History SoYouWantTo / WriteAVideoGame

Also note that taking gameplay elements ''out'' of the game can, believe it or not, actually improve the product. One of gaming's most recent rave successes, ''VideoGame/TheLastOfUs'', provides a compelling example. The entire duration of TheTeaser, you have extremely limited control over your characters: you can move your character, you can move the camera, there are a couple QuickTimeEvents, and ''that's it.'' "How could that be fun," you ask, "that's bordering on ControllableHelplessness." And the answer is, Yes, it absolutely is... and what else could be more compelling ''in a ZombieApocalypse''? Heck, you don't even have a gun! Sure, ''Joel'' has his little revolver, but the only time he fires it is in a CutScene, and after that he gives it to his brother Tommy to wield. You, ''The Player'', never have a gun. And that increases the sense of triumph when you reach the military perimeter: despite having literally nothing but your feet, you have not only escaped from zombies, but you have carried your daughter Sarah to safety. You are the MostTriumphantExample of an ActionSurvivor. ...And, in addition, this increases the impact of the PlayerPunch when [[FirstEpisodeSpoiler Sarah dies]]; all that hard work, all that desperation, all that sacrifice, [[DownerEnding for nothing]]. It's a brilliant EstablishingCharacterMoment for not only [[ShellshockedVeteran Joel]] but for the game as a whole, and it's accomplished by, essentially, ''not'' letting the player play the game.

* Real-time action games like ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros1'', ''VideoGame/Tetris'', ''VideoGame/{{Portal}}'' and ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'' focus on Controls and Speed, resulting in a game with the qualities of Real-Time and Ease Of Play. The Player Characters in those games can't do a whole lot, in the grand scheme of things, but it's relatively easy to make them do those things. The upsides to this style of game are the (relatively) low barrier to entry; the downsides are the (relatively) limited movesets available to player(s).

* {{Mobile Phone Game}}s are played on cell phones, particularly smartphones these days--AndroidGames and {{iOS Games}} are proliferate. They benefit from extreme portability, as well as the (relative) ease of touchscreen controls, but but most people don't have time to play a smartphone game for more than about 3 minutes at a time, so you'd better design the game accordingly. Additionally, whereas computers come with a 101-key keyboard and mouse, and consoles with a minimum of Thumbstick, D-Pad, 4 face buttons and 2 Shoulder buttons[[note]]and sometimes +2 shoulder buttons, +1 thumbstick, buttons _under_ the thumbsticks, and even a touch-sensitive interface if you're a [=DualShock=] 4[[/note]], a touchscreen phone has only... its touchscreen to display controls on. You will need to think hard about your GUI and how you want to display things. This is not to say that you ''can't'' have titles on a phone from genres that are normally dominated by computers (such as RealTimeStrategy title ''[[http://www.tactile-wars.com/en Tactile Wars]]'') or consoles (HackAndSlash ''[[https://www.rayark.com/g/implosion/ Implosion: Never Lose Hope]]''; ActionRPG ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXV: Pocket Edition''); it is simply to say that it's easier for the player to get in their own way on a phone.

Because games can be, and are, updated on a regular basis, it's become increasingly acceptable to take an ObviousBeta, declare it meets your MVP, and ship it, often by MovingTheGoalposts to accommodate the product that currently exists. '''''Whatever you do, don't do this.''''' Very few games that shipped half-finished were financial successes, because the simple fact is that if players are going to spend a full game's worth of money, they want to receive a full game's worth of content for it, ''today'', not tomorrow. Even worse, because of the way people play games these days, they're gonna go through content fast. People who make smartphone games can tell horror stories about how they shipped games which, they thought, had months of content, only to have players get through it in days or even ''hours''. When this happens, players lose interest, and fast. The fate of games like ''VideoGame/FalloutShelter'' and ''VideoGame/{{Titanfall}}'' are examples of games that ''could'' have gotten huge... had they been released with sufficient content. But no: someone took a half-finished version and declared it the the Minimum Viable Product, even though it couldn't hold people's attention. And didn't.

** '''Competitive''': In ''VideoGame/ClashOfClans'', players can only be attacked whilst offline, with the AI controlling your defenses on your behalf. The Creator/Suda51 game ''VideoGame/LetItDie'' is a ''VideoGame/DarkSouls''-influenced permadeath {{roguelike}} where your slain character becomes an NPC enemy in a randomly-selected instance (yours, someone else's, whatever). If you kill a former PlayerCharacter this way, you get extra loot; if it kills ''you'', its owner gets bonuses. A lot of mobile games use this model because it allows you to "participate" (defensively) in battle even if you are not on your phone; additionally, because [[ArtificialStupidity AI typically isn't very good]], it means that most players will win -- a thing most players enjoy doing.

Like any other trope, ludonarrative dissonance can be employed deliberately; ''[=BioShock 1=]'' did so, as did ''SpecOpsTheLine''. You have to be really careful about doing so, though, because the only thing it can possibly do is piss The Player off. ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2SonsOfLiberty'' is the poster child for this subversion -- especially because it's the game whose critical analysis gave us the Player Objective / Actor Objective terminology. In ''[=MGS2=]'', the two were constantly at odds; Raiden might defeat a boss, but would never get to deal the finishing blow; and succeeding at sneaking aboard Arsenal Gear would result in Raiden getting captured (and having to escape [[MaleFrontalNudity butt-nekkid]]) and the destruction of the Plant which he had worked so hard to save. People didn't like playing as Raiden, because he never seemed to succeed at what he was trying to do. This was ''very'' much intentional; the whole point of Raiden as a character was to make fun of, or perhaps deconstruct, ''the player'', and their Player Objective of "Relive ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'' and get to be a badass like Solid Snake." Through Raiden, series creator Hideo Kojima was able to point at players and laugh: "You wanted to be Solid Snake. ''You are''. Contemplate ThePerilsOfBeingTheBest. Look at what a wreck Snake is. ThisLoserIsYou." This upset players [[SarcasmMode for some reason]]. Alienating your audience is a ''very'' dangerous thing to do, even if on purpose. So DoNotTryThisAtHome, unless you're 100% sure you know what you're doing.

* Real-time action games like ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros1'', ''VideoGame/GunsOfIcarus'' and ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'' focus on Controls and Speed, resulting in a game with the qualities of Real-Time and Ease Of Play. The Player Characters in those games can't do a whole lot, in the grand scheme of things, but it's relatively easy to make them do those things. The upsides to this style of game are the (relatively) low barrier to entry; the downsides are the (relatively) limited movesets available to player(s).
* Turn-based games focus on Controls and Complexity, resulting in something that's comprehensive and easy to play (InterfaceScrew and GuideDangIt notwithstanding). Think about TabletopGames/{{chess}}, or FourX games, or even ''TabletopGames/DungeonsAndDragons'': there are a ''lot'' of things you can do in these games, but you cannot do them in anything even approaching real time. The result is a cerebral, strategic style of gameplay that will appeal to certain people and bore others to death.
* RealTimeStrategy and FightingGames have Complexity and Real Time, but result in high Complexity. A lot of fighting games have SomeDexterityRequired (hello, [[VideoGame/SoulCalibur Calamity Symphony]]) or require an entire keyboard for the number of buttons. This kind of game is good for people who can memorize a lot of information, but bad for people who just want to pick up and play.

