Readings for This Week
I’ve been meaning to post something about these two article for a few weeks now. I’ve finally decided to do so because I think that they’re somewhat pertinent to the discussion that has broken out over the subject of Oren’s timely post. Namely, the ongoing debate between Frank and David Sirlin over the way games express morals and ethics.
The first is an essay from Escapist Magazine by Marty O’ Hale about the Zelda franchise, but also the importance of looking outside of the industry for inspiration when it comes to game design. I think that this connects to our discussion because it makes the case that there is no one correct way of doing things, which I’m starting to believe is at the heart of what Frank has been saying (unless I’ve misunderstood him once again).
The next is an article that was in the New Yorker a few weeks back about Milton Bradley’s Game of Life, and its metamorphosis through the years. Game designers, it seems, have been thinking about morals and ethics for a very long time.
The scanned PDF is here.
P.S. I thought about calling this post New Games Journalism Goes Mainstream.
I’d read the New Yorker article previously… and found it pretty odd that the new version of The Game of Life would have no victory mechanic. I mean, that’s a broken game. Yet in the history of this game… it is really saying something about cultural values, just as the 1950’s version really said something about the values then. So it leaves me in a bind: is it okay to design a broken game if it is saying something?
Hmmm, this leads to something that was never really settled in class: are broken games (bad games) still games?
Are broken arms still arms? Yes, but they’re very floppy and not useful for very much.
One way to think about it is that “broken” is always a high-level description of a game that isn’t working within a specific context, as opposed to an intrinsic feature of the game. So any game that is working to provide enjoyment/entertainment/interest for players can’t really be broken. But when a game *isn’t* working then sometimes you can’t trace the problem back to a specific structural flaw and then we say it’s broken like this.
So really, to be broken, a game needs A> to not work and B> to have an identifiable structural flaw that explains why its not working (as opposed to just being boring or sucking in some general way).
Normally, however, we skip over A and just say “game X is broken” meaning that we can assume that this flaw is going to prevent it from working.
So, what you’re saying is that for a game to be ‘broken’ it has to be both not accomplishing its goal, to entertain for instance, and have some structural flaw that is stopping it?
By that definition then, breaking a game in order to say something isn’t actually breaking it if you get your point across!
Finally read the escapist piece:
“You can find a similar progression in adventure games, in which exploring and creatively solving puzzles transformed into walking in circles and looking for hotspots.”
Huh? What made up history of adventure games is he imagining when he writes this? Adventure games were always about walking in circles and looking for hotspots. Does he really think Colossal Cave or Zork were more about exploring and creatively solving puzzles than Grim Fandango? Adventure games died because they were broken. Ah! segue!
“So, what you’re saying is that for a game to be ‘broken’ it has to be both not accomplishing its goal, to entertain for instance, and have some structural flaw that is stopping it?”
Yeah, I don’t know, in retrospect there might be situations where we would say such and such a game is broken even if no players have discovered that fact yet. Mainly it means having a specific problem that is clearly definable and, once pointed out, is unlikely to be dismissed as a taste issue. As opposed to the flaw most games have which is just sucking and being boring and pointless in a vaguely ambiguous way.
“…the player in Zelda is still subordinate to the designer…If one were to write an account of a play-through of Zelda, no one would call the player the director of the action. At best, he’s an actor performing minor bits of improv…”
Frankly, as a player, that’s where I want to be, and as a designer that’s where I want the player to be, as well. No matter how loose a designer is in defining the rules and restrictions within which a player opperates, playing a game is still defined as an experience bound by restrictions. Yes, the player can come up with strategies and patterns that haven’t been built and mapped expressly into the game’s design, but in my opinion a great designer ought to be able to anticipate those improvisations and model the game’s architecture with that in mind. Designers have a really interesting chance to stand as master manipulators from their position, building the worlds a player inhabits and scripting events to fit every possible action they can imagine the player making. Even seemingly minimalist tabletop games work best on this level, encouraging players to make gambits to see if they’ll pay off.
If improvised play blends seamlessly into the flow of a game it shows that a game works well, and the easiest way to promote this is simply to try and out-think the player’s possible gameplay contingencies from the design stage on. By the way, I think it’s interesting he mentions “Risk” as an alternative to games where the player is little more than an actor, rather than a director, considering the game’s creator, Albert Lamorisse, directed “The Red Balloon.”
As for the New Yorker piece– I have newfound respect for Mr. Bradley. Now if only we could get our hands on a copy of his original “Checkered Game of Life.”
“…a specific problem that is clearly definable and, once pointed out, is unlikely to be dismissed as a taste issue.”
Hmmm, so, in your opinion, is Milton Bradely’s original Game of Life broken, or is it simply better classified as a game of chance.
“…scripting events to fit every possible action they can imagine the player making.”
Designers have tried to do this, and what we’ve gotten from those efforts are the aforementioned circle walking, hotspot extravaganzas. Now, I don’t support the other side of this argument either, the user created content side, where players create their own experience. There needs to be however, a healthy tension between the two. This is because 1) I think it makes for a more interesting experience, and 2) it is practically impossible to actually script everything a player can think of doing.
“Designers have tried to do this, and what we’ve gotten from those efforts are the aforementioned circle walking, hotspot extravaganzas…it is practically impossible to actually script everything a player can think of doing.”
