Thursday, December 17, 2009
Joy of Games: Going Beyond the Screen
Once upon a time, I often didn't just read game documentation. I studied it. I'm still very fond of Larry Holland's manual for Their Finest Hour: The Battle of Britain. Only about 10% of the spiral-bound book was devoted to playing the game. The rest was devoted to stories of the Battle of Britain, descriptions of the aircraft, and a primer on aviation and air combat. It's a fun read (if you are a military aviation buff) even if you've never played the game.
I remember studying to blueprints and documentation for the first Wing Commander. I think they were thrown in there principally as copy protection checks, but I took them literally and actually had memorized things like shield and armor strength in various ship quadrants, damage-dealing potential and ranges of various missiles, etc.
And pity the poor RPG player in the 80's and early 90's who didn't RTFM! Not only that, but it was a two-way street for RPGers and Adventure Gamers - they had to write some of the documentation themselves. Because unless you had an incredible memory, you absolutely had to make maps and take copious notes. The game as it appeared on screen was only half of the story - the rest resided on paper, some written by the player himself.
I believe that there is more to the joy of the map-making, manual-studying, note-taking aspects of old-school adventure & role-playing gaming than simple nostalgia at work. Those of us who could be bothered to employ such work-like efforts into our gaming were often rewarded with some really great gaming experiences that in many ways still surpass our much more beautifully rendered and professionally voice-acted games of today.
I think it simply came down to personal investment. We get out what we put in. A very simple game (board, card, you name it) - can be awesome when played by good friends. But it's a reflection of the friendship, not of the rules. Likewise, I believe a minimalist single-player game can be an amazing if the player find it worthy of investing their own imagination and logic into the experience.
The simple act of going beyond the screen, of taking notes and maps and referring to books in the real world, encouraged this. It helped make the experience more real to us. Other people might look at the dozens of loose papers on the computer desk filled with scrawls and line-drawings and wonder why in the world we were devoting ourselves to meaningless fiction. But, dang it, we understood. In a sense, we shared in the creation of the world, if only our own mental model of it. Our imaginations were engaged, and our efforts and studies were part of a positive feedback loop of commitment to an experience that we expected to enjoy for weeks at a time, if not months. Not discarded with the next new release in two weeks, as we expect today.
And when the final puzzle was solved, the wizard was slain, and the world saved, those papers remained as a testament of our achievements even when the computer was turned off. They helped make it real. Even years later, coming across those old scrawls and manuals can take us back to that time, and it can be hard to resist cracking into a smile at the memories. "Oh, yeah," we think. "I was there."
The article I referenced last week has kept me thinking about this. While I certainly do not want to return to the bad ol' days of purely do-it-yourself mapping and note-taking and lack of in-game documentation or tutorials, I do feel we've lost something since then. Something I'd like to see us recover, if we can somehow manage to keep the good aspects and ditch the more painful bits. I think we're seeing some of this happening in the MMO space, but it's been slow to filter to (or just not applicable for) single-player games.
How can single-player games encourage that personal investment without demanding it? How can the experience of the game grow beyond the screen (or at least beyond the borders of its window)? How can games better engage our imagination? Our participation?
Labels: Game Design, Game Moments
- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 6:51 AM (Permalink)
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I've often asked myself the same question... Here's some thoughts on a CRPG perspective:
I think gorgeous manuals that are replicas or close to approximate versions of books in the game itself are still something viable to have. Consider that a tangible book can be read AWAY from the computer. Make it interesting and intriguing enough and players will be obsessing about your game even when they're NOT PLAYING IT.
I do like in-game tutorials and help menus. I mean, come on, we have the memory and time to do this properly. But all too often, the interface is designed to practically guide the player to his encounters.
For example, mini-maps and compasses. This really removes a feeling of immersion to the game environment and makes it more a "game". When you add little arrows guiding a player to an exact spot, that just makes it worse.
This is fine in MMO's. The difference between a single-player or simple multi-player CRPG is that the player should NEVER be in a hurry. MMO's are all about time to reward ratios, the faster you complete quests the more you level, gain new items, and so forth. CRPG's need to avoid this pit trap, and focus on story and interactivity and making things interesting.
To use my above example, instead of a mini-map, why not have a map the avatar "updates" as he moves along, and he has a compass that (more or less) points north? With good map design, you can also have locations be easier to find; an NPC will tell them to head for the "ruined tower on top of the hill, bare of trees", and if you make sure such a place is in visible sight from the NPC, the player won't be blundering about for hours.