* Real-time action games like ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros'', ''VideoGame/GunsOfIcarus'' and ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'' focus on Controls and Speed, resulting in a game with the qualities of Real-Time and Ease Of Play. The Player Characters in those games can't do a whole lot, in the grand scheme of things, but it's relatively easy to make them do those things. The upsides to this style of game are the (relatively) low barrier to entry; the downsides are the (relatively) limited movesets available to player(s).

* {{Mobile Phone Game}}s are played on cell phones, particularly smartphones these days--AndroidGames and {{iOS Games}} are proliferate. They benefit from extreme portability, as well as the (relative) ease of touchscreen controls, but but most people don't have time to play a smartphone game for more than about 3 minutes at a time, so you'd better design the game accordingly. Additionally, whereas computers come with a 101-key keyboard and mouse, and consoles with a minimum of Thumbstick, D-Pad, 4 face buttons and 2 Shoulder buttons, a touchscreen phone has only... its touchscreen to display controls on. You will need to think hard about your GUI and how you want to display things. This is not to say that you ''can't'' have titles on a phone from genres that are normally dominated by computers (such as RealTimeStrategy title ''[[http://www.tactile-wars.com/en Tactile Wars]]'') or consoles (HackAndSlash ''[[https://www.rayark.com/g/implosion/ Implosion: Never Lose Hope]]''); it is simply to say that it's easier for the player to get in their own way on a phone.

GameplayAndStorySegregation is a significant problem. You need to make sure your story and gameplay are encouraging The Player towards the same goals.

A quick foreward: to formalize vocabulary for this section, we are going to borrow some terms from James Howell's seminal work of games criticism, "[[http://www.deltaheadtranslation.com/MGS2/ Driving Off the Map]]." Particularly, we are going to talk about '''Player Objectives''' -- the things which a human being, sitting around in RealLife playing VideoGames, hopes to achieve -- and '''Actor Objectives''' -- the things which the PlayerCharacter, an in-game entity controlled by the player, hopes to achieve. These two are not always the same; for instance, in the ''The Last Of Us'' example above, Joel has the Actor Objective of saving his daughter, while the player has the Player Objective of correctly manipulating the Dualshock 3 controller in a way that results in Joel navigating through the in-game world, avoiding obstacles and zombie attacks. These are being established because conflicts between the two sets of objectives are not always in accord.

Sometimes Player Objectives beat Actor Objectives. ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'', and its notorious ending, is an example. Per WordOfGod, the CentralTheme of the story is, "[[TheChainsOfCommanding You can't save everyone]]." WarIsHell, and somewhere along the line you're going to have to choose [A] over [B] and watch [B] die a fiery, dramatic, slow-motion death with OneWomanWail in the background. In other words, there is no GoldenPath where you get absolutely everyone on your side. The salarians still believe that inflicting a SterilityPlague on the krogan, and resulting ChildlessDystopia, was justified? Then you have to pick between them and the krogan. The quarians won't stop fighting their RobotWar against the geth? Then you have to choose one or the other. This is a very effective Actor Objective, and the resulting game would have been awesome -- arguably, better than what we actually got (and what we actually got was pretty darn good, notorious ending notwithstanding). The ''problem'' is, Player Objectives mandate the inclusion of a GoldenPath. There's been one for the other two games in the series, and CentralTheme of ''the series'' is, "You can ''always'' TakeAThirdOption." For the third game to discard this would absolutely confound Player Objectives. So they kept the GoldenPath; it exists. You ''can'' get the quarians and geth to reconcile; and the salarians come around if you stick to your guns on the matter of the genophage. Even worse, situations in which there genuinely ''was'' no Third Option--in which you must condemn someone to death, with no recourse whatsoever, as you did on Virmire--were DummiedOut. ([[spoiler:It was to have been on Thessia: Liara and the Virmire Survivor were going to be your mandatory squad members, and you'd only have time to save one when the temple floor collapsed.]]) Thus, Actor Objectives were defeated by Player Objectives. The game tells you that you will have to do one thing but lets you do another. And, even worse, [[PoorCommunicationKills the writers weren't told about it]], with the result that there's no GoldenEnding even though there ''is'' a GoldenPath. (That disconnect is part of why the ending was so notoriously ill-received.)

''VideoGame/BioShock1'' had a similar issue: Actor Objectives mandate that you spare the Little Sisters, {{Heartwarming Orphan}}s who are victims of a heartless system, but Player Objectives are to kill them, because if you don't, ''you can't buy new magic powers.'' And the magic is kind of important in Rapture, not just as a plot point (the game takes place AfterTheEnd was brought about by ''abuse'' of Plasmids) but because your character, Jack, is barely one step up from an ActionSurvivor, and needs all the help he can get. Ken Levine at least had the wit to include MultipleEndings depending on which decision you made, but it still eroded the {{escapism}} that video games often offer as one of their prime selling points, because killing Little Sister resulted in the ''bad'' ending. Player Objectives were defeated by Actor Objectives because ''the game punishes you for accessing its content.'' This conflict was so egregious that someone actually coined an entire new term, "ludonarrative dissonance," to describe Actor Objective / Player Objective conflict.

Now, like any other system, the alignment of Actor Objective / Player Objective can be subverted; ''[=BioShock 1=]'' did so on purpose, as did ''SpecOpsTheLine''. You have to be really careful about doing so, though, because the only thing it can possibly do is piss The Player off. ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2SonsOfLiberty'' is the poster child for this subversion -- especially because it's the game whose critical analysis gave us the Player Objective / Actor Objective dichotomy. In ''[=MGS2=]'', the two were constantly at odds; Raiden might defeat a boss, but would never get to deal the finishing blow; and succeeding at sneaking aboard Arsenal Gear would result in Raiden getting captured (and having to escape [[MaleFrontalNudity butt-nekkid]]) and the destruction of the Plant which he had worked so hard to save. People didn't like playing as Raiden, because he never seemed to succeed at what he was trying to do. This was ''very'' much intentional; the whole point of Raiden as a character was to make fun of, or perhaps deconstruct, ''the player'', and their Player Objective of "Relive ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'' and get to be a badass like Solid Snake." Through Raiden, series creator Hideo Kojima was able to point at players and laugh: "You wanted to be Solid Snake. ''You are''. Contemplate ThePerilsOfBeingTheBest. Look at what a wreck Snake is. ThisLoserIsYou." This upset players [[SarcasmMode for some reason]]. Alienating your audience is a ''very'' dangerous thing to do, even if on purpose. So DoNotTryThisAtHome, unless you're 100% sure you know what you're doing.

Sometimes Player Objectives beat Actor Objectives. ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'', and its notorious ending, is an example. Per WordOfGod, the CentralTheme of the story is, "[[TheChainsOfCommanding You can't save everyone]]." WarIsHell, and somewhere along the line you're going to have to choose [A] over [B] and watch [B] die a fiery, dramatic, slow-motion death with OneWomanWail in the background. In other words, there is no GoldenPath where you get absolutely everyone on your side. The salarians still believe that inflicting a SterilityPlague on the krogan, and resulting ChildlessDystopia, was justified? Then you have to pick between them and the krogan. The quarians won't stop fighting their RobotWar against the geth? Then you have to choose one or the other. This is a very effective Actor Objective, and the resulting game would have been awesome -- arguably, better than what we actually got (and what we actually got was pretty darn good, notorious ending notwithstanding). The ''problem'' is, PlayerObjectives mandate the inclusion of a GoldenPath. There's been one for the other two games in the series, and CentralTheme of ''the series'' is, "You can ''always'' TakeAThirdOption." For the third game to discard this would absolutely confound Player Objectives. So they kept the GoldenPath; it exists. You ''can'' get the quarians and geth to reconcile; and the salarians come around if you stick to your guns on the matter of the genophage. Even worse, situations in which there genuinely ''was'' no Third Option--in which you must condemn someone to death, with no recourse whatsoever, as you did on Virmire--were DummiedOut. ([[spoiler:It was to have been on Thessia: Liara and the Virmire Survivor were going to be your mandatory squad members, and you'd only have time to save one when the temple floor collapsed.]]) Thus, Actor Objectives were defeated by Player Objectives. The game tells you that you will have to do one thing but lets you do another. And, even worse, [[PoorCommunicationKills the writers weren't told about it]], with the result that there's no GoldenEnding even though there ''is'' a GoldenPath. (That disconnect is part of why the ending was so notoriously ill-received.)

