GAMBIT

Introducing The Bridge

2009-07-03T19:26:28Z

Next up in our series of games from the Spring 2009 semester is The Bridge, another arthouse game from Doris C. Rusch, the product owner of last summer's Akrasia. This game, a rumination on loss and mourning, is now available to play. You may want to check it out before reading the following reflection from Doris on the game's creation - there are spoilers ahead! - but definitely do come back and give the following essay a read, to share in Doris' experiences with game design as its own personally reflective, insightful process. -Geoff

The Bridge: Game Design as a Tool for Reflection and Self-Exploration

by Doris C. Rusch

The Bridge is a short, single player Flash game, made during the spring semester of 2009 by a team of students. I was the product owner and lead designer of this project. Although I have my doubts regarding The Bridge's qualities as a game (for which I take full responsibility), I still regard it as one of the most interesting works I've ever done. The focus, however, is on "work" as in "process", not the result. Working on The Bridge showed me what a wonderful tool for self-reflection and insight game design can be. The following is an account of how using the tools of my craft helped me and two of my team members to more clearly map out our emotional landscapes. Feel free to try this at home!

Guided by Images

Saying I wanted to make a game about "mourning" or the connection between "love" and "fear of loss" would be bullshitting (Def. bullshitting: terminus technicus for making a process appear intentional and focused in hindsight when it actually was not). So, let's just stick to the dirty truth of how it really went.

It started with an image of an empty tire swing that suddenly bubbled to the surface of my subconscious but never quite made it into the more analytical realm of my mind. The image didn't come with an explanation, only with an emotional overtone of loss, frustration and hoping against hope. A bit like a cone without ice cream, a tire-swing is a sad affair when it just hangs there without a child on it. Of course, one can take either image both ways: as a promise for future fun or as the memory of past pleasures. In the moment my mind decided to release the tire swing from its swampy depths, I gravitated towards the darker reading of it. But why a tire swing? Why not a more traditional metaphor for loss, such as a gravestone or a couple dressed in black, huddled together under an umbrella?

How I would love to be able to give a clever and coherent explanation now. But I vowed to adhere to honesty and will thus further refrain from bullshitting. The best I can do is share the stream of associations with you that (to me) accompanied the tire-swing metaphor.

Imagine being the one pushing the swing with the child on it. You push, you watch the swing perform the familiar motion, you wait for it to come back to you, and you push it again. The "here-gone" dichotomy strongly resonated with me. The necessity of letting go of the swing in order for it to fulfill its purpose (i.e. provide a pleasurable experience for the child) and at the same time distancing yourself from the precious freight it carries, experiencing a moment of anticipation (anxiety?) before the swing starts to come back, and the relief upon its safe return. But this relief is not really due to the return of the swing, but to the return of the child on it. In most cases, these two things are coupled. While the cycle of the swing will not be interrupted as long as one keeps pushing (what goes up must come down, right?), it is possible to lose a person forever. Fate is less predictable than physics. If the swing is "gone" it will transform into "here" again. A person, once dead, will remain gone. Child and swing - once fused together - are indeed separate entities; they can part ways. The stubborn mind, however, is reluctant to dissociate the two. The swing has always brought the child back, so maybe pushing an empty swing will magically return what has been lost. But some things cannot be changed, no matter how hard we push...

The Initial Idea

The interactive piece I initially envisioned (I wasn't even going to call it a game!) was strongly inspired by this crude image of an empty tire-swing and the foggy feelings of loss and mourning I associated with it. The player would enter an empty space with nothing but a swing in it and nothing to do but to push it. Pushing the swing would produce faint laughter and the transparent outline of a child would become visible on the swing. The implied goal would be to push until the child materialized completely. In truth, no such thing would be possible, though. The player would have to realize that all her efforts were for naught, that there was no way of bringing the child to life and that the only way to "win" was to accept that and walk away. In order to make this (emotionally) difficult for the player, every time she stopped pushing, the child would fade again, the laughing would grow faint at first, then maybe turn into whimpering (good audio would be required for this or instead of inducing guilt, the whining would create the wish to quickly leave the wretched child behind).

Using "The Tools" for Self-Exploration: A Conversation With The Inner Game Designer

When I talked to my friends Jaroslav and Eric about this initial idea - both very game savvy - they saw the potential for an emotionally compelling experience. However, they thought it should be more "gamey". I was reluctant at first. The simple tire-swing sequence felt so right that I wanted to do it exactly as I had described above. And then, they popped the Question (yep, it deserves the capital letter): "But what exactly is this about?" Mourning, clinging, loss, attachment - whatever I said to explain it didn't quite capture it. I couldn't put it in words. Since I'm strongly advocating purposeful design, not knowing my own mind was a problem. How can I purposefully create an experience for someone else if I don't understand my own feelings?

This had to change. I decided to follow my friends' advice and make it more "gamey". Because although the game itself can be ambiguous and allow multiple interpretations, coming up with the rules forces the designer to be precise and concrete. I started to explore what I already had in mind in terms of game elements. Here's a rough transcript of the dialogue I had with what I call my "Inner Game Designer" (IGD):

IGD: What exactly is the GOAL?

Me: To "let go".

IGD: A goal without CONFLICT makes for a lousy game. So what is the conflict? What makes "letting go" difficult?

Me: Attachment makes it difficult.

IGD: What creates attachment?

Me: Hm...love?

IGD: So, the way to overcome attachment is to overcome love?

Me: I don't think so. That would be terrible. Love is important.

IGD: Are you sure it is love, then, that bothers you? Maybe it's fear?

Me: Oh yeah? Well, what do YOU know?

IGD: I'm you, remember?

Me: Attachment and fear. Fear of losing love. You cling because you are afraid...

IGD: What exactly are you afraid of?

Me: Haven't I just said that? Afraid of losing love! Isn't that obvious?

IGD: Aren't you a bit negative?

Me: Don't play the Eliza trick on me!

IGD: All right, I'm sorry - couldn't resist. Seriously now, why would losing love be bad? It sounds like love serves a purpose.

Me: It protects...makes you feel good.

IGD: And since you don't want to lose what makes you feel good, love itself creates fear. It is both the curse and the cure, it seems.

Me: That's right. Fear creates clinging, you want to stay close to the "love object".

IGD: May I point out that you don't seem to have internalized love? It's this outside thing on which you depend. That attitude will always kick you in the butt.

Me: You're my inner game designer, not my freaking therapist.

IGD: Seems like pretty much the same thing to me...

I will spare you the rest of the conversation because it involved giant flying puddings and the monster with 14 toes, neither of which had any relevance to The Bridge. But you can see how the concept had dramatically evolved from the simple initial idea to a system that tackles the mechanisms of a certain kind of love and the problems that come with it. What was still lacking was an idea of how to overcome those problems, to get "unstuck" and break the pattern. Obviously, you had to fight your fears so you weren't dependent on your love object anymore and could love it in a more selfless way. And then what?

It was at the speakers' party at this year's Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco when Trey (the game's producer) and Jamie (code and animation) approached me with the words: "we have been thinking." Sitting in front of cocktails called "The Game Designer" or "Achievement Unlocked", they spoke to me of closeness, emancipation and sacrifice in a serious and insightful way. We pondered how the game could end. We knew the goal, we had grasped the conflict. Now we had entered the final stage of the process: finding a solution. What happened when you killed the monsters that represented your fears? What happened to the girl that represented your love object? What exactly would "letting go" look like? It was Jamie who dumped the solution in my lap: every monster you killed would help form a bridge across the river that divided the playground (the game's main space) from the untended field (representing an unknown future). I loved the symbolism that the road to a better future was paved by one's conquered fears. We further entertained the rather disturbing idea that the girl would sacrifice herself to complete the bridge, that her (self-inflicted) death would produce the last missing piece. We let this sink in. Nah...no good, since it would undermine the emancipation process which depends on taking responsibility for one's actions. So, maybe the player had to kill the girl before the bridge solidified? No, no, no! Not reconcilable with the idea of selfless love! We finally agreed that to win the game, one would have to kill all the monsters in the playground and refrain from "reclaiming" the girl on the tire-swing. The bridge would solidify upon the death of the last monster and one could cross it. Crossing the bridge would "free" the girl (she'd dissolve into a could of particles). This should not mean that one abandoned love itself, but had overcome functionalizing it.

