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Hey Designer,

Welcome to issue #6 of Signposted!

In this issue we’ll be breaking down a theory on how the Pokémon GO location system works.

In the best of series we’ve got a stacked lineup. Starting with Dan Felder (Riot Games) discussing his take on game balance. Andrew Chambers (World of Warcraft) kicks off our video section taking a deep dive into Enshrouded’s shroud mechanic. Followed by Masahiro Sakurai (Smash bros. and Kirby) discussing game rewards. And in the best of podcasts, we have Ben Jones (Battlefield 4, MAG, SOCOM 4) discussing live service games.

Last but not least, the results of last week’s community poll are in, Nintendo absolutely crushed the competition for top Japanese developer. With multiple 90+ Metacritic rated games this year, it’s not hard to see why.

Let’s get into it!

Bi-Weekly Analysis

A Theory on Pokémon Go’s Location System

By Scott Fine

The Pokémon GO spawning system sounds complicated, but is quite simple once you break it down. Likely, a similar system is used for the recent Monster Hunter Now game as well. In this breakdown, I’ll run through a simplified example to give you an understanding of how it works.

As per usual after the link to the full article is a quick breakdown of the most important points.

Quick Takeaway:

• This example is going to be a miniaturized version of how it functions so it’s easier to explain.

• Imagine a map of Los Angles, and over that map is a grid like this:

  

  • Within each grid space are a selection of up to 9 randomly generated Pokémon the player can discover.

    • This is reflected by the “Nearby” Pokémon screen:

      

    • When the player crosses to a different grid space, a new selection of randomly generated Pokémon appear unique to that space.

    • This is controlled by the server so the player can’t just walk back and forth across the street spawning new Pokémon.

  • Let’s imagine there are only 5 Pokémon options which can spawn + an option for no Pokémon.

    • Pidgey

    • Rattata

    • Zubat

    • Growlithe

    • Goldeen

  • Now let’s plug those into a drop table:

    

• As you can see from our list there is a high chance of spawning Rattata, Pidgey, and Zubat because there are a lot of them listed on the table. But a very low chance of spawning a Goldeen because it is only listed once.

  • Every so many minutes one of the 9 slots will remove a Pokémon from the list and use a random number generator to select and spawn a new Pokémon from the chart above.

  • In this way there are always new Pokémon to catch as they are constantly being cycled out.

• Note: for those new to random number generators and drop tables it functions as follows:

  • A random number is selected between 1-20 and whichever number is selected the corresponding Pokémon is chosen.

• If I were to go into a grid space, and the random number generator ran the following numbers: 4, 1, 2, 17, 20, 1, 5, 13, 4 the 9 Pokémon which appear in my grid space would be as follows:

  • Pidgey

  • Pidgey

  • Pidgey

  • Growlithe

  • Nothing

  • Pidgey

  • Pidgey

  • Zubat

  • Pidgey

• But what about terrain, rarity, and the night/day cycle?

  • All of those simply adjust the drop table.

  • As you can see from the below image, if you were to go over water, many slots on the drop table would be replaced by Goldeen.

  • This dramatically increases Goldeen’s chance of spawning:

    

  • If you take this basic idea and explode it to grids around the entire globe and all the Pokémon, you have a basic idea of how it functions. For a little deeper dive and how lures and such work, please check out the full blog in the link above.

The Best of Game Design

The Best of Written

Top-down shooter level design: how map design supports game mechanics

By Denis Kozin

Denis Kozin analyzes the maps of 4 different games. He discusses some of the design methodology behind them, the relationship between map, mechanics, and camera. It’s a great reminder that none of our design disciplines fly solo, but influence one another.

🏆 Issue #6 Scott’s Pick 🏆 - Design 101: Balancing Games

By Dan Felder

Dan Felder is a Lead Features & Systems Designer on Riot’s Legends of Runeterra. In this article he discusses his approach to game balancing and some of the tricks he uses to get it right. As someone who used his “Triple Tapping” concept as recently as last week, I can’t recommend this article enough.

Bonus Article: 40 Years and I’m Still Here

#19 on IGN’s Top 100 Game Creators of all time list has a blog. Warren Spector tells his story and talks about his learnings. While this is not hard design analysis, I felt it worth including as a bonus article because I found it interesting.

Issue #5 Community Question

The Best of Video

Enshrouded has a really interesting design mechanic | Deep Dive

By Andrew Chambers

Andrew Chamber’s resume spawns from a designer on World of Warcraft to a creative director at Netflix, in this video he discusses Enshrouded and it’s “shroud” mechanic. It’s an in depth look at how it works, why it works, and directions it could be taken to +1 it. I highly recommend his channel.

Planning Your Game’s Rewards [Planning & Game Design]

By Masahiro Sakurai

Masahiro Sakurai (Kirby and Super Smash Bros.) has a youtube channel on game design. In this video, he covers one of the topics I get asked about the most; planning your game’s rewards. It’s a great video to start exploring that question. After you finish this one, check out his youtube channel. He’s been putting up design videos for a year.

The Best of Audio

Designing for Online Games w/ Ben Jones: The Art of LiveOps S3E2

By James Gwertzman and Crystin Cox

Not many people can say they’ve been doing LiveOps in games for over a decade, but Ben Jones can. As a creative director at Zenimax Online Studios, Ben has spent an extensive period developing and working in live service games. In this podcast, he talks about just that.

And that’s it for Signposted #6. Thanks for reading!

Scott

If you find a typo in the newsletter, please reply to shame me into improving my editing skills.