''VideoGame/BioShock1'' had a similar issue: Actor Objectives mandate that you spare the Little Sisters, {{Heartwarming Orphan}}s who are victims of a heartless system, but Player Objectives are to kill them, because if you don't, ''you can't buy new magic powers.'' And the magic is kind of important in Rapture, not just as a plot point (the game takes place AfterTheEnd was brought about by ''abuse'' of Plasmids) but because your character, Jack, is barely one step up from an ActionSurvivor, and needs all the help he can get. Ken Levine at least had the wit to include MultipleEndings depending on which decision you made, but it still eroded the {{escapism}} that video games often offer as one of their prime selling points, because killing Little Sister resulted in the ''bad'' ending. Player Objectives were defeated by Actor Objectives because ''the game punishes you for playing it to its fullest extent.'' This conflict was so egregious that someone actually coined an entire new term, "ludonarrative dissonance," to describe Actor Objective / Player Objective conflict.

Now, like any other system, the alignment of Actor Objective / Player Objective can be subverted; ''[=BioShock 1=]'' did so on purpose, as did ''SpecOpsTheLine''. But you have to be really careful about doing so. Another extremely controversial game, ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2SonsOfLiberty'', caught a lot of flak ''because'' it did so. Actor Objectives and Player Objectives were constantly at odds; Raiden might defeat a boss, but would never get to deal the finishing blow; and succeeding at sneaking aboard Arsenal Gear would result in Raiden getting captured (and having to escape [[FrontalMaleNudity butt-nekkid]]) and the destruction of the Plant which he had worked so hard to save. People didn't like playing as Raiden, because he never seemed to succeed at what he was trying to do. This was ''very'' much intentional; the whole point of Raiden as a character was to make fun of, or perhaps deconstruct, ''the player'', and their Player Objective of "Relive ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'' and get to be a badass like Solid Snake." Through Raiden, series creator Hideo Kojima was able to point at players and laugh: "ThisLoserIsYou." Players didn't enjoy that for some reason. Alienating your audience is a ''very'' dangerous thing to do, even if on purpose, and "alienating your audience" is the only thing misalignment of Player Goals and Actor Goals can possibly achieve. So DoNotTryThisAtHome, unless you're 100% sure you know what you're doing.

Graphics are always a big thing in video games these days. Everyone wants good ones... but creating good ones takes a lot of time and effort. It can also require a great deal of processing power in terms of the hardware necessary to run your game. Even worse, graphics ''age''. Games that were considered to have stellar, cutting-edge graphics ten years ago (''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion'', ''VideoGame/TheSims II'', ''VideoGame/{{Battlefield}} II'') look dated today. One simple workaround is to look at games which ''don't'' look dated--''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker'', ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' and ''VideoGame/{{Limbo}}'' come to mind. What do these games have in common? Simple: they don't try to be photorealistic. Instead, they have an ''art style'' with graphics that aren't ''supposed'' to look like "reality" and instead like... well, whatever they're trying to achieve (cel shading, sliding silhouettes, etc). And, since they achieve it, their graphics become timeless. There's a Sliding Scale Of Photorealistic Vs. Artistic, and while both of them take money, the second one lasts longer.

Beware, ''beware, '''beware''''' the trap called the "Minimum Viable Product." As the term suggests, this is a benchmark that you and/or your team sets, representing the absolute most bare-bones version of the game that can be released to consumers. Exactly what this benchmark consists of -- what the core loop looks like, how many extras are available, how much content you have, if there is multiplayer, etc -- is going to depend on the nature of your product itself. For instance, for Creator/TelltaleGames, the MVP is "An engine and 20% of the content" because their games are episodic and the "Expansion Packs" consist solely of data that is slotted in later. But if you're on the team that made the original ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' your minimum is "the engine, ''all'' the content, and every bell and whistle we decide to add (including some extremely-well-hidden option that [[UrbanLegendOfZelda lets you revive Aerith]])." This can vary even within your genre; the creators of the [[MultiplayerOnlineBattleArena MOBA]] ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'' decided to ship their game with 40 characters, whereas the competing ''VideoGame/{{Demigod}}'' went out with a mere ''eight''. (And that's why you've never heard of ''Demigod''.) Additionally, it's going to go up and down as the product evolves -- this is done, that is not; we can't implement this feature for various reasons; ExecutiveMeddling requires us to add [this], whether or not it fits. ''And'' it's prey to the current climate of gaming, specifically the "Games As Service" model that dominates. Because games can be, and are, updated on a regular basis, it's become increasingly acceptable to take an ObviousBeta, declare it meets your MVP, and ship it. ''Whatever you do, don't do this.'' Very few games that shipped half-finished were financial successes, because the simple fact is that if players are going to spend a full game's worth of money, they want to receive a full game's worth of content for it, ''today'', not tomorrow. Even worse, because of the way people play games these days, they're gonna go through content fast. People who make smartphone games can tell horror stories about how they shipped games which, they thought, had months of content, only to have players get through it in days or even ''hours''. When this happens, players lose interest, and fast. The fate of games like ''VideoGame/FalloutShelter'' and ''VideoGame/{{Titanfall}}'' are examples of games that ''could'' have gotten huge... had they been released with sufficient content. But no: someone took a half-finished version and declared it the the Minimum Viable Product, even though it couldn't hold people's attention. And didn't.

* The model pioneered by [=MMORPGs=] and Microsoft are the "Games As Service" model. You create a game, you release it, you update it frequently. There are multiple places you can make money: [=MMOs=] charge a monthly subscription, for instance, while most {{Mobile Phone Game}}s that use this model place limits, sometimes artificial ones, on gameplay and then offer "In-App Purchase" options to let you get around it--''VideoGame/FarmVille'' forces you to expend Energy on every action and regenerates it slowly (1 charge every 15 minutes, one charge every hour, etc), but allows you to purchase more for real money. They may also allow you to LevelGrind your way to certain bonuses or simply buy them for convenience and time-saving. This can verge into BribingYourWayToVictory, but the company's not likely to care, since they're the people you're bribing--and, in well-designed games, the fact that players ''can'' buy power will be worked into the CompetitiveBalance.

Now, like any other system, the alignment of Actor Objective / Player Objective can be subverted; ''[=BioShock 1=]'' did so on purpose, as did ''SpecOpsTheLine''. But you have to be really careful about doing so. Another extremely controversial game, ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2SonsOfLiberty'', caught a lot of flak ''because'' it did so. Actor Objectives and Player Objectives were constantly at odds; Raiden might defeat a boss, but would never get to deal the finishing blow; and succeeding at sneaking aboard Arsenal Gear would result in Raiden getting captured (and having to escape [[FrontalMaleNudity butt-nekkid]]) and the destruction of the Plant which he had worked so hard to save. People didn't like playing as Raiden, because he never seemed to succeed at what he was trying to do. This was ''very'' much intentional; the whole point of Raiden as a character was to make fun of, or perhaps deconstruct, ''the player'', and their Player Objective of "Relive ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'' and get to be a BadAss like Solid Snake." Through Raiden, series creator Hideo Kojima was able to point at players and laugh: "ThisLoserIsYou." Players didn't enjoy that for some reason. Alienating your audience is a ''very'' dangerous thing to do, even if on purpose, and "alienating your audience" is the only thing misalignment of Player Goals and Actor Goals can possibly achieve. So DoNotTryThisAtHome, unless you're 100% sure you know what you're doing.

