Image courtesy of Hypernia Gaming News.

As we saw in part one of our multiplayer series, the mobile multiplayer opportunity is bigger than ever. And there are a lot of reasons you should make multiplayer part of your next mobile release.

But how do you get started with actually implementing multiplayer into your mobile game? There’s a lot to consider. And a bounty that makes it easier than ever to get right. You’ll need to read more than a two-part blog post to master it all, but we’ve done our best to round up as many pointers and links to get you started on the right path.

So let’s dig into part two.

There are rules to mobile

Over the years, mobile gaming has diversified (and then some). Game genres like casual, mid-core, hyper-casual, pay-to-earn and premium now offer very different gaming flavours to a broad audience that offers up a dizzying array of user demographics.

But despite all the differences, a number of universal rules apply for mobile. Mobile gamers often play in short sessions, on the move, or while distracted by other screens. Your multiplayer mode needs to respect that. Now, these rules are really loose guides. What counts as ‘short gameplay sessions’ will vary from genre to genre. And depending on the kinds of social features you’re layering in, you might need to tip-toe away from absolute simplicity. But to give you a place to start:

• Keep it straightforward: Plenty of brilliant MOBAs and competitive FPSs have thrived on smaller devices. But think about how you can cut back excess features and get to the core of what a multiplayer experience is about. You won’t need a suite of distinct modes and options either. That player squeezing in a session while waiting for a bus just wants to dive into the action – not browse a range of multiplayer modes.
• Keep controls simple: Smaller screen = less room for controls. Think about what players can actually do with just two thumbs, and what areas of the screen they can reach. Resist cluttering a phone screen with too many virtual buttons. In Fortnite Mobile, you can see how the same UI element can be tapped or held to register different inputs. Players can also reposition buttons to suit their own preferences. There’s a lot more you can learn about getting mobile control systems right – but most importantly, design simplicity of control into the heart of your game from the start.

Image source: Fortnite mobile

• Keep it satisfying: You want all your players to have fun. Someone is always gonna lose, but it shouldn’t be an entirely negative experience. Give them XP for participating, so they can unlock something later.
• Keep it short: Mobile players tend to squeeze play sessions in short snatches of time, so you want mobile matches or clashes to take up minutes at most (this really does depend on the type of game you’re going for, though). Focus on giving them a core multiplayer loop that emphasises brevity. That will also help retain and monetize your players over time, while building a community around your game.

Step 1: Sort out your Matchmaker

If you’re taking your game multiplayer, you’ll need to set up a matchmaker. These mathematical systems, tools and programs pit your players against each other based on a range of aspects. But the biggest one? Skill. You don’t want a newbie matched up to a seasoned pro. That’s not fun for anyone.

Matchmaking can make or break your retention

Quality matchmaking can even help retention. Your matchmaker should pair up groups of players of a similar skillset – so that those players get the right level of challenge and reward. Too hard? Then it’s not fair. And too easy? It’s not fun. Getting the balance just right gives them incentive to come back.

Make sure to pick a rating system

Short of building your own matchmaker, you’ll need to pick a rating system like the infamous Elo system (which best serves two-player competition) – and the best option for your audience and game type.

Depending on what you go with, matchmaking systems can get complicated. And they need some time maintaining them. But that isn’t a reason to worry or step away from your multiplayer dream.

You can use off-the-shelf options like Microsoft’s TrueSkill 2 or the public domain, Elo-based Glicko-2 – often as a starting point to build your own matchmaking. Better still, you could start with a BaaS (backend as a service) that includes matchmaking support. That will leave you with more time to focus on building and maintaining a great game.

Step 2: Pick out your perfect backend

Tools which offer backend features are everything to an online game – they let you maintain your game, host events, offer leaderboards and social features, manage in-game economies, streamline development workflows, pool data, offer achievements, and more. And some do matchmaking, of course.

Picking a ‘backend-as-a-service option saves you building your own. Instead, you get an out-of-the-box backend option that can plug into and support your game. Our friends at LootLocker, who provide just such a technology, have shared a thorough guide to picking the right backend right here on our blog.

Step 3: Test, and test again

Testing is fundamentally essential to almost every part of your game.

In terms of multiplayer, you’ll be ready to test once that multiplayer mode exists as a minimum viable product (MVP). That means a playable experience that captures the core gameplay loop and complete multiplayer player journey. That’s because you want to be able to test everything from when a player enters a lobby right through to gaining rewards after a victory or loss.

