So, what makes video games unique? What makes them special, as a form of entertainment? What does the player get out of playing a game that other pastimes can't give them?
There are obvious formal differences between video games and other types of analog games, and between video games and other forms of non-game entertainment. But, what does that amount to, from a player-psychological point of view? In understanding what a video game is, the question becomes: why is the experience compelling? What are the universal benefits across genres?
As I see it, all video games provide the player with two primary motivational elements: an artificial sense of entropy, and an artificial set of goals. In addressing these elements, the player receives a tangible sensation of control, and of accomplishment.
Any given video game drops the player into a situation with a high degree of entropy, in one form or another. Through play, the user brings order to the entropic situation. I believe that it's an inherent human psychological need to bring order to disorderly situations-- it's satisfying on some base level that we all share, whether it's straightening up an untidy room or weeding a garden. Every video game is in essence a disarranged sliding tile puzzle, or a Rubik's Cube, waiting to be set straight. Video games give this ageless conflict between order and disorder a wide variety of highly complex forms, and provide the player with tools to exert control over the chaos.
One clear, recent example of this aspect of games is Katamari Damacy. As the Prince of the Cosmos, the player is dropped onto the Earth, and told to gather up objects by using his katamari, to build huge clumps of mass that are then shot up into space and turned into stars. In practice, each level of the game is a large space populated with scattered detritus, clutter, and wandering critters, and the player is given a tool to gather up all this junk into one huge pile. At the start of the level, the space is highly entropic; through the player's input, order is brought to the space, consolidating the scattered bits into one central, manageable form. It's a satisfying sensation-- I've never met anyone who wasn't sucked in by the katamari.
But I think every single video game you've ever played shares this dynamic of allowing the player to bring order to entropy. In a corridor shooter game, the player proceeds down a path strewn with spaces filled by hostile NPCs. Each room filled with enemies is its own entropic arena-- upon entering it, the space is overrun by independent actors who act in a destructive manner, lending chaos and uncertainty to the room. By defeating these enemies and clearing the room of entropic actors, the player brings order to the space-- even if it is through the barrel of a gun.
The Civilization games place the player as a tiny force within an uncertain world filled by hostile factions, and challenges the player to bring order to the world by unifying it under one banner, by removing the fog of war from the map and ordering the globe with an interconnected matrix of cities and roads. Adventure games present the player with a series of unsolved puzzles and random objects sown throughout the gameworld, and challenge the player to gather the items together into his inventory, combine them in meaningful ways, and bring about order by resolving each waiting conundrum in turn. The Sims releases a handful of characters into an empty lot, and gives the player tools to order their lives into a working home, productive daily routine, and an interconnected social network. Tetris throws a randomized series of shapes at the player and challenges him to create orderly lines out of them, containing the entropy onscreen to keep his head above water.
The other, more straightforward aspect of video games that appeals to player psychology is the variety of goals they provide. These can be overt or implied goals, from an NPC telling you to bring him a certain object, to an enemy that must be defeated, to the knowledge that 100 pickup items are scattered around the world that the player will be rewarded for gathering, to there simply being a very high peak in the gameworld that the player decides he wants to scale. In completing these goals, the player receives an immediate and very tangible sense of accomplishment.
These sensations, accomplishment and control, are feelings that everyone requires, but that can be elusive in everyday life. There are limited elements of the day-to-day that we as individuals have direct control over, and real accomplishments can be long in coming, or muddled with compromise. All video games, in their myriad forms, provide a surrogate for these essential sensations, miniature worlds wherein the player can receive positive reinforcement through their own actions, cleanly and instantaneously.
7.28.2007
Benefit
7.11.2007
Announced
The project I'm working on at TimeGate has been officially announced. It's F.E.A.R.: Perseus Mandate, a new standalone expansion for F.E.A.R. Not much concrete info has been released yet, but I was responsible for the demo level that's going to be shown later this week during E3, so my work will be the first public face of Perseus Mandate. Like the earlier F.E.A.R. demos, this one is a compilation of bits and pieces from the single-player campaign, grafted together into one continuous level, with a little polish and additional content provided by yours truly. So, most of the core content was created by my fellow LD's here at TimeGate; I just chose, arranged, and finished parts of their work to act as a showcase for what's new in this expansion.
