| Developer Diary #1 - SETTING THE STAGE | 2010-10-31 |
INITIUM
It was a sunny winter day in Lisbon and I was glad that Amazon did not fail to deliver the package to my door on the day of the global release. It was very rare for me to get so enthusiastic about a game, but this was Europa Universalis - The Third!
I was then so far from knowing that exactly three years later, at the Paradox Event Meeting, I would be given the chance to personally thank the original board game designer, Phillipe Thibault, due to a step that I was about to take.
That step was taken partly out of frustration, partly out of hope. Half an hour of playing was enough to see that Johan & Co. had coded a gem. But I also felt that it awoke a vision in my own mind on how I could create a new game that would become another gem. A game different from Europa Universalis III, with a diverse design philosophy that could also stand on its own and shine on its own.
Soon, I delved into the .txt files and discovered a modder’s dream. Thanks to Johan’s vision of making the engine so moddable, my vision for it could be achieved with a torrent of perspiration and a drop of inspiration. Hell… I could even share my design in the great Paradox forums. I was sure a huge part of the users would love it. After all, had I not 30 years of experience in game design under my belt? Had I not co-authored a complex PBEM game 12 years earlier with more than 300,000 lines of C/C++ code? I just hoped that more talent would come along on this adventure.
…what would such a work be called? …It must be a strong, ambitious, meaningful sound bite. Hey…that title on that old XVI century world chart... What was it? Mag... Magna... Magna Mundi… yeah… sounds really nice… let's register the domain and start something here!
…then, coding started in earnest.
I really like sandbox games. I abhor being restricted to a linear path; we have cinema and books for that. Considered as an entertainment platform, the strength of the computer over other media is exactly the ability to provide infinite possibilities based on user choices. Anyone who claims otherwise is an unknowingly frustrated writer or an equally unknowingly frustrated film director.
My work as a game designer is to set the stage. The player is the protagonist of the game. The story is what he decides to make of it.
From this starting point, how far are we going to push Magna Mundi? Very far.
The Main Design Elements:
- NONLINEARITY
- NARRATIVE
- DIVERSITY
- PLAUSIBILITY
- BALANCE
Weather Patterns in Europe. Plausible, as you can expect from Magna Mundi.
NONLINEARITY
As nonlinearity is one of the cardinal aspects of any form of advanced computer gaming, I want Magna Mundi to be unpredictable and unique every time one plays it. Different experiences will be felt even when playing the same country and with the same starting conditions.
In order to achieve this, I follow a four-layered approach to the dynamics of gameplay.
At a basic level, decisions the player makes using the interface or choices made using the event options can lead to a myriad of results over the short, medium, and long term.
At an intermediate level, the same choices the AI is making for each country will also lead to different paths any time they are picked.
At an advanced level, all of the types of choices that any country picks will interact with each other in different ways, creating yet another layer of uniqueness.
Finally, at the ultimate level, imagine that choices made by any country in the game can affect choices already made by other countries, and even future choices for them.
If you keep multiplying the interactions, you’ll see that each game will be virtually unique and fully nonlinear.
Closing up on Portugal
NARRATIVE
What is the purpose of nonlinearity if a sense of narrative cannot be conveyed to the player?
Nil. The player will be lost in a maze of randomness.
So, the next design cornerstone of Magna Mundi is to provide an interesting narrative that fleshes out the nonlinearity.
We do that by creating events, applicable to all countries that can link to each other in different, logical ways, creating different stories. These events are always coded within the historical context that must be covered by the game.
Now, in the mind of the player, the story he is experiencing with his country is in the foreground, while the story of the world he is immersed in is in the background, providing context. Both stories influence and complement one another, and both stories are unique every time.
Given the setting, stories bound in History, if you will…
Some dramatic change of terrain depicting what is today US coast as well as Mexico's. I assure you the BP oil platform is not shown, even at maximum zoom.
DIVERSITY
Now, what if the narrative was about the same topics but independent of the cultural, social, or geographical aspects that define the player country?
It would be boring as it would cover the world with a single mantle of narrative, however nonlinear it was.
So, the next cornerstone of Magna Mundi's design is about adding unique narratives to the different events that shape countries.
Each country’s concerns and story are shaped by its cultural, social, and geographical idiosyncrasies as much as by the power of the narrative, shaped as such by the nonlinear approach.
Magna Mundi map can show radical changes of terrain, as is the case in reality...
PLAUSIBILITY
What is the point of adding diversity to the narrative if the unfolding story feels wrong?
That would only serve to break Diderot’s Fourth Wall that we are so carefully building…
So, we need to make sure the narrative, the story that is happening around the player, rings true both from a logical perspective as well as from a historical one. After all, we want to convey a plausible history of the real world, not something more akin to a fairy tale.
We achieve this by checking thousands of flags and variables that keep the overall world history plausible in a contextual manner, in a way that the suspension of disbelief is not broken.
Thanks to this approach, the final result of the narrative will be a unique Historical Plausible Outcome.
China - Such a small word, such a big place...
BALANCE
Story and narrative notwithstanding, the essence of the gaming experience is conveyed by the sense of having beaten it.
In Magna Mundi, beating the game is not measured in terms of conquering the world. Instead, it is measured by the promotion of country growth at several levels, from the blunt geographical growth to the subtle influence over distant parts of the world by the soft power of controlling trade.
All forms of growth must be balanced and engaging to the player. The mechanics must be fun and evocative of the period being depicted. Choices are only worthy of that name if they are providing viable, different options, instead of highlighting obvious paths.
In the end, balanced gameplay mechanics are what can give a final sense of accomplishment and purpose to the story that the player experienced with the game.
... if you want to know more, uncover the unknown land by exploring it!
From the theoretical concept outlined above, Magna Mundi's design objective is to make the player the main character of a unique history that he can influence but never determine. That character is a country, and through the emotional link of living its story and seeing it progress, the player will be engaged to discover where his skill, his choices, and chance will take him.
Unique endings, every time he starts.
Enjoy,
Ubik
