Design Land: High Concept - Extra Credits Video Games

[@extrahistory]

Sign up to Morning Brew for free today! morningbrewdaily.com/extracredits

[@Joeballs187]

Omg thank you Your absolutely right I need to figure out how to both figure out if my game is about the mechanical aspects of my native or if my native is about my mechanics I've been using a free txt based game thing and my very awful website for trying to keep track of all of this really happy to not just have naritve help today really needed it and so much more but can't just sit still right ? Thank you all I do wish I had more then my watching and time to give ☯️

[@Zveebo]

@@matts4744 Strong reaction to “Cat Fancy”, dude.

[@shawnheatherly]

Really nice seeing James again on the channel, I hope he's doing well.

[@jamesportnow2786]

[@BigGamer2525]

This makes me feel so much more confident about my game idea since the whole thing can easily be described. Thank you. I’ll send this to a friend whose game concept is harder to describe.

[@raventhorX]

Same as mine....trash.

[@BigGamer2525]

@alan ostrax "What if a city builder game took history into account for how cities actually grow?"

[@BigGamer2525]

@alan ostrax just myself atm, but we’re planning on working together

[@ebigunso]

@@BigGamer2525 I'm actually intrigued by this. Looking forward to playing it :D

[@jamesportnow2786]

@@BigGamer2525 Awesome! Kick me a code when you get to beta!

[@foggynoon]

Summary of high concept philsosphy - Focus: type of main concept - Specificity: risk of uniqueness - Brevity: idea in a riveting sentence - Clarity: audience’s grasp of the idea . . Please correct me if I’m wrong

[@blaster915]

SO happy to see James again! Glad he's doing well on his own ventures!!

[@jamesportnow2786]

Thank you! It's tough to juggle it all but I'm glad to be back.

[@mikeharrison6039]

HE’S BACK

[@DragoniteSpam]

EC deep lore continues to grow. Anyway, this is by far the thing that I see beginners getting tripped up on and never move past most often. And it's honestly understandable for someone to get the most excited about their twelve races of dwarves each with their own unique hairstyles, since that's probably the kind of context that made the games you played in your childhood stick in your mind, but at some point you need to figure out what the game itself is going to be. "Visual novel" or "narrative-based walking sim" or that kind of game is a 100% okay thing to aspire to make if you care mostly about the worldbuilding, but you still need to decide that lest you spend the next five years wandering aimlessly through your game engine of choice.

[@extrahistory]

Thanks so much for the insight! We're super glad you enjoyed our take on it.

[@bananatassium7009]

2:20 yakuza is my favorite game franchise of all time and I was just thinking "ehhh I don't know if I agree" and then you immediately covered it in the next sentence, well played lol

[@genericineverything7619]

Same I honestly think i love the yakuza games a bit too much but eh~ funny dancing minigame and story that makes me cry (someya, nishiki, mine, rikiya, baba and ryuji hit me like a truck)

[@NL-ws5fv]

You know, this is great advice for any major project, not just game design. Funny since I'm saying this as an unpublished author. 😅

[@dreamingacacia]

I know you'll publish your work soon, me too. It's a lot of struggle when you don't have someone to guide you properly or someone to encourage you everyday.

[@ConManAU]

This is all very helpful advice, especially since it's so broadly applicable. Many years ago on the Ludology podcast, they discussed something similar to this and board game designer Geoff Engelstein said that rather than theme/narrative or mechanics, he often starts with an experience, which sits somewhere between the two but also a little off to the side. I think the Yakuza example falls under this category, as would something like describing Getting Over It's focus as "climbing a mountain but it's incredibly difficult and one small mistake can undo hours of progress".

[@snakes_shadow3539]

Oh, good! A friend is teaching me an engine by walking me through creating my first game, and knowing that my high concept is really sound is making me feel so much better about the game. "Hide and seek simulator where the levels are static but the player character is randomized."

[@treyslider6954]

Is the player the hider, or the seeker? Is this meant as a multiplayer experience, or is there an AI the player is hiding from/seeking? Does being a different player character mean I have different hiding/seeking abilities? What sort of abilities do hide-and-seek characters have to make them feel different from each other? Answer my questions and take my money! :fist: :money:

[@snakes_shadow3539]

@@treyslider6954 Hider, AIs, Yes, that's on the list to work on. I'm still fairly early in the process, and focusing on the first few locations right now.

