A Random Thought tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17051429 2005-10-10T22:08:22Z Blogger
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 true FrogPlague 2005-10-10T15:05:00-07:00 2005-10-10T22:08:22Z 2005-10-10T22:07:16Z tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17051429.post-112898203663125066 Accessibility of Genres <h2>Hardcore Games and Casual Games</h2><br />Why do many games which ‘hardcore gamers’ play seem so arcane and confusing to non-‘hardcore gamers’? Is it because these people didn’t grow up playing video games and they just missed their opportunity to get into those games? If that were the case, it would fail to explain why non-‘hardcore gamers’ are able to get into games which don’t build off of existing genres. These ‘casual’ games or ‘quirky’ games seem to be accessible to a much larger population.<br /><br />If we view these ‘casual’ or ‘quirky’ games as not simply stand alone games, but as starts of their own genre, then there seems to be an inverse relation between the accessibility of a genre and the age of the genre. Genres which have been around for several years are much more difficult for a new player to get into than a much younger genre. That is, games like Katamari Damacy, which could be viewed as the beginning of a genre, are much more accessible to people than games like Halo, which is many generations away from its genre originator.<br /><br />If we view game genres in the same way we view artistic periods or literary movements then there becomes an obvious problem with video games. The vast majority of entry points are gone. It is very difficult for new gamers to play the older games which introduce a series of skills needed to play many of today’s games. The entry points to these genres which ‘hardcore gamers’ play are not really available to new or returning gamers.<br /><span class="fullpost"><br /><h2>Game Genres as Movements</h2><br /><ul><li><h3>Vocabulary</h3><br />Within a movement, people create a language to describe the various features. Only through seeing many examples of the vocabulary in this new language can someone fully understand a work in a specific movement. If a person was placed in the thick of a movement without any basic steps to build a vocabulary, the person will become extremely confused, lost and frustrated. Much in the same way many non-‘hardcore gamers’ react to attempting to play ‘hardcore’ games today.<br /><br />Video game genres definitely have a vocabulary. Consider the FPS genre; the ‘vocabulary’ is made up of various things that seasoned FPS players seem to instinctively know. Weapons often have two fire modes. It is better to point rockets at the feet of the opponents. Barrels explode and boxed break apart. Health, armor, and ammo are often hidden away in corners. The ability to circle strafe. All of these things (and many more) build up the vocabulary for the language of First Person Shooters. If someone doesn’t know this vocabulary, they will be lost in most FPS games on the market today.<br /><br /><li><h3>Building the Vocabulary</h3><br />For a movement to be accessible (and, in my view, for a game genre as well) it needs to have a way for people to build up a vocabulary. This is often done by studying the emerging pieces of the movement. If one wanted to understand impressionist paintings they would start by looking at the works of Monet.<br /><br />The problem video games have is that these emerging works are not well preserved. Most old games seem virtually impossible to run on today’s computers. Even if one manages to get these games to run, the dated graphics and interface often discourage new players. Even if people are not avid gamers, they have had contact with technology which provides a basis for their interface and graphical expectations.<br /><br />This problem isn’t as significant in other artistic works such as movies, art, or writing. Compare a painting from 500 years ago with one today. There are differences, yes, but the painting from 500 years ago doesn't look like a crude stick figure drawing compared to today's painting. A book written 500 years ago may contain vocabulary or references which are not common today, but the basic way in which the book is read hasn’t changed.<br /><br />Movies do suffer from this same problem but on a relatively insignificant scale. Silent movies are often inaccessible to the vast majority of people today. People have become accustomed to a certain way in which they watch a movie. Silent movies and today’s movies are watched in different ways. Black and white movies don’t suffer this strong of a stigma because they only lack color. The basic act of observing and understanding the movie is not greatly hampered by the lack of color.<br /><br />Video games can be compared to paintings if we burned any painting that was more than 5 years old. The only way you could know about these older painting is from people who saw the painting and could tell you about it or if someone attempted to re-create the painting in today’s standard.<br /><br />Look at video game’s closely related cousin, board games. Think about the board games you played as a child (or possibly still play). Does Monopoly require any knowledge of previous board games? On the extreme, one could say ‘yes.’ What the game pieces are, what the game board is, what dice are, and how to take turns is necessary to play Monopoly, but those concepts don’t usually take more than 10 minutes to convey. Board games also have the advantage that at least one person present has played a board game before. Video games don’t have that. They’re solitary activities. Yes, some games are played online, but you simply compete with these people (or work towards a common goal), but if you got onto an online game and asked for help on how to play, I highly doubt the response you get would be something you’d let your mother read.<br /><br />This inability to access older video games stunts the ability to provide entry points for newer gamers. This also causes video games to be set so separate from other artistic works.<br /><br /><li><h3>Re-Building Vocabulary</h3><br />Occasionally someone will produce a game which could serve as an entry point to an existing genre. These games often have the stigma of being a ‘dumbed down’ or ‘watered down’ version of existing games. More often than not these games get marketed as games for kids. This, obviously, isn’t something which is going to draw in a significant number of new players into an established genre. How many people would be interested in the impressionist period of art if the only way to get introduced to the formation of the period was through 'Impressionist Painting with Barney!'?<br /><br />Some games have successfully re-created entry points without having the stigma of being kiddy versions. Consider Pikmin. Granted it isn’t a game that appeals to the ‘hardcore’ audience as a whole, but it is a strategy game which is accessible to new gamers. It provides some of the basic vocabulary needed to play RTS games. However, it lacks various other vocabulary points which lead directly into the RTS world (such as resource gathering or unit building), so it doesn’t work as a complete entry ramp into the established RTS world, but it does provide a step in that direction.<br /><br />Note that games which rebuild an existing language from the start need not develop in the exact same language. Taking Pikmin from above, it could be built up to a completely different type of RTS which doesn’t hold much resemblance to the established genre aside from moving units around in real time.<br /><br /><li><h3>Entry Ramps</h3><br />Even if these entry points were preserved or re-created, the transition between the entry games and the current games is still missing. Consider generations of specific game genres. Each generation builds upon the previous one causing things to be more complex and lowering the accessibility of each successive generation. Look at the FPS world:<br /><br /><ul><li><b>Generation 1:</b> Wolfenstein 3d<br /><li><b>Generation 2:</b> Doom<br /><li><b>Generation 3:</b> Duke Nukem 3d<br /><li><b>Generation 4:</b> Quake<br /><li><b>Generation 5:</b> Half-life<br /><li><b>Generation 6:</b> Half-life 2</ul><br />Each one increases in the amount of things the player must master before being able to play the game well. Putting someone who has not played any of the previous games in Half-life 2 and they will probably be very frustrated. Put someone at the start of the generation ladder and walk them through and they will probably be able to do pretty well in Half-life 2 from the get go.<br /><br />The problem is that from generation 3 or 4 and back, those games are no longer accessible. Wolfenstein 3d and Doom are simply too old to run on today’s computers. There are versions out there that have been modified to play on today’s computers, but because of their dated graphics and rigid interface, most players will find them inaccessible.<br /><br />If Generation 1 was re-created and was popular enough for most people to enjoy, the ramp up to today’s games is broken. Generations 2-4 are still missing. To be able to provide access to today’s games, a new gamer would need a reconstruction of games up until generation 4 or 5. As time goes on the problem becomes compounded. With each year, new FPS games are created and the generation line is increased. This means more games need to be preserved or re-created in order to keep the ramp ‘open’ for new gamers. <br /><br />This creates a problem where the FPS games can be inaccessible to a great number of people because of the lack of any entry ramps. A player can go back and ‘rough it’ to play those old games, but they probably won’t get the same level of enjoyment and engrossment as today’s gamers did when they first played them. If the player can’t get past the technological problems, they probably aren’t going to get caught up in the genre.<br /><br /><li><h3>Jumping the Ramp</h3><br />It is important to note that not everyone entered into the FPS genre this way. There were various entry ramps and if people were really interested in the genre, they could skip generational steps. If one really likes the idea of running around and shooting enemies in the face, the lack of an entry ramp probably wouldn’t be an impassable obstacle for entering the FPS world. If that type of game strongly appeals to someone, then the difficulty of learning the ins and outs of the genre aren’t going to keep them away. But without that driving interest, the FPS genre can become something that players are ‘just not interested in.’<br /><br /><li><h3>Looking Ahead</h3><br />As genres become more complex, it is important to preserve the entry ramps. If the entry ramps become too old or unable to be preserved, then they should be re-created by the current standards. This would allow games to become far more accessible and allow people who have interest in the established genres to enter the genre without weeks of frustration.