Sometimes Story loses to Gameplay. ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'', and its notorious ending, is an example. Per WordOfGod, the CentralTheme of the story is, "[[TheChainsOfCommanding You can't save everyone]]." WarIsHell, and somewhere along the line you're going to have to choose [A] over [B] and watch [B] die a fiery, dramatic, slow-motion death with full OneWomanWail soundtrack in the background. In other words, there is no GoldenPath where you get absolutely everyone on your side. The salarians still believe that inflicting a SterilityPlague on the krogan, and resulting ChildlessDystopia, was justified? Then you have to pick between them and the krogan. The quarians won't stop fighting their RobotWar against the geth? Then you have to choose one or the other. The ''problem'' is, having no GoldenPath--especially in the final game of a trilogy, where The Player (correctly) expects you to wrap up all your loose ends--is a bad gameplay experience. It's also dissonant with the previous two games, which ''did'' feature {{Golden Path}}s. So they kept the GoldenPath; it exists. You ''can'' get the quarians and geth to reconcile; and the salarians come around if you stick to your guns on the matter of the genophage. Even worse, situations in which there genuinely ''was'' no Third Option--in which you must condemn someone to death, with no recourse whatsoever, as you did on Virmire--were DummiedOut. ([[spoiler:It was to have been on Thessia: Liara and the Virmire Survivor were going to be your mandatory squad members, and you'd only have time to save one when the temple floor collapsed.]]) Thus, Story was defeated by Gameplay. And, even worse, [[PoorCommunicationKills the writers weren't told about it]], with the result that there's no GoldenEnding even though there ''is'' a GoldenPath. (That disconnect is part of why the ending was so notoriously ill-received.)

''VideoGame/BioShock1'' had a similar issue: the story encouraged you to spare the Little Sisters, {{Heartwarming Orphan}}s who are victims of a heartless system, but ''gameplay'' encourages you to kill them, because if you don't, ''you can't buy new magic powers.'' And the magic is kind of important in Rapture, not just as a plot point (the game takes place AfterTheEnd was brought about by ''abuse'' of Plasmids) but because your character, Jack, is barely one step up from an ActionSurvivor, and needs all the help he can get. Ken Levine at least had the wit to include MultipleEndings depending on which decision you made, but it still eroded the {{escapism}} that video games often offer as one of their prime selling points. In this example, Gameplay lost to Story, because if you play the game to its fullest extent, buy a bunch of powers, and have fun, ''you're punished with the Bad Ending.'' This conflict was so egregious that someone actually coined an entire new term, "ludonarrative dissonance," to describe situations when Gameplay says to do the opposite of what Story does.

The point is this: games are supposed to be fun, so make sure the story is encouraging you to have the same kind of fun that gameplay is. Don't punish the player for accessing basic features of the game. But likewise, don't come up with story reasons for the player to be locked out of basic features either. Everything should point in the same direction: You Get To Do [X]. And there's no reason, narrative or mechanical, why you can't.

** AsymmetricMultiplayer is where the two teams have ''different'' goals. Some ''VideoGame/UnrealTournament'' or ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' matches involve one side attacking a fixed position and the other defending it, which has significant impact on the strategies and tactics each side uses. The recent FirstPersonShooter ''VideoGame/{{Evolve}}'' revolves around this trope: all matches are 4v1, with human Hunters pitted against one very large alien Monster. Again, the downside of this is in balancing. Each character / ability / job class / whatever is probably stronger at offense than at defense (or vice versa), and yet it still needs to be viable when being used on the "wrong" side, so that the StopHavingFunGuys don't make too much noise.

** '''Competitive''': In ''VideoGame/ClashOfClans'', players can only be attacked whilst offline, with the AI controlling your defenses on your behalf. The Creator/Suda51 game ''VideoGame/LetItDie'' is a ''VideoGame/DarkSouls''-influenced permadeath {{roguelike}} where your slain character becomes an NPC enemy in a randomly-selected instance (yours, someone else's, whatever). If you kill a former PlayerCharacter this way, you get extra loot; if it kills ''you'', its owner gets bonuses.

Beware of {{Moon Logic Puzzle}}s, but also beware of the opposite: AcceptableBreaksFromReality. Video gamers are GenreSavvy enough to know that everything they can do is something you gave them the option to do. They have also played a ''lot'' of video games where they tried to TakeAThirdOption and were unable to because ''you'', the '''programmer''', didn't realize they'd want to. The combination of "most developers are stupid" and "But I'm not" can be some ''serious'' GuideDangIt moments. Two free examples: in ''VideoGame/GodOfWarII'', there's a puzzle that you solve by raising a timed platform, which is shaped like a T, and then wedging it in the air using a pushable block. The problem is that you can only do this if the T-shaped platform has the collision physics ''of'' a T-shaped platform, instead of just being a giant rectangle, which is the way most programmers would do it to save time. The other is from the seminal ''VideoGame/SpecOpsTheLine''. Late in the game, one of your NPC friends is strung up by a civilian lynch mob, with your characters coming across the process too late to stop it. The game suggests either letting them go or slaughtering the civilians; the [[TakeAThirdOption Third Option]], FiringInTheAirALot to scare them off, works pretty well in RealLife but might not in a video game because the civilians might not be programmed to be intimidated that way. These are just two examples where the Dev Team Thinking Of Everything actually resulted in the Dev Team Failing To Think Of Everything. DevelopersForesight is ''nowhere'' near as prevalent as it could be, and ''players know that''. So never forget: players know that their choices are artificially limited by ''your'' decision-making capabilities. It will take a lot of coaching, and a lot more excellent gameplay design, before this fact ceases to hold sway over gamers.

Beware, ''beware, '''beware''''' the trap called the "Minimum Viable Product." As the term suggests, this is a benchmark that you and/or your team sets, representing the absolute most bare-bones version of the game that can be released to consumers. Exactly what this benchmark consists of -- what the core loop looks like, how many extras are available, how much content you have, if there is multiplayer, etc -- is going to depend on the nature of your product itself. For instance, for Creator/TelltaleGames, the MVP is "An engine and 20% of the content" because their games are episodic and the "Expansion Packs" consist solely of data that is slotted in later. But if you're on the team that made the original ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' your minimum is "the engine, ''all'' the content, and every bell and whistle we decide to add (including some extremely-well-hidden option that [[UrbanLegendOfZelda lets you revive Aerith]])." This can vary even within your genre; the creators of the [[MultiplayerOnlineBattleArena MOBA]] ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'' decided to ship their game with 40 characters, whereas the competing ''VideoGame/{{Demigod}}'' went out with a mere ''eight''. (And that's why you've never heard of ''Demigod''.) Additionally, it's going to go up and down as the product evolves -- this is done, that is not; we can't implement this feature for various reasons; our investors want us to have [this] in it, so we have to add it in. ''And'' it's prey to the current climate of gaming, specifically the "Games As Service" model that dominates. Because games can be, and are, updated on a regular basis, it's become increasingly acceptable to take an ObviousBeta, declare it meets your MVP, and ship it. ''Whatever you do, don't do this.'' Very few games that shipped half-finished were financial successes, because the simple fact is that if players are going to spend a full game's worth of money, they want to receive a full game's worth of content for it ''today'', not tomorrow. Even worse, because of the way people play games these days, they're gonna go through content fast. People who make smartphone games can tell horror stories about how they shipped games which, they thought, had months of content, only to have players get through it in days or even ''hours''. When this happens, players lose interest, and fast. The fate of games like ''VideoGame/FalloutShelter'' and ''VideoGame/{{Titanfall}}'' are examples of games that ''could'' have gotten huge... had they been released with sufficient content. But no: someone took a half-finished version and declared it the the Minimum Viable Product, even though it couldn't hold people's attention. And didn't.

