Category: Thoughts

Eskil Steenberg, currently hard at work on a very pretty new MMO called “Love“, made an insightful comment on the tendency in contemporary game design to replace gameplay with more or less elaborate PAUSE and PLAY buttons.

I’ve recently played some MGS4 and GTAIV, and it is clear they are filled with press button to proceed, use item to proceed, honk the horn to proceed, or simply just follow the line on your map. GTAIV feels at times like a pac-man, except you don’t have to make any choices where to go.

It is clear after playing these games that what the designers really wanted to do was not a game but a movie, the interactivity is just a annoyance on the way. As someone who is also into film making I can understand this, but the problem is that it is ruining the game. Even with film aspirations, they don’t have even the basic film 101 knowledge down like pacing, avoiding exposition, to show rather then tell, tension leading to resolution, building up an event or character before not after they appear, and giving the viewer a fair chance to figure out the resolution before hand.

Reminds me of our realisation some time ago that game design was still largely considered a problem that needs to be solved rather than an opportunity that can be exploited. Rather than looking at the medium with a clear head and then figuring out what to do with it, many game developers come to the medium with the preconceived ideas and then they force the design to cater to these ideas. Even if the medium doesn’t lend itself to them very well. Even if the medium may be capable of much more interesting and spectacular things that are completely unthinkable in any other medium.

There’s two kinds of playing. There’s the competitive kind and there’s the whimsical kind.

Competitive play sets up certain boundaries and a goal to achieve. It can be done against other people or against oneself. The point of competitive play is to attempt to win, i.e. to reach the predefined goal. Sports is an example of competitive play.

Whimsical play is free-form. It involves non-productive activities that we do merely to amuse ourselves. Sometimes whimsical play is done with other people, sometimes alone. But the form of playing can change at any moment. Any rules that might occur are temporary or optional. Sex is an example of whimsical play.

Competitive play in essence is also non-productive. But through rules and goals, it creates a sensation of purpose. Whimsical play is always pointless. It is purely recreational and makes no excuses for itself.

Why is it that we see so much competitive play in video games and so little whimsical play?

Is it because rulesets are so compatible with the way in which a computer works? Is it because we want the illusion of productivity since computers are supposed to be machines for work, not play? Or is it simply because we have lost the ability to enjoy the moment, to play for playing’s sake?

Competitive computer games are often used for whimsical play. When players start hacking or modifying the game, when they start testing the game’s limits, when they do things in the game that are irrelevant to achieving the pre-defined goal. While many contemporary games allow this kind of activity and some even encourage it, very few games are actually built around this form of play. And since they are not, whimsical play in competitive games is almost always disruptive. It destroys the intent of the designer, the narrative of the game and the overall atmosphere.

The only computer game designed for whimsical play that I can think of at the moment is The Endless Forest. Can anyone think of any others?

We tend to watch video game trailers and the like during tea time lately. I know it’s kind of pathetic to work on games all day and to look at other people’s work on games for leisure. But anyway. One thing struck me when we were watching bits of the Fable 2 Dev Diary on Eurogamer TV. Something Joss Moore, Senior Combat Programmer (they all seem to have funny titles like that at Lionhead), said about the “One Button Combat” in their game.

For Fable 1, we had loads of different ideas about how we wanted to move forward with the combat. And we always would come up with a new thing and there’d always be the standard problem of how we work this into the controls. It was so limiting thinking “Well, we’ve run out of buttons for that. How will the player actually make this happen?” By stripping back to just using one button it seems the sky is the limit all of a sudden. Anything we can think of based on the context that it’s appropriate, we can do. Just with a single button press.

Sounded very similar to our own rejection of even the “single button press” for The Path.

I believe that this is more than a matter of restrictions stimulating creativity, though. Oddly, video game designers often seem to forget that they are working with computers and that computers can do a lot of things for you. Games often seem to be programmed as complete systems in which the player is asked to perform a function. So, in essense, when playing, we are working for the game, helping it to become complete.

But weren’t computers invented to work for us? Let the computer do the hard work! Even in games. Not only does that free us up to enjoy the art and the story better. This way, the computer can also become an active and creative element in the experience. The computer can become your ally, your friend, while together you explore this strange new virtual world.

In discussions about emotions in games -and the desire to have more of them- we are quick to use the word art. But outside of games, art and emotion are not so clearly linked. In fact, a lot of -“high” or “fine”- art tends to provoke much weaker emotions in the audience than soap opera’s, Hollywood tear jerkers or romantic literature. The emotions provoked by the latter evaporate rather quickly, while the former can linger on for days, years. They can even change your life, as Rilke pointed out.

Since games are interactive, we are used to receiving immediate response to our input. When it comes to emotions, we probably expect the same immediacy. We want the game to grab us by the throat and force us to feel something. Will this exclude games from ever rising above the status of popular -“low” or “commercial”- art?

I guess the question is:
Does interactivity stand in the way of depth, of thoughtfulness?

All games are casual. Computer games are no exception. Games have been casual for centuries. There is no distinction, in terms of structure and mechanics, between a first person shooter and a game of pop the bubbles. Casual games are nothing new. And they are everywhere.

Contrary to popular opinion in the video games industry, everybody plays games! People play scrabble, they play chess, tic-tac-toe, cards, etcetera. People have always played games, casually. And now they play them on computers. The so-called rise of casual games does not exist. It’s simply people using computers (and other techno-gadgets) more.

Some computer games, however, offer more than casual entertainment. These games simulate believable environments and feature interesting characters, artificial intelligence, deep stories, sophisticated soundtracks. Games like this show us a glimpse of the future of the interactive medium.

But to this day, sadly, even most of these games still contain a mind-numbing layer of casual gameplay. Get the keycard, kill the boss monster, solve the puzzle, collect the gold, win some stupid game. Go to the next level, start again. Ad nauseam. Completely destroying the delicately woven layer of fiction and simulation that can be so rich and meaningful.

While we can play games with computers, we don’t need computers to play games. But to create an interactive illusion, an immersive and believable environment, a fiction that responds to your every move, requires a computer. This is where the heart and soul of computer entertainment lies. This is what we need to focus on.

The casual designers can continue to explore the myriad constellations of “interesting game mechanics” and “cool level design”. As they have been doing for centuries. We can even learn a thing or two from them. Accessibility for instance. While there may not be much difference in terms of structure and mechanics, the interfaces of explicitly casual games are often simply much better designed. Because casual games target everybody, their interfaces need to be intuitive and simple. There is no reason for interactive entertainment to be complicated.

Casual gameplay is universally appealing. Even on a computer. Everybody plays casually at some point. But these experiences are not meaningful. They are not important to most people. Casual game experiences are nowhere near as significant as experiences with film, literature or music.

If we want to realize the enormous potential of the interactive medium, we need to get rid of casual gameplay! Move on. And concentrate on the unique things we can do with this technology. Less casual, more ambitious, deeper, interesting, new.

When fantasizing about the future of computer games, we often think of the Holodeck: an area from the Star Trek science fiction universe where reality can be simulated in extremely convincing ways. The residents of the starships that house these Holodecks, however, do not use them for games.

Games on the Enterprise, on Voyager and in Deep Space 9, are generally more like electronic versions of our current board games than anything resembling a simulation.

Kal-toh is a Vulcan puzzle game.

Continue reading “Games in Star Trek”