Figure out what you need to test

What do you actually need to test? It depends on what you’re trying to do. You might have players joining sessions from all kinds of devices and OS variants – and you want to be sure they all have a shared, consistent multiplayer experience. You also want to be sure your server can handle everything from the quietest patches to – hopefully – that moment when tremendous numbers want to enjoy your creation simultaneously.

A real challenge here is that you need players to test multiplayer functionality. But you want to get multiplayer right before unleashing your game on the masses. The solution? A carefully planned soft launch process is vital. A soft launch of your ‘almost ready’ future hit before you’ve geared up the marketing machinery gives you a player base to test all kinds of experiences, without exposing an unpolished entity to the full market.

Our own guide to testing hyper-casual titles shares a lot of testing lessons that can be transferred to testing mobile multiplayer.

Step 4: Prepare to scale

You’d think having too many players is a good problem to have. But if your servers aren’t ready for the load, it can actually lead to a bad player experience, and in turn, low retention. Famously, Among Us’ explosion in popularity during the pandemic saw the game struggle with its new popularity. They experienced downtime and long queues. For the devs, more servers (plus some long shifts reworking the game) were the answer.

Fortunately, there’s plenty you can do.

Again, backend tools are your friends on the technical side here. A great many BaaS platforms have scaling support built-in. So as your game grows, so too does the likes of server support.

And while we’re talking severs – put some thought into where they are located. If your game is turn-based in the vein of Words With Friends, you might not need to fret about low latency and lag. Offering simultaneous high-action multiplayer? You really want to host sessions on servers near the players in question. Options by bigger outfits such as the aforementioned Google App Engine are linked to a truly vast network of servers, so may be just what you need.

Start small, and build on it

Having lots of players is great. The idea of having thousands of them join your game simultaneously is a real test of what you’ve built. And the more there are, the more you’ll want things to run smoothly.

The guide here has just been about setting you on the right path. Do more research, follow those links, and make sure to plan time to learn enough to get it right. But be sure even the smallest teams can do it. Among Us prevailed when it had a team of one at the reins.

With the right blend of backend, testing process, matchmaking and thoughtful refined design, a mobile multiplayer triumph that assures the future of your studio is absolutely something you can do.

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Adding multiplayer elements to your mobile game is a straight-up win-win situation. It creates a sense of community, brings a competitive edge, and gives your players a reason to come back. Taking all that on might feel intimidating. But today, building quality mobile multiplayer is easier than you might think.

But how exactly do you make your mobile game multiplayer? What steps do you need to take? And what do you need to consider? We will cover in this two-part article that will help set you on the path to mobile multiplayer glory.

This first part will look at the broad concepts and overarching considerations. And next time, we’ll dive into the tech and techniques for part two.

Yes, your game is suitable for multiplayer

We appreciate there are different types of games. But multiplayer isn’t purely about competition and online shooters. There are so many opportunities around co-operative multiplayer, asynchronous play, community-driven experiences, social play, and even asymmetrical systems inspired by board games. And there is absolutely room for new takes on multiplayer.

Image source: Homescapes mobile game

The point here is that there are no firm rules on what elements of a game can be made multiplayer. That is multiplayer’s ultimate appeal – offering shared experiences or ways to let players compare or combine their game experiences. If you feel intimidated by layering this in, then start simple.

Ask yourself how you can bring any social element to your game. Before tackling anything more advanced, even a simple item trading system might get you started.

Different genres may need different multiplayer features

But what if my game really is a single-player thing. Shouldn’t I stick with that?

We hear you. A handful of genres are, to this day, very much single-player focused. Or at least they appear to be

Let’s say you’re making an entirely conventional mobile 2D shooter (or ‘shmup’, if you prefer). For decades, shmups have been about solo players pushing individual skills to incredible levels. Yet those same games’ two-player modes often feel like a lesser, messier variant of the main game. Sticking in a second-player ship doesn’t always compliment the form.

But today, shmups almost always have online leaderboards so those players can compare scores. That’s a very rudimentary form of multiplayer – but also a starting point for building something more. Why not a team-based shmup, or shmup where a team assumes the role of the enemies or a system where you can hijack weaponry from a leaderboard player in the position below you?

It really depends on how a multiplayer element will add to your game. So have a think, do your research, and maybe even test with different groups of players.

There are four motivations when it comes to multiplayer

Game design almost boils down to meeting the psychological desires of players – that’s as true on mobile, PC, console, or any platform. Understanding what your players want and need from a game lets you build a more successful title.