* {{Mobile Phone Game}}s are played on cell phones, particularly smartphones these days--AndroidGames and {{iOS Games}} are proliferate. They benefit from extreme portability, as well as the (relative) ease of touchscreen controls, but but most people don't have time to play a smartphone game for more than about 3 minutes at a time, so you'd better design the game accordingly. Additionally, whereas computers come with a 101-key keyboard and mouse, and consoles with a minimum of Thumbstick, D-Pad, 4 face buttons and 2 Shoulder buttons, a touchscreen phone has only... its touchscreen to display controls on. You will need to think hard about your GUI and how you want to display things. This is not to say that you ''can't'' have titles on a phone from genres that are normally dominated by computers (such as RealTimeStrategy title ''[[http://www.tactile-wars.com/en Tactile Wars]]'') or consoles (SpectacleFighter ''[[https://www.rayark.com/g/implosion/ Implosion: Never Lose Hope]]''); it is simply to say that it's easier for the player to get in their own way on a phone.

** The deconstruction: Although meta-games do overlap with this, it's different. As with any medium, videogames have set traditions, and as with any medium they can sometimes be seen as negative. The best of these games are often meta because they have to draw you into the world and shred your fantasies before you. There is a blurred line at the end of serious meta games and deconstructions. EpicBattleFantasy 4 is on the lighter end, deconstructing kleptomaniacs running around [[KleptomaniacHero who happen to care about the world and want to stop it being destroyed]]. Then you have VideoGame/SpecOpsTheLine, where the game is recommended on the basis that it shakes up the concept of FPS in a way that you end up disliking yourself. As far as popularity, they would ride mostly on the wave of meta-games to be popular, as for a design choice it's easier to make than a meta, although do not expect it to be easy still. The best point about these is that it can help base itself into a game world, and allow you to make a deeper story that is more unique to the video game genera on the merit of what you can do with it.

-->"A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."\\--Creator/AntoineDSaintExupery

* {{Mobile Phone Game}}s are played on cell phones, particularly smartphones these days--AndroidGames and {{iOS Games}} are proliferate. They benefit from extreme portability, as well as the (relative) ease of touchscreen controls, but but most people don't have time to play a smartphone game for more than about 3 minutes at a time, so you'd better design the game accordingly. Additionally, whereas computers come with a 101-key keyboard and mouse, and consoles with a minimum of Thumbstick, D-Pad, 4 face buttons and 2 Shoulder buttons, a touchscreen phone has only... its touchscreen to display controls on. You will need to think hard about your GUI and how you want to display things. This is not to say that you ''can't'' have titles on a phone from genres that are normally dominated by computers (such as RealTimeStrategy title ''[[http://www.tactile-wars.com/en Tactile Wars]]'' or consoles (Spectacle Fighter (''[[https://www.rayark.com/g/implosion/ Implosion: Never Lose Hope]]''); it is simply to say that it's easier to get in your own way on a phone.

* A single-player game features just you, your skills and your abilities. This kind of design is discouraged because (it is believed) it offers fewer hooks for IAP: players who want to triumph over other players will happily shell out money to do so, but not when facing only the computer. Careful balancing of the difficulty curve could avert this. It also, well, lacks multiplayer. Two heads are better than one, and two people playing a game results in more interesting experiences. Having said that, a 1P experience is the absolute best platform for ''actually telling a story''; most multiplayer games that attempt to thatch their 1P campaign into the multiplayer experience (''VideoGame/AgeOfConan'', ''VideoGame/{{Titanfall}}'') do not succeed, and indeed have become laughingstocks to a certain extent for how [[{{Narm}} poor]] the attempts actually were.

** The hybrid child of CoOpMultiplayer and Single Player is DropInDropOutMultiplayer, perhaps best illustrated by ''VideoGame/DeadSpace3''. During the 1P campaign, the first player controls {{protagonist}} Isaac Clarke; when a second player joins, an {{NPC}}, Sgt. John Carver, becomes their avatar, and fights alongside Clarke as he progresses through the plot. Visceral Games took pains to seed "trap doors" throughout the game's script, so that Carver could be PutOnABus (or have [[TheBusCameBack The Bus Come Back]]) at a moment's notice, without having any impact on the story.

** '''Competitive''': In ''VideoGame/ClashOfClans'', players can only be attacked whilst offline, with the AI controlling your defenses on your behalf. The Creator/Suda51 game ''VideoGame/LetItDie'' is a ''VideoGame/DarkSouls''-influenced permadeath {{roguelike}} where your slain character becomes an enemy in a randomly-selected instance (yours, someone else's, whatever). If you kill a former PlayerCharacter this way, you get extra loot; if it kills ''you'', its owner gets bonuses.

Also note that taking gameplay elements ''out'' of the game can, believe it or not, actually improve the product. One of gaming's most recent rave successes, ''VideoGame/TheLastOfUs'', provides a compelling example. The entire duration of TheTeaser, you have extremely limited control over your characters: you can move your character, you can move the camera, there are a couple QuickTimeEvents, and ''that's it.'' "How could that be fun," you ask, "that's bordering on ControllableHelplessness." And the answer is, Yes, it absolutely is... and what else could be more compelling ''in a ZombieApocalypse''? Heck, you don't even have a gun! Sure, ''Joel'' has his little revolver, but the only time he fires it is in a CutScene, and after that he gives it to his brother Tommy to wield. You, ''The Player'', never have a gun. And that increases the sense of triumph when you reach the military perimeter: despite having literally nothing but your feet, you have not only escaped from zombies, but you have carried your daughter Sarah to safety. You are an ActionSurvivor par excellence. ...And, in addition, this increases the impact of the PlayerPunch when [[FirstEpisodeSpoiler Sarah dies]]; all that hard work, all that desperation, all that sacrifice, [[DownerEnding for nothing]]. It's a brilliant EstablishingCharacterMoment for not only [[ShellshockedVeteran Joel]] but for the game as a whole, and it's accomplished by, essentially, ''not'' letting the player play the game.

