Book/Article Readings - FADT

Gamasutra - Doug Church - Features - Formal Abstract Design Tools

For this week's reading (also my first reading), I had to read from Gamasutra for the topic 'Features - Formal Abstract Design' by Doug Church. For this article, I decided to read the online version from the following website:

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3357/formal_abstract_design_tools.php


In the article Doug Church talks about what modern day games are made of - a technical base with a vision for the players experience.

He then explains how industry evolution has grown over the previous years such as more powerful hardware, better screens and audio equipment etc. However, he states that games 'Design' as a specific area has not evolved at such a pace and he believes this is due to the lack of a 'Common Design Vocabulary', such as engineers talking their respective jargon and doctors knowing Latin names for each body part. Games designers would just say 'that was fun' or 'that wasn't very good'.

Doug then moves onto a notion for FADT (Formal Abstract Design Tools) as a way to use particular words to describe the 'Design' of a game, with hopes to help push the advancement and evolution of this area as much as the technical aspects mentioned above.


FADT:

There are four words used in this area:

Formal - Precise definition which you are able to explain to others.
Abstract - Emphasises focus on underlying ideas (not genre specific), such as '+2 Giant Slaying Sword' this would be specific to genre, instead you would say 'Player Power up Curve'.
Design - Self Explanatory.
Tools - Self Explanatory.


Using Tools under FADT:

Doug explains that there are many examples of tools that are used in games and would take and endless amount of time to go through each to explain. For this reason he gives us three examples to give us the understanding of how tools can be used in games to give players overall enjoyment while keeping the designer in control.

Intention - (Intentionally) - 'Making an implementable plan of one's own creation in response to the current situation in the game world and one's understanding of the game play options.'

Perceivable Consequence - 'A clear reaction from the game world to the action of the player.'

(Both of the above two tool types are commonly used in conjunction. Example game provided by Doug Church was Mario 64).

Story - Narrative thread, whether designer driven or player driven, that binds events together and drives the player forward toward completion of the game.

(The 'Story' tool often conflicts with 'Intention' as a lot of control is taken away from the player, sacrificed for the use of narrative which is mostly if not fully designer controlled. Some RPG's such as Final Fantasy maintain a balance of both but keep them separate - Combat uses 'Intention' and Plot uses 'Story').

Doug Church finalises that games differ from books and movies due to the above key core tools used to make players interact and become involved, making decisions to change outcomes.