More On Game Design Principles: Looting and Items
In my previous article about game design, I discussed issue about choosing subjects that actually appeal to people. This time around I want to cover another aspect of game design, the loot.
Looting and items have been in games since almost forever. They are so ubiquitous it's easy to overlook them as just another meaningless attribute of the medium. That would be a grave mistake, however. Looting and items is one of the most important aspects of game design. Getting it right will make people return to your game over and over again. Fail it however and an otherwise perfect game will somehow be disliked by fans.
When it comes to looting and items one will think of RPG genre first. It by far has the most of item management and such. However, if you think about it, every other genre has their own equivalents too. Even astute FPSs with their no-frills design have new weapons and ammo for existing ones. When you find any, you always dash to pick some. Weapons themselves are by far the biggest prise of them all. There are other items, like heals, armour and various power-ups. However, the biggest thing are of course guns. It lifts your mood high and you certainly want to try it out on some monsters as soon as possible. It's almost as if the real goal of the game is collecting guns and monsters are there just so you have something to try these guns on.
If you think about it, that last sentence a lot closer to truth than anything else. Game designers and gamers themselves pay a lot attention to complexity, challenge, lever design, intelligent AI and what not. However, all of them overlook the most important thing that drives the game, the items and collecting them. It's as invisible as air we breathe and as vital for success of the game as oxygen is for our survival.
If you think about it, all the good and popular games always have plenty of likable items. Take Heroes of Might and Magic III for example, that somehow manages to stay more popular than its countless sequels. Load any map and behold countless items all around you, all shining, glowing and laying around completely defenceless for you to pick them up. You do not need many of them, but you still pick them up, just because. Multiplayer pro players do ignore them and only pick really valuable ones to save time. Looking at them doing so just chokes on something inside, it feels wrong to leave a pile of gold unpicked. Items are the real reason people love it. They want plenty of juicy cool items to pick and play with. Sequels do not have the same appeal just because items there are not as plentiful of shiny.
It works even on a completely barebone browser game, like Vivid Army. You hardly do anything there but open various boxes with items in them and yet it feels satisfying. It's like opening Christmas presents or birthday presents.
Yet it asks the question: why? Why do we love picking items so much.
[continue later]