Sometimes Story loses to Gameplay. ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'', and its notorious ending, is an example. Per WordOfGod, the CentralTheme of the story is, "[[TheChainsOfCommanding You can't save everyone]]." WarIsHell, and somewhere along the line you're going to have to choose [A] over [B] and watch [B] die a fiery, dramatic, slow-motion death with full OneWomanWail soundtrack in the background. In other words, there is no GoldenPath where you get absolutely everyone on your side. The salarians still believe that inflicting a SterilityPlague on the krogan, and resulting ChildlessDystopia, was justified? Then you have to pick between them and the krogan. The quarians won't stop fighting their RobotWar against the geth? Then you have to choose one or the other. The ''problem'' is, having no GoldenPath--especially in the final game of a trilogy, where The Player (correctly) expects you to wrap up all your loose ends--is a bad gameplay experience. Besides, the previous two games features ample chances to TakeAThirdOption, the doing of which often keeps you on ''their'' GoldenPath; it wouldn't do to [[UnexpectedGameplayChange suddenly remove it from the last title of the trilogy]]. So they kept the GoldenPath; it exists. You ''can'' get the quarians and geth to reconcile; and the salarians come around if you stick to your guns on the matter of the genophage. Even worse, situations in which there genuinely ''was'' no Third Option--in which you must condemn someone to death, with no recourse whatsoever, as you did on Virmire--were DummiedOut. ([[spoiler:It was to have been on Thessia: Liara and the Virmire Survivor were going to be your mandatory squad members, and you'd only have time to save one when the temple floor collapsed.]]) Thus, Story was defeated by Gameplay. And, even worse, [[PoorCommunicationKills the writers weren't told about it]], with the result that there's no GoldenEnding even though there ''is'' a GoldenPath. (That disconnect is why the ending was so notoriously ill-received.)

''VideoGame/BioShock1'' had a similar issue: the story encouraged you to spare the Little Sisters, {{Heartwarming Orphan}}s who are victims of a heartless system, but ''gameplay'' encourages you to kill them, because if you don't, ''you can't buy new magic.'' And the magic is kind of important in Rapture, not just as a plot point (the game takes place AfterTheEnd was brought about by ''abuse'' of Plasmids) but because your character, Jack, is barely one step up from an ActionSurvivor, and needs all the help he can get. Ken Levine at least had the wit to include MultipleEndings depending on which decision you made, but it still eroded the {{escapism}} that video games often offer as one of their prime selling points. In this example, Gameplay lost to Story, because, in the ending at least, you're actually ''punished'' for having fun and playing the game to its fullest extent. This conflict was so egregious that someone actually coined an entire new term, "ludonarrative dissonance," to describe situations when Gameplay says to do the opposite of what Story does.

Beware of {{Moon Logic Puzzle}}s, but also beware of the opposite: AcceptableBreaksFromReality. Video gamers are GenreSavvy enough to know that everything they can do is something you gave them the option to do. They have also played a ''lot'' of video games where they tried to TakeAThirdOption and were unable to because ''you'', the '''programmer''', didn't think of it. The combination of "most developers are stupid" and "But I'm not" can be some ''serious'' GuideDangIt moments. Two free examples: in ''VideoGame/GodOfWarII'', there's a puzzle that you solve by raising a timed platform, which is shaped like a T, and then wedging it in the air using a pushable block. The problem is that you can only do this if the T-shaped platform has the collision physics ''of'' a T-shaped platform, instead of just being a giant rectangle, which is the way most programmers would do it to save time. The other is from the seminal ''VideoGame/SpecOpsTheLine''. Late in the game, one of your NPC friends is strung up by a civilian lynch mob, with your characters coming across the process too late to stop it. The game suggests either letting them go or slaughtering the civilians; the [[TakeAThirdOption Third Option]], FiringInTheAirALot to scare them off, works pretty well in RealLife but might not in a video game because the civilians might not be programmed to be intimidated that way. These are just two examples where the Dev Team Thinking Of Everything actually resulted in the Dev Team Failing To Think Of Everything. DevelopersForesight is ''nowhere'' near as prevalent as it could be, and ''players know that''. So never forget: players know that their choices are artificially limited by ''your'' decision-making capabilities. It will take a lot of coaching, and a lot more excellent gameplay design, before this fact ceases to hold sway over gamers.

Beware, ''beware'', '''''beware''''' the trap called the "Minimum Viable Product." As the term suggests, this is a benchmark that you and/or your team sets, representing the absolute most bare-bones version of the game that can be released to consumers. Exactly what this benchmark consists of -- what the core loop looks like, how many extras are available, how much content you have, if there is multiplayer, etc -- is going to depend on the nature of your product itself. For instance, for Creator/TelltaleGames, the MVP is "An engine and 20% of the content" because their games are episodic, whereas if you're on the team that made the original ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' your minimum is "the engine, ''all'' the content, and every bell and whistle we decide to add." This can vary even within your genre; the creators of the [[MultiplayerOnlineBattleArena MOBA]] ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'' decided to ship their game with 40 characters, whereas the competing ''VideoGame/{{Demigod}}'' went out with a mere ''eight''. (And that's why you've never heard of ''Demigod''.) Additionally, it's going to go up and down as the product evolves -- this is done, that is not; we can't implement this feature for various reasons; our investors want us to have [this] in it, so we have to add it in. ''And'' it's prey to the current climate of gaming, specifically the "Games As Service" model that dominates. Because games can be, and are, updated on a regular basis, it's become increasingly acceptable to take an ObviousBeta, declare it meets your MVP, and ship it. ''Whatever you do, don't do this.'' Very few games that shipped half-finished were financial successes, because the simple fact is that if players are going to spend a full game's worth of money, they want to receive a full game's worth of content for it ''today'', not tomorrow. Even worse, because of the way people play games these days, they're gonna go through content fast. People who make smartphone games can tell horror stories about how they shipped games which, they thought, had months of content, only to have players get through it in days or even ''hours''. When this happens, players lose interest, and fast. The fate of games like ''VideoGame/FalloutShelter'', ''VideoGame/PokemonGo'' and ''VideoGame/{{Titanfall}}'' are examples of games that ''could'' have gotten huge... had they been released with sufficient content. But no: someone decided that the Minimum Viable Product were half-finished versions that couldn't hold people's attention. And didn't.

Subversions to a video game are impossible, but as discussed in meta-game and deconstruction, actual gameplay expectations can be subverted. A good example is the moral choice system. Most players expect either A) The whole thing would have a major, or at least notable, impact on the game and being in the middle ground is pointless in terms of bonuses, maybe with the possibility that your alignment decides things, not what you have done to get it. (''VideoGame/InFamous'', ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'') or that B) It's just a small setup to give the player an illusion of choice and doesn't really matter in the end, except maybe for moral choice system having some impact on gameplay, ''VideoGame/DantesInferno'' never really went anywhere with moral choices, but they did buy you upgrades. ''VideoGame/BioShockInfinite'' makes a small point in its gameplay on moral choices without actually having a moral system.

** '''Competitive''': In ''VideoGame/ClashOfClans'', players can only be attacked whilst offline, with the AI controlling your defenses on your behalf. The Suda51 game ''VideoGame/LetItDie'' is a ''VideoGame/DarkSouls''-influenced permadeath {{roguelike}} where your slain character becomes an enemy in a randomly-selected instance (yours, someone else's, whatever). If you kill a former PlayerCharacter this way, you get extra loot; if it kills ''you'', its owner gets bonuses.