Not really. As long as you keep a firm control over the sets of tools and rules you provide them, it’s not too difficult to at the very least anticipate a wide enough range of consequences for as many of the player’s actions as you can think of. Sure, it becomes a balancing act of exactly what the hardware can handle, but games have always been as much about what you keep out as in. Designers are the ones creating the causes, so it stands to reason we can at least have a hand in most of the effects.
Besides, I’m mostly thinking of curiosity-driven experimentation reaping extra benefits here and there from what’s already there. More “Hiding-In-The-Box=Invincibility” than creating as many meaningless hotspots as possible.
You’re brushing aside how hard it is to keep firm control over possibilities without making the game feel stifling to the player, without making it seem linear and therefore, not much of a game. Believe me Bob, the people who drove the adventure game into the ground were coming from the exact same place that you’re talking about. This seems like a completely different outlook than the one adopted by the folks who design games like GTA or Shadow of the Colossus or Dead Rising. Sure, you’re not doing anything in those games that the creators haven’t allowed you to do, but these games also have huge spaces where players can experiment in ways that are not explicitly accounted for by the design. The brilliance of these games is that it is these spaces that reinforce each game’s larger meaning without needing to script a response to every single player action.
I can’t vouch for “Dead Rising,” but I have to disagree on some of the conclusions you’re reaching from GTA and SotC, at least in where you believe their design philosophy takes them. Just because experimentation hasn’t been explicitly accounted for in a design does not mean that it has not been implicitly accounted for, at least in the minds of designers themselves. Perhaps we’re seeing a difference between the initial planning stages of design and the rigorous rounds of testing after each round of initial builds have been completed. If a designer hasn’t accounted for certain types of experimental and improvisational play in their original writings, they’re more than likely going to encounter them while actually playing the game for themselves alongside their crew. At that point, they can observe the systems they’ve created from a newly objective perspective, deciding which elements of freedom they want to keep open for the player and which ones they’d rather cut down on. The more in-depth the pre-release playthroughs go all through the game’s creation, the more experimental and improvisatory territory the designer is likely to explore, and either allow, remove or possibly even emphasize.
I’m not doubting that serendipity can have a big hand in the creative process of game design and play, I’m just saying that as long as playtests are effectively a part of game design’s creative process, then the creator has a fair deal more of control, or at least authority, than you suggest.
You have completely missed my point. What I’m saying is that there is a certain school of design, the oldest perhaps, where you create a number of variables with particular relationships, allow the player to set them in motion, and trust/hope that your design will produce interesting things. This is in opposition to a lot of video games, where the frequency and magnitude of interactions is carefully controlled. It’s impossible for Albert Lamorisse to have tested every possible strategy in Risk. The idea that Rockstar experimented enough to come even close to exhausting the potential actions in GTA is ridiculous.
About testing, I don’t think you’re wrong, I just think that you’re coming from the wrong place. Testing should be used to find game-breaking strategies, adjust pacing, refine mechanics, etc. I don’t think that it should be used primarily to second guess players. Be careful, my friend, your literary bias is starting to show!
I’m not saying it should be used primarily to second guess players– implicit versus explicit, remember– but it’s undeniably beneficial to keep in mind during playtesting. Strategies, pacing, mechanics– these are all the essential elements which must be calibrated, this is true. But just as designers must look to fix all the ways in which their game may arrive broken, it’s also important to look out for all the ways in which players may actively try to break the game by their own actions. This is something you’re aware of, naturally, but this testing of game-break limitations can and, time and effort willing, should extend to the more idiosynchratic experimentation that players are naturally going to develop.
See, gaming can be a lot more literary than you think. The workshopping process of editing fiction and poetry isn’t just about making sure whether the author’s intent was recieved by readers, but is also about discovering what independent meanings and resonances readers themselves percieve. Just so, it’s just as important to reflect on how gamers are likely to play a game, in reality, as it is to consider how they’re supposed to play the game, from the designer’s perspective. Just because you can’t do everything a gamer’s going to do doesn’t mean that one shouldn’t remain keenly aware of the eye they keep open onto those contingencies.
Lamorisse, for example, couldn’t have tested every possible strategy himself, but I’m willing to bet he tested every possible strategy he could possibly think of, and I think that’s where you might be missing my point, actually. Granted, to anticipate every single possible contingency would require a superhuman intellect, and we’re all nothing but mere mortals, after all. It is not impossible, however, to anticipate every single imaginable contingency, especially if working with a group. In that case, naturally, creative foresight will only be as limited as your imagination is. Authorial control must only be limited by what is possible, not necessarily, instead, by what seems plausible.
I think where we’re missing each other is that you see games as mostly being about cause and effect, which gives the designer a central role in the creation of meaning. What interests me about games is their algorithmic and rhizomatic potential, where the player has much more influence over the shape of the experience.
Games do have similar qualities to literature, but what I mean by ‘literary bias’ is that you seem to look at games as really just vehicles for the transmission of an author’s intent. There’s nothing wrong with this, indeed it may be where things eventually end up, but you downplay the importance of individual performance. Granted, I don’t think that you would ever say that out loud, but that’s the feeling I get from your comments.
This argument is kind of silly anyway. There’s room enough, and obviously a market, for games made from both perspectives.
True, but in the final analysis, aren’t arguments like these what this blog is for?
Speaking of playtesting, I could use a few willing souls to try out my new version of monopoly sometime soon… I think I’ve “fixed” this game…
I’m in!