Fortunately, you don’t need to be a psychologist to understand what motivators you can work with at the design stage to attract players to your game (and keep them playing). And a very specific set of factors inspire multiplayer play. Here are some of the common ‘social catalysts’ to consider leveraging when you build your multiplayer mode:

1. Beating other players

To a greater or lesser extent, we all give thought to how we are perceived in the world. This is true in multiplayer games as much as out here in reality. Competitive gaming and leaderboards offer a chance for players to assert their success and relevance. Giving limited cosmetic items – maybe a certain hat – to successful players also lets them ‘peacock’ their success in future multiplayer appearances, inspiring other users to commit more. And give all your players plenty of stats and badges (or similar) for leveling up. We all like to receive and share indicators for our success and status.

Image source: Pandhuya Niking on Unsplash (thanks!)

2. Mastering a skill

Taking pleasure in doing something well is built into the core of our psychology. It’s an instinct that motivates our species’ forward journey. Mastery is also highly attractive to players in a multiplayer context – because comparing yourself against other people is the mark of mastery. This is connected to social comparison – but here, think about the learning curve and journey your player follows, and be sure that both winners and losers all reap some reward for their effort and progress.

3. Trying something new

We’re all attracted to new ideas and concepts. That same instinct motivates real-world desires to learn, travel, and try new things. So consider how you can make your multiplayer game as distinct as possible – without getting to the point where it is all novelty and too little substance.

4. Connecting with friends

We’re a social species, so community features keep us coming back to games. More than that, they can inspire deep engagement and encourage customers to become evangelists through the likes of streamed content. So be sure to consider community features when designing your multiplayer system. Guilds, friend lists, and team modes are your friends here.

The Bartle Player Types

Related to the above, way back in the 1990s, Dr. Richard Bartle studied players in early online communities. He concluded there are four player types (though we can all embrace parts of each category): Socialisers, explorers, achievers, and killers.

Today, Bartle Player Type theory is often used to guide the gamification on non-gaming projects. But reading up on Bartle’s work could really help you master mobile multiplayer.

Start planning for multiplayer from the get-go

The golden rule for just about every game design and development element is “factor it in from the start”. So if you can design multiplayer into your game from the off, perfect. That means the multiplayer experience is deeply connected to the core game and should be integrated with everything from your character design to your in-game economy.

But if you’re midway into production or you’ve made a dozen updates following the full release of a single-player game? You’re still well-positioned to seize the multiplayer opportunity. There is ample opportunity to introduce a multiplayer mode that also serves as a major, marketable update in the era of maintained games. There’s a good chance it will mean building out an entirely new model, rather than forcing multiplayer onto a solo campaign. But you could dip your toe in the multiplayer waters with a good old online leaderboard.

Multiplayer is the Future

You might want to get dipping that toe into those waters because multiplayer is increasingly becoming a standard in mobile gaming – something players expect and look for. In turn, that is seeing multiplayer becoming a key factor in the success of many of the most popular mobile titles. And smartphone technology is now at a point where remarkable things are possible.

Mobile processing power is now stronger

5G means faster internet connections for smartphone devices. The rise of crypto-gaming and play-to-earn is injecting new interest and investment into social mobile gaming experiences. And the backend technology that enables mobile multiplayer has become more powerful, affordable, and easy to use for teams of all sizes.

Esports is rising in popularity

Elsewhere, esports has certainly proved the appetite for competitive gaming. And now mobile is a major part of that world. The vast and diverse mobile audience is much more multiplayer savvy than ever before and eagerly receptive to a range of connected experiences.

All of which means it’s easier than ever to build quality, successful mobile multiplayer experiences. Add that to the fact that multiplayer can improve your mobile game’s reach, engagement, retention, and overall success, and the question you might have to ask yourself is: ‘why wouldn’t I add multiplayer to my game?’

That’s it for part one. Part two of this series is ready, where we consider technology, practicalities, and mobile-specific design approaches.

We all play games for different reasons. Indeed, as individuals our motivations to play games shift continuously. Whether we’re playing to pursue the respite of escapism, or have some competitive urges to sate, we can all get different things from games at different times.

That statement will likely feel rather obvious. ‘We play games for different reasons’ is a plainly straightforward assertion. But behind it lies considerable nuance; subtleties games makers can identify and harness to guide the design or their games in pursuit of both commercial and critical success.

So what are the leading player motivations, and how can understanding them help your efforts in making and publishing your games?

