So, Brenda Brathwaite posted on choice frequency.
I've posted on this subject before - although my essay is now lost to the winds of fickle hosting services, so I can only reference a tangential post.
Basically, I agree. I thought I would explain my theory on the matter, since the original essay is gone. GONE! Sob...
I don't think it's simple frequency. I think that the choices also have to (A) be actual choices, (B) change the game state in a significant way, and (C) be partially reversible or repeatable. "Meaningful", yes, but I define that a bit more complexly.
For example, if you're on a map, choosing whether to move left or right at any given moment is a meaningful, frequent choice. Moving one way brings you closer to some goals and further from others, moving another way does the opposite. Reversing your path is usually possible, but takes time.
Similarly, if you're playing poker, you're faced with numerous opportunities to make very meaningful choices. Bidding, just as a most obvious aspect. Bids can't be taken back, but every hand, you get to try again. There certainly are "make or break" hands of poker, but they're very unusual.
As a final example, you have games like Rock Band. It may feel a bit odd to say that a song beat is a "choice", and I think "choice" is probably a bad term. I... really hate the word "choppertunity"... but I think it's better than "choice". Maybe "option"?
Anyway, Rock Band sends these notes sliding down the neck towards you, and you hit them. You're not making "meaningful choices" between hitting the notes and letting them slide by. It's a skill test. But, fundamentally, I think that the basic play properties are the same as choosing which direction to go on a map. Frequent, repeatable opportunities that change the state of the world.
As an example of how not to do frequent choices, you can see modern dialog trees. You know, a kid says, "hey mithter, you got anything to eat?" and let you choose between "KILL HIM NOW!" and "Give him your life savings!" twenty times an hour.
Not only are these choices not frequent enough, they aren't even really choices. Nobody is constantly wavering between dark and light. These are paths that they choose at the beginning and stay with for the whole game. So the "choices" really aren't choices at all.
So, yes, I agree with Braithwaite, and I guess I don't have much to add.
...
Um. Have a nice day, I guess?
Showing posts with label choppertunity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label choppertunity. Show all posts
Friday, April 18, 2008
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Cooperative Storytelling
Everyone likes to tell stories.
Many people think they don't, and many more think they are terrible at it. But I find that, given the right constraints and suggestions (choppertunities glarrrrrrghhhhh...) even the most uptight, unimaginative person can tell great stories. Or, at least, pieces of a great story.
When you get people together to tell stories, there are basically three stages. Each player moves through the stages at different speeds: some players need a lot of help, some players just need a little time to adjust to the situation.
The first stage is "bewilderment". In this stage, the player doesn't really know enough to try to tell a story. In this stage, the player is usually happiest to hear stories - to follow, rather than lead.
Giving the player a viewpoint and examples is the fastest way to get them through this stage. For example, "You're the pirate king, and those guys over there could use some pirate help..." or "you're the incarnation of joy, so keep that in mind as you play..."
The second stage is "immersion". In this stage, the player is part of the world. In this stage, they usually want to explore the world using their viewpoint, and they can be relied on to seek out new experiences and help direct events as their viewpoint (character) would.
Many LARPs and tabletops reach this second stage and stop. It's easy to design a game which uses the second stage, but more difficult to design a game which allows the players to get to stage three.
The third stage is "creation". In this stage, a player stops adhering to the viewpoint given them and begins to think about the world and its stories at a larger level. At this stage, they can be relied on to guide and create situations that try to make the world more interesting.
In order to allow for this third stage, though, a game has to let players make significant changes... which has serious drawbacks. And I'm not talking about content or any of that - generally, players moderate themselves very well as to what is acceptable storytelling or not.
No, I'm talking about the fact that the history of the world gets very deep. New players and slower players will be unable to keep up with the flurry of new stories, and the people who created the stories aren't going to want to tell them over and over again. This generally results in "writer packs" of three to five people working on their corner of the universe and basically ignoring the fact that everyone else lives here, too.
