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Systemic Complexity Resources
Polaris Project 2024 - Understanding Systems Suspense
Flow Channel by Mihaly Csikszentmihályi (Mee-hai, Chic-sent-mee-hai)
Watch Will Wright’s Dynamics for Designer for a very high level and academic take on systems that will challenge the way you think about them.
Watch this talk if you are having trouble figuring the vision of your game. How do you iterate to figure out your path? How do you course correct your mistakes if you don’t know where you are trying to get to? As well as other strong tops for what Jonas considers important aspects for a successful game.
Nintendo developers talk about their unconventional approach to creating multiplicative gameplay in Breath of the Wild.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Content that was cut from the talk
Tynan Sylvester talks about the evolution of Rimworld from a wizard school management sim, to mercenary tactics, to spaceship builder, and finally to a colony sim. Each prototype was in pursuit of his grand vision: an AI storytelling generator. The take away is that with each prototype, he kept the parts he liked that served his vision and iteratively evolved his systems until he reached the prototype that satisfied his goal.
Mike Sellers (I highly recommend his book) and Raph Kosters break down systems with Game Thinking TV host, Amy Jo Kim.
Talks on Narrative Complexity
GDC Vault - 'TUNIC': This Was Here the Whole Time
Cut Slides & Terminology
Stochastic - "stochastic" typically refers to a modeling approach that uses randomness, while "random" describes phenomena or events themselves.
Monte Carlo method - mentioned in Will Wright’s Dynamics for Designers talk to illustrate a stochastic model.
Field Level Design in BotW - indirectly related to systems design — this presentation is a gem for world design. A video breakdown of this presentation is found on GMTK’s How Nintendo Solved Zelda’s Open World Problem.
Cognitive Load Theory by John Sweller
Cognitive Load Theory
Yerkes-Dodson Law by Robert M. Yerkes and John Dillingham Dodson
Yerkes-Dodson Law
Performance is how well players apply their skills. Peak performance occurs when players are optimally engaged and immersed in a task.
If you are making a game with mostly systems you’ve never worked on before, you might be signing yourself up for a 10 year project.
Image for the most excellent Advanced Game Design: A Systems Approach by Mike Sellers