What "Inception" Says About Games

*I'm going to try not to spoil the plot of Inception here too much, but I will be talking about the ideas behind it, so if you haven't seen it, don't say you haven't been warned.*

So it wasn't too long after I walked out of the theater after seeing Inception that I started thinking about video games. If you aren't planning on watching it, the film centers on a team of freelance corporate spies who construct dreams designed to allow them access you a subjects secrets. They, and the subject, enter the dream and attempt to steal whatever he or she has locked away.

There are a lot of obvious parallels between Inception's team of spooks and a game production team. The dream starts with a goal (the design), and is constructed by an architect, then ultimately "played" by the team. Accessing the secrets of the mind works a lot like beating a level in a game, including shooting lots of folks and blowing a few things up.

Inception has a long list of it's own unique mind-benders, and that's the real meat of the movie, but watching it left me thinking a lot about the relationship between the player and the designer. In the film, the designer has to create a scenario which will elicit a particular response. They design vaults and safes in the dream world because once the subject enters the dream, that's where he will hide his secrets.

But once it's time to enter the dream, the architect has to give up control of her own creation. It becomes the subject's own space, filled with his thoughts and anxieties. When the 'hand' of the architect can be seen, it angers the subject so much that the projections inhabiting his world (you could call them "dream people") might kill her.

Being a game designer offers both the joys and frustrations of releasing your game. It is a certainty that players will do things you did not expect. Sometimes these can be wonderful examples of emergent play or clever solutions to problems, or not. As a friend from my previous job said: "Give them the tools, and they will make a penis." On the other hand, it doesn't really become a game until it's been put through these paces, trampled on by players, and tossed back to you for evaluation.

Tied up in this same relationship is the uncertainty of the player's interpretation. Game design really is a lot like Inception. We create a vault because we know the player knows a vault is a safe place. But what we never know is just what secrets they will choose to store there.

At the moment I'm out of time, but I'll update this soon with more on interpretation and representation.

Teleport-Tac-Toe

I hatched another business card board game idea today. It's Tic-Tac-Toe with an inter-dimensional twist. The mock-up above shows what would be the back of the business card. One player plays dimes, the other pennies. Each turn the player can either play a new piece or move an existing one. Pieces can only be played on white squares. The goal is to get three in a row, but one of those three has to be on the center square.

The teleportation element is that the board acts like a Pac-Man screen, wrapping around. A piece can thus be moved from the top left to the top right, or from the top left to the bottom left, and so on. I'm imagining two possibilities for gameplay: first, that teleporting into a blank space could capture enemy pieces if they are surrounded on at least two sides. This would remove the piece from play (though the player could play it back in a new empty space). The other option is that you could teleport into occupied spaces, but only if you could slide the occupying piece into a blank space in the same direction of travel. That sounds confusing, but I'll illustrate it once I've played it out a few times. Also, until testing, I have no idea if this is going to be fun or not. It may be too solvable, just like regular tic-tac-toe. We'll see.

Last but not least, if this game makes the cut, I'll definitely want to re-brand it in a way that removes the tic-tac-toe references. When I think of that game I think solvable, impossible to win, uninteresting. It'll be "Space Cargo Embargo" or something.

Down in the Valley

I didn't play Burnout Paradise when it first came out for the 360 in 2008. Those were my early days of “next gen” gaming, when I was still indignant about having to pay $60 for a video game. But with with 2009 coming to a close I put it on my Christmas list and the 'rents picked it up for a steal. It is, as all the reviews said, very cool. I am not a fan of racing games in general, but I am a fan of sparks and metal rent asunder, and Burnout Paradise delivers. For those not in the know, the racing series has been around for a while, but what has always set it apart is the focus on crashing. When you crash, the game slows down, the camera zooms in, sparks fly. And you drive on real roads, with traffic. Previous games even included modes where you earned points for each successive car that crashed when you started an accident, allowing you to cause massive chaos. It's awesome.

So Burnout Paradise brings open-world driving to the formula, and the result is Paradise City: miles of road spanning city and countryside, and dozens and dozens of events. The seamless environment is great, because you can run a race from the beach to the county, and then just pick up a new event out there and do something else. Instead of levels or courses, everything is connected. But there's something that bothers me about the game. There are no people. Miles of beach front sidewalks go untouched, crosswalks are left barren. Most bizarre of all, not a single one of the thousands of cars that populate the city has a driver.

The lack of people in a game about glorifying horrible crashes is not so hard to understand. There are the technical considerations of modeling people and animating them, mostly so they can try to jump out of the way, and figuring out what happens to them when the car they were cruising in is compressed into a small pile of scrap. There is the rating consideration too, as adding people inadvertently adds a great deal of violence to a game that has none. Most of all the decision was probably about focus and design. Adding people means crashes have a kill count and pedestrians live in fear of every 12-year-old player with a desire to chase them, and that's just not what the Burnout series is about. So people were a problem, and they left them out.