The True Reward Was The Journey

My team had an equivalent of two 40-hour work weeks to develop this game. This is not a lot of time, but they did an amazing job. Our biggest problem, however, was that the theme was so personal. If a project is too big, you can always scope it down. But if you are very invested in the concept you want to convey, to do it justice and get it right, the problem starts much sooner than scope. It starts with understanding what exactly you want to model.

We tried something big with The Bridge. Too big, maybe, for the given timeframe. I felt bad for a while after our last official work session, because how can you close the book on "love" and walk away feeling like you've accomplished anything? Also, eighty hours of development time do not leave a lot of room for tweaking and polishing and thus many of the ideas in the game are still latent and could be communicated to players more clearly.

But then again, I have learned a lot. The process of designing this game made many things apparent to me, helped me map out some of my emotional landscape. In that regard, The Bridge was a huge success. It confirmed my belief that while making profound games that tackle the human condition is a worthy goal which I will keep pursuing, game design itself can be a wonderful tool for insight that greatly enhances our understanding of ourselves.

Introducing Rosemary

2009-06-24T22:00:00Z

During the past academic year, I had the pleasure to work with a group of very talented students on a new GAMBIT game, Rosemary. It's been an exercise in nostalgia: nostalgia as a theme in the game, and nostalgia for a genre that had its heyday more than 15 years ago.

Rosemary is a point-and-click adventure game whose core mechanic is remembering events of the past in order to uncover a mystery. The protagonist, Rosemary, has discovered a photo of her childhood friend Tom, whom she had come to believe was imaginary. Determined to find out what happened to him, she returns to her hometown of New Rye. Her memories of the place are all she has in order to find Tom.

Rosemary is a game about returning to the place where one grew up, but haven't been back to in a long time. As in real life, buried memories resurface when the player revisits such places, changing how one perceives the location. Part of these game mechanics were based on Quintillian's Memory Palaces, where arranging one's memories in a space is what facilitates remembering people, events and facts in a speech. You can read more about the premise of the game and a short statement on the game's homepage. Rather than having me spoil the game any further, please just go ahead and play it. It's rather short, especially if you've played adventure games before.

At GAMBIT we research games, and we learn by making them and thinking about the whole process. What follows are four of the things that I learned while making Rosemary.

1. We Need to Support Story Tracking

When I proposed this game, I was well aware that we would not be able to follow the development methods and timelines that had worked well for previous games made at GAMBIT. An adventure game requires not only a set of mechanics but also a fleshed-out story, and that takes time. Having everybody in the team know the story well is an additional challenge. As the story grows and changes while the game is being developed, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep all team members on the same page, which is critically important since the story is intertwined through every aspect of the game. When a game is made by one person, or a small team of people working in close proximity, the unified vision is relatively easier to keep. When the developers are a team of students with disparate schedules who are only available to work 10 hours a week, maintaining a unified vision becomes a serious problem. Nobody re-reads the design document (remember: we don't have that much time), so the story evolves but not in a unified way.

I was lucky to work with a team of very talented and engaged students who not only lived up to the challenge but did a great job of working together and getting things done. However, there were some issues resulting from this work situation which could have been palliated with tools to keep track of the story of the world and its audiovisual representations. This experience has provided me with a new research goal: developing tools that will help teams working on story-based games by keeping track of the story and structuring and relating the information effectively.

2. Interaction Design and Writing are Related But Different Parts of Development

Over the course of development, our designer, Sarah Sperry, served as both writer and designer. Although writing and design go hand in hand in this genre, it was difficult to juggle between writing the story, designing the puzzles and working on the interface. I asked her to focus on the worldbuilding, because that was the main challenge of making the game at GAMBIT. However, given that we were trying to introduce new mechanics, we should have put more care in designing the interaction. The UI in our first playable was based on mock-ups, but the design document did not include a detailed description of how the interaction worked. Since I insisted on focusing on having a world that the player could interact with as soon as possible, I thought that the conventions of adventure games would help the player through. That meant that at least we had something to show as early as possible at the end of the Fall semester, which is still pretty late in comparison with other GAMBIT projects. The downside is that the UI still needed a lot of work. The remedy was having a UI pass in January (thanks, Marleigh!), which fixed a lot of issues. Improving the UI allowed us to get rid of an opening tutorial, which forced the player to solve two puzzles in a specific order before being able to explore the world.

As you play, you may notice that there are some things here and there that still need some polish, particularly in the photo album, but through playtesting we saw that players could make sense of what they had to do with little trouble (except for a few notable exceptions listed below).

What I've learned is that although related, separating the tasks of interaction design and writing may be a more effective approach in future story-based games. I also realized that relying on the conventions of a genre only goes so far. When the mechanics of your game are veering away from the conventions, as was the case here, interaction design bridges the gap between the convention and the innovation.

3. Players Can Make Sense of Very Broken Games

The version of the game at the end of the Fall semester was very broken. The basic puzzles were there, although the last module had been implemented in a hurry. I was also rather skeptical about a couple of the puzzles, because I did not think players would make sense of it. The UI still needed a lot of work. Some of the placeholder art assets were squiggles that Alec, our programmer, had drawn in 15 seconds with the mouse:

Instead of me telling the students how broken the game was, I wanted them to see it for themselves. So we used one of our Friday Games@GAMBIT sessions to invite people who were new to the game to play it.

Surprisingly, most of these playtesters finished the game in spite of the weird puzzles, the broken UI, and the squiggles. Of course, a couple of people gave up early, and a couple more got stuck, but basically around six people successfully finished the game. There was a catch – a couple of them were veteran adventure game players, who probably had endured twisted designer puzzles for years. Our playtesters were also players who gave elaborate feedback about what worked and what didn't (and gave suggestions about what to fix, which is an exceptional circumstance). So perhaps the game was not so broken after all.

I was ready to give up on the development of the game after one semester, because I thought I had enough evidence of all the extra challenges that we faced when making an adventure game. Seeing players complete this utterly broken prototype and, more importantly, seeing how the team was willing to take up the challenge to fix it, convinced me that it was actually worth continuing to work on it. If players had the patience to play through the game at that stage, what would they not do if it was actually fixed?

Lesson learned: do not underestimate the effort that your players are willing to put into your game. Players like challenges, and a broken game can be a challenge in itself.

4. Some Players Have Difficulty Understanding Adventure Game Conventions

Playtesting also revealed some interesting information about our potential game demographic. We realized that some 13-15 year olds were not familiar with the conventions of point and click adventure games. A couple of them started playing, and immediately said "It doesn't work!" They would then demonstrate how our game was "broken": they clicked on the verb 'walk' and said: "See? She doesn't walk!" They assumed a different model of how point and click worked, learned from games like The Sims, rather than following a pseudo-grammatical model to control the character. We had to explain to them that they had to click where they wanted the character to walk to.

Another eye-opening experience was a retired couple who came by our lab. We thought that they would like to play Rosemary because it's a puzzle game, and they found it intensely frustrating. The type was too small and it disappeared too quickly for them to read. They did not know what to do and wanted a tutorial (a tutorial that I was so proud of having cut before). However, they wanted to learn to play the game without spoiling the puzzles, because they still wanted to solve them. The best thing is that they really wanted to play, they loved puzzle games, and they felt frustrated that they couldn't find games that they could play. They showed us another exciting avenue for game development: games for players over age 65.

