World Builder

Incredible. Someday this is how we’ll make virtual worlds. It’s like Second Life to the ultimate expression.

I was intrigued by a post on WaterCoolerGames, discussing a Tetris clone made where the blocks are textured to appear like ethnic cleansing internment camp prisoners and the play-space resembles a mass grave. Apparently, a team of Brazilian game designers took a claim from Raph Koster about how context can dramatically alter games and decided to put it to the test. Functionally, the game is still Tetris - it plays exactly like the Pajitnov original. But it appears to be a game about the best way to efficiently dispose of genocide victims, and that is huge difference.

As in all things, context is king. “There is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so,” says Shakespeare. On their own, games are simply math and logic chains, and for the most part we can strip away or reinvent the context applied to a game without altering play. We could restyle and rename all the pieces in Chess to strip out the references to medieval warfare and the game would be wholly unchanged. We could replace the suits and ranks of standard playing cards and people could still play Poker, Hearts, Bridge, and Solitaire pretty much exactly the same way they do now.

But is this always the case? If we changed Doom to simulate dispensing candy to hysterical schoolchilden we could do so without changing any of underlying system that makes Doom work. But is it still Doom if we do that? Of course not. The context is indivisible from the game. Killing monsters is somehow so integral to what makes Doom exciting that it cannot be changed without destroying it. So what makes Doom different from Chess and Poker? Why can we get away with stripping the context off those games but not from this one? I think it comes down to potency.

Because Doom has such a visceral, emotional, potent context, the context is too easily missed when it is removed. It’s like smelting an alloy – using trace amounts of a tougher metal would make the new metal stronger, but it would still be only marginally distinguishable from the original material and the tougher metal could be taken out of the recipe without much loss. However, using high concentrations of that superior ore would yield a much better alloy, but now the alloy is utterly dependent on it and cannot exist without it. Doom is like an alloy formed from equal parts simulation and context. The game is too far from a pure simulation or a pure system – it was made with a context that was so highly developed it completely covered and repackaged the mechanics that made up the system, and now we cannot think of Doom without viewing it through that context. If it had a different context it would obviously still be a shooter, but it wouldn’t be Doom in the way that Chess would still be Chess even if we changed the pieces to characters from The Simpsons rather than knights and bishops. Doom with a different context would certainly still be a “shooter,” but it would be a different game. Hence why innumerable shooters can exist with virtually identical mechanics: they have vastly disparate contexts that cover and repackage those tired old mechanics so well that we view them as entirely different experiences. Indeed, the juggling of contexts is what makes genres possible in the first place.

Yet I argue that this isn’t enough. What we do with contexts in video games isn’t close to realizing their full potential for meaningful play. Having a rich context isn’t right for every game, certainly, but under certain circumstances it can take an otherwise simple, mundane experience and truly make it profound. My professor and mentor, Brenda Brathwaite, recently completed a game that illustrates this potential better than any game I know. Without going into detail, she presents a game that on the surface appears simple, straightforward, even a tad dull. Players play the whole game believing there is little more to the game than its mechanics. But upon completion, the game reveals its context in one jaw-dropping moment and suddenly the entire experience is transformed. Everything the players just completed, the seemingly-uncomplicated system and basic decision-making they participated in, it all suddenly has deep and disturbing weight and consequence. All from the context! Brenda is debuting the game at the Game Education Summit at CMU in June, and I encourage you to check it out if you can (otherwise look for posts about it on her blog) – you can see what I mean about the power of context.

Link.

Eerily enough, I found out about this not long after hearing a segment on NPR this morning that scientists recently completed a study that found that calling dairy cows by name, conversing with them, and treating them as pets or family members could increase their milk yield by more than 400 pints per year. The segment concluded, “Dairy farmers have known this for centuries. They needed no study to reinforce what they see every day.” Funny parallel.

This article from Raph’s website the other day about this article from the Boston globe raises a couple intriguing questions:

If the prefrontal cortex can be so easily bent under the strain of overstimuli from urban existence, then do we indeed, as Raph suggests, have something to consider when building crowded virtual worlds? Most virtual worlds run on the “more is better” paradigm, and they inundate their users with flashy attention-grabbing attractions the same way storefronts do on city streets, should we not then also expect users to succumb to the overload and “splurge” on virtual assets they don’t need. The difference is there’s no cost involved with acquiring virtual assets except time – so does this present a problem? Obviously the system is powerfully effective and dispersing product, so if the product is worthwhile then what do we have to complain about? I think about things like Democracy Island in Second Life, areas that are designed to educate, inform, and entertain visitors with socially pertinent issues. If we set up that kind of island like a busy city street and get people to travel it, and if those people find themselves consuming the content from the same sort of willpower failure, is that then defensible because the content they are consuming is noble and altruistic? Seems like a number of value judgments to add up.