Let’s start by considering the eight most common player motivation, and how they connect with making a game that engages, retains and – hopefully – monetizes.

1. Competition

With a history spanning everything from some of the earliest arcade games to the most recent esports clashes, competition is a core tenant of many games’ design. It plays on a deep psychological instinct to succeed and survive. In the case of mobile games, competitiveness is harnessed by numerous titles, from Fortnite to Clash Royale. With regard to retaining and engaging players, competition lets users build status within a title – perhaps displayed via rank, on squad banners in lobbies and so on. Having built a reputation or standing within a competitive game, players will come back to maintain and push that status. Importantly, in harnessing the psychology of competition, you need not only provide the competitive gameplay itself – but also rewards and ways for players to communicate and share their successes in-game and beyond.

2. Skillfulness

Closely related to competition, skillfulness appeals to players in that it can provide means to share proof around competency or mastery. It is about the pursuit of status and recognition. Also with its roots in arcade – where 1976’s Sea Wolf introduced the term ‘high score’ – skillfulness can be a part of any game where a player is set against either a system or another player. Broadly ‘skill’ can even include the likes of being competent at interactions with narrative gameplay – but is more commonly understood to refer to the likes of reaction or ‘twitch’ gaming. As with competition, skill can engage and retain by providing players with ways to assert their achievement in a given game – high score presenting the classic example.

While combining skill with hypercasual and casual gameplay might sound like an incompatibility, it can be seen across numerous action puzzle games such as Cut the Rope. Level-based star rating systems also offer a means to keep players returning to a game, where the motivation of skillfulness compels them to pursue securing a three-star (or similar) rating across all levels. Many of us gamers, it turns out,. Are perfectionists.

3. Achieving

Achieving relates to the psychology of making progress and leaving impact. We are all motivated to achieve across various facets of our life – for reasons as varied as self-worth and survival. That is why achievement systems so often compel players to stay with a given game long after any main campaign may be complete. While competition and skillfulness relate to very specific forms of achievement, ‘achieving’ as a category of motivation can include many forms of progress and accomplishment, from clearing levels to unlocking items through gameplay. As such, always have something else a player can achieve if you are looking to extend retention.

Achieving is also linked to the psychological phenomena of ‘loss aversion’, which describes a cognitive bias where the negative feelings associated with potential losses of previous achievements matter more to a player than any positive feelings experienced by making gains of an equivalent value. Loss aversion could encourage players, for example, to invest in an IAP booster that allows them to get over the finish line of a level, rather than losing all their progress up to a point where they have run out of enough turns or lives to complete a level – a mechanic employed early on by Candy Crush Saga.

4. Reasoning

Reason describes our own capacity to deliberately apply logic in the pursuit of better understanding the reality we exist in. It’s an important tool for individually interpreting our surroundings – and key to our species’ intellectual, scientific and technological forward journey. And, much more simply than that, it feels rather rewarding to uncover, discover and unpick information. All of which describes the enduring appeal of the powerfully compelling puzzle genre. Some examples showcase the commercial potential of games with reasoning at the heart of their gameplay. But it’s worth noting that reasoning gameplay can be installed in almost any game genre, particularly through additional modes or secondary and occasional gameplay mechanisms.

5. Creativity

The motivations for creativity are, of course, very broad. For some it is about expression, while for others there may simply be a pleasure in the praxis – the creative process – of actually producing something. In games that allow players to be creative, the psychological motivations are typically around expression and identity.

Customizable player avatars, for example, matter deeply to many players concerned with how they appear in a game. In other cases there are motivations to create content that can be shared across a game and its community. That can assert status within a playerbase – linking creativity to the motivations of achieving, skillfulness and socialising. Offering players ways to not only create and be expressive, but to also share and display their creations, can be vital in fostering and maintaining a particular kind of community.

6. Socialising

The basic motivation behind socializing is part of our biology. We are famously a social species. That our compulsion to interact with others also exists within games, then, should be no surprise. Social games – be they online or local multiplayer, turn-based, cooperative or simply community-centric – speak to our need to interact with other people. Games with social elements engage and retain because huge numbers of players commit time to communities they feel a part of. Certainly, there are players who prefer solitary gaming genres.

The best strategy, then, can be to ensure any game has some optional social element. A multiplayer title like Among Us offers an obvious example of predominantly social gameplay. But what if you’re crafting a single-player arcade genre title? There the likes of online leaderboards, clip sharing, community challenges and so on can help you connect with socially-minded players, without muddling the purity of your game design.

