That's no moon: 2015

søndag den 10. maj 2015

Live, Die, Repeat

Edge of Mordor

I don’t have any deep analytically insight or anything. Just some observations on dying.

In video games you usually have more than one life. Or some way of you to not be eliminated from playing. You do something, you fail and die. Then you lose a life and repeat the process.

We’re used to dying in video games. Mario have always had more than 1 life even before his name was Mario.

In Middle-Earth – Shadow of Mordor (SoM) you are already dead.

You play as Talion a dead ranger bound to the spirit of a long dead elf. Talion will not be able to die and pass on before this bond is broken.

In the game that means when you die you are teleported to one of your unlocked spawn point (some elven ghost towers). Some in game time passes and you’re free to return to whatever goal you were pursuing.

You in effect have infinite lives and all of them “counts” and all happened to the same Talion in the same world.

The mechanic of checkpoints and extra lives are linked to the narrative.

SoM Isn’t the first game to do this of course. Connecting dying as a mechanic and a part of the story. In Prince of Persia – sands of time (SoT). You don’t die. If you fail something that would kill you, time is reversed to a checkpoint. Both gameplay wise and story wise. So it never happened and that is justified in the story.

In Bioshock infinite. The Booker that dies is just one of infinite Bookers from one of the infinite alternative universes. That is way more meta and abstract than SoT and SoM but you get the point.

I think game developers do this to keep the players immersed in the game as much as possible. Loading screens and menus disrupts the flow of the game. And in more story driven games the developers wants the player to feel part of the story. In books and movies the protagonist doesn't usually die and come back multiple times.

With no real basis in research I think that’s why checkpoints and autosaves is more common than the extra lives approach of classics like Mario and Pac-man.

But sometimes linking mechanics and narrative this closely can have unintended consequences. They can grind together and work against each other. That’s going to take you out of the game instead of immerse you.

Here is an example and the reason I’m writing this.

I’m in a cave in Mordor running towards the exit being chased by ghouls. I have to get out before the cave collapses and kills me. I’ve had to repeat this process a couple of times because I failed. Now Talion burst from the cave breathing hard and looks back, relieved.

I am too.

But wait a minute.

Why is he relieved? Well it’s probably scary and very uncomfortable to be crushed by rocks. But Talion is a ghost so there is no reason for him to care. Dying is annoying and takes time out of a busy ork killing schedule but not much else.

Escaping the cave would be easier by dying and being spirited away. But the game doesn’t allow that suddenly.

So in SoM there is a couple of story mission where the mechanics change.

I have been condition by the game to lose and die in a certain way. And actually linked it to the narrative. So the mechanics and narrative supports each other.

But sometimes they change the rules and defy their own logic.

When you notice, it can bring you out of the game. That is not what was intended.

ludography:

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor ; Monolith. 2014

BioShock Infinite ; Irrational Games 2013

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time ; Ubisoft Montreal 2003

mandag den 23. februar 2015

F#!% you BioWare!

DA:I, controls and immersion

The newest BioWare game RPG came out. some time ago now. I sat ready at 23:59. The clock struck midnight and Origin pointed out that Dragon Age: Inquisition was playable. I jumped right in. Excited.

40 minutes later I’m pissed. And I’m not alone.

The controls on PC are terrible. An insult to dedicated PC players. The ones the original DA and Mass Effect was made for. BioWares peeps.

The game was undoubtedly designed for and on console. But come on, you said you were going back to what made DA:O great. We thought that also meant controls optimized for PC. Or at least not the worst control scheme in the series. Oh well.

Why is it such a prob. And why are people so mad?

Controls are important for our enjoyment of a game.

If you go to the official DA:I forum a lot of people are disappointed and angry. Some even got refunds.

http://forum.bioware.com/topic/522595-just-requested-my-refund-did-you/

The user Xralius says:

“I highly doubt as PC users Bioware will ever respect us, but at least that might make them notice us.”

And

“Bioware LIED to its fans when it said it was making this game for the PC first and foremost. That is OBVIOUSLY not the case.”

Yankblan says:

“I sympathize with the PC controls problems, but the game mechanics and devs choices won't be fixed”

So the controls for PC is definitely a problem.

