By Dave Wood
Many of the factors which degrade the performance of the graphic system in a game are not obvious to the average gamer. Some of these considerations are technical in na- ture: e.g., the size and style of type used on the counters; the intensity, surface quality, and range of colors used on the maps as they affect vision; the weights of the lines used to separate sections of charts or forms, etc Although they may not be consciously per- ceived, these factors all add up and impact upon the user as he plays the game. Wrong design choices can conspire in such a subtle manner that the gamer may not be able to pinpoint why the game is troublesome but he'll be aware that something is wrong and is preventing from getting the most out of the game. [Redmond A. Simonsen. "Image and System: Graphics and Physical Systems Design." in SPI Staff, Wargame Design. [Strategy and Tactics Staff Study Number 2], New York: Simulations Publications, Inc., 1977. pp. 57 - 88. p. 58.] In the two previous columns, we've looked at the investment the game publisher requires of the gamer, in terms of evaluation time and the time required to work through the rules. Along the way, we began to establish a set of standards that rely on reasonableness. This month, we'll continue the effort by deriving standards for the other components in the game. [Aside: In one sense, the first columns, this month's column, and probably all future columns amount to a plea for common sense-- common sense as applied to all the components of a game, from the box to the design to the rules to the maps to the counters and so on. For example, does it make common sense for the rules to be organized in the sequence that the player needs to use them to learn to play the game? I think so; and I derived a standard based on that reasoning. If you dis- agree, well and good. However, you should know that future reviews in this column will be based on this kind of standard.] [Further aside: In another sense, these columns amount to a plea to designers to produce what they themselves would expect in a wargame. For example, how many designers expect to buy a wargame whose box doesn't tell them what they want to know about the game? Few, I believe. Is it common sense, then, for a designer to produce a game whose box doesn't contain the kind of information that he would look for? Perhaps some designers don't buy games, they just design them.] While doing some heavy thinking about the basis for this month's column, I spent some time with a top-notch computer programmer. His experience goes back to the days when programming a computer involved patching jumpers on a board, and he has kept current enough to earn six figures by fixing other programmers' programs. We got deeply into an analysis of a detailed Napoleonic game, and my friend was amazed at the sheer quantity of information that the game system required the gamer to understand, evaluate, remember, and act on. He began taking some cryptic notes that he later translated for me, they were the outline for the programming code that would be required just to set up the data base for the game, and it would have been a lot of code. Later, I ran across Redmond Simonsen's comment:
So the designer's task becomes one of how to ensure an unobtrusive, unambiguous information flow between the game and the player. And it's a difficult one. Simonsen again:
The standards in this article reflect this concern with the easy flow of information in the game. Those things that impede this flow will be condemned; those that aid it will be praised. Counters will be designed and executed so that the player can immediately know whom the counters belong to. The first standard involves color. The gamer needs to know - immediately, without pausing to figure it out - which playing pieces are his and which are his opponents. Traditionally, counter designers have used color to separate the units of the players. The player's first perception involves the overall color of the piece; and if they are all the same color, confusion arises. In Clash of Arms' La Bataille de Preussisch-Eylau, for example, some opposing units are printed in precisely the same color. [Third aside: It's interesting to note that this same problem arose, more than once, in history. For example, at Wagram, Napoleon's allies from Saxony wore mostly white uniforms, as did the enemy Austrians. During the evening of the first day, the Saxons attacked the Austrians in the village of Wagram. French allies on their right suffered a setback and mistook the white-coated Saxons for Austrians and began to fire on them. Receiving fire from the Austrians on their front and the French on their flank, the Saxons routed, causing a general rout of several French units around them. And, a few years later in Belglum, Napoleon thought that the dark-blue uniforms approaching on his right flank were Grouchy's; they turned out to be Blucher's.] In many games, several nationalities fight as allies, controlled by the same player. Some designers have allowed their sense of decoration to overcome their common sense and have used a counter background color for each nationality. For a Napoleonic encounter, this kind of design yields a colorful array, but it also initially and perhaps continually confuses the players. In other words, the design has gotten in the way of the information flow. For example, GMT's The Battles of Waterloo's counters show so much color that it becomes confusing. And when the design limits the "background color" to a tiny border around the rest of the decoration, the problem worsens. [Fourth aside.- Designers would also do well to remember that over forty percent of the male population of the US suffers some degree of color blindness. This fact should prevent color combinations like yellow on white, dark colors on dark colors, and so on.] There have been some games for which the counter designer and the map designer apparently weren't on speaking terms. The colors in the resulting map act as perfect camouflage for the counter; the counter simply disappears into the map in certain terrain types. The Gamers' Matanikau gives us a perfect example of a map swallowing up the counters. The two sets of colors blend like jungle camouflage. Camouflage may help battle commanders defend on the real battlefield, but not on the wargame map. Counters will be designed and executed so that the player can immediately know what values the counters present. The second consideration - the unit's values - brings up the typeface bugaboo again. Designers would do well to pay attention to the typefaces used on the counters that they like to play with and on the counters that they don't. They'll soon see that both the size and the style of the type become important. The size should render the type readable from a distance of about one meter: anything smaller than nine points (in most typefaces) will not meet this requirement. The style should be unambiguous - some sans-serif type confuses certain letters and numbers. This point about the confusion of letters
becomes especially annoying when the size of the
typeface is smaller than about nine points, such
as when the designer uses the difference In size to
show different values (or perhaps to distinguish
play information from historical information).