7. Relaxation

Downtime is important time. It’s an opportunity to recover and recharge. And in a stressful world, games offer a place of respite and relaxation for many of us. Sometimes we don’t turn to games for thrills or challenges, or to be scared or excited. Relaxation isn’t just about pleasure – it’s a need; and thus many players are motivated to pursue it, even if they might normally be into particularly demanding fighting games, or a similarly challenging genre. As seen with the success of idlers, mediative, tranquil experiences can not only offer creatively distinct experiences; but they can be tremendously commercially successful.

Even if you are not building a deliberately relaxing experience, consider low-demand modes – perhaps those that remove scoring or time constraints. And remember that relaxing games are often also very welcoming to inexperienced users, meaning they can have a broad hypercasual appeal. Being mindful of accessibility too, can help here, as an accessible game is more welcoming to every kind of player – though don’t assume that players that depend on accessibility only want relaxing games. That is far from the case!

8. Exploration

Anybody who is a gaming ‘completionist’ that can’t step away from a title until every nook and cranny has been thoroughly checked for hidden items and collectibles will know the allure of exploration. It’s a motivation that stems in part from the human need to feel familiar and safe with our surroundings. In games, exploration is common to many genres, and plotting a route through is compelling to large audiences. Offering means to extend exploration, meanwhile, can bring a significant retaining power – players that are set on the pursuit of completion will keep coming back for more. So think about how and where you can add additional motivations for exploration in your game – either outside of a main campaign, or away from the core gameplay mechanisms.

Interpreting Player Motivations

With all of the above in mind, an important question remains. How should a game maker or development team apply an understanding of player motivations? While you can start to think about these factors at the very start of your game design process, the opportunity here isn’t about trying to conceive of a game that capably covers all of the motivations above. Rather, there can be a great deal to be gained from identifying games that lean into or harness similar motivations to your own creation. That affords you the chance to analyse their successes, failings, use of monetization model, release strategy and more. Or, you might simply find a gap in the market where a particular blend of player motivations are underserved by existing releases.

There aren’t many tools that let you meaningfully browse games by player motivation – but we at GamesAnalytics have one. GameIntel, our new mobile intelligence platform, lets you browse games by player motivation, making it much easier to zero in on and learn from relevant releases, giving you an access to a wealth of insight and data. Available affordable with an indie license, GameIntel also provides information that can inform ideation, wider product research, ad campaigns, release strategy, success metrics and more.

And whether you use GameIntel or not, it’s important to remember that the motivation for play will impact the relationship players have with your game, regardless of what genre of game it is. So consider it very carefully indeed.

Making a game is one thing. An impressive, creative and wonderful thing. But a game really comes to life when it is released to players. Being played is a game’s reason to be – and the vital step in starting to generate revenues that let your studio grow, or allow you to begin work on your next title.

As such, getting the release of a game right is about as important as it gets. And in today’s connected era where titles so commonly exist as live, maintained entities, releasing is now about a lot more than making it available for sale.

With all that in mind, we’ve built up a checklist of all the things you need to consider before releasing your games. It’s a list that considers quality, performance, marketing, monetisation and more. Bear in mind that many of these elements take time and planning, so start to think about your release strategy long before wrapping up development happens.

1. Test Everything

Certainly, testing should be about ensuring they meet a certain quality bar – and you are very likely already carefully considering how to test your game’s fundamental performance and user experience. But testing doesn’t stop with squashing bugs. Consider that you can test how players feel the art style works as a compliment to the genre. It can be extremely helpful to test how the theme lands with players, or how subtly different themes connect with and engage your target audience.

It can be extremely helpful to ‘test’ your game against other success stories in the same genre of category by deconstructing those titles and seeing how they compare – so analyse their mechanical design, theming, monetization and release. You can even test your testing; feedback testing will let you understand why players have offered the insight they have. Testing is ultimately a mindset that can be applied to almost any element of your game.

2. Know Your Metrics – and Competitors

If you are to gauge the performance and impact of your game on release, you need a standard to compare it to. Before your release, analyse key performance indicators from a range of games that share the same genre, theme or even monetization model – these will let you understand what ‘success’ looks like. You should certainly check out our guide to hyper-casual metrics if you are working in that space – and it provides insight into the broad process as applied to any genre. Also consider your capacity and budget for promoting and servicing the game as part of that process.