All in all, the development of Rosemary was a challenge throughout, but it was also tremendously enjoyable thanks to the wonderful students that stepped up to the challenge. Every discipline made wonderful contributions, making the game rich and enticing despite its brevity. The students were the ones who made this happen, and produced the game that you can now play. We hope you like it!

Announcing the Spring 2009 GAMBIT Games!

2009-06-24T21:50:00Z

Keep an eye on the Load Game section of the GAMBIT website! Over the next couple of weeks, we're going to be launching the Spring 2009 lineup of GAMBIT games, including The Bridge, Moki Combat (v2.0), Rosemary, and the digital version of Tipping Point.

The first of these is Rosemary, which is an adventure game in the style of The Secret of Monkey Island that experiments with the idea of nostalgia as a game mechanic. Check it out now at http://gambit.mit.edu/loadgame/rosemary.php, then read game designer Clara Fernandez-Vara's postmortem of the game on the GAMBIT Updates blog!

In related news, we've also posted the bios for the Summer 2009 students – check them out now in the Credits section of the GAMBIT site!

Train of Thought

2009-06-15T15:11:10Z

I found myself, most uncommonly, at a loss for words.

I had convinced myself, before we even sat down, that I knew what I was getting into - this was a game and I was the one in control. I listened to the chittering skeptic, the grumbling cynic latched on to the inner lining of my stomach that has been there for so many years, and I said aloud "I'd like to see the other game if we could..." having already started crafting the clever ways I would politely tear this horrifying, and dangerous idea to proverbial shreds. As we began playing, the layers of meaning unfolded, and the indigestion of my doubt began to quiet. With each roll of the dice, with every turned card, with every tiny forward lurch grinding wheels against tracks, my eyes and heart opened, I sank deeper into my chair, and a gaping wound was fingered. Most uncommonly:

I found myself at a loss for words.

Play Brenda Brathwaite's Train and forget what you think you know about "games." Play Brenda Brathwaite's Train and remember why, in the grandest of senses, we are here. Play Brenda Brathwaite's Train and remember because remembering, the very act of first knowing again, is our most important human faculty.

I wanted to tell Brenda, right then and there, why it was important, though I suspect she already knew. I wanted to articulate clearly and eloquently what I felt, to the person who so clearly articulated to me, through the power of her work, what she obviously felt and continues to feel. The academic in me was still able to craft logical arguments stating, this lead to that, and this assumes that, and if this then that therefore this and subsequently ta da. Tidy. But standing there, shaking her hand, or perhaps holding it, the only clear word I could muster, the word that was formed by my thumping, pulsing engine not my ticking jolting nerve center, seemed then, not quite right, but today, the best I could find. The only word that could try to say "thank you" and "how?" and "why?" and "I know" and "It's ok, is it ok?" and "I'm sorry" and perhaps most resoundingly "never again" all together in one massively, all-encompassing, super-powered word; it was the king of all words, the meteoric explosion of meaning in the singularity of one word:

Valuable.

Writing it now on this page it again seems insufficient. I am slowly coming to terms with the fact that it is very hard, nay impossible to make real with words what exists in the domain of feelings. How can it possibly compare to experience? These shoddy symbols, these crossed t's and dotted i's, cannot assume the overwhelming responsibility of making manifest my emotions. The unspeakable cannot be spoken, and so I apologize, to you Brenda, to you the reader, to any who have not yet enjoyed the true privilege of experiencing what I experienced a few days ago, for at this point I am again, quite uncommonly, at a loss for words.

Why I Like Stupid Game Stories.

2009-06-08T14:00:00Z

****WARNING - SPOILERS FOR BIONIC COMMANDO (2009) FOLLOW****

In a previous blog post I explained why I felt Grin's Bionic Commando was a well-designed 3D update of an old school classic, in spite of getting a bum rap from critics. Now that I've finished the game I feel like defending another aspect that's gotten pummeled by the gaming press: the story. While I'm not about to claim the story for Bionic Commando isn't silly, I don't find it to be nearly as random or meaningless as critics have claimed. While it seemed disappointingly slight for most of the game, I have to confess that the ending--while abrupt--did have a certain, unexpected dramatic logic that put the rest of the plot in perspective.

I had read several reviews that cited the ending as being sudden, stupid, and meaningless. So I was preparing myself. Although I disagreed with most critics about the gameplay, the criticisms of the story as being adolescent, techno-futuristic military nonsense didn't seem so off. A certain level of kitch was undoubtedly intentional (this is a sequel to a game that featured purple Nazi's and an undead version of Hitler, after all), but I can't say I cared for the overtly and seemingly un-ironic tone the game was striking as a macho power fantasy. It's hard to use kitch as your alibi when your protagonist is constantly screaming like a roid-raging jock ("Yeah, suck on that!") in a way that is obviously meant to be a "reward" for the player. That's never how I imagined Spencer when I played the original NES game as a 12-year-old, so playing Grin's update was a mixture of pleasure at seeing the world and characters extended but also frustration at seeing them fall victim to modern video game stereotypes. It also didn't help that the actual plot seemed to involve very few meaningful events and in general advanced very little over the course of the game. Basically the whole game boils down to you finding and stealing this weird canister that Super Joe wants, and then being betrayed by Joe who defects to the terrorists and uses the canister to initiate some weird master plan--called Project Vulture--which is never really explained.

Given the thin narrative set-up and obnoxious protagonist I wasn't holding out for a very satisfying ending, but I found myself liking it. It was indeed abrupt and the twist with Spencer's wife was goofy, but... I dunno. I guess what I liked was how the game built up to a simple, emotional moment and then just ended. I was thinking the whole game that the plot seemed strangely in the background, like there was all this complex stuff going on but it never really seemed to manifest in any coherent way. Although I'm sure lazy writing and a "game first, story second" development mentality probably contributed to this feeling, it all suddenly seemed to make sense given the climactic final moment.

If you look at Spencer as someone who really doesn't care about a goddamn thing except finding out what happened to his wife--not about what Project Vulture is, not about who the mysterious sniper is, not about Mag, not about saving the country--then the final sequence, where he chases Joe into the sky for apparently no other reason than to force him to explain his wife's death, makes a certain amount of sense as a narrative climax. The fact that Emily was somehow "used" to create Spencer's arm had been obviously hinted at, and in light of reviews I'd read I expected the reveal of this plot point to be a big, cheesy display. But it wasn't. I liked how Spencer screams at Joe to tell him what happened, how Joe refuses, and how Spencer smashes his face into putty and crushes the mysterious canister in a selfish rage, causing a massive explosion. You get the distinct impression Spencer killed Joe and wiped out his army not for any greater good but because of sheer personal hatred. It's an unexpected moment that almost makes the goofy story feel character-driven.

Spencer's sole motivation is to confront Joe.

I like how they never say straight out what happened to his wife, and I like the implication that, in the end, Spencer knows but doesn't want to face it, which is why he kills Joe. One of the reasons this seems like an interesting ending, rather than a cop-out ending, is that it isn't twisted into some feel-good Hollywood resolution. The only resolution is Spencer finding out what happened to his wife and then losing his mind as a result. It's not even clear whether or not he lives in the end. The final shot is of him falling silently to earth, assumedly not caring whether he lives or dies anymore. For such a macho game, which tries so hard to ape the feel of hyper-masculine Hollywood cinema, the sudden nihilism of the ending is striking. Most video game badasses don't end up being consumed by their own hatred and committing suicide an instant before the credits roll.

The End?

