On Misinformation

Final Verdict: Ehh, it's alright.

I was playing Borderlands recently, wondering why I’ve sunk so many hours into it, when I started thinking more clearly about the game.  It Borderlands, you will notice that a number pops up every time you shoot an enemy, indicating the damage you dealt.  It made me think about the teaching most game designers receive, specifically the habit of making sure the player understands every action they perform and the consequences of it.  This can be easy to understand the logic behind; you want the player to know what they’re doing.  While this is true, I’ve found that my most compelling and immersive game experiences have come from situations where I don’t know exactly what I’m doing.  Oh sure, I understand the controls and basic setup, but the story, the effects of my actions, these are the unknowns that keep me invested and cause me to care about my decisions.

Looking back to the Fable games, you may remember the tag for the first was “For every choice, a consequence,” and that could be said to be true, but the problem was players could easily figure out what they consequences would be since it usually boiled down to “Kill this guy or don’t.”  Even actions like theft didn’t have any real consequence unless you were caught.

It is more in game like Dragon Age or Fallout that I find myself actually wondering about the choices I’ve made.  For instance, there is a point in Dragon Age Origins when you have the option of killing a woman to enact a magic ritual, or going to the Mage’s tower to ask for assistance there.  Clearly, killing her is not the preferable idea, but it will save the life of her son, and she is more than willing to do it.  At the same time, it would end a great threat to a nearby city, which has been plagued with undead attacks every night, and lost most of their population.  The question becomes: Do you take more time and cost possibly many more lives in going to the tower, or do you enact the ritual on the spot, saving the greatest number of people as quickly as possible?  I chose the latter, and afterward I realized because I wasn’t sure if there would be consequences for taking too long.

So it’s only because I was ignorant of the exact mechanics at work that I really cared about my actions.  If I knew the game wouldn’t impose a penalty for time (and I’m not telling you if it does or not), then my actions would have revolved around that, around the mechanics rather than the story.  The fine folks at Extra Credits made this point with regards to the binary morality issue; hiding the statistics would instead give us the feel that people hated or loved us based on our actions, not the arbitrary judgment of those actions.

This quality has only really come forward in the most recent generation of games, at least so far as I’ve seen, because now, with the medium developing and so many people pushing the artistry of it, it becomes hard to be sure what a game does or doesn’t have going on behind the scenes.  I’m sure that some people will be able to note the same sorts of effects from the past couple of generations, but I don’t feel I’ve really come across it until recently.

The main series can suck it.

Now, there’s a question of how far this method should go, certainly.  A player needs to know the controls, their objectives, and so on, right?  Sure, you may not know your ultimate goal immediately in a game, but it should reveal itself as the story progresses.  That last point, I don’t know about.  I think it’s a quality of linear storytelling and familiar tropes like the three-act structure that make us push games into the same style.  We’re unused to trying it different ways, but I can think of one game that lets the player find the real stories, and only gives tangential hints, leading to an experience you feel you’ve impacted and left truly for the better: Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles.

No, I’m not going to let up on this game, it’s one of my absolute favourites because it provided me with a strange, unique experience I haven’t forgotten.  And so we’re clear, every Crystal Chronicles game since has been trash.

FF:CC on the Gamecube received a lot of flack at the time for it’s multiplayer mode basically being a huge money-grab by Nintendo.  Surprise surprise.  But unfortunately, that meant a lot of the game got looked over, and unfortunately, this part was lost in the shuffle.  The game can continue for an absurdly long time, and the final goal is not contingent on getting to it, or really scripted events that need to play out.  The game itself is about experience, and the element that allows you to play to the end is a measure of your experiences.

This is where games really need to start exploring.  In many ways, it’s the same a great D&D campaign can be run.  A start point, a live, moving world with variable elements the players can impact, and an end point, far away, and contingent on the experience of the player, less measured in strength or cut scenes, but in a measurement unto itself. 