Your studio and EA might have both made a football game, for example, but if they have scale and resources you don’t, a comparison of revenues and marketing strategy might not be meaningful. If you can find similar games by studios of a comparable size, they will offer far more relevant metrics. If those studios appear to be competitors, research how they have released and promoted a game. Our recently launched mobile intelligence platform GameIntel offers a remarkably impactful means to understand your metrics, rivals, the market around you, and much more besides.

3. Pick the Right Monetization Model

The golden rule of successfully matching monetization and gameplay is to build your chosen monetisation model into your game design from the start – perhaps at the earliest prototypes or documentation. Your monetization model’s depth of integration may be key to your success.

It may be wise to resist grand changes, but constantly consider how complementary the match is as you continue to develop your game, and keep an eye on evolutions and developments in monetization. If you’ve opted for an ad-based free-to-play model, for example, and later realise you want to integrate ads contextually into the game world rather than have video ads run, have that thoroughly implemented and tested before release day dawns.

4. Get Your Marketing in Place

You’ll want press or influencer coverage around the release date of your games (because both those groups tend to prefer covering recent and new releases) – meaning you’ll need to get marketing materials ready in advance. Screenshots, gameplay videos, dev blogs, gifs, video and banner ads, store page details and studio profile copy all works here. For a reliable example of what assets and content you need to offer press, influencers and others, we’ve penned a thorough guide to getting your ‘press kit’ right.

You can also build a schedule in advance for social media campaigns. Simply put, different audiences are attracted to different content, so get a broad range out there – video content, written content, social media and so on.

5. Backend Matters

If you have any kind of multiplayer, leaderboards or other online elements, you need a robust backend. You also want to have everything in place for complaints and bug reporting, and be sure that when the time for updates and additional content comes, your backend will be up to the job. The brave can try building their own, but it will likely be better to consider how to pick the right option from backends provided as services

Other Considerations

• If you are releasing in multiple countries, make sure you understand the legal requirements and app store processes for each nation.
• Create a plan for testing the game regularly when live. Monitor how the price of in-app purchase items are impacting sales, and how content updates succeed or fail.
• Test your tutorial with players that are not familiar with your game, and make sure it not only makes sense, but gets players to a point where they stay with your game after the handholding ends. With so many games for players to choose from, smooth onboarding can be make-or-break in terms of your success.
• Make your game as accessible as possible to as many players as possible. Supporting those with visual impairment or hearing limitations can bring in a sizable new audience. And games should be for everyone!
• Have in place a clear roadmap (a plan) for the months and years following release. When will you deliver updates, add content or even release the sequel?
• Make sure all the written copy in your game has been thoroughly edited and proofread for errors. Do that twice if you can. Try to avoid proofing and editing your own copy – a ‘second pair of eyes’ will almost always pick up stuff you won’t.
• Check your calendar. You may want to avoid releasing your game on the same day as any major title – even far from your own genre or platform – so as to not be overshadowed in terms of what gets attention. The same can be true of releasing amidst the news storm of E3 or GDC.

That covers the fundamentals, and you can find plenty more specific insight across our blog. If your release is far away, keep this list in mind so you can refer to it when needed.

And we’ll give GameIntel one more nod here. It can help with a range of the strategies listed above, and particularly with building metrics, understanding rival games, analysing mobile gaming trends and changing user preferences. It even offers tremendous power as an ideation tool. GameIntel is available via a range of generous payment plans, keeping it accessible and powerful for developers of every kind.

Games have a great deal to learn from the likes of architecture, town planning, and even the layout of theme parks. That’s especially true when it comes to level design.

A 3D adventure game, for example, is a space designed to be moved through; just as is the case with a city centre or a Disney resort. Head to Walt Disney World in Florida, and Space Mountain stands out from its surroundings, visible from multiple vantage points. That’s entirely deliberate. Its vertical height contrasts sharply with its environment, drawing the visitor’s eye.

And yet most of the park’s paths to Space Mountain are indirect, taking looping, curving routes. The idea is that visitors are never told where to go. Instead, Space Mountain’s constant presence gently pulls people towards it. Those winding paths, meanwhile, give a sense of exploration and discovery. It’s a fascinating approach, and one that can be applied to games.

Why be subtle when telling players where they need to go?

Certainly, you could always choose to explicitly signpost a route through your next game. You don’t need us to tell you that markers on maps, radar blips, and looming luminous beacons can all be used to guide a player from point A to point B. Sometimes, those methods offer perfect solutions. But what if you want to give the player a little agency; a sense that they are free to explore as they wish, and meet goals without having their handheld tightly throughout? Fortunately, there are ways you can do just that while keeping a significant degree of directorial control over the experience you deliver.