[@treyslider6954]

@@snakes_shadow3539 Sounds good! Level design is make-or-break for hide-and-seek type stuff!

[@zodayn]

My high concept game is: Turn based RPG with mechanics based on finance. Every game has an economy and with RPG that is often your MP. In this game the MP of characters reflects their financial health. You try to leave encounters with more MP than you entered them, thus turning s profit. So you can afford the skills you need to defeat enemies in a higher level. Your financial stability is what counts. For example there is a vampire playable character who needs to drain MP from opponents to fill his own bar as he continuously slowly drains out. He represents the debt cliff.

[@catface_q2123]

This is a really cool idea! I would love to see this made into an actual game

[@zodayn]

@@catface_q2123 Thanks :D Unfortunately I'm a business administrator, not a game dev. But I've long struggled to explain finance to people in an interesting way. And I figured literal gamification was a good way. I also imagine the ''dungeons'' as different types of economies with more or less goverment intervention, aka field effects like taxation. And the NPC's opperating with various business models. For example there being an NPC who can lend you a powerfull weapon if you downpay more than what you could resonably have as MP at that point. With a sketchy NPC around the corner lending you the same weapon for just 1/8th the price, in 20 easy terms that is. XD

[@sempersolus5511]

I'm an autistic man who understands games but not finance. *Make this.* I will give you all the money I don't have.

[@edwardnygma8533]

@@zodayn This unironically has me invested and wanting to learn economics through this hypothetical game. I think if you ever paired with an indie dev to make this a reality on the side of your day job, you could have a real hit.

[@redcrown5070]

Now THIS is a good game concept!

[@sonictimm]

Excellent video! I feel like the majority of design advice is either very specific and doesn't help most of the audience, or ignores the limitations which production will inevitably impose. These tips are to-the-point and helpful to every designer, active or aspiring.

[@bearianna]

JAMES! I'm so glad you're still keeping in touch with everyone on your continuing journey into design land! I'm glad to at least begin to hear from James again, and I'm excited to see if he contributes bits of writing to further episodes! 🌴🎮🌴

[@ToniLeys]

Thanks for having my music in there! ♥

[@dreamingacacia]

This is one of problems with education system in my country, They only taught how to do something and students must better remember them to do the tests. Only recently that I was desperate enough to got myself some freedom to work on my own projects freely without relying on any tutorial, then I learned about the idea of "concept". I was stuck with the concepts and themes for about 5 years in my journey while struggle with failed projects piling up like no tomorrow. And today I just learned about the idea of "High Concept" it's something I never thought of or know its existence, but tbh I was so close to reach the similar conclusion as this video purely through my own struggles. It's simple but profound idea, much appreciate for your hard work.

[@cathat4813]

Thank you extra credit for bringing forth words of wise from the far lands, words that will make the journey safer for others in the future.

[@gamewatch6861]

Thanks for the insight. I feel as if this could apply not only to games, but other mediums, such as writing or drawing.

[@TheFuriousBrother]

I'd say that it fits writing to. The summary/opener on the back pretty much is the high concept.

[@michaelbushee3968]

As an aspiring novelist, it's less "could" and more "absolutely does". Any creative endeavor benefits from knowledge of the principles of design. Finding the highest level concept, the points of uniqueness, the largest details, and the ability to convey them to an audience clearly are vitally important.

[@gariktate8183]

Have really missed these videos helping Game Designers with their craft. Really glad to see writing from James again.

[@0znerEighth]

Yay. After years Extra Credits decides to bring back James to tackle videogames directly. In a channel (that used to be) about videogames.

[@dylanand75]

Good to hear from James again!

[@juniorwhiskers]

Clicked for Inscryption, stayed for the learning

[@rafaelthibault9054]

same

[@extrahistory]

Thanks for hanging out to learn some new stuff!

