Design For Dummies II: The Hook

To be honest I'm not entirely sure where I first heard the term used, but in recent years “the hook” has become a regular guest in my day-to-day vocabulary, particularly in the games design studio. I'm not sure how often I say it, but now that I think about it, it must be a lot. During my brief stint as an associate lecture at the Uni in particular, I spent a good 30% of my day drumming the concept into cheerfully bemused skulls; so much so that I heard recently that “the hook” has become a mandatory submission requirement of several design-focused projects. As partial legacy's go, I'm pretty pleased about that, because I honesty do believe that “the hook” is a completely vital aspect of games design. So, obvious question from the audience, what is a hook?

Hook, Line and Sinker
The idea of a hook inevitably appears in all commercial industry's. In television and movies, the hook is often known as a single succinct sentence that instantly explains why your product deserves to exist. I don't really believe you can sum up every great show and movie in one magic line, but the sentiments of the practice are the same. What sets your product apart? What is the tangible feature unique to your idea that you can point to and say “that, that's why I am different, that is what sets me apart from the competition, and that is why you should care”. I have said this time and time again, but once more for luck: Your hook should not be story or setting based. You are making a game, so you need a mechanical gameplay-focused hook for it to be effective. As discussed in the last entry and the one before it, you need that gameplay hook in order to provide yourself the tools for competent and exciting level design later in the project... and also so that you can tackle the question “so what do you actually do in this game?” without crisis. This is particularly true in the University sense, because academic projects can't survive on presentation and story to carry the final experience like a product on a shelf might. When people ask what the game is and you describe a game they have already played “but with robot zombies!” you'll quickly recognize the mistake you have made. Well, hopefully you would. I mean, robots can't die so can't achieve undead status. Duh. Unless you mean robots programmed to act like zombies, in which case: don't be silly.


The hook comes into the equation very quickly after you take a glance over your chosen genre. If you open your eyes to it, you'll realize that most if not all of the successful games in your chosen genre (released since the foundation of the genres core framework) will sport their own unique hook, even if sometimes it's hidden amidst a smorgasbord of other USP's. Essentially, the hook is the king of your USP's.
Sonic the Hedgehog: Momentum physics and speed
Prince of Persia: Rewind time to undo mistakes
Ratchet and Clank: Weapon and equipment customization/purchase
Mario Galaxy: Gravitational surfaces
Crush: Swap between dimensions to flatten environment
'Splosion Man: Being able to explode ...

Although the hook is automatically the flagship of your USP fleet, by the time you are bringing your tome to the Print Shop for final binding, hooks can (and sometimes should) ultimately end up just one of a number of clever mechanics you have brought to the genre table. Still, I knew for this project that I needed a mechanic that would truly stand head and shoulders above the rest, and really ring out as an example of a meaningful hook. If you aren't careful a limp tepid, blunted hook can devolve into the hook's evil twin: the gimmick, which is a nightmare scenario. To this end, I very briefly juggled and discarded several somewhat lame “hooks”. The power to swap objects between solid, liquid and gaseous forms, the power to conduct electricity and hold/transfer hot and cold temperatures between locations, the ability to adjust your size to affect the environment at different levels, limited teleportation or being able to flip the world upside down.. lame stuff.

It is not a rule that the “hook” be a power or ability, it's just a common scenario because the hook will inevitably be something that is present for the majority of the game experience; a constant. This means that either the hook is connected to the rules of the universe/location the game takes place, in which case it affects not only the player but all other game characters in the same or similar ways (and the player has no direct control over it), or the hook is connected to the player character(s)/protagonist(s) and they carry it around with them through different locations. In either case, new locations can often affect or change how the core mechanics (and therefore the hook) behaves, introducing new environment-specific rules/mechanics to provide variety without actually changing the games existing rule set.

If you are struggling, a good way to find a hook is simply to put away your pretentious designer beret an put on your gamer cap instead. Ask yourself what you wish you could do within an existing genre, but can't yet. I think we have all played a game and hit the 4th wall with an unfortunate bump. “Damn, I thought I would have been able to-” whatever. A surprising number of my game concepts have been the ironic product of misconception. In this case though, I just cast my mind back to my second semester projects, where I took the core mechanic of an existing game and used them to create something new. Specifically, I was thinking of how I took the Shadow of the Colossus “climbing creatures” mechanic, and went on to create the rather well-received “Grease Monkey” pitch. From that springboard, I just started asking myself the right questions.

In Shadow of the Colossus and Grease Monkey the level is alive and organically moving under you, but what if you had the power to move the level yourself? If your player character had the ability to alter or add to the environment? Now THAT is a mechanic worth building a game around. Finally, this is a game idea.

...This post dedicated to Andrea. I couldn't have done it without her. Well, I could have, and it would have probably got done sooner. But I wouldn't have laughed at paedo-poseidon along the way.

As ever, thanks for reading. ...I was SO sure that teleportation was a word.