Simply put, a designer can fill a game environment with a subtle language and grammar that can lead a player to where they need to be, without telling them explicitly.

That approach is the subject matter of an intriguing academic paper from researchers at Philadelphia’s Drexel University titled Guiding Players through Structural Composition Patterns in 3D Adventure Games. We’ve used that paper to build this simple guide to its core theories. And fortunately, as much as level design broadly is packed with nuance and craft, the key takeaways here are refreshingly intuitive, and can be readily embraced by designers and developers. In fact, as you go through the techniques you may well realise you have an instinctive understanding of them from your experience as a player.

How can players be guided without explicit signposting?

It starts with a theory of ‘structural composition patterns’. Essentially, a game designer can use contrasts in shape, texture, scale and more to attract players’ attention, and gently nudge them towards a goal or location.

Five golden rules for gentle signposting

Drexel University’s researchers developed the five following techniques to serve as powerful techniques for subtle level design signposting.

1. Use ‘contrasting shape patterns’

Perhaps your game environment has a largely organic feel, with curves and soft, natural textures. Place a rigid, angular structure in the same space, and the player should find a visit hard to resist. It’s a technique seen in Journey, where huge, inorganic towers stand out from their desert surroundings. They lure the player towards a given point without muddying the feel of agency that is so defining of the game’s quality.

2. Frame your destinations

Consider a vast, detailed landscape with a distant building that serves as a checkpoint. The player may entirely miss that structure, unless attention is drawn to it. A framing device such as a literal window can draw the eye, even if momentarily. How might that work in a game? One option is to use a transfer from cut-scene to player control that leaves the camera deliberately looking through a window at that faraway objective.

3. ‘Directional line patterns’ work wonders

‘Directional line patterns’ describe how a pathway can be hinted at without ever showing it fully. It’s a technique evident in very simple 2D platformers. A neat row of flat ledges spread evenly along a single horizontal plane clearly suggests that they should be followed as a path, jumping from one to the next. In 3D games, this approach can be used with great subtlety to suggest the ideal route forward. For example, a selection of ledges on a cliff face that share a similar orientation will, in combination, hint at a path. That gives the player a sense of discovering the route for themselves. It’s worth noting that this was found by the researchers to be one of the most effective of their five concepts.

4. Elevation is your friend

The default view in a third or first-person is arguably looking straight ahead. That is the player’s natural line of sight. Put a hill in the way, and they will have to look up to look forward, potentially to a hilltop structure or similar subtle signpost. With this technique, you can effectively tilt the landscape away from that default line of sight to guide the player’s eye. As with the above, shifting elevation in this way served as one of the most reliable ways to subtly guide players. The researchers point to Uncharted 3 as excelling in use of elevation shifts.

5. Play with scale

In a video game cityscape, a structure that is out of place will attract attention. As such, even moderate increases in scale can make a building appear very pronounced. That can give players just enough of a cue to move them in the right direction. Increases in scale aren’t the only way forward here, but may be the most reliable technique.

So my players will never get lost again?

Not quite. If you want to provide that sense of agency and freedom, there will always be a chance of player misunderstanding or missing cues. That’s something the researchers at Drexel University discovered. Having established the five techniques, they tested them on a number of players with a good amount of gaming experience. That led to some surprising findings. Right-handed players, for example, were more likely to take a right-hand route or see objects to their right as being directional cues.

Elsewhere, individual players’ own preferences led them to be drawn to other objects or structures, rather than the intended cues. Essentially, it’s very hard to absolutely control what a player notices.

Test everything

Just as the researchers tested their five concepts against real players, so should you when it comes to your own game. Don’t simply rely on the approaches above rigidly. Explore their potential for your game, implement them if they feel compatible, and then thoroughly A/B test them with real players. Adapt the rules where needed, and remember that your time as a player of games is a valuable experience here.

Editor’s Note: AudioMob, an advertising platform dedicated to non-interrupting audio ads, recently ran their first (of many) game jams. Here’s what they learned from the experience.

As 2020 came to a close, we ran a game jam that encouraged highly creative development teams to explore integrating a new audio ad format into mobile games.

The jam was an amazing experience for us, one in which we learned a lot. Hosting certainly took a significant investment of effort and time. But it was worth it, bringing us and something we’d recommend any game tech, service, or publishing company consider doing. With that in mind, we wanted to share what we learned, in case you were curious about what happens behind the scenes (or were thinking of running one yourself!).

