I create a lot of prototypes for games, and there's a few things I've learned. One thing is about the focus of the rules and the way the world develops. Please keep in mind I'm not talking about just video games, but also tabletop RPGs, board games, card games, anything.
As I create prototypes, I find myself focusing more and more on a single core play element. For example, if I create a prototype for an RPG, I might create just the combat system, flying free from leveling and equipment and so on. This is not really a bad way to do it, but it does come with some baggage as to how the rest of the game develops. I thought I'd touch on some fundamentals this process seems to reveal.
Most games focus on several simple systems that interlock. For example, in an RPG you have a simple tight-combat system (rolling to hit, damage, armor, etc) combined with a simple tactical system (movement, buffing spells, area effects, etc). Outside of that, you have an equipment system, a leveling/character power system, a skill-check system, and often several other systems, depending on the focus of the game.
This is true of most other games. A first-person shooter might combine a simple tight-combat system (aiming, shooting, damage) with ammo management, weapon management, level layout, enemy AI response, and whatever else the game chooses.
(For this post, we'll put aside whether or not non-play elements such as graphical design, story, interface, etc matter in this way.)
By creating many simple layers that interlock, these games create an end result which is reasonably deep and interesting. The player plays by running up and down the different layers, spinning each in turn. It creates a good pacing dynamic: the player will never be caught on a single play type for very long.
The other end of the spectrum are games where there are very few play mechanics, but they are much deeper. The easiest example is a fighting game. Aside from choosing a character, nearly all of the rest of the play is on the field of battle. Sure, some newer fighting games have weird world-exploration modes or equipment-equipping modes or whatever, but let's ignore that for now. The game is about the fighting.
The fighting is fundamentally a simple play system: move in small increments, and attack at the right time. This is made complex because there are many kinds of attacks - not just throws vs punches vs fireballs, but low attacks vs high attacks, fast attacks vs slow attacks, attacks you can cancel out of. For purposes of this analysis, defending will be considered automatic as long as you aren't moving forward or attacking.
This can be thought of as a simple framework with a lot of simple components. Each individual attack is a module which pops into the framework and casts a shadow on the playing field. These simple components create a pattern that you play within, jockying for the right position and the perfect moment to launch one of your techniques. Taking the enemy's own capabilities into account as well, launching your attacks into gaps in their patterns, avoiding the points in space where they are strongest...
The end result is that a relatively simple play mechanic with many modules develops into a very complex space, as opposed to the more common method, which is that several relatively simple play mechanics are layered to create complex space. Think about it in terms of a projector shining down from "above" the game. The layered approach is a bunch of stacked transparencies that cast a shadow beneath them. The modular approach is a bunch of small bubbles and lenses put down on a single surface, distorting the light into halos and shadows and blotches as it passes through. Both are complex, but they approach it from very different angles.
This isn't boolean: there are plenty of games which are vaguely in the middle somewhere. However, while building prototypes, it began to seem like these are the two fundamental approaches: building a layer of modules, or building several flat layers that stack.
This also has a lot to say about world-building and the fiction your game can support. A game with many simple layers can draw fiction into any of those layers and it will be valid. For example, a treasure-hunter's guild in an RPG relies heavily on the exploring-for-treasure mechanic and all but ignores things like leveling and combat and equipping and whatever.
On the other hand, a game with focused "module-style" gameplay doesn't have disparate layers to draw from, so fiction either has to be crammed in as color or directly relating to the fundamental play. This is why games like StarCraft or Street Fighter have such tightly focused narratives: all the fiction and color revolves around the core gameplay, which is pretty limited to combat. You can have a treasure hunter in a fighting game, but it's pure color.
On the gripping hand, you can go a lot deeper with your fiction in a "module-style" system. If you introduce a Taekwando master in an RPG, he's not going to be very distinct from any other "monk-class" character. But in a fighting game, the fine distinctions are very clear, to the point where a fighting game's characterizations often rest almost entirely on the fighting styles of the characters.
...
I guess that's all I have to say about that. You?
Monday, August 30, 2010
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Ads
This is a slightly awkward post to write since it's a bit of a complex topic, but let's go with it anyway. This post is about ads.
A lot of people pop up talking about how much they hate ads, but in most places I visit, an equal number of people pop up stating "how else are they going to make money? Ads are a necessary evil!"
The second group is wrong. Or, rather, the second group will eventually be wrong.
There's a lot of talk about how to make money on web content, and in the end most of it devolves to selling ads. However, ads have some serious weaknesses and are getting weaker.
People talk about an "attention economy" and talk about how ads serve that purpose. However, in my life, I have never paid one penny due to a web ad. The only reason my visits have been profitable is because those places have, in turn, rented out more ad space. This stack of cards is eating itself: with no money going from me to them, there's no way it can turn a profit. All those ad payments are wasted money.
Now, there are plenty of people who do click through on ads and end up buying stuff. According to most of the ads I see when I turn adblock off, they're middle-aged or older, and apparently very concerned with either the whiteness of their teeth or the reliability of their servers. This has pretty much been the case forever, along with the third leg of the triumvirate: toys.
That's changing, at least for the first two legs. The network is growing denser. These days, 99% of the things I buy (aside from the staples such as coffee) are bought due to a personal referral from any particular person that I think has their brain on straight.
