Atari 2600 Game Design - Intuitive Design While Embracing Limitations

[RetroFiends]

Hello everyone.

So, over the years game design has evolved to become ever intuitive. A majority of modern (well designed) games can be picked up without ever reading the manual, and that's saying something considering videogames in general are much more complex in the range of actions you can perform and how you can interact with a virtual environment.

 

However, while game design has indeed advanced, Atari 2600 hardware has not. Now, this point can be argued considering the availability of larger rom and ram and better bankswitching methods, which although these points where technically available during later years of the Atari 2600's official lifespan they weren't exactly practical when price came into play.

 

For this discussion, and this discussion is ultimately a learning tool for myself first and others second, I want to focus on ideas that can help to create intuitive gameplay without resorting to larger roms and ram or otherwise wasteful systems to create a "modern feel" in gameplay in Atari games. The object is to design aspects of a game that has a little more substance than the average arcade conversion.

 

Granted, for simpler games most people can pick it up and play without a manual. I never read the instructions for space invaders for example. I'll make a list of Intuitive games, easy to learn via trial and error, and manual neccessary games to give a feel for what I'm talking about.

 

Intuitive; Games that you know what to do within seconds of gameplay.

-Space Invaders

-Pac-Man

-Dig Dug

 

Easy To Learn By Trial And Error; You can apply what you've learned in other games here or the mechanics are simple enough to stumble upon by simply trying different things

- Secret Quest

- Adventure

 

Manual Neccessary

- Starmaster

- Phasor Patrol

- ET

- Superman (Arguable)

- Solaris

 

So, what are some design choices we can do that are efficient and intuitive to communicate to the player how things work in the game world in more complex games? If you're interested in discussion, feel free to give ideas, give criticism to other's ideas, and so forth.

 

Here's an example.

I'm working on a Secret Quest/Zelda esque style game that in addition to a healthy amount of enemy's and objects, there are also some NPCs.

I want the player to know with little trouble that NPC's do not pose a threat. I could:

-Color code NPCs a non-threatening color such as Pink, like I color code objects such as chests or stairs as brown.

-Make NPCs Stationary or otherwise appear "uninterested" in the player.

-I could disable the sword attack when in the presence of the NPC (Assuming I don't want to allow the player to kill them.)

 

Another example.

Say you have a two player collecting game (for example, a two player pacman type game) where the object is to collect more items than your opponent or the AI. You could watch the score to see who was in the lead but that would lose the players attention and perhaps cause the player to unwittingly run into a trap or the other player. You could:

-Make the player who is in the lead an increasingly brighter color and the player behind a darker one.

-The player in the lead could crow in size.

-The player in the lead could slow down the more he eats.

 

Anyone have any ideas? Perhaps on the idea of "context sensitivity"?

[yllawwally]

Have non-hostile npcs face towards the screen, with smiles perhaps, while enemies face left or right. You could also make their hands empty. Only hostile npcs carry weapons.