To create experience, we must experience ourselves and emulate.  The emotions, the relationships, the understanding and lack of understanding.  Not that we should strive for unparalleled realism, but we must recognize that not knowing the exact outcome of our actions is what causes to contemplate them.  Knowing them invalidates what truly may come of the experience, it negates any introspection once we see the consequences, and this is what games allow better than any other medium: the ability to look at your choices, your reasons, even when your action play out poorly, and wonder if you still stand behind it, if you are willing to re-evaluate yourself and your beliefs when confronted by their dark side, or whether you choose to hold fast and continue on a path you truly believe in, regardless of how it affect the rest of the world.

On Timing

Surly you’ve seen it at some point: that rapidly descending set of numbers pops into a corner of the screen, almost trying to hide as it ticks down the remaining seconds of your time limit like a gradually slowing heartbeat.  It can be a dreadful feeling, watching those numbers drain away.  Time limits easily add extra investment in the gameplay, it adds the necessity of speed to whatever challenges were already set on the player, and that sudden addition of difficulty can be a good surprise, or just annoy the hell out of your players.

Or, you could experiment with the very idea.  Time limits are a holdover from the arcade days, where the time left at the end of the challenge would award the player with extra points.  But after games went away from being about high scores and taking all of your mom’s hard-earned quarters, the time limit changed to being a challenge amplifier.  Because the mechanic was no longer about squeezing that money out of players, it started to be a bit more about experimentation.  Surprising  one of the earliest example of playing with the time limit mechanic came from a Spiderman game on the Genesis.

Spoiler: They both turn into giants and Spidey climbs
the Empire State Building like King Kong.

Spiderman VS The Kingpin gives the player a twenty four hour time limit to complete the game, shaving a couple hours for every death.  In the game, a bomb will go off at the end of the countdown.  Suddenly, the time limit becomes a gameplay mechanic and story element, which is almost always a good idea.  Since then, we’ve seen some much more interesting uses of time limitations.

Persona 4 (and Persona 3, haven’t played 1 or 2, since they haven’t been released in English) keeps track of the day of the year that the game takes place.  This doesn’t seem like much at first, but it does actively revolve around the Japanese school year and Japanese holidays, which is educational and interesting, so bonus points there.  The timer never indicates when the end of the game will come,  but the knowledge that a time limit is there does a wonderful job of making the player want to make the most of their life and the friendships they acquire.  Persona 4 doesn’t force the player to play the game a certain way, or within an actual time frame, since days last forever if the player doesn’t do an action that will end them.  Persona 4, however, does not handle its time limit perfectly.  Near the end of the game (and there at least three different endings, try to get the best one), time skips forward almost four months, just whizzing through the calendar with reckless abandon, which really caught me off guard, and was rather disappointing.  I’d grown amicable to my fake life, and I wanted to spend time with my friends, but the game denied me that possibility, in an act the game had never done before.  So, as an addendum to this and all things: Consistency is nice.

Another game one could look at for the same sort of time limit experimentation is, obviously, the Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask.  The three day time limit was a first for the Zelda games, and many players’ first interactions with a full-game time limit, or so it seemed.  Making such an uncommon mechanic not only prominent, but the focus of the game itself, especially in such a mainstream series as the Legend of Zelda, was a risky and off-putting move.  I love the game for it.

Time limits, from a writing perspective, are their own unique beast.  Trying to write one into a story is actually probably easier in video games than any other medium, since all one has to do is take the major conflict of the game and say to the player “If you’re not successful after this long, too bad.”  Take whatever the player is trying to do, since games are most certainly about doing, and make it have to be done within a certain time.  “The Archduke will conquer your country in seven months,” “the meteor will collide with the planet in 12 hours,” etc.

90 years, make your time.

The problem, then, is knowing how a player will react to a time limit being imposed on them.  I know people who flat out refuse to play Majora’s Mask because they wouldn’t want the timer hanging over their head, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel the same way when the game first game out.  Like I mentioned at the beginning of this article, a fair number of players are not happy to see a time limit pop up, it can feel like a cruel judge staring down at you, letting you know your playing is substandard.  So how do you make the time limit bearable?

