I came to this realization 2 years ago when I tried for the first time to design a card game, it was complex for the sake of it and the game was not fun. Nowadays the game is a lot less complex, but has more depth and is a lot more fun. You're spot on.
Create systems and add complexity, but show them or introduce them to the player one by one as the game progresses, so that by the time they meet a new system, you assume they learned and adopted to the older ones. This approach is best imo because it adds depth, suprise elements(players will expect more hidden stuff), lowers the learning cost (not overwhelming), replayability (they will want to start again to play more optimal). I love games with lots of mechanics, maybe its because i love management-sandbox-strategy genre
Hey man, pretty new to the channel. Just wanted to say that you have been an amazing mentor through your RU-vid. I've been working on my first project that I plan to FINISH and your videos keep me focused on that goal and continuing to put time into it, so thanks man keep it up!
This seemed like a duplicate of your talk on the Game dev TV podcast, both very informative and it was nice relistening to some of your examples to reinforce the definitions for myself.
Very interesting content man! I'm not a game dev, just an animator, but I greatly enjoy listening to how people go about making games and or what problems they face. Keep up the great work! :)
I like your thoughs, again :) But also I usually, instinctually, think about a bit differently: Complexity - how many systems/rules there are in the game. Depth - how many (meaningful, in similar sense as you use it, or viable) interactions there are between those systems. It kind of comes down almost to the same thing as you're saying, but ...almost.
Also, adding complexity can nullify a lot of your depth. As you says, if you add a new mechanics that is unbalanced, either it won't be used so it's useless work, or it will be too powerful and the other mechanics won't be used anymore, so all the depth related to those systems will be wiped out Very interesting video, learn a lot on how to architecture my gameplay
At the moment I'm designing a very strange magic system for fun but I'm having this exact problem, a lot of the elements that I add to create depth are also increasing the complexity in a unfun level. In addiction to the fact that for some stuff you need a lot of different buttons, to the point that even a keyboard is not enough to mantain the thing easy to phisically perform
You could fix the way you control the game instead of the mechanics. Play magicka if you havent i think that game is a good example of how to do complicated magic systems well
@@guy3480 Yeah I played a lot of magicka (the first, I didnt like the second). The magic system ispired me a lot, but yet I'm imagining something weirder
This is one of my favorite topics. It's very closely related to the "ask to give ratio". "Ask" is what the game requires you to do in order to properly play. This is typically learning the mechanics and executing your options properly, but in a broader sense, it can also mean things like buying extra peripherals, having friends to play with, or paying a monthly fee. "Give" is the appeal of the game. It's kind of ironic because the reason why there is any Ask in the first place, is to make Give. But sometimes, like you explain in this video, too much Ask has diminishing returns on Give, and too many systems end up asking a lot out of you but don't give enough in return. A personal example for me would be Xenoblade Chronicles X. A TON of battle systems, but each one didn't contribute that much on its own. You still had to learn a lot of systems, but many of them felt unnecessary. I loved the first Xenoblade Chronicles, and haven't played XC2. But more of a focus on "what makes this game fun at its core?" would have done XCX a lot of good, imo. I honestly felt that I would have more fun learning a game engine... it's only a little more complex. XD This is a topic I've been thinking a lot about for a long time, and especially recently because I'm designing a TCG. WAAAY too easy to add complexity! I think I have it at a really good level now though. A lot of your points in this video are things I've realized in the past, so I'm really glad someone is articulating them and sharing them. Keep it up!
You could add complexity in a way that caters both to casual and hardcore gamers though. Have a solid game with few mechanics and depth coming from them, and have optional, more hidden mechanics that can be learnt later when the player had the time to acclimatise themselves to the game. Kinda like the Portal games' first half is a giant tutorial for the later part, but can stand on its own.
Great video as usual! We’re currently deciding what systems in Space Chef we need and not but this made me consider what can give more depth with less systems :)
thank you, that perspective is super useful, thanks for explaining it we've had a mod and it was fine and all, but it was very complex, now we're redoing it from scratch and basically making all complexity into one depth, so everything is interconnected and feels as one mechanic, and now I watched this video and you basically say this thing lol
Hey. I've been making a game for seven years and I know a thing or two about depth and complexity. I think the best example of a game that was deep and complicated was early Minecraft. In that game, there were literally two buttons on your mouse dedicated to creating and destroying. Then they added a bunch of features that made it to complicated, like hunger management and an XP system. I stopped playing as frequently because I didn't care for those features and I felt my time and energy was better spent doing other activities. When my game started out, I wanted it to have WAY to many things. I wanted a stealth system, a map system, a spell system, a store, and I'm sure there were many other things. I scrapped all of those ideas and now all the player can do is move around and hit bad guys with a tennis racket. And guess what? It's a fun game because I played with that idea of using nothing but that weapon. So I guess the best way to add depth without adding complexity is to take an action you already have and take it as far as you can go. Easy Peezy Lemon Squeezy.
I think in terms of width vs. depth, width mainly considering content. It's easier to add more width, because it doesnt necessarily add system complexity. Width is not as sustainable as depth though.
