Basic Income, Better Living Through Video Games.

If we assume as given we'll eventually live in a society with a UBI (all eligible citizens receive an Unconditional Basic Income, enough to cover their food, clothing and shelter), then the most pressing question is: How should we roll it out?

Years of making Video Games suggest two quick answers:

The easy way is by lottery. Suppose Gary is a winner in the monthly UBI Lottery! Congrats Gary! Gary no longer has to deal with our mess of confusing taxation and welfare regulations. He wins a much simplified UBI and a flat tax. Of course, any change can be scary and difficult, so Gary also has the option to just stick with the old system if he wants.

More interesting is the notion of a Dual Currency. It's a little bit like enrolling in the food stamp program, where he's issued with tokens that can be exchanged for food items at a 1-1 ratio. In a food stamp program, those tokens would normally expire after a set period of time.

Food stamps are really old. Like, 1930's America old. We live in a digital world, so lets make those tokens work more like an energy mechanic in Candy Crush or League of Legends. Those tokens now accrue *continuously* rather than appearing all at once on a Thursday. We'll cap Gary's balance at a maximum of 1 months worth of tokens. Any balance more than 2 weeks of tokens would also have a penalty applied.

Finally pricing. Staples like bread, milk, laundry detergent and cleaning supplies will have a heavily discounted price when purchased using tokens. Healthy options like fruit and vegetables too. Fast food and chocolates might have a premium pricing attached. Lets make it easier for Gary to make good decisions.

Time Pressure

A buddy of mine was sharing some cool ideas for a new game when we got to talking about Time Pressure. "Blog post!” I thought!

Time Pressure in Games

If you think of classic games, like Chess, or Tennis, you'll find that most classic games have some sort of time pressure mechanic. A skilled player can apply this pressure to increase the number of “unforced errors” of their opponent.



A great example of time pressure in Ice Hockey is the “Power Play”. When a player commits a penalty, they're sent to the penalty box, giving a 5-4 player advantage on the ice to the other team. As the penalty timer ticks down to zero, the attacking team is under increasing pressure to score a goal and take advantage of the situation.

For a hockey fan, watching at home on TV, the “Power Play” also increases pressure. Either there will be a goal, or the attacking team will make a mistake and squander the opportunity. In either case, the pressure is on the spectator to keenly observe and interpret the action before the penalty clock runs down to zero.

In the casual games, “Dumb Ways To Die” and “WarioWare”, the player must complete amusing tasks, but under tighter and tighter time constraints. At least in the early stages of play, the player actions would be easy to do, if not for the added pressure that comes from the timer.

Curiously, in these types of games, as the player skill increases, the gameplay shifts and becomes more reaction and twitch based. When played at this level, the time pressure is almost completely removed. It's similar to the way the rich, multi layered time pressures in a game like Tennis are largely absent from Ping Pong, which is essentially the twitch-based version of the same game.


My mobile game, ScooterBoy, is a mashup between two popular genres, the endless runner and slicing games. The twist is that when the player slices a spore to get points and combos, the same action also causes ScooterBoy to jump/duck/change lanes. In essence, you're playing two different games simultaneously. For skilled ScooterBoy players, the endless runner determines the length of time for each game, while it's your ability to make combos in the slicing game which most affect your score. In this way, in ScooterBoy, the endless runner acts to apply time pressure on the slicing game.

Time Pressure == A Complication

The common theme across all of these games is that time pressure adds a complication to an already fun activity.

As a game designer, we can turn this observation inside out. If we know that adding time pressure is equivalent to adding a complication, then we are obliged to verify that our game design is still fun, even when the time pressure is removed.

Indeed, if we're following the (so called) “Rational Game Design” principles, we should be able to strip our game down to it's core, removing all the complications... Then we add the complications back in, one at a time and in combinations, in order to maximise player enjoyment.

Under this framework, Time Pressure is just one of many different types of complications we could add, and this means (in general) we can assume a priori, that we could add and remove Time Pressure at any time to our game design, without affecting the strength of the design itself.

Phrased another way, Time Pressure acts as a multiplier to increases the intensity of your underlying experience.

Time Pressure and Difficulty

Lets drill down to the first few moments of your game. First impressions. In free-to-play, these first few minutes of gameplay is where you make or lose your players.