The lack of people creates another problem, however. For myself at least, driving my driver-less car through the active-yet-uninhabited city is off-putting at best, mildly terrifying at worst. The game's visuals stress realism in all aspects of the driving and the environment, but the game comes off like a strange dream. I am reminded of that episode of The Twilight Zone where the guy wakes up without any context and walks into an abandoned town, where breakfast is cooking on the stove but there's no one to eat it. In Paradise City I can almost see the kids skating around the corner far ahead of me, but no, they aren't really there.

A roboticist in 1970 coined the term “Uncanny Valley” when describing the nature of human and robot interactions. It goes like this: If you were to measure a person's emotional reaction to a robot (or a CGI character, or puppet, etc.), you would see that reaction become more and more favorable as the robot looked more and more human. But there comes a point at which the robot looks almost human, but not quite, and the emotional reaction becomes strongly negative. That's the valley. If the robot continues to look more and more human, you can eventually pull out of it, at which point you should use the robot to replace you and do the menial chores of everyday life while you live la vida loca.

There are a number of explanations as to why the valley exists. My favorite is that by looking so human, the “being” creates a connection between its human elements and the inhuman ones, and basically it's terrifying. A classic example is the movie The Polar Express. Back in school my professor told me he had heard it described “as either a horrible children's movie, or a pretty good horror movie.” One of the sited reasons that The Polar Express was so revolting is that the characters don't have tongues inside their mouths. When they open, they reveal a bottomless maw of black soul-sucking darkness. Yeah, its scary.

To bring the discussion back to video games, my point is this: the theory of the “Uncanny Valley” highlights the problem with disconnects between what we perceive and what we expect. The fundamental idea behind the valley applies broadly, especially in video games, which are all about created worlds, characters, and spaces. I hit on this point in my critique of Assassin's Creed II, which you should read here. The short version is that ACII suffers from a disconnect between the narrative, in which you play a hero seeking revenge, and the gameplay, in which you play a murderous psychopath whose crimes go unpunished. If, as in Assassin's Creed II, the game casts the player as a hero narratively, but then encourages un-hero-like play, you're in the valley. If you create a visually rich world filled with sun-drenched ocean drives, promenades, highways, and country roads, and then leave it with no people, it becomes oddly terrifying.

I mentioned earlier that the case of Burnout Paradise was likely a design choice, but many of the gaps that appear in the presentation of modern games stem directly from the unfortunate use of graphics as the yardstick for achievement. The industry business model seems to be to use graphics to sell the game, and make the gameplay just good enough not to piss everyone off for buying it. But the more convincing the the game environment, the less I'm willing to forgive the rough edges. Burnout looks beautiful, even real, but that means the lack of population sticks out even more.

Another example is Dragon Age: Origins. The game builds off of the Bioware predecessors, and is the best looking yet (minus Mass Effect II maybe, which I haven't played yet), but that becomes one of it's biggest flaws. The game looks beautiful, but plays almost identically to KOTOR, a game I played six years ago. I really hit a wall when I realized that the environments, which look very organic and interesting, play as if you're on a flat 2D map. And there are countless other recent examples of these valley-like disconnects in modern games. Moreover, there will be countless more. Not all areas of game creation advance at the same pace, due to budget, time, priorities, laziness, and on and on. Where two of these areas don't match up, there lies a possible “Uncanny Valley” for players.

Games have just barely been around long enough to begin the “art” discussion, and one of the common, and worst, arguments in favor of calling games art is just how pretty they've gotten. I've got plenty to say about that one, but that's for another time. For today, I'll say this: games have nearly run out of mileage in pushing toward hyper-realistic graphics, physics, etc. The farther you push one element, the more disconnected it becomes from the rest of the experience. To truly go the distance in delivering an immersive experience, the game elements need to match. A less technically impressive, but well matched experience will win over a fancy mismatched one any day, at least on my screen.

More on that to come.

Game Design Challenge

I've been out of town, hence the blog neglect, and I'm working on a long piece that's taken more work than I thought. In the meantime I thought I would go ahead and propose a game design challenge, both for myself and for anyone who wants to join in. The challenge is this: design a game that fits on a business card. Why? Plenty of reasons. The size will require minimalism, and the games will be easily portable. They will be cheap to make with professional or at home printing, and thus easy to share. And restrictions are fun!

This all began when I was designing my first business card about six months ago. I thought it would be nifty for a game designer's business card to have a tiny game on the back. At the time, the card was for a conference for my job at Cartoon Network, so I ended up creating some pixel CN characters and identifying myself as a production coordinator (which, at the time, was more accurate anyway), but the idea stuck. Plus there's real appeal for me in non-digital games. They can be prototyped faster and played more easily, and are a good way to "practice" without the investment video games require.