If I were to give the writers more credit than is due (and I probably am, but what the hell) I'd say that Spencer's relationship with his bionic arm--and the player's relationship with the arm--is intended somewhat as an expression of his relationship with his wife. One thing that stood out for me was how Spencer's characterization in-game was different than in cut-scenes. In cut-scenes he's always sullen, but in-game he's always screaming his pleasure any time he does something amazing with the arm. For a guy who hates his life he clearly loves to swing around, take giant leaps, and soar through the sky. The first time he sees the arm he smiles, suggesting that--even though he doesn't give a shit about Joe or the mission--the thought of being with his arm again is enough to win him over. As both the cinematics and gameplay constantly remind you, his arm is the only thing that makes him feel alive, which, in light of the final plot twist, appears to be a subtle kind of foreshadowing.

Spencer's last memory of Emily.

I feel moderately embarrassed defending the narrative and thematic virtues of Bionic Commando. On the surface the story is both slight and silly, and the game's muscle-bound macho-man attitude is not something I'm a fan of. However, I do think the ending is weird enough, and the story decisions probably deliberate enough, that it's fair to take the story (just like the gameplay) on its own terms and accept that perhaps there's a method to its madness. I'm not arguing for it being art so much as I'm arguing that the story and themes are not devoid of logic or purpose, as many reviewers have suggested.

I think, ultimately, what I liked about the ending is how, in its overwhelming of gameplay logic with dramatic logic, it hearkened back to the original Bionic Commando, moreso than Rearmed did. Rearmed was a great remake in many ways, but one thing I didn't like is how it turned the emotionally-fueled finale of the original into a series of "proper" gameplay challenges. The original Bionic Commando's ending was great because it wasn't hard, but because it gave the player a series of easy challenges that seemed motivated by nothing more than the dramatic momentum of the story. Destroying the Albatross, killing Master D, and escaping the complex were all easy, hence there was nothing to distract you from the dramatic feeling of the moment. The final sequence of the next-gen Bionic Commando, with you soaring into the sky after Joe, dispatching winged goons on the way in marvelously epic fashion, offers the same sort of dramatics-over-gameplay thrill. There is no "proper" last boss fight in Bionic Commando like there (disappointingly) was in Rearmed. There is just the final confrontation with Joe, in which all of Spencer's pent up angst--quite literally--explodes.

The final, thrilling flight to the heavens.

One last thing: the stuff with Spencer's wife's brain (or brain pattern--it's kind of unclear) being "used" to make his bionic arm is indeed silly, but I suppose I don't find it as shatteringly dumb as some people do because it seems derived from the metaphysics one often finds in Japanese science fiction (remember, although Grin is a Swedish developer, Bionic Commando is originally a Japanese franchise, and Capcom was involved in the production). Specifically it reminded me of an anime I saw a long time ago called Roujin Z, about a medical robot "possessed" by the dead wife of the old man it is caretaker of. The notion of the mind, the self, or the soul being embodied in a machine and connecting with another person's "soul" through some technological interface is common in anime/manga sci-fi. It's the entire basis for Ghost in the Shell, the seminal Japanese cyberpunk that Grin's Bionic Commando owes more than a little to. I'm not claiming that it's brilliantly written, but this plot twist does not seem like random bad writing to me so much as a symptom of the East-meets-West genre cross-pollination that, in general, makes Bionic Commando more interesting and quirky than your typical Western action game.

GAMBIT on ThirtyOn10.

2009-06-04T19:54:12Z

A few months ago, a group of Boston University students invited some members of our lab to appear in an episode of ThirtyOn10, "a weekly news program produced by the Broadcast Journalism Graduate Students of 2009". The episode, which focused on the video game industry and its impact upon Boston, featured not only GAMBIT people Philip Tan, Clara Fernández-Vara, Matthew Weise, Marleigh Norton, Shota Nakama and Jonathon Georgievski, but a ton of B-roll footage from the lab and an entire segment interviewing friend of the lab Darius Kazemi. All five parts of the episode have been uploaded to YouTube, and you can check them out below.

Nice work, folks, and thanks for including us in your project!

A Guy's Defense of Guy-Bashing Game Criticism.

2009-06-04T14:00:00Z

I don't read game blogs as much as I should, which is why I was not fully aware of the backlash Heather Chaplin got for her GDC rant this year. It seems that several prominent bloggers gave her some real shit about what she said, and I want to pipe up and defend her a bit. I understand how one could be upset by her fiery rhetoric and judgmental attitude, but I really feel like a lot of her critics missed her point.

I took Heather's point to be that game developers have no one to blame but themselves for the preponderance of male power fantasy-oriented game culture, and that hiding behind the popular excuse that the medium somehow "isn't there yet", either technically or artistically, is both cowardly and disingenuous. This was all summed up in her opening statement: the medium isn't immature; you are.

I didn't find this offensive in the slightest, mostly because it jibes pretty easily with my experience of working at a commercial game company. I didn't feel Heather was talking about me personally. I felt like she was talking about a certain kind of person who works in games, the sort who likes to disguise the bankruptcy of his own imagination with lame excuses, the sort who would say "Hey, I had no choice but to make a bloody game with floppy tits! The medium's not art yet! It's not my problem!"

People with this attitude I feel deserve all the smackdown Heather can dish out. Not because they enjoy male power fantasies, but because they don't take any responsibility for enjoying them. I didn't take her to be saying that all men who enjoy such fantasies are hopelessly childish, but that it is childish to enjoy such fantasies and pretend like they are not childish. The male-dominated games industry needs to own up to the sort of culture it is perpetuating and not try to weasel out of any debate that would hold them responsible for facilitating and maintaining these cultural norms. They need to call a spade and spade and understand that this is a choice they are making in design meetings, in marketing meetings, etc. It isn't some mystical phenomenon they have no control over. They have complete control over it. At the end of the day our current game culture is what they've created. It's didn't create itself.

Simply admitting that, owning that, acknowledging that responsibility--that's what I felt Heather was really calling for in her angry rant. That's maturity. That's what "real men" would do. It's not that creating or indulging in male power fantasies is somehow inherently wrong, but nurturing a culture based around them as the dominant form of gamer culture and then turning around and saying "Hey, it's not our fault!" is cowardly. It's a patronizing slap in the face to anyone who feels under-represented by the current culture. Mature adults (male or otherwise) should have more integrity than that. And when you're dealing with people of integrity - who enjoy blowing shit up but realize that's not what everybody wants - you have the possibility for real dialogue and real change.

GAMBIT's Phorm at E3!

2009-06-01T18:00:42Z

For those of you lucky to be running around at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles this week, keep an eye open for our summer 2008 prototype game Phorm, which is being featured in the IndieCade Independent Games Showcase! Posted below is the official press release from IndieCade.

IndieCade @ E3: An Indie Games Showcase

What is the IndieCade International Festival of Independent Games?

IndieCade is the only stand-alone Independent Game Festival in the Nation. It is also the only event of its type open to the public. It is a completely international event.
IndieCade holds an annual juried competition that culminates in its annual Festival.
The 2009 Festival will be held in Culver City, California, October 1- 4, 2009.

The festival will include an interactive exhibition of finalist games, premiere screenings, live gameplay, a conference, salons, workshops, artist talks, performances, and more.

The IndieCade 2009 Festival is programmed to serve the gamemaking community, the industry, consumers of independent media, digitally energized youth, and the general public. Culver City is located between Hollywood, Santa Monica, and Downtown Los Angeles.

What are the IndieCade Showcase Events?

IndieCade holds multiple showcase events at larger venues throughout the year including its IndieCade Europe event. These are either individually juried or curated depending upon the requirements of the venue.
The 2009 series of showcase events include:

IndieCade@E3, June 2-4
IndieCade@SIGGRAPH Sandbox, August 3-7
IndieCade@OIAF Canada, October 14-18
IndieCade Europe @ GameCity, October 26-31

What is IndieCade's Mission?