This isn't a "oh, the ten dollars I have, I spent on my friend's indie game!" I'm not a college student, I make a good living, I buy a lot of stuff. Books, games, and kickstarts, mostly. I buy based on things people tweet, post about, reference, mention: if I need server space, I go with someone's personal recommendation. If I ever want snake oil, I'll buy the brand the people I know recommend.
It's always a mistake to think that the way you do things is the way everyone does/will do them, but in this case, I can't help but notice how amazingly stress-free my consumer life is. The web makes it really easy for people to tell you what they liked, and it makes it really easy for you to ask for suggestions if you're looking for something specific.
But more than that, it's also extremely efficient. It's very rare that something I'm interested comes out and I'm unaware of it. Virtually every indie game is on my radar, a massive number of indie comics and music, swag and youtube videos of all varieties. Not because I spend all my time trawling for this stuff, but because I am in a network where if each person mentions they like one unique thing that appeals to me, we'll run out of unique things long before we run out of people. It's an effortless network that builds up over time, and it's not me-centric. It's disperse and noncommercial and few people make so much as a dime on participating.
The end result is that it's actually impossible to advertise to me meaningfully. I'm already aware of all the things with merit, because someone, somewhere in our network, knows about it.
What I'm trying to say is that ads are a kind of constructed contextual web that tries to draw you to stuff. However, that web is inferior in every way to a web made up of individuals tweeting and blogging.
When I look at it, I think there's a bit of complexity to it. I don't know how common a completely sufficient setup like mine is. I think high-schoolers, for example, might have a hard time creating such a web despite being even more familiar with the technology, simply because their web will be strongly biased towards "tight" links. Friends, family, people you meet every day. Their viewpoints and encounters are unlikely to be diverse enough to capture all the content that humanity has to offer. Also, the kids may consume more content than I do (although that seems unlikely) meaning that their web is smaller and their needs are larger. Lastly, it may be that kids are just more susceptible to getting scammed by ads. I think adblock should be a requirement if you have kids under 18 in your home: they haven't built up a resistance to those sorts of compulsions.
So it may be that ads still "sell" to these kids.
I know ads still sell to a lot of adults.
But I can't help but think this is temporary. I can't help but think ads are an inefficient scaffold that's becoming more inefficient every year.
What moneymaking method will replace them?
I dunno. There's something halfway between swag and donation that doesn't exist right now, something that needs to exist. But even then, it may be that nothing replaces them. Maybe it's a hobby until you have a fanbase sufficient for swaggifying. There's nothing inherently wrong with that.
What do you think?
A lot of people pop up talking about how much they hate ads, but in most places I visit, an equal number of people pop up stating "how else are they going to make money? Ads are a necessary evil!"
The second group is wrong. Or, rather, the second group will eventually be wrong.
There's a lot of talk about how to make money on web content, and in the end most of it devolves to selling ads. However, ads have some serious weaknesses and are getting weaker.
People talk about an "attention economy" and talk about how ads serve that purpose. However, in my life, I have never paid one penny due to a web ad. The only reason my visits have been profitable is because those places have, in turn, rented out more ad space. This stack of cards is eating itself: with no money going from me to them, there's no way it can turn a profit. All those ad payments are wasted money.
Now, there are plenty of people who do click through on ads and end up buying stuff. According to most of the ads I see when I turn adblock off, they're middle-aged or older, and apparently very concerned with either the whiteness of their teeth or the reliability of their servers. This has pretty much been the case forever, along with the third leg of the triumvirate: toys.
That's changing, at least for the first two legs. The network is growing denser. These days, 99% of the things I buy (aside from the staples such as coffee) are bought due to a personal referral from any particular person that I think has their brain on straight.
This isn't a "oh, the ten dollars I have, I spent on my friend's indie game!" I'm not a college student, I make a good living, I buy a lot of stuff. Books, games, and kickstarts, mostly. I buy based on things people tweet, post about, reference, mention: if I need server space, I go with someone's personal recommendation. If I ever want snake oil, I'll buy the brand the people I know recommend.
It's always a mistake to think that the way you do things is the way everyone does/will do them, but in this case, I can't help but notice how amazingly stress-free my consumer life is. The web makes it really easy for people to tell you what they liked, and it makes it really easy for you to ask for suggestions if you're looking for something specific.
But more than that, it's also extremely efficient. It's very rare that something I'm interested comes out and I'm unaware of it. Virtually every indie game is on my radar, a massive number of indie comics and music, swag and youtube videos of all varieties. Not because I spend all my time trawling for this stuff, but because I am in a network where if each person mentions they like one unique thing that appeals to me, we'll run out of unique things long before we run out of people. It's an effortless network that builds up over time, and it's not me-centric. It's disperse and noncommercial and few people make so much as a dime on participating.
The end result is that it's actually impossible to advertise to me meaningfully. I'm already aware of all the things with merit, because someone, somewhere in our network, knows about it.
What I'm trying to say is that ads are a kind of constructed contextual web that tries to draw you to stuff. However, that web is inferior in every way to a web made up of individuals tweeting and blogging.
