"Travel" as a Game Design Feature

News & General Discussion
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Edited the Title to reflect the conversation.

This thread turned pretty quickly into a discussion about Travel as a game design feature.

Click HERE for the “First Post” in the current discussion about Travel.

Former Title: What If… You had to change your dream game?

We all make games with our personal taste in mind.

However, a nightmare scenario confronts us:

You finished and release your dream game.
Reactions to your game are all the same: “This game would be a perfect 10/10, if only the developer got rid of FeatureX. Until then, 5/10.”

The nightmare? FeatureX is your favorite feature in your game. You seem to be the only one who loves it. All other features are beloved by all. You try to change it up or fix FeatureX, but it turns out it simply must be removed entirely.

What do you do?

What is that feature?

How would removing it effect your game?

How would removing it effect YOU?

Is it easily replaced?

Is there anything you could do to compromise so everyone wins?

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As a game designer, it is your job to decide which features are the core of your game. You definitely should not blindly follow user advice, but you should at least listen to and evaluate the user advice.

Start by evaluating why you added that feature to your game in the first place. Don’t think of it in terms of “favorite feature”. Think in terms of goals and purpose.

If everybody hates the same feature, then it usually means the users do not understand the feature or the game designer did not understand the feature. Without knowing the specifics, it is impossible to judge.

How many users have given the same feedback? Is it a few vocal users, or is it hundreds of people?

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Obviously you shouldn’t react crazy to one persons rating. But in the scenario that its either success or death for your game you should certainly do what the people want. I mean if I had a game in which had 10 downloads and 1 million people came to me and said “hey make x feature” I would certainly do it. Its a business at least in my mind

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Being a designer isn’t about coming up with ideas or features. It’s about choosing what combination of things makes the best creation as a whole. So this…

…isn’t a useful way to think about the design of anything. No feature or idea is more important than the overall experience. Or, stated differently, the value of a feature or idea is strictly determined by the effect it has on the overall creation.

With that in mind, I’d do whatever is necessary to give the strongest possible overall experience regardless of the impact that has on any one particular feature.

This often means cutting ideas or features that are cool in isolation but don’t fit well into the whole. It’s no reflection on the idea or the person who came up with it. It just means it didn’t happen to fit in this particular game.

And honestly, if I’m getting strong unanimous feedback that clearly points me towards an exact fix then it’s actually making my job easier. Usually there’s quite some effort to spend in figuring out what the actual problem underlying feedback is and potential solutions. If* the problem is clearly identified then you get to move straight on to coming up with potential solutions.

  • That is a genuine “if”, a-la “…if Henry Ford canvassed people on whether or not he should build a motor car, they’d probably tell him what they really wanted was a faster horse.”
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It would be really strange if there were ever a situation where 100% of reactions to a game were the same. Players are just too variable for them to ever agree about what’s good and bad in a game.

On the other hand, if I think about games where I clearly wanted something from the game that was opposite what the developer(s) wanted to put in, there are several cases where I have in fact asked for a change, only to be told by the developer that they hate the idea of the change and have zero interest in implementing it. Even as a setting option in a single-player game which would be off by default, and thus wouldn’t affect most players. (MMOs are a different kettle of fish, because generally the game has to play the same way for everyone, even though some players will always dislike some aspects of how the game plays.) But for single-player games, I think I would want to consider the game finished a few weeks after release and move on to something new. So, although I wouldn’t want to put more development effort into a finished product (besides fixing bugs), I also wouldn’t think of it as my precious baby that couldn’t be modded by players or have options added by me if they don’t take too much time and effort.

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This is a hypothetical… kindof important to remember that when responding…

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If everyone is complaining about your game obviously there’s something disfunctional in there, and to get attached to something disfunctional seems a bit strange to me.

Also, I don’t think it’s a good idea to make a game for yourself as the player. I’m rather attached to the idea that I’ll have a certain effect on players so if that’s not happening, I’m probably not going to have a problem with fixing it.

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If no one (because if some people like it, it’s a very different thing, more at the end) else likes the feature, I think it would make me go for a bit of soul searching. Like try and detach myself from it and try to re-evaluate. If I try my hardest to do that and I still really like the feature (which in my mind would mean, the feature is good), I would try to evaluate how it blends with other features.

Maybe it’s good, but it feels out of place, can I change that without taking it out? If it’s a mechanic maybe it’s good, but it’s overused because I like it so much? Maybe it’s good, but it’s unbalanced, it breaks the flow of the game. Can I tweak it and the systems around it so it’s implemented better? If it’s a story element that people hate, can I maybe build it up better, foreshadow it better, make it pay off better?

