I took a speed reading course and read ‘War and Peace’ in twenty minutes. It involves Russia.

Woody Allen

The title for today’s missive is inspired by Mr. Allen.

I’ve been playing (practicing?) Brain Age on the Nintendo DS ever so briefly, when I can get it away from Sonja, and have really been enjoying it (and no, I’m not going to tell you what my brain age is, at least until I’ve logged a few more hours).

I’ve been thinking about the lessons we should draw from the success of Brain Age in Japan. The obvious one is, “There is a demand for games/activities to help people loosen up the old neurons.” But I think that’s misses a more important lesson.

Brain Age is the offspring of a wildly popular book in Japan, “Train Your Brain”. Nintendo found a very popular mass market book (emphasis on mass), one that had a great design potential, and produced a game with a feature set which that same mass market felt comfortable buying.

In what may appear to be an aside, I also wanted to look at another popular game, a table-top game called Cranium. Sold at Starbucks, this is a social game that appeals to the coffee-shop crowd with clever questions and gameplay that rewards creative minds.

The common thread here, if there is one, is that you sell your audience a game they feel comfortable playing. Match the gameplay features to the market you’re targeting.

Which brings us to The Da Vinchi Code.

There is a game in production for The DaVinchi Code, set to coincide, I suppose with the release of the movie. I don’t know much about the game, other than it supposed to feature “action-oriented suspense for seasoned gamers and The Da Vinci Code fans alike,” according to IGN.

I don’t want to bust anybody’s chops, but this seems to me like an opportunity not fully taken.

The book has sold more than 40 million copies. I would wager that a number of those people do not consider themselves gamers. Here is the sketchy logic behind my claim. I see a lot of people reading Da Vinci Code on planes. I see a lot of people playing games on planes. Frequently, these are not the same people.

The last thing I’ll throw into the mix today is a comment from the “What’s Next ” panel at GDC this year, in which it was proposed that the biggest barrier to entry for new players (on consoles) is the standard controller, which to a non-gamer contains a baffling array of controls.

So. Design the game for a simple control scheme. Make 90% of the game playable with just one button. Put it on the DS and the Revolution, both of which support very user friendly control schemes.

My design proposals for a Da Vinci Code may be hampered somewhat by not having read the book, but I’ll try not to let that slow me down. It’s Foucault’s Pendulum with more explosions, right?*

The game play is more meditative than twitch. You are doing detective work, you are playing logic games that reveal clues. The play is more Myst than Tomb Raider. I considered throwing Obsidian into the mix, but that might be more appropriate for the Foucault’s Pendulum game. On the DS, the stylus can be used to reveal palimpsests, search libraries, be used as a magnifying glass. Use familiar metaphors like Solitaire and Mah Jong, and reward people for solving these sorting puzzles as if they’ve just decoded the Rossetta Stone.

Abstract out the violent bits to cutscenes, or make the combat short and simple, with single button combos (which can be context sensitive to allow a variety of attacks), but again, reward them as if they’ve just mastered Ninja Gaiden.

If I’ve learned anything from my frequent flyer miles, it’s that reading the Da Vinci Code make you feel smart, and you want the game to do the same. And staring at a modern console controller wondering what all the buttons do doesn’t make you feel smart.

-game over-

Thanks for reading another action-packed installment of Design a Day. For background on the Design A Day challenge, take a peek here and here.

* I have read one Dan Brown novel. On a plane. It involved Catholicism.