DOWNLOADABLE COMMMENT

Mixed Feelings: The Path

2009-06-09T15:44:00Z

I strongly want to support the development of indie games, especially those that attempt to introduce new ways of presenting narrative mechanics, but I just can't wholeheartedly endorse Tale of Tales' release: The Path.

The Path asks the player to guide a series of sisters around a forest environment to retrieve their traumatic memories. Before I even get into listing the pros and cons of game, I want to say it feels strange that I, the player, am controlling the sisters to discover their memories because I have no reason to believe the girls themselves have lost said memories. It just seems like a strange disconnect, like ordering a friend to dig through a ton of old photos of him to learn something specific about him, rather than simply asking him directly.

Does that make sense? These girls already know the stuff I'm discovering. It's not like in BioShock where the player and his in-game persona are learning things about the people of Rapture together. It would be as though he already knows everything, but you don't.

Anyway, to speed things up, I just ran these off as a series of +/- bullet points.

+ Moving the camera up while running is a good way to encourage walking because you can see less.
+ I like the way larger overlay images of items you're near appear on screen.
+ Art style is nice.

- Having the little flower things you collect fade out when running feels like a dick move. Just because I start running towards something doesn't mean I should lose track of it.
- In-game text can be hard to read depending on the lighting and overlay images.
- It can feel confusing as to where you're supposed to go, even with the HUD icons and little girl in white. They needed to either explain the game more, or be more clever about building explanation into the gameplay, because a couple hours in and there are still some confusing things.
- Female vocals in music are annoying.
- You can't tell how much more you should run around looking at things before trying to find your wolf. Ex: I saw a guy sitting on bench and sat with him. I figured he was that sister's wolf, but didn't know until afterward that there were more things I could've unlocked for her. And you can't go back and replay the same sister again (which matters because some objects are specific to certain sisters).
- Navigation through Grandma's house is retarded (apologies for the high-minded terminology). It's like they made players hit random movement keys just to keep up the "interaction". But that's not interactivity.
- I don't like that I can't look around with the mouse unless I'm walking/running. Huh?
- HUD icons don't always make sense. I saw a drawing of a bird so I navigated to it, but there was nothing there and the image swung around the HUD as I tried to locate whatever was "supposed" to be there. Didn't remember picking up anything bird-related earlier so I didn't know what was going on. Also, a cemetery icon appeared after I had visited it and I couldn't figure out if I was supposed to return (because there didn't seem to be anything else to do there), or if it was just reference.
- I know it sounds "game-y" but I want to be able to bring up a map and see the known places I've visited. Also, I want to tag certain places/objects that are specific to sisters other than the one I am playing as, since I won't remember later and don't feel like writing it down on a piece of paper. I'm pretty sure the developer's won't budge on this, but I'd enjoy the game better that way, even it if was more conventional.
- Bug? I saved my game and quit after finding one sister's wolf, but before entering Grandma's house. When I reloaded the game days later, I was back in the sister-choosing room with that one sister gone so I never got to experience her visit to Grandma's house.
- Speaking of Grandma's house - after you see your wolf the slow walking into the house is absolutely interminable. I literally started reading through my mail with one hand while pressing the up arrow with the other hand.

I'm still glad I bought the game. But for me, it's more of a learning piece about what works and what doesn't, rather than a complete and satisfying experience. Strangely, it doesn't make me yearn for more "artistic" games of its nature; instead I'd rather see its finest points applied to more traditional game scenarios to deepen their experience.

-Jason

Legendary

2009-04-30T13:57:00Z

I was playing through Halo 3's single player campaign again recently (I feel like I should say why, though it isn't that interesting), and that got me thinking about Halo's Legendary difficulty setting. Something about Legendary mode never sat right with me, but I never took the time to suss it out.

I think what bothers me is that the label "Legendary" doesn't jive with the feelings I experience. When I think of the term "legendary" I imagine a state of total domination through strength and skill. And while surviving the Legendary campaign definitely requires skill, it doesn't make one feel strong. This is because to make the game more difficult, the designers (basically) increased the damage enemies can withstand, and decreased the damage the player can withstand. This is an obvious path for increasing difficulty, but it seriously weakens the persona of the Master Chief, and therefore the player. When charging into battle with NPC allies (normal human soldiers) one must routinely take cover to recharge his shields while the other humans, sans-powered-armor with energy shielding, press forward. I don't know about other players, but it makes me feel puny and ineffective.

I would much prefer a situation where the game was harder because the enemies were smarter, maybe faster, and there were a lot more of them. Clawing my way through hordes of opponents would make me feel more "Legendary" than picking them off one-by-one in between healing time-outs in which I cower behind crates. I want to be able to tell my friends about the crazy moves and shots I pulled out to punch through the enemy lines, not about how I hid behind things for 2 hours.

At least, make sure that if I am playing a soldier who is supposed to be superior in strength and abilities to my NPC comrades, I never feel like they are built tougher than I am.

Jason

This is a Problem

2009-01-07T16:55:00Z

I just read an opinion piece about Fallout 3. The author initially disliked the game because she missed all the 'loot' a player can pick up in Oblivion (created by the same developer, Bethesada, and considered a template for the new Fallout game). She began to get into game more once she realized the 'treasures' of the environment where the setting and stories of those who lived in it. Which all sounds good, but she had this to say about finding those treasures:

"...in a recording a father left behind for his daughter, or the long-abandoned journals of a group trying to rebuild their lives on a tiny farm. Not quite as compelling as a ring that doubles your armor class or a crossbow that does fire damage, perhaps, but satisfying in its own way."

