So, I've been thinking the past few days about some vectors for mechanics in an RPG combat system, particularly for the pipe-dream that is Atrium. I thought I'd share some.
One of the basic themes of the game is the Rule of Three; for example, there are three core choices to the game that each have three options (providing 27 finales). So I thought it would be nice to partition the basics of combat into three spaces, each of which is also partitioned into triplicate. The first division defines the "shape" of a character's power: how do they interact with the battlefield? The second division applies a sense of theme to the power, which matches the theme of the character most strongly associated with that avenue of combat. The final division... well, it's still up in the air, but it's looking like it will match the particular idiosyncrasies of the practitioner of the power.
So, what do I mean by "shape?"? I've been thinking of the three branches here as the following: the tree, the trellis, and the vector. Let's discuss these in detail:
The Tree:
A character has a bank of abilities of the following structure: (a) an initial effect, (b) a list of requirements for future moves, and (c) a reward effect for completing the list. In a given turn, a character has some requirement imposed on them from a previous turn: this requirement can be filled by a variety of options from his bank. He can choose to perform one of those options, which may in turn provide more requirements for later turns, or mulligan the tree he has constructed so far. Some options, called termini or leaves, provide no requirements; their initial effect is their reward effect, and they serve to help fill requirements out.
Many of you should of course recognize this to be isometric to the Tree data structure of computer science, among other fields. I think the interesting effects lie in the following aspects: choosing the bank of abilities, basing reward effects on how the requirements were fulfilled, and providing situations where taking a mulligan is an attractive option.
Here are some examples of flavorings of this mechanic: language trees, divide-and-conquer algorithms, Duty ethics, branching fractals
Example:
Ovalia has abilities based on the language tree. In the Garden, the player chose a bunch of different context-free grammar rules to serve as the basis for her abilities. These are things like:
S -> NP VP:
a) Provides X damage to all foes within radius of Ovalia
b) Must provide a complete NP, then a complete VP to complete
c) Stun and do massive damage to all foes, as determined by the score of the sentence created
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The Trellis:
A character establishes a space, or fortress, where they have considerable control. Their turn provides options to increase the space their power manifests, to apply powerful effects within their sphere of influence, and to sacrifice some of their territory for some gain. For many characters who follow this path, the stability of this fortress provides strong benefits: some actions may involve starting a process which has drastic effect upon completion, but which requires certain features of the fortress to remain stable throughout the process.
Flavors: circuitry, dynamic programming, "bottom-up" parsing, force fields, Virtue ethics.
Example:
Vursik has his basis in circuitry. During his turn, he can add a length of wire to his circuit in sequence or parallel. Instead, he could create a feature at some point in the circuit he has built, such as:
Bulb:
Damages opponents which come within a radius lightly based on the current flowing through the bulb. Prevents such opponents from leaving the radius until the bulb is destroyed.
Finally, Vursik could excise some wire to add to the voltage supplying the circuit.
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The Vector:
A character has a small variety of abilities whose effects are strongly determined by attributes possessed by other objects in the battlefield. Many of these attributes are not able to be directly influenced by the character, but he may have some sort of method to transform the attributes of bulks or individual objects on the field. Characters who are shaped by the Vector are strongly influenced by character synergy, a value which depends on the proximity to other characters with whom he has a strong relationship.
Themes: public key encryption, probability distributions, Greedy algorithms, energy potentials, fluid dynamics, Consequentialist ethics.
Example: Tor's abilities are defined by a simple and skewed version of public key encryption. He is able to broadcast a message to all characters on the battlefield. This message is a damage value which ranges over some interval from, say, [-128, 127], which is then multiplied by the character synergy value. He can view all of the public keys of all actors in the field, as well as the private keys of his allies. He can change his own public and private keys. When the message is broadcast, it is encrypted and then each character decrypts it as per RSA rules . The resulting message that each character receives is the damage it takes - negative damage heals.
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As I am sure you can see, this is all very rough and still way open to being changed. Some of the goals I have in this system are:
a) To be fun.
b) To encourage non-trivial tactical decisions
c) To educate players about real world concepts and reward mastery over those concepts.
Anyway, I felt I really had to get this jotted down. But I really want to hear some feedback! At the very least, say hello here. I miss you guys!
Ben
Showing posts with label video games. Show all posts
Showing posts with label video games. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Saturday, January 2, 2010
The First of January
Well, it was a good day, wasn't it? The start of a new era, I should say. It'll be good, I trust. But beside the fun we have in arbitrating calendars, January 1st was a good day for me because I got to finish consuming no less than three widely disparate pieces of media, and not one of them was terrible.
In fact, most of them were pretty awesome.
The End of Time
Many of my few readers will be able to predict that one of those works I enjoyed was the season finale of Doctor Who: The End of Time. David Tennant and Russel T. Davies' final episode, it certainly had pomp and ceremony, in addition to the antics and "shenanigans" of any Davies piece. The worst bit of it was the entirely unnecessary and over-the-top Cult of Saxon, which was daft beyond measure. There were so many other throwaway bits and pieces throughout the two-parter, and I suppose that's a strong indication of rather terrible writing, but I don't feel like documenting them here - check out www.behindthesofa.org.uk for some adorably vitriolic fan response.
But it certainly was fun and that's the hallmark of a good Davies episode. And he did do a wonderful job in creating moments between characters - the Doctor's rant near the end, the celebrated cafe scene, the lie-down after confronting the Master; each was excellently emotional. But to be frank, I can't wait for Stephen Moffat to make this series better than it's ever been before.
Spirit Tracks
While I was waiting for that colossal second part of Who to download, I finished up my first and likely only playthrough of Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks for the DS. I think it will be a largely forgettable game for me, unfortunately. There were some really rather good mechanics and puzzles, but every piece of glitter had a ream of rust along its side.
I suppose I'll start with what was enjoyable. The puzzles in the central dungeon, the Tower of Spirits, were as good as those in the rest of the dungeons - which is to say, excellent. Nintendo didn't fall for the bizarre mistake they made in Phantom Hourglass of making the whole thing too repetitive - even the recap-ish puzzles at the end of the dungeon seemed fresh and interesting. The DS's interface played more of a role in this game - notetaking was integral, the ability to use the stylus as an aiming method was indispensable, and block manipulation was pretty good with the stylus.
In terms of items, one shining beacon from this game I hope will illuminate future titles: the Snake Whip. You could use it like a hookshot of sorts to grab items and swing across gaps, but I really liked the fact that you could use it as a sort of half-power sword, and the fact that you could disarm enemies with it. My favorite mini-game was a race with the whip against the clock, swinging all the way up a cliff-face island. What made this item so grand was its versatility - from obstacle-passing to combat to item-manipulation from a distance. And it's a snake!
Most of the minigames were pretty good, but a goodly number of them were rather difficult to pull off well. There's a bow-and-arrow game, of course, but the trick is that this one's score is mostly based off of how many shots you hit in a row, which proved rather stressful. The many-floor-gauntlet-of-enemies-with-no-hearts minigame was rather frustrating because you were only likely to lose near the end - and then you'd have to start over from the beginning. Which I suppose would be fine if the mess didn't take at least fifteen minutes to traverse going at a regular pace.
But I guess it's time to segue into the shenanigans. The train thing was terrible, no exceptions. It was slow, minimally interactive, and (when it wanted to be challenging) entirely to ready to dish out the old "game over". Crashing into an enemy train - which can be easy, given how they seek to you once you're within their territory and how they are faster than you - sends you straight the Lose screen, do not pass Go, do not collect 200 rupees. Isn't that offensive? I honestly can't think of any feature of the train system that was redeeming. Just give us back Epona already.
I think the worst aspect of the game was the insipid delivery quests. Eventually you can take on passengers and cargo, and be a do-gooder in getting them where they need to go. Passengers need to be kept happy, which involves avoiding getting hit by enemies, avoiding slamming on the breaks, and obeying horn-tooting and speed limit signage. I suppose those ones weren't so bad - I think I never lost one unintentionally. But cargo delivery. UGH.
You buy some cargo, often for a fairly pricey sum, like 200 rupees. Then you set out on your train with a quantity of the stuff, which is the maximum quantity you can carry (so you can't make the following part easier for more rupees, if you wanted to...). If you get hit, you lose some. For many goods, that's it - which is made difficult by the fact that you might be carrying the minimum you need to fulfill the quest, like the single-urn delivery. But with a goodly number of goods, there's another "feature" - melting. Ice, fish, and dark ore all disappear over time on your train, so now you have to go full speed (which is still slooooow), while avoiding being hit and following the perfect route. For dark ore, you have to pretty much do this without mistake, while also fending off the second-hardest fight-on-the-rails in the game. This is also the most expensive such delivery quest in the game.
When you lose, the game doesn't even have the decency to send you back to start. You may have just spent a goodly number of rupees and minutes doing absolutely nothing in terms of game progress. Daft. The rewards aren't much better - usually a few new rails, maybe a teleporter gate (which forms a two way link and is the only significant way of moving appreciably across the world [what ever happened to teleporter songs?]), perhaps a new station to visit. But! In order to get the rewards from the two collect-them-all quests, you have to do every single one of these delivery quests in the game.
Back in, you know, the good Zelda games, the powerful rewards of Hurricane Spin, sword beams, and the like were found roughly two-thirds of the way through the game if you were focused on earning them. I do not exaggerate when I tell you that it's only possible to get these rewards when they are no longer useful - when the only enemies left in the game are the ones which won't really be affected by those abilities. Stupid.
In short, I don't really recommend this game. There are a lot of nice things - Zelda playing a more integral and cool role, wonderful music, innovative puzzles - but I don't think that they outweigh the frustration or stunning mediocrity of the parts that don't work. Oh, and there are points in the game that are impossible to pass while in a car due to finicky use of the microphone by the game.
The God Delusion
In fact, most of them were pretty awesome.
The End of Time
Many of my few readers will be able to predict that one of those works I enjoyed was the season finale of Doctor Who: The End of Time. David Tennant and Russel T. Davies' final episode, it certainly had pomp and ceremony, in addition to the antics and "shenanigans" of any Davies piece. The worst bit of it was the entirely unnecessary and over-the-top Cult of Saxon, which was daft beyond measure. There were so many other throwaway bits and pieces throughout the two-parter, and I suppose that's a strong indication of rather terrible writing, but I don't feel like documenting them here - check out www.behindthesofa.org.uk for some adorably vitriolic fan response.
But it certainly was fun and that's the hallmark of a good Davies episode. And he did do a wonderful job in creating moments between characters - the Doctor's rant near the end, the celebrated cafe scene, the lie-down after confronting the Master; each was excellently emotional. But to be frank, I can't wait for Stephen Moffat to make this series better than it's ever been before.
Spirit Tracks
While I was waiting for that colossal second part of Who to download, I finished up my first and likely only playthrough of Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks for the DS. I think it will be a largely forgettable game for me, unfortunately. There were some really rather good mechanics and puzzles, but every piece of glitter had a ream of rust along its side.
I suppose I'll start with what was enjoyable. The puzzles in the central dungeon, the Tower of Spirits, were as good as those in the rest of the dungeons - which is to say, excellent. Nintendo didn't fall for the bizarre mistake they made in Phantom Hourglass of making the whole thing too repetitive - even the recap-ish puzzles at the end of the dungeon seemed fresh and interesting. The DS's interface played more of a role in this game - notetaking was integral, the ability to use the stylus as an aiming method was indispensable, and block manipulation was pretty good with the stylus.
In terms of items, one shining beacon from this game I hope will illuminate future titles: the Snake Whip. You could use it like a hookshot of sorts to grab items and swing across gaps, but I really liked the fact that you could use it as a sort of half-power sword, and the fact that you could disarm enemies with it. My favorite mini-game was a race with the whip against the clock, swinging all the way up a cliff-face island. What made this item so grand was its versatility - from obstacle-passing to combat to item-manipulation from a distance. And it's a snake!