Well, there’s obviously the Person 4/Spideman VS The Kingpin method (that needs to be the name of something else, a psychology treatment or something), of giving the player a huge amount of time, so they only feel the crunch when it gets down to… well, the crunch.  But with the shorter time limits, I think giving the player some fair warning of the impending nature is good, if you simply wish to keep them happy, but the element of surprise is a great way to snap the audience into investment in the game.  The Metroid series would be great at this if they didn’t do it in every bloody game, especially considering the placement.  Defeat the final boss, a grueling, seemingly endless battle… you stand proudly, if bruised, over the ruin of your enemy’s empire.  Then, almost casually, a few numbers slip their way into view, and your heart takes a wholesome, two-footed jump into you gut.

Speaking of those numbers, should a player always know the time they have left?  Persona 4 technically doesn’t tell the player, and that works quite well, but for shorter limits, and even game like Majora’s Mask, the knowledge of the time limit is crucial.  I’m becoming more and more of a fan of hiding information from players, but I’ll get to that in another article.  For time limits, at least, they should know what they’re doing, and those little numbers, while annoying, need to be seen.

So, to cap it all off, let me discuss one last thing: implied time limits, situations in which the players are told they have a fixed time to complete some task, but the game actually lets them tale as much sweet-ass time as they wish.  I have never thought these were good ideas.  Which is to say, it breaks the player from the game entirely.  If the time limit isn’t real, or doesn’t feel real, there is no added pressure, no increase in conflict, and actually provides a bit of a decrease when the player can sit back and say “Oh, well, I have all the time in the world.”  If you’re going to make the story have a time limit, make sure the player feels it, understands it, and, maybe a teeny bit, fears it.

On Sequels, Part 1

If there’s one thing many people are willing to decry with little to no information on it, it’s sequels.  They’re often seen as rushed out attempts to squeeze a few more dollars out of the oppressed masses, but there are some sequels that have done great things with the source material.  Silent Hill 2 is widely regarded as the best of the Silent Hill series, and leaves behind much of the mythology of the first game.  Yet, in the past, we’ve seen fans go ballistic over properties that ignore even a fraction of a beloved mythology.

Of course there are sequels that are seen as wholly awful creations that actually manage to devalue the series (Whatever remains of the series afterward) as a whole.  Highlander II, anyone?  But right now, let’s look at the qualities to successful sequels.  There will probably be spoilers for any games I talk about, fair warning.

First off, let’s look back a little to the beginnings of what would become my gaming world.  Spyro the Dragon.  He’s gone some weird places since his humble beginnings on the Playstation.  Spyro’s first adventure was a 3D platformer with some fairly basic mechanics.  The level design was simple and yet works as a fantastic blueprint for representing the perfect and steadily rising difficulty curve (future article!).

So what did the sequel change, and was it worth it?  Well, the series has gone on for over five games since the first, so I’d say it was a success.  But what did the sequel change?  What did the game do to make the series as enduring as it is?  Well, it began to add characters.  The first game had the player rescuing dragons with varying personalities, but they were only seen once and the writing slid toward the end, reducing the dragons to saying nothing but “Thank you for releasing me.”  But, in Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rage, we got a more vocal villain, his moronic minions, and a quartet of strange woodland creatures with distinct personalities.   So, adding relationships to varying characters, definitely a good start.  The game also adds some new mechanics, such as swimming, skateboarding, and headbutt slams.  The game didn’t add a whole lot to the gameplay style, adding only a few new toys to vary the play, and the story didn’t suddenly become a complicated web of twists and turns, but it took a previously successful formula and added some special and important pieces, helping to introduce those gamers who started with Spyro to a more mature series of problems and a larger variation of levels than “Lava Land” and “Ice Land.”  Overall, a sequel that began to test the waters, and keep the series alive.

