progression through failure

I just want to emphasize a point I made the other day. Players can, and generally should, progress even as they fail.

You can see this in games like Diablo 2 and Borderlands. When you die, you don't lose the experience points you gained on the way to your goal (such as killing a boss mob).

That ensures, in a natural way, that players will eventually overcome any challenge. Failure doesn't mean reset. You're always progressing.

The frustration a player feels in response to failure is nothing compared to the frustration of being stuck. The player must always feel like he or she is making progress... even when that player is performing poorly.

gradual indicators (navigation)

Maps are the most common way to guide players around games. Other methods include beacons, landmarks, a compass, trails, and many other things.

Another option I rarely see is what I'll call gradual indicators. By that I mean, a visual feature becomes stronger/weaker or more/less common as the player nears certain places or objects of importance. These gradual indicators can lessen or even negate the need for UI methods which distract from the gameworld.

For example, elevation can be used in this way. In Rise of the Argonauts, the player knows whether he is running towards the palace or the docks of Mycenae by whether the path is sloping upward or downward. The same method can be used in any number of settings, including dungeons and roads. The degree of a slope can be telling, too. If two paths both lead up a mountain, one can be recognizable from the other if it is significantly steeper.

Vegetation can be a gradual indicator. Grass and shrubs might grow tall in one area and shrink or die out toward another. Oaks might dominate one area while mesquite trees dominate another. Both trees might habit an area, but the ratio between them could indicate to the player in which direction he is headed.

Architecture and objects can be used in the same way. The facades of buildings and their relationships to each other (such as how far apart they are) can indicate if the area the player is proceeding toward is wealthy or poor, old or new, damaged or undamaged (by war, weather, or graffiti), and so on. Statues and decorations can change in frequency or in subject through an environment. The type of shops or their names can change in style and tone.

Even audio can lead players. The roar of a waterfall or pounding of waves can gradually rise in volume as the player nears them. Likewise, the sounds of animals, the firing of weapons, the chatter and laughter or shouts of NPCs, or a thousand other things.

Animations and even environmental A.I. can guide players. As a player nears a battlefield, he might increasing notice NPCs crouched over and weeping. Or NPCs might be increasingly erratic and skittish... increasingly distressed as the player nears the source of that distress. The NPCs might pace, look around fearfully, or chatter to themselves. Think of the A.I. in Batman: Arkham Asylum and how the Joker's men act differently as they become more aware of Batman's presence and are afraid.

There are countless forms gradual indicators can take. The goal is to help players navigate environments without having to take their eyes off the gameworld or see anything that takes their attention off the story they're experiencing.

filler

Lately, I've been going back and forth between Borderlands and Brütal Legend. A noticeable difference between them is the effect of music in Brütal Legend to make travel between missions less mundane.

Borderlands has good music. In fact, I've been surprised how many of my friends have mentioned it. But it's environmental music, accompaniment, rather than the rock songs of Brütal Legend which invite more attention.

Plus, Brütal Legend's landscape is full of monuments and amusing objects. There are trees made of exhaust pipes, beer bottle bushes, and giant stone swords sticking out of the hills. Stuff like this gives the player something to laugh and marvel at while driving around.

A little space between events in play isn't a bad thing. But it's good to offer the player something to enjoy in that downtime, so the player's enthusiasm never wanes. This is particularly important in games that are meant to be replayed.

creature depth

In S.T.A.L.K.E.R., dogs act differently depending on how many fellow dogs are around. When alone, they run away. In large packs, they will attack. And when the player kills most of the dogs in a pack, the survivors lose courage and run for safety.

This sort of depth, simple as it is, adds considerably to the richness of a gameworld. It could potentially add strategic depth as well. Notice that it's not just behavior but also goal priority which changes in that dog example.

Connecting AI behavior to stuff like population and environment is something I'd like to see more of.

elevation

I've been having a lot of fun in Battlefield 1943 on Xbox Live. I'll post a full review soon, perhaps tomorrow, but I want to point out one feature in particular which I'd like to see in more FPS games.

1943 makes great use of elevation. Half or more of each map isn't flat. As a result, players are constantly using hill slopes and water banks as cover. The maps are almost entirely exterior, but players are still constantly surprised by enemies coming up from behind, below, or above them... or even right in front of them (hidden by a slope).


Elevation plays a strategic role in anti-tank combat, since tanks are vulnerable to explosives on top, just behind the cannon. A tank can drive onto some raised areas, but then its guns are useless as they cannot aim down.

Elevation also provides for some unique experiences. I once drove a tank up a slope that was barely wide enough for it. Below the end of the incline was a hill checkpoint, particularly hard to capture. Players are used to infantry attacking from the incline I was using, but not used to seeing tanks there. I kept driving forward and dropped my tank on top of an enemy, crushing him. Another unique experience is hearing a plane but not seeing it until it appears from behind a hill and drops its bombs on you.

I'm sure even more could be accomplished when elevation is considered an explicit game feature.

empty space

Take a minute to look at this picture:


Such an impressive image, yet so empty.