To me, complexity vs depth is best related to the stories of Alien: Isolation vs Soma. Alien's story is told from lots of people's views. You've got Amanda's view, who is the player character. Then you've got a number of other people's view, told through audio logs and emails. The story, however, though complex, is not much more than 'poorly built space station gets invaded by aliens'. Soma, on the other hand, explicitly focuses on a particular subject matter as it relates to the story. Not particularly complex, but it makes you think. Most of the outside information you get in the story is about the backstory or the lore. The subject of it is sort of a 'conversation under the stars' type of thing.
Hold up. When did you start using Godot? That was a pleasant surprise to see. What do you think of it? I'm excited for the Game Design Theory series. It has been a while since I watched some design videos and I need to hone my knowledge a bit.
I'm wondering... If we define the viable options as options that there is no better alternative for (best moves in that situation) something like Go doesn't have all that much depth. Sure there is over 200 possible moves most of the time but only 1-5 of those are viable at that time (all other moves can be found as worse based on current understanding of the game.) So that would make Go game that is somewhat low on depth, same for chess. Very few viable or correct or optimal moves for each situation. Also as long as you pick the one of the viable moves (one move from the group of equally good best moves for the situation) what does it matter for the outcome of the game. If you end up loosing because picking wrong one that move wasn't viable move in the beginning (if there was some other move that would have won the game.) So it doesn't matter what you pick as long as the option you pick is viable which on itself feels like low depth for me. So I would suggest that depth means how hard it is to determine whenever the move is one of the best or viable instead of how many viable/best moves there are...
Crimtaku Depth comes from the amount of viable options. If there is only one viable option, there is no depth. Multiple viable options are the cause, depth is the result.
@@mikaxms In that case if viable option means option that leads to success games that aren't currently solved (but in theory can be solved) have no depth. Also if we play a game where I ask you to say a number, any number, and after you have chosen number say "you win" the game would have infinite depth as there is infinite viable options. However on the other hand Extra credits defined depth as amount of "experientially different possibilities" which would make games that had single, hard to find, "right" option each turn high depth and my later example extremely low depth (due to your answer making absolutely no difference for the outcome, even if all answers are viable.) And yea I think I might have too much time on my hands while thinking stuff like this^^
Crimtaku You are overthinking it, but you do make a fair point. Adding grenades to a FPS adds depth, but there is a limit to the amount of weapons you can add (I guess around 5). This is probably also way checkers and chess have a certain size board. So, multiple viable options leads to depth, but this becomes detrimental above a certain amount.
@@Crimtaku A puzzle game usually has only one valid solution - execept for like 2 levels, there is only one solution in every room in Portal. "Viable Options" is not the solution to the puzzle, they are the approaches the player can make to solve the puzzle. Some of these approaches may be blocked by the logic of the game; like throwing the cube does not work, because theres a laser destroying the cube in mid air; or you can't reach the exit that way, because you are on the wrong side of a door - still they count as viable options in that game, I'd say. At the end, only players perception counts and if they feel like they have a lot of (viable) options, well then thats what I'd call depth.
Exactly what happened to me this week. Had build a system to do this 1 thing great. It got so complex it created 10+ other problems. Got rid of it and back to the core game.
I'm about @8:00 into this video and I just watched this video last night from Extra Credits ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-1FBGR6vmNeU.html&t=66 that was saying something similar. Anyway, thanks for making this longer take on it, I appreciate your stuff. Okay back to watching.
Most devs want exactly that, deepth with less complexity, truth is most devs are lazy thats why not many rts games are out there Rts requires lots of hard work I would like to hear more tips on rts games
This vid has helped me put into words why i dont like the gameplay in doom eternal. Lots of complexity but not a lot of depth in the systems. A busy checklist of single note mechanics that are designed for a specific task
I really want to enjoy Stellaris. I keep trying. But it does have some really glaring design issues. Namely, the complexity. I've taken the time to learn the basics of the base game, but it took quite a while to do so, and a whole lot of reading the wiki. It's a huge mess of systems that aren't intuitive.
For me, with mobile, you have till the first ad plays. If the ad plays and i dont care enough to watch through it, im gone. If it doesnt have ads, ill give it more of a chance
when was complexity for it's own sake ever a good thing? I think that prove's that complexity is a thing you want to avoid whenever you can and try your best to mitigate it. what's the magic number of systems to have in a game, is it 5?
I don't think it's ever wanted, but I think it's sometimes a neccisary evil, especially in the begining do the project. And no. 3.2 is the perfect number of systems. :|
I have the same view as you regarding strategy games and also city builder/micromanagement type games. I love the idea of them and appreciate the complexity of their systems, but it can be such a time sink to learn them if you're busy with other things in life. Although I play a lot of different fighting games so I'm also a hypocrite. For example, I love Tekken, but it's so bloated and frame data dependent to where if you haven't played the series for years, you're not gonna be great. Whereas in a game like Smash Melee, the movesets are simplified and the physics are open ended to the point where it feels like you have almost infinite options.
Sorry to dissapoint, the game of chess is in fact not endlessly complex, it has a finite amount of complexity, we know this because the problems that chess throws at us are well understood, in fact, all the existing problems of chess we understand and know the according moves to take to counter that move.
Game design is not a theory it is a practice. Let's show something before you will waste my 15 minutes of my life next time or don't make videos like that.