Next off, we can look at two very well known games, Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time, and Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask.

Probably the strangest transition in the Zelda series, Majora’s Mask is a polarizing kind of game.  I know of very few people, maybe none now that I think about it, who do not have a strong opinion on Link’s 2^nd N64 outing.  While clearly not as successful as Ocarina, Majora’s Mask was a beautiful sequel, and so I get this out of the way: I enjoy Majora’s Mask more.

But Ocarina of Time was a wonderful transition in the Zelda series to 3D, and the game cemented Zelda as one of the best-loved series of all time.  An epic adventure of a young boy, learning swordsmanship and sacrificing so much of his life to save the world he owes nothing to, while traveling through tons of dungeons, adventuring through a world packed with side quests and extra story.  It was, and remains, a fantastic experience and great introduction to gaming.

And then, Majora’s Mask.  Four dungeons, repeating the same three days over and over, heavy themes of death and hopelessness, watching all of your work undone every time you need to do more, and reuse of almost all the character models from Ocarina of Time.  Some people saw Majora’s Mask as the kind of rushed, lame sequel sent out to cash in on the amazing Zelda craze.  However, the game went for an entirely different emotional turn.  Taking the familiar faces of the Zelda world, and the familiar mechanics and placing them in a world uncanny in its similarity produced a brand new mood for the series, reflected in not only the world design, but also the art style and music.  The game became dark and foreboding, yet still an artistic and critical success.  Here we see that going in a new emotional direction, while relying on the success of the first game, can open players up to whole new worlds of feeling and experience.  Majora’s Mask was a noble endeavor to broaden the horizons of the gaming public.

Lastly, I’d like to talk about the recent success of Dragon Age II.  Bioware decided once again to change the systems of the game, creating a less meticulous and more streamlined method of combat, and changing the in-game dialogue to a more simplified control method.  While this does mean less extended pauses in conversation, it simplified the role-playing aspect the first Dragon Age did so well.  Dragon Age was a story about a grand quest to unite the people of a country under a common banner, regardless of background or race (and racism is, let’s not kid ourselves, a massive overriding theme of Dragon Age).  It was a battle against a great evil, primal and seemingly unending, one that would slowly and surly obliterate the country, if not the world, except for the resolve of your small party.

Dragon Age II, on the other hand, is a personal story.  No longer about a world-sized threat, the endeavor was to create an identification with the main character and the struggle of their rags-to-riches life.  Combat became more fantastical, less about strategy and more about quick thinking, and the dialogue less about morality and more about personality.

Dragon Age II is a success commercially, there is no doubt about that, but there is debate about whether it is a success as an art.  I would say yes, if only for showing the same world and problem from both a grand perspective and a limited one.  Small things, like your character having a name people can actually refer to, being able to hear your character’s voice, all very important in bringing this more personal touch into play.

To summarize, there are many ways to make a successful sequel, and it lies within an artistic direction.  Sure, Madden games will sell for the next decade, but no one would call them successful artistic creations.  The real achievement lies in understanding the world previously created, and looking at it in a more fully realized manner.  Whether this is adding more personal relationships, creating a dark juxtaposition, or showing the different sides to the world’s conflicts, the ability to create fantastical art does not end after a single story.

On Dragons

Gamers are nerds.  One would think this goes without saying, but the consequences of that are more than most people care to think about.  Lead Writer and Designer of Bioshock Ken Levine said that most gamers have seen one movie and read one book, and those are Star Wars and Lord of the Rings or something similar, and to a degree, he’s correct.  What he was getting at in saying this is that gamers have a tendency to love certain genres and tropes, and that love means we see those genres and tropes played to death in games.

Case in point: Dragons.  The bloody things are everywhere.  There aren’t always lots of them, but I see at least ten games from where I’m sitting that feature them.  And, really, it’s a problem.