I haven't got a whole lot else to say about it at this point, beside that I'm proud to have been given the responsibility of debuting our product to the world, and that I hope its public reception is positive. Unfortunately I won't be able to show much of my own work on the project until the game ships, but I'll try to give some sort of behind-the-scenes look at the demo creation process once it's been shown to the press.
F.E.A.R.: Perseus Mandate-- my first title as a designer!
7.01.2007
Darkness
On sort of a whim, I rented The Darkness on Friday night and burned through it by Sunday morning. I really hadn't been following the game before its release, even though I played through and loved Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay. The preview materials I'd seen didn't grab me; the premise and mechanics weren't too appealing from the little I read, and the lame license definitely didn't help. But luckily, between my fond memories of Riddick and the positive reviews the game's been getting, I convinced myself to go pick it up. Luckily that is, because it's awesome.
As far as I'm concerned, the game's defining characteristic is that it doesn't treat the player like an idiot-- it gives you a world and trusts you to find your way around; it gives you objectives, and trusts you to figure out how to complete them. Structurally, the gameworld is laid out as an array of individual interconnected spaces that all feed back into a central hub area, the New York subway system. The wonderful thing is that the game doesn't hold your hand-- there's no minimap, no magical compass pointing to an objective marker, no voice in your ear from home base steering you where to go (besides The Darkness itself that is, which only serves to taunt you along the way.) If I have an objective at the corner of Mulberry & Orchid on the Lower East Side, I actually have to use signs, maps, and landmarks in the gameworld itself to navigate to my destination. In the subway, I look for the signs that point to the train I need to take; I get on the train, then look for a sign that leads me to the Lower East Side station exit; then I look at a street map posted near the station to find where the intersection of Mulberry & Orchid is compared to my current location; finally, I read the streetsigns on the corner to tell when I've gotten where I need to go. Navigation in The Darkness works just like in real life, which is incredibly refreshing compared to the usual contrivances and conveniences found in games. It brings the player down to earth, and removes a layer of abstraction that otherwise tends to distance the player from the experience. I remain engaged even when simply navigating from point to point, instead of passively following a waypoint while my mind wanders.
Experientially, the game has a great deal of texture to it, which is to be lauded. It's multifaceted; its intensity level actually ebbs and rises between high- and low-impact objectives. For every moment of extreme, over-the-top demon-assisted gun violence there's a counterbalancing moment of simple exploration, a conversation with an NPC, or a low-key, non-combat objective. I love that the game's stated objectives range from "kill the Chicago family's West Coast guy on the Lower East Side" to "blow out your birthday candles;" from "wipe out the gang that hangs around the Whitefish Pool Hall" to "go visit your Aunt Sarah." The game lets you breathe; it lets you have a wide spectrum of experiences within a cohesive gameworld. Maybe the most awe-inspiring gaming moment I've had this year was simply pressing A to sit on the couch with Jackie's girlfriend Jenny, and watching from first-person as the two of them quietly sat together in front of the tv, wrestled over the remote, kissed, and finally seeing Jenny curl up with her head on Jackie's shoulder as she went to sleep. It was touching, familiar, and moving in how unique it was in the context of a game. It was a human experience, made the more powerful for its contrast with both the hyperviolence of the other half of the Darkness's play mechanics, and with the typical imagery seen throughout the spectrum of high-budget action games in general. Moments like this are incredibly important when it comes to motivating the player through the later stages of the narrative. The player builds a simple memory of this encounter and others with Jenny, a genuine connection to the character, which gives terrible gravity to the climax of the first act, and propels the player with true animosity along the central line of the game's revenge plot. The Darkness managed to make me care.
There were plenty of other things I enjoyed about the game: the outstanding dialogue, voice acting and characterization of the cast of players, the ruthless execution kills and general chaos of the combat, the game's unique vision of Hell, the top-notch presentation throughout in both the interface elements and the gameworld itself, and more. In all, The Darkness made me happy to be playing a game by guys who clearly "get it;" in all respects, it's a very forward-thinking design, and manages to make an affecting experience out of that lame license that I mentioned earlier. This is a game by guys who set out to make a game they wanted to play, out of a license they wanted to adapt, and pulled it off.