<br /><br />Re-creations which are meant to preserve the entry ramp could be excellent promotional tools used to stimulate interest in an upcoming game which is deep within an established genre. For example, if a company was making a new RTS game which builds upon the established vocabulary (or uses its own), then a simplistic game could be developed along side of it which uses a smaller vocabulary to provide an entry ramp into the main game. This simplistic game could be given away as a teaser or even sold as a budget-ware title.<br /></ul></span> false FrogPlague 2005-09-23T13:55:00-07:00 2005-10-01T04:27:26Z 2005-09-23T20:56:19Z tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17051429.post-112750897969774947 The Segregation of Story and Gameplay <h1>The Segregation of Story and Gameplay</h1><br /><h3>Segments</h3><br />I came to the realization recently that in many games the storyline and the gameplay have little to do with each other. In many games the story is little more than segmented movies played between ‘action’ (or gameplay) points. It’s like watching a movie in 30-second to 4-minute segments and being forced to complete little mini-games in order to see the next segment. Most games can be easily divided into ‘story segments’ (ie, parts of the game where the player is just told story) and ‘gameplay segments’ (ie, where the player must perform some task). These story and gameplay segments can either be active or passive.<br /><span class="fullpost"><br /><ul><li><h3>Active Segments</h3><br />An active segment is given to the player immediately without choice. For example, immediately after defeating a boss, the player is given a story segment to further motivate the game or after receiving a story segment, the player is thrust into a gameplay situation.<br /><br />Active segments have the allure of giving the player what is needed to continue the game immediately. This avoids the problem of not knowing what to do or where to go. However, this has the side effect of driving the game in a very linear path. When a player is given a segment of gameplay there is usually one ending that progresses the storyline. For example, a player is given a story segment about a boss and the player is then given a gameplay segment to fight the boss. The conflict with the boss usually has only two outcomes. Either the player dies and is forced to restart the game (or return to an earlier save), or the player defeats the boss and moves on to the next story segment.<br /><br />Even if the game has multiple story lines depending on the resolution of the gameplay segments, the player can feel helpless in steering the storyline, especially if it takes a turn the player dislikes. In almost any game, if the player feels helpless in controlling the direction of the game, the enjoyment factor will immediately drop off.<br /> <li><h3>Passive Segments</h3><br />A passive segment is one that the player must seek out. This is most common in ‘open ended’ style games or traditional RPGs. The player is often given hints about where to find the next segment, whether it be a gameplay or a story segment, and it is up to the player to discover these segments. This gives the player the ability to control the pace of the game. This is most rewarding where the pace of the game can have an affect on the overall challenge. In RPGs, for example, if a player spends much of their time powering up their characters and moving very slowly through the game, the boss battles often become rather simple for the player. If the player just pushes onto the next story point without spending any time powering up they may feel overwhelmed by the boss situation. Allowing the player to control this pace gives them the ability to control the difficulty of the game with the sacrifice of time.<br /><br />It is important to note that even when the main gameplay and story segments are passive, the transitory segments are often peppered with active gameplay segments. (ie, random battles while roaming the world). Additionally, games are rarely entirely passive. There are often stretches where the game takes on a passive role, allowing the player to explore, but these are balanced with stretches where the player is pushed from story segment to gameplay segment and back through to portray a portion of the main story arc.<br /><br />Passive segments also add the possibility of a non-linear story line. However, non-linear story lines require significantly more work on the part of the developers. Often, non-linear story lines require that each story segment be unrelated to the other story segments, or have special cases to reference other segments.<br /><br />For example, consider a game where the player is in a world where two overlords, the Queen Bee and the Colossal Squirrel, are devastating the land. The player is free to confront either overlord at their leisure. When they confront the Squirrel, there might be a simple check to see if they’ve fought the Queen Bee. If the player did defeat the Queen Bee, the Squirrel might have some additional dialog stating “Oh, so you’ve defeated my partner. I won’t be so easy to defeat!”<br /><br />This doesn’t really change the flow of the game, but does provide recognition of previous tasks. The problem is that it doesn’t really get away from the segregation of the story elements. They either must not rely on each other, or they must be built from special cases allowing one to be completed before the other. If the special case situation is used, it can easily degenerate into a game which still has a linear storylines from the developers perspective, only it has multiple linear storylines.