For players familiar with your genre, the time pressure does nothing. They zip through the first few levels with perfect scores, and your effort implementing and balancing the time pressure mechanic has contributed nothing.

For less skilled players, those unfamiliar with your genre, the time pressure adds confusion and failure, additional UI, and worst of all, the pressure increases unforced errors and perceived difficulty. All your hard work to implement time pressure serves to drive off more casual players.

A time-pressure mechanic (generally) makes things *harder* for weaker players, and leaves stronger players unchanged.

This is the exact opposite of how difficulty scaling is supposed to work.

You can compound this disaster by awarding the player a power-up for completing a level in a short amount of time. Here you are explicitly making the game easier for your most skilled players.

Sandbox games with broad market appeal, I'm thinking games like “Disney Infinity” and “Grand Theft Auto” here, commonly avoid these traps by making time pressure optional. There are timed challenges on the map which the player can initiate, but the player isn't required to complete them to advance the player's personal narrative.

Time Pressure as Exotic gameplay

So how do us Indies make time pressure fresh and original? We can take inspiration from some recent games which use the passage of time to completely subvert conventional notions of gameplay.


At first glance, “Braid” appears to be a platformer, but it's actually a puzzle game that explores all manner of time based mechanics.

I won't spoil it for you, but “Five Nights At Freddies” has some amazing time-pressure mechanics where the player has extremely minimal interaction with the game.

I'm sure there's lots more examples you can share with us in the comments below.

Time Pressure, it's been done! Time to do something different.

Random

Lately, I've been tuning the "Drop-Rate" of pickups in Scooter Boy.  It's actually a lot like handing out candy at Halloween.

Allow me to use this handy diagram to explain:

Too little Candy	Too much Candy
Not enough candy to go 'round - some people walk away empty handed.	Everyone is all full of sugary goodness, and they don't want any more.

But that's not actually what I wanted to talk about today.

I wanted to talk about Pigeons.

The Pigeon Food Dance

There was a famous set of experiments back in the '30s that revolved around withholding candyfood from pigeons.  In one of these experiments, the amount of time between successive drops was random. It turns out that each of the pigeons developed a (unique) ritualistic food dance. In happy pigeon land, it was the completion of the dance which caused the food to appear.

Now the curious thing was, the time it took for the pigeon to complete the dance was slightly longer than the average time between drops.

So when the pigeon completed the dance, there was a better than 50/50 chance of getting food.  And if not, well repeating the dance a second time would surely do it!

(Have you ever timed how long it takes to reboot your computer when you've got Tech Support on the phone?) 

Random Drop Rates

For most of Scooter Boy's development,  I've been using random drop rates.  Power ups would appear, seemingly at random.  Sometimes you'd get lots, and sometimes you'd go ages without seeing any.

Worse still, changing the drop rate, by changing the percentage of a drop, was very clumsy. You'd double or quadruple the drop rate, play the game, and the results would be... well ... random... There was no way to tell if your change was making the game better.

In short, random drops, just aren't fun!

A Drop Rate Schedule

I'm in the process of changing all those drop-rate percentages into times. 30±10 seconds between drops.  Or 120±60.  It's so much more measurable. And it turns out, it's a lot more fun too.  As a player, it feels like the powerups are rewarding your effort.

So down with Mathematical Randomness! Lets make the game match the player's expectations. Lets put the fun first!

Pinata!

Any game of appreciable size needs a mini-game, and this one is ours!

We're calling it the "Treasure Mushroom".  Use the multi-touch to knock the piñata, then collect the treasures that are hidden inside!

It's a great way to give the player a random reward without resorting to a gambling metaphor like a roulette wheel or slot machine.

What makes a good mini-game?

I'm a big believer in the so called "Rational Game Design" approach.  In particular, the variety matrix. It suggests you can break down your game into a number of axes, such as time-pressure, activity, space modifier, etc.

It then provides a recipe for combining those axes into novel variations.  This aids the game designer's evaluation process and helps find the combinations which work the best.

Under this framework, the mini-game is part of "exotic gameplay".  It changes the pace of the game by  giving the player a new challenge, or a much needed break.

The mini-game must also be very easy to learn, and never punish the player, only reward.

Lastly, your mini-game must remain thematically similar to your main game.  In "ScooterBoy", both the main-game and the mini-game have 'collecting' as a central theme.

What's your favourite/least-favourite mini games? Why not let me know in the comments below?