[@extrahistory]

@@rafaelthibault9054

[@Stammer6]

Thank you guys for the simple explanation. I'm developing a tabletop RPG engine, but every time I explain what makes it stand out I've found myself going on for minutes. I've narrowed it down to a simple 10-word elevator pitch with a 17-word follow-up explanation :)

[@pointynoodle]

Shoot

[@Stammer6]

@@pointynoodle (I've tweaked the wording since I wrote the comment, but here it is!) "It’s a pen-and-paper RPG with an emphasis on game flow"

[@ianmclean9382]

I love how I saw your video, wondered how James was doing and then this was just a day old.

[@peppapig9987]

As soon as I saw the James model I remember the old days of EC, back when I would wait to hear his voice every week. Even though I forgot his name, I still cracked a smile.

[@ikeekieeki]

this "fraggle rock's uncle travelling matt meets extra credits" high concept works for me

[@whhyyyyyyyyyy]

The legend returns

[@Mushrooms683]

Pikuniku is literally just a dumping ground of random mechanics to support its theme (which is not confirmed anywhere and kind of a stretch) that the little things in life that you don't even know why you do them are very necessary, and abandoning these and changing your schedule to be all about work won't be good for you. That's my explanation for what the hell's going on with that game anyway.

[@nazeris1834]

this came at a perfect time! thank you so much!

[@nazeris1834]

So I've been dabbling in game dev for years not really getting anything done. I always just blame it on thinking to big, even last night, but this video is what my probem has been.

[@arcanearts9656]

To build a body, begin with the bones. If you start with the meat, all you have is a buffet.

[@jerrymann3961]

After taking AP research in school, this video perfectly describes the research process and how we started up until international research board acceptance. It is funny looking back and seeing similarities.

[@Kindrick]

The ability to be anything you want in the lands of Starside, anything, including a dog.

[@LuccianoBartolini]

Dang, been a while since I've seen James. Good to know he's doing well.

[@willemvandebeek]

I have missed James Portnow's writing! :)

[@jaredmichael7659]

Nice to hear from James again. We wish him well

[@ReleeSquirrel]

It's nice to hear something from James Portnow after all this time. Good stuff, too! I'd give a one sentence description of my game project, but it's an adult game and might be inappropriate for your audiences. XD

[@Tamahome109]

Oh shit! An episode from James Portnow the OG!!

[@TheKyleCoyle]

You guys have done several videos on the writing process, often with a focus on writing for games in particular, and it's always phenomenal content. Could I request some stuff about writing for Extra Credits? I mean, this video about navigating high concepts cliffs is itself somewhat meta with James's explorer narrative framing the content and overall, the coherence of this approach, along with almost all of your content, allows for the information to unfold in a really satisfying way.

[@Drawoon]

I'd like to add to what you said about the focus of a game. You said it could be narrative or mechanics, but I think it can be other things too. I'd argue the focus of the 3d mario games is just to make a 3d platformer. The movement mechanics were built from this idea, and the level and enemy design were in turn built on that. Contrast this with a game like portal where the mechanic of portals came first. I'd say taking the narrative as focus works for the genre of narrative-focused games, and every other genre has their own basic entertaining concepts that work just as well as a focus.

[@GallowglassAxe]

Wow its nice to see James make a brief reappearance and I hope he's doing well. I would love to see the OG EC crew pop in every now and again.

[@YourFunkiness]

I'm designing a tabletop RPG and I think my high concept is "Modern fantasy where the players are something between a SWAT team and Ghostbusters." So I'd like to test that out. What do you guys think of that? Does it sound interesting? What kinds of things are you expecting to see in such a world?

[@Eowar]

So as someone who enjoys the urban fantasy ttrpg genre, your concept sounds like it could be fun. My first thought was that these feel very different in tone, so make sure know how serious you want to be and stay consistent on it. Every table is likely to slide along the continuum from grave to goofy during play, but I think it's good to use your writing and art to set one anchor point for players to come back to. Pugmire is a great example of a game where the creator knew it could be silly and purposely anchored the published materials with a more serious tone to show tables that it doesn't have to be a joke. I'm also interested to know whether you want your game to be very tied to a specific world and all its narrative implications (kind of like Unknown Armies), or more about broad genre emulation (like how Chronicles of Darkness can mimic a wide variety of horror media).

[@YourFunkiness]

@@Eowar I have a specific setting for it, though the rules could conceivably be adapted to different settings with minimal tweaking.