When I look at it, I think there's a bit of complexity to it. I don't know how common a completely sufficient setup like mine is. I think high-schoolers, for example, might have a hard time creating such a web despite being even more familiar with the technology, simply because their web will be strongly biased towards "tight" links. Friends, family, people you meet every day. Their viewpoints and encounters are unlikely to be diverse enough to capture all the content that humanity has to offer. Also, the kids may consume more content than I do (although that seems unlikely) meaning that their web is smaller and their needs are larger. Lastly, it may be that kids are just more susceptible to getting scammed by ads. I think adblock should be a requirement if you have kids under 18 in your home: they haven't built up a resistance to those sorts of compulsions.
So it may be that ads still "sell" to these kids.
I know ads still sell to a lot of adults.
But I can't help but think this is temporary. I can't help but think ads are an inefficient scaffold that's becoming more inefficient every year.
What moneymaking method will replace them?
I dunno. There's something halfway between swag and donation that doesn't exist right now, something that needs to exist. But even then, it may be that nothing replaces them. Maybe it's a hobby until you have a fanbase sufficient for swaggifying. There's nothing inherently wrong with that.
What do you think?
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Challenge Twists
Recently I've been thinking a lot about the kinds of challenges games present you with. I'm not happy with the way we think about challenges these days, the various clumsy categorizations and forced pigeonholes. Originally, this was a bit of a rant about that, but I'd much prefer to talk about ways of making challenges interesting. This applies to both video games and tabletop games.
Let's start with the idea that combat has a certain complexity. Complexity is a combination of how hard it is to predict, and the importance of predicting.
For example, at first glance "Superman vs 50 thugs" seems complex because there are a lot of moving pieces. But the truth is that it's very simple: no matter how well the thugs do, the outcome is going to be the same. It may be hard to predict exactly what each thug will roll, but it's easy to predict what the outcome will be.
Most games focus on bringing the enemies into the same power category as the players. Superman doesn't fight thugs, he fights Bizarro Superman, or Brainiac, or something. This works well, but only as a basic patch: it doesn't add to the challenge, it just makes the challenge a challenge.
Sometimes a game will bring the players down to the enemies' level. Superman fights 50 thugs, sure, but beneath Lex Luthor's Red Sun Lamp, which makes him very weak. This is generally not recommended as it negates a lot of the player's built-up agency (statistical character development). However, if the player chooses to have such a weakness, abusing that weakness is fair game, since the player's agency is being expressed rather than negated. Still, it's often quite difficult to work into a game without being irritating both in terms of play and emotion.
A third option, one that doesn't get enough attention, is to change the goal condition. Superman fights 50 thugs, but the 50 thugs are all brainwashed cops. There's nothing in the rules that says you can't tear them apart and burn them to ashes, but you're going to want to limit yourself anyway. Or there are 50 thugs, and you have to beat them all in 5 rounds or a bomb goes off. Or any number of other goal-shifts.
Most tabletop games have two distinct categories of challenge: combat and everything else. It's pretty rare for a game to have rules for goal-shifting within combat: normally shifted goals fall under "everything else" and are resolved using the much simpler and less interesting rules for that sort of business. It's worth considering goal-shifted combat explicitly, as it takes the dense combat rules and puts an interesting twist on them.
I need to stress that this really isn't something you can retrofit. D&D rules technically allow for GMs to make a horde out of brainwashed cops, or give you only a few rounds to beat all the enemies, but the rules aren't really structured correctly to make those challenges complex. In order to shift goals in nearly every combat, you need to approach combat from the perspective of achieving those goals, rather than achieving the kill-or-be-killed goal. At the very least, you need your heroes to have combat capabilities that take radically different lengths of time.
The other problem is that goal-shifting feels a little bit cheaty at first. If you goal shift just once in a while, it feels a bit epic, that's fun. But if you goal shift all the time, it can feel cheap. This is simply because we're used to it feeling epic, so if we encounter it all the time, it might feel like we're trying to be epic all the time. However, if we build a system specifically to do this, and make it clear that every combat is goal-shifted, it can simply become part of the tactical terrain.
This is very similar to adding externalities, such as "if you kill these guys, that city will hate you". In fact, it's so similar, we're going to pretend it's the same.
...
Challenges also involve some amount of time-shifting. Or, um, risk-pushing. I need a better term. Let's call it "risk projection".
Basically, as a player fights, he uses up resources. Some of these resources are almost instantly refreshed, such as the basic "your turn" resource. Others are refreshed fairly fast, such as HP in a first person shooter. Some take some time to refresh, such as rocket ammo in an FPS or HP in a tabletop RPG. Some require significant long-term effort to refresh, such as potions or levels.
You don't need to put absolutely everything you ever see into this framework, but the guideline here is that players will want to divide up the risk they face so that it is least risky over the long run. This means they will usually tend to lean on short-refresh things as much as possible, unless they know that a refresh point is coming up for a particular other resource or there is a threat to another, more expensive resource (like HP).
Randomness is critical to this kind of system, as the whole idea eventually boils down to whether a player is willing to risk the slightly weaker "basic stab" or whether he decides he needs the stronger, only-twice-daily "kick to the groin" attack. I know it makes no sense for that attack to be limited to twice a day, but that's the way it works in our stupid little game. And D&D 4.
You can also project risk in dimensions other than time. For example, you might choose to send your army to attack a stronghold, or you might decide to attack it yourself with minimal support. One puts the risk on you, the other puts the risk on your army. It's the same basic idea: allocate risk where it is least likely to kill you in the long run.