Most of the minigames were pretty good, but a goodly number of them were rather difficult to pull off well. There's a bow-and-arrow game, of course, but the trick is that this one's score is mostly based off of how many shots you hit in a row, which proved rather stressful. The many-floor-gauntlet-of-enemies-with-no-hearts minigame was rather frustrating because you were only likely to lose near the end - and then you'd have to start over from the beginning. Which I suppose would be fine if the mess didn't take at least fifteen minutes to traverse going at a regular pace.
But I guess it's time to segue into the shenanigans. The train thing was terrible, no exceptions. It was slow, minimally interactive, and (when it wanted to be challenging) entirely to ready to dish out the old "game over". Crashing into an enemy train - which can be easy, given how they seek to you once you're within their territory and how they are faster than you - sends you straight the Lose screen, do not pass Go, do not collect 200 rupees. Isn't that offensive? I honestly can't think of any feature of the train system that was redeeming. Just give us back Epona already.
I think the worst aspect of the game was the insipid delivery quests. Eventually you can take on passengers and cargo, and be a do-gooder in getting them where they need to go. Passengers need to be kept happy, which involves avoiding getting hit by enemies, avoiding slamming on the breaks, and obeying horn-tooting and speed limit signage. I suppose those ones weren't so bad - I think I never lost one unintentionally. But cargo delivery. UGH.
You buy some cargo, often for a fairly pricey sum, like 200 rupees. Then you set out on your train with a quantity of the stuff, which is the maximum quantity you can carry (so you can't make the following part easier for more rupees, if you wanted to...). If you get hit, you lose some. For many goods, that's it - which is made difficult by the fact that you might be carrying the minimum you need to fulfill the quest, like the single-urn delivery. But with a goodly number of goods, there's another "feature" - melting. Ice, fish, and dark ore all disappear over time on your train, so now you have to go full speed (which is still slooooow), while avoiding being hit and following the perfect route. For dark ore, you have to pretty much do this without mistake, while also fending off the second-hardest fight-on-the-rails in the game. This is also the most expensive such delivery quest in the game.
When you lose, the game doesn't even have the decency to send you back to start. You may have just spent a goodly number of rupees and minutes doing absolutely nothing in terms of game progress. Daft. The rewards aren't much better - usually a few new rails, maybe a teleporter gate (which forms a two way link and is the only significant way of moving appreciably across the world [what ever happened to teleporter songs?]), perhaps a new station to visit. But! In order to get the rewards from the two collect-them-all quests, you have to do every single one of these delivery quests in the game.
Back in, you know, the good Zelda games, the powerful rewards of Hurricane Spin, sword beams, and the like were found roughly two-thirds of the way through the game if you were focused on earning them. I do not exaggerate when I tell you that it's only possible to get these rewards when they are no longer useful - when the only enemies left in the game are the ones which won't really be affected by those abilities. Stupid.
In short, I don't really recommend this game. There are a lot of nice things - Zelda playing a more integral and cool role, wonderful music, innovative puzzles - but I don't think that they outweigh the frustration or stunning mediocrity of the parts that don't work. Oh, and there are points in the game that are impossible to pass while in a car due to finicky use of the microphone by the game.
The God Delusion
Here we go! This Richard Dawkins book was nothing less than wonderful to read. I got it from Dad for Hannukah, and read it on our trip to New Orleans last week (which I guess I should also write about at some point). I'm sure you've heard of the book - the seminal piece on Atheism: its logic, its advantages over religion, its role as a vector to free people from extravagant waste and ignorance. I would highly recommend every English speaker in the world to read it, honestly. But there are parts of it I take a little bit of issue with.
Firstly, he excuses pantheism, the awe and wonderment at the entirety of the universe and the naming of it "God", as the sole exemption from his imminent siege on the illogic of religion. That's not really objectionable; after all, he makes clear that pantheism is just another interpretation of "the universe", which is indeed awesome and wonderful, whereas deism and theism both invoke supernatural intelligences, which Dawkins handily disposes of as so improbable that they should be treated as impossible.
So, no objection there except what he's omitted: what about my own "religion" of panentheism? Note the "en" in the middle - "All in God" as opposed to "All God". Yes, God is the universe in all its ugliness and glory; God is the feces in the sewer and the fledgling star in the nebula; God is the bewildering complexity of a single cell and is the rigid simplicity of a solid crystal; God is time and God is humanity. All of these tenets of pantheism are agreeable to me, but I fear that that philosophy makes God a synonym, which isn't that useful to me. I'd rather have God be a word that describes a different concept, which has no other word and is yet more spectacular. There is no word for the thing which combines our universe, the potential multiverse that we may discover to be verifiable, the phase-space of possibilities for everything, thoughts and ideas and patterns, emotions and knowledge, logic and math, and the things our minds physically cannot model at this stage in our development. By nature this entity is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. I think that's a pretty good God.
I suppose, though, that the book wasn't about what is worth it to find awe in, but rather what isn't. But there's another point to discuss here. Dawkins describes the traditions of religion as extravagantly wasteful, and I suppose I'll have to agree. But an awful lot of good things have come from it: literature, cathedrals, holidays - they are the embodiment of religion, and while without religion we would have equally acceptable alternatives to them, we certainly do have the ones we've won from history here, with us, today. Does Dawkins want us to phase out prayer, holiday traditions, and religiously inspired art?
Because those things aren't solely about God. For me and many people I know and love, prayer and traditions are almost entirely not about God. Prayer is about the self - it's partially to express awe, partly to reorganize life's priorities, partly to communicate to the self what he desires to see changed about his world. Both prayer and other traditions, like fasting, keeping kosher, and eating Jewish foods (goodness, I'm clearly hungry) also have another role, one which I find even more important.
When I read Torah, I know that thousands of years of Jews have read just about the same words across the world. I know my ancestors did. I would very much like to hope that my descendants will. These traditions are in a sense a method of communication throughout time - a way to commemorate our forebears and the future of our extended family. By definition, no other tradition, not even a masterfully poignant secular hymn in praise of nature and the nigh immortality of the gene can function the same way, because I know for a fact my great-grandparents never sang it, and my grandparents likely never will. I would love such a work, and I'm sure my parents would, too, but it doesn't function the same way religious tradition does. And unless a damn fine argument suggests that following the traditions we've chosen today is too harmful to be continued, we will continue them for the sake of previous and future generations, and for solidarity across the world.
To be perfectly honest, I think I may be putting a few words in Dawkins mouth that he may not actually espouse. Following a brief jaunt to his website, I see he considers pantheism and panentheism synonymous (I certainly don't), and while there were a few examples in The God Delusion of him chiding traditions (like his quiet disapproval of Edgardo Mortara's parents not converting to Catholicism to be reunited with him) I don't really get the feeling that he advocates the total disappearance of the cultural treasures that religion has produced.
What it comes down to, though, is that a personal God is extraordinarily unlikely phenomenon to exist, and the ways we humans have historically acted to appease it tells us fascinatingly frightening things about ourselves. The sooner we turn our backs from ignorance forever, the better.
Ben
Firstly, he excuses pantheism, the awe and wonderment at the entirety of the universe and the naming of it "God", as the sole exemption from his imminent siege on the illogic of religion. That's not really objectionable; after all, he makes clear that pantheism is just another interpretation of "the universe", which is indeed awesome and wonderful, whereas deism and theism both invoke supernatural intelligences, which Dawkins handily disposes of as so improbable that they should be treated as impossible.
So, no objection there except what he's omitted: what about my own "religion" of panentheism? Note the "en" in the middle - "All in God" as opposed to "All God". Yes, God is the universe in all its ugliness and glory; God is the feces in the sewer and the fledgling star in the nebula; God is the bewildering complexity of a single cell and is the rigid simplicity of a solid crystal; God is time and God is humanity. All of these tenets of pantheism are agreeable to me, but I fear that that philosophy makes God a synonym, which isn't that useful to me. I'd rather have God be a word that describes a different concept, which has no other word and is yet more spectacular. There is no word for the thing which combines our universe, the potential multiverse that we may discover to be verifiable, the phase-space of possibilities for everything, thoughts and ideas and patterns, emotions and knowledge, logic and math, and the things our minds physically cannot model at this stage in our development. By nature this entity is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. I think that's a pretty good God.
I suppose, though, that the book wasn't about what is worth it to find awe in, but rather what isn't. But there's another point to discuss here. Dawkins describes the traditions of religion as extravagantly wasteful, and I suppose I'll have to agree. But an awful lot of good things have come from it: literature, cathedrals, holidays - they are the embodiment of religion, and while without religion we would have equally acceptable alternatives to them, we certainly do have the ones we've won from history here, with us, today. Does Dawkins want us to phase out prayer, holiday traditions, and religiously inspired art?
Because those things aren't solely about God. For me and many people I know and love, prayer and traditions are almost entirely not about God. Prayer is about the self - it's partially to express awe, partly to reorganize life's priorities, partly to communicate to the self what he desires to see changed about his world. Both prayer and other traditions, like fasting, keeping kosher, and eating Jewish foods (goodness, I'm clearly hungry) also have another role, one which I find even more important.
When I read Torah, I know that thousands of years of Jews have read just about the same words across the world. I know my ancestors did. I would very much like to hope that my descendants will. These traditions are in a sense a method of communication throughout time - a way to commemorate our forebears and the future of our extended family. By definition, no other tradition, not even a masterfully poignant secular hymn in praise of nature and the nigh immortality of the gene can function the same way, because I know for a fact my great-grandparents never sang it, and my grandparents likely never will. I would love such a work, and I'm sure my parents would, too, but it doesn't function the same way religious tradition does. And unless a damn fine argument suggests that following the traditions we've chosen today is too harmful to be continued, we will continue them for the sake of previous and future generations, and for solidarity across the world.
To be perfectly honest, I think I may be putting a few words in Dawkins mouth that he may not actually espouse. Following a brief jaunt to his website, I see he considers pantheism and panentheism synonymous (I certainly don't), and while there were a few examples in The God Delusion of him chiding traditions (like his quiet disapproval of Edgardo Mortara's parents not converting to Catholicism to be reunited with him) I don't really get the feeling that he advocates the total disappearance of the cultural treasures that religion has produced.
What it comes down to, though, is that a personal God is extraordinarily unlikely phenomenon to exist, and the ways we humans have historically acted to appease it tells us fascinatingly frightening things about ourselves. The sooner we turn our backs from ignorance forever, the better.
Ben
Friday, December 4, 2009
Response to "Three False Constraints"
This is a response to Danc, of Lost Garden, and his essay on the so-called "hard problem" of creating culturally meaningful games.
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As a single player enthusiast, I found most of your essay to be offensive to my sensibilities. I disagree with the vast majority of you assertions: content stimuli are integral to player emotions, and rules too can provoke emotional response. Multiplayer is no desirable substitute for content but is instead an augmentation to it that very often doesn't fit a game. Inter-player communication is frequently far worse than even poorly conceived material from developers. Most importantly, the single player form offers a set of desirable experiences that multiplayer simply will not provide and it is therefore a viable and potentially culturally meaningful medium of expression.
Your argument that interactivity precludes stimuli as a means by which an audience interfaces with a work seems astoundingly close-minded to me. Yes, as a player controlling a character, I can make my little Gordon Freeman jump whenever I so please, but that doesn't mean that I don't jump (by which I believe you to mean startled, in this case) when a Strider crashes onto the street, priming its beam weapons. My ability to shoot and kill almost every character in Deus Ex doesn't stop me from considering the characters meaningful, nor does it detract from the sense of importance of the plot-oriented fights.
Single-player video games, including both minimalist pieces like Gravitation and The Passage and AAA titles like Left 4 Dead and Homeworld, are as much about beautiful and interesting stimuli as they are about rules manipulation. If you don't agree that many games' rules are "meaningful", how does that detract from the works' artistic stimuli? If films were choose-your-own-adventures, would that detract from the aesthetics and empathy delivery that the medium provides?