Not quite as compelling as a ring? Or a crossbow? Seriously?!? I reread the article a couple times because my brain was sure she must have written that in jest, but there is no sarcasm there. Am I so alone as someone who finds the lives of people more interesting than objects, even those that grant powers? Think of it this way, the above is like someone saying that the film Armegeddon is more compelling than the character-driven Pulp Fiction because it features more explosions and eye candy. This viewpoint confuses and astounds me.

And scares me as well. Because at the end of the day, if players are more interested in things than people, then that's what will sell in games. You can't tell people they are wrong and expect them to be interested in what you like. So if this is a common viewpoint among the majority of gamers, things do not bode well for the types of games I like play and would like to see evolve.

-Jason

My Big Fat Opinion

2009-01-07T16:38:00Z

I just saw a news blurb that Atari cut content out of Silent Hill Homecoming to get it approved for release in Australia. I'm in no mood to go on about how Australia's highest age rating (15+ years) should be higher or how games cost too much to make if you can't afford the financial risk to take a stand and say 'No' to changing your game when someone tries to censor it (and don't think for one second it isn't censorship just because the ratings board doesn't specifically tell you how to change your game). I am in Idealist mode right now and my viewpoint is very simple: Don't you EVER fucking tell me to change what's in a game I just spent years of my life developing.

-Jason

Dead Space. Space that is...you know...Dead.

2008-12-15T19:01:00Z

Just last week I picked up a PS3 and a couple games for it, one of them being Dead Space.

I like it.

That said, it's true (as many critics have stated) that the game feels very much to be a distillation and refinement of other games in the genre that have come before it. Which is not a crime, but I wish there was more of a sense that the game design was going to surprise and/or captivate me in some way as I progress. Maybe the zero gravity areas will do the trick. On the plus side, the game so far (an hour or so in) has been scary, though as I become more accustomed to the combat mechanic I feel the fear draining off a bit. Also worth mentioning: the incorporation of what are normally HUD elements (like health) into the suit of the character in the 3D game world is very slick.

I do want to comment on a few things, though.

First, I find it a little scary that for a long time preceding the release of the game I read statements from the developers on how daring and bold a direction it was for them to take and for EA to publish. I have to periodically reread these statements to make sure they weren't intended to be humorous. Seriously, folks, it's Resident Evil in space. Here, I'll put it in quotes because the preceding sentence is exactly what you would write on the powerpoint slide during your pitch meeting with EA: "It's Resident Evil in Space." Simple and accurate. The game industry has some frightening perceptions about innovation if this is considered a wild and risky premise.

Second, I think they could have done a better job with the enemy creature design. Not that they don't look good. But the game's main combat mechanic is based on the premise that cutting off the creatures' limbs is more effective than shooting them in the body. This theme however is not carried over in the art direction of the creatures because, looking at them, there is no reason to believe or predict that attacking the limbs will be more effective. What I think would work would be if the bulk of a formerly human torso (and its organs) was largely decimated by the new being's hostile takeover, mainly serving to hold the limbs together in a viable form. The limbs themselves would feature ad hoc growths representing a new set of organs, gruesomely and almost haphazardly grafted onto the original body's arms and legs. Not only would this be visually unsettling, it would also explain to the player graphically why targeting the limbs will be more appropriate than focusing on the torso.

Third, there has been some debate on various forums about which is scarier, a first-person or third-person view. My initial reaction was somewhat incredulous as I could not imagine how anyone could consider seeing a monster approaching their onscreen avatar in third-person to be as intense and frightening as seeing said monster approach their own local viewpoint (first-person). I will concede some ground however because I had considered the third-person view to be like that of games such as Devil May Cry and God of War. With the player's avatar so removed from his own viewpoint, and able to face/travel any direction, I never experience any level of fear. However, in games like Dead Space and Resident Evil 4, the third-person view is closer to the avatar and matches his own viewpoint (commonly referred to as an over-the-shoulder view). I found that this view in Dead Space could definitely be effective. So now the question comes down to which pushes the immersion a little bit further: pulling the camera in that last bit so you see through the avatar's eyes, or being able to see your avatar (i.e. yourself) being physically attacked and reacting. I'm inclined to believe the deciding factor may actually come down to each individual game's presentation of the enemy's attacks and the subsequent reaction of the avatar. A game like Dead Space may show the avatar writhing and struggling to push off a grasping enemy, while a game like Left 4 Dead might shake the camera and splatter blood on the view screen. These mechanics are not exclusive to either presentation. Right now I feel like we're stuck in a draw between the two, but my gut still tells me that first-person has the greater overall potential, so I'll have to think about it some more to see if I can formulate some reasons to back up my instincts.

Fourth - and I hadn't originally intended to reach four points - I think I have experienced an odd crossover of expectations due to playing this game while still very much in the height of my playing of the game Left 4 Dead. Mainly, I think I carried over my expectations of enemy behavior in Left 4 Dead into Dead Space. This may have resulted in a more frightening experience than the game should rightfully claim to have generated on its own. I'll explain: in L4D, enemies are constantly spawned into the world in a fashion that both keeps the players on edge and ensures the experience does not become predictable (the intensity and locations of the enemies varies each time you play the same levels). I think I entered the Dead Space game environment in a mindset expecting the same type of monster generation. Considering the creepy environments and limited ammunition, this made things intense and scary. It was only after playing for a while that I could see that the game never broke from standard video-game-enemy conventions, things like spending 10 minutes in a room safely figuring out a puzzle followed by an enemy attack the second I'd pressed the button to solve it <sigh>. It will be very interesting to seeing how scary I find the game over the next few hours of play. Hopefully it can retain its intensity.