The idea of risk projection is one that is usually all but ignored, especially in modern video games. They restore you to complete health and ammo after every fight. I think this is one reason why modern video games feel so incredibly shallow to me.
Risk projection also functions backwards to a degree, when players decide what they will bring on a quest or what they'll take on a level up. Instead of trying to preserve resources until they need them, they instead try to figure out which resources they will need. While nearly every game does this to some extent, in most there is a clear dominant strategy for any given set-up, so it hardly counts.
It's also worth mentioning that risk projection (both forwards and backwards) integrates quickly and easily with secondary play types. For example, equipping yourself and using up equipment (did you bring enough healing potions?). Making political allies and enemies based on the side effects of your fights (did you burn the town down killing those goblins?).
When determining secondary play types, I usually try to integrate them into both the primary play (this sword does more damage than that sword) and the risk projection (this sword breaks on a botch, that sword doesn't).
...
Some games also use some kind of elemental sting. If the player is a fire-based character, they'll hit you with an ice level where you take huge amounts of damage, or they send people who are immune to fire against you, or whatever.
This is just an extension of the classics: sending the fast character up against the tank, sending the slow character up against an archer, sending the archer against a horde, etc, etc. In any rule set, you'll want tradeoffs and strengths and weaknesses. If you can't identify very many of them, your system just isn't good enough.
Taking the "elemental route" is a quick way to establish strengths and weaknesses. I'm not sure, but I think I feel that it is a cheap way to do it. Anyway, it is fundamentally the same kind of thing as just making monsters with the right stats to go up against characters with particular stats.
What I mean is that you can certainly challenge the ice-based players by sticking them over a lava pit and making them fight magman. But you can get the same kind of challenge by poisoning them and making them fight a jailer, or by making them fight a troll during an earthquake, or any of a hundred other situations. There is nothing statistically important about it being elemental. It's just an easy way to do it.
...
Anyway, those are the basics of challenges, in my mind.
Let's start with the idea that combat has a certain complexity. Complexity is a combination of how hard it is to predict, and the importance of predicting.
For example, at first glance "Superman vs 50 thugs" seems complex because there are a lot of moving pieces. But the truth is that it's very simple: no matter how well the thugs do, the outcome is going to be the same. It may be hard to predict exactly what each thug will roll, but it's easy to predict what the outcome will be.
Most games focus on bringing the enemies into the same power category as the players. Superman doesn't fight thugs, he fights Bizarro Superman, or Brainiac, or something. This works well, but only as a basic patch: it doesn't add to the challenge, it just makes the challenge a challenge.
Sometimes a game will bring the players down to the enemies' level. Superman fights 50 thugs, sure, but beneath Lex Luthor's Red Sun Lamp, which makes him very weak. This is generally not recommended as it negates a lot of the player's built-up agency (statistical character development). However, if the player chooses to have such a weakness, abusing that weakness is fair game, since the player's agency is being expressed rather than negated. Still, it's often quite difficult to work into a game without being irritating both in terms of play and emotion.
A third option, one that doesn't get enough attention, is to change the goal condition. Superman fights 50 thugs, but the 50 thugs are all brainwashed cops. There's nothing in the rules that says you can't tear them apart and burn them to ashes, but you're going to want to limit yourself anyway. Or there are 50 thugs, and you have to beat them all in 5 rounds or a bomb goes off. Or any number of other goal-shifts.
Most tabletop games have two distinct categories of challenge: combat and everything else. It's pretty rare for a game to have rules for goal-shifting within combat: normally shifted goals fall under "everything else" and are resolved using the much simpler and less interesting rules for that sort of business. It's worth considering goal-shifted combat explicitly, as it takes the dense combat rules and puts an interesting twist on them.
I need to stress that this really isn't something you can retrofit. D&D rules technically allow for GMs to make a horde out of brainwashed cops, or give you only a few rounds to beat all the enemies, but the rules aren't really structured correctly to make those challenges complex. In order to shift goals in nearly every combat, you need to approach combat from the perspective of achieving those goals, rather than achieving the kill-or-be-killed goal. At the very least, you need your heroes to have combat capabilities that take radically different lengths of time.
The other problem is that goal-shifting feels a little bit cheaty at first. If you goal shift just once in a while, it feels a bit epic, that's fun. But if you goal shift all the time, it can feel cheap. This is simply because we're used to it feeling epic, so if we encounter it all the time, it might feel like we're trying to be epic all the time. However, if we build a system specifically to do this, and make it clear that every combat is goal-shifted, it can simply become part of the tactical terrain.
This is very similar to adding externalities, such as "if you kill these guys, that city will hate you". In fact, it's so similar, we're going to pretend it's the same.
...
Challenges also involve some amount of time-shifting. Or, um, risk-pushing. I need a better term. Let's call it "risk projection".
Basically, as a player fights, he uses up resources. Some of these resources are almost instantly refreshed, such as the basic "your turn" resource. Others are refreshed fairly fast, such as HP in a first person shooter. Some take some time to refresh, such as rocket ammo in an FPS or HP in a tabletop RPG. Some require significant long-term effort to refresh, such as potions or levels.
You don't need to put absolutely everything you ever see into this framework, but the guideline here is that players will want to divide up the risk they face so that it is least risky over the long run. This means they will usually tend to lean on short-refresh things as much as possible, unless they know that a refresh point is coming up for a particular other resource or there is a threat to another, more expensive resource (like HP).
