As part of my job, I do a lot of testing and “quality control” for the games or products that we make at CMM. Our general audience, at least for the projects I’ve been on so far, are for little tykes–mainly preschoolers or “pre-readers” as we distinguish them. There are some little quirks to making games for kids that may not be able to read and don’t have a lot of world knowledge or technical experience (or just general motor skills). Then again, maybe it’s not that different from how game design should be. I would give this post two other titles: (1) “Remembering to KISS” or (2) “Why Mario is Great”. I’ll tackle both points below.
Keepin’ It Real [Simple]
There’s a general rule out there that’s tossed around called “Keep It Simple Stupid.” It’s pretty much a legit rule of thumb and is absolutely necessary when making games for kiddos. We can’t assume they understand gaming tropes and we can’t give them a bunch of explanations. First of all, they’re pre-readers (which means they can’t read). Large text blocks are gonna do absolutely no good for them. If they need to know how to do something, you need to show and tell. However, you can’t spend a lot of time yakking away at them or they’ll just lose interest. These kids are also playing games online, in their browser, where they haven’t spent any money (not that they’d understand that concept anyway) and have no reason to not just click on another pretty graphic link for the next game. We don’t want to lose them.
This is where I reference Super Mario Bros. That game (the original 1985 NES classic) was great for anyone and everyone to play. We (the gamers of this generation) were five years old and handed this piece of plastic with two red buttons and a black + on it and somehow knew how to play this game and feel competent. It didn’t take long to do things and understand how the game worked. That’s the bar that I’ve now set for each of the games that I’m doing here for the kids. How easy is it to click things or push keys and figure out what’s going on? There’s an elegance in it.
I don’t think this is reserved for pre-readers, either. I think this is a concept that should be run over and over for pretty much any game. Long-winded tutorials are boring; walls of text aren’t fun. The player is here to play a game. When I pop a disc into my PS3, I want to play something. Unless I’ve got a fully-free Saturday, I don’t really want to spend half an hour just getting into the game. I want to start playing and having fun within about five minutes–especially starting up a new game.
I understand that some games are fun and draw their appeal from their complexities. I get that and am saying nothing against them. Just keep in mind your demographic and how many people you want to be able to reach with this release. I’ve encountered this most recently with Marvel vs. Capcom 3. That’s a brilliant fighting game and seems to be wonderfully constructed. However, as an arcade fighter, I don’t feel I can play it. I never got deep into fighters and now I don’t understand the lingo and the motions too well. I feel that I am required to spend an hour in training mode before I can even start playing the game–almost as though I’m being punished for not playing any of the games in the fighting genre’s ancestry. That’s great if you want fighting gamers to love your game and don’t care if anyone else plays. I just end up feeling as though I’m missing out on the party a bit.
So that’s my blurb on simplistic game design. I’ll keep thinking of the kids and I’ll keep using Super Mario Bros. as my benchmark. I think that’s a safe way to do things. People understand SMB. It’s not tough. At least, it’s not tough to understand and start playing. Few words, little show and tell. Plenty of game play.