The above ethic can describe a number of their label-mates who are also published by Take2/2K Games: All of Rockstar's studios (responsible for Bully, the Warriors, and GTA,) Remedy (responsible for Max Payne and the upcoming Alan Wake,) and Irrational (whose Bioshock is being published by Take2 this year.) They're all projects with a soul, projects that are borne out of their studio's desire to realize a vision they have for the unique experiences they want to convey. Take2 gives these ventures wings, backs their developers' visions instead of treating them as mills to execute their movie-of-the-week tie-in contracts. I respect that kind of game--the kind with a soul-- and Take2 for believing in them and making them possible. Based on their lineup, I'd say that Take2 is the best, most progressive big-name publisher in the business today. It's a shame that, from what I've read, Take2 is going through tough times. I hope that, if they go under, someone else will be around to support the dark horses of the AAA game development community.
6.26.2007
Grades
GameSpot has announced that they'll be "revamping" their review system this week. The two main changes are: they're adding "award medals and demerits" to each review, and switching to a half-point rating system.
The first change will be positive, I imagine. The medals and demerits will be icons that apply to multiple reviews, acting as tags that specify the best and worst points of all the games to which they're applied. So, if I'm reading a review for, say, Metal Gear Solid 4, and see that it's gotten a medal for "Convoluted Plot," I might click the medal to see what other games have won that particular award. It's good for me as a reader, since it helps me find new games that I might enjoy (or hate) based on specific factors, and good for GameSpot I'm sure, since it would lead people like me to spend more time clicking around their site.
The second change is like a quarter-step in the right direction as far as I'm concerned. The decision to only score games in half-point increments does reduce the granularity of the rating system ("what's the difference between an 8.2 and an 8.3?" being the classic question,) but it still keeps GameSpot's outlook in the realm of fiddly, Consumer Reports-style analysis of a game's perceived "bang for your buck," which is kind of the gross thing about GameSpot in my opinion. I think that their relaxing the numerical score system is a function of Greg Kasavin stepping down from the site some time ago; when I interviewed him, he had the following to say about the GameSpot rating system:
I generally think that numerical rating systems are arbitrary and poorly maintained—they're like tools that aren't used with the proper care. I think the system on GameSpot is put under much closer scrutiny than most other, similar systems. I am exactly the sort of person who splits hairs over tenths of a point—how come this game got a 7.6 when this game got a 7.7, and so on. Since I personally edit every review that goes up on GameSpot, though, I'm able to apply consistent standards in all cases, which is partly how we make sure our system is balanced.
I know the real answer to why this won't happen-- GameSpot is the key arbiter of the standards that www.gamerankings.com and thereby game publishers follow to determine whether a game has reviewed well or not. To continue posting their reviews to gamerankings, GameSpot has to maintain a numerical scale; and if they simply converted the gradeschool scale to percentages, it would defeat the purpose, as well as throw off the overall scale compared to other review sites. If someday the review site of prominence takes up the gradeschool scale as their official rating system, I will be happy.
6.03.2007
Actors
What value does a well-known actor bring to a film?
When you think about it, the whole practice of acting on film is sort of surreal. Famous actors are people we're familiar with as individuals off the screen, but when we see them in a new film role, we immediately accept their "being" this other, fictional person. But our knowledge of their off-screen personalities from interviews, and of their prior work on film, gives us expectations of what they'll bring to their new role. The person onscreen when you watch a film is both the actor you know as an individual, and the character unique to the film.
The interesting thing about games is that we play through all these stories revolving around human characters, but the element of the recurring actor is absent. The main character you see onscreen when you play a game like, for instance, Bully, isn't a role being played by a real person (beside the voice actor of course); the person you control onscreen is only Jimmy Hopkins, a unique entity to that gameworld. Even if a specific character carries over throughout a series, they exist only as that character (Sam Fisher will only ever be Sam Fisher.) When you want to go see the new Pacino movie, your expectations are formed to some degree based on what you know of Pacino the man, regardless of the character he's playing or the story the movie will be telling. In games, Mario may fill many different "roles" (kart driver, tennis player, doctor,) but he is only ever Mario, both the actor and the role, as it were. He only ever depicts himself.
