All but the very best of the computer games that I’ve played are an awful lot more old-fashioned (or at least conventional), dull, slow (due to loading times and repetition) and creaky in terms of their programming and mechanics when compared to the slick and attractive “machines” (meaning the game mechanics) of the majority of analogue games that I’ve played – multi-player ones, at least. But I don’t know which meaning Maaike intended with any of these words and, anyway, I’m accustomed to my opinions being the opposite to those of the general population. (Tabletop games also elicit plenty of what Maaike usefully describes as periphery activity – just look at all the photos people post on BoardGameGeek and Flickr of their favourite board and tile games recreated in food – though there isn’t as much of it – online, at least – as there is for computer and video games: I’ve yet to see any fan art on the level of the “i am 8-bit” shows, for example.)

It is interesting, however, that you’ve ended up comparing single-player digital games against multi-player analogue games: the obvious thing would be compare single and multi-player analogue games against their digital equivalents, which has been done plenty of times and usually with the answer that single-player works better digitally and multi-player works better analogously (providing that you have people to play it with within physical proximity). But the former comparison is more neglected and, perhaps, of actually greater importance.

(There are such things as single-player tabletop games, by the way, and perhaps more than might occur to one at first, as I include in that category not only solitaire – both the card game and the one played with wooden or metal balls or pegs which jump over each other – but also “choose your own adventure” books and those of a related kind which I owned several of as a child: they would typically have an overall story, some kind of puzzle to solve on each page in order to move on to the next – though I usually got bored and just turned over – and an overall mystery which involved looking back through all the previous pages to solve – though I usually got bored and frustrated and opened the sealed section which contained the answers. “Where’s Wally?” is another example.)

Sorry for not responding sooner but I was on holiday. Very interesting discussion! I do realize that I rave and rant a lot without giving any concrete strategies. Maybe that is because I’m a writer and have never attempted at making games. Michael’s ‘omitting-strategy’ is, I think, absolutely spot-on. For example, when you read certain books or watch certain movies you can simply see what sort of elements will make it into the game. As if writers and producers are sort of pre-adapting their material to the standard game format of, say, boss-fights, puzzles, and tricky trajectories. What would be real fun and also rewarding I guess would be to take such an example – the Harry Potter books or the Spiderman movies – and think up a game that omits all those elements that seem to be in the book or movie for the convenience of the game-adaptors.

For now, cheers and thanks for the interesting discussion!
Maaike.

Yes exactly. Like I said before, I’d prefer if games had challenges and goals more like those, more relevant like the kinds of challenges and goals we have in real life; most people won’t ever shoot someone, but most people probably will raise a pet. Princess Maker is a game somewhat like that (about raising a daughter to be a good princess). It’s simplistic and it still had a few RPG style battles if you want to train your daughter to fight but it was a nice attempt.

Nurturing a lost kitten sounds like fun – though maybe not in real life. I once spent at least an hour coaxing a kitten to let me come close enough to pick it up and put it in the hayloft with the other cats so the people’s hunting dogs wouldn’t kill it. That was a memorable experience. (while visiting some relatives who live on a farm)

Perhaps a decent possibility for a play-once game?

There’s also different kinds of challenges. It’s one thing to want to go hunting and kill the biggest elk you can find. It’s another to find a lost kitten and nourish it so it grows up into a friendly companion. Both are challenges. But for different personalities or moods.

A challenge doesn’t always need to be an aggressive in your face “do you have the guts to do this?” kind of thing. Nor does the reward for facing up to the challenge always need to be explicit. And we should not forget about the narative potential of failing to face up to a challenge and of being rewarded without deserving it. Games are always fair. But life is hardly ever…

But it’s alway good to question one’s own assumptions. Think of it as a challenge. ;)

It’s worth trying out to see, though, there’s the chance I’m wrong, and maybe this quote from that movie/book is actually correct:

Willy Wonka: But Charlie, don’t forget what happened to the man that suddenly got everything he ever wanted.