Running a game jam was hugely rewarding, of course. We got to see brilliantly creative teams unleashed on our technology, and we’ve got to help some youthful talent use our jam as part of a move to take their fledgling studios and turn them into true commercial operations.

What we did and why we did it

At AudioMob, we’ve created a technology that lets developers and publishers monetize their mobile games by placing audio ads within them. In short, an alternative to video ads, letting the user play on as they hear about a brand. As such, we asked our teams to explore how audio ads can be integrated or immersed in games in ways that make them feel part of a given title’s gameplay and aesthetic. The results sincerely blew us away, with teams integrating audio ads into games that used a radio dial as a key mechanic, that placed the audio source as an asset in the game-world, or that even playfully subverted the idea of the ‘commercial break’ to provide a way to play while hearing an ad.

And, of course, we must give an enthusiastic hat tip to our brilliant winning team Yup Studios, and their fantastic entry Dirty Drifters. If you want to see the rest of the games, you can check them out here.

The benefits of a jam

So, what did we get from running a jam? There are some obvious gains; the PR value alone likely offset the cost of devoting time, giving us a wealth of content for our own channels and the press. But that certainly wasn’t our prime motivation for running a jam. We wanted to see how creatively minded teams would work with our tech, while gaining working examples that show how AudioMob can be implemented in ways that complement a game’s creative vision. And we certainly got that; our jam absolutely demonstrated the value and potential of what we do.

Beyond that, the jam gave our infrastructure a thorough real-world test. We already had a system and process established for how we sign up large developers and publishers, distribute our plug-in, provide support to fast working teams, and foster a community around our forward journey. But our jam let us test and refine all those things. Running the jam equally thrust us into the same focused working environment as the teams, meaning responding and supporting in real-time as promptly as possible. And supporting the effort via the likes of social media demanded that we created assets and content as rapidly as possible. We’ve also found some game developers that may become customers, evangelists, or both.

How to get your jam right

As with any type of event, you’re going to need to do a lot of prep work. Again, all those things were well underway before the competition took place. But as a tool to level-up our effort, the jam delivered fantastic results. 

So, what do you need to do to get the most from a jam, for your entrants, and your own business? Here’s what we suggest.

1. Make it worth entering 

This sounds obvious, but be sure to ask yourself why any team would devote time, effort, and resource to your jam. That’s particularly important when teams today have hundreds of jams to choose from each year. We found that giving a jam a highly specific function and theme (in our case audio ads and integration) served to attract the right kind of team, making for a perfect pairing of entrants and aims.

2. Jam’s don’t have to crunch 

The classic 24-hour or 48-hour jam format might be what most of us think of when imagining the defining game dev competition, but we made ours almost a month-long, making sure we didn’t replicate or encourage crunch. That meant a more lengthy support commitment from us, but it also took the pressure off our teams; giving them time to be thoughtful and iterate on their designs. The end result? Better submissions, and more overall gains for all involved.

Although, it really depends on what you’re hoping to achieve, and what the task is.

3. Jams are about focus, not pressure

The longer jam format almost meant our teams could have ‘jam-life balance’; in a year like 2020 in particular, nobody wants a jam impending on work, study, family, friends, health, and more. Ultimately, make it absolutely clear to your teams that you support them in putting other things before the jam. Well-being comes first; reflect this in the rules and plenty of your jam communications.

4. Involve a breadth of your colleagues

Try to get somebody from every department or role at your company involved. That helps provide more complete, exhaustive support for your teams, of course. But it also offers a valuable means to assure that learnings and gains from running a jam dissipate across your organization; and that the jam process has a chance to ‘test’ all those departments.

5. Offer ‘priceless’ prizes

We gave away some cash because we know that will have a tangible impact on fledgling teams. But we also offered prizes such as introductions to publishers and mentoring with industry experts – rewards that go beyond monetary value.

6. Make sure your legal team are on board

Beyond that, you’ll need to treat it like any other business operation; make sure you have watertight rules that legal agree with, be entirely transparent with teams about the process, plan early, and have a clear sense of why you are running a jam.

And don’t forget to enjoy it. Producing and running any event comes with plenty of challenges, but it is so worth overcoming those to be supporting and experiencing the wonderful process that is the creation of games. And that’s a process all of us should have some familiarity with – because, without the making of games, there’d be no games industry at all.