IndieCade supports independent game development and organizes a series of international festivals and showcase exhibitions for the future of independent games. It encourages, publicizes, and cultivates innovation and artistry in interactive media, helping to create a public perception of games as rich, diverse, artistic, and culturally significant. IndieCade's events and related production and publication programs are designed to bring visibility to and facilitate the production of new works within the emerging independent game movement. Like the independent developer community itself, IndieCade's focus is global; it includes producers in Asia, Europe, Australia, and wherever independent games are made and played. IndieCade was formed by Creative Media Collaborative, an alliance of industry producers and leaders founded in 2005. Advisors to IndieCade include Dave Perry, Will Wright, Eric Zimmerman, Neil Young, Tracy Fullerton, and Keita Takahashi, among many other storied industry veterans and rebels.

What do we mean by independent?

Simply put, independent games are games that come from the heart, that follow a creative vision, rather than a marketing bottom line. Independent developers are not owned by or beholden to a large publisher. This means that they generally have smaller budgets than mainstream games (often no budget at all!), but they also have the freedom to innovate and to enlarge our conception of games and game audiences. Indie developers can run the gamut from artists, to academic researchers, to students, to emerging development studios striving to make the next big indie hit. They can be one person or a large team. They may be internally funded, funded by grants or private investors, or not funded at all! The key is that they create games based on their own unique vision.

What is IndieCade doing at E3?

We were invited to curate this exhibition in order to showcase and promote innovation in the game industry. We also help to expose publishers to new independent voices. We work closely with the ESA, the IGDA and other organizations interested in supporting the cause of independent game creation. We share the goal of these organizations to showcase the present and future of video games as a culturally significant form of expression.

How were the games for the E3 Independent Games Showcase Selected?

The showcase was curated by IndieCade co-chairs Celia Pearce and Sam Roberts and Creative Media Collaborative CEO Stephanie Barish. The games were primarily drawn from the 2009 Submissions to IndieCade and we included a few successful games from last year's selection that are otherwise not possible to see. The criteria for this showcase was to put together a diverse array of games that would showcase innovation for the mainstream game industry and game press, represent a wide array of independent game developers, and highlight works to come later this year.

Who are the developers?

The developers represented here include individuals, small teams, independently owned studios, universities and their faculty and students. Developers come from around the world including the US, Belgium, Spain, Austria, Great Britain and others.

Are any of these games slated for mainstream publication?

Last year a number of games shown by IndieCade were picked up by major publishers such as Nintendo, Xbox, and Sony, as well as multiple digital distribution platforms. Other games were selected for Museum installations and other artistic venues. So, don't be surprised to see some of the titles at our showcases and festival as commercial games in next year's E3.

IndieCade @ E3: An Indie Games Showcase

Hands-On Demos

And Yet It Moves*
And Yet It Moves Team
*(2007/2008 Official IndieCade Selection, Coming to Nintendo Wii Soon!)

Blueberry Garden*
Erik Svedäng/Sweden
*(2008 Official IndieCade Selection, 2009 IGF Awardee)

Closure
Tyler Glaiel & Jon Schubbe/United States

Cogs
Lazy 8 Studios/United States

Dear Esther
thechineseroom/United Kingdom

Flywrench* & Cowboyana
Messhof, Mark Essen/United States
*(2008 Official IndieCade Selection, Currently on display at New Museum, New York)

Global Conflicts: Latin America
Serious Games Initiative/Denmark

Octopounce
Auntie Pixelante/United States

Papermint
Avaloop/Austria

Snapshot
RetroAffect/United States

Winds of Orbis: An Active-Adventure
Deep End Interactive/United States

Zephyr: Tides of War
Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy/United States

Alternate Reality, Live Games, and Installations

The Deep Sleep Initiative
ARx/United States

Mightier
Lucas Pope & Keiko Ishizaka/United States

Pluff
Diana Hughes/United States

Prototype161: Agents Wanted
Prototype 161/United States

Mobile

AquariYum!
Teatime Games/United States

Bobobua
Tripod Games/China

Guru Meditation
Ian Bogost/United States

Ruben & Lullaby
Erik Loyer/United States

Games on Video

Fabulous/Fabuleux
Lynn Hughes & Heather Kelley/Canada

Gray
Mike Boxleiter & Greg Wohlwend/USA

Posemania
Anthony Whitehead, Hannah Johnston, Kaitlyn Fox, Nick Crampton, Joe Tuen/Canada

Phorm
Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab/United States & Singapore

When The Bomb Goes Off
Tom Sennett/United States

Art Exhibition

For this year's E3, IndieCade selected games from past years to present high-resolution prints of screenshots. Below is a list of art on display and the artwork being showcased.

Braid*
Jon Blow & David Helman/United States
*(2007 IndieCade Offiial Selection, Xbox Live Arcade)

Blueberry Garden*
Erik Svedang/Sweden
*(2008 IndieCade Official Selection, 2009 IGF Awardee)

The Endless Forest - ABIOGENESIS
Tale of Tales/Belgium

Freedom Fighter '56
Lauer Learning/United States

ioq3aPaint
Julian Oliver*/Spain
*(2008 IndieCade Awardee, Technical Innovation)

Machinarium*
Amanita Design/Czech Republic
(2008 IndieCade Awardee, Aesthetics, 2009 IGF Design Awardee)

The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom*
The Odd Gentlemen/United States
(2008 IndieCade Awardee, World/Story, Distribution to be announced Shortly)

The Night Journey*
Bill Viola Studio and USC/United States
*(2008 IndieCade Awardee, Sublime)

Nobi Nobi Boy Collage
Keita Takahashi*/Japan
*(IndieCade Board of Advisors)

Passage*
Jason Rohrer/United States
*(2008 IndieCade Awardee, Jury Selection)

Rooms*
Hand Made Games/Korea
*(2007 Official Selection, Available on Big Fish Games)

Ruckenblende*
Die Gute Fabrik (the good factory)/Denmark
*(2008 IndieCade Awardee, Gamemaker's Choice)

The Unfinished Swan
Ian Dallas/United States

Where is My Heart?
Bernhard Schulenburg/Germany

Peanuts: The Game

2009-05-29T17:48:00Z

Last winter, I participated in the GAMBIT Video Game Adaptation Workshop. After a short lecture on transmedia adaptation, participants were broken up into two teams and given the task of creating a game based on an existing IP (intellectual property) within a couple of hours.

Originally, my team's ideas were vague. We knew we wanted to create a game based on the Peanuts comic strip by Charles M. Schulz, but were having problems honing in on what aspect of that universe to focus on. Our initial idea was to have a series of mini-games, but this solution seemed to just multiply the amount of games we needed to make. We decided to focus on a mini-game that reflected the psychological struggle between Lucy and Charlie Brown. For those not familiar with the comic, Lucy runs a psychiatric advice stand. Charlie Brown comes to Lucy for advice and usually ends up getting insulted and ridiculed.

The game is card-based, and only the hearts and spaces of the deck are used. The hearts represent positive, or happy, points, while the spades signify negative, or sad, points. The higher the face value of the card, the greater the emotion that the card represents. In the game, one person takes on the role of Lucy and the other of Charlie Brown. Lucy's goal is to make Charlie Brown as miserable as possible. Charlie Brown's goal is to stand strong and not end up an emotional wreck.

At the beginning of the game, each player is dealt 5 cards. A round begins by each player choosing one of the cards in their hand and placing it facedown in front of them. These cards represent the conversation between Charlie Brown and Lucy. Both players turn their card over. Whoever has the card with the higher face value is winning the round. Let us assume that Lucy has the higher card. The emotion that she is able to place into her words overpowers the strength of Charlie Brown's words. Charlie Brown now has the option of bringing up a counterpoint that has more emotion behind it than any statement previously presented that round, i.e. placing down another card with a higher face value than Lucy's. If Charlie Brown takes advantage of this opportunity, he becomes the current winner of the round. Lucy has the option of countering this counter-argument to regain her position as winner. The round continues in this manner until no one can, or wants to, present a stronger argument. Let us assume that Lucy wins this round. She gathers the cards that have been played and places them in her emotion pile. This pile represents her current emotional status. If the sum of all of the face values of the spades is higher than that of the hearts, then she is sad. If the opposite is the case, then she is happy. If the numbers are equal, then she is in a neutral state. The same is true for Charlie Brown and his emotion pile. Both players draw cards until they have 5 again and another round begins.