Moreover, I have never seen a game designed to let players be in any of the three stages without being hindered. I've designed games which are good for any one stage, but the rules make it hard to be in one of the other stages. This leads to a very uncomfortable unbalance as to how many players of each stage there are. I don't know the ideal ratio, if there is such a thing.
What do you think? Can you think of a rule set which lets players go through all three stages unhindered? Can you think of a way to bring in fresh blood without requiring a lot of overhead from the experienced players?
Many people think they don't, and many more think they are terrible at it. But I find that, given the right constraints and suggestions (choppertunities glarrrrrrghhhhh...) even the most uptight, unimaginative person can tell great stories. Or, at least, pieces of a great story.
When you get people together to tell stories, there are basically three stages. Each player moves through the stages at different speeds: some players need a lot of help, some players just need a little time to adjust to the situation.
The first stage is "bewilderment". In this stage, the player doesn't really know enough to try to tell a story. In this stage, the player is usually happiest to hear stories - to follow, rather than lead.
Giving the player a viewpoint and examples is the fastest way to get them through this stage. For example, "You're the pirate king, and those guys over there could use some pirate help..." or "you're the incarnation of joy, so keep that in mind as you play..."
The second stage is "immersion". In this stage, the player is part of the world. In this stage, they usually want to explore the world using their viewpoint, and they can be relied on to seek out new experiences and help direct events as their viewpoint (character) would.
Many LARPs and tabletops reach this second stage and stop. It's easy to design a game which uses the second stage, but more difficult to design a game which allows the players to get to stage three.
The third stage is "creation". In this stage, a player stops adhering to the viewpoint given them and begins to think about the world and its stories at a larger level. At this stage, they can be relied on to guide and create situations that try to make the world more interesting.
In order to allow for this third stage, though, a game has to let players make significant changes... which has serious drawbacks. And I'm not talking about content or any of that - generally, players moderate themselves very well as to what is acceptable storytelling or not.
No, I'm talking about the fact that the history of the world gets very deep. New players and slower players will be unable to keep up with the flurry of new stories, and the people who created the stories aren't going to want to tell them over and over again. This generally results in "writer packs" of three to five people working on their corner of the universe and basically ignoring the fact that everyone else lives here, too.
Moreover, I have never seen a game designed to let players be in any of the three stages without being hindered. I've designed games which are good for any one stage, but the rules make it hard to be in one of the other stages. This leads to a very uncomfortable unbalance as to how many players of each stage there are. I don't know the ideal ratio, if there is such a thing.
What do you think? Can you think of a rule set which lets players go through all three stages unhindered? Can you think of a way to bring in fresh blood without requiring a lot of overhead from the experienced players?
Monday, May 07, 2007
Crafting Constraints
Today I attended the Harvard Interactive Media Group's panel. It was excellent, and this is the first such meeting I have found better than "painful", so this is a ten from a guy who gives out a lot of ones and twos. I have a lot to think about: it was rich in ideas.
But one of the things I want to talk about that I don't have to do a lot of research on first is constraints.
This is going to be painfully ivory tower.
It's fairly well known that creativity flourishes under constraints. Tell someone they can write five pages on anything, they're likely to be stymied. Tell them to write five pages on cloning, or write five pages that use the first twenty words of the dictionary, and they have a ball. People that work well without constraints typically work well because they are very good at assigning themselves constraints. "Write five pages about anything? Well, I have strong feelings about cloning... and wouldn't it be cool to use the first twenty words of the dictionary?"
In a very real sense, expression is mostly about applying constraints. If you squint, you can see that the real purpose of a piece of art is to offer up a set of constraints to the viewer, such that they are impelled to think in a certain way - think, feel, and witness within specific constraints. Well-chosen constraints will allow the viewer to have a rich but directed experience.