The style should be unambiguous - some sans-
serif type confuses certain letters and numbers.
For example,
III 111lum
This type is set in five-point Helvctica
(the same size as the unit designations in MIH's
Ring of Fire). Can you Immediately see the
difference between the capital "I" and the lower-
case "I"? between the lower-case "I" and the
lower-case "I"? Isn't this clearer?:
This type is also set in five-point; but
this time it's a serif font (Adobe's Caslon, the
same type used throughout this magazine). See
how the serifs help you distinguish the letters?
And the designer should never sacrifice
easy reading for decoration, as when the counters
in Clash of Arms' L'Armee du Nord use an Old
English typeface. (It's been said that the "Old
English" and German "black-face" typefaces
delayed the spread of reading for at least a
century.)
The Old English information is not
necessary for the play of the game, but the
calligraphic information on the backs of the
counters in their La Bataille de Preussisch-Eylau
is, and it's nearly unreadable. Simonsen again:
Or, put another way, any design element
color, type, line weight, table layout, map
symbol, and so on - that calls attention to itself,
rather than to the information it seeks to convey,
is just plain wrong. Forexample, the simple
holding-box type play-aid cards for morale in
The Gamers'Matanikau: their garish colors and
color gradations (is the computer operator
showing off that he knows how to blend between
two colors?) and dropshadow, non-outlined
white type all call attention to themselves to the
point of distraction.
The Battles of Waterloo counters are
perhaps an extreme example of this decoration
versus information problem. Viewed solely as
decoration, these counters represent some
remarkable artwork: each 3/8" area presents a
numature piece of art that, remarkable in itself
as art. But for a counter that conveys information
for game purposes, the art overwhelms the
information. If you want to sit with a magnifying
glass and appreciate the illustrations, these
counters are for you; if you want to use them as
game information, prepare yourself for
difficulties. Very salty soup, indeed.
And is there any reason for L'Armee du
Nord (and other games "In this series) to use two
different styles of type for the game-information
numbers? Nothing in the rules explains this
difference, so there must not be any game reasons for it.
Counters will be designed and
executed so that the player can
immediately discriminate necessary
information from unnecessary
information.
This question of what's information
necessary to play the game and what's
information included merely for historical "flavor"
goes beyond decoration and into the realm of
typefaces and unit symbology. Many designers
seem to want to include unit designations (both
names and numbers) on their counters, even when
the game makes no use of that information.
To discriminate this information, the
designer is left with little except a different size or
style of type. But if the maximum type size
(because of the amount of information on the
counter) comes in at about nine points, the
designer is left with little choice except a smaller
size, which will be practically unreadable. At this
point, the counter merely has some muddy,
unreadable information (that it's there at all almost
requires the gamer to try to find out whether it's
necessary); and the whole process gets in the way
of the really necessary information. The old SPI
games show many examples of this problem.