The game continues until the players cannot draw cards so that each has the same number of cards in his or her hand. When everyone has run out of cards, both players' emotion piles are summed. Whoever is happier wins the game.

One of the challenges of creating this game was to make the experience of playing as Lucy and Charlie Brown distinct, while making sure there was no clear advantage to being one of the characters as opposed to the other. For example, it would make sense to have the winner of the game hinge purely on Charlie Brown's emotion pile. If Charlie Brown is unhappy then Lucy must be happy about his misery. If he is happy, then Lucy must be upset that she was not able to mess with his psyche. However, we felt that this placed an unfair burden on Charlie Brown's player. The differences between playing as one of the two characters arise when a tie occurs. If there is a tie at the beginning of a round, then Charlie Brown is considered the winning character. This aspect of the game allows Lucy to present a counter-statement. Lucy wants to make Charlie Brown sad, so she doesn't want him winning the conversation. If there is a tie at the end of the game, then Charlie Brown wins. Lucy can't stand having Charlie Brown be as happy as she is, but Charlie Brown is content with the position.

I was genuinely shocked when we did a test-play of this game during the workshop. When we were coming up with the rules, the game felt too simple. There was too much that went into luck and not enough into strategy. However, as I watched others play, I realized that a lot of the fun of the game came not from the technical aspect, but the emotional one. It was about trying to read your opponent's next move and act accordingly. The challenge that this task presented was enough to entertain the players. Choosing the card that they could play provided enough control over the game for them to feel like they had a say in who won the round, even though luck was probably the greatest factor. However, the players still seemed to realize the level of luck involved, so every small victory was something to celebrate. I believe that this level of emotion as opposed to strategy was key to tying in the game with the comic strip. Perhaps this is a direction more games should go in: less strategy, more emotion.

(Peanuts, Charlie Brown, Lucy Van Pelt and representations of the characters are copyright United Feature Syndicate, Inc. and appear here for educational, non-commercial purposes only. For more information on Peanuts and Charles M. Schulz, please visit snoopy.com or the Charles M. Schulz Museum.)

MIT Enterprise Forum Salutes Henry Jenkins on June 16th

2009-05-27T17:58:42Z

If you're in the Boston area and are a friend of GAMBIT, Comparative Media Studies or GAMBIT Co-PI and CMS Co-Director Henry Jenkins, you're invited to come help send Henry off to USC in style. From 6-8 PM on June 16th at the new Microsoft Cambridge offices, the MIT Enterprise Forum New England Games and Interactive Entertainment SIG is hosting "A Salute to Henry Jenkins: The End of an Era at MIT". The complete details are as follows:

A Salute to Henry Jenkins: The End of an Era at MIT
Games & Interactive Entertainment SIG
Date: Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Time: 6:00 - 8:00 pm
Location: Microsoft, One Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA 02139
One Memorial Drive is located on the Red Line at the Kendall Square/ MIT MBTA Stop. Driving directions and additional details can be found here: DIRECTIONS

Join the MIT Enterprise Forum New England Games and Interactive Entertainment SIG (NE Games SIG) for an evening celebrating and honoring Henry Jenkins.

For more than 16 years, Henry Jenkins has graced the halls of MIT and shaped the New England games industry as we know it. An avid advocate of games culture, Henry has helped to build a deeply collaborative and creative community as Co-Director of the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program and the Peter de Florez Professor of Humanities at MIT. At the forefront of understanding the effects of participatory media, like video games, on society, politics and culture, Henry is a renowned industry figure and accomplished author/editor of twelve books.

It has now come time for Henry to seek warmer pastures as he departs MIT for the University of Southern California.

Join the NE Games SIG for this early summer networking event in Henry's honor. Take part in saluting Henry Jenkins with his friends, closest colleagues and your industry peers. The night will be filled with fond farewells and warm memories as we share a collective toast, reflect on his work at MIT and wish him all the best in the road ahead.

[Register] [Directions]

We hope to see you there!

Bionic Commando: Old School in Disguise.

2009-05-27T17:00:00Z

I broke down and finally decided to get Bionic Commando last Sunday. I'm really glad I did. The game isn't without problems, but honestly: what is wrong with the critics? It's not bad at all. I'm finding it a hell of a lot of fun, frankly. I could barely pull myself away from it Monday and played it almost the whole day.

The only way I can explain the reviews is that people were expecting something else. They were expecting something across between Gears of War and Spider-Man 2, and what they got was... well... what they got was a 3D version of Bionic Commando. God forbid there'd be a game you actually have to get good at before you begin to feel really empowered. Being a bionic badass is not easy, I'm sorry. It takes some skill and practice, but once you get the hang of it (pun intended) you feel all the more satisfied because it was you who performed that amazing stunt.

I only really began to master the arm last night, and it was immensely satisfying to intentionally execute a complex strategy that required absurd acrobatics. It was the part where you fight your first flying machine, which looks like some weird futuristic hover-bot. I realized that my arm--which was capable of smashing the robot to pieces--couldn't reach it, and my other weapons were useless. I noticed that it was hovering high above and in the center between four connecting catwalks. I knew the only way to get to it was to back flip off one catwalk away from it, spin around in the air, and use the momentum to slingshot myself around the catwalk and up directly into reach the machine. Everything went smoothly and for a moment I felt like a ballet dancer--albeit a muscular one with a rocket launcher--gliding in zero-gravity.

Yes, the radiation zones are a little annoying... although not nearly as annoying as the reviews suggest. Yes, the story is goofy... but no less goofy than the original (although the dialed-up macho-ness is moderately aggravating). But seriously, overall Bionic Commando is a very satisfying experience, with design elements noticeably derived from the classic original. Of all the criticisms levied against it, I am especially baffled by the common complaint of it being "linear". Unless you were expecting GTA, it's not linear. It basically follows the same format as the original game of progressing through levels, finding hacking points, weapon drops, etc. The levels have a progression, but they are hardly linear in the strategic sense. The way you approach new enemies are always improvisational, and there are very few obvious paths in the platforming. I would say it has big, wide-open levels that progress along a loose "path" confined by some constraints. I actually prefer this, because it allows for more focused level design, more meaningful level architecture. It's not the random free-for-all you'd find in a GTA-style world. I like the idea that I have a specific problem, like 10 soldiers on the top of a building, and I just have to deal with it using whatever I can find in one square city block. The mechanics and affordances feel perfectly balanced and suited to environments of this scope. It's all intentionally designed this way and it works.

I'm sort of fascinated by games like Bionic Commando, games that on the surface seem like they are following the lead of modern triple-A games but in fact hold secret allegiance to their classic roots. I think it is similar to ExciteTruck in this way. ExciteTruck was also a game that critics seemed lukewarm to, but I thought it was fantastic. To look at it and even to play it for a bit it seems like it has very little in common with its NES-era original. But after a while, the more you play it, the more you realize that, as a system, it is really expressing the same experiential concepts as ExciteBike. ExciteBike was all about managing your engine heat so that you can jump as spectacularly as possible in order to get ahead of other racers. Guess what? That's exactly what ExciteTruck is about. Once I realized that I saw the game for what it was: a marvelous update of a classic game that shrewdly targets and preserves certain key aspects of the original game experience. This is also a good description of what Bionic Commando does.