This experience varies across culture because how constraints interact in our minds is guided by experience, which... um... varies across culture. So in one culture a specific set of constraints might produce a very rich experience, while in another it might not resonate at all. Even internally to a culture: romance movies don't resonate well with me because the constraints it applies do not present me with interesting challenges and opportunities to think about. "Choppertunities"... glaarrgh... I used the word...
Movies simply offer constraints that change over time. They not only offer a constraint space that makes people think in specific ways, but also change the constraints to make them think in different ways at different times. Also, the changing constraints form a constraint all their own, which might be thought of as the genre. The constraints governing the changing of constraints are, in fact, well-defined cultural structures - defined over decades of symbiosis with a given set of viewers.
Games (interactive media in general) offer constraints that not only change over time, but also interactively create new constraints. How your spaceship can move interacts with how you choose to move it, and this creates a new set of constraints on how your spaceship can move (IE, dodging into an open area gives you "looser" constraints). Similarly, in an RPG, how you advance your character determines your skill set. While the progression is constrained in specific ways, the way you move within those constraints changes the constraints of how you can interact with the game. Whether to learn a fireball or heavy armor: it literally forms the constraints of the game.
So, what do we get when we think of games as interactive constraint generators?
Moreover, what do we get when we think of how we can get more user interactivity/content by either creating constraints to cause it... or creating constraints as a result of it? Friends lists are the obvious example.
Thoughts? Lack of thoughts?
But one of the things I want to talk about that I don't have to do a lot of research on first is constraints.
This is going to be painfully ivory tower.
It's fairly well known that creativity flourishes under constraints. Tell someone they can write five pages on anything, they're likely to be stymied. Tell them to write five pages on cloning, or write five pages that use the first twenty words of the dictionary, and they have a ball. People that work well without constraints typically work well because they are very good at assigning themselves constraints. "Write five pages about anything? Well, I have strong feelings about cloning... and wouldn't it be cool to use the first twenty words of the dictionary?"
In a very real sense, expression is mostly about applying constraints. If you squint, you can see that the real purpose of a piece of art is to offer up a set of constraints to the viewer, such that they are impelled to think in a certain way - think, feel, and witness within specific constraints. Well-chosen constraints will allow the viewer to have a rich but directed experience.
This experience varies across culture because how constraints interact in our minds is guided by experience, which... um... varies across culture. So in one culture a specific set of constraints might produce a very rich experience, while in another it might not resonate at all. Even internally to a culture: romance movies don't resonate well with me because the constraints it applies do not present me with interesting challenges and opportunities to think about. "Choppertunities"... glaarrgh... I used the word...
Movies simply offer constraints that change over time. They not only offer a constraint space that makes people think in specific ways, but also change the constraints to make them think in different ways at different times. Also, the changing constraints form a constraint all their own, which might be thought of as the genre. The constraints governing the changing of constraints are, in fact, well-defined cultural structures - defined over decades of symbiosis with a given set of viewers.
Games (interactive media in general) offer constraints that not only change over time, but also interactively create new constraints. How your spaceship can move interacts with how you choose to move it, and this creates a new set of constraints on how your spaceship can move (IE, dodging into an open area gives you "looser" constraints). Similarly, in an RPG, how you advance your character determines your skill set. While the progression is constrained in specific ways, the way you move within those constraints changes the constraints of how you can interact with the game. Whether to learn a fireball or heavy armor: it literally forms the constraints of the game.
So, what do we get when we think of games as interactive constraint generators?
Moreover, what do we get when we think of how we can get more user interactivity/content by either creating constraints to cause it... or creating constraints as a result of it? Friends lists are the obvious example.
Thoughts? Lack of thoughts?
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Opportunity and Challenge
A few posts ago, I mumbled about opportunity and challenge. Momberger called me out. He basically said, "Hey, you never defined opportunity, and the dictionary definition basically says you're not very bright."
Ha! Shows what you know! I never listen to the dictionary!
In fact, I have been glossing over what the hell I've been talking about for about two years. I mentioned that opportunity and challenge are, in my mind, often the same thing. I kind of glossed over it, but now I'll hit it in a bit more depth.