Randomness is critical to this kind of system, as the whole idea eventually boils down to whether a player is willing to risk the slightly weaker "basic stab" or whether he decides he needs the stronger, only-twice-daily "kick to the groin" attack. I know it makes no sense for that attack to be limited to twice a day, but that's the way it works in our stupid little game. And D&D 4.
You can also project risk in dimensions other than time. For example, you might choose to send your army to attack a stronghold, or you might decide to attack it yourself with minimal support. One puts the risk on you, the other puts the risk on your army. It's the same basic idea: allocate risk where it is least likely to kill you in the long run.
The idea of risk projection is one that is usually all but ignored, especially in modern video games. They restore you to complete health and ammo after every fight. I think this is one reason why modern video games feel so incredibly shallow to me.
Risk projection also functions backwards to a degree, when players decide what they will bring on a quest or what they'll take on a level up. Instead of trying to preserve resources until they need them, they instead try to figure out which resources they will need. While nearly every game does this to some extent, in most there is a clear dominant strategy for any given set-up, so it hardly counts.
It's also worth mentioning that risk projection (both forwards and backwards) integrates quickly and easily with secondary play types. For example, equipping yourself and using up equipment (did you bring enough healing potions?). Making political allies and enemies based on the side effects of your fights (did you burn the town down killing those goblins?).
When determining secondary play types, I usually try to integrate them into both the primary play (this sword does more damage than that sword) and the risk projection (this sword breaks on a botch, that sword doesn't).
...
Some games also use some kind of elemental sting. If the player is a fire-based character, they'll hit you with an ice level where you take huge amounts of damage, or they send people who are immune to fire against you, or whatever.
This is just an extension of the classics: sending the fast character up against the tank, sending the slow character up against an archer, sending the archer against a horde, etc, etc. In any rule set, you'll want tradeoffs and strengths and weaknesses. If you can't identify very many of them, your system just isn't good enough.
Taking the "elemental route" is a quick way to establish strengths and weaknesses. I'm not sure, but I think I feel that it is a cheap way to do it. Anyway, it is fundamentally the same kind of thing as just making monsters with the right stats to go up against characters with particular stats.
What I mean is that you can certainly challenge the ice-based players by sticking them over a lava pit and making them fight magman. But you can get the same kind of challenge by poisoning them and making them fight a jailer, or by making them fight a troll during an earthquake, or any of a hundred other situations. There is nothing statistically important about it being elemental. It's just an easy way to do it.
...
Anyway, those are the basics of challenges, in my mind.
Monday, July 05, 2010
Destruct-o-Vision
I'd like to talk about the difference between Pikmin and Overlord. Not the obvious difference in the fact that one is about a seven-foot warrior god and the other is about a tiny, middle-aged alien with no weapons.
Underneath that, the games are very, very similar. The primary gameplay in both involves ordering around large hordes of multicolored henchlings. The gameplay is actually almost identical. In both games, you order your henchlings one by one (throwing in Pikmin) or in hordes (using the thumb stick to control them independently). Your henchlings pick up and carry upgrades back to your base, the upgrades requiring a certain number of henchlings... when killed, you can get new henchlings without much difficulty if you return to your base, which is positioned at a specific point in each level, but not at a specific point on the world. Even the function-color of your henchlings is similar: reds are fire-based, blues are water-based, and you can squint to see many other similarities. Perhaps it's simply because those colors and powers are obvious. More likely, Overlord is fundamentally based on Pikmin.
But!
But there is an important difference between the two, and I want to talk about that difference specifically.
In Pikmin, you have a very high camera angle, a birds-eye view. Your attempts to command single pikmin involve throwing the pikmin, and you throw it a certain distance. Your pikmin-tossing influence is therefore a circle around your avatar, and you can change your focus to any point on that circle very rapidly.
In Overlord, the camera swings way down to a just-over-the-head cam. Instead of commanding your troops to a specific point on a circle drawn around you, it's a linear command: your avatar points in the direction the camera is facing and the troops race off on that direction until they find something or have to come back.
This difference may sound a little bit unimportant, but that difference is actually what makes me like Overlord in spite of its many flaws. I'll tell you what really caught me as I played:
Destruct-o-vision.
The way that, as you run around, you point your finger and your minions go off, smash the pots, and retrieve the goodies. Or kill the sheep, or smash the house, whatever needs to be done to whatever you're looking at. Especially great is when there's fifteen or twenty goblins streaming out, smashing things, retrieving things, a continuous stream of intelligent force.
This is somewhat similar to the effect that a standard first person shooter has: you fire your gun at something downrange, and it dies. Actually, it's even more similar to the gravity gun, where you can reach out and affect things besides enemies, and do fairly interesting and intelligent things with them.
But it's got some differences. One is that the goblins are intelligent on their own, capable of doing fairly complex things ranging from retrieving valuables to smashing targets to upgrading their equipment. Another is that, unlike the gravity gun and the bullet, goblins are an active effect that lasts several seconds. The moment you dispatch them, you can turn and dispatch more to other targets while they continue to do what they are doing.
The "stream" effect was very pronounced for me, it felt very smooth and immersive. To the point where the actual wrangling of the individual goblins and colors felt irritating and nitpicky.
