to beat an opponent with nothing more than a grab, jabs, and a sweep in street fighter. Or if you get really technical, a CPU with Ryu’s dragon punch can wipe out any human player with super human reflexes. So, you clearly open up more worms into your definition by talking about “musts.”
“it is an article about how to design games that can be enjoyed at a high level,”
“You say that “competition and the metagame shape what a competitive player ‘must’ learn to win.” That is totally not what this is about at all.”
Because you didn’t properly scope the article, you’re falling into many contradictions like this. You threw out the word “enjoy” to try and fix the problem, but that only made things worse. Using your terms, a good depth to breath ratio doesn’t necessary guarantee or improve the “enjoyment” of a game. Again, enjoyment is very subjective. And as you try to sort things out, you brought in concepts that your “depth” and “breath” don’t cover.
“the knowledge of how to execute moves is only a small portion of the total knowledge. That is, of course, my entire point. They are spending all of their time worrying about where, when, and why you use moves, thus making the game good. ”
If this is your point, you could have said it in much fewer words with much less confusion. Based on your original article, this is not your point. When you say “thus making the game good” this is where you are the most vague. You seem to have arbitrarily put execution difficulty/knowledge in a category of less significance than figuring out the HOW / WHERE/ WHEN of a move. You have this problem because you either don’t understand player skill or you haven’t defined it for yourself properly. So I have the following two points.
1) Knowledge of executing a move is just as important as the how to use it. If a move is difficult for a player to reliably pull off, he/she will probably not depend on it in a pinch. Execution is merely one more factor to consider in the risk-reward evaluation process.
2) You seem to claim that if the player worried about inputting less and worried more on how to use the move they would become competent more quickly and play at a high level. This is completely false. People will make all kinds of excuses for not being able to play at a high level. There is no substitute for taking the time to learn and practice a game. It’s a lack of thought and experience that hold them back. It doesn’t matter if the moves are as hard to pull off as Street Fighter or as simple as Wii Sports/ Super Money Ball 2: Monkey Boxing. If you weigh every bit of knowledge equally, and you understand that (especially with human competition) that any lack of knowledge can be your downfall in a match, then you’ll realize it doesn’t make sense to treat execution any differently from any other kind of game knowledge that can be acquired.
You may say that lowering execution requirements gives players the positive perception that they’re competent. But they are not. I think it’s important to make the player enjoy a gaming experience. So, the point I’m making is, regardless of how good the player thinks he/she is, issues of execution requirements are negligible when the goal is performing on a high level.
Keep in mind, you’re talking to world expert in Smash. I’m both a world class competitor with my Melee Kirby and one of the most prolific historians, community writers, and design analysts. Smash is a great example of simplifying controls on the most basic level. But this design makes the game easier for beginners to jump in and play, not to jump in and play at a high level. I’ve talked to hundreds of pro and casual players from around the nation. Their mentality is what holds them back if they find themselves coming up short.
“I do realize, however, that mind games are not the only thing that fighting games are all about, and I believe I said as much.”
Interesting, because I think you said this..
“Great fighting games are about reading, anticipating, and countering your opponent; about understanding exactly where and when to use just the right move; and about spacing and timing it all just right for that clutch punish. That is the core of great fighting games. All of the systems and all of the moves exist to further the mind games you can play with your opponent (and they with you).”
You started this paragraph off well, and your list is pretty thorough. Still, the way you end the paragraph is misleading. Mind games are basically reading the opponent. According to your list, that’s just one aspect of many that make up great fighting games. So, why did you end the paragraph by stating that “all” systems and moves exist to further the mind games. It seems like you’re unclear or conflicted about what mindgames are and what part they play overall. Either, mind games are a part of the whole experience or all the parts are designed for the purpose of creating them.
“It is one thing to create a game that requires finger finesse, but it is something else to create a game that is balanced around the high level meta game of mind games.”
Again your bias against dexterity skills and execution requirements is obvious. It’s also obvious to me that you don’t really understand how metagames develop and what design elements are needed to facilitate mind games in the emergent gameplay. I don’t want to seem curt here. So I’ll just leave these two links to articles about mindgames, metagames, and multiplayer misconceptions.
http://critical-gaming.squarespace.com/blog/2009/12/15/mixups-pt1.html
http://critical-gaming.squarespace.com/blog/2011/1/28/metagame-meditations-pt1.html
http://critical-gaming.squarespace.com/blog/2011/5/13/competitive-multiplayer-collective-misunderstanding-pt1.html
“but that does not change the fact that depth is one of those many threads, which was my point.”
