A 3 minute lesson in game design (my talk from Flash on the Beach 09)

Update: You can now watch the video here.

I'm back from Flash on the Beach in Brighton. There are loads of great write-ups of the conference coming out, so you don't need another from me, but here are my slides and notes from my 3 minute "elevator pitch". While I'm writing I will just say it was great to meet all my fellow pitchers, and I think we gave a rockin' session - in the main theatre no less, so probably about 600(?) people saw it. Here's my slides (click on slide to advance):

Here's what I said:

I'm Iain, I make Flash games. Here are my tips for making Flash games, but hopefully you can apply them to whatever it is you do.

Make it fun.

• When you're making games it's easy to get side-tracked by your awesome code framework or particle effect or whatever,
• but if you don't make a fun experience for players, what's the point?

Make it obvious.

• If you need to have an instructions screen on your game, you've already kinda failed.
• Talk to your players through the language of games.
• When you get the power-pill in PacMan, the ghosts go blue, their mouths go wobbly, they start running away.
• The player thinks – ah that's different, maybe I can eat ghosts now – ah yes I can. No instructions necessary.

You've got 10 seconds to sell your game.

• Players browse web games like they're flipping channels on cable TV.
• If they're on a site like Kongregate they've got the choice of 18 thousand games.
• So forget all the cut-scenes, menus and tutorials, get straight in to the action.

Match your control scheme to your audience.

• Try not to mix mouse and keys. Pick one.
• If you're making a casual puzzle game, just use the mouse.
• If it's a platform game, stick to just arrow keys and spacebar.
• Only if you're going for a pretty hardcore audience is it safe to use mouse and keys together.

Evolve your game.

• I've worked on far too many projects that had months of planning, emails to clients, design documents, wire frames, PhotoShop mock-ups.
• Not until two weeks before the deadline, you actually start developing.
• The day before the deadline you finally finish it and play it through. Is it fun? No. But it's too late change it.
• So throughout the process, make prototypes, iterate.

Stick a face on it.

• There aren't many games that can survive without characters,
• so even if you're making an abstract physics puzzle, you should be thinking about how you can make it feel human and approachable.

Playtest!

• While there's still time to make changes, put your game in front of real players.
• If you think you've got intuitive controls, players will be mashing the keyboard going “what do I do”?
• If you think it's too easy, to a new player it's probably impossibly hard.

Respect the medium.

• Don't just make games with Flash, make games for Flash.
• Flash games have there own genres, like physics puzzles and tower defence that have evolved to suit the medium.
• Don't copy other games, but work out what makes them fun.