* '''''A'''''synchronous multiplayer is when only one person plays at a time. While this sounds ridiculous, it's OlderThanTheyThink: PlayByPostGames of TabletopGame/{{chess}} have been a thing for centuries. And there are actually lots of different ways it can happen.
** In ''VideoGame/ClashOfClans'', players can only be attacked whilst offline, with the AI controlling your defenses on your behalf. (You also get to design your city in ways that funnel attackers towards your defenses.)
** The Suda51 game ''VideoGame/LetItDie'' is a ''VideoGame/DarkSouls''-influenced permadeath {{roguelike}} where your slain character becomes an enemy in a randomly-selected instance (yours, someone else's, whatever). If you kill a former PlayerCharacter this way, you get extra loot; if it kills ''you'', its owner gets bonuses.
** ''VideoGame/BraveFrontier'' allows asynchronous ''co-op''. For each dungeon, you form a party of five characters... and are allowed to "borrow" a friend's character to serve as a SixthRanger. (It helps that ''Brave Frontier'' has LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters, creating incentive for you to make friends ''and'' providing more options for you when you go dungeon-diving.)
** ''VideoGame/FarmVille'' works along similar lines. It pioneered the (for lack of a better term) "token economy" system: if you want to do [X], it requires special crafting reagents, which can only be provided to you by friends who also play the game, which is why ''Farmville'' players are always sending you Facebook requests asking for help. (The alternative is [[BribingYourWayToVictory in-app purchase]].)

* {{Mobile Phone Game}}s are played on cell phones, particularly smartphones these days--AndroidGames and {{iOS Games}} are proliferate. They benefit from extreme portability, as well as the (relative) ease of touchscreen controls, but but most people don't have time to play a smartphone game for more than about 3 minutes at a time, so you'd better design the game accordingly. Additionally, whereas computers come with a 101-key keyboard and mouse, and consoles with a minimum of Thumbstick, D-Pad, 4 face buttons and 2 Shoulder buttons, a touchscreen phone has only... its touchscreen to display controls on. With such limited real estate, the game will need to have very simple controls.

* '''''A'''''synchronous multiplayer is when only one person plays at a time. While this sounds ridiculous, it's OlderThanTheyThink: PlayByPostGames of TabletopGame/{{chess}} have been a thing for centuries. In video games, it's typically combined with AsymmetricMultiplayer: the player has different roles depending on whether they're logged on or not. In ''VideoGame/ClashOfClans'', for instance, players can only be attacked whilst offline, with the AI controlling your defenses on your behalf.[[note]]You also get to design your city in ways that funnel attackers towards your defenses, but that's more technical detail than this discussion really needs.[[/note]] When it comes to co-operative, it's instructive to look at ''VideoGame/BraveFrontier''. For each dungeon, you form a party of five characters... and are allowed to "borrow" a friend's character to serve as a SixthRanger. (It helps that ''Brave Frontier'' has LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters, creating incentive for you to make friends ''and'' providing more options for you.) For non-combat, we turn again to ''VideoGame/FarmVille'', who pioneered the (for lack of a better term) "token economy" system: if you want to do [X], it requires special reagents, which can only be provided to you by friends who also play the game, which is why ''Farmville'' players are always sending you Facebook notifications asking for help. (Their alternative is [[BribingYourWayToVictory in-app purchase]].)

Beware, ''beware'', '''''beware''''' the trap called the "Minimum Viable Product." As the term suggests, this is a benchmark that you and/or your team sets, representing the absolute most bare-bones version of the game that can be released to consumers. Exactly what this benchmark consists of -- what the core loop looks like, how many extras are available, how much content you have, if there is multiplayer, etc -- is going to depend on the nature of your product itself. For instance, for Creator/TelltaleGames, the MVP is "An engine and 20% of the content" because their games are episodic, whereas if you're on the team that made the original ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' your minimum is "the engine, ''all'' the content, and every bell and whistle we decide to add." This can vary even within your genre; the creators of the [[MultiplayerOnlineBattleArena MOBA]] ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'' decided to ship their game with 40 characters, whereas the competing ''VideoGame/{{Demigod}}'' went out with a mere ''eight''. (And that's why you've never heard of ''Demigod''.) Additionally, it's going to go up and down as the product evolves -- this is done, that is not; we can't implement this feature for various reasons; our investors want us to have [this] in it, so we have to add it in. ''And'' it's prey to the current climate of gaming, specifically the "Games As Service" model that dominates. Because games can be, and are, updated on a regular basis, it's become increasingly acceptable to take an ObviousBeta, declare it meets your MVP, and ship it. ''Whatever you do, don't do this.'' Very few games that shipped half-finished were financial successes, because the simple fact is that if players are going to spend a full game's worth of money, they want to receive a full game's worth of content for it ''today'', not tomorrow. Even worse, because of the way people play games these days, they're gonna go through content fast. People who make smartphone games can tell horror stories about how they shipped games which, they thought, had months of content, only to have players get through it in days or even ''hours''. When this happens, players lose interest, and fast. The fate of ''VideoGame/FalloutShelter'', not to mention ''VideoGame/PokemonGo'', are classic examples of games that ''could'' have gotten huge... had they been released with sufficient content. But no, someone decided that the Minimum Viable Product was a half-finished version that couldn't hold people's attention. And it didn't.

Graphics are always a big thing in video games these days. Everyone wants good ones... but creating good ones takes a lot of time and effort. It can also require a great deal of processing power in terms of the hardware necessary to run your game. Even worse, graphics ''age''. Games that were considered to have stellar, cutting-edge graphics ten years ago (''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVMorrowind'', ''VideoGame/TheSims II'', ''VideoGame/BattlefieldII'') look dated today. One simple workaround is to look at games which ''don't'' look dated--''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaWindWaker'', ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' and ''VideoGame/Limbo'' come to mind. What do these games have in common? Simple: they don't try to be photorealistic. Instead, they have an ''art style'' with graphics that aren't ''supposed'' to look like "reality" and instead like... well, whatever they're trying to achieve (cel shading, sliding silhouettes, etc). And, since they achieve it, their graphics become timeless. There's a Sliding Scale Of Photorealistic Vs. Artistic, and while both of them take money, the second one lasts longer.

** The hybrid child of CoOpMultiplayer and Single Player is DropInDropOutMultiplayer, perhaps best illustrated by ''VideoGame/DeadSpace3''. During the 1P campaign, the first player controls {{protagonist}} Isaac Clarke; when a second player joins, an {{NPC}}, Sgt. John Carver, becomes their avatar, and fights alongside Clarke as he progresses through the plot. Visceral Games took pains to seed "trap doors" throughout the game's script, so that Carver could be PutOnABus (or have [[TheBusCameBack The Bus Come Back]]) at a moment's notice, without impacting or even changing the plot.

* '''''A'''''synchronous multiplayer is when only one person plays at a time. While this sounds ridiculous, it's OlderThanTheyThink: PlayByPostGames of TabletopGame/{{chess}} have been a thing for centuries. In video games, it's typically combined with AsymmetricMultiplayer: the player has different roles depending on whether they're logged on or not. In ''VideoGame/ClashOfClans'', for instance, players can only be attacked whilst offline, with the AI controlling your defenses on your behalf.[[note]]You also get to design your city in ways that funnel attackers towards your defenses, but that's more technical detail than this discussion really needs.[[/note]] When it comes to co-operative, it typically involves borrowing a friend's gameplay assets for use as {{Assist Character}}s. For non-combat, we turn again to ''VideoGame/FarmVille'', who pioneered the (for lack of a better term) "token economy" system: if you want to do [X], it requires special reagents, which can only be provided to you by friends who also play the game. (...Or [[BribingYourWayToVictory in-app purchase]].)

* Video Games are played on a console. Consoles are easier to program for because the hardware is standardized: every PlayStation4 has the exact same things inside it as any other (with the sole exception of hard drive space). You know exactly what the console can do. However, this requires a fair bit more in terms of licensing fees, and a bit more bureaucracy to wade through, since most console manufacturers want to do at least a little bit of Quality Assurance before they let the game released on their machines.