Empty is good sometimes. Space without objects isn't always wasted space.

fill those buildings!

I was thinking of games like The Godfather II, Saints Row 2, and GTA IV... about how the cities are so big but also full of empty buildings. For every two-story structure you can enter and enjoy, there are dozens of shops, homes, and skyrises that are locked and might as well be stage paintings. That's understandable. Open world games like those already offer a lot of content, and a huge world with limited content placed amid stage props is often more fun than the alternative.

But perhaps there's a way to have our cake and eat it too.

Bioware forever changed the gaming landscape by including their Aurora toolkit with Neverwinter Nights. The intuitive software Bioware used to create the Neverwinter campaign was given to players so that anyone could design further adventures using the same assets. To date, literally hundreds, if not thousands, of adventures have been crafted by amateur designers with the Aurora toolkit. And while much of that content is basic and shallow, a community has arisen that recognizes the best designs and encourages quality contributions.

A long and deep, but ultimately finite game, was made infinite and ever new by enabling players to design additional content using developer-provided assets and tools.

Why can't games like GTA and Saints Row do that?

In the case of these games, players could expand not only out but also in. It's time to fill all those empty buildings. That can be accomplished by sharing the load with creative players. Design your big city or vast countryside. Polish it. Complete it. But then let players fill in the gaps.



Bioware has already demonstrated how this can be done efficiently -- create and maintain a player community that weeds out the bad input and sublimates the good stuff. So what if the game is for the 360 or PS3? The professionals designed it on PCs, right? Is there any reason content created by players in a PC community can't be transferred to the consoles as DLC?

Keep in mind, I'm not talking about MMOs. I'm talking about single-player and limited-mulitplayer games being fleshed out by a player community, ala The Sims 2. The idea has been out there for years. I'm just wondering why is hasn't been applied to some genres of games.

keep mood and tone dynamic

A friend suggested that Fallout 3 is "too soulless for its own good". I have to agree. It's a great game, certainly. But the relentless dreariness works against it.

Dynamics in mood and tone are vital for any RPG, and games in general. This is particularly true for visual presentation.

Fallout 3's environmental design is really impressive, particularly due to the scope and level of detail. But it's bleak, almost without exception. That certainly fits the story and the overall tone of the game. However, too much consecutive bleakness ultimately has the same effect it would have in true life -- it drains enthusiasm and motivation.

With a game so big, there are undoubtedly factors at play which differ from player to player. If you initially focus on wandering and sidequests, as I did, then it can be a very long time before you enter Tenpenny Tower or the wooded sanctuary. For perspective, I've spent dozens of hours in the game and explored much of the world, but am hardly beyond Tenpenny in the main questline.

In any case, it's good in any RPG to offer a variety of environments with different color palettes and tones, as well as missions/quests and encounters with a variety of moods. Dynamics provide freshness, which is necessary to maintain momentum and excitement. This is one of the reasons I think color palettes and elegant designs like World of Warcraft uses are the best visual design option for the majority of games.

I still enjoy Fallout 3 (though I haven't played in a while), but the different areas and experiences of the gameworld started to blend together after a while.

in favor of gore and violence

I have mixed feelings about graphic violence in war games.

On the one hand, if you intend for a war game to be educational and didactic, then your depiction of war should be as realistically graphic as possible. There's a limit to how much reality most game consumers will take, of course. The full horrors of our world are not shown even in schools or on TV because relatively few people are willing to face absolutely everything. But the more education that can be sneaked in, the better.

On the other hand, it's easy and wrong to relish the gore too much. Some enjoyment is benign, I think. Young boys cross-culturally play war games (not speaking of video games), and enjoyment of violence goes hand-in-hand with that instinct. A thrill from battle is natural, including gory signs of victory. But that, like any instinctual desire, has a proper place and manner. The appetite for violence can and should be directed, moderated, and bloodlust (gore) with it.

Enjoyment of gore is founded in a taste for victory, I believe. When you see the head of your sniper's victim explode like a watermelon, it can be more satisfying feedback than simply seeing the victim fall down. When your battleaxe hits home and you hear a pained cry mixed with the sound of flesh tearing and bone shattering, that's a taste of competitive success.

I have great respect for films in which bullet wounds are intentionally invisible or merely red stains (like John Wayne films, or The Hunt for Red October). Gore can be good feedback or good education, even integral to storytelling, but subtlety can also be good. The absence of gore can better focus the audience's attention on other elements. Game designers should always ask which way better suits their particular game.

Anyway! As usual, I'm getting off track.

That article made me think of the irony that the game restrictions intended to honor social concerns are very often in the way of serving those values.

For example, children cannot be killed in games. Children in games like Neverwinter Nights, Fable 2, and Fallout 3 are invulnerable (yes, it's sad that I know this). Bioshock allows the player to kill the child-like "Little Sisters", but the screen fades out when this happens. Truth-conscious war games have yet to represent the reality that combatants are commonly children (often teenagers, sometimes younger) or even include them as bystanders. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is getting a sequel, but what are the chances it will have kids with assault rifles, militants residing with their families, or terrorists stationing supplies and soldiers in schools and churches?