So I began to think about this effect in particular, separate from the idea of having multiple colors of goblins. I couldn't really think of anything else with that feel. Some of the closest ones are things where you can set up streams. For example, ChuChu Rocket. But those aren't the same: they're clunky, slow, and not very intelligent in comparison.
Unfortunately, my quick and dirty prototypes seem to indicate that it's only possible to get this kind of feel in over-the-shoulder cam, which is absolutely the hardest kind of game for me to prototype.
Do you know what I'm talking about, and know any games that do it?
Underneath that, the games are very, very similar. The primary gameplay in both involves ordering around large hordes of multicolored henchlings. The gameplay is actually almost identical. In both games, you order your henchlings one by one (throwing in Pikmin) or in hordes (using the thumb stick to control them independently). Your henchlings pick up and carry upgrades back to your base, the upgrades requiring a certain number of henchlings... when killed, you can get new henchlings without much difficulty if you return to your base, which is positioned at a specific point in each level, but not at a specific point on the world. Even the function-color of your henchlings is similar: reds are fire-based, blues are water-based, and you can squint to see many other similarities. Perhaps it's simply because those colors and powers are obvious. More likely, Overlord is fundamentally based on Pikmin.
But!
But there is an important difference between the two, and I want to talk about that difference specifically.
In Pikmin, you have a very high camera angle, a birds-eye view. Your attempts to command single pikmin involve throwing the pikmin, and you throw it a certain distance. Your pikmin-tossing influence is therefore a circle around your avatar, and you can change your focus to any point on that circle very rapidly.
In Overlord, the camera swings way down to a just-over-the-head cam. Instead of commanding your troops to a specific point on a circle drawn around you, it's a linear command: your avatar points in the direction the camera is facing and the troops race off on that direction until they find something or have to come back.
This difference may sound a little bit unimportant, but that difference is actually what makes me like Overlord in spite of its many flaws. I'll tell you what really caught me as I played:
Destruct-o-vision.
The way that, as you run around, you point your finger and your minions go off, smash the pots, and retrieve the goodies. Or kill the sheep, or smash the house, whatever needs to be done to whatever you're looking at. Especially great is when there's fifteen or twenty goblins streaming out, smashing things, retrieving things, a continuous stream of intelligent force.
This is somewhat similar to the effect that a standard first person shooter has: you fire your gun at something downrange, and it dies. Actually, it's even more similar to the gravity gun, where you can reach out and affect things besides enemies, and do fairly interesting and intelligent things with them.
But it's got some differences. One is that the goblins are intelligent on their own, capable of doing fairly complex things ranging from retrieving valuables to smashing targets to upgrading their equipment. Another is that, unlike the gravity gun and the bullet, goblins are an active effect that lasts several seconds. The moment you dispatch them, you can turn and dispatch more to other targets while they continue to do what they are doing.
The "stream" effect was very pronounced for me, it felt very smooth and immersive. To the point where the actual wrangling of the individual goblins and colors felt irritating and nitpicky.
So I began to think about this effect in particular, separate from the idea of having multiple colors of goblins. I couldn't really think of anything else with that feel. Some of the closest ones are things where you can set up streams. For example, ChuChu Rocket. But those aren't the same: they're clunky, slow, and not very intelligent in comparison.
Unfortunately, my quick and dirty prototypes seem to indicate that it's only possible to get this kind of feel in over-the-shoulder cam, which is absolutely the hardest kind of game for me to prototype.
Do you know what I'm talking about, and know any games that do it?
Structure of an RPG
I've just been revisiting some old articles on RPGs, and it seems that a lot of people are of the opinion that an RPG contains two basic elements that you mix. A clear example of this thinking can be found here, but it boils down to the idea that an RPG is about leveling or progressing the story. Those are the two "modes" of play. All the other rules are to flesh out the modes.
I sort of agree, but it's missing something important. See, to me, the two modes should be called "exploring the options" and "adding new options".
The part of an RPG where you are leveling, buying gear, figuring out good tactics, and so on... that's you exploring the gameplay terrain. The part of the RPG where you go to the next town, fight the boss, and/or get captured is you adding new gameplay terrain.
Some players like to explore every nook before moving even one step down the story, while others like to play it faster and looser, only exploring enough to get secure footing before looking for the next horizon. A well-designed RPG allows both kinds of player to have fun, although most are tilted one way or another.
In case it's not absolutely clear what I'm talking about, think of any classic RPG. You can run around and level up, buy the cool gear, get the new spells, maybe do some side quests for some optional stuff. However, you will eventually run out of room. The enemies don't give you enough XP to keep leveling indefinitely, there's no better weapon than the one you have, and so on. So you fight the big monster, and a new city is unlocked. More powerful monsters, a new weapon, and so on.
Tactical RPGs generally have a much stronger bent towards letting you explore the rules without advancing the plot. In Final Fantasy Tactics and the like, you can level up basically indefinitely using random encounters. Still, you will find it's very hard if not impossible to get the high-level gear and/or spells without actually advancing the plot.
What this boils down to is that an RPG reveals some small part of its gameplay. It lets you explore that all you want, and then it lets you choose to staple on some more gameplay. Which it lets you explore.
This works best when the new gameplay is similar but distinct. If it's too similar, it doesn't feel different enough to bother exploring. If it's too distinct, it feels like you wasted all the time you spent on the earlier gameplay. Just this particular aspect could be a whole essay.