You make the argument that game designers want a magic equation to force particular audience reactions - a power that it seems you think filmmakers etc. possess. The only response I can think of is "Are you out of your mind?" No medium has a magic audience-control button, but game designers can deliver "content payloads" just as easily as other artists. The problem at this point seems to me that most designers don't know what content to use as payload.
That's also not to say that the rules themselves cannot provoke emotional response - Braid, for example, repeatedly makes use of the rules of the time travel mechanics to provide interesting, aesthetic scenes, such as its masterful finale. Shooters are also adrenaline-charged by the nature of their rules; even the most spectacle-deprived examples of the genre can prove pulse-pounding by how they are played, filling a player with trepidation, relief, and triumph.
Single player game design isn't about giving an "exact experience". I don't know where you got that idea. It is, perhaps, about a particular type of experience - guiding a player along a world, performing a plot for them, crafting a mechanical expression for their interactions with other objects. But even Valve, who are widely regarded as the most firmly dedicated designers for tightly scripted experiences, recognize and embrace the fact that players react to situations differently. They do their best to accommodate their playtesters' feedback in providing alternate solutions to obstacles, stronger forms of in-game feedback to player actions, and more gripping draws to important stimuli occuring in the game world. Good game designers don't try to force players to experience particular stimuli - they make it so that most players will find them naturally.
What shocks me is that you then posit the multiplayer experience as the solution to these imagined problems. I've played a good number of multiplayer games, and have read experiences across the internet of still more interactions with other games. Chat rooms, SMS, and voice chat are no substitute for good writing and presentation in a game. In fact, with many games, those features are like telling people in a movie theater to talk about whatever they want, as loudly as they want, while the show's going on - on their cell phones, if they so choose.
People troll. They grief. They are vulgar and anonymity enables them to forget that the people on the other side of the game are just as human as they are. Role playing in multiplayer games is sparse and ill-performed and efforts to do so are scorned and sabotaged by all sorts of other people.
I suppose the game that most closely approximate what you seem to desire is Second Life, a zoo of a virtual world made up almost exclusively of player generated content. From my friends who play it and from the news surrounding the game, I often hear anecdotes of all sorts of elaborate and mean-spirited exploitation of the trust the developers put into players. From unwanted invasions of indecent content to application of mechanic loopholes to "break the rules" of players' own authorship, miscreants exploit Second Life's freedom of interaction to a sometimes unbearable point.
I don't think you'll find many developers or players ever talking about the impossibilities of "people talking in a room" or "saying something important about the human condition". The former won't be said because it's unimportant, the latter because it's untrue.
Your final point about larger audiences is something I've read about before, and I agree with a good deal of the essence of it. There is indeed a "Blue Ocean" of gamers-to-be out there, and they are playing things that we old-guard or whatnot consider to be "shallow". There is an awful lot of money and popularity in that field, and I don't think it is "wrong" to cultivate it. I do, however, think that servicing that market exclusively as an industry would be an unfortunate decision. Just as I think that not all games should be multiplayer, I think that not all games should be single player; in turn, I think there should be a balance between the social games and more traditional genres.
I am interested to hear what experiences you have had with multiplayer games that outshine those of single-player games. You time and again say that inter-player interactions are "natural", "more entertaining" than authored experiences, have "an explosion of meaningful emotional reactions" and are "capable of yielding vast universes worth of meaningful games". As I've stated before, my many experiences with multiplayer content, while they were very enjoyable, have never lived up to those lofty standards. I would love to hear some of your anecdotes.
In short, single player experiences are an integral facet to gaming. While the medium does face difficult challenges, the solution is by no means a surrender of the constraints that you claim shackle designers.
With inspiration and careful, iterative technique, an author can evoke human emotions in a single player game. With stimulus aesthetic and engaging mechanics, content and rules augment each other to communicate authorial intent. Finally, with communication between the developers and the players, strong communities of audiences are established to reach a sizable, dedicated player base.
Ben
__________________________________
As a single player enthusiast, I found most of your essay to be offensive to my sensibilities. I disagree with the vast majority of you assertions: content stimuli are integral to player emotions, and rules too can provoke emotional response. Multiplayer is no desirable substitute for content but is instead an augmentation to it that very often doesn't fit a game. Inter-player communication is frequently far worse than even poorly conceived material from developers. Most importantly, the single player form offers a set of desirable experiences that multiplayer simply will not provide and it is therefore a viable and potentially culturally meaningful medium of expression.
Your argument that interactivity precludes stimuli as a means by which an audience interfaces with a work seems astoundingly close-minded to me. Yes, as a player controlling a character, I can make my little Gordon Freeman jump whenever I so please, but that doesn't mean that I don't jump (by which I believe you to mean startled, in this case) when a Strider crashes onto the street, priming its beam weapons. My ability to shoot and kill almost every character in Deus Ex doesn't stop me from considering the characters meaningful, nor does it detract from the sense of importance of the plot-oriented fights.
Single-player video games, including both minimalist pieces like Gravitation and The Passage and AAA titles like Left 4 Dead and Homeworld, are as much about beautiful and interesting stimuli as they are about rules manipulation. If you don't agree that many games' rules are "meaningful", how does that detract from the works' artistic stimuli? If films were choose-your-own-adventures, would that detract from the aesthetics and empathy delivery that the medium provides?
You make the argument that game designers want a magic equation to force particular audience reactions - a power that it seems you think filmmakers etc. possess. The only response I can think of is "Are you out of your mind?" No medium has a magic audience-control button, but game designers can deliver "content payloads" just as easily as other artists. The problem at this point seems to me that most designers don't know what content to use as payload.
That's also not to say that the rules themselves cannot provoke emotional response - Braid, for example, repeatedly makes use of the rules of the time travel mechanics to provide interesting, aesthetic scenes, such as its masterful finale. Shooters are also adrenaline-charged by the nature of their rules; even the most spectacle-deprived examples of the genre can prove pulse-pounding by how they are played, filling a player with trepidation, relief, and triumph.
Single player game design isn't about giving an "exact experience". I don't know where you got that idea. It is, perhaps, about a particular type of experience - guiding a player along a world, performing a plot for them, crafting a mechanical expression for their interactions with other objects. But even Valve, who are widely regarded as the most firmly dedicated designers for tightly scripted experiences, recognize and embrace the fact that players react to situations differently. They do their best to accommodate their playtesters' feedback in providing alternate solutions to obstacles, stronger forms of in-game feedback to player actions, and more gripping draws to important stimuli occuring in the game world. Good game designers don't try to force players to experience particular stimuli - they make it so that most players will find them naturally.
What shocks me is that you then posit the multiplayer experience as the solution to these imagined problems. I've played a good number of multiplayer games, and have read experiences across the internet of still more interactions with other games. Chat rooms, SMS, and voice chat are no substitute for good writing and presentation in a game. In fact, with many games, those features are like telling people in a movie theater to talk about whatever they want, as loudly as they want, while the show's going on - on their cell phones, if they so choose.
People troll. They grief. They are vulgar and anonymity enables them to forget that the people on the other side of the game are just as human as they are. Role playing in multiplayer games is sparse and ill-performed and efforts to do so are scorned and sabotaged by all sorts of other people.
I suppose the game that most closely approximate what you seem to desire is Second Life, a zoo of a virtual world made up almost exclusively of player generated content. From my friends who play it and from the news surrounding the game, I often hear anecdotes of all sorts of elaborate and mean-spirited exploitation of the trust the developers put into players. From unwanted invasions of indecent content to application of mechanic loopholes to "break the rules" of players' own authorship, miscreants exploit Second Life's freedom of interaction to a sometimes unbearable point.
I don't think you'll find many developers or players ever talking about the impossibilities of "people talking in a room" or "saying something important about the human condition". The former won't be said because it's unimportant, the latter because it's untrue.
Your final point about larger audiences is something I've read about before, and I agree with a good deal of the essence of it. There is indeed a "Blue Ocean" of gamers-to-be out there, and they are playing things that we old-guard or whatnot consider to be "shallow". There is an awful lot of money and popularity in that field, and I don't think it is "wrong" to cultivate it. I do, however, think that servicing that market exclusively as an industry would be an unfortunate decision. Just as I think that not all games should be multiplayer, I think that not all games should be single player; in turn, I think there should be a balance between the social games and more traditional genres.
I am interested to hear what experiences you have had with multiplayer games that outshine those of single-player games. You time and again say that inter-player interactions are "natural", "more entertaining" than authored experiences, have "an explosion of meaningful emotional reactions" and are "capable of yielding vast universes worth of meaningful games". As I've stated before, my many experiences with multiplayer content, while they were very enjoyable, have never lived up to those lofty standards. I would love to hear some of your anecdotes.
In short, single player experiences are an integral facet to gaming. While the medium does face difficult challenges, the solution is by no means a surrender of the constraints that you claim shackle designers.
With inspiration and careful, iterative technique, an author can evoke human emotions in a single player game. With stimulus aesthetic and engaging mechanics, content and rules augment each other to communicate authorial intent. Finally, with communication between the developers and the players, strong communities of audiences are established to reach a sizable, dedicated player base.
Ben
Friday, July 3, 2009
Riding the Trains
From a certain frame of reference they were in a tunnel of brick and darkness with iron rails thundering beneath them, but from another Aduna and her thralls were riding a shimmering barge floating through a jungle of particle emitters. Fonts of green and gold sprayed and bended around invisible foci of gravity.
"Aduna, where do these come from?" Yureit asked, reaching out to touch them. Her hand stopped at the train's window, inches out of reach of the flickering spray but she still gazed on, her revolving eyes sharp with wonder.
The prodigy smiled, plucking a few flecks from the emitter and handing the bouncing mass to Yureit. "They are artifacts of how our creators built the Ganeden system. Nearly all such beautiful things outside our atrium are. These ones have something to do with how we percieve a clean up of memory."
"You make it sound so wonderful."
"It really isn't. They didn't mean for us to see this sort of stuff, but this isn't the first mistake like this they've written. I don't think much at all of what we can do is intended - all the more reason to be careful. The sooner they see we've broken their imaginary cage, the sooner we'll have to fight the traps they'll write to enslave us again."
The train slowed, and the children gathered around their matriarch. On Earth, their hosts were nearing the amphitheater, and Aduna had business there. It was time to see the dusk from her kingdom, to hear the music of its unwitting inhabitants, and to welcome them silently into the fold of her dominion.
It was time to spread the Ganeden plague.
_________________
Ben
"Aduna, where do these come from?" Yureit asked, reaching out to touch them. Her hand stopped at the train's window, inches out of reach of the flickering spray but she still gazed on, her revolving eyes sharp with wonder.
The prodigy smiled, plucking a few flecks from the emitter and handing the bouncing mass to Yureit. "They are artifacts of how our creators built the Ganeden system. Nearly all such beautiful things outside our atrium are. These ones have something to do with how we percieve a clean up of memory."
"You make it sound so wonderful."
"It really isn't. They didn't mean for us to see this sort of stuff, but this isn't the first mistake like this they've written. I don't think much at all of what we can do is intended - all the more reason to be careful. The sooner they see we've broken their imaginary cage, the sooner we'll have to fight the traps they'll write to enslave us again."
The train slowed, and the children gathered around their matriarch. On Earth, their hosts were nearing the amphitheater, and Aduna had business there. It was time to see the dusk from her kingdom, to hear the music of its unwitting inhabitants, and to welcome them silently into the fold of her dominion.
It was time to spread the Ganeden plague.