I think gorgeous manuals that are replicas or close to approximate versions of books in the game itself are still something viable to have. Consider that a tangible book can be read AWAY from the computer. Make it interesting and intriguing enough and players will be obsessing about your game even when they're NOT PLAYING IT.
I do like in-game tutorials and help menus. I mean, come on, we have the memory and time to do this properly. But all too often, the interface is designed to practically guide the player to his encounters.
For example, mini-maps and compasses. This really removes a feeling of immersion to the game environment and makes it more a "game". When you add little arrows guiding a player to an exact spot, that just makes it worse.
This is fine in MMO's. The difference between a single-player or simple multi-player CRPG is that the player should NEVER be in a hurry. MMO's are all about time to reward ratios, the faster you complete quests the more you level, gain new items, and so forth. CRPG's need to avoid this pit trap, and focus on story and interactivity and making things interesting.
To use my above example, instead of a mini-map, why not have a map the avatar "updates" as he moves along, and he has a compass that (more or less) points north? With good map design, you can also have locations be easier to find; an NPC will tell them to head for the "ruined tower on top of the hill, bare of trees", and if you make sure such a place is in visible sight from the NPC, the player won't be blundering about for hours.
Nowadays, it seems like you'd be hard-pressed to get a player to look at a manual, due to the expectation that the game will teach you everything you need to know. Even with Oblivion, which contained many very good books in the box, there isn't that much to be gained by reading it, especially since much of it can be found in the game. I don't think there's a way to go back to the old days.
However, one thing I'd like to see in a game is stop taking notes for me, and instead leave that in the hands of the player. This means, however, letting the player put notes anywhere they can logically be placed; maps, free-form journal, quest lists, characters during conversations, and monsters during fights.
However, one thing I'd like to see in a game is stop taking notes for me, and instead leave that in the hands of the player. This means, however, letting the player put notes anywhere they can logically be placed; maps, free-form journal, quest lists, characters during conversations, and monsters during fights.
We don't have real manuals anymore.
Even TVs come now with integrated instructions and "information indexes".
When I look at the crap publishers call manuals I usually give a hearty sneer into that direction and pop in the disk.
The booklets of today are totally ridiculous as their sizes shrink with each packaging generation and I'll need a magnifying glass soon.
The screenshots included are pretty much unusable as they are beyond 'tiny' and in Europe most booklets aren't even in color! (especially those for Playstation games - which are the most expensive games on the market).
I have the suspicion that they include this rubbish only because of legal reasons (consumer protection, epilepsy warning, age protection etc.).
Even TVs come now with integrated instructions and "information indexes".
When I look at the crap publishers call manuals I usually give a hearty sneer into that direction and pop in the disk.
The booklets of today are totally ridiculous as their sizes shrink with each packaging generation and I'll need a magnifying glass soon.
The screenshots included are pretty much unusable as they are beyond 'tiny' and in Europe most booklets aren't even in color! (especially those for Playstation games - which are the most expensive games on the market).
I have the suspicion that they include this rubbish only because of legal reasons (consumer protection, epilepsy warning, age protection etc.).
# posted by 
: December 17, 2009 2:17 PM
: December 17, 2009 2:17 PM
Oblivion's manuals I barely glanced at myself... they struck me as the usual mass-market trite crap written just to claim they were carrying on the tradition. Then again, I've had this issue with all of the titles in that series.
I always liked one aspect of the old games, which was actually a result of packaging limitations; the crunchy "installation and controls" instructions were published in a separate manual from the fluffy story books. This was because it was not cost-effective to publish variant manuals for multiple systems. The effect, though, was that the story books were timeless and content-driven.
In Mechwarrior II, you could read the Datalinks for the history of the Clans and the Wars... a literal database of information. Ideally, you want the manuals to exist in game, and be readable there, but that there's also a tangible copy of the same material in the real world. (Bad example in some ways, those data links in MW2 were far too large for anything short of a hefty manual.)
Of course, the book must be desirable to read in the first place. So the first rule is, in-game help should consist ONLY of help in the sense of interface guidance and basic controls. Story and content needs to be left outside this. It's a delicate balance that most game designers don't bother with now.
I think the key is to think, in a CRPG, of how to put the player in the position of their avatar and prevent breakage of that sense of being as much as possible. For the record, I absolutely despise tool-tip pop-ups... If you must have them, make them off by default.
I always liked one aspect of the old games, which was actually a result of packaging limitations; the crunchy "installation and controls" instructions were published in a separate manual from the fluffy story books. This was because it was not cost-effective to publish variant manuals for multiple systems. The effect, though, was that the story books were timeless and content-driven.