-Jason

Please just STOP IT.

2008-12-15T18:46:00Z

I just saw that EA has announced that the developers of Dead Space are working on an adaptation of Dante’s Inferno. Here’s the part that bothers me. Listen to the quote by the executive producer:

"The time is right for the world of interactive entertainment to adapt this literary masterpiece, and to re-introduce Dante to an audience that, until now, may have been unfamiliar with the remarkable details of this great work of art," said Jonathan Knight, executive producer for Dante’s Inferno. "It’s the perfect opportunity to fuse great gameplay with great story."

Oh, COME ON. We all know that the game is going involve the player beating the crap out of demons and monsters (watch the trailer on the website if you don’t believe me). There isn’t going to be anything “literary” about the experience, or more specifically the interactive portion, which will be mindless violence. Maybe the non-interactive cutscenes will display some elegance if we're lucky.

I don’t think the producer is a jerk or anything, I’m just tired of people in the game industry thinking that just because their third-person brawler features characters taken from a revered literary or film source, that all of a sudden it becomes a mature work of artistic achievement.

-Jason

How Do You Quantify Value?

2008-11-24T19:12:00Z

A lot of people have been praising Left 4 Dead for it virtues, but complaining that there is too little content for what it costs. This has been an interesting issue for me. My heart tells me I should trumpet it's tight design and immense replayability. Yet at the same time, I don't know that I would feel wholly comfortable charging $60 for it on the Xbox 360 (I pre-purchased for the PC and, with the included discount, only had to pay $45). I began to ask myself why it is I would feel that way for this game but not so for other games that have "higher production values" yet do not produce the sheer joy of playing Left 4 Dead.

Case in point: The Darkness. This is a game that I did not purchase, but was given to me by a friend after his finished playing through it. When playing the game, I never questioned its $60 price tag - it had a large number of well realized characters and beautiful visuals. However, it was also plagued by repetitive gameplay whose innovations, where they did exist, quickly lost their hold on me. All told, I don't think I spent more than 5 or 6 hours playing the game before my will to press on faded away.

Conversely, I have already spent more than 10 hours playing Left 4 Dead, and feel like I'm just getting started. I have no intention of stopping my play of the game, and long for it if I go more than two days without playing. So why does Left 4 Dead seem somewhat overpriced, yet The Darkness did not? I am concerned by this impulse to associate value with the sheer amount and polish of the art content, but not the gameplay experience itself.

The true value of Left 4 Dead resides in the number of hours of entertainment it will provide, not in the length of time it takes you to trudge through its levels and cutscenes. Its value is not something that is seen, it is something that is felt. Like the game Portal (also by Valve, God bless them), it provides an experience that simply cannot be acquired elsewhere and invites revisiting. The game may be shorter than we're used to, but I don't think anyone would choose a long but drab experience over a short but exciting one. Or is that exactly what we have been doing with our games? We all may need to unlearn a simplified and errant view of quality.

-Jason

P.S. So for those that are unconvinced, where is that fine line that would make Left 4 Dead "worth the money?" Would another campaign (standardized in the game as a series of 5 thematically consistent levels) do the trick? More weapons to choose from? More zombie types? I think adding such things would be done not to improve the core game, but rather to assuage the nay sayers. There is already one type of sniper rifle - do we really need 3 or 4 to choose from? Some players have requested more strategic elements (like classes), but these would bog down the pacing of a game that is meant to be a scramble for survival. Like many others, I've pondered elements that could be added to the game to "improve" it but honestly I don't think it needs these things - they are just condiments on an already fine meal.

Perceptions of Difficulty Settings

2008-11-17T16:21:00Z

This one kind of blew my mind a little today. My friend played the demo for Left 4 Dead last night and was disppointed because it was too easy and not scary. I told him to turn up the difficulty level (he played on Normal, from the choices of Easy, Normal, Advanced, and Expert). He said that's just a fake way of cranking up the difficulty by assigning higher values to the damage you take. I argued that the difficulty setting was an arbitrary distinction and that you should play on the level that provides the experience you want.

Now, I think we are both 'right' here. Definitely me more so (of course!), but I'm not going to tell him he's wrong. Here's how I look at it: if the difficulty choices were numbered 1, 2, 3, and 4, he wouldn't complain about it being too easy, he would just raise the difficulty level until content. That's because we as players would have no baseline for what to expect with this representation of difficulty. What level should someone play if he is experienced with games but not a 'hardcore' player? 2? 3? Either would be a reasonable starting point but I don't think anyone would say they felt misled if they had to bump the setting up or down. I think his perception is that since he knows games but is not hardcore that Normal should provide the experience he is seeking (which is to be occasionally scared by a demanding but manageable level of threat). However, I've found that for players with that skill background, myself included, one has to play this game on the Advanced setting.

I understand his perspective, but find myself frustrated that instead of notching the game's difficulty up, he simply gave up on it. I understand to a degree the complaint that games tend to simply ratchet up damage incurred on higher difficulty settings, but what he is ignoring is that by its very nature a game's mechanistic assignment of things like hit points and damage et al is an illusion. Higher values are no less valid because there are no 'right' values in a system that is a simplified representation of a theoretical situation.

Long story short: the game's assumption of what Normal difficulty should be for the majority players was incorrect for this particular player, and I don't think it is wholly fair of him to disregard the game based on that. On the other hand, as a developer you have to deal with these preconceptions and blaming the player doesn't get you more sales.

