Intro

I just played Super Columbine Massacre.
For kicks, I also played http://www.deanforamericagame.com/play.html
because it was just as misguided.

It helped me think over a few things in my mind with “serious games.”.

People do not seem to understand the power of play mechanics.

Two prominent moments that changed probably everybody’s lives for a while, whether or not they intended to have that effect, are Tony Hawk Pro Skater, and Final Fantasy.

Short Term Mechanics

Tony Hawk Pro Skater reinvented New York City for a while. I couldn’t look at an edge of a bench, or a hand rail, or any right angle in general, without seeing it as a potential place to land in a grind. I couldn’t see the city without bouncing my eyes off possible grinding trajectories. I think you know what I mean. But my point is, Tony Hawk effectively moved me to reinvent my perception of the entire world. This happened very naturally, without my consent to any perspective.

Grand Theft Auto also played with my mind a bit. Since GTA’s mechanics encourage you to try things out in the game world and observe how networks of actors react to it, whether they were police, ice cream men, crowds, or the world in general, it changed the way I viewed NY. I started going to July 4th gathering and other sort of social networks just to see what happened when I played a specific role among them and specific. For me, this was entirely a GTA perception of our world.

A final example is from Diablo. This is personal , in fact, very personal, but such a powerful example of the phenomenon that I was overjoyed when I realized it in High School. Do you remember the red blood vials in Diablo? Do you remember that you could fill it with a potion, but it only gradually moved towards its new higher amount, which was drawn in faded as the HP filled up? And all the while, enemies might drag your HP down, maybe even faster than your potion can replenish it? Well, there were certain moments of endurance in my life during which I could not get the image of these blood vials out of my head.

I’m sure that metaphor was not explicitly intended by Blizzard. But that’s my point. If you construct a game mechanic that maps to real world mechanics, all you have to do is slightly suggest the mapping and the metaphor carries very well. Sometimes you don’t even need that suggestion. Play is powerful.

One thing to note is that this kind of literal, “small mechanic” only set in my head after long hours of playing the game. Which is to say, I think this only happens to hardcore gamers. Even if the game is minesweeper, the symbols don’t start appearing in your head all day until you’ve put a significant set of hours into the game. So DS mini games might not carry this weight!

Long Term Mechanics

Leveling up ! Gold! I think all of us who grew up on experience and resource based RPGs have mapped it directly into our lives. The idea that constantly working at something can lead ONLY to linear advancement, the idea that when you’re out of a resource you can take some time to earn some more by doing some often repetitive tasks, and then afterwards use these resources to advance your world position (usually making art or music ), these mechanics of Final Fantasy directly influenced the freelance lifestyle I took after college.

Social RPGS might be taking these mechanics to a new level. When you realize things like the importance of a healer, or a sorcerer, to complement your barbarian, to undertake a heavy task – That kind of thing probably sets into your mentality.

I’m sure Tale in the Desert in that case probably did a lot to familiarize its players with divisions of labor too, as well as social politics.

I’m sure much can be done with these new social mechanics game designers are allowed to exploit.
It could be as simple as realizing in Toontown that the monsters are much easier and more fun to kill with a friend.
It could be as complex as the understanding the play in Will Wright’s proposition for a Love game in Battlefield, in which lovers from opposing teams have to meet each other on a violent battlefield.

These mechanics don’t actually have to play out in the real world. Freelance work wasn’t nearly as fun as killing enemies in Final Fantasy… In fact, its terribly taxing and seems to ruin my life. Division of labor and expertise is probably not nearly as objectively valuable as it is in the world of Diablo or other social RPGs.

But as long as the gameplay can map to points in real life, it begins to make an link to your perception of reality. There is no doubt that fighting games with real world physics have influenced my mindset in real fighting situations as well. I have to consciously shake away the video game fighting mechanics when I’m in a real situation. But I find this kind of long term mechanic different qualitatively than the short term mechanics of fighting games in that the feedback isn’t clear. Whereas you can learn pretty quickly that Tekken doesn’t work well in real life, (nor does running over pedestrians in GTA for that matter.), and then deny the analogy, it’s not as easy to deny the mechanics of Tale in the Desert politics, or leveling up, because it’s harder to measure the effectiveness of the analogy.

The same is true of very abstract, but mappable gameplay in general, such as Go, or Chess. Not necessarily long term- but difficult to prove or disprove, and very easily taken in.

In which case, these long term mechanics can carry huge, unshakeable impressions on their players, which brings gameplay into the realm of tactical media, for better or for worse.

Play

Physical horseplay, for example, can be seen as the activity of young animals that allow us to become familiar with the rules of our world. The same pattern can apply to play in general. The fact that my head seems to accommodate play mechanics as metaphors to my reality is no surprise. I think the authors of serious games should seriously get acquainted with this phenomenon before relying entirely on the narrative or context of the gameplay.

I am in no way saying that narrative is not a strong force. Ever since I played Shenmue 1, I’ve been training martial arts every single day, because that was one of the “wu dei”. Give a kid 40 hours with an idol of a character, and it’ll leave its impression without a doubt, with dimensions that 2-3 hours of film cannot.

However, I’m just saying that game, or PLAY, is very powerful medium to work with, and serious games are most often totally off the mark.