The rules for this challenge are very flexible. I'm imagining a board game, where the card serves as a tiny board, but you don't have to look at it that way. The card could simply hold tables, numbers, dots, whatever. Perhaps placing multiple cards next to each other creates a flexibly sized game board? The game can use both sides of the card, and does not have to be a business card, it just has to fit on one. The design needs to be tailored to the small scale of the card, not simply shrunk to fit. Both single-player and multiplayer games are great. Perhaps the perfect game would include instructions on the card space as well (allowing you to leave them around to be discovered by strangers), but for multiplayer games the owner could always just explain the rules.

For pieces, the games should not require anything that can't be accommodated with spare change or something similar. Pennies could be counters, a dime heads up could be player one, tails player two, etc. I'm willing to allow the rules to call for a die, but nothing beyond a regular d6. Better yet would be for all game related decisions to be determinable with a coin flip.

Above is a quick mock-up of my first idea, hatched this afternoon: LifeRPG. In the game the player starts at the blue shield in the upper left. To move, the player has to complete a task in real life. It could be going to the gym, dodging an impulse buy, or speaking up in class. It could be cutting down your debt by a certain amount or skipping desert. It's the player's choice, but the object is to make a game out of real life. Players get one square per accomplishment, marked by X-ing out the square.

To win, players simply escape the maze, but if they choose to head for the red circles they get a chance to win treasure (determined by a coin toss or die roll). Treasure won is marked in the empty boxes, and can be redeemed by the player for a treat. If the player is cutting down on their debt, the treasure could equal a meal out, guilt free. If they're trying to exercise more it could be a free day off from the gym. The point is the treasure should be a sweet reward, but not something that will derail the purpose of playing the game.

The larger box would determine how treasure was won, but I haven't entirely worked that out yet. Maybe there are numbers 1-6, with two numbers winning treasure, two giving you a free move, and two giving nothing. Maybe treasure is won by a coin toss, and this area could be used for flavor text: "You've found some pirate's gold!" The final box is for marking your level. You level up every time to complete a card, plus one for every treasure you choose not to redeem.

Last but not least, this mock-up is only one of many in the complete set. There could be multiple floorplans for each type, and types could include dungeons, snow caves, lava fields, etc. Players would be encouraged to keep the game going, and maybe they could even relate the stories of their adventurers online and share their accomplishments. How many levels can you achieve?

So that's it, a challenge and a first idea. I'm hoping to generate a whole bunch more. Don't get too caught up in mine though; there are many ways to approach business card board gaming. No reason why there couldn't be a business card eight-player war game. Surprise me. If you hatch an idea, email me a concept or mock-up. Better yet, make the thing and send a picture. I'll post everything I get. There's no time limit, as I'm treating this as an ongoing personal project. Let's see what happens!

New Header

For the two people I know of who check out this page with any regularity (Mom, Dad, I'm talking 'bout you), you may have noticed I changed the header. Woohoo pixels. My original intention was to change the header every week, but I realize I won't have time for that. Instead I'm aiming at once a month, with something special for holidays if I remember. My ladylove won't let me forget Valentines, so I'll probably have a special one then.

So why pixel art? It's a 'less is more' thing, and it's turning into a bit of a theory about game art and game design, but the half-chewed thought bits haven't really digested yet. From where I'm sitting there's more power, maybe even more possibility for connection, with characters and environments given the most minimalist presentation that still makes it clear what's what.

More on that in the next full length post. For now, enjoy the climbers.

OW/G Project

This was mentioned briefly in the recent Rock, Paper, Shotgun post about how to afford that pricey $15 dollar indie game, an amusing instructional series of graphics put together Michael Lee. Michael's goal for 2010 is to put together a game every week for a year. He's not the first to push toward rapid prototyping and experimentation. He mentions the Experimental Gameplay Project, and Kloonigames comes to mind as well. But Michael's plan to keep this up for a full year is certainly the most ambitious goal I've ever heard from a rapid prototyper.

Fortunately Mr. Lee knows how to make games fast, as evidenced by his entry for one of the recent Ludum Dare competitions. That image above is from his entry, Into the Pit. I was lucky enough to meet Michael unexpectedly at GDC Austin this past year after I mentioned I would be at the Cartoon Network booth on the TIGsource boards. While I didn't expect anyone to show, Michael did, and I made just about my first indie gamer contact. I've bookmarked his OW/G blog and I'm looking forward to the games that come out of this effort.