If we consider open-world games or MMOs that offer players a huge environment in great variety, can we predict, track, and even manipulate their play path using this information? I think about World of Warcraft, a game with massive and beautiful natural environments that can have profound emotional impact on the player – people love Strangelthorn but hate Silithus, love Elwynn Forest but hate the Burning Steppes. The difference between these “natural” setting is obvious and the preferences are unsurprising. What is remarkable is the way it alters their play – they avoid the ugly zones even to the exclusion of beneficial quests and rewards. And given this data about overstimuli, it makes me wonder how players react to the game’s urban environments – the capital cities, places everyone must visit regularly for skill and gear management. Do players feel overwhelmed in these dense, complex, bustling places? Do they feel pressured and irritable, eager to leave and return to the rural zones? If so, that raises some interesting points about level and world design and how to immerse the player in a positive way. Perhaps we should consider the ways in which a city produces stress in real life when building cities into our games.

I walked out of my last class as a college student on Wednesday, November 19 at 12:30pm — art history, a final exam. I gave my thesis defense that evening: an hour-long talk on my topic, the nature and future of serious games. I’ve spent the last week home with my parents for the holiday, and tomorrow I return to Hunt Valley, Maryland, to start work as an associate producer at Firaxis Games.

This post marks a turning point in the life of this blog. I leave behing the conjecture and hypothesis that limits the student, he who can only assume and surmise about what real game development is like. From here on out, I speak as a professional game developer and a pending Master of Fine Arts in game design. I speak as one of the enfranchised, as an insider, an expert. I have broken in — let the new age begin!

An intersting observation: the second episode of the endearingly-titled On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness: Penny Arcade Adventures has just come out and I’ve acquired it, as I did with the first episode. I’m about half way through, and I can see the improvements they’ve made without sacrificing any of the fun of the original. However, the very fact that I have purchased and am playing the game is curious. The game is a phase-time RPG, and a simple one at that. The world is not overly large, the range of items and character development is modest, and the variety of enemies and obstacles is likewise undaunting. Yet the game is so much fun! But what makes me more eager to play PAA than other, similar titles? Why do I choose to purchase this title but ignore Fallout 3? This is not to say I won’t eventually get Fallout 3, or enjoy it when I do. But I jumped to purchase PAA while I am content to wait more or less indefinitely to buy Fallout. Why?

I have been a fan of Penny Arcade and their jokes and antics for some years now, almost as long as the strip has existed. I have watched the creators grow from a couple of jokers with a copy of Photoshop into premiere game critics and the progenitors of now-tremendous PAX and Child’s Play. Is it then a sense of loyalty or familiarity that makes their game so attractive, simple though it is? There is far less opportunity in the game to offer the kind of witty commentary I enjoy about the strip, and while I also appreciate the art style (both in the stip and the game), art alone has never sold me on a game before. Perhaps its my penchant for creative indie product. I’m on the verge of beating Braid (one puzzle piece to go, that last one in world 6) and I’m playing through World of Goo. PAA is a similarly quirky title from an indie developer. Likely this is part of the reason. It is elusive, the reason for this enthusiasm in the face of apathy towards other, more sophisticated titles. I am curious: do others also experience an attachment to games that would not logically seem to warrant such enthusiasm? Do you have a pet favorite that holds some magical drawing power that seems to affect only you?

I’m launching a public beta test of my thesis game, Wasteworld. In the interest of ensuring a whole experience, I will not describe the game beyond saying that it’s a 4X game for Facebook where you try to build a corporate empire. The rest I’ll leave to the game itselfto explain, since that’s how it should work in an ideal world. Find it here. There is also a Facebook group for the game where you can find updates from the developer (me), bug reports, and design discussions. Enjoy! I hope to have your comments soon

My thesis game has been live in closed beta for almost two weeks now, and I’m making a final push this week to clear up the last of the bugs and launch the public beta over the weekend. watch this space for information.

As the first trial run of the game draws to a close, I reflect on the experience it has been. It is an incredible feeling to know that, somewhere on the internet there’s an address that will let people play your game. To have even gotten it this far seems like a massive achievement, and the bubbly feeling of accomplishment is not going away. And to hear people you know and respect talk about your game with enthusiasm, relating how they look forward to the next update so they can continue playing, that is joyful as well. But amazingly, I’ve found that the process of testing and debugging to be one of pure pleasure. Every time a player writes me up to say something isn’t working write, I feel the thrill inside that comes from knowing that this player is actively playing my game, and thinking about it critically, eager to see it become the best it can be. If players did not care about the game or their participation in it, they would not bother to write me. And indeed, some of the players in the game have gone AWOL, unable or unwilling to invest the time to play. And perhaps, once the game’s problems are resolved, they will return with renewed interest. But to the players who have stuck with me as the game has scraped and bumped along, endured the mysterious errors broken systems trusting that I’ll be there in the background to take care of it eventually, I must extend the most sincere thanks. Not just for the bug reports, but for being interested. For caring about my game. For giving me and my work your attention and concern. Here at the home stretch of this process, you’ve made it happen.

I wish more people in my school could program and complete a digital game, so they could know what this feels like. This is how you know when a field is right for you, by the way it makes you feel when everything finally glides into place. I wish beta tests and debugging on all my fellow game design students. May you know the joy of a bumpy beta test filled with enthusiastic critics!