I also want to add that if any game has taken steps to provide a more difficult experience beyond merely raising the damage levels dealt, it's Left 4 Dead. The game's AI Director is constantly at work to modulate the experience so that it's more hectic if you are doing well (on any difficulty setting), and eases up if you aren't. It pains me to see this game being chastised for something its developers have taken great effort to avoid (and succesfully so, in my opinion).

-Jason

Today's Rant

2008-03-28T15:24:00Z

Could someone please stop these God Damned numbskulls from posting review scores for games they haven't played? Actual quote:

"Score: A
I can't whait to play. It looks so bad Ass."

The irony is I don't give a crap about reader ratings. I just hate stupidity.

That is all.

-Jason

The Adult Gamer 01

2008-02-28T02:49:00Z

More and more I’m finding that as I get older I no longer get the same enjoyment out of the types of games I used to when I was younger. Maybe it’s a natural part of aging (I am now in my mid-thirties); maybe it comes from wanting something new after experiencing years and years of repetitive gameplay mechanics. Or maybe it’s simply the result of my current position in life, which is that of someone who doesn’t have much free time because he works full time and often fills his spare hours with game development projects.

With that in mind I decided to start logging in my thoughts on a game industry that, for the most part, feels like it hasn’t grown older with me.

I was playing Metroid Prime 3 last night. It is a finely crafted game, but every time I play what strikes me is not the graphics or the sounds, but this pervading sense of just how lonely a person Samus Aran (the player’s avatar) must be. She has no friends or family to speak of, only acquaintances, rivals, and outright enemies. She travels the galaxy alone, separated from the world by her ever-present suit of armor. She is revered, that much is obvious by the reactions of the NPCs in the game, but they’re always too occupied to converse with her. No doubt a limitation of technology and practicality, but as a character she must wonder, “Why doesn’t anyone want to talk to me?” I’m supposed to feel heroic and powerful controlling her, but I end up feeling kind of sad for her.

Concerning the game itself, the play is fun but I think I may be losing my ability to spend my time with its mechanistic approach to lengthening play time. I don’t really feel like traipsing back and forth all over the game world getting this key to open that door to get those boots to jump to that ledge to get those powerups to unlock that new area that has been just out of reach for the past two hours. Maybe my time is too precious these days. Maybe I appreciate the notion that a game should treat me to a series of new experiences then end before it’s worn out its welcome. Maybe I need something deeper. Maybe I’m just getting old…

-Jason

Narrative Consistency (or the Lack Thereof)

2008-02-28T02:44:00Z

I apologize for yet another post concerning BioShock, but there was a discussion on narrative consistency over at www.pjsattic.com so I decided to throw my hat into the ring. What follows below is a transcript of my comments. Basically, I took issue with some of the weapons that were included in the game BioShock.

Now, I’m not talking about the standard weapons (pistol, shotgun, etc.) that get modified in interesting ways. What bugs me about the game from a narrative standpoint is the plasmids. The problem is that they aren’t genetic alterations, they are magic.

But they make for fun gameplay, right? True, but take a step back with me to a time when the game was first announced…There I was, reading about a new game called BioShock by the same creators as System Shock 2 (awesome!). It takes place in a failed utopia where genetic alteration and enhancement triggered a descent into madness by a populace that could not deal with the ramifications of what they had wrought.

Oh my God, this is going to be fantastic…

I was so excited by this premise because it sounded like it was being executed with maturity and thoughtfulness. It felt relevant, focusing on the dangers that arise when man’s scientific advances are undermined by his greed and selfishness, leading to suffering and death. It seemed like we were finally getting a game with the courage to eschew the conventions that made so many other entries in the genre seem trivial.

Then I heard about plasmids.

The gamer in me knew that telekinesis would be “a hoot.” Do I want to light enemies across the room on fire with my mind? Yes, yes I do. But something didn’t feel right. I found myself not excited by this news, but kind of deflated. What seemed to be a parable of man’s failings suddenly turned into “a shooter.” Not because there would be combat, I knew that would in the game from the start, but it felt like the narrative was being sidestepped to make the combat more varied. More variety isn’t necessarily bad, but the logic of the game’s premise was suddenly broken. I can believe that genetic alteration could make a person stronger, or faster, or smarter, but I don’t see how altering your DNA suddenly could grant you the ability to make objects float with your mind. How does that happen? How can you light things on fire from a distance? There is no scientific basis for this, certainly not one that could have been achieved in the last century.

The real problem here is that in trying to expand the gameplay, the developers damaged the potency of the game’s theme. Once the characters had magical powers, the cautionary tale of mankind reaching too far held less impact for me. Genetic manipulation is a real issue in our world, but I’m not worried about pyrokinetics running around starting fires with their minds. So what happens for me internally is that I dismiss the dangers that BioShock warns of, because they aren’t a real threat to my life. At the very least the theme was diminished.

A friend of mine said after playing the demo something to this effect: “I just want to run around in this world, I don’t care about finding new weapons and powers. Just give me this reality.” I agree wholeheartedly. I’m not immune to the pressures of making money with a game that cost a lot to create, so I understand the business behind showcasing the game’s combat. But we have to start finding ways of staying true to our visions and reaching the audience regardless.

-Jason

A Conversation about Game Saves and Difficulty Levels

2007-12-13T17:54:00Z

It was recently announced that there would be downloadable content for the game BioShock. This prompted me to write to a coworker about the newly available ability to disable the "Vita Chambers" that bring you back to life whenever you die. There has been much debate over the implementation of these chambers because when you are regenerated, enemies you had previously wounded (most importantly, the hulking "Big Daddies") retain the same level of damage as when you died. This left a lot of people feeling that the game didn’t have any sense of danger or threat because even a poor player could simply keep regenerating and would eventually defeat even the most (in theory) imposing enemies.