[@pointynoodle]

I’ve heard of a game with a similar theme, I think it was called tactical assault wizards. Personally I love urban fantasy where magic is integrated into society Edit: Oh, it’s a TTRPG! That sounds great, there’s a 5e-similar system being developed right now called Everyday Heroes, but I’d love to try out your system.

[@tantamounted]

Sounds like your players would encounter demons, hauntings, charlatans, and domestic disputes gone horribly wrong; atmospheric settings, high-tech equipment, legal shenanigans, and chain of custody issues; magic rituals, social challenges, and of course, the terrible price of making dinner in today's world.

[@AnimeAngel88]

I will definitely keep this stuff in mind for my future ideas.

[@AshtonSnapp]

Current high concept is “VtM meets XCOM”. But uhhhhh I think I missed the guideposts of Focus and Specificity? Possibly?

[@michaelbushee3968]

If VtM in this case refers to Vampire: The Masquerade, maybe give Shadowrun Returns a look for a great way to incorporate tabletop rules into a tactics RPG. It's not perfect, but nothing is, and it's a blast all the same. I'd play the hell out of a dark urban fantasy/horror tactics shooter in WoD-land.

[@Biouke]

@@michaelbushee3968 That's exactly what I thought: "Look at Harebrained Scheme's Shadowrun games" :)

[@generalcatkaa5864]

James is STILL ALIVE?!? Top 10 anime plot twists.

[@mortuos557]

welcome back James!

[@jakedoesyoutube]

WHAT ARE THE CHANCES THAT I JUST PLAYED AN INSCRIPTION FAN GAME RIGHT BEFORE I SAW THIS?

[@zikkthegreat]

actually cried seeing james 😭

[@KeyboardKrieger]

Got it right "Battlechess in a Zelda style"

[@tasoganedude]

1:00 Focus 1:50 Specificity 3:16 Brevity 4:34 Clarity 5:06 Conclusion

[@JanbluTheDerg]

Made me remember to narrow down my metroidvania concept into an easy to understand elevator pitch... thanks!

[@AdaptableGamersInc]

Yeah James your back we missed you

[@Idaho-Cowboy]

He's back?!

[@samwiseb2799]

That makes me feel so much better about the game I was going to design. Essentially the core mechanic of the game is sword fighting using motion controls to fight against enemies in a puzzle like way figuring edge alignment, the direction you swing the sword in, and all the cool sword abilities you have. Basically it’s inspired by a beloved Zelda game that’s underrated af (yes Skyward Sword) You play as a Paladin named Fyn with a sacred magical blade called the Sword of Hallows which is a long sword that glows with the power of the sun itself (think of a lightsaber meets a flaming blade) and you hold the blade straight up to gather energy from the sun and in some cases have the power to control the sun. It was going to be called the Chronicles of Fyn!

[@TheArtist808]

Thank you this is always an important topic

[@crazymanmot]

How did I somehow know this was gonna be related to James without seeing anything else but the title and thumbnail?

[@ThatFanBoyGuy]

I liked this video just because James wrote it.

[@gabed.2632]

after all this time, he is back.

[@chrissoto7187]

James? HE IS ALIVE!!

[@Roycesraphim1]

I keep coming back to it because it sums up the brevity example so well. Last medal of honor game had a rambling interview with the designer about the team carimg about each other and on and on and on, blah blah blah Then a call duty designer gets on and says what's mw3 about? fellowship. BAM!

[@DarkBloodbane]

Thank you for the tips James! I ought to simplify my game concept before it gets too much.

[@mattkuhn6634]

OMG it's James again! Hi James! And don't worry about the weird delivery method Matt, that's just how James rolls.

It's aways nice to hear about James."

[@cardboardbox191]

I found a message in a bottle once it was near a river and whoever put it in the river (or a different river) wanted to know how far it got.

[@TamTroll]

i did something similar by attaching a note to a helium balloon and letting it fly away a few times as a kid. Sadly never got any response form any of them.

[@narvuntien]

A sort of a side note is that when you are providing feedback on someones game try to keep in mind what the high concept of their game is. Too often I see people complaining about a game in someway and are basically describing a completely different game to the one they actually played. Help creators improve what they are trying to do not try to pull them into specifically what you want.