<br /><br />For example, consider the previous case with the Queen Bee and Colossal Squirrel. If the player defeats one overlord first, the other overlord may decide to join the player and have a series of whacky adventures together. The dialog and story elements can still be crafted like a linear story, but the developers simply create two storylines and its up to the player to pick which one they will follow.<br /><br />It is important to note that this generalized into one storyline where the player has an overlord with them and storyline reactions are built around which overlord the player happens to be with. This allows the developer to build both storylines at the same time. However, if the developer is not careful, the particular overlord becomes meaningless and subsequent replays of the game where the player picks the other overlord can be rather disappointing.<br /> <li><h3>Uni-Segmented Games</h3><br />Some games only have gameplay segments. These games are able to survive the lack of a story segments and are able to hinge solely on gameplay. Classic examples are Pac-Man and Space Invaders. People didn’t play those games because of an engrossing storyline, they played them because they were fun. Games still exist today which are able to throw aside the storyline. To name a few: racing games, sports games, and party games all are pretty devoid of a storyline but they are still popular and enjoyable. In fact, the entire casual game market seems to consist of games with little to no storyline.<br /><br />Within this view, movies could be thought as unisegmented games which only contain story segments. I wouldn’t want to make that claim, but if one imagines a game without the gameplay and just the story segments, it would play out like a movie.<br />Blurring the Line<br /><br />Upon reflection I immediately ask “Is it possible to escape this segmentedness in games?” As games become larger with more story paths and possible endings, they are still stuck with a low finite number of paths, usually no more than ten noticeably distinct paths in the most ambitious of games. How can developers ‘blur’ the line between gameplay and story?<br /> <li><h3>Interweaving Segments</h3><br />Some games seek to interweave the story segments and the gameplay segments by making the storyline segments part of the gameplay. Some Ultima games employed this idea by having conversation keys. When a player would talk to an NPC they could ask them about the conversation keys the player had. If the NPC had an interesting response (ie, something that progressed the overall storyline) the player would receive a new conversation key to use on other NPCs. This would continue until the player would find out some vital piece of information needed to progress the main storyline (ie, the location of a long lost artifact). However, this often degenerated into a brute force conversational method where the player would talk to every NPC about every topic until something interesting was said. This just made the game take longer to complete and didn’t necessarily make it any more enjoyable.<br /><br /> <li><h3>Dual Segments</h3><br /><br />Another thought is to have segments which contain both story elements and gameplay elements mixed together. This could be in the form of information coming to the player while attempting to complete some task. (ie, the player is attempting to sneak past enemy guards while receiving radio information about the main enemy). This has the danger of overloading the player. It can be difficult to focus on moving a character through a series of obstacles while paying attention to what’s being said. I believe this information overload is why we don’t really see many dual segments in games today.<br /></ul><h2>What this means</h2><br />The segmentedness of games isn’t necessarily a ‘bad thing.’ If it was a strong issue among players, we wouldn’t have games the way they are today. There are games from every section listed above which are regarded as some of the best games of all time. Although it is interesting to note the progression of these segments:<br /><ul><li>Uni-segmented games<br /> <li>Active Segments<br /> <li>Passive Segments<br /> <li>Interweaving Segments<br /> <li>Dual Segments</ul><br />As time has progressed, the segmentedness of games has become more complex. This seems to be in response to giving the player more control and create a more immersive feel to the game. However, more control leads to more uncertainty. More uncertainty means higher complexity which means more money and time to develop.<br /><br />Whoever can create the next big way gameplay interacts with story will be able to change the landscape of video games. Perhaps if the two can be blended together seamlessly, video games will be able to further progress as an art form and move away from the stigma that they’re just entertainment.<br /><br />What will be the next innovation in mixing story with gameplay?</span> false FrogPlague 2005-09-23T11:32:00-07:00 2005-09-23T18:36:53Z 2005-09-23T18:36:53Z tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17051429.post-112750061344851321 First Post

So after thinking that I should start up some sort of blog to put down my thoughts and ideas about games, game design and game programming, I finally made one. The next thing to do is to actually write down my thoughts and ideas. Lets see how this works out.

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