Here’s the transcript:

Jason:

Disabling the Vita Chambers is cool and all, but I wonder if it is going to be any different then what I already did, which was using quicksaves instead. It would be nice if the game used the chambers more like auto-saves, so you wouldn’t ever have to leave the game and go to a menu to record your progress.

Rick:

Yeah, just simple checkpoints would be cool. I like how AC and Uncharted do it, where pretty much anything you do creates a save, so when you die, it’s usually about ten seconds back. It does sap from the challenge, since there’s no real punishment for failure. I’m comparing here to Tenchu, where messing up and getting killed meant having to redo the entire mission. It just made you not mess around with enemies, because you had at least two minutes or so that you could lose if you died. Still, this seems like an improvement. I guess the improvement from Vitas to Quicksaves is that you don’t get healed while your enemies remain wounded. But I really hate when games encourage players to do the save-every-five-seconds thing, as that basically devolves into an unlimited-lives version of Dragon’s Lair very quickly.

Jason:

I think we’re entering a transitional era of game design. There’s going to be (and kind of already is) a lot of debate whether you should present your game as an "experience" that everyone can play through (i.e. not hard) or retain the challenge of "beating" the game, and making reaching the end more of an accomplishment. I think there’s room for both approaches in the same game, but I do worry that the quality of people’s experiences won’t be the same across the board. For example, when I played through BioShock the first time I refused to kill the Big Daddies, but then I started a second run through in which I was saving the girls and accruing powers. They were two different game experiences. The first was tense and slower paced because I had to be careful (because I wasn’t building up powers very much), while the second run through was much looser and ‘fun’ because I had more room for error (enhanced health/strength) and could experiment and play around more. Honestly (strangely?) I kind of enjoyed the first run through more because it seemed to fit the theme better. Then again, it was my first time experiencing the story and environment so you can’t expect the second run through to pack the same punch.

Rick:

Yeah, I feel like that too. Basically, it seems like some old games, like Metal Gear, Metroid, Zelda (especially the second quest), and Castlevania 2 (just to stick with old NES examples) were just brutally hard, pretty much to the point of sucker-punching players constantly. I think there’s been an overcompensation where a lot of games have become way too easy, and the real interactive "gameplay substance" element has been weakened.

I think that hard games are inherently more fun when players are actually primarily playing the game (e.g. not party games, as those players are primarily hanging out with friends; nobody plays Mario Party alone…I hope) because the difficulty means that the player is forced to examine the intricacies of gameplay and balance and learn the core skills of the game. If the player cannot lose, then there’s no mental or visceral engagement; why should I learn to aim well and fire really fast and get those headshots if the AI is slow, there’s a strong auto-aim, and my character can take tons of damage? There’s no motivation for me to get into the game and up my skill level because I’m going to win anyway, thus there’s no reward for doing well. So to get players into the game, I think you have to offer a reward/punishment scheme of some sort.

Of course, there’s also the line between "hard" and "mercilessly punishing" that old NES games frequently crossed…but I don’t think that most modern games are anywhere even near to that line, with the exception of stuff like Ninja Gaiden.

----- End of transcript -----

I think possibly the best solution for balancing challenge while offering a fun experience to people of different skill levels can be found in the Half-Life games. Of maybe I should say the Half-Life 2 games because I don’t fully remember if the first one did this. Anyway, what I noticed in those games is that the difficulty fluctuates dynamically during gameplay to make you feel like you’re always in more danger than you really are. In other words, enemy attacks do more damage when you are at full strength and less damage when you are weakened. This provides some exhilarating moments when your health is low and you think the next hit is going to kill you, yet you manage to survive (you can still die, of course, but the design generates close calls). It also serves to make the player feel like his skills miraculously saved him. The only downside to this technique is that I am aware of it, or more importantly, I can feel it. Sometimes when I survive an attack that my gut tells me should have killed me, I feel like I’m being coddled. Also, there is little sense of pride/status for getting one’s health and shields all the way up to 100% because that level cannot be preserved - any attack will knock those values down drastically (especially the shields).

Still, I think this approach does wonders to broaden the range of experience levels players can possess and still enjoy the game. If anyone has other techniques they’ve seen (or used) that they are fond of, I would love to hear about them.

-Jason

An Insight into RTS Artificial Intelligence

2007-11-30T02:12:00Z

Last night at the Philadelphia chapter IGDA meeting Chris Jurney of Kaos Studios, and formerly of Relic Entertainment gave a talk on his work as an AI programmer, specifically discussing his efforts on the RTS game "Company of Heroes."

Though his whole presentation was thought-provoking, one aspect I found particularly interesting was his discussion of how the behavior of the game AI was made to match the player’s perspective of the world. Meaning, since players could look down on the action and survey many interactions at once, the AI for the soldiers was calibrated to behave more so with that type of understanding, rather than simply what they would be able to see themselves on the ground. The game designers found that players tend to base their expectations for their troops on their own level of awareness.

So effectively this means that enemy soldiers in the battlefield could "see" each other more readily than they would in say, a first person shooter. In an FPS, the player has a ground view of the action, and expects the AI to deal with the same limited viewpoint. Not being a regular player of RTS games, I had never considered this variation before and it got me wondering how often different developers have to learn these rules on their own. Hmm, maybe we can get Chris to write a book…

-Jason

PC Game Presentation Gaffes

2007-11-27T21:02:00Z

This is something that’s been bothering me for a while now. I can never figure out why it is so many PC titles (admittedly, my reference point is mostly FPS’s) contain some very undisciplined hiccups when you are navigating the GUI.