If all of that fail, I would consider taking it out. Not sure what I would decide.

This is very hypothetical, so there are a lot of unknown variables. But taking it to the extreme, like, everyone hates it, and I try my hardest and I can’t find anything wrong with it, I think it’s the type of thing that might make me go crazy and throw me in a spiral of self doubt.

In the case where some people like it though (which is a more realistic proposition), I don’t think I’d ever even think of removing it. I wouldn’t want to remove what makes the game special to a minority of people so that I can please the majority of people. I would still try to find if I can improve it though (see the list above), without breaking it for the people that do like it.

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If you are a business you make the change* (maybe with an A/B test) and validate if it has the desired effect.

If you are building for your own pleasure you flip the bird to the users and leave it as it is :wink:

*Pending evaluation of cost to make change of course.

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It depends whether that feature is integral to the game.

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I’d keep working on it till it didn’t suck or I ran out of money.

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Do you not have a dream game? A favorite feature?

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All I was saying was that if your feature was integral to your game you would have a hard time removing it. For example if you game was a point and click inventory game and someone says, ‘remove that.’

You’d be in trouble.

People tend to have preferences, genre specific games. I’m sure we’re all drawn to one particular genre for whatever reason.

Perhaps in the same way, people are drawn to a specific mechanic. If a lot of people say it’s crap, maybe that’s good reason to examin why that might be. I dunno.

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Maybe you actually want to ask something more like, if you could know in advance that a game built around your favorite feature would earn $X but a game built around an alternate feature would earn $5X, which would you develop? In a case like that I’d go with the favorite feature, but I’m not doing this for a living. Someone who was might very well make the opposite choice.

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Well, my “favorite feature” in my dream game is basically the foundation for the game itself. So if it wasn’t there, the game would be something completely different. It wouldn’t be that game anymore.

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Your favourite feature doesn’t have to be the foundation. You can still really really like the foundation, but your favourite thing could be something you didn’t even know you’d want to implement when you started. Maybe your foundation is “a platformer”, but on World 5, Level 4 you introduced a mechanic that you really love.

Plus: favourite feature != best feature necessarily.

By the way. I’ve been thinking about it more today and I concluded to something weird.

I think I would have an easier time to remove the feature, if everyone just found it meh. Like if all the responses were in the range of “it’s kinda boring” to “it’s kinda neat, but I wouldn’t miss it”.

I think it would be easier for me to go “oh well, I guess I was wrong” which could in turn make the feature lose its magic for me and make it much easier to remove.

I mean I’d be disappointed, but it would be a truth I could accept. “It’s not as great as I thought it was” is a reality I’ve faced before and I can deal with it.

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tbh I would maybe start wondering where I went wrong, was it the marketing? did I appeal to the wrong playerbase? Is it really THAT specific feature that they want out? or is there something about that feature that they can not communicate whats bothering them about it? In worst case, is there a compromise to satisfy both sides? and how important is that specific feature to the overall game?

And yeah you emphasized that it is a hypothetical example, but I honestly can’t see that happening to my own dream game, since my dream game never was fixed, would probably not reach a state of “finished” and it would be a constant working WITH the possible playerbase to avoid such things from happening in the first place. Besides that the black and white situation you are presenting feels kind of vague…since afterall you did not even define what you mean with failure and success and for each developer that might be different things.
For me, success could also be to get to that point that I find out they don’t like that specific feature I liked so much.

On another note, I do have a similar concern to my personal dream project…and that is “no combat focus” in a fantasy mmorpg…I think I would be devastated if it would turn out that everyone would think the game to be boring, just because I failed to make the game interesting without combat :stuck_out_tongue:
But, it’s just a fear, based on it not really been attempted before like that :slight_smile: those things are always a risk…and I guess with your hypothetical example, if I failed to prevent such thing to happen in the first place, I would probably need to make the decision, what is more important to me…that my idea is realized exactly how I want it or that I’m able to keep the playerbase…I guess it depends also alot on how much of a dealbreaker it’s for them…I rather have less success than changing a core feature of my game…but if it’s about, if I can continue developing games after that event with that decision, I would probably rather choose to give players what they want…although there is also the option to go with keeping my feature, but try to make it work somehow that it won’t be a failure (find new audience, advertise hard etc.)

