An often overlooked tool in the metaphorical game design tool box is the element of surprise. After all, most people like positive surprises (“You get a car! And you get a car!”), and even negative surprises can keep things interesting (“You get a tax audit! And you get a tax audit!”) — and in games, “interesting” is always good.
Surprise comes in few different flavors:
Randomness: Ah, the roll of the dice. The turn of the card. The spin of that stupid spinny arrow thing that always gets stuck halfway through its rotation. Games and randomness have a long history together, and gallons of ink have been spilled reflecting on their relationship. (For example, here’s a talk by none other than Richard “Yeah, I made Magic the Gathering” Garfield on the subject.)
Hidden Information: Just because you’re surprised by something doesn’t mean your opponent is. When a player has his own stash of secret information, that player can surprise the other players by revealing and executing on that information. The classic example of this sort of surprise is when a player reveals her cards and secures victory, intoning the sacred mantra, “Read ’em and weep.”
Systemic Reveal: This sort of thing mostly shows up in video games. There’s hidden information, but it’s hidden (and revealed) by the game itself. Even when this twist is mechanical (“Surprise! This is just the end of the level, not the game!”), it’s usually wrapped in delicious narrative (“The princess is in another castle!”). Sometime the surprise is purely narrative. For instance, if you find out half way through the game that you’re actually the villain of the game, it’s a dramatic twist, but doesn’t necessarily change the mechanics of the game. Still, it’s a surprise.
So what does a good surprise add to a game? I’m glad you asked!
- Surprise adds tension. If you don’t know exactly what’s going to happen next, it adds a touch of suspense to every decision you make.
- Surprise adds engagement. When you can’t predict what your opponent (or the game itself) will do next, you’re less likely to get board or lose interest in the game.
- Surprise adds replayability. This isn’t always true for the systemic reveal (“Yes, yes, she’s in another castle. I know.”) but it takes longer to burn out on games with sufficient randomness and hidden information.
- Surprise makes it harder to make perfectly optimal plays. This might not sounds like a benefit at first, but lack of perfect information means there’s a chance for you to get lucky — or for your opponent to step into your trap. It also helps smooth the difference between players of different skill levels.
- Surprise makes for memorable game stories. Yes, this can include game narratives lovingly hand-crafted by game writers such as myself… but even more importantly, it affects your story of how your game played out. (“I was down by six points, but then he played the Rock card, and I had just drawn the Paper card, so I slapped it down, captured his Rock, and won the game! It was epic!”)
Like all game design tools, surprise isn’t always the right tool for the job. But the next time you’re looking for something to spice up your design, see if a little surprise isn’t just what you need.