[@Reno_user]

Keep up the great work!

[@Micolino9878]

I once had this idea of a choose-your-own-adventure where have you have to fight with the characters to get them to do what you want, as opposed to what they want.

[@dakotashroom5401]

You could create a gamebook style video game. This will make it easier to write what you want to happen. If you did either of these 2 gamebooks you could have it online. This would make your book more accessible. But, you can create a video game style gamebook. It is possible to write combat paragraphs that take up 1 page. Then, of course, the reader turns to another page depending on their decision in the fight. This results in a more combat focused gamebook instead of a narrative one. A choose-your-own-adventure is a kind of gamebook. It is also in the name of dozens of gamebooks. Some people actually think gamebooks are called, "choose your own adventure" books. They can be called this because many gamebooks revolve around you, the reader, making decisions for the main character who is on an adventure.

[@rRecoveryProd]

That Freedom Planet music at the end credits...

[@brianneporchak3023]

Ooo...an excellent method of not overthinking my first true attempt at DMing a homebrew DnD campaign...

[@josh8215]

I clicked just because of that Inscryption reference.

[@AlechiaTheWitch]

James is back sorta.

[@Ryu_D]

Thank you for the video.

[@postapocalypticnewsradio]

PANR has tuned in.

[@extrahistory]

Thanks PANR!

[@postapocalypticnewsradio]

@@extrahistory anytime big cat!

[@Touhou20246]

Out of curiosity is this episode of extra credits here so that james can let everyone know that he is alive.🤔🧐

[@Finigini]

Oh hey, James!

[@samsolitaryroll]

Hey! It's James!

[@davidcollier2500]

This is what I needed to hear for the D&D campaign I'm building ha ha. It's super easy to get "world building syndrome".

[@dakotashroom5401]

Any kind of world building can be described as an imagined painting. Most world building is based on copying already existing habitats then altering them in some way. Some world building can be based on already existing altered habitats.

[@fdiw]

This was really well articulated

[@stevejakab274]

Unlike a lot of recent writers they've had on recently for their game design episodes, James is an actual game designer. Check out the early episodes with Dan doing the narration for a lot of good game design info from James (although skip the ones where they try to justify microtransactions and other monitization schemes).

[@-jeff-]

About as high concept as it gets now a days is; "It's an aggressive monetization scheme disguised as a video game".

[@dakotashroom5401]

This is what happens when someone thinks the point of making a game is to make money. I don't know how they could come to this conclusion. But, they do.

[@Mirvana]

Video: "Good, useful advice applicable in any game" ... And then there's Yoko Taro over there just violating each one left and right.

[@cardboardbox191]

before i saw this i thought a high concept would be things like justice

[@sophialaird6388]

A high concept for a game I’m thinking of is “Undertale, but with the RPG strategy added back in” / “Turn based RPG meets Warioware”

[@andreaswidham3607]

This is where Paradox stumbled with Imperator. Much hate was thrown at it's mana mechanic, but the first failure was that they tried to make a game based on the best features of their other Grand strategy games, which left Imperator with no identity of it's own. Which is weird because every one of those other's succeed so well in it's focus: HOI - The War, ACA WW2 EU - Build an Empire in the Age of Colonialism Victoria - Industrial Age Economy CK - The Dynasty Stellaris - .... (idk, you tell me.) Imperator should have been "The City." Carthage, Athens, Sparta ROME, this was a time where people organized themselves around cities. There could have been such interesting mechanics of intercity relationships, not just map painting. And of the vast differences between the urbanized cultures of the Mediterranean, the "Barbarians" at the peripheries, and those who are kind of in between, like the Gauls. When I first realized this I was so angry and sad that this wasn't what Paradox went for.

[@JanbluTheDerg]

Stellaris is Build space empire... or if you add more detail, space alien genocide simulator.

[@jamespersaud7338]

Yes but consider stonehenge

[@michaelbushee3968]

I feel like Stellaris is grand-scale politics and conquest vs. federation. EU is about building an empire, but Stellaris is about building a nation across thousands of worlds and thousands of years. Politics at that scale feels very different and very impersonal in comparison to something like the dynasties of CK or the nations of EU. Time feels different at those scales too.