One thing I’m curious about though…what do you mean exactly with “favorite feature”? I can only assume that it means something like “you like this feature a lot” but I have to say that’s difficult for myself to comprehend…when I have game ideas I kind of value features equally and only differentiate them based on importance for the games core…but overall I’m not really getting attached to specific features. I may like them, but not favorite any. I think, if I would start favoriting specific features it would already be of concern, since I would loose my flexibility to change design decisions based on user feedback etc. :o

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One of my favorite features in all my games, no matter the idea, is my love for “Travel”.

I believe that it is through the “Travel” component that you really have the most fun. As many say,

“It is not the Destination that matters. It is the Journey.”

In The Hobbit book, it is not the battles, it is not the magic, the treasure, the orcs elves or dwarves. It is the harsh weather, the dangers along the way, the element of surprise, the friendship developped.

Travel can mean alot, but IMO it often includes a survival aspect to it. Fighting against nature. Rationing your food for long journeys. Stopping at an Inn to rest.

In Organ Trail / Oregon Trail, it is a core feature of the game, but not exactly any specific gameplay feature. You buy items, you shoot buffallo, you check for diseterry, but you dont “play” traveling very much. You experience it. Remove it and you still have all the gameplay, but then it would change into some stationary frontier game. Not sure how much that would actually change the game…might still be cool. You would need alot of tweeks. I’d remove it but change its design.

In Skyrim or Fallout 4, it would be in NOT Fast Traveling, and as you walk the road encountering this or that, finding this location, or getting lost and ending up somewhere else. Fast Travel destroys this feature entirely. Remove fast travel, and the game would barely change. Remove “Travel” and you have to fast travel everywhere. I find it hard to imagine theyd complain if I already had Fast Travel, but pretending that doesnt fix it, I’d still remove Travel at their request. Or if I could, make it optional with default off since I want default to be what most players enjoy, not what I want. Skyrim is still amazing even if not seamless and more instanced. Even with more “boxed in” exploration. Which brings me to…

MMORPG’s. If I were to make a MMO, meaningful travel is a must. And this is alot of work. So I would never remove the feature. Never. It is what I believe is required for my dream. No rush to end game exists. There is only the journey. And that journey is long and arduous, but very rewarding. However I would be as open as possible to try to meet players halfway. Not that I would, but I’d try to find as close to a middle ground as I could. But in the end, I would accept the 5/10 and be like the devs I dont respect & also say, “It is my game. Those who like it, play. Everyone else? Fuck off.”

In Fallout 2 or Dead State, it is that world map traveling. The choice that you can go anywhere you want and the random encounters and locations found inbetween. Take this out, and it would have to become some linear storygame like most RPG’s. Remove the open world part, and I think it would destroy my favorite parts. You could add fast travel to fix it, but I really dont like that. I am greatly inspired by FO2’s worldmap, having unknowingly created it in my first project (before ever even playing FO2 or knowing i was creating the same system) so I’d keep it.

In Away Mission, the same would probably apply. However in this hypothetical, I could try technology where there is no traveling; you warp to any location you choose. Idk why, but I feel like I might be able to remove it but still have the exact same game…or close to it… Just skipping the “inbetween”, removing the survival element or slow drain of fuel/food (replacing it with a full deduction after fast traveling), etc. I could find a way because…it’s Sci-Fi. As weird as that sounds, I feel the game is really flexible bc of the theme. I could even turn away mission into a colony game.

For my current project, which is built around Travel, I have to admit that I could actually remove the feature and still have the same game. It would be different, but…

I guess all around my favorite feature or theme of “Travel” is always removable. It isnt a feature that relies on any other feature. It isnt a necessity, even when I try to build the game around it. There are other features I could replace it with (like a colony game) or that exist in the game that although are not my favorite, are still plenty fun.

It is only in the case of a MMORPG that I would refuse to budge and tell off consumers who werent satisfied. Any other time, I would simply remove it or make it optional. Always checking to see if I could do the optional idea first. If the design chabges though? The option probably wouldnt work.

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It’s not really travel that does it, but triumph over adversity, as a team, that bonds and travel is merely another way to spawn random events and situations.

So the core problem of travel as a concept is that you need a lot of space or distance. But what is really happening, that you like, isn’t related to space or distance, but changing circumstances and how relationships form from dealing with those things.

It’s a small distinction but important to note.

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It just comes down to personal taste. The more features you take away the better you are going to have to make those existing gameplay elements. If am making a zelda game and I remove all the enemies, the puzzles and items now my boss battles got to be spectacular (titan attacks), but something like Ittel dew can get by with strong puzzles, weak combat, weak bosses and okay overworld.