You keep saying that these simple facts are the point of your article. But if this is the case, it’s not clear. Furthermore, your article has many “points” that are meant to add up in some kind of logical way. So, pointing out that making inputs easier or less varied so players can access more moves thus making a game more accessible is obvious. It’s how these smaller points add up that’s harder to discuss.
“it is funny that you bring up both snaking and wave sliding; two things that were not only never intentionally designed into the system, but also removed in later releases. How do unintentional consequences in their systems relate to designing your game to be accessible?”
Again, as a Smash and Mario Kart expert, I’ll say this definitively; snaking and wave sliding are not glitches, not unintentional, and they are no different from a Street Fighter link, combo, kara cancel, or any other emergent technique. The developers created the mechanics, the players figured out ways to use them. Though Sakurai, the creator of Smash, stated that he never expected the wavesliding to become so wide spread/popular, this doesn’t mean it’s a glitch or a mistake. In fact, just because a feature is not in a later version doesn’t mean it was bad, a mistake, or less quality design. Rule of thumb, authorial/developer intent is moot when considering design.
I used those techniques as an example to explain how a game can seem very simple control-wise, yet become very difficult at high levels of competition. Because emergent gameplay is so powerful and difficult to predict, it’s easy to see how minimizing input requirements may not help at all in the long run.
I understand what you’re trying to say about feelings versus “science.” You’re not the first person who has assumed that I’m some kind of technical, jargon spouting calculating game designer/analyst. Evaluating any of our statements made in this discussion from the view of either being feeling-based or science-based is practically useless. I’ve seen trends among beginning writers in my writing workshops, musicians in composition classes, to game designers where individuals try to reject learning the technical/fundamental elements of their craft. They think that their opinions and feelings are as legit or more so than theory. From here they struggle to understand what’s great about their craft, their products, or others. Put simply, there isn’t a difference between feelings and “science” as you call it. Both are ways of observing the world and reflecting it. Whether the data is collected memories or numbers in a spread sheet, both systems try to come up with explanations. Whether you have a hunch or a theory, both can be used to improve design. Like David Sirlin, I see here that by falling back on this talk of “feeling things out” or design intuition, you don’t have a firm grasp on the language or the terms necessary to actually “explain it out” in words. I think it’s somewhat foolish to claim that I stick too much with the science when your article looks at design in a very technical way as well. We’re in the same boat here.
I’ll close with this; I’m glad you’re taking the time to at least read and respond to my replies. I take what you write and what you think as seriously as I take my own writing. I honestly don’t think you’ll find anyone else on the internet that will read your article as closely or respond as thoroughly as I have. I don’t get a lot of comments on my blog, so I try to give the level of response that I’d love to receive. In terms of credentials, I also don’t think you’ll find anyone who’s as well written or who has such a diverse spread of skills as I have.
So, thanks. I hope you continue the conversation.
Wow, I see that humility is your strong suit. There’s a ton of haughtiness that really isn’t professional.
You make a lot of valid points, but I think there’s an underlying assumption that every article must be as concise and low-level as your articles are. The thing is, there’s certainly room for mid-level design articles such as these, and not all writing needs to be encyclopedic and all encompassing in nature.
“Wow, I see that humility is your strong suit. There’s a ton of haughtiness that really isn’t professional.”
Sure. That’s your opinion, of course. I think we’ve been quite specific and civil considering everything. Knowing it can be difficult to get a feel for a conversation with people you don’t know, I completely understand the bit of roughly present so far. We haven’t cursed or attacked each other’s character. We’ve explained our ideas at length and are still in this conversation. We don’t need to beat around the bush with unnecessary caution or formalities. So, unless you have some better reasons, I don’t see why what we’re doing is so unprofessional.
“You make a lot of valid points, but I think there’s an underlying assumption that every article must be as concise and low-level as your articles are. The thing is, there’s certainly room for mid-level design articles such as these, and not all writing needs to be encyclopedic and all encompassing in nature.”