Anyway, that's how I think of it: letting you explore, then letting you open more stuff to explore.
It would be interesting to see if that could be done in a tabletop RPG. Hm.
I sort of agree, but it's missing something important. See, to me, the two modes should be called "exploring the options" and "adding new options".
The part of an RPG where you are leveling, buying gear, figuring out good tactics, and so on... that's you exploring the gameplay terrain. The part of the RPG where you go to the next town, fight the boss, and/or get captured is you adding new gameplay terrain.
Some players like to explore every nook before moving even one step down the story, while others like to play it faster and looser, only exploring enough to get secure footing before looking for the next horizon. A well-designed RPG allows both kinds of player to have fun, although most are tilted one way or another.
In case it's not absolutely clear what I'm talking about, think of any classic RPG. You can run around and level up, buy the cool gear, get the new spells, maybe do some side quests for some optional stuff. However, you will eventually run out of room. The enemies don't give you enough XP to keep leveling indefinitely, there's no better weapon than the one you have, and so on. So you fight the big monster, and a new city is unlocked. More powerful monsters, a new weapon, and so on.
Tactical RPGs generally have a much stronger bent towards letting you explore the rules without advancing the plot. In Final Fantasy Tactics and the like, you can level up basically indefinitely using random encounters. Still, you will find it's very hard if not impossible to get the high-level gear and/or spells without actually advancing the plot.
What this boils down to is that an RPG reveals some small part of its gameplay. It lets you explore that all you want, and then it lets you choose to staple on some more gameplay. Which it lets you explore.
This works best when the new gameplay is similar but distinct. If it's too similar, it doesn't feel different enough to bother exploring. If it's too distinct, it feels like you wasted all the time you spent on the earlier gameplay. Just this particular aspect could be a whole essay.
Anyway, that's how I think of it: letting you explore, then letting you open more stuff to explore.
It would be interesting to see if that could be done in a tabletop RPG. Hm.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Two Agencies
So, my friend and I have been discussing Alpha Protocol, which is an unforgivably samey game with extraordinarily shitty moments, but that's not what I'm here to discuss. Instead, I'd like to talk about agency.
That friend, and many others, are willing to forgive the crap and give a positive review because the game features a fair amount of agency, most notably through dialog options. Of course, the game has a linear plot which doesn't change (and, frankly, is bad). But they still rave about the agency.
It was at this point that I realized our definitions of agency were very different.
Most of these people seem to mean "immersive agency", where the agency exists specifically to lure you into the game. We've called this "illusion of agency", but I think that term is misleading. It's real agency, it's just that the agency doesn't really affect the game much. This is easy to see in any game which gives you "choices". Most of these choices result in either a very short term major change, or a very small long-term change. For example, if you save the princess, the guards won't attack you in this level OR if you save the princess, she exists afterwards, you can talk to her, she'll give you a magic bean.
Immersive agency is apparently very effective on many players. I find it infuriating because there's always a "best path". Even if the writers go out of their way to make the choices "equal", as a particular person, I judge the different choices according to my preference, and usually there's a best choice and two incredibly dumb choices. For example, if you're allowed to date any of the three possible romantic characters in the game, one of them is obviously the one I like best, and offering the other two might as well not exist. For me.
Because of this, to me immersive agency always feels like random added-on failure conditions, rather than agency. Best case, it feels like a reason to replay the game, but even then, it still won't feel like agency to me, it'll feel like a slightly different linear plot.
My definition of agency involves affecting systems. We'll call it "systemic agency". Systemic agency is when your choice affects the long-term play of the game. For example, when you choose to attack or not attack Greece in Civ, and in turn both your future and Greece's are very different.
This is hard to script because of the very wide branches: choosing to kill or save Magus in Chronotrigger, for example, required a fair amount of programming. And still it only mattered a little. It's rare for plot-based games to have much systemic agency because plots aren't systems: the writer is the system, the plot is the product. In order to give the players access to that system, the writer has to imagine what the player might do ahead of time. This is why most games that offer you plot agency only offer you immersive agency: tiny details that make you feel immersed, but don't matter much and can be easily scripted.
I like systemic agency. I understand it's hard to put in plot-based games. But immersive agency always hits me the wrong way.
So when I play Alpha Protocol, I see a linear plot with a lot of arbitrary failure conditions where everyone else sees a detailed and interesting series of choices. What they see may rescue the game from the bargain bin of samey play and shitty bosses, but what I see does not.
Please, somebody, give me systemic agency in a plot!
That friend, and many others, are willing to forgive the crap and give a positive review because the game features a fair amount of agency, most notably through dialog options. Of course, the game has a linear plot which doesn't change (and, frankly, is bad). But they still rave about the agency.
It was at this point that I realized our definitions of agency were very different.
Most of these people seem to mean "immersive agency", where the agency exists specifically to lure you into the game. We've called this "illusion of agency", but I think that term is misleading. It's real agency, it's just that the agency doesn't really affect the game much. This is easy to see in any game which gives you "choices". Most of these choices result in either a very short term major change, or a very small long-term change. For example, if you save the princess, the guards won't attack you in this level OR if you save the princess, she exists afterwards, you can talk to her, she'll give you a magic bean.