[@raventhorX]

I want to make an rpg game with mmo elements that changes how progression at end game works. How to do that is the trick however as most of my ideas might only amount to slight twists of what's already been done.

[@FreelancerStudios100]

This gives me hope for what im making hopefully people can get excited for a Sky island privateer adventure in an immersive world with a diet Steampunk ascetic and interesting characters.

[@BrenGamerYT]

My final project for a game writing class I took in college was to make a high concept so I made a roguelike pet sim.

[@8xMorladumx8]

JAAAAMES! Oh how i miss thee.

[@dimitrijejovanovic5939]

OMG JAMES!

[@promiscuous5761]

Thank you.

[@Bill_Garthright]

OK,... but how does this apply to a game like Kenshi. It's a great game - one of my all-time favorites. And it blew me away when I first discovered it (clear back in alpha) because it wasn't like anything else. After more than 1400 hours in Kenshi, I'm _still_ playing it. But I'm not sure how I could easily describe it. An open-world single-character or squad-based exploration, building, crafting, and/or third-person combat/survival game? What's the "high concept"? I have no idea. Admittedly, I don't develop games, I just play them. But we sure get a lot of games these days that are just like dozens of other games out there, don't you agree? Kenshi is unique. Disco Elysium is unique. Minecraft was unique. So was Daggerfall, back in the day, right? Obviously, uniqueness doesn't mean everything. But wow, some games just stay with me.

[@dakotashroom5401]

You're quite right. They are stuck in the past and aren't game designers. They just make videos and try to be helpful.

[@TamTroll]

post-post apocalypses sandbox game?

[@fy8798]

Daggerfall wasn't unique. At all. It was just a bigger, easier and more accessible, simplified version of dungeon crawlers like Ultima Underworld or even Wizardry/Might& Magic. Kenshi also is not as unique as you think - and it's fairly easy to describe, too. Open world survival with a ronin MC focused on difficulty. That's it. This sums up the general concept and aims of the game, as well as the intentions of the designer. Everything else radiates from there or supports it. The limb cut mechanic for example exists to support the difficulty aspect (as its designer famously disliked hand-holding :P). The things you focus on to "complicate" things aren't part of high concept. Squad-based isn't, crafting/building isn't (that's just supporting the typical survival genre, which itself has been rather played out in the last two decades), third person isn't.

[@elhugo13]

i want james back.

[@theeightbithero]

JAMES!!!!!

[@sourcererseven3858]

I have no use, absolutely zero, for this advice. But I like it.

[@lancergt1000]

I'm developing a (fan)game where it's high concept is: "A fighting game where you can't fight, you can only call bodyguards to fight for you." What do you guys think? I'm really afraid that the premise would be too hard to play for most people, as they now have to pay attention to so many things (your and the opponent's character, you and the opponent's bodyguards)

[@pvtpain66k]

*JAMES!!!*

[@Luxalpa]

Mine is: Open World RPG where you are playing a giant creature. Raid, conquer or liberate cities and become a magnificient guardian, a selfish tyrant or destroy everything. Battle large armies, crush fortifications and rampage through cities and simply do whatever you like.

[@theeightbithero]

I want to make an animal crossing/Zeldike battle royal where you raise and build a kingdom where you can host battle royal matches at. The story is woven around the animal crossing mechanics of economy, and the adventure mechanics of Zelda.

[@lancergt1000]

2:12 what about Deus Ex? A franchise who's entire goal is to mash multiple disparate things together (stealth/shooting/roleplaying)

[@ginnyjollykidd]

My snail-mail box is the size of a post office box, and the mail carrier could fit a standard shoebox in it with other mail. So, yeah, you could fit a 2-serving beer bottle easily in a mailbox.

[@Lightmagician60]

Zelda Meets Darksouls Meets Banjo-kazooie a Dioblo style singleplayer mmo that plays like a Moba a openworld pokemon Style game that takes a few good ideas from f2p games a .hack inspired game with random Etrian Odessey dungeons and a real time "turn" combat akin to "multi-boxing" in MMOs a stealth Horror game with Rougelike level generation and a time limit

[@NeilMcIntoshHarlequeen]

Can I have the squirrel potions, please?