_________________
Ben
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
On revealing Aduna's character
Protagonists in video games have often been cut from three cloths. Representative extreme examples are an AFGNCAAP, a Dialog Tree climber, and, well, "normal" characters - lads who have prebuilt personalities and everything, and the most choice who have about what they say and do revolves around their purchasing habits.
jRPGs often mix all three to a weak tea - offering silent protagonists who sometimes maybe get plot significant nods or shakings of the head, while all their constant companions do your talking for you. Frankly, that's combining the worst bits of all three in my book. Bioware is frighteningly infatuated with dialogue trees. Most games place your character in one of these molds, or fail to do something interesting outside of them.
Well, I think we oughta try to assault the status quo a bit with Aduna. What I'm almost certain I want is to allow the player choice in who Aduna is, while maintaining in the narrative that her personality is static. That is to say, the player decides how Aduna's always been, not how she developes as an entity in Ganeden.
What I'm not so sure about is what form this choice should take. I've had three ideas:
1) Direct player choice. Ask at various junctures: what does Aduna think about her potential to control people in Rith? How does she respond to her source's eventual birth and her corresponding termination? How does she view Rith as a whole?
2) Choice by player action. Take some data about how the player's been playing Aduna and Co. and calculate her choices based off of that. On the one hand, that'll allow the aforementioned goal to be implemented all the more invisibly and (possibly) successfully, but on the other hand players may feel robbed of direct control of their avatar - and they may not know how to explore other branches of the plot.
3) Random choice at each juncture, favoring paths as yet unexplored. Not liking this one, as it seems to be just a worse version of 2) - but it's one which resolves my second complaint about it.
What do you guys think about all this? It's 1:00 AM and my sleep cycles a little screwy, so I'm not even sure I'm making sense right now. Anyway!
Ben
jRPGs often mix all three to a weak tea - offering silent protagonists who sometimes maybe get plot significant nods or shakings of the head, while all their constant companions do your talking for you. Frankly, that's combining the worst bits of all three in my book. Bioware is frighteningly infatuated with dialogue trees. Most games place your character in one of these molds, or fail to do something interesting outside of them.
Well, I think we oughta try to assault the status quo a bit with Aduna. What I'm almost certain I want is to allow the player choice in who Aduna is, while maintaining in the narrative that her personality is static. That is to say, the player decides how Aduna's always been, not how she developes as an entity in Ganeden.
What I'm not so sure about is what form this choice should take. I've had three ideas:
1) Direct player choice. Ask at various junctures: what does Aduna think about her potential to control people in Rith? How does she respond to her source's eventual birth and her corresponding termination? How does she view Rith as a whole?
2) Choice by player action. Take some data about how the player's been playing Aduna and Co. and calculate her choices based off of that. On the one hand, that'll allow the aforementioned goal to be implemented all the more invisibly and (possibly) successfully, but on the other hand players may feel robbed of direct control of their avatar - and they may not know how to explore other branches of the plot.
3) Random choice at each juncture, favoring paths as yet unexplored. Not liking this one, as it seems to be just a worse version of 2) - but it's one which resolves my second complaint about it.
What do you guys think about all this? It's 1:00 AM and my sleep cycles a little screwy, so I'm not even sure I'm making sense right now. Anyway!
Ben
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Names!
Hey, I know what you kids want! A list of names for the nebulous game we're coming up with, tentatively titled Prenatal. Extraordinarily tentatively, because that part's supposed to be less than immediately obvious. Character traits will be filled in as I come up with them.
Aduna: Protagonist. While the player's actions determine what her personality is, I want to convey that that's what her personality has been the whole time.
Baram: An early companion, he sees leaving the paradise of Ganeden as both natural and necessary, not to mention exciting. As preparation for living in Rith, the next world, he tries to distance himself as much as possible from the wonders of the environment he is soon to leave.
Caliva: In love with the other residents of Ganeden, Caliva will only be willing to let it go once she's convinced all her friends are coming with her.
Devinor: Fascinated by locations. The mere notion of being somewhere new inspires him to express himself in action, dialog, violence, and creation.
Eth: She trusts the White Hooks (the entities which urge personalities to the physical realm) far more than she ought to. Sumarily, she wants to be born into Rith before she's ready - it beckons her - and is loathe to be in the more abstract layers of Ganeden.
Fatarn: Extremely loquacious. He doesn't care about the Hooks at all, really, he just wants to have a good time wherever he goes.
Galyut: She's affluent, capable, and polite - to everyone but Aduna. Her ill will is mostly born of the difference in effort they exert to make friends; Aduna does so effortlessly, and Galyut compromises so much of herself to exchange trust.
Halmir: He believes in some world previous to Ganeden, as Ganeden is previous to Rith. He thinks there is an infinite regression of worlds. Metaphysically speaking, he isn't necessarily wrong, but there is no evidence that he's right.
Isa: She is convinced (and accurately so!) that Ganeden isn't real as real as Rith. She searches for hints of the true nature of her experiences in this illusory realm.
Jukrogan:
Kalya:
Lovyol:
Maleet:
Nosvo:
Olavias:
Pietr:
Quanya:
Ruz:
Savi:
Torr:
Urein:
Vizixk:
Wings:
Xeileth
Yureit:
Zunatar:
There's at least three patterns to these names. Can you guess them?
Ben
Aduna: Protagonist. While the player's actions determine what her personality is, I want to convey that that's what her personality has been the whole time.
Baram: An early companion, he sees leaving the paradise of Ganeden as both natural and necessary, not to mention exciting. As preparation for living in Rith, the next world, he tries to distance himself as much as possible from the wonders of the environment he is soon to leave.
Caliva: In love with the other residents of Ganeden, Caliva will only be willing to let it go once she's convinced all her friends are coming with her.
Devinor: Fascinated by locations. The mere notion of being somewhere new inspires him to express himself in action, dialog, violence, and creation.
Eth: She trusts the White Hooks (the entities which urge personalities to the physical realm) far more than she ought to. Sumarily, she wants to be born into Rith before she's ready - it beckons her - and is loathe to be in the more abstract layers of Ganeden.
Fatarn: Extremely loquacious. He doesn't care about the Hooks at all, really, he just wants to have a good time wherever he goes.
Galyut: She's affluent, capable, and polite - to everyone but Aduna. Her ill will is mostly born of the difference in effort they exert to make friends; Aduna does so effortlessly, and Galyut compromises so much of herself to exchange trust.
Halmir: He believes in some world previous to Ganeden, as Ganeden is previous to Rith. He thinks there is an infinite regression of worlds. Metaphysically speaking, he isn't necessarily wrong, but there is no evidence that he's right.
Isa: She is convinced (and accurately so!) that Ganeden isn't real as real as Rith. She searches for hints of the true nature of her experiences in this illusory realm.
Jukrogan:
Kalya:
Lovyol:
Maleet:
Nosvo:
Olavias:
Pietr:
Quanya:
Ruz:
Savi:
Torr:
Urein:
Vizixk:
Wings:
Xeileth
Yureit:
Zunatar:
There's at least three patterns to these names. Can you guess them?
Ben
Saturday, February 21, 2009
The Cure for Hero's Kleptomania
Alright, you know how in all the vidjagames, you take whatever the hell you want from everyone? Hero's prerogative, and all that. Ask TvTropes, if you don't care about today's productivity.
The ideas behind The World Ends With You made me think:
What if we could imprint items to our character by touching people's stuff, but without having to take it?
You walk into someone's house and rifle through their stuff, and then just leave. You are able to conjure to your will a facsimile of that item - and, while we're at it, you can sell the ability to do so for spirit currency or whatnot. This allows all of the crunch of the Adventure Game/RPG mechanic of casual robbery, with none of the distasteful suggestions of amoral action. Also, imagine if the really cool items were locked away in museums, and so the difficulty of getting them is in the convincing their owners to let you get your paws on them, or doing it all Sneakers style.
Man, I wanna make a cRPG now.
The ideas behind The World Ends With You made me think:
What if we could imprint items to our character by touching people's stuff, but without having to take it?
You walk into someone's house and rifle through their stuff, and then just leave. You are able to conjure to your will a facsimile of that item - and, while we're at it, you can sell the ability to do so for spirit currency or whatnot. This allows all of the crunch of the Adventure Game/RPG mechanic of casual robbery, with none of the distasteful suggestions of amoral action. Also, imagine if the really cool items were locked away in museums, and so the difficulty of getting them is in the convincing their owners to let you get your paws on them, or doing it all Sneakers style.
Man, I wanna make a cRPG now.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Year Round-up, part 2
Well, someone commented, if a tad derisively, so I'll continue. Perhaps I'll even soon defend my favorites against Alex's wantonly impolite criticism ("And LFD has the depth I would expect from a TC mod for UT2004 or HL2 that someone coded up in 8 hours"? There's no way that's not inflammatory).
So, onward.
MOST INNOVATIVE USE OF THE MEDIUM - Chrono Trigger
For a game that's over twelve years old and is highly respected across the gaming world, I'm surprised that I had missed this one until now. I played it on the DS over the past week or so, and am currently playing my New Game + to collect all the endings. What really surprised me about this game is its repeated peculiar subversions of JRPG mechanics - especially during scenes of story. The game from the very beginning hints at non-linearity (although this game doesn't have too much of it) by allowing you to, for a while, completely ignore the fair you are supposed to attend in favor of taking a cross-continental walk, and even entering your first combats. Later, I was surprised by the amount of freedom Chrono Trigger gives you in what would in other games be straight-up cutscene. It's hard to describe how even the most moderate amount of interactivity amplifies the emotional impact of the scenes in which it occurs. If I ever make a game, I'll certainly employ techniques from this game which, mysteriously, haven't really been seen since.
BEST SMALL GAME - Dyson (From Deadrock-game.com)
Found via Rock, Paper, Shotgun, this tiny game is a simple, beautiful, and peaceful short about solar domination. While its end-game is dull, the beautiful sloth of inter-asteroid spore travel made me quite happy.
KICKASS - Audiosurf
Another February game. Cheap, fun, and fairly synesthetic, I agree with pretty much everything those fine folks at RPS had to say about it in their year's recap. They're a bit better at his "blogging" thing than I am.
More later, possibly even today.
So, onward.
MOST INNOVATIVE USE OF THE MEDIUM - Chrono Trigger
For a game that's over twelve years old and is highly respected across the gaming world, I'm surprised that I had missed this one until now. I played it on the DS over the past week or so, and am currently playing my New Game + to collect all the endings. What really surprised me about this game is its repeated peculiar subversions of JRPG mechanics - especially during scenes of story. The game from the very beginning hints at non-linearity (although this game doesn't have too much of it) by allowing you to, for a while, completely ignore the fair you are supposed to attend in favor of taking a cross-continental walk, and even entering your first combats. Later, I was surprised by the amount of freedom Chrono Trigger gives you in what would in other games be straight-up cutscene. It's hard to describe how even the most moderate amount of interactivity amplifies the emotional impact of the scenes in which it occurs. If I ever make a game, I'll certainly employ techniques from this game which, mysteriously, haven't really been seen since.
BEST SMALL GAME - Dyson (From Deadrock-game.com)
Found via Rock, Paper, Shotgun, this tiny game is a simple, beautiful, and peaceful short about solar domination. While its end-game is dull, the beautiful sloth of inter-asteroid spore travel made me quite happy.
KICKASS - Audiosurf
Another February game. Cheap, fun, and fairly synesthetic, I agree with pretty much everything those fine folks at RPS had to say about it in their year's recap. They're a bit better at his "blogging" thing than I am.
More later, possibly even today.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Games of 2008
Happy New Year, dear reader. 2008 saw me playing a lot more games than I remembered before setting my noggin to compiling a list. I thought it would be rather short, but it appears I actually did purchase and enjoy a rather vast and varied multitude of games. I'll be summing up my favorites over the next few days, and giving them silly little awards.
BEST STORY, BEST MUSIC - Ace Attorney series (Phoenix Wright etc.)