Immersive agency is apparently very effective on many players. I find it infuriating because there's always a "best path". Even if the writers go out of their way to make the choices "equal", as a particular person, I judge the different choices according to my preference, and usually there's a best choice and two incredibly dumb choices. For example, if you're allowed to date any of the three possible romantic characters in the game, one of them is obviously the one I like best, and offering the other two might as well not exist. For me.
Because of this, to me immersive agency always feels like random added-on failure conditions, rather than agency. Best case, it feels like a reason to replay the game, but even then, it still won't feel like agency to me, it'll feel like a slightly different linear plot.
My definition of agency involves affecting systems. We'll call it "systemic agency". Systemic agency is when your choice affects the long-term play of the game. For example, when you choose to attack or not attack Greece in Civ, and in turn both your future and Greece's are very different.
This is hard to script because of the very wide branches: choosing to kill or save Magus in Chronotrigger, for example, required a fair amount of programming. And still it only mattered a little. It's rare for plot-based games to have much systemic agency because plots aren't systems: the writer is the system, the plot is the product. In order to give the players access to that system, the writer has to imagine what the player might do ahead of time. This is why most games that offer you plot agency only offer you immersive agency: tiny details that make you feel immersed, but don't matter much and can be easily scripted.
I like systemic agency. I understand it's hard to put in plot-based games. But immersive agency always hits me the wrong way.
So when I play Alpha Protocol, I see a linear plot with a lot of arbitrary failure conditions where everyone else sees a detailed and interesting series of choices. What they see may rescue the game from the bargain bin of samey play and shitty bosses, but what I see does not.
Please, somebody, give me systemic agency in a plot!
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Non-Generic Humans
I made this setting because I hate the "average humans" trope. I never used it for anything, though.
Most humans thought that, when we entered galactic civilization, we would be "average". Not average as in "an ordinary species", but average as in "without any significant strengths or flaws, as opposed to all those damn specialists".
Of course, that turned out not to be the case. In 2160, when humanity finally encountered galactic civilization, we quickly earned the name "the outraged".
Our well-connected population had a finely honed sense of outrage: when something bad happened, sparks of outrage would flare up, and humans would unite to deal with it. If more humans were required, the fire would spread. This sounds like a slow process, but it really isn't: humankind has plenty of experience with becoming outraged, and has perfected the practice.
The first demonstration of this to aliens was when it became clear that there were violently xenophobic human groups. Humans became outraged when these groups began to operate, smashing them down socially and, when necessary, physically. This outraged the sects that were distant cousins of the xenophobes, which acted against the smashers, and in turn that outraged a significant portion of the species, and in the end there was a short but very bitter little civil war. It started two weeks after meeting the aliens, and lasted four days.
As humans and aliens began altering their biologies to cohabitate, it was quickly discovered that human outrage was not always pointed inward. The humans were the first on the scene to help the J'nal rebuild after their home planet was hit by a meteor, and they were the first to send military ships to stop the Pogulpogul from terraforming a garden world to suit their own needs.
It was assumed humans would join the galactic police and relief groups, but this didn't turn out to be the case. Our finely honed practice of outrage is more effective than any organization at directing our efforts, and the fetters of those organizations sat poorly on our shoulders. Naturally, "vigilante" and "human" became synonymous for some time after that, but as with all things, an equilibrium was eventually found.
As time passed and we integrated with the galactic civilization over a few centi-14C, their opinion of us became more nuanced. We're now making a name for ourselves as people try to learn our language, with its conditional meta-time dimensional probability conjugations of verbs.
Most humans thought that, when we entered galactic civilization, we would be "average". Not average as in "an ordinary species", but average as in "without any significant strengths or flaws, as opposed to all those damn specialists".
Of course, that turned out not to be the case. In 2160, when humanity finally encountered galactic civilization, we quickly earned the name "the outraged".
Our well-connected population had a finely honed sense of outrage: when something bad happened, sparks of outrage would flare up, and humans would unite to deal with it. If more humans were required, the fire would spread. This sounds like a slow process, but it really isn't: humankind has plenty of experience with becoming outraged, and has perfected the practice.
The first demonstration of this to aliens was when it became clear that there were violently xenophobic human groups. Humans became outraged when these groups began to operate, smashing them down socially and, when necessary, physically. This outraged the sects that were distant cousins of the xenophobes, which acted against the smashers, and in turn that outraged a significant portion of the species, and in the end there was a short but very bitter little civil war. It started two weeks after meeting the aliens, and lasted four days.
As humans and aliens began altering their biologies to cohabitate, it was quickly discovered that human outrage was not always pointed inward. The humans were the first on the scene to help the J'nal rebuild after their home planet was hit by a meteor, and they were the first to send military ships to stop the Pogulpogul from terraforming a garden world to suit their own needs.
It was assumed humans would join the galactic police and relief groups, but this didn't turn out to be the case. Our finely honed practice of outrage is more effective than any organization at directing our efforts, and the fetters of those organizations sat poorly on our shoulders. Naturally, "vigilante" and "human" became synonymous for some time after that, but as with all things, an equilibrium was eventually found.
As time passed and we integrated with the galactic civilization over a few centi-14C, their opinion of us became more nuanced. We're now making a name for ourselves as people try to learn our language, with its conditional meta-time dimensional probability conjugations of verbs.
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