So, for games to draw from this particular strength of film, I think there may be some value to the idea of a persistent stable of "digital actors," each of which maintains a consistent set of innate physical and personality traits unto themselves as individual beings, and who may then be "cast" in a variety of otherwise unrelated games, filling a unique "role" in each. When a new digital actor "debuts," you could get a feel for them in their initial role--their attitude, their features, their style, the archetype they tend to embody; in their next game, they would carry over these innate characteristics, but depict an entirely different in-game character, in a completely different gameworld.
When I think of a game that I'd love to draw digital actors from, Metal Gear Solid 3 is the first that comes to mind. Specifically, The Boss was a wonderfully realized character; she was so well defined that I could see her as an actual person, existing outside a game, which is the quality a digital actor would need to possess. Over the course of MGS3, you really got to know the characters, and I feel that bringing the essence of The Boss to a new game would be a huge draw to players, and give the creatives on the team a really interesting resource to draw from. We know "who" The Boss is, the essence of that person; if the same "actor" were playing a different role, what would she bring to it? Like going into a film knowing you're going to get Pacino, she would lend elements of "herself" to the new character she played. The same could be said of Eva, Volgin, and Ocelot. A completely different game featuring the same ensemble cast would be a very interesting experiment. Games have gotten to the point that their characters can convey unique, endearing, human personalities; who wouldn't want to see another game starring the digital actor of Frank West but without the zombies, or Leon Kennedy but without.. well, the zombies, or Cate Archer pulled out of the 60's, or Sam Fisher pulled out of the catsuit and goggles--the digital actors allowed to be separated from their "signature roles," and to live in new worlds?
It's been done on some level, and long ago-- over the course of 50 years, Osamu Tezuka's comics and animation featured a revolving cast of familiar characters that assumed new roles in each of his different titles. Tezuka's "Star System" did just what's described above-- each character existed unto himself, and could appear in any of Tezuka's titles as an entirely new character, but with a similar personality from role to role. Ochanomizu, Shunsaku Ban, Saruta, Tenma, Acetelyne Lamp, and others became familiar cultural images, apart from any single role they played. They were Tezuka's archetypes, and served as anchors for the readers of new properties in which they appeared.
Many elements of game development seem to suffer from either reinventing the wheel with every new title, or pumping out identical sequels that rely on the exact same elements from year to year. The star power of a beloved "digital actor" might be a useful compromise, a boon to an otherwise original IP from all angles-- the designer's, player's, and marketers' perspectives. Why throw away a perfectly good character you've worked hard to create?
6.02.2007
Justification 4
Double Dragon
Arcade / 1987 / Developer: Technos Japan / Publisher: Taito
As a youngster in my early years of gradeschool, I was known to frequently haunt the video arcades of my hometown. Whether it be a dedicated game pit in the mall, the mini-arcade at the local movie theater, or the massive underground Tilt complex in the galleria downtown, I loved the experience of wandering the dark, cavernous spaces lined with dozens of flashing game machines. Playing here was a unique, public experience; you could suddenly be performing for spectators at any moment, or if you came across a multi-player game, you could jump in and instantly be fighting alongside a handful of other guys, working together towards each successive goal.
Though I loved playing many, many different arcade games from this era, Double Dragon remains the one that's stuck with me over the years. The game kicks off with an extremely lean setup, followed by simple, straight-forward action. When the first quarter drops, we are presented with a young woman in a red dress standing in front of a grungy brick building. A gang of men walks up, and their leader, with no warning, slugs her in the stomach and carries her away, slung over his shoulder. As they retreat, the garage door of the building in the background opens to reveal the player character (along with a flashy red Camaro.) The player begins to pursue the kidnappers but is confronted by thugs, and without hesitation ruthlessly lays down the law with his fists, knees and flying kicks. It's all right there in the first 20 seconds. It grabs you and doesn't let go.
Double Dragon stood out from its contemporaries by settings its story in our world, as a bare knuckle conflict between individuals on familiar streets. There was nothing fantastical about it-- no aliens, no lasers, no space ships or goblins or magic spells. Double Dragon was about men, in a city, fighting it out for the sake of the woman imperiled. It was something more visceral than the abstractions of Defender, Pac-Man or Galaga; it was something to identify with, and live vicariously through. As a kid who didn't get along with his classmates much, I'm sure for me it had a strong quality of playing out physical aggressions in a way I never could in real life-- my resentment or anger towards bullies in school could be easily superimposed over the power fantasy of being Billy Lee, grinding thug after thug into the pavement. I have to recognize this part of the intrinsic value the game held for me at the time, even though it's not the noblest reason to enjoy a game.