Oh, dragons themselves aren’t the issue, nor is thinking they’re great creatures, because let’s face it: they are.  The problem is the overexposure of these mighty winged lizards, and in effect, so much of what is typically geek culture.  Space Marines, orcs and goblins, secret science labs, zombies, etc, ad nausiem.  Again the problem isn’t inherently with these things, the problem is with how often we see them.

This has led to most, if not all of this geek iconography losing much of its initial sting or effect.  Zombies are no longer scary, dragons are not as fearsome, orcs and goblins are just basic canon fodder, and it all seems like no one cares.

This first really hit me when playing Dragon Age: Origins.  This isn’t really a spoiler, considering how early it happens in the game.  You’re told of the Archdemon, the one true and perfect indication that a Blight, the most feared invasion possible, is descending.  Now, something called an Archdemon should be… well, demonic, wouldn’t you say?  A terrifying, bone chilling creature torn from the nightmares of mythology, a horror of…

Oh, it’s a spiky dragon.

Still cool in its own way.

Really?  I mean, I loved Dragon Age, the characters, the storylines, the intrigue… but the Archdemon?  Nothing.  Just nothing.  And I really had to question why.  The problem was, nerds know too much about dragons.  They breath fire, or lightning, or acid, but nothing they’re not surprising.  Almost nothing done with dragons for the past decade has really rekindled the power and fear dragons are supposed to inspire.  The only time anyone worries about a dragon is because they’ve read the stats blocks in D&D.  We only fear them because we’ve been told to fear them.  The dragons themselves no longer inspire fear, they’re just a fallback for when the writer is feeling uninspired.

This needs to change, and I mean big time.  For these icons to properly survive, and I believe they should, they need to adapt to be more than they were.  For instance, let some imaginative designs come forward and take up new titles.  For instance, this is the archetypal demon we know now: (right)

And we could switch it out for something more like this: (below)

Now THAT'S a demon.  Long tail, spiky bits, wings, and six breasts.
I don't even know why there are breasts, it's just weird.

Going back to my starting point, gamers are free to love what they love.  Science fiction and fantasy are genres full of great concepts and creatures, but when the love of something gets as great as it has, it can get old fast.  For those of you who love your science fiction, take a look at the last few great science fiction concepts you’ve come across.  How many of them are new, or make you contemplate the universe and its components in a different way?  I’d bet few to none.  It seems like we’ve moved away from fictional science and more into the realm of “Syfy.” (You’ll never convince me that spelling was a good idea).  That is to say, the Science is no longer the focus of science fiction, just as the fantasy is no longer the focus of the fantasy genre.

To look back, take concepts like those in Dune, the idea of “Folding space” or “Psychohistory” in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation trilogy.  These were the concepts of science that not only helped make science fiction amazing, but pushed real-world scientists to study and look for similar methods with real-world use.  Similarly, dragons, dwarves, elves, halflings (hobbits, bobbits, whatever), were great for creating Tolkien’s Middle Earth, but there are more things out there.

I’ll more than happily say that we should move away from what Tolkien taught us.  Sure, it’s great to have some familiarity in our books, our movies, our games, but really, we need to expand our horizons.  There’s a reason Fantasy and Science Fiction don’t receive equal appreciation and criticism in the “serious” world of arts, and it’s because of the mountain of drivel that quite unfortunately surrounds those few glittering gems we see in things like Inception or…  wow, I actually can’t think of an even moderately recent fantasy creation that made me think about the world it portrayed.  I suppose the closest is all the creatures in Persona 4, but the creature weren’t enough of a focus to really bring that across.

Well, I apologize, that was more of a rant than I intended.  But I stand by it.  The realm of mythical creatures, or mysterious forces, of space and aliens, of fantastical science and scientific impossibilities, of magic and many worlds, has become bland, and the task we now face is to revitalize, to reinvigorate that world with challenging concepts for our future, allegories for our own world as well as our possibilities.  I want to ride on a mythical creature, and this time, I don’t want it to just be a normal creature with some wings pasted on.