I was playing Portal last night and experienced a few of these, and all the Valve titles have exhibited the same problems. First, there are times when you press a GUI button and you audibly hear the music and/or ambient sounds stutter for a couple seconds. Sloppy. And when you click the button to start the game, the music/ambient sounds stop immediately and it jarringly rips the player out of the mood the game had been projecting. All this is in product by Valve, which is typically a paragon of refinement. They are by no means alone in these offenses.

This does not happen on console titles, and is frankly inexcusable. It is as though the many years of this lack of polish have transitioned into industry acceptance. But has it translated into player acceptance? Do we want to risk that it hasn’t? What you are left with is the impression that console titles are professionally done products, but PC titles are not. Even worse, those consistent imperfections may permeate not only the player’s expectations of the game’s quality, but that of PC gaming as a whole.

-Jason

So...Portal

2007-11-24T15:23:00Z

By now you've all heard the acclaim heaped (deservingly) upon this little gem of a game created a group of Digi Pen students who were hired on by Valve. I've just begun learning the process of level creation to make my own Portal levels, and it got me thinking back to some of the praise given to the game. There is one notion that I'd like to comment on, and that is the perception that key to Portal's success is the game's shortness. Well, yes and no.

What concerns me is that people seem to think that the shortness alone is the reason the game doesn't overstay its welcome. But I think a fine distinction needs to be made here: Portal isn't great because it's short, Portal is great because it is exactly the right length. Just when the early levels seem to indicate that the game will be too simple, they get harder. Just as you think the game is about to unfortunately end, it opens up to reveal additional play. And just as you begin to wonder if that additional play is going to go on too long, you are presented the game's wonderful climax.

Intrinsic to the game's appropriate length are its narrative touches. I originally feared that the AI "narrator" GLaDOS would run out of clever lines, but she never does, and though humorous her dialogue often offers trickles of backstory that keep you interested in pressing on. Also, the occasional hideouts of other test subjects you stumble across do wonders for making the game feel bigger than it initially appears, and also relieves some of the potential loneliness a player might experience in the stark test chambers (GLaDOS and the gun turrets contribute to this as well, oddly enough considering they are a menace).

Many other games, even the good ones, fail to match this balance that makes the player feel like his experience is complete without feeling drawn out or artificially extended. It's a tricky thing, because tied into the narrative (to whatever extent the game poses one) keeping the game interesting, you've also got to estimate how long the gameplay interactions will remain engaging. Portal does a good job of making you beg for more, but delivering it at a very deliberate pace. You start with no portal gun, then you have a gun that can only shoot one portal, then you finally earn two-portal capability, and then the rest of the levels layer in challenges like buttons, turrets, moving platforms, and such to challenge your understanding of the gun's operation.

Game developers should focus on creating a serious of experiences that allow the player to learn their gameplay systems, and experiment with them as well. Once this is accomplished for the current stage in the game’s progression, move on! Add additional gameplay systems to challenge and excite the player. Remember to support your mechanics by developing your narrative. Eventually you will sense that enough gameplay and story have been delivered to satisfy players (while leaving them wanted just a little more). And then comes the next important step: end the game!

-Jason

P.S. I made a video of some fun I had with the turrets and cameras in Portal, if you want to check it out click here.

Morality and Bioshock

2007-10-17T02:28:00Z

[Note: I haven’t completed the game yet, so my comments are based on my current state of completion, which is about ¾ of the way through. Also, there really aren’t any spoilers below, so you don’t have worry about me revealing anything.]

The advertised moral choice in this game is whether to save Little Sisters or harvest (i.e. kill) them. The girls exist in a trancelike state and are doomed to roam the halls of Rapture endlessly unless you free them of this condition. The player gets more “Adam” for harvesting a Little Sister, (Adam is the currency with which the player buys new abilities), though you are occasionally rewarded Adam for saving the girls, so it pretty much balances out in terms of the “economics” of the game. That in itself is a mistake in my opinion, since it somewhat diffuses the honorable burden of doing the right thing. Still, more immediate gains result from harvesting the girls, and the player has to decide if he is willing to face a tougher fight in the game to do the right thing.

Much has been made of this injection of moral decision making into the gameplay, but I think the moral choice lies less in our belief systems, and more in our perceptions of what the gameplay experience is. I think few people would “harvest” a defenseless child in reality, but this is not reality, it is a game with textures and polygons. If a player invests himself in the reality of the game and decides to play as if it were “real” it seems likely he would save the Little Sisters. But if the player simply views the experience as a game, he will possibly conclude that harvesting the girls provides more abilities which in turn provides richer gameplay, and so wouldn’t particularly care that a fictional character is “dying” to provide him with more fun (aren’t the enemies in the game doing much the same?).

In the absence of differing perceptions of what gameplay should provide, that core moral choice is pretty basic. Killing a child for your own benefit is obviously wrong. For me the real moral question lies in the killing of the Big Daddys that protect the Little Sisters. Big Daddys will push you away if you approach them, but will not actively try to kill you unless you hurt them first. But you cannot save a given girl unless you kill her Big Daddy guardian. So the question is: what is the moral action to take when you have to kill a sentient being that bears you no ill will to restore a little girl’s humanity (assuming you want to save the girls, if you want to harvest them you probably have no qualms about destroying the Big Daddys as well)?