In Mechwarrior II, you could read the Datalinks for the history of the Clans and the Wars... a literal database of information. Ideally, you want the manuals to exist in game, and be readable there, but that there's also a tangible copy of the same material in the real world. (Bad example in some ways, those data links in MW2 were far too large for anything short of a hefty manual.)
Of course, the book must be desirable to read in the first place. So the first rule is, in-game help should consist ONLY of help in the sense of interface guidance and basic controls. Story and content needs to be left outside this. It's a delicate balance that most game designers don't bother with now.
I think the key is to think, in a CRPG, of how to put the player in the position of their avatar and prevent breakage of that sense of being as much as possible. For the record, I absolutely despise tool-tip pop-ups... If you must have them, make them off by default.
I think a good approach that is compatible with modern games is to not spell out the whole game story and only give some basic setting, let the player imagine the details and stimulate his imagination with small clues here and there.
Some older FPS games had this in heaps (like Quake - anything could be the "story" - or probably the best example, Unreal). Modern games tend to be much more story driven and spell out everything. A (more) modern game that does the imagination thing in a good way is Portal: i imagined a lot of the story myself using the several bits of info around (the messages behind walls, the screens, etc). This somehow "connected" me with the game and i would think its story and setting when i was away from the computer. But even when playing, things would fit nicely because the story details were my imagination and they made sense to me :-).
Just a few days ago i was talking with a friend of mine about one of my game ideas about a stealth game in space stations/ships made by mostly primitive materials like iron, heavy constructions, etc. I said that the story will be fully written but the player won't see it. Instead there will be clues for the story, the background, why the stations are like that, etc. I'll give the rough aspects of the story (but have a more detailed design for me to keep things consistent) and leave the details to the player's imagination.
Some older FPS games had this in heaps (like Quake - anything could be the "story" - or probably the best example, Unreal). Modern games tend to be much more story driven and spell out everything. A (more) modern game that does the imagination thing in a good way is Portal: i imagined a lot of the story myself using the several bits of info around (the messages behind walls, the screens, etc). This somehow "connected" me with the game and i would think its story and setting when i was away from the computer. But even when playing, things would fit nicely because the story details were my imagination and they made sense to me :-).
Just a few days ago i was talking with a friend of mine about one of my game ideas about a stealth game in space stations/ships made by mostly primitive materials like iron, heavy constructions, etc. I said that the story will be fully written but the player won't see it. Instead there will be clues for the story, the background, why the stations are like that, etc. I'll give the rough aspects of the story (but have a more detailed design for me to keep things consistent) and leave the details to the player's imagination.
My most read manual of all time was for Civilization I. Civ IV's manual is still great and readable. Even the Civilopedia for Civilization: Revolution on the XBox is worth browsing.
I was going to mention Civilization, too (although Civ II was my first version of the game). What a great manual! You didn't have to read the whole thing in order to play the game, but it certainly added to the game (as did the in-game Civilopedia).
Re. RPGs, I still take copious notes on paper, even with games that have effective note-taking automatically (though it's rare to see a game that does that really well). For one thing, if I stop playing for awhile, I want to be able to take up where I left off, without being totally confused about what I was doing.
Re. RPGs, I still take copious notes on paper, even with games that have effective note-taking automatically (though it's rare to see a game that does that really well). For one thing, if I stop playing for awhile, I want to be able to take up where I left off, without being totally confused about what I was doing.
This inspired me to go find my Gabriel Knight 3 notes. An adventure game, GK3 is the only real mystery game I've played and featured religious conspiracies, murder and Freemasons. While playing I made notes like crazy in an effort to solve the game before everything was explicitly revealed (sort of like trying to solve a whodunnit before the drawing room scene at the end). Every now and then I'd stop playing, review the notes and try and work out what was going on.
The end result was well over 80 pages long. From the looks of things I must have spent quite a bit of time thinking about the game, coming up with and discarding hypotheses, while not actually playing. Definitely not the sort of gameplay(?) you see much anymore.
The end result was well over 80 pages long. From the looks of things I must have spent quite a bit of time thinking about the game, coming up with and discarding hypotheses, while not actually playing. Definitely not the sort of gameplay(?) you see much anymore.
# posted by : December 19, 2009 4:30 AM
: December 19, 2009 4:30 AM
I loved that Battle of Britan manual. I think I spent more time reading and re-reading it than I did playing the game. And I played that game a LOT. I sadly lost it during a house move.
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