You'll need to consider player agency. Video games are an interactive medium, where players are given choices--or, at least, the ''illusion'' of choice--and expect to see those choices respected and reflected in how the game proceeds. Sometimes this is merely a gameplay aspect--"I chose 'Burning Fist' instead of 'Frost Punch,' so I better be able to use Burning Fist when I press Circle-Circle-Square"--and if you're having problems you need to talk to your programmers or your Quality Assurance team. But sometimes it's a story choice. So if you give players choices over the events of your game's story, they ''have'' to play out over the course of the rest of the game. This is why {{Railroading}} is so decried as a trope: it not only renders the player's choices moot, but it pokes holes in the WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief. ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' had some bad examples of this. In the first game, you made a choice whether to wipe out an alien who was the LastOfItsKind or not. In ''[=ME3=]'', that alien reappears in a specific mission... regardless of what you chose. It was [[TropesAReNotBad kind of cool]] to have said alien appear no matter what, but--once again--this writing decision made the choice in the first game [[TropesAreNotGood retroactively meaningless]]. (And it was one of the most significant emotional beats of the first game, so having the writers just throw it out was a little disrespectful.)

* CompetitiveMultiplayer is when you and other players ''compete'' to achieve different goals. The vast majority of video-game multiplayer, from FightingGames to FirstPersonShooter Deathmatches to sports games and more, take place in this space; they can use (theoretically) equal teams, or be giant free-for-alls. Typically, each competitor has the same goal--"Capture the Flag," "Kill ## people," "checkmate your opponent's King"--but recent games have begun to experiment with AsymmetricMultiplayer, where players have ''different'' goals. Some ''VideoGame/UnrealTournament'' or ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' matches involve one side attacking a fixed position and the other defending it, which has significant impact on the strategies and tactics each side uses, and the recent FirstPersonShooter ''VideoGame/{{Evolve}}'' revolves around this trope: all matches are 4v1, with human Hunters pitted against one very large alien Monster.

* '''''A'''''synchronous multiplayer is when only one person plays at a time. While this sounds ridiculous, it's OlderThanTheyThink: PlayByPostGames of TabletopGame/{{chess}} have been a thing for centuries. In video games, it's typically combined with AsymmetricMultiplayer: the player has different roles depending on whether they're logged on or not. In ''VideoGame/ClashOfClans'', for instance, players can only be attacked whilst offline, with the AI controlling your defenses on your behalf.[[NOTE]]You also get to design your city in ways that funnel attackers towards your defensive towers, but that's more technical detail than this discussion really needs.[[/note]] When it comes to co-operative, it typically involves borrowing a friend's gameplay assets for use as {{Assist Character}}s. For non-combat, we turn again to ''VideoGame/FarmVille'', who pioneered the (for lack of a better term) "token economy" system: if you want to do [X], it requires special reagents, which can only be provided to you by friends who also play the game. (...Or [[BribingYourWayToVictory in-app purchase]].)

!!!Keep It Simple, Stupid

!!!Story Vs Gameplay: Fight!

Sometimes Story loses to Gameplay. ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'', and its notorious ending, is an example. Per WordOfGod, the CentralTheme of the story is, "[[TheChainsOfCommanding You can't save everyone]]." WarIsHell, and somewhere along the line you're going to have to choose [A] over [B] and watch [B] die a fiery, dramatic, slow-motion death with full OneWomanWail soundtrack in the background. In other words, there is no GoldenPath where you get absolutely everyone on your side. The salarians still believe that the [[SterilityPlague krogan genophage]], and resulting ChildlessDystopia, was justified? Then you have to pick between them and the krogan. The quarians won't stop fighting their RobotWar against the geth? Then you have to choose one or the other. The ''problem'' is, having no GoldenPath--especially in the final game of a trilogy, where The Player (correctly) expects you to wrap up all your loose ends--is a bad gameplay experience. Besides, the previous two games features ample chances to TakeAThirdOption, the doing of which often keeps you on ''their'' GoldenPath; it wouldn't do to [[UnexpectedGameplayChange suddenly remove it from the last title of the trilogy]]. So they kept the GoldenPath; it exists. You ''can'' get the quarians and geth to reconcile; and the salarians come around if you stick to your guns on the matter of the genophage. Even worse, situations in which there genuinely ''was'' no Third Option--in which you must condemn someone to death, with no recourse whatsoever, as you did on Virmire--were DummiedOut. ([[spoiler:It was to have been on Thessia: Liara and Kaishley were going to be your mandatory squad members, and you'd only have time to save one when the temple floor collapsed.]]) Thus, Story was defeated by Gameplay. And, even worse, [[PoorCommunicationKills the writers weren't told about it]], with the result that there's no GoldenEnding even though there's a GoldenPath. (That disconnect is why the ending was so notoriously ill-received.)

!!!Choices, Choices and More Choices

Writing a game means making sure you give players choice. And that can be difficult, because every option The Player has? You had to decide to give it to them. In other words, (the illusion of) choice is something you have to ''create''. "DevelopersForesight" needs to be ''mandatory'' for your process, because if you don't, there's no game. It is your job to decide what actions are available. And that means you need to sit down and think about as many possible actions that a player ''could'' want to take, for fear of spiking WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief (InsurmountableWaistHighFence, WhyDontYouJustShootHim, etc).

Beware of {{Moon Logic Puzzle}}s, but also beware of the opposite: AcceptableBreaksFromReality. Video gamers are GenreSavvy enough to know that everything they can do is something you gave them the option to do, and so they will automatically assume certain things are impossible because ''you'', the '''programmer''', didn't think of them. If you did, this can cause real GuideDangIt moments. Two free examples: in the second ''VideoGame/GodOfWar'' game, there's a puzzle that you solve by raising a timed platform and then wedging it in the air using a pushable block. The problem is that you can only do this if the timed platform--which consists of a piece of floor on a pillar--is ''modeled'' that way in the game; it only works if the game treats it as a genuine T-shaped piece of level geometry, instead of a giant rectangle the way most players would assume it, and the way most ''programmers'' would've done it to save time. The other is from the seminal ''VideoGame/SpecOpsTheLine''. Late in the game, one of your NPC friends is strung up by a civilian lynch mob, with your characters coming across the process too late to stop it. The game suggests either letting them go or slaughtering the civilians; the [[TakeAThirdOption Third Option]], FiringInTheAirALot to scare them off, works pretty well in RealLife but might not in a video game because the civilians might not be programmed to be intimidated that way. That whole "DevelopersForesight" trope is ''nowhere'' near as prevalent as it could be, and ''players know that''. So never forget: the people you are asking to make choices are people who know their choices are artificially limited by ''your'' decision-making capabilities. It will take a lot of coaching, and a lot more excellent gameplay design, before this fact ceases to hold sway over gamers.

!!!'''Some Other Considerations'''

Type B shows how players can expect gameplay and story to be separated and simply another system. A subversion for type B could easily include moral choices having no effect on gameplay, seemingly, and then suddenly spring up as being important and recognized by other characters. A fantasy RPG has a moral choice system that seems to only effect what type of spells or skills are unlocked for the PC, and suddenly in the middle of a game a character mentions how the forces responsible for magic are actually paying attention to the player, and are granting him spells based on how he acts and solves problems. Done well, and followed up upon so it doesn't just look like a HandWave, it can actually be a surprise to the player about how this thing they had mentally placed as gameplay is touched upon by the world it happens in and has actual meaning. Done poorly it will still look like a HandWave, or maybe even a VooDooShark, and annoy the player that such things were being justified when it was just fine as a gameplay feature.