Charlie: What happened?

Willy Wonka: He lived happily ever after.

Anyway, I really like this idea of trying to explicitly avoid doing typical game things, in order to learn more about what games are and what’s important. Like making a game that purposely has no replay value, or a game with no explicit reward structure, or even a game that attempts to avoid giving the player any sense of reward, like Victi apparently does.

I think it would be a lot of fun to try brainstorming elements that seem important or standard in games, but could be interesting to omit. I just started a thread in the forums where we can post our ideas. Click my name for the link.

Also juggling might be an enjoyable way to while away some time. :D Click my link for a source of good quality juggling and twirling gear. ;)

Without repeating some element, the game would just be a matter of playing WITH it until the novelty wore off.

I must admit that this idea attracts me a lot. A game that you just play once for half an hour or an hour and then never again. Or perhaps later, you play it one more time. No huge investment in time, no commitment. Just a short and perhaps single play session that is satisfying in and of itself. Sounds perfect to me!

I can always fall back on trustworthy (and wretched) old WoW as my example. The game quickly becomes tedious to anyway who stops to notice. The insidious “grinding” ends up replacing what was novel and interesting the first few times, but by putting meagre rewards at the end of each quest, with a view to future, bigger rewards (one of which is literally a carrot on a stick), millions of players (and I’m not exaggerating this time) are enticed into spending money over and over without ever having a truly novel experience. (Click click click kill. Click click click bigger kill. Click click GET killed by a bored player of opposing faction.) I look back and cringe, but a big slice of market still feeds the machine.

So… WoW and the Sims are prime examples of what NOT to do. >_

As for concrete ideas, I think we should start by accepting that this is an entirely new medium. What is needed is not more answers but more questions: we need to research this technology, discover what it is capable of, see how far we can go with it. Step one would be to not do certain things, things that we’re used to.

Not implementing features that we expect in games has really helped us in our own design practice. I’m not sure why. Simply removing certain “normal” game elements opens up a world of possibilities, where the imagination can flourish. When you remove the puzzles from the game, you can suddenly start enjoying the soundscape. For instance. It’s funny how that works.

So if we want to find an alternative to the carrot/stick design approach, we should start by removing any carrot/stick-like structures. Then we will get a field of opportunities to exploit. Which is always better than a problem to solve.

I think I agree with this. There was reward for succeeding at challenges long before there was money, let alone capitalism. However I think the difference now is that most “challenges” today come from other people, they’re more like jumping through man-made hoops others have set for you, whereas the “challenges” of the past were the challenges of nature.

The link in my name here goes to a post I made several months ago about reward structures. I’m curious how you respond to it.

Is the reason my game failed because it lacked interesting reward structures? Or does it just need a tutorial?

As far as I know, there are in fact many more copy-cat games that fail to bring in money for their creators than successful ones. Originality, if done well, is often rewarded by the market. But there’s many ways of being original. Some work for the mainstream, some only for the hardcore gamers, and others for an even smaller niche. So matching production budget with potential sales is the real trick.

But, as Maaike points out, the fear of innovation leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more you train your audience to play only a very narrow range of games, the less likely it becomes that they will experiment with something new.

By the way, very few games reach an audience of tens of millions players!

I think one of the bumps in the road is that the game creators themselves are bound by a carrot/stick system. Produce a game that will sell to the current market = get paid.

Perhaps collaboration between these creators and users WOULD lead to innovative games… but wouldn’t pay the bills for the creators.

I’ve had some great ideas, but don’t know how to program, and never developed my 3D modelling/animation skills. Yet if a programmer and artist were to work with me on that project and make it come to life, chances are they’d have made a perfect game for an audience of one, as opposed to a mediocre rehash for an audience of tens of millions of players.

A mindless democracy created this market, and like any democracy, we’re lucky if we have ONE vote… and one vote doesn’t make a difference on its own.

Bring on the revolution? :D