If you look at the forum 7 of threads on the front page is about PC problems¹. Mostly controls. About ¼ of all the threads. One thread is titled: “Entire game designed for consoles, an insult to PC gamers everywhere.” Is maybe a bit too much. Saying “Bioware has no integrity.”

But the top thread, the one with most views and replies is “The controls for this game on the PC need attention”.

Now when I explain what the biggest PC control problem is it might seem like a small thing. But it is not.

You can’t move by holding the left and right mouse buttons or click on things to move to them. Like you do in other RPGs and the previous DA games. And you cannot link controls to mouse buttons, the mouse controls cannot be changed.

But can’t you just learn the new control or use a controller? Well yes and no.

Learning the controls, the new controls, takes time and focus away from the rest of the game. Especially if you thought you knew the controls and didn’t think you needed to spend time on them, again.

Like buying a new bike, being ready and excited to give it a spin. And then finding you forgot how to ride.

You only have a certain amount of brain capacity to engage with a game, or anything else for that matter. Gordon Calleja’s model of Immersion is built on that fact.

It has six different frames: Kinesthetic, Spatial, Shared, Narrative, Affective and Ludic. What they all entail is not important right here. The point is that to be immersed you have to engage with all 6, fully. So if you have to think too much about one, say the kinesthetic, you don’t have brain capacity to engage with something else.

The important one here is the kinesthetic involvement, which is learning and using controls.

Usually good controls should disappear in the mind of the player. You don’t think about games as pressing triangle, circle and square in a specific order. There is exceptions to this, games where the controller and therefore controls are in focus. Games like Guitar Hero or Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. Here a big part of the game is kinesthetic involvement so it makes sense to spend a lot of brain capacity on the controls. It doesn’t take away from the rest of the game because that IS the game.

There seems to be two schools of thought regarding the controller. One that the controller should disappear in the mind of the player. The second that the controller should be in the forefront of the game experience. Both indicates how important good controls are.

“The controller is what connects us to the game and enables us to play, but it is the part of play that we are least likely to reflect on” (Kirkpatrick, page 111)

That is as long as it works. So when it doesn’t work it messes with our ability to play.

“While a player’s attention might initially be focused on the controls whilst learning to play a particular videogame, after a certain competency is reached this attention shifts away” (Bayliss, page 100)

Until that happens you can’t fully engage with the other parts of the game.

So in DA:I I’m using a lot of energy on walking and running. I’m not appreciating the beautiful vistas of Feralden and Orlais. The narrative is for the most the most part experienced while standing still. One of the big draws for DA:I is the tactical combat and the game definitely not easy if you want to do well. But when you have to think about moving, it is hard to be tactical. You also end up making silly mistakes. Being bad at the game feels like you are being punished more than you made a mistake. And that’s frustrating.

For other PC players it is bad enough. But for me and others that in no way can use a controller it is disastrous. Learning the controls and achieving embodiment is more than a challenge, it is an insurmountable barrier. It becomes almost impossible to reach the competency needed for the controls to disappear and free up brain power to engage with the rest of the game.

If you can’t engage with the game it’s hard to enjoy.

So for now, fuck Dragon Age.

Notes:

Of course BioWare is saying they get it and is going to fix some of the concerns in a upcoming patch

1: As of 20^th of november

Ludography:

BioWare. Dragon Age Inquisition. 2014

505 Games. Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. 2013

Harmonix. Guitar Hero. 2005

Bibliography:

Calleja, Gordon. In-Game: From Immersion to Incorporation, The MIT Press 2011

Bayliss, Peter - Toward a Sense of Embodied Gameplay

http://www.digra.org/wp-content/uploads/digital-library/07312.19059.pdf

Kirkpatrick, G Games & Culture. 2009;4(2):127-143. Controller, Hand, Screen - Aesthetic Form in the Computer Game

fredag den 13. februar 2015

Hey don’t I know that guy

The secret stars of videogames

Sid Meyers, Peter Molyneux, Gabe Newell, Tim Schafer. We know these names because we care about videogames. And to a degree we have been damaged by our field of study.