Regardless of its connection to a certain stage in my life, a time when I would beg my parents to drive me to the arcade just so I could play through Double Dragon again on a fresh five-dollar bill, I legitimately enjoy the game itself to this day, and feel that it's held up as the pinnacle of the pure 2D brawler genre. It's not muddled by extraneous features or a fantastical setting. It's still fun and quick to play through, as I do every so often on MAME, or most recently on the arcade-perfect HD port released over Xbox Live Arcade.
The rawness and immediacy of its setting and action haven't dulled in the least over the years; Double Dragon defined the high watermark for these qualities in games early on. The only true, modern successor has been Rockstar's The Warriors, an homage simultaneously to the cult classic film and the old-school arcade brawler. This is clear enough from the action of the game proper, but it's spelled out explicitly once you complete the main campaign and unlock "Armies of the Night," an arcade machine that appears in the Warriors' hideout. The minigame is a loving remake of the original Double Dragon, as evidenced by its opening moments, and the sidescrolling street fights that follow. Rockstar Toronto's affection for their source material really showed through in every aspect of the final product.
It's nice to see such talented people carrying the torch for one of my all-time favorite games.
5.30.2007
Path
I've come to a conclusion about level design philosophy that's probably elementary knowledge for someone, say, studying game design in college, but it just congealed for me during my stint at TimeGate. Even when building a level that only provides the player with a strictly linear path, the designer should build the path through the place, not build the place around the path. It's about contrivance and cohesiveness.
I think that there's a natural inclination when laying out a linear shooter level to sketch an 'interesting,' abstract path first, then rationalize it by building out the appropriate geometry around it. In my experience, this tends to lead to spaces that feel very contrived and 'gamey.' Places built around a path are disconnected from a sense of purpose-- where is this curved hallway supposed to lead? Why do these storerooms feed into one another like a string of pearls? Why would they make people in this facility go up a series of ramps and catwalks to exit this room? Why is the layout of this place so convoluted?
I believe that the superior approach is to build a place first--a cohesive, functional space, with a purpose--then define a path through it by strategically restricting the player's movement. If it's a factory setting, build a small complex of storerooms, packing floors and shipping bays in an open structure that could simply be a place of its own, then start blocking off hallways, locking doors, collapsing staircases, and so forth to remove all means of egress that conflict with your chosen gameplay path through the space.
Hereby, the overall space inherently makes sense, while still allowing the designer to have a strong hand in leading the player. No part of the built space, and therefore valuable time, need be wasted-- the player can still be given controlled access to each room; or if a room isn't visited, it is at least visible, understood by the player as a part of the place he's exploring, showing him that there's more to the gameworld than the little path he's running along.
5.28.2007
Justification 3
Full Throttle
PC / 1995 / Developer & Publisher: Lucasarts Entertainment Company LLC.
In a good game, you can tell a lot by the way the player is introduced to his in-game character. When we take control of Full Throttle's Ben, we find him punching his way out from the inside of a garbage dumpster.
Full Throttle was a point-and-click that didn't pull any of its punches-- bad things happened, people died, and sometimes the solution to the puzzle was just to kick the damn door down. The gameworld was oppressive, dust-choked, and generally unfriendly; the supporting cast ranged from simply duplicitous to outright homicidal. But the game used its terse characterization to make me genuinely care about the sympathetic characters of Ben, Maureen, and old man Corley, from the initial rush of the opening sequence, to the tragic turning point at the end of the first act, to the devastatingly bittersweet ending sequence. Full Throttle told a melancholy tale of a handful of people-- not video game characters, but what felt like real people-- thrown together by fate, irrevocably changed, only to be scattered to the winds again as the sun set over the desert highway. The game had levity, sure, but it also had real gravitas, where almost no other game has.
Full Throttle deserves praise for standing out from the rest of the Lucasarts point-and-clicks. Unlike Day of the Tentacle, Sam & Max Hit the Road, or Monkey Island, Full Throttle manages to be funny without being silly, and to tell a meaningful, human story through the conventions of the genre without ever taking itself over-seriously. It's an incredible balancing act, and in my opinion just about the pinnacle of what a 2D point-and-click could aspire to. I feel lucky to have played a masterpiece like this during my formative years.