In a game, a player faces numerous challenges and/or opportunities. "Choppertunities", I called them, a word I hope never to write again. The way that their mating works is that in order for an opportunity to be involving, it needs to be paired with challenge. There needs to be a challenge to overcome in order to use it, and it needs to give a reward (typically a decrease in larger-scope challenge) to make it an opportunity rather than simply a challenge.
Examples of this are, of course, completely and utterly ubiquitous. You kill a bad guy. Each bad guy is an opportunity and a challenge: it is an opportunity to lower the threat against you, an opportunity to break through to new terrain, and/or an opportunity to get an XP or equipment reward. It is a challenge in that it takes some level of time and skill to overcome the enemy.
Every game you buy equipment is a choppertunity. (Shit, I said it again.) The equipment costs a certain amount - the challenge - and provides a significant combat boost - the opportunity. Every boss battle is harder - more challenge - but extra rewards in terms of upgrades and plot advancement are given - more opportunity.
There's a cat sleeping in the corner - opportunity - but the katamari needs to be larger than the cat - challenge. The challenge often creates a chain of opportunities and challenges - there's a string of erasers you can roll up to gain size, if you have the skill.
As you can see, the type of challenges are generally pretty similar in any given mode of play. In Katamari Damacy, all the challenges relate to picking things up as efficiently as possible. In an FPS, there are challenges and opportunities interwoven in terms of enemies and capacity to deal out damage. In an RPG, plot, combat, and resources play an intricate little dance that is, fundamentally, very similar to an FPS. Or a platformer, or a sports game, or even a live sport.
Granting new opportunities like this means granting new challenges in equal measure. A gravity gun allows you to hurl random debris around the level, but you'll have to be in a place where they are available, notice, grab, and aim them before it's any good - let alone the added complexity of maneuvering, timing, and so forth.
Double jumping gives you access to all those places you couldn't get before, but those places contain new challenges you'll need to defeat before you can get the new rewards (opportunities). Just the fact that there will be new rewards is an opportunity in and of itself...
It's fundamentally just a system of opportunities and challenges so tightly interwoven that they are nearly indistinguishable from each other. In some games, they are literally indistinguishable, such as in a shmup, where you try to get your little ship into the part of the screen not filled with enemy bullets. It's the challenge and the opportunity, all in one. In my mind, these are the ultimate forms of play... when they are so tightly linked you cannot really separate them.
Opportunities without challenges - and challenges without opportunities - occasionally have their uses. But their uses are so far removed from the normal play of the game that they should be considered entirely separate. Their uses are more to tell a story or to tweak pacing than to actually make the game fun, so they are a wholly different brand of beast.
At least, that's what's in my head. Let me know what you think.
Ha! Shows what you know! I never listen to the dictionary!
In fact, I have been glossing over what the hell I've been talking about for about two years. I mentioned that opportunity and challenge are, in my mind, often the same thing. I kind of glossed over it, but now I'll hit it in a bit more depth.
In a game, a player faces numerous challenges and/or opportunities. "Choppertunities", I called them, a word I hope never to write again. The way that their mating works is that in order for an opportunity to be involving, it needs to be paired with challenge. There needs to be a challenge to overcome in order to use it, and it needs to give a reward (typically a decrease in larger-scope challenge) to make it an opportunity rather than simply a challenge.
Examples of this are, of course, completely and utterly ubiquitous. You kill a bad guy. Each bad guy is an opportunity and a challenge: it is an opportunity to lower the threat against you, an opportunity to break through to new terrain, and/or an opportunity to get an XP or equipment reward. It is a challenge in that it takes some level of time and skill to overcome the enemy.
Every game you buy equipment is a choppertunity. (Shit, I said it again.) The equipment costs a certain amount - the challenge - and provides a significant combat boost - the opportunity. Every boss battle is harder - more challenge - but extra rewards in terms of upgrades and plot advancement are given - more opportunity.