While most of this series came out in previous years (the original Japanese game being released in 2001), both its latest installment and my exhaustive marathon through the series came to the Americas this year. Up front - the music is amazing. Best video game music since Riven, in my book. Very catchy, thematic, and theatrical. Besides the music though, this game is a blast to play. It's like playing a compendium of mystery short stories, except with loads of humor instead of drab attempts at badassery (see CSI). While the gameplay has never pushed any limits, it doesn't have to - both the stories and its beautiful collection of characters made this series skyrocket to "Best DS games ever."
MOST BEAUTIFUL - Sins of a Solar Empire
A February game by Stardock, Sins turned off most of my friends. In fact, I don't even think Chris plays it any more, and I haven't given it a run in a few months. Regardless, I stand by my assertions that the conflicts in this game are the most epic clashes I've controlled with my mouse and keyboard. Most space films and television shows fail to match the raw inertia and elegant destructiveness Sins' starships posess. Additionally, the factions, while largely unexplored in the game due to its lack of a single player campaign, have unique themes and stories to them. Of the three, the Vasari's hopeless attempts at reclaiming cruel dignity strikes at me the most: they are pitiful, these one-time masters of the galaxy - they are relegated to clawing out conquests as their empire crumbles from deep within by some unspeakable force. The game's most powerful asset is its beauty, and that asset is strong indeed.
GOOD OLD FASHIONED FUN - Left 4 Dead
This game makes me gleeful, as much as Team Fortress 2 does. Playing with friends (even those I've only met online) to reap humiliating defeat on unorganized pick-up-gamers is always a treat, but even being on the opposite side of the conflict can be a hilarious blast. Left 4 Dead's greatest achievement, in my book, is making losing fun (as the survivors, at least). While the game lost any vestiges of scariness twenty minutes in, the unadulterated fun I have playing it is wonderful.
BEST GAME OF 2008 - Mount & Blade
I'll be playing this one for a very, very long time. It has so many things going right for it, that its faults are as nothing to me. Hey, that sounds like Riven, don't it? M&B is sandbox RPG done right. It has the best melee combat simulator to date, a dedicated modding scene I've only started to taste, and addictive, good, world-conquering fun which leaves me awake at 4:00 AM thinking it's before midnight.
Comment, and there'll be more entries to come, with more of my games of '08 and elaborations on those only touched upon here.
Ben
BEST STORY, BEST MUSIC - Ace Attorney series (Phoenix Wright etc.)
While most of this series came out in previous years (the original Japanese game being released in 2001), both its latest installment and my exhaustive marathon through the series came to the Americas this year. Up front - the music is amazing. Best video game music since Riven, in my book. Very catchy, thematic, and theatrical. Besides the music though, this game is a blast to play. It's like playing a compendium of mystery short stories, except with loads of humor instead of drab attempts at badassery (see CSI). While the gameplay has never pushed any limits, it doesn't have to - both the stories and its beautiful collection of characters made this series skyrocket to "Best DS games ever."
MOST BEAUTIFUL - Sins of a Solar Empire
A February game by Stardock, Sins turned off most of my friends. In fact, I don't even think Chris plays it any more, and I haven't given it a run in a few months. Regardless, I stand by my assertions that the conflicts in this game are the most epic clashes I've controlled with my mouse and keyboard. Most space films and television shows fail to match the raw inertia and elegant destructiveness Sins' starships posess. Additionally, the factions, while largely unexplored in the game due to its lack of a single player campaign, have unique themes and stories to them. Of the three, the Vasari's hopeless attempts at reclaiming cruel dignity strikes at me the most: they are pitiful, these one-time masters of the galaxy - they are relegated to clawing out conquests as their empire crumbles from deep within by some unspeakable force. The game's most powerful asset is its beauty, and that asset is strong indeed.
GOOD OLD FASHIONED FUN - Left 4 Dead
This game makes me gleeful, as much as Team Fortress 2 does. Playing with friends (even those I've only met online) to reap humiliating defeat on unorganized pick-up-gamers is always a treat, but even being on the opposite side of the conflict can be a hilarious blast. Left 4 Dead's greatest achievement, in my book, is making losing fun (as the survivors, at least). While the game lost any vestiges of scariness twenty minutes in, the unadulterated fun I have playing it is wonderful.
BEST GAME OF 2008 - Mount & Blade
I'll be playing this one for a very, very long time. It has so many things going right for it, that its faults are as nothing to me. Hey, that sounds like Riven, don't it? M&B is sandbox RPG done right. It has the best melee combat simulator to date, a dedicated modding scene I've only started to taste, and addictive, good, world-conquering fun which leaves me awake at 4:00 AM thinking it's before midnight.
Comment, and there'll be more entries to come, with more of my games of '08 and elaborations on those only touched upon here.
Ben
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Review: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness
Penny Arcade Adventures and Hothead Games yesterday released "On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness: Episode One". I swiftly downloaded the demo and, eager to see the rest, purchased and enjoyed the rest of the game. It certainly warrants a repeat play from me, despite its brevity, and I gained much amusement and engagement from it.
So let's start with what I didn't like. Load times were abysmal. Maybe it's the Torque engine, but even small levels took around thirty seconds for my computer to piece together. Larger ones made me wait around a minute, which I found hard to stomach. In one zone, Pelican Bay, a piece of disjointed carnival music plays during the level load, which was creepy the first time, but really annoying thereafter. After a while, I started muting my computer whenever I transfered to that zone. All the other music in the game, though, is great - that piece would have been, too, if I only had to hear it once.
I agree with other reviewers that most of the dialog was pretty lame, but I truly loved Tycho's interactions with his mad-scientist niece Anne-Claire in which the battled wits concerning the existence of paranormal entities. The language they used was both amusing and vivid, as Anne-Claire protests Tycho's undulating fear of the dark gods as it mixes with nostalgia for his days achieving his Apocalyptica degree in university. Good times.
My gameplay concerns only come in when we get to the wandering around phase of the game. In case you didn't know, RSPD is a role playing game that I suppose mostly fits under the Final Fantasy-esque umbrella. Like many RPGs, a good deal of the game involves taking your characters around the environment to have them meet NPCs, collect items, and fight things. In RSPD, unfortunately, I experienced rather shoddy pathfinding in many cases - I would click on a box for the protagonist to shatter with his nightmare landscaping implements, and he would continuously walk into the lamppost between him and this goal until I manually commanded him to go around it. It was a little embarrassing.
And now we get to the good part - what I liked!
Combat was fan-flaming-tastic. Fighting things was extraordinarily fun, once I got Gabe and Tycho on my team (very early on, and near the end of the demo). The combat is a mixture of real-time and turn-based, with the player controlling all three protagonists in skirmishes against up to (I think) seven opponents at a time. It is turn-based in that each character has a speed stat which determines how quickly their actions can be "charged up," but it's real-time
in the fact that the game doesn't pause once an action is charged, and opponents (who also have a speed statistic) will attack when they "choose" - not necessarily the moment they're ready. It's a bit hard to explain - perhaps it's best just to try it out.
The characters each have three types of moves - item usage, basic attacks, and special attacks. The last category is the interesting one. Each protagonist has a little mini-game that you play to successfully pull of a special attack with the maximum violence. Tycho's, for example, requires the player to correctly "Simon says" the WASD notifications on screen within a very short amount of time, making as few mistakes as possible. Their effects can be devastating, and pulling them off is fun. In addition, each party can attempt to block the other's moves by timing a block at the right moment. If pulled off properly, this also enables a counterattack. In short, combat was engaging throughout the game, requiring the player to manage his attention as well as the move order.
One resource I'm grateful that we didn't have to manage with much complexity was the collection of items. In games like Golden Sun and Baldur's Gate, I was always very afraid to use potions or scrolls or whatever because they were in such scarcity. By making those items able to be found only in chests or very rarely on monster drops, they discouraged "hoarding" players like me from using them. In RSPD, while acquiring the items is done in the same way, those chests (boxes and trashcans, in this game) respawned whenever the player left the area. This made the items much more disposable, and summarily more often-used in my play of the game. Managing those items during combat became about determining which effect was necessary, not about which item I felt I most likely wouldn't need in the future.
In addition, the setting was great. New Arcadia, 1922, was a fun place, and the protagonist's quips as you examine each bit of it were very enjoyable to read.
In short, try it out! There's a demo, and the game sums to $20. While I finished it in a day, I was playing rather voraciously, and I still feel it was worth it. I certainly want to see combat like this in the future!
Ben
Can be found at:
http://www.playgreenhouse.com/game/HOTHG-000001-01/
So let's start with what I didn't like. Load times were abysmal. Maybe it's the Torque engine, but even small levels took around thirty seconds for my computer to piece together. Larger ones made me wait around a minute, which I found hard to stomach. In one zone, Pelican Bay, a piece of disjointed carnival music plays during the level load, which was creepy the first time, but really annoying thereafter. After a while, I started muting my computer whenever I transfered to that zone. All the other music in the game, though, is great - that piece would have been, too, if I only had to hear it once.
I agree with other reviewers that most of the dialog was pretty lame, but I truly loved Tycho's interactions with his mad-scientist niece Anne-Claire in which the battled wits concerning the existence of paranormal entities. The language they used was both amusing and vivid, as Anne-Claire protests Tycho's undulating fear of the dark gods as it mixes with nostalgia for his days achieving his Apocalyptica degree in university. Good times.
My gameplay concerns only come in when we get to the wandering around phase of the game. In case you didn't know, RSPD is a role playing game that I suppose mostly fits under the Final Fantasy-esque umbrella. Like many RPGs, a good deal of the game involves taking your characters around the environment to have them meet NPCs, collect items, and fight things. In RSPD, unfortunately, I experienced rather shoddy pathfinding in many cases - I would click on a box for the protagonist to shatter with his nightmare landscaping implements, and he would continuously walk into the lamppost between him and this goal until I manually commanded him to go around it. It was a little embarrassing.
And now we get to the good part - what I liked!
Combat was fan-flaming-tastic. Fighting things was extraordinarily fun, once I got Gabe and Tycho on my team (very early on, and near the end of the demo). The combat is a mixture of real-time and turn-based, with the player controlling all three protagonists in skirmishes against up to (I think) seven opponents at a time. It is turn-based in that each character has a speed stat which determines how quickly their actions can be "charged up," but it's real-time
in the fact that the game doesn't pause once an action is charged, and opponents (who also have a speed statistic) will attack when they "choose" - not necessarily the moment they're ready. It's a bit hard to explain - perhaps it's best just to try it out.
The characters each have three types of moves - item usage, basic attacks, and special attacks. The last category is the interesting one. Each protagonist has a little mini-game that you play to successfully pull of a special attack with the maximum violence. Tycho's, for example, requires the player to correctly "Simon says" the WASD notifications on screen within a very short amount of time, making as few mistakes as possible. Their effects can be devastating, and pulling them off is fun. In addition, each party can attempt to block the other's moves by timing a block at the right moment. If pulled off properly, this also enables a counterattack. In short, combat was engaging throughout the game, requiring the player to manage his attention as well as the move order.
One resource I'm grateful that we didn't have to manage with much complexity was the collection of items. In games like Golden Sun and Baldur's Gate, I was always very afraid to use potions or scrolls or whatever because they were in such scarcity. By making those items able to be found only in chests or very rarely on monster drops, they discouraged "hoarding" players like me from using them. In RSPD, while acquiring the items is done in the same way, those chests (boxes and trashcans, in this game) respawned whenever the player left the area. This made the items much more disposable, and summarily more often-used in my play of the game. Managing those items during combat became about determining which effect was necessary, not about which item I felt I most likely wouldn't need in the future.
In addition, the setting was great. New Arcadia, 1922, was a fun place, and the protagonist's quips as you examine each bit of it were very enjoyable to read.
In short, try it out! There's a demo, and the game sums to $20. While I finished it in a day, I was playing rather voraciously, and I still feel it was worth it. I certainly want to see combat like this in the future!