Yet what would push home the nature of urban combat to gamers better than having to face women and children with guns?

Rather than forbid gore and uncomfortable scenarios, those interested in socially productive gaming should encourage developers to include such things and provide intuitive commentary.

Intuitive commentary means unspoken commentary; gameworld consequences and reactions beyond dialogue. Soldiers visibly shaken by the deaths of their comrades. Non-player combatants being crippled, rather than slain. The dead abandoned, their corpses stripped by poor locals and nibbled on by crows and dogs. Wailing mothers and grandmothers. Lost, crying children.

Intuitive commentary means reward and punishment. Save an ally and he might watch your back a little more closely. Spare what enemies you can and you might receive valuable information, face softer resistance from noncombatants, or even make a friend. Kill too many noncombatants and your allies will turn against you (the game ends... restart). Kill some kid who's aiming a gun at you and expect the family to seek revenge. Place a landmine, and don't expect to be able to control who dies by it.

As I said earlier, I acknowledge that there is a limit to what consumers of entertainment are willing to endure. Films like Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, and Black Hawk Down have demonstrated that the average consumer will endure a great deal if the presentation of that uncomfortable content is artful and meaningful. Games, being interactive, can probably not push quite as far, but are still capable of much more than the industry has generally been willing to explore as of yet.

I'm not saying all war games should be seriously toned and educational. I'm just saying that if you're making a serious game, gore and other nasty elements can be used toward noble ends. They don't have to be about feeding immoderate impulses. The industry is currently bound by certain social restrictions, but designers will have more and more room to explore mature content if they can demonstrate to society how it might be done tastefully and productively.

when two make one

I remember being fascinated when it was first pointed out to me that "fist" is both a noun and a verb. A fist is a hand clenching. Likewise, you can sometimes put two or more objects together and they become one object, even if they are still acting independently.

I thought about this as I was playing Fallout 3 the other day and saw a small herd of cattle roaming down a street. Until that moment, I had played the game for over 40 hours and had never seen a cow grouped with another. Merely by grouping four or five together on a casual journey through a ruined city, Bethesda's developers created a new and memorable experience for me.

The point is that developers don't always have to create new visual assets or even tweak existing assets to produce new content. Sometimes all you have to do is arrange old content in a new and meaningful way.

signs of life

I'll admit it: I'm easily impressed.

When I played Crackdown recently, I was about to start climbing a building when the light went on in one of the windows. Nothing else happened. There were no shadows of people or even lamps or couches near the glass. But it was cool anyway, because it inspired my imagination to believe there was life on the other side.

Active NPCs generally offer the most powerful impression that a gameworld is alive, but you can use inanimate objects and the simplest of looped events to great effect. Window lights, a trail of paw prints next to a trash can, a chair knocked onto its back, an abandoned car with the hood up, a fire burning where nobody is around, a sign with graffiti over it, etc.

The key is that these simple objects suggest actions; that they let the player invent stories to explain a happening. In contrast, the layout of a room or a building's architecture offer information about culture and personality -- adjectives, rather than verbs. If you start the audience with a verb, any related adjectives are much more interesting. A fort naturally hints at a need to guard against enemies, but a fort with a broken gate and charred arrows still sticking in blackened rooftops hints at a recent battle... which makes the threat of enemies more relevant and interesting.

Players already, without any coaxing, want to believe that your gameworld is depthful and alive. It takes so little to feed their imaginations, so fill your world with little things.

Indoors, outdoors, no doors

Admittedly, it's not all that developed, but I've been keeping a list for some time of all of my favorite games (past or present) and the features that make them so great. I've got the list to help me find the connections, the variables I like, and so I can combine them in interesting ways. Combining elements of different genres can result in really cool concepts. For proof, check out the upcoming Endwar.

Anyway, so the most recent addition to my list is a feature from Medal of Honor: Airborne. I can't wait to get my hands on the full game, because I've played the demo at least a dozen times (I beat it on Expert difficulty using nothing but a pistol, last time through).

Of its many cool features, one struck me as being directly applicable to MMOs and RPGs: seamless movement and interaction between outdoors and indoors within the same environment.

Think about it. How often in MMOs is an adventure area, a combat area in particular, both indoors and outdoors? How often do indoor settings and outdoor settings directly interact?

To clarify what I mean, let me explain what it's like in Airborne. The demo level is urban warfare. You're ducking behind sandbags and the sides of buildings as you fight your way down a city street. But some jerk's shooting at you from a window of the building next to you. You shoot him, but then some other jerk takes his place and fires at you. Enough of this! So you run into the building to clear it out. Enemies have flipped over tables to use as cover. They hide behind beds, or around corners. But, man by man, you take 'em down until you're standing by a window. Pow! You get smacked in the helmet by a bullet from outside. Some enemies in the street below have noticed you at the window and are shooting up. And there's an enemy in a window of the building across from this one who's firing at you, too.

Seamless outdoor/indoor interaction. The guys outside interact with those inside, and vis versa.

Wouldn't this be a great experience to have in an MMO?