When Good Guys Do Bad

 
My folks got me Assassin's Creed II for Christmas. In addition to being the best game of the year to squeeze the word "ass" into its name twice, it's also pretty fun to play. What really separates it from the original, however, is the story. In the first game the "story" was more like an interruption that took place in the present time between the action sequences in the past. It felt disconnected and not very immediate to the action at hand, and as a result, the gameplay got boring after a while and I gave up. But Assassin's Creed II has a rich story that takes place within the Animus, based around the character the player actually plays for most of the game. It's fun, involved, and has just enough historical connection (though plenty of bastardization) to feel important.

For those who haven't played or even seen the game, it's a basic revenge tale. The player takes on the role of Ezio, whose father and brothers are betrayed and hung for crimes they did not commit. Ezio is a pro free-runner and renaissance building climber, but the death of his family transforms him into a super bad-ass assassin who carves his way through Florence and Venice in a quest for revenge. It's a compelling, very movie-like tale, and Ezio is your basic revenge movie hero. He's likable (since the audience has to feel bad for him), clearly in the right (murder is bad, the hero murders very bad people, so it's cool), a super bad-ass (well, obviously), and a ladies man (again, obviously). But this is where the problem starts. Assassin's Creed II is not a movie.

In the imaginary Assassin's Creed movie, a typical action scene would work something like this: The hero knows Evil Man is inside the castle. He quietly climbs a building, surveying the rooftops between him and the castle walls, shining in the moonlight. He nimbly jumps across roofs, slips unnoticed past guards, almost gets spotted, almost falls, etc. Once he's at the castle he climbs the walls and locates Evil Man, who is conveniently talking about his Evil Plan, instead of reading or eating or something. Evil Plan made clear, the hero delivers a well-deserved quip about justice and slays him.

Here's how a typical play session of the game works: I climb up to the roof to survey the path to the castle. A stupid guard shouts at me, so I stab him in the throat with my hidden blade. Then I loot the money from his body because its fun, even though he only gives me 4 florins and I have 9000 florins coming in every 20 minutes from my huge estate in the country. Then I pickup his body and fling it from the roof down to the street, where I watch the pedestrians freak out a little bit. I do some running and jumping. I miss, fall to the street but don't die, where I disturb a guard. He pushes me, so when he turns around I kidney shot him with my hidden blade. His friends get pissed, so I pull out my sword and eventually kill eight guards by running them through, slicing their throats, or stabbing my dagger down into their heads. Then I poison a civilian for fun. Finally I make it to the castle, where I kill Evil Man. I say what I have to stay and put him to rest. Then I get a cut scene about how great I'm doing and what to do next to revenge my poor father and brothers.

I'm sure you can see there are a few discrepancies between version one and two. Describing the game's story makes me sound like a hero, describing the actual gameplay makes me sound like a villain. This discrepancy between the story the game's authors wish to tell and the story told by the gameplay (what I have called the narrative of play) is present everywhere now, and maybe it's a problem. One of the ways games are interesting as a medium is in the way they push controlled, authored narrative up against the uncontrollable actions of the player. This juxtaposition could one day be for games what the theory of montage was for movies. But to be more than their separate pieces, the authored narrative and the player narrative have to work for or against each other in a way that means something.

In the case of Assassin's Creed II, the gap between the necessary violence of the player and the more "noble" image of the hero in the cut scenes is a problem. It breaks a wall and it makes the story feel inauthentic. I had the same problem with Grand Theft Auto 4, and it hurt the experience. All the reviews for GTA4 expounded on how gritty the story was, how it was a tale of redemption and a quest for a better life, an opportunity for the Niko, the hero, to leave behind the violence of his past. In a grand sense that was the goal of the story perhaps, but it was hard to believe when the meat and potatoes of the game was stealing cars and shooting police.

This story problem seems to be, in large part, an issue with sandbox games. The more freedom you give the player the more careful you have to be if you have a narrative goal as a creator. Some games take the unpredictability of player action in stride, however. Fable and Fable II allow players to be either evil or good, going so far as to change the appearance of the character based on his behavior. Role-playing games like Fallout III allow players similar good vs. evil choices, and in the downloadable content, even a few ambiguous ones. Unfortunately the attempts these games make to account for varying player choice ultimately limit the options, rather than open them up. It means that players who take the "wrong" path know they are still essentially on-rails narratively. This becomes a narrative weakness too.

So what are designers and writers to do? Too much control and the player resents it, but not enough control creates this gap where player's actions don't match narrative. But I only said that that disconnect might be a problem. While it certainly weakens some current games, within that space (or maybe it's a lack of space) between player narrative and author narrative is where games really have their chance to be different. How does it change the meaning if the actions of the player are intentionally contrast against the story told by the game? Ezio's tale of just revenge turns into a man's decent into murderous insanity, seen as noble only by him. And how can designers and game writers weave author narrative and player narrative into a single experience that allows freedom and allows defiance of expectations and yet still works narratively? The short answer is I don't know. When someone figures it out, the games-as-art debate just might tip in our favor.