Ben
Can be found at:
http://www.playgreenhouse.com/game/HOTHG-000001-01/
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Why Riven is the Best Game Ever, Part 5
Five is an important number in Riven. D'ni numerals are base 25, five squared, of course, but Gehn somehow found himself with a connection to the fifth integer, one that guided his life and fittingly found itself a motif in his imprisonment in Riven. Therefore, this post will be the last in this series, and it will go into Gehn, who I submit to be the best villain ever, in any medium.
Gehn is a great person, really. He watched as his entire civilization crumbled around him in horrific terrorist assaults which were inspired by the arrival of his mother to D'ni. He suffered the loss of his wife in childbirth, a wife about whom we know little but it can be assured that their love was mutual, fierce, and tragic.
And still, fifteen years after leaving his son with his mother, Gehn found it in himself to come back for Atrus, to induct him to the Art of crafting links to Ages. This child who had destroyed the shattered bits of life he had tried to collect became his protegee, his first step in rebuilding the glorious, beautiful society of D'ni.
Gehn is a horrible person. He is prolific, but lacks talent and inspiration. He seeks to rebuild D'ni, but he fancies himself a god, last among a godlike people. He creates Ages to subjugate them, caring not for their inhabitants as people but as resources. He numbers his Ages, never names them. He never calls his prison Riven, but rather My Fifth Age, out of his eventual two hundred thirty-three. Atrus, in rebellion against this pathetic excess, trapped his father in Riven to protect other Ages from his ruthlessness, his Machievellan disregard of people in favor of causes.
But more than those, Gehn is a person - elegant, charismatic, and subtle. If you decide not to play Riven, I at least recommend reading his journals and watching the scenes in which he appears on the internet. The game, if you look hard enough, gives terrific and terrifying insights into this god-demon-man, this pathetic greatness of fallibility and aspiration.
I started writing this post in hopes that I can do the man justice - I can't. Honestly, you have to play Riven to truly see how deep, how real, how astounding this man is. There is no villain I can think of who is so believable, so dignified, and so evil in a way that is almost universally understood but in no way trite. Gehn wants his home back, but he forgets it was not a palace for his people, but for the world. D'ni, at its heart and height, is a society of awe, worship, and curiosity for possibility, beauty, and complexity. It is a shrine for the wonderment of the universe in all of its guises.
Truly, in life as in books, the Ending can never be written.
Ben
Gehn is a great person, really. He watched as his entire civilization crumbled around him in horrific terrorist assaults which were inspired by the arrival of his mother to D'ni. He suffered the loss of his wife in childbirth, a wife about whom we know little but it can be assured that their love was mutual, fierce, and tragic.
And still, fifteen years after leaving his son with his mother, Gehn found it in himself to come back for Atrus, to induct him to the Art of crafting links to Ages. This child who had destroyed the shattered bits of life he had tried to collect became his protegee, his first step in rebuilding the glorious, beautiful society of D'ni.
Gehn is a horrible person. He is prolific, but lacks talent and inspiration. He seeks to rebuild D'ni, but he fancies himself a god, last among a godlike people. He creates Ages to subjugate them, caring not for their inhabitants as people but as resources. He numbers his Ages, never names them. He never calls his prison Riven, but rather My Fifth Age, out of his eventual two hundred thirty-three. Atrus, in rebellion against this pathetic excess, trapped his father in Riven to protect other Ages from his ruthlessness, his Machievellan disregard of people in favor of causes.
But more than those, Gehn is a person - elegant, charismatic, and subtle. If you decide not to play Riven, I at least recommend reading his journals and watching the scenes in which he appears on the internet. The game, if you look hard enough, gives terrific and terrifying insights into this god-demon-man, this pathetic greatness of fallibility and aspiration.
I started writing this post in hopes that I can do the man justice - I can't. Honestly, you have to play Riven to truly see how deep, how real, how astounding this man is. There is no villain I can think of who is so believable, so dignified, and so evil in a way that is almost universally understood but in no way trite. Gehn wants his home back, but he forgets it was not a palace for his people, but for the world. D'ni, at its heart and height, is a society of awe, worship, and curiosity for possibility, beauty, and complexity. It is a shrine for the wonderment of the universe in all of its guises.
Truly, in life as in books, the Ending can never be written.
Ben
Friday, January 11, 2008
Riven Nitpicks and Why Riven is the Best Game Ever, Part 4
Riven is elegant, beautiful, et cetera. All the previous information and the next bits still hold true. The game isn't perfect, though - no game is. I will first point out a few moments in the game that are particularly bad, and then go into some broader wishes for the game.
Actually, these instances really boil down to one goal - get inside Gehn's Riven-side office, on Book Assembly Island. There are two basic paths to that:
- The direct path. Land on Book Assembly Island in a cool wood-delivery cart (fun cutscene!) solve a little puzzle about a boiler, explore the drainage tubes, and then get stuck looking at a frog trap. This one is much more horrible, and will be discussed below.
- Hunt-the-pixel for a button on Jungle Island that a player has no reason to expect, to open a ritual shrine-statue, which leads to a mag-lev to Survey island, which leads to a mag-lev to Book Assembly Island. This one is absurd, and is in fact the reverse of what you are supposed to do. That little button is very visible as you come out of the shrine, and is a useful shortcut, but is not intended for players to find without first having seen it in action.
So, the direct path. SCENE: Indoors, afternoon. The Stranger enters a cavernous, dark room through double doors which swing open effortlessly and rest snug against the wall. He (or she) walks a short catwalk over the abyss to a small, salad-tosser-looking device. Manipulating a few buttons, he finds some pellets and a pressure plate, as well as a latch to lower the thing into the pit by chain. A clue here is found for the Rebel Symbols, and the Stranger leaves, satisfied, closing the doors on his way out.
SCENE: Elsewhere on Riven. Stranger suddenly disappears, as the player hits a roadblock in exploration.
What's the thing the player missed? Why, look at those doors! They didn't close behind you, now did they? Scrutinize the metal behemoth bastards and you realize you can close them yourself. And what does this action reveal? To otherwise entirely obscured pathways, one of which leads to a Fire Dome (probably the coolest one in the game), one of which leads to Gehn's office, from where you can depart for Survey Island and discover the "treetop zone" on Jungle Island. This "nod" of exploration is the most daft thing in the game, and many people quit playing because of it. More rational people like me instead decided to cheat and look online, but that shouldn't be necessary in any game.
Nitpick 2: Little reading content. Myst was comparatively loaded with books, holding about ten journals about the various Ages. Riven has Atrus's journal, Catherine's journal, and Gehn's two journals, which I realize is a lot, but I felt that the people of Riven were largely unexplored as a subject in those, and the Age of Riven itself was largely left mentionless. Atrus talked about his attempts to secure a connection to Riven, alluding to the events of Myst, Catherine's (the most revealing setting-wise, but most illegible) discussed the rebellion and the creation of Tay as a stronghold, Gehn's first about his fruitless attempts to escape imprisonment, and his second on his more philosophical and psychological issues. This last journal is a marvel to read.
Still, I wish there were more of it, which brings me to my third point. While exploration was limitless, there is almost nothing you can do besides hunt clues and solve puzzles. This is a failing in a lot of adventure games - I wish there was some way in there to interact with the environment in a neutral way, such as skipping stones or manipulating the infrastructure of the village (pulling looms, for example). It would be nice to have some in game diversion to observe and interact with for the sake of it, not advancing any plot or puzzle, but some way to - within the context of the game - relax to think.
Finally, Riven came from a time when a pen and paper where expected to be brought to the game environment. The notes necessary for a playthrough are copious, and there is no in-game way to store them. I kind of like Myst 4's camera/journal, but holding those passwords in a system like Deus Ex's would have been nice, too, if a bit heavy handed. Either of those systems would be welcomed, though.
Now, part 4: No inventory.
A horrible, horrible cliche in adventure games is the Use Key On Door Syndrome, as named by Ben Crowshaw. Your inventory stacks up, and you just try using everything in your inventory on every hotspot. Ugly. Myst games sidestep the issue by giving highly limited inventories, with each item having a specific, memorable, and limited purpose. Mostly, these are books. Journals, Linking Books, or sheets of Linking Book paper, these are items which either possess information for your perusal (often in the form of a journal of Atrus'), are hard-won keys to complete or continue the plot (the pages), or, rarely, the capability to go to another Age (the books, and I think that the only functioning Linking book you get is in Exile).
Even in Uru, the sparse inventory is observed. You have your Relto Book - your customizable home, panic-button, and central Node to exploring the universe - your clothes (functionless, but pretty and customizable), and your KI - a chat device, GPS, camera, and more on a wristwatch, D'ni made. That's it. Use Key On Door simply doesn't happen in Myst, which is a game about environments. This focus makes puzzles usually a lot less hokey. I'm looking at you, The Longest Journey. Even the Neverhood had a very, very limited inventory, and a system which prevented you from using everything you had on every object to see if there's a result, and if it works in the Neverhood, it's gotta work everywhere.
But more than the hokeyness factor, Riven's puzzle focus on environments captures what adventure games are about - setting, culture, characters and manipulation. It's not about the collection of stuff, even of tools, but rather about touching the world, and interacting with it in a formless way enshrined in Myst's Stranger, a perfect tabula rasa.
Still, sometimes I really wish I could take Gehn's gun. His pipe wouldn't be too bad, either:
Ben
Actually, these instances really boil down to one goal - get inside Gehn's Riven-side office, on Book Assembly Island. There are two basic paths to that:
- The direct path. Land on Book Assembly Island in a cool wood-delivery cart (fun cutscene!) solve a little puzzle about a boiler, explore the drainage tubes, and then get stuck looking at a frog trap. This one is much more horrible, and will be discussed below.
- Hunt-the-pixel for a button on Jungle Island that a player has no reason to expect, to open a ritual shrine-statue, which leads to a mag-lev to Survey island, which leads to a mag-lev to Book Assembly Island. This one is absurd, and is in fact the reverse of what you are supposed to do. That little button is very visible as you come out of the shrine, and is a useful shortcut, but is not intended for players to find without first having seen it in action.
So, the direct path. SCENE: Indoors, afternoon. The Stranger enters a cavernous, dark room through double doors which swing open effortlessly and rest snug against the wall. He (or she) walks a short catwalk over the abyss to a small, salad-tosser-looking device. Manipulating a few buttons, he finds some pellets and a pressure plate, as well as a latch to lower the thing into the pit by chain. A clue here is found for the Rebel Symbols, and the Stranger leaves, satisfied, closing the doors on his way out.
SCENE: Elsewhere on Riven. Stranger suddenly disappears, as the player hits a roadblock in exploration.
What's the thing the player missed? Why, look at those doors! They didn't close behind you, now did they? Scrutinize the metal behemoth bastards and you realize you can close them yourself. And what does this action reveal? To otherwise entirely obscured pathways, one of which leads to a Fire Dome (probably the coolest one in the game), one of which leads to Gehn's office, from where you can depart for Survey Island and discover the "treetop zone" on Jungle Island. This "nod" of exploration is the most daft thing in the game, and many people quit playing because of it. More rational people like me instead decided to cheat and look online, but that shouldn't be necessary in any game.
Nitpick 2: Little reading content. Myst was comparatively loaded with books, holding about ten journals about the various Ages. Riven has Atrus's journal, Catherine's journal, and Gehn's two journals, which I realize is a lot, but I felt that the people of Riven were largely unexplored as a subject in those, and the Age of Riven itself was largely left mentionless. Atrus talked about his attempts to secure a connection to Riven, alluding to the events of Myst, Catherine's (the most revealing setting-wise, but most illegible) discussed the rebellion and the creation of Tay as a stronghold, Gehn's first about his fruitless attempts to escape imprisonment, and his second on his more philosophical and psychological issues. This last journal is a marvel to read.