It is interesting to think what it means to update a classic game, as a design problem. It seems like many developers express their fan-love for a classic game through mechanics, even more-so than through story and visual aesthetic. Bionic Commando, of course, has a "modern" visual aesthetic targeted at today's market. The hero is badass by the standards of 2009, not 1988, and the world is full of brown tones and brooding characters. But under all this Bionic Commando does its damnedest to make you feel like the original game did 21 years ago. It's all about precision swinging, near-death drops from absurd heights, and surprising enemies from behind only to leap off into nowhere for a daring escape as you reach for something--anything--to save you from falling. Unlike Spider-Man 2, in which falling is not very deadly, Bionic Commando is about making you fear the ground. Rad Spencer is a super hero of sorts, but one who's far more mortal than Spider-Man. One missed swing and its over. "Death defying" is a term often used when describing game experiences, but it seldom means anything in the literal sense. Mistakes in Spider-Man 2 are not fatal, so the player isn't really defying death. In Bionic Commando they are... and that gives the experience a certain thrilling edge that more forgiving games lack.

Apparently I'm not the only one who feels this way about Bionic Commando. If you want a really excellent review of the game, try this. I think the reviewer sums it up well when he says:

Bionic Commando improves when you do, and you've got little choice but to improve. It's one of a startlingly few games out there which drives a real wedge between newcomers and seasoned players - not because the latter have levelled up a thousand times, or bought a cannon that fires electrified African Elephants, but because their skills have actually developed through practice, allowing them to soar and tumble through Ascension City's architectural thorn bush with an ease that is entirely self-made.

Yup.

Warren Spector, Hideo Kojima, and Player Choice.

2009-05-15T02:00:00Z

Warren Spector doesn't update his blog often, which is why I was surprised to discover he had actually written about Hideo Kojima's GDC 2009 keynote a while back. He says:

In describing his creative process, Kojima talked about identifying a problem (e.g., Get a Character Over That Wall) and then coming up with a bunch of ways the problem could be solved. Eventually, he settles on the coolest solution and executes that solution. I was dumbstruck that he goes to the trouble of thinking up all those answers but then limits the player to only one. In other words, the concept of choice belongs to developers, in Kojima's world, not to players!

I was at the keynote as well, and this is a wild misrepresentation of what Kojima said. The metaphor of "getting over walls", which Kojima used as a visual aid to his talk, was an illustration of his development process, not his game design philosophy. The talk was strictly about how he and his team approach production challenges. Kojima didn't even mention his personal theories of player agency, let alone explain them.

Spector's willingness to misread Kojima this way concerns me, because it is indicative of the way Kojima is often misread by Western game designers. It makes me wonder whether the people who pick on him for his supposed crimes against interactivity have ever spent a decent amount of time with his games. Spector goes on to say:

My thinking is, if you're only going to offer players one way to solve a problem, well, for starters, maybe you really want to make a movie... But, if you're going to go to the trouble of thinking up a bunch of ways to "get over the wall," as he put it, why not attach some consequences to different wall-climbing approaches and let players in on the fun?

Why not indeed? Kojima must have asked himself the same question, since there are about about a dozen ways to tackle any given problem in Metal Gear, with Snake Eater and Portable Ops offering the player especially rich possibilities. These two games are on par with the dizzying emergent complexity found in Thief and Hitman, which puts them among the best stealth games ever made in my opinion.

I am seriously beginning to think that very few of Kojima's critics have actually played his games in any significant capacity. (And by "significant capacity" I don't meaning having played MGS1 11 years ago when everyone else did. I meaning having played and finished at least a handful of the other dozen or so games he's made over the course of his career.) Kojima's got lots of problems, but choice-driven emergent dynamics isn't one of them. If criticism of Kojima's work were a little more informed we might be having useful discussions about his virtues and vices as a game designer instead of taking cheap shots.

Foundations of Digital Games

2009-05-11T19:46:19Z

Last week, Jesper Juul and I attended the Foundations of Digital Games conference. This is a conference on a Disney Cruise ship. Yes, you heard me right, on a Disney Cruise ship. It's not a bad idea if you think about it. Why network in a bar when you can network on the beach? And as the attendees kept pointing out, we're all trapped on the same boat. Plenty of time to ask your questions, right?

Yes and no, as it turns out. Cruise ships are HUGE. Thank goodness Jesper and I were in rooms next to each other or we may not have seen each other for the entire trip. Also, Internet and cell phone usage was very expensive, making meeting up with people rather cumbersome. Twitter was non-existent, and just walking around and finding other attendees wasn't as easy as one would hope. Still, dinner turned out to be a good time to network. There were FDG tables set aside, so you could walk in and be seated next to other attendees. I was also assigned a roommate, Amber Settle, a computer science professor from DePaul. Excellent person. Well worth sharing a drink and conversation with.

In terms of presentations, I found them very hit and miss. The diversity of the conference meant that there were often slots that had nothing of personal research interest to me, and what few there were seemed to conflict with each other. Not that I minded, after all the jacuzzi beckoned, but it did make me feel slightly guilty in terms of going on company time. There were a few gems, though.

Christina Strong from UC Santa Cruz discussed her work on conversation tools for game writers. Since I've been working on conversation games recently, this was particularly germane. Her particular work was creating a tool for Telltale Games to allow NPCs to make small talk. Writers would write phrases and comments for the characters to say, tagging with keywords as needed. The tool then used ConceptNet (go MIT!) to create more connections, so conversations would spring up based around related topics. For example, a conversation that started out about chili could then lead to Mexican food which could then lead to Mexico which could then lead to the beach and so on and so forth. The conversations would evolve over time. Cool stuff. Sadly, she implemented her system for Telltale's internal writing tool, so the rest of us can't see it, but neat ideas all the same. Also, I couldn't find a current website for Christina, but here's her old Georgia Tech webpage.

Damián Isla, a new addition to the Boston games community though not to the games industry in general, gave a surprisingly accessible talk about artificial intelligence tools. I very much liked his comparison between AI and method acting, suggesting that a good tool might follow the format of a theatrical rehearsal. The AI is the actor and the designer is the director. The AI has an initial set of instructions in terms of character and motivations, then does the best it can. The designer can then stop a scene at any time and correct behavior, which is then incorporated into the AI's character.

Shannon Duvall from Elon University had an intriguing poster about creating a games class that actually contained a video game style economy. Coins were earned by students who could then use them to buy extra credit, more time for an assignment, or other perks. They also could barter with each other, which she said was the more common, so less experienced students could purchase time from senior students to help them. I found this part very intriguing. It seems it creates a situation where students can specialize and market their skills to other teams. Also students would more commonly float between teams, spreading knowledge and expertise. I didn't get a chance to speak with Shannon so never heard the punch line of whether it worked or not, but I'm psyched that experiments like this are being done.

And finally, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention my own presentation, Easy to Use and Incredibly Difficult: On the Mythical Border between Interface and Gameplay, co-authored with Jesper Juul. The gist is that there's an instinct that good games have simple user interfaces but difficult gameplay. We argue that this idea doesn't always hold, both because it's hard to find a clear line between interface and gameplay and because good games can also have difficulty in the interface. The presentation went well, if I do say so myself, and we got lots of compliments after it. Some asked me if we were going to keep going with the idea, but it's such a simple idea, I'm not sure what more there is to say.

So, was I glad I went? Yes. I got to meet some cool people and had a lovely time away from the office. Will I go next year? Not sure. We'll see if I get a paper in.

Be Attitude For Gains

2009-05-09T21:49:39Z

Radiant Silvergun was one of the last games released for Sega's ill-fated Saturn. The game is a vertically scrolling shooter (or "shmup") and is considered one of, if not the, best games in the genre ever made. Its high acclaim combined with a limited, Japan-only release has made the game exceedingly rare, with copies on eBay going for upwards of $300 USD. Reasons for its status vary: the graphics, gameplay and soundtrack are all extremely impressive even eleven years after it was released.

"Be Attitude For Gains" is one of the more famous bits of Engrish in the game, displayed with advice for defeating each boss or miniboss.