5.26.2007
Justification 2
Sam & Max Hit the Road
PC / 1993 / Developer & Publisher: Lucasarts Entertainment Company LLC.
Point-and-click adventure games were my gateway into modern PC gaming, and Hit the Road is my all-time favorite of the genre. Point-and-clicks are largely linear, designer-dictated, and often frustrating. At their best, they make the player feel clever for figuring out their puzzles; at their worst, the player is banging his head against an illogical impediment for days, with no hope but random trial and error to progress. I think that what Hit the Road and the other funny adventures from the period teach is this: make failing fun. Even when I wasn't making progress in Hit the Road, even when I was repeatedly failing as I tried to unlock the next location, the game was constantly feeding me rewards for my input, by way of Sam & Max's humorous remarks. Even when my clicking didn't reward me with tangible progress, I still received something enjoyable-- a funny little quip, a clever description, some non sequitur piece of dialogue I hadn't heard before. The game rewarded the player simply for playing, not just for succeeding.
Hit the Road's tone is something hard to encapsulate simply-- maybe "screwball noir?" It had edge to it and a down-to-earth vibe while dealing with bigfoot, molemen, and celebrity-lookalike vegetables. It boasted hints of reckless nihilism, what with the opening sequence involving a damsel in distress being left to rot, a mad scientist being decapitated, and a time bomb being tossed into a passenger bus, all by a cartoon dog and rabbit. It was the perfect strange, hilarious, out-there world for my 13-year-old self. It didn't talk down to me, and it kept me in stitches from start to finish.
I think Hit the Road is the game I've replayed the most in my life, probably about a dozen times through. I'm glad that the Freelance Police have been resurrected by way of their new episodic releases, and I'm proud to know some of the fine people at Telltale who bring the games to life. I wish I could go back in time and tell my 13-year-old self that one day I'd get the chance to shake Steve Purcell's hand and tell him how much I've appreciated his work over the years. I'm sure I would've been floored.
5.24.2007
Justification 1
Through a link on Gamasutra, I ended up reading the blog of Stuart Roch, a producer at Treyarch. In one post, he wrote up his 10 favorite games of all time , along with a short statement on why each was important to him. On that note, I felt like it might be useful to justify the games I've listed in the "Favorite Games" field of my profile over there. I'm going to split each of mine into a separate post, in the arbitrary order that I initially listed them.
Syndicate
PC / 1993 / Developer: Bullfrog / Publisher: Electronic Arts
Up front, I'll admit the possibility that my esteem for games from this time period might be elevated by nostalgia to some degree; on the other hand, I've played all of these games since their original release, and still, objectively I think, hold them in high regard.
The world of Syndicate is a cyberpunk dystopia. The player is a high-ranking executive in a multinational corporation, tasked with remotely controlling a squad of cybernetically-enhanced field agents to wreak havoc in cities across the world, gaining control of each territory in turn. The goal is complete world domination, the method wanton destruction.
I like the setting, but what I think really stuck with me was the game's structure, and the amount of control the player had over the gameworld. From the outset, the player is presented with the whole globe, and then given the power to conquer it however he chooses. The globe is divided into territories, each of which is represented by a discrete playable space; this playable space is comprised of an open-structure city, into which the player's agents are inserted. The player must then complete specific objectives within each level, by observing the area's physical layout and NPC behavior, formulating a strategy, and executing it using a small but focused set of affordances. The player decides in which order to approach the levels, and must then himself decide how to accomplish the goals in each level, pushing the game's progression forward along the path he's chosen.
It's human-scale tactical conflict in a series of open-structure levels, which generally describes my favorite type of game to this day. That in Syndicate the order of the level progression is also dictated by the player is an added bonus. The rest of what makes the game great are the specifics of the action and the artifice that I won't go into, but for 1993, I'd say that everything about Syndicate was far ahead of its time.
For me personally, leading up a modern-day spiritual successor to Syndicate would be my dream project. It's a game experience which has never been duplicated to this day, and which I believe has enormous potential to be translated into the contemporary game sphere. If only.