Watching the two together, there is definitely implied kinship between them. The Big Daddy NEVER abuses the Little Sister, and in fact will offer his hand and at times pat her on the head. These few animations really build sympathy for the Big Daddy. But what exactly is his background? Is he protecting the girl because he cares about her, or because he cares about the Adam she retrieves? Did he have a hand in her creation, or is he as much a victim as she is? Without knowing these things, it is difficult for me to attack him without incurring a sense of guilt. Still, the game provides no means of rescuing a Little Sister without killing her associated Big Daddy. Does the end justify the means? Is there more value to her humanity than to his existence?

I kind of wish there was a third option in that I could distract or detain him long enough to rescue the girls without harming any Big Daddys. But that would probably be very difficult to set up without providing an easy “out” for the player, both emotionally and physically. In short, there’d be no reason to risk your life to defeat a relatively benign being.

I decided that without sufficient justification for killing Big Daddys, I would not do so and have played the game accordingly. Not receiving the benefits of either rescuing or harvesting the Little Sisters has made the game more difficult, but it is still very playable. The game did force me to kill a couple Big Daddys at one point, so I will never know what the outcome would’ve been had I been allowed to finish the game without killing any of them (I hear there is both a good and bad ending, and I was curious to see which the game would’ve given me if I hadn’t actively saved any girls).

Some people might not even see the point in discussing any of this. “It’s just a game, right?” It’s true that right now the game industry still has a hard time producing characters with truly lifelike behavior. Even in Bioshock, lines of dialogue are repeated, animations are repeated, and there’s no interface for actually communicating with the artificial beings of that world. But we are getting better, and the issue of morality, or perhaps simulated morality, will become more and more a genuine aspect of thought-provoking games.

Another interesting “moral” choice revealed itself to me after I had already made it. There is a point in the game where you reach the end of a ventilator shaft that opens to a room you don’t actually have to enter to progress in the game. As you approach the cover to the shaft, through it you can see a splicer quietly sitting on a couch with her head slung low, clearly depressed, as if contemplating her twisted fate. I knocked off the cover with my wrench, hoping she would not attack, but knowing full well that she would. She did, I killed her, and my game progressed. Thinking about it later, I knew that the door to that room (locked from the side) simply opened to an area I had already explored. I wasn’t in need of any keys or special objects to proceed further in the game’s narrative, so entering the room was an act based on the desire to explore every nook and cranny of the game world available to me. But to what cost was this exploration? I killed a character that, while not friendly to me, was not an immediate threat and would only become so once I entered that room. In that sense I felt guilty afterward. The presentation of her as depressed is simply the choice for what animation cycle was created for her “idle” animation, but it had a powerful effect on my response to her character.

I think it would be really interesting if there were a few Splicers here and there that don’t immediately seek to hurt you. Maybe they just go about their business unless you hurt them. Some may ask you for help. Would you give one a medical kit if they claimed to be injured? Would you give them an eve hypo? That right there is a nice microcosm of moral choice. Plus, their responses to this could be quite interesting. Maybe they give you a gift in return. Maybe they attack you if you don’t help, or maybe they don’t do anything except mutter to themselves about how selfish you are. Hell, maybe if you help one, they will fight by your side much as the hacked sentries do. I think the game would benefit from a greater sense that not all those living in Rapture have become monsters (the game does point out that your nemesis, Andrew Ryan, is exerting a level of mind control over the splicers, but we all know that game makers are using that explanation to justify the reason they all attack you on sight, and I believe there’s room to plausibly argue that Ryan could manipulate many or most of Rapture’s inhabitants without being able to control all of them).

So anyway, those are today’s thoughts on Bioshock. I’m still in the process of finishing the game, so I’m sure I’ll have more!

-Jason

Two Random yet Brilliant Game Design Suggestions (Free of Charge!)

2007-10-10T02:23:00Z

Playing Bioshock recently, I was thinking about how jumping up and down during an interactive cutscene undermines the integrity of the drama. Half-Life 2 suffered from this problem as well - it was perfectly acceptable to hop around while NPC’s were delivering very serious plot points (watching you bounce up and down the whole time). One quick solution would be to inhibit jumping during cutscenes. Not quite sure why Valve didn’t do that in HL2, since they did forcibly lower your weapon when speaking with an NPC.

But, truth be told, I don’t think jumping needs to be in most games anyway. In a game like HL2 or Bioshock, jumping has no tactical advantage in battle. It basically lets you get over stuff, and in some cases leap over dangerous items like trip wires. I think there is a case for removing jumping and replacing it with a ‘clamber’ that occurs when you hit the same button that would’ve been assigned to the jump. If you can scale an obstruction you’ve run up against, you hit the clamber button and your avatar hops up. If you didn’t want to give up the gameplay challenge of things like tripwires, landmines, etc. you could give those objects a ‘jump’ bounding box such that within that zone if you hit the clamber button, your avatar would jump. So you get to keep your jumping challenge without breaking the realism forfeited by hopping around indiscriminately.

Playing Halo 3, I came across an age-old frustration that generally plagues all first person shooters I’ve experienced. Namely, the difficulty in getting grenades to go where I want them to. I can honestly say it is easier for me to throw something more accurately in real life than in a video game. Which is odd when you think about it, because everything else is easier in a video game – running, shooting, jumping…yet tossing a small, solid mass (i.e. grenades) is harder.