What often goes overlooked, and what makes Radiant Silvergun special, is the parallel between the narrative and how the game is played (this post assumes familiarity with the plot and basic mechanics, check Wikipedia and the full plot translation at Silver Translations to get caught up). Just as the story is about an endless cycle, the gameplay encourages the player to enact out a similar cycle through several mechanisms.

The first is genre convention: shmups are typically designed to be played through over and over again, with the assumption that the player will be continually trying to improve his or her score. As a result the games are usually quite short; Radiant Silvergun can be finished in around ninety minutes.

The second is the leveling system: using a weapon to earn points causes it to gain levels, increasing the damage it inflicts. When the player runs out of lives or finishes the game they have the option to save their game, which in actuality only saves the weapon level. A new game can then be started from the save file, so the player begins the game with stronger weapons. This encourages continually using the same save file: playing the game, saving, starting over from that point, and so on. Each time the player does this the game gets slightly easier because the player's weapons are more powerful.

Next there is the chain system: every enemy ship is colored red, blue, or yellow. For every three ships destroyed of the same color the player earns bonus points. The bonus awarded increases with the number of chains, which in turn levels the weapons faster. This encourages the player to practice levels in order to learn how to chain most effectively, leading to more replays. There is also the "secret" chain, earned by destroying one red, one blue, then one yellow, and then continued by destroying groups of three yellows. This type of chain earns many more points than regular chains but is much harder to accomplish.

Finally there are two types of hidden bonuses spread throughout the game: Merry the dog and "weapon" bonuses. Merry is located in various points throughout the entire game, and can only be found by using the lock-on homing weapon. The weapon will target Merry, revealing him or her and awarding bonus points; there is no other way to find Merry. The "weapon" bonuses are also spread throughout the game; by using the correct weapon at the right time the player is awarded a "weapon" bonus. Both of these bonus types are left to the player to discover.

Normally we might say that all of these mechanics are included to increase replay value. On one level this is true of Radiant Silvergun, but there is an ulterior motive: by playing the game over and over again the player is enacting out the same type of cyclical existence presented in the narrative. Doris Rusch calls this "fictional alignment": the player experiences the endless, unbreakable cycle just as the characters do (from personal correspondence / forthcoming research).

It is this alignment that makes Radiant Silvergun so brilliant. By designing to maximize replay value, Treasure has created a game where the player wants the cycle to continue, further emphasizing the inevitably of the outcome. This is a spin on the classic adage of creative writing: show, don't tell. When the player realizes the parallel it is all the more powerful an experience because he or she was implicated in it from the beginning.

Shmups and similar arcade-style games are often derided for their emphasis on memorization and repetition, and have largely gone out of style. Radiant Silvergun shows how even an outdated form can create a compelling gameplay experience, suggesting that such an achievement might be possible for other classic game designs.

Have Adventure Games Forgotten the A in MDA?

2009-05-05T03:00:00Z

I like adventure games. I'm referring specifically to the traditional point-and-click graphical adventures. The first one I played was Torin's Passage way back in elementary school. It was the funniest game I had ever played and had the most sophisticated plot (but keep in mind that the next closest was probably Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time). Torin's Passage was developed by Sierra and written by Al Lowe of Leisure Suit Larry fame. As a simpler and more accessible variant of the typical adventure games, it was perfect for a kid new to adventure games. There were no verbs to select, generally straightforward puzzles, and even an in-game hint system. What really drew me in were the elaborately animated characters, full voice-overs, and hilarious dialogue. The world of Torin's Passage was a twisted fairy tale that was light-hearted with an underlying dark edge. I fondly remember the mountain-top guru with a yiddish accent, the slapstick shapeshifting of Torin's pet Boogle, and the emotional revelations during the final encounter. The intriguing characters and plot-twists made me begin to realize that actual stories could be told through games.

But what do I remember of the puzzles and various interactions? There was the hill where I had to hunt way too long for just the right blade of grass to click. There was a frustrating sound puzzle whose solution seemed arbitrary. There was a puzzle where I had to give a bag of rosin to a man with a violin without any prompting, and I didn't know what rosin was. To remind myself of any other puzzles, I had to look at an online walkthrough. In typical adventure game fashion, most situations boil down to clicking on the right objects and using the right inventory items. And in typical adventure game fashion, the actual playing of the game is a whole lot less memorable then the non-interactive writing and art. I never think "Oh man, it was so cool when I clicked on the shovel and then on the wall and a secret passage opened! I'm so good at this!"

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of memorable in puzzles in other games. The Secret of Monkey Island's insult battle springs to mind. Then again, that was a break from the standard mechanics. Hearing people talk about the lack of new adventure games, they frequently say they miss the complex stories, the humor, the interesting situations. Who misses the actual interactions? Are the point-and-click mechanics merely the most convenient method to tell the story? I'm sure many readers would take issue with my assumptions (or even better, are yelling indignantly at their monitors), but bear with me: We're getting to the good stuff.

The MDA framework for analyzing games has been gaining recognition and is featured in the annual GDC Game Design Workshop. MDA gives us a lens to see the relationship between players and game mechanics. Mechanics are rules and low-level processes that govern the game. Dynamics are the behaviors that emerge due to the mechanics. Aesthetics are the emotional responses the player experiences as a result of the dynamics. It's important to note that "aesthetics" in the context of MDA are solely based on mechanics and interactions, as opposed to art, music, writing, etc. Here we find one of the shortcomings of MDA. It must be understood that MDA only accounts for one facet of "fun." That being said, the fun that arises from mechanics and dynamics is certainly vital. This interactivity distinguishes games from all other media.

Let us consider how the MDA framework may shed some light on adventure games. Typical point-and-click adventure games have one of two sets of primary mechanics: either the player must select a verb before clicking on an object, or the game assumes a verb depending on context. The challenge is similar in both cases, involving discovering what to click and in what order. The resulting dynamics involve logical reasoning, recalling an earlier clue, or frequently trial and error. Think about the aesthetics that follow. The player is proud of themselves for coming up with the right solution. There is a sense of discovery as they find new objects or learn new information. While we can come up with more types of "fun" for this, notice how the non-mechanical elements of the game still are central to these aesthetics. Discovery is much more exciting when the object is visually interesting or important to the narrative. Puzzles (using the primary point-and-click mechanic) rely on the narrative and context. Abstracting an adventure game by removing art and story could still be an interesting puzzle, but much less appealing. In fact, would you be able to tell the difference between adventure games?

Adventure games seem to have been astonishingly stagnant in terms of mechanics. The interface for selecting verbs has changed, but adventure games released in the last few years function the same as they did 15 years ago. From a purely mechanical standpoint there is more difference between Super Mario Brothers 3 (1988) and Super Mario World (1990), or Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998) and Majora's Mask (2000), than there is between The Secret of Monkey Island (1990) and the Sam & Max Save the World (2006). Adventure games are almost less of a genre than a single game with different stories and puzzles. But it's the emphasis on story and puzzles that frequently set point-and-click adventures apart.

There has been plenty of evolution in adventure game mechanics, it just has occurred in other genres. Survival horror games frequently have puzzles requiring item acquisition and usage, but that mechanic is usually paired with real-time combat. Action-adventure games like the Zelda series have adapted similar elements. Role-playing games feature fully animated sequences with spoken dialogue. Each of these genres use elements of adventure games in conjunction with other sets of mechanics that form the primary interactions. I'm currently playing through The Longest Journey, and while I'm very invested in the story and am amazed by the visuals, the game mechanics just feel old. Point-and-click adventure games haven't faded away by accident, though the proud few continue to be some of the most humorous games available. They still have a place in the game industry, but it's like listening to vinyl records. Records have their own charm and many people would argue that their sound has more personality than CDs. Once in awhile I get a kick out of listening to my parents' old Beatles album, but I have 6500 songs on my computer that I can play instantaneously. There is still a market for albums to be released on vinyl, but it is a niche market that shows little signs of changing.