Hello! This is the start of a series I’ve been wanting to do about case studies on certain mechanics and concepts in game design. I personally find it very useful to gather a lot of references to things I would like to emulate before starting work on a project, and this series would be very along those lines, just in a considerably more formal sense. This post is about:
- utilizing synergy in game design when concepting
- tying it into other aspects of the game, like art, sound, and narrative
- and using those tie-ins to make additions feel more natural
The Concept of Synergy
People use a lot of different methods when it comes to approaching game design. Good design is an ephemeral thing; difficult to consistently grasp, especially with the same methods. When trying to form the foundations of a game, people often use the concept of pillars (different from the 4 pillars of game design); the imagery behind the word conveys strong support, as the common pillars of a game support the “high concept” of a game idea. This does not necessarily mean things like visual appeal and audio appeal are independent from the gameplay. This word use also implies, however, that the gameplay features core to the game are entirely separate, which (as in life) isn’t always true; a different design approach that embodies the concept of core features being connected is the concept of synergy. In tandem with pillars, synergy can be likened to support beams connecting one or more pillars, using something they both have in common to help support one another. Synergy is about having core concepts play off each other in the pursuit of a more unified game experience.
There are some games whose features are very independent from one another; Angry Birds is one solid example; some strong words that come to mind are “cute“, “accessible“, “physics-based gameplay“, “rewarding“, “intuitive” (and arguably “marketable“). None of these gameplay pillars really influence each other; the intuitive physics-based puzzles play off of the accessible control scheme, but that’s about it; the cute character design does not consistently inform you of what each bird does, nor does it tell you what the game is about. “Angry Birds” essentially gives you no information about the content of the game, aside from the fact that birds (disabled birds, at that) will be somehow involved.
Can you determine anything about the gameplay in Angry Birds from the titles or splashes? Are they even relevant to gameplay?
Compare this to another fairly simple and popular mobile game; Temple Run, for instance. Were I to tell someone that title, and ask them what the point of the game was, they could easily correctly guess by just restating the title. In Temple Run, this theme is “Indiana Jones Running Away From a Boulder”, which gives a mental picture that perfectly matches the picture of the gameplay itself. So not only does it provide the perfect setting for the “endless runner” type game (giving a very motivating intro of “Take the Idol”, immediately followed by the player running away from whatever may be chasing him), it also gives hints to the kind of obstacles you might be facing, namely those that Indiana Jones might have faced in his archaeological escapades at any point in any of his movies: falling bridges, traps, narrow gaps, long jumps, etc.; everything about the game, from the art/setting, to the gameplay, to the soundtrack (constant tribal drums) is tied into the previously mentioned main concept. If we look at Temple Run with the pillars concept, the main pillars are a little difficult to pin down; “endless runner” is one, and “adventure movie-inspired” is another, alongside “arcade-style high scores“, but it’s difficult to point out a feature and have it only work for one of the three; thusly, Temple Run serves as a good example of having synergistic gameplay features.
Used correctly, synergy can help immerse the player, make the game experience more unique, and unite the game itself in a single core concept. However, synergy can also be a difficult thing to apply; sometimes a game can be too large to tie ALL of its aspects, or perhaps the core gameplay and setting of a game are vastly different, making it difficult to connect the two. A good example of a game that accomplishes this is Metroid Prime.