Encyclopedic or not, I evaluated this article based on two things: 1) The aims of the blog that can be found on the about page; 2) The statements made by in the article. Whatever level you think the article is, I only made comments that addressed possible contradictions and other language issues. What does level matter if the article doesn’t make sense? Or if it only half the statements make sense? What’s the use of writing an article to help others understand design ideas if the most complex ideas in the article are muddled at best?
Seems to me that comments and attitudes like yours don’t do much to address issues or help produce a better article. I’ll continue being as direct and as clear as possible after taking articles like this as seriously as I can.
You can keep the sarcasm.
This is a very interesting article (and nice work with the JavaScript!), but there are two things I think you glossed over that are important (I’ll be referring to Street Figther as well since it is the fighting game I know best):
1. You said “Depth is the measure of the number of times your player must learn How to do something”. I would argue that there are plenty of how questions that are individual to the character you choose (or at least to a subset of characters). For example, “how do I get around fireballs” has a different answer for Honda than it does for any fireball character or even Fei Long. This isn’t a major point, but I think fighters are deeper than the
2. You make it sounds as though links do not create execution barriers to entry. I would say it is a lot easier to pick up Ryu than it is to pick up, say Sagat (after his damage was toned down) because just about anything Ryu does cancels, while Sagat’s pressure game requires precise timing on the links. I do recognize that you are talking about game systems being problematic with too many cancels (and I agree with that), but I think you undersold the execution barrier links can create.
I just started reading a few weeks ago when @derek_omni tweeted about your blog. Good reading.
Thanks! Man, JavaScript is pretty cool, and not at all difficult. It was mostly time consuming, and I’m glad you (and others) found it interesting.
1. Good catch, and I have slightly taken this into account. In the depth diagram, you will notice that if you click on EVERY mechanic it does not actually fill in the characters. For each of them I was tracking a few “unique” stuff that makes them different than everyone else. Mostly it was their target combos, and unique commands like Ryu’s toward HP. But those are “how” questions about execution, and what you are talking about is “how do I get around a fireball”, which is, to me, really more of a question of “why should I use this butt stomp”, ya know? “Oh I see, this buttstomp thing goes over fireballs, that’s cool.”
2. Links definitely require skill, and they can definitely be barriers to high level mastery of a character – screw zero links, but this is why I said barriers to execution, and not barriers to mastery. A worthwhile distinction. I tried to make sure I was not talking about high level mastery. Links do not prevent you from executing any of Sagat or Ryu’s moves, but cancels can very much prevent you from executing moves. That was my intent. For next time I will work on clarifying, as it was unclear.
Nice post! Read this a while ago, but just now decided to come play with the visualizations.
I’m not sure how I feel about depth and breadth as terms, since like KirbyKid said in his post the term depth is often used in other mediums as an expression of the complexity of meaning and relationships between parts, but I can absolutely grok what you’re saying. The ideas make for a wonderful lens for looking at differences in systems design.
I want to ask how you would classify a game like SpyParty. There are a finite set of control-related tasks to learn (especially for the Sniper), but when non-control tasks require specific knowledge, do they become depth mechanics or remain breadth mechanics? More succinctly, is breadth the sole realm of the metagame?
First, I just want to say I’m sorry it has taken me so long to respond. I’ve been working on a big new project for this site, and it’s been taking all of my time. Still, no excuse not to respond to you since you were kind enough to comment.
Initially, I was unfamiliar with SpyParty, at least, as best as I can tell I had not heard of it. Having read about it, though, it does sound familiar. Maybe I heard about it at GDC one year. Regardless, it sounds pretty cool. I like the idea of trying to act natural with some kind of eminent threat.
As for the systems, I don’t have a fast answer to your question, so I thought I’d just jot down my initial thoughts, and if I miss anything you can correct me. Initially, I see a couple base actions that you can perform, and a few have a couple implications. I’ll just focus on the spy for now. I think it’s interesting that a lot of these also double as “trying to look normal”. I’ve marked those with a (*)
Spy Depth: Movement, Talking, Bugging, Object Manipulation, Check Time
Spy Breadth:
Talking(*) – contact double agent, bug ambassador, and seduce target
Bugging – bug ambassador
Object Manipulation(*) – reading books, inspecting statues, moving statues, transfer microfilm, drinking, steal plans
Check Time – do normal party goers do this?
That’s how I see it, initially, but I think I’d really have to play the game. What do you think?