We have been forced to become videogames nerds if we weren’t before. This is another way that, for better or worse, the videogame industry has been co-opted by Hollywood and has become more like the movie industry (in a commercial sense).

They sell us the games using stars. using recognition.

The names I mentioned above will probably not be recognizable by all that play videogames. But most know EA, Ubisoft, Valve, Blizzard and Rockstar. They on the box. It is Sid Meyer’s Civilization.

Not just civilization. This is mostly for the initiated I guess, like film buffs talking about Auteurs[1] like Hitchcock, Kurosawa and Welles. But it can help in selling game as a product. Just look at Tim Schafer’s Double Fine Kickstarter story[2]. They used their fame to make the games they want, and to not be beholden to a big company or studio.

Like the famous directors that get finance from Hollywood to make what they want. Hollywood trust us to pay to see the next Christopher Nolan film no matter what crazy, amazing, convoluted and pretty film he makes. Because he made one of the most successful and highest grossing movies of all time[3].

Stars

Back to games. Now some games try to use the same tactic as Hollywood to reel us in, Stars.

Netflix also did this with House of Cards[4]. Get a famous actor and director and people will come. Make a good show and people will stay.

Now Activision just need to make you buy their product not hang around for multiple seasons. So they give you a dead-eyed Kevin Spacey playing almost the same guy as in House of Cards. This seems like a blatant attempt to get more people to buy the game.

Call of Duty have done this before, in Black Ops they had Ed Harris, Gary Oldman and Ice Cube playing pivotal characters.

It goes back to the beginning also. Using real actors in cut-scenes like the command and conquer series or Jedi knight.

In Toonstruck from 96’ we saw Christopher Lloyd of Back to the Future fame in a cartoon world with a cartoon side-kick voiced by Dan Castellaneta (Homer Simpson)

And in Red Alert 3 they tried to entice us with pop culture icons George Takei and J.K. Simmons.

But now the technology has become so advances that we can make carbon copies of real actors and put them into games.

Like they did with Kevin Spacey.

Or in games that try to be cinematic or story telling games, like Beyond two Souls starring digitally copies of Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe. All done with performance captures as is the norm in triple A games.

There is nothing wrong with that, but having a famous actor doesn’t make a game better and won’t make me more likely to buy it. Though it might work for some, otherwise why go through the trouble?

There are great actors in games already giving voices and personalities to all our favorite game characters. The last of us and all the Telltale games will be remembered more for its great moments than any Call of Duty story. But you probably can’t name any of any actors of those games.

Unknown stars

Here are some more names

Talion, Joel, Booker DeWitt, Joker and Jack Mitchell. You know these people I think, some of them at least. They all have something in common. They are all videogame characters. But they share something else, Troy Baker.

This guy:

The voice and body behind them all.

I’m playing the new Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare and Jack Mitchell, the playable character, takes of his breather mask and looks at me. I’m like, hey don’t I know you? And sure enough it is a perfect digital copy of the actor Troy Baker.

I do know that guy. First from cartoons. But after BioShock Infinite and Booker DeWitt I noticed he popped up in all the videogames I looked forward too. Turning up in some of the best games of the last 2 years (or ever: Last of Us, BioShock Infinite). Joel in Last of Us and Booker, Ok now he is going to do The Joker instead of Mark Hamill. Hmmm, all right. So finishing Shadow of Mordor I try Advanced Warfare and there he is again.

He is also one of the main characters in Tales from the Borderlands.

The newest Telltale game.

Now I’m sounding like a total fanboy and a big dork. Well that might very well be true but not the point. My point is that acting and thereby actors has become a big part of games and we beginning to get videogame specific celebrities. And the videogame industry is becoming more like Hollywood.

Many of these actors comes from voice acting not from “real” acting. Meaning cartoons not stage or film. And as with cartoon celebrities you would never recognize these people on the street, unless of course you happen to be a total fanboy or a big dork. Or maybe just academically damaged.

The point is: let’s not be enticed by big Hollywood names in games. Let’s acknowledge the unknown stars that already exist.

The ones that gave us the voices for Joel (Troy Baker), Nathan Drake (Nolan North), Desmond Miles (Nolan North), Commander Shepard (Jennifer Hale) and the countless other characters that have become so important in mainstream games.