There's a cat sleeping in the corner - opportunity - but the katamari needs to be larger than the cat - challenge. The challenge often creates a chain of opportunities and challenges - there's a string of erasers you can roll up to gain size, if you have the skill.
As you can see, the type of challenges are generally pretty similar in any given mode of play. In Katamari Damacy, all the challenges relate to picking things up as efficiently as possible. In an FPS, there are challenges and opportunities interwoven in terms of enemies and capacity to deal out damage. In an RPG, plot, combat, and resources play an intricate little dance that is, fundamentally, very similar to an FPS. Or a platformer, or a sports game, or even a live sport.
Granting new opportunities like this means granting new challenges in equal measure. A gravity gun allows you to hurl random debris around the level, but you'll have to be in a place where they are available, notice, grab, and aim them before it's any good - let alone the added complexity of maneuvering, timing, and so forth.
Double jumping gives you access to all those places you couldn't get before, but those places contain new challenges you'll need to defeat before you can get the new rewards (opportunities). Just the fact that there will be new rewards is an opportunity in and of itself...
It's fundamentally just a system of opportunities and challenges so tightly interwoven that they are nearly indistinguishable from each other. In some games, they are literally indistinguishable, such as in a shmup, where you try to get your little ship into the part of the screen not filled with enemy bullets. It's the challenge and the opportunity, all in one. In my mind, these are the ultimate forms of play... when they are so tightly linked you cannot really separate them.
Opportunities without challenges - and challenges without opportunities - occasionally have their uses. But their uses are so far removed from the normal play of the game that they should be considered entirely separate. Their uses are more to tell a story or to tweak pacing than to actually make the game fun, so they are a wholly different brand of beast.
At least, that's what's in my head. Let me know what you think.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Challenge
So, in the various places I read, there's been a recent font of essays on difficulty, restrictions, rails, and lack thereof. People seem to be tending primarily towards one idea: this idea. As usual, Darius can feel the pulse of the community.
Darius is wrong!
That's kind of strong, I suppose. Let me sum it up.
Darius backs the idea that the best games (and other works of art) simply give - they hold nothing back. Because they are such masterpieces, they can give and give without running out.
But that's not right! It's... tangential thinking. It's mistaking correlation for causation. Darius is saying (simplified and paraphrased): Because good games give, giving makes games good. There's a piece missing from the equation.
He gives the example of the gravity gun in Half-Life 2. It comes in early in the game. He gives this as an example of "not being afraid to give". Ngah!
The gravity gun is a tool to improve agency. What they gave was access to a new technique of play: the ability to throw things around. Following the gift of the gravity gun were a slew of directed challenges revolving around it. And I'm not talking about the tutorial section: I'm talking about every opportunity to hurl explosive canisters, or spinning saw blades, or play with boxes.
Similarly, with Braid: the designer gives and gives. Each section grants a fun new meta-ability related to time. He's not simply giving. He's giving a tool, and then forcing the player to use it in order to meet these directed challenges revolving around it.
Now, with Katamari Damacy, Darius argues that unlimited time should be an option from the beginning. I disagree strongly. Do you see the difference between the previous paragraphs and unlimited time in Katamari Damacy?
Yeah, giving the players unlimited time is doing the reverse of what we just talked about. It's about not giving the players a tool, and in fact weakening the directed challenge.
Some challenges need to be weakened - restarting at level one is, in fact, a pain in the ass. (As a side note, Bubble Bobble doesn't do this, at least not as I remember it from NES years. Not only could you continue forever, but I think you got passcodes every 10 levels or so.) But that has nothing to do with giving - it's actually taking, from a game design standpoint.
It's not that good games give. It's that good games give opportunities. The player pursues them, uses them, masters them with some level of difficulty. Then the game offers new opportunities. New challenges.