Still, I wish there were more of it, which brings me to my third point. While exploration was limitless, there is almost nothing you can do besides hunt clues and solve puzzles. This is a failing in a lot of adventure games - I wish there was some way in there to interact with the environment in a neutral way, such as skipping stones or manipulating the infrastructure of the village (pulling looms, for example). It would be nice to have some in game diversion to observe and interact with for the sake of it, not advancing any plot or puzzle, but some way to - within the context of the game - relax to think.
Finally, Riven came from a time when a pen and paper where expected to be brought to the game environment. The notes necessary for a playthrough are copious, and there is no in-game way to store them. I kind of like Myst 4's camera/journal, but holding those passwords in a system like Deus Ex's would have been nice, too, if a bit heavy handed. Either of those systems would be welcomed, though.
Now, part 4: No inventory.
A horrible, horrible cliche in adventure games is the Use Key On Door Syndrome, as named by Ben Crowshaw. Your inventory stacks up, and you just try using everything in your inventory on every hotspot. Ugly. Myst games sidestep the issue by giving highly limited inventories, with each item having a specific, memorable, and limited purpose. Mostly, these are books. Journals, Linking Books, or sheets of Linking Book paper, these are items which either possess information for your perusal (often in the form of a journal of Atrus'), are hard-won keys to complete or continue the plot (the pages), or, rarely, the capability to go to another Age (the books, and I think that the only functioning Linking book you get is in Exile).
Even in Uru, the sparse inventory is observed. You have your Relto Book - your customizable home, panic-button, and central Node to exploring the universe - your clothes (functionless, but pretty and customizable), and your KI - a chat device, GPS, camera, and more on a wristwatch, D'ni made. That's it. Use Key On Door simply doesn't happen in Myst, which is a game about environments. This focus makes puzzles usually a lot less hokey. I'm looking at you, The Longest Journey. Even the Neverhood had a very, very limited inventory, and a system which prevented you from using everything you had on every object to see if there's a result, and if it works in the Neverhood, it's gotta work everywhere.
But more than the hokeyness factor, Riven's puzzle focus on environments captures what adventure games are about - setting, culture, characters and manipulation. It's not about the collection of stuff, even of tools, but rather about touching the world, and interacting with it in a formless way enshrined in Myst's Stranger, a perfect tabula rasa.
Still, sometimes I really wish I could take Gehn's gun. His pipe wouldn't be too bad, either:
Ben
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Why Riven is the Best Game Ever, Part 3
You folk could post a bit more - I'm feeling considerably unloved. Anyway, the solution:
Take the golden symbol from each fire dome, and map it to the colors of the lights on Survey Island - the buttons that turn on the lights are adorned with those eyes. Next, find out the "grid" location of each dome by locating the beasts on the topographical maps. Finally, put each dome's associated color of marble on that dome's coordinates on the board. Then step back, push the button, and appreciate the contained explosion of directed power that fuels your teleportation betwixt worlds. The Fire Dome puzzle (also called the Waffle-Iron puzzle, which is vaguely what the grid device looks like) utilizes the player's ability to freely explore the islands, and encourages the mutual dependence each location has on another.
So, now we'll talk about that free-formliness. At some point yesterday, I had an idea. Riven, like Myst, Exile, and Revelations, is a node-based game,which is to say that the player can click on particular areas to move to them, and then turn about and see things from that node. Exile does this system best, allowing full three-dimensional spinning without clicks, but Riven's system is acceptable. Anyway, the idea was to make a map of Riven, marking each node, and listing the minimum number of clicks it would take a player to reach that point. Surprisingly, at least in my opinion, that number is low fairly universally. The island of Myst would have a low number (as the island is pretty open), but the other Ages in that game would have fairly linear progression of points until the Age's end.
Riven is an exploration dream, in a sense. Very little has to be solved to explore almost the entirety of four of Riven's five islands (Prison Island, though, requires the Fire Domes to be activated). Even the spot of the game's end can be reached in (I believe) two clicks, and with save "abuse," the game can be ended in about thirty clicks, albeit with a fairly unsatisfactory version of said ending.
Which, I suppose, brings me to the next point - this freeform nature allows for the player to screw up the canonical plot in a number of ways. What if you signal Atrus before you kill Gehn? Before you find out about Catherine's state of affairs? What if, stuck on a puzzle, you decide to pull out the Prison Book, and see for yourself what's inside? What if you did so with someone already in there? The game deals with all of these situations, providing endings that range from vaguely amusing, to chilling, to tragic. There are ten endings to the game, and in four of those you get shot. Each of the nine bad endings requires you to do something rather counter to your directives to discover, but after a first playthrough they are fun to try to "collect."
Gehn shoots you - but the game allows for no violence by players. That's always been a must for the Miller brothers, the creators of the Myst franchise, a sentiment which has lasted even
through the MMO Myst game, Uru Live (which is, by the way, great fun with a great group of people. I really need to play it again). Violence in puzzle/adventure games has always disappointed me. In The Longest Journey, they sidestepped the issue by having threats never actually harm you, which I found to be really lame. In that game's sequel, Dreamfall, the "violence" sections were like fighter games without the fun, and were tedious and out of place. In the Trilby games, only Five Days A Stranger did a good fight scene - a single affair with an autosave, a single action needed to save yourself, and a strong satisfaction for saving Trilby from harm. In later games, repeatedly running away from possessed corpses etc. got annoying as hell, especially when they cheated, teleported ahead of you, and claw you just as you're about to enter the next room, where temporary safety lies. On Myst's side lies the Neverhood, where Klayman can only die by doing the most stupid and irresistible action in the game - an hilarious ending, if I may say so.
In short, don't do violence in this sort of game, unless it's short, sweet, and the player's character is on the receiving end. I rather like the pacifist protagonist in these games, a feeling which oddly is amplified by a scarcity of NPCs. Riven has maybe fifteen NPCs in all, all but four of whom occupy but a few moments of screen time, and are there to remind you that the world you are inhabiting isn't a vacuum, but rather a home for these people. The appearances can be genuinely frightening, too, for a person who's been exploring for hours alone. I know the first time I saw the little girl I jumped in my seat.
To get back to the first point, this game's extreme nonlinearity is a great asset to the game. For any endeavors of this sort that I would work on, I would take Riven's game design as a model to follow: give an interconnected game world that they are almost never barred from re-exploring completely at their leisure; give the game's setting plenty of internal consistency and realism, finding purposes for everything and creating pieces of setting for the sole purpose of expressing atmosphere and culture; and make knowledge a primary commodity in the game, some of which is randomized per playthrough, some of which is not, to make gamers both feel challenged in later playthroughs, and rewarded for remembering obscure or complicated facts.
Final notes on that last point: there are three combination locks in the game, all of which are randomized from the game's start. This is why the twenty-click playthrough requires you to load a save: a critical code to complete it is stored about halfway through the game, and even the best players can't predict it until they find it. Because of these combinations and because of the more complex but static nature of the real puzzles, games of Riven range from several weeks to fourteen minutes and thirty one seconds. Compare to the three minutes eighteen of Myst (which is really done in a minute fifty), and I think you'll see why Riven's superior to them. All the links except for the first contain spoilers.
Next time, some nit-picking. A little spoilery, but I'm going to go over the game's worst bits as far as I remember them.
Ben
Take the golden symbol from each fire dome, and map it to the colors of the lights on Survey Island - the buttons that turn on the lights are adorned with those eyes. Next, find out the "grid" location of each dome by locating the beasts on the topographical maps. Finally, put each dome's associated color of marble on that dome's coordinates on the board. Then step back, push the button, and appreciate the contained explosion of directed power that fuels your teleportation betwixt worlds. The Fire Dome puzzle (also called the Waffle-Iron puzzle, which is vaguely what the grid device looks like) utilizes the player's ability to freely explore the islands, and encourages the mutual dependence each location has on another.
So, now we'll talk about that free-formliness. At some point yesterday, I had an idea. Riven, like Myst, Exile, and Revelations, is a node-based game,which is to say that the player can click on particular areas to move to them, and then turn about and see things from that node. Exile does this system best, allowing full three-dimensional spinning without clicks, but Riven's system is acceptable. Anyway, the idea was to make a map of Riven, marking each node, and listing the minimum number of clicks it would take a player to reach that point. Surprisingly, at least in my opinion, that number is low fairly universally. The island of Myst would have a low number (as the island is pretty open), but the other Ages in that game would have fairly linear progression of points until the Age's end.
Riven is an exploration dream, in a sense. Very little has to be solved to explore almost the entirety of four of Riven's five islands (Prison Island, though, requires the Fire Domes to be activated). Even the spot of the game's end can be reached in (I believe) two clicks, and with save "abuse," the game can be ended in about thirty clicks, albeit with a fairly unsatisfactory version of said ending.
Which, I suppose, brings me to the next point - this freeform nature allows for the player to screw up the canonical plot in a number of ways. What if you signal Atrus before you kill Gehn? Before you find out about Catherine's state of affairs? What if, stuck on a puzzle, you decide to pull out the Prison Book, and see for yourself what's inside? What if you did so with someone already in there? The game deals with all of these situations, providing endings that range from vaguely amusing, to chilling, to tragic. There are ten endings to the game, and in four of those you get shot. Each of the nine bad endings requires you to do something rather counter to your directives to discover, but after a first playthrough they are fun to try to "collect."
Gehn shoots you - but the game allows for no violence by players. That's always been a must for the Miller brothers, the creators of the Myst franchise, a sentiment which has lasted even
through the MMO Myst game, Uru Live (which is, by the way, great fun with a great group of people. I really need to play it again). Violence in puzzle/adventure games has always disappointed me. In The Longest Journey, they sidestepped the issue by having threats never actually harm you, which I found to be really lame. In that game's sequel, Dreamfall, the "violence" sections were like fighter games without the fun, and were tedious and out of place. In the Trilby games, only Five Days A Stranger did a good fight scene - a single affair with an autosave, a single action needed to save yourself, and a strong satisfaction for saving Trilby from harm. In later games, repeatedly running away from possessed corpses etc. got annoying as hell, especially when they cheated, teleported ahead of you, and claw you just as you're about to enter the next room, where temporary safety lies. On Myst's side lies the Neverhood, where Klayman can only die by doing the most stupid and irresistible action in the game - an hilarious ending, if I may say so.
In short, don't do violence in this sort of game, unless it's short, sweet, and the player's character is on the receiving end. I rather like the pacifist protagonist in these games, a feeling which oddly is amplified by a scarcity of NPCs. Riven has maybe fifteen NPCs in all, all but four of whom occupy but a few moments of screen time, and are there to remind you that the world you are inhabiting isn't a vacuum, but rather a home for these people. The appearances can be genuinely frightening, too, for a person who's been exploring for hours alone. I know the first time I saw the little girl I jumped in my seat.
To get back to the first point, this game's extreme nonlinearity is a great asset to the game. For any endeavors of this sort that I would work on, I would take Riven's game design as a model to follow: give an interconnected game world that they are almost never barred from re-exploring completely at their leisure; give the game's setting plenty of internal consistency and realism, finding purposes for everything and creating pieces of setting for the sole purpose of expressing atmosphere and culture; and make knowledge a primary commodity in the game, some of which is randomized per playthrough, some of which is not, to make gamers both feel challenged in later playthroughs, and rewarded for remembering obscure or complicated facts.
Final notes on that last point: there are three combination locks in the game, all of which are randomized from the game's start. This is why the twenty-click playthrough requires you to load a save: a critical code to complete it is stored about halfway through the game, and even the best players can't predict it until they find it. Because of these combinations and because of the more complex but static nature of the real puzzles, games of Riven range from several weeks to fourteen minutes and thirty one seconds. Compare to the three minutes eighteen of Myst (which is really done in a minute fifty), and I think you'll see why Riven's superior to them. All the links except for the first contain spoilers.
Next time, some nit-picking. A little spoilery, but I'm going to go over the game's worst bits as far as I remember them.