It seems to have become accepted that aiming your throws is a very imprecise affair because they follow an arc not directly targeted to your reticule. The arcs are consistent, true, but in the heat of an FPS I’m constantly sighting my enemies in the reticule, and having to alter my aiming to throw the grenade is cumbersome. So here’s my solution: When the player wants to throw a grenade, cast a ray to whatever his reticule is highlighting and calculate the arc for his grenade to land there. If the reticule is on something too far to reach, just cap the strength of the throw to some reasonable level. If you wanted to get tricky, you could even do a check for obstructions like ceilings such that, if found, the throw is of a lower arc, but harder, so the end result is basically the same. To keep things from getting too easy, I would suggest you add a little bit of randomness to the throw direction/strength, increasing more with distance.

-Jason

[Addendum]

Had a couple more thoughts regarding the above. First, there is a certain freedom in being able to jump around in games and I'm considering whether it's unrealistic presence is the lesser of two evils (compared to depriving the player of that freedom). I still stand by the idea of turning off the jumping during dramatic interactions, but maybe the best general use of jumping would be to include it, but have there be consequences for doing so at innapropriate times. This depends totally on the game in question, of course.

Regarding the grenade tossing suggestion, I think it's a worthwhile approach, but I could see troubles arising in certain situations. For example, throwing a grenade out a window might be difficult because you'd have to stand at the window and target the enemy while exposing yourself, and the player might want to instead stand back from the window and toss the grenade through, but how would you target this? If you aimed down, the game would think you wanted to toss the grenade in the room which would be bad. If you aimed at the window, the grenade would go through, but would be targeting whatever is along your vector of sight through the window, which could be another building across the street, the countryside, or who knows what. Maybe a solution worth trying would be having both a primary and secondary through button (similar to the common primary/secondary firing options present in most shooters), such that the primary button would toss the grenade at the target under the reticule, while the secondary button would cause the grenade to be tossed at a blind but consistent arc like what you find in games today.

-Jason

That's not Cool: Bioshock

2007-10-04T16:19:00Z

Okay, I know I'm like one of three people that haven't finished Bioshock yet, but I reached a point in the game I need to comment on (this is basically spoiler-free).

I have been playing the game NOT killing the Big Daddys at all, because I never felt like I was given sufficient reason to believe that they deserved to die, even to save the Little Sisters. And if you're going to play a game where "Moral Choice" is the imperative, I believe you have to behave as if you would should these events occur in reality. The fact that I can't save the Little Sisters without killing Big Daddys breaks the experience a bit for me, because that's not how I would behave in real life - I would find a way to do it, I promise you.

Nevertheless, that's not what I really want to comment on (I have a much longer post in the works to discuss it). What I came across last night is what's on my mind today: in short, the game says you have to build a device to continue any further, and said device requires components that can only be obtained from the suits of Big Daddys (dead, of course). Okay, I get it, they want to make sure you fight the Big Daddys before the game's end. But here's the thing: you need 4 of these components, and can get 2 from already dead Big Daddys you find within the level, BUT if you travel back to other levels in the game that also have Big Daddy corpses in them, the game does NOT allow you to extract the needed components. So Basically, you MUST kill 2 Big Daddys to complete the game.

I understand that fighting the Big Daddys is considered core to the experience of Bioshock. But I CHOSE to not fight them, and was very deliberate about getting to the end of the game without killing any Big Daddys. Moral choice gets removed from the equation when the game mechanics force you to take action you don't approve of, or face simply being denied the rest of the game. Coupled with the duplicity of allowing me to extract the needed components from some dead Big Daddys, but not all, just amplified my frustration.

-Jason

I Wish This was in Halo 3

2007-10-03T01:21:00Z

There is a feature I've wanted since the first Halo came out. It's a simple request really: I would like to be able to run. Not that "gun me down like I'm standing still" trot that's currently in the game, but an all-out run. Yes, like the one in Gears of War (I thought of this years ago, and I'm still waiting for CliffyB to thank me for the inspiration*).

This capability would have fit perfectly into the new controller scheme for Halo 3 on the Xbox 360. With the reassignment of the buttons, they opened up the X button for use with items you can pick up. So I'm thinking, if you're not carrying an item, why not use the X button to go into a full run so you can get to or from places more quickly. Like GoW, you would not be able to shoot during this time. Also like GoW, if you are holding down the X button you will have to steer solely with the left analog stick, which means no side strafing, rather you would push left/right to change the angle of your direction. As soon as you release X, your gun(s) would level off and you'd be able to shoot again.

I think this would've work well on multiple levels. First, if you can only run when not carrying an item, it would encourage the use of said items. I find myself carrying these items around and not using them because I basically forget I have them. I think as people used the items just so they could run, they would start getting more familiar with them and think about how to use them strategically. Second, there are always times in levels when you feel like you're far from the action, and by the time you get there, the battle has moved on. Third, it would encourage exploration because running long distances wouldn't feel like drudgery. Fourth, it would lower the imbalance created by camped snipers who are picking people off (granted, those people should be seeking cover, but there are inevitable times when you have to expose yourself). Finally, it would further enhance the immersion by giving you the option to do what you would do if facing superior firepower or numbers in real life, i.e. run away.

I'd also like to point out that the major telelvision commercial for the game showed the Master Chief running all-out without his weapon aimed. But we can't do this in the game. That's not fair, and I think it's a missed opportunity.

-Jason

*I never actually spoke about this idea with CliffyB, so unless he's been reading my mind, he's in the clear.

Until I Think of Something Better

2007-03-01T17:08:00Z

I am currently banning all comments and trackbacks because I've been getting hit by an endless stream of spam, and banning IPs hasn't slowed it down one bit. So, if you want to comment on any of the posts, just email me directly: jasonseip@verizon.net