The gravity gun is only fun because of how it interacts with the game world. The game world is "bumpy" - full of interesting navigational dilemmas - and the gravity gun gives you a way to approach them. The same thing is quintuply true of Braid. The fun time mechanics are only fun because they are tools with which to approach the challenges and opportunities in the game world. (I find challenge and opportunity are, in many ways, the same concept in game design. Choppertunity!)
Moreover, all good games actually introduce new approaches to the game at a fairly slow pace. The more "choppertunities" a tool offers, the earlier in the game it should be granted, because the more play a player will get out of it. Obviously, many tools build off of other tools, and the earlier tools have to be introduced first... but however you do it, the player needs to be given a significant fraction of the challenges related to the tool before he can be considered to have "mastered" it and move on to the next tool. Before you can "give" again.
Something which just gives a statistical boost, such as a plasma cannon over a machine gun, doesn't have very many unique opportunities. It shares nearly all its "navigational capabilities" with the generic machine gun... so giving or taking it is mostly a reward situation rather than an opportunity situation. It doesn't really fall under this theory...
I feel like I'm being incoherent. But I hope I was clear enough.
Darius is wrong!
That's kind of strong, I suppose. Let me sum it up.
Darius backs the idea that the best games (and other works of art) simply give - they hold nothing back. Because they are such masterpieces, they can give and give without running out.
But that's not right! It's... tangential thinking. It's mistaking correlation for causation. Darius is saying (simplified and paraphrased): Because good games give, giving makes games good. There's a piece missing from the equation.
He gives the example of the gravity gun in Half-Life 2. It comes in early in the game. He gives this as an example of "not being afraid to give". Ngah!
The gravity gun is a tool to improve agency. What they gave was access to a new technique of play: the ability to throw things around. Following the gift of the gravity gun were a slew of directed challenges revolving around it. And I'm not talking about the tutorial section: I'm talking about every opportunity to hurl explosive canisters, or spinning saw blades, or play with boxes.
Similarly, with Braid: the designer gives and gives. Each section grants a fun new meta-ability related to time. He's not simply giving. He's giving a tool, and then forcing the player to use it in order to meet these directed challenges revolving around it.
Now, with Katamari Damacy, Darius argues that unlimited time should be an option from the beginning. I disagree strongly. Do you see the difference between the previous paragraphs and unlimited time in Katamari Damacy?
Yeah, giving the players unlimited time is doing the reverse of what we just talked about. It's about not giving the players a tool, and in fact weakening the directed challenge.
Some challenges need to be weakened - restarting at level one is, in fact, a pain in the ass. (As a side note, Bubble Bobble doesn't do this, at least not as I remember it from NES years. Not only could you continue forever, but I think you got passcodes every 10 levels or so.) But that has nothing to do with giving - it's actually taking, from a game design standpoint.
It's not that good games give. It's that good games give opportunities. The player pursues them, uses them, masters them with some level of difficulty. Then the game offers new opportunities. New challenges.
The gravity gun is only fun because of how it interacts with the game world. The game world is "bumpy" - full of interesting navigational dilemmas - and the gravity gun gives you a way to approach them. The same thing is quintuply true of Braid. The fun time mechanics are only fun because they are tools with which to approach the challenges and opportunities in the game world. (I find challenge and opportunity are, in many ways, the same concept in game design. Choppertunity!)
Moreover, all good games actually introduce new approaches to the game at a fairly slow pace. The more "choppertunities" a tool offers, the earlier in the game it should be granted, because the more play a player will get out of it. Obviously, many tools build off of other tools, and the earlier tools have to be introduced first... but however you do it, the player needs to be given a significant fraction of the challenges related to the tool before he can be considered to have "mastered" it and move on to the next tool. Before you can "give" again.
Something which just gives a statistical boost, such as a plasma cannon over a machine gun, doesn't have very many unique opportunities. It shares nearly all its "navigational capabilities" with the generic machine gun... so giving or taking it is mostly a reward situation rather than an opportunity situation. It doesn't really fall under this theory...
I feel like I'm being incoherent. But I hope I was clear enough.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)