The unit type also often displays
unnecessary information. If, for example, the
game system doesn't discriminate between
airborne artillery and towed artillery, different
unit symbols can perhaps cause confusion. If a
Napoleonic game, for example, shows ten or
twelve different kinds of horse-mounted unit, but
treats them all the same in the game system, the
gamer has to weed out unnecessary information
to find what he needs to play the game. The
player would be better off, in this case, with one
unit symbol for all kinds of horse unit. Again, the
question of how much salt arises.
At this point, I'd like to praise the recent
design efforts of those counter designers who
seem to be able to simplify the information on
the counters and yet include itall and manage to
give us the flavor of the game at the same time.
Many of these use an outline for the unit type, as
opposed to the old Field Manual symbols.
For example, MIH's Ring of Fire uses
tank outlines to discriminate the armored units in
what amounts to a tank battle with some other
units as supporting players (they get standard
FM symbols); the gamer can see his armored
pieces at a glance, quickly and easily. (This same
approach would have worked in The Battles
Wataterloo, except that there's so much
background behind the outlines that they're hard
to see. Still, they're pretty.)
This kind of outline counter perhaps
reaches its best expression in games whose
counters don't require much in the way of
numerical information. For example, 3W's
Frederick the Great has some of the cleanest
counters I've seen: the unit outlines and even the
tiny flags for the different nations come through
cleanly, convey game information easily, and give
an overall period feel to the game.
The map will use colors sparingly and consistently.
Map design often suffers from the same
faults that counter design suffers from, and
standards for counters should apply equally to
maps. But maps present some specific design
problems, among them the number of different
colors that can reasonably appear on them. If the
designer uses color to discriminate the different
types of terrain on the map, and then uses color
also to discriminate the different elevations on the
map, he may soon run out of colors.
Fifth aside.- I will admit to a personal
prejudice against white areas on a map pure
white as opposed to some other blank color. I
know others who share this prejudice. Few
designers make use of white areas within the
hexes; but those who do, shouldn't.]
Simonsen is instructive:
Perhaps the best approach would be to
use colors to discriminate either terrain or
elevation, but not both, especially in games with
many elevations. (Remember the old SPI
Wellington's Victory?) There are several symbols
generally accepted for terrain, and some few for
elevation.
The Gamers' Matanikau uses several
colors to indicate both terrain and elevation, and
the terrain symbology (woods) overlaid on these
colors give the impression of that many more
colors. The overall feeling is one of confusion.
The map will avoid harsh colors.
Of the maps I've examined recently, their
designers seem to fall into either the harsh school
or the muted school, with (thank goodness) the
last group having the largest membership.
(However, now and then the two will mix, as in
MIH's Ring of Fire, which uses an awful, garish,
dark green chipped marble pattern for woods on
an otherwise plain, muted, effective map.)
Perhaps the worst offender I've seen recently
is the Gamers' Matanikau, whose map writhes
with dark, garish colors (much of which is
unnecessary: the elevation contours are all
marked with numbers and outlines - why have
another color as well?) and suffers from poor
color choice and poor printing quality.
The same kind of praise for good counter
design given above is due sonic of the recent inap
designs. In particular, I'm impressed with sense of
period and color restraint in Clash of Arms'
L'Armee du Nord. The swash calligraphy gives a
feeling of the history, and the overall color tends
to disappear except when needed. So too with the
maps for GMT's The Battles of Waterloo, which
may be some of the prettiest maps I've ever seen.
The map will accurately
represent the battlefield.
Although any map designer will naturally
practice a certain amount of abstraction to get the
physical features of the battlefield to conform to
the hex grid, he should restrain this abstraction
with reasonableness - Paris must be southwest of
Berlin, not due west. (Don't laugh, I once saw a
proposed map like that.)
That may be a crude example, but more
subtle ones can affect the game play. For
example, in GMT's The Battles of Waterloo, both
the Mont St. Jean and the Wavre maps are full of
errors, most of which shift the advantage to the
French. These errors range from omitting several
key Brabantlan farms from the Mont St. Jean
map to putting the Moulin Bierges (a massive
brick watermill) on the southeast, instead of the
northwest, side of the river Dyle.
The map will contain as much playing information as it has room for.
This strange-sounding standard calls
designers' attention to the amount of map that the
game is actually played on and asks them to
consider adding other information in the "dead"
areas. For example, many maps use some portion
of the map to list the terrain symbology, the
elevation colors, etc.; they could just as easily add
information on the effects of terrain on movement
and combat next to the terrain explanation.