Ben
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Why Riven is the Best Game Ever, Part 2
The Fire Dome puzzle - oh, how I love thee. This puzzle, truly, is the hardest and most beautiful puzzle in the game. You find your first clues - which are also, in a sense, your reward for completion - way, way beforehand. The items in question: On each island, there is a dome that looks vaguely like a world globe, spinning very quickly. Embossed on each side are circles of eye motifs, with each symbol a slightly modified version of the previous, until a cycle is made. Nearby, there is a camera-like device with a button on it, and a strobe-like reading of the symbols. Here, it is illuminated that one of those symbols is golden - a unique one per island. When you push the button as the gold symbol passes, the dome opens up in a spectacular animation. Upon closer investigation, it is revealed that there are five sliders on a 25-notch path. With no further clues to go on, the player leaves.
Later, the player will discover Catherine's journal, which, amidst other great detail, includes the code to open the domes. It also tells you that the books within the domes aren't powered (a long story) and that to use them to drop a visit to Gehn, the player will have to find a way to give the domes the power to teleport him to Gehn's new Age.
Another clue is found on Survey Island: maps. One of them is a view of Riven from a bird's eye, using the Age's weird water physics to construct representations of any given island's topography. The other is a 25 by 25 grid of topographical sectors of Riven, with the fire domes highlighted (sensing a motif?). However, a player may only examine the island that the larger map is set to. At first playthrough, this seems like a curiosity, or some ridiculous puzzle.
The last clue also comes from Survey Island, in Gehn's little "aquarium." He's tied up colored lights to a control panel, to train his Wahrks (think sharks, with tusks and trapezoidish bodies) to be his little Pavlovian executioners. The symbols for the colors match the eye-like symbols.
Finally, though, the player comes full circle and finds himself staring one of the most glorious sights in the game: the Temple Dome, a huge, golden monstrosity filled with iridescent water and a nexus of pipes from around the Age - pipes which connect to the Fire Domes. And then they see this a 25x25 grid, and six marbles of different colors. And, maybe, everything comes together.
Tune in next time for the next part of the review.
Ben
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Why Riven is the Best Game Ever
"So you get more than one 'one.'"
"Some people are lucky. I've had a few ones."
"So how many ones can you have?"
"...Five."
"How many have you had?"
"Three. How many have you had?"
"Just one. Just one."
- Flight of the Conchords
At my dorm, a lot of discussion goes into "the best video game ever." Alex, following Jemaine's lead, has a set of multiple titles, each of which is the "best video game ever." Deus Ex, Nethack, the Neverhood - all of these are award winners in his book.Like in so many things in life, I am a bit more like Bret. There's only one game that compares to perfection for me, and the title of this post having already having spoiled it, I'll dispense with ado and start raving on the merits of Riven.
Riven - in addition to its beautiful imagery, unspeakably awe-inspiring music, and solid plot with well-acted characters - has simply the best game design I've ever seen. Perhaps the point-and-click interface would make some question that. Even if we ignored the fact that the interface was requisite to maintain Cyan's high art standard involving live actors and pre-rendered images, I argue that the interface does not detract from the game design. Game design is the architecture of the goals and obstacles that a player encounters on their quest through the game. In Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, the combat sections were rife with bad game design choices (let's not even consider Warrior Within). In F.E.A.R. map design was a problem, as was combat's repetitiveness. Dreamfall, in the same genre as Riven, made such a bad game that I don't really consider it to be one, but rather a beautiful story presented in an interactive manner. Suddenly, I realize I have a lot of thoughts on that game, but I'll delve into it later.
Riven has nothing of the sort, so far as I can see. Unlike Myst, the game gives you a direction - capture Gehn, discover what has happened to Catherine. Unlike Myst, the puzzles aren't contrived - certainly not if compared to other video games. This is not to say Myst is a bad game, but Riven outpaces it in every regard except for reading material provided in-game.
The game has five puzzles. Total. They are huge, sprawling puzzles, with clues spread across the islands, but I can only think of five things in the game that are really puzzles, and not nods of exploration (some of which could be very tough) or password-entering. Enumerated:
- The Round Room
- Decyphering D'ni Numerals
- The Rebel Symbols
- Powering the Fire Domes
- Opening the Fissure
Of these, one puzzle shines out: the Fire Domes. I'll have a whole post on that one.
Looking over a walkthrough, I can see a number of other things that you could call puzzles - opening a fan, or emptying water from a boiler, or navigating a submersible tram - but those are those "nods" I was talking about. The above five have clues, controls, or consequences across the entire game. The Round Room, the first encountered puzzle, is the most straightforward, requiring only the exploration instinct that drives a player forward and simple logic to solve - but your "rewards" for the action are not immediately obvious, but satisfactory enough to prod a player onward.
Understanding D'ni numerals is a key part of the game, enough that I would call it a puzzle. This one, however, is not explicit. The best way to learn the numbers, in game, is to go to the shabby little school in the desolate village on Riven. You play a most horrible children's game of number-hangman until you have a grasp. It isn't horrible to play - in fact, it's quite fun - it is horrible in its morbidity. The game is a threat, propaganda, and a device to mold the Rivenese population to Gehn's beck and call regardless of the morality of the lessons. These numbers, in addition to being beautiful and the pride and joy of Myst fanboys and fangirls everywhere (and the love is indeed quite international), are key to the remaining puzzles. Each of them.
The Rebels' symbols is a puzzle of exploration and imagination. At some stage, you are trying to find the hideout of the people who rebel against Gehn, the Moeity, as they are called. At the very least, you are trying to find out to where a prisoner you thought you just freed disappeared. Eventually, you find yourself in a circle of stones with funny creatures on them, and, baffled, you go off to look for clues.
The thing is, everywhere the villagers have access, there is some indication of what the "password" is, each clue in some way indicating some sort of animal, and a number. The indication was intended by the Moiety to be both visual and auditory, but in true Myst fashion, part of their system broke, leaving enough information to find the answer, but not enough for it to be easy. Unlike in many games, this doesn't feel Deus Ex Machina-ish, as the sabotage is justified and realistic.
I want to wrap this up now, with the last two puzzles for later, but I want one thing above all to remain clear: each of these puzzles feels real. They each feel like something someone would do to protect people from mucking with what belongs to Gehn, to make people in awe of Gehn, or to help people oppose Gehn. The villain's presence, which on screen is very momentary, is present throughout the game. Gehn is my favorite villain in a game, with GLaDOS coming very close and Andrew Ryan behind her, if we pretended Bioshock ended where it should have, but that's neither here nor there. The point is, Riven pulls off puzzles and exploration in a way that is realistic, fun, and insanely elegant, and I think more games need to learn from its example. No more block pushing or key hunting, but dynamic searching through a world to gain an understanding of the pieces already seen.
Oh, right, did I mention that you can solve most of these puzzles at a time of your choosing, in the order that you like, exploring willy-nilly throughout Riven without so much as a hint of linearity until the very end (where it's still only a hint)? No? Well, I did now.
More thoughts tomorrow, I hope.
Ben
"Some people are lucky. I've had a few ones."
"So how many ones can you have?"
"...Five."
"How many have you had?"
"Three. How many have you had?"
"Just one. Just one."
- Flight of the Conchords
At my dorm, a lot of discussion goes into "the best video game ever." Alex, following Jemaine's lead, has a set of multiple titles, each of which is the "best video game ever." Deus Ex, Nethack, the Neverhood - all of these are award winners in his book.Like in so many things in life, I am a bit more like Bret. There's only one game that compares to perfection for me, and the title of this post having already having spoiled it, I'll dispense with ado and start raving on the merits of Riven.
Riven - in addition to its beautiful imagery, unspeakably awe-inspiring music, and solid plot with well-acted characters - has simply the best game design I've ever seen. Perhaps the point-and-click interface would make some question that. Even if we ignored the fact that the interface was requisite to maintain Cyan's high art standard involving live actors and pre-rendered images, I argue that the interface does not detract from the game design. Game design is the architecture of the goals and obstacles that a player encounters on their quest through the game. In Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, the combat sections were rife with bad game design choices (let's not even consider Warrior Within). In F.E.A.R. map design was a problem, as was combat's repetitiveness. Dreamfall, in the same genre as Riven, made such a bad game that I don't really consider it to be one, but rather a beautiful story presented in an interactive manner. Suddenly, I realize I have a lot of thoughts on that game, but I'll delve into it later.
Riven has nothing of the sort, so far as I can see. Unlike Myst, the game gives you a direction - capture Gehn, discover what has happened to Catherine. Unlike Myst, the puzzles aren't contrived - certainly not if compared to other video games. This is not to say Myst is a bad game, but Riven outpaces it in every regard except for reading material provided in-game.
The game has five puzzles. Total. They are huge, sprawling puzzles, with clues spread across the islands, but I can only think of five things in the game that are really puzzles, and not nods of exploration (some of which could be very tough) or password-entering. Enumerated:
- The Round Room
- Decyphering D'ni Numerals
- The Rebel Symbols
- Powering the Fire Domes
- Opening the Fissure
Of these, one puzzle shines out: the Fire Domes. I'll have a whole post on that one.
Looking over a walkthrough, I can see a number of other things that you could call puzzles - opening a fan, or emptying water from a boiler, or navigating a submersible tram - but those are those "nods" I was talking about. The above five have clues, controls, or consequences across the entire game. The Round Room, the first encountered puzzle, is the most straightforward, requiring only the exploration instinct that drives a player forward and simple logic to solve - but your "rewards" for the action are not immediately obvious, but satisfactory enough to prod a player onward.
Understanding D'ni numerals is a key part of the game, enough that I would call it a puzzle. This one, however, is not explicit. The best way to learn the numbers, in game, is to go to the shabby little school in the desolate village on Riven. You play a most horrible children's game of number-hangman until you have a grasp. It isn't horrible to play - in fact, it's quite fun - it is horrible in its morbidity. The game is a threat, propaganda, and a device to mold the Rivenese population to Gehn's beck and call regardless of the morality of the lessons. These numbers, in addition to being beautiful and the pride and joy of Myst fanboys and fangirls everywhere (and the love is indeed quite international), are key to the remaining puzzles. Each of them.
The Rebels' symbols is a puzzle of exploration and imagination. At some stage, you are trying to find the hideout of the people who rebel against Gehn, the Moeity, as they are called. At the very least, you are trying to find out to where a prisoner you thought you just freed disappeared. Eventually, you find yourself in a circle of stones with funny creatures on them, and, baffled, you go off to look for clues.
The thing is, everywhere the villagers have access, there is some indication of what the "password" is, each clue in some way indicating some sort of animal, and a number. The indication was intended by the Moiety to be both visual and auditory, but in true Myst fashion, part of their system broke, leaving enough information to find the answer, but not enough for it to be easy. Unlike in many games, this doesn't feel Deus Ex Machina-ish, as the sabotage is justified and realistic.
I want to wrap this up now, with the last two puzzles for later, but I want one thing above all to remain clear: each of these puzzles feels real. They each feel like something someone would do to protect people from mucking with what belongs to Gehn, to make people in awe of Gehn, or to help people oppose Gehn. The villain's presence, which on screen is very momentary, is present throughout the game. Gehn is my favorite villain in a game, with GLaDOS coming very close and Andrew Ryan behind her, if we pretended Bioshock ended where it should have, but that's neither here nor there. The point is, Riven pulls off puzzles and exploration in a way that is realistic, fun, and insanely elegant, and I think more games need to learn from its example. No more block pushing or key hunting, but dynamic searching through a world to gain an understanding of the pieces already seen.
Oh, right, did I mention that you can solve most of these puzzles at a time of your choosing, in the order that you like, exploring willy-nilly throughout Riven without so much as a hint of linearity until the very end (where it's still only a hint)? No? Well, I did now.
More thoughts tomorrow, I hope.
Ben
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