Maps also sometimes contain turn record
tracks, holding boxes, and so on. In short, the
designer should watch carefully during playtesting to determine where the dead areas are in
the map, adjust these areas to the borders of the
map, and replace them with useful information
that he might otherwise have to include in play
aid cards and that could be of so much more
immediate use to the player.
Play-aid cards will conform to the
standards for rules, counters, and maps.
This standard simply requires the
designer to apply the good presentation practices
given last month and this month to play-aid
cards. There's not much sense in carefully
producing rules and counters and maps to a set of
standards and then producing play-aid cards to
no standards at all.
But some designers seem to do just that.
I've seen good work done in other areas of the
game accompanied by play-aid cards that look
like they were done by the beginning class at the
local grade school. After all, the players will
probably use a play-aid card more frequently
than they look at the rules: there's just no sense
in giving second-best efforts to them.
For example, MIH's Ring of Fire has good
work in the rules and map and excellent work in
the counters; but the play-aid card suffers from
poor type choice (the whole thing is in a sans-
serif type) and type size: it looks as if it were
meant to be posted on a wall a few yards away,
not used on the game table. Some of the type is as
big as 36-point; the most part of it is about 20-point. Too much of it is in boldface, and much too much of it is in italic and bold italic. The
effect of all that emphasis is that there is no
emphasis at all, a point that escapes those who
haven't yet understood that, when everything is a
scream, a yell doesn't get heard at all. The content
of the card (there are two, printed back-to-back)
is concise, to-the-point, easy-to-use; my
complaints are solely with the look of the thing
which is professional, just misguided.
On the other hand, some play-aids seem
to have been produced at the last minute, with a
complete lack of professionalism. For example,
Clash of Arms' La Bataille de Preussisch Eylau
contains two 11" x 17" sheets of the orders of
battle of the two sides. It appears to be a
xerographic copy of the counters in the game,
arranged by wing, reserve, etc. The resulting high-
contrast image of these very complex counters is
virtually unreadable, and the overall impression
of these play-aids is that they were done as an
afterthought.
Play-aid cards will contain
references to the pertinent rules.
This standard needs the qualifier "where
appropriate," because simple game systems
simply don't require references to the rules. But
for more complicated games, this standard raises
a common-sense point: if the gamer needs to
consult the rules after having consulted the play-
aid card, the pertinent reference is not only
welcome but required; if he doesn't need the
reference, it won't bother him that it's there.
In GMT's The Battles of Waterloo, the
playaid cards (and there are several of them) do a
relatively good job of referencing the rules (but
not, to my mind, good enough). This is a complex
game, both in its rules and in the way the play-
aid cards (both the Terrain Chart and the combat
tables) regulate play. (The Terrain Chart has
fifteen footnotes, in addition to the explanation of
the items in the chart itself) I found myself going
to the rules several times, and when the play-aid
card gave me a reference, I thanked it profusely.
Play-aid cards will conform to
professional standards for tables, charts,
etc.
Rather than set out in detail the traditional
methods by which typesetters and illustrators set
up tables and charts - differences in line weights,
screen weights, type face and style and size
choices, etc. - I will reference the current style
guides that govern most of the industry. Few
typesetters and illustrators actually use these
things, because they have served an
apprenticeship that taught them what to do in
different circumstances. But, for those who
haven't served that apprenticeship, reference to
The US. Government Printing Office Style
Manual, James Felici's The Desktop Style Guide,
Kate Turabians A Manual for Writers..., or The
MLA Style Guide would be helpful.
But designers should remember that
gainers depend on play-aid cards to a great extent
and that carelessness and inattention in their
design and execution does the gamer a great
disservice.
Summary
In summary, the standards in this and
previous columns ask designers to pay attention
to the kinds of things they criticize in other
designers' work; asks them to apply common
sense to all aspects of the game; asks them to
prevent decoration (whether of illustration, type,
design, layout, etc.) from calling attention to itself
instead of to the information it seeks to convey.
The standards apply equally to all aspects of the
game: many of the standards in this column apply
to the rules discussions in last month's column,
just as the standards in that column apply to this
month's discussion.
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