One of the reasons I have the word “chaos” in the title of this website is that I’m fascinated by the interplay between order and chaos.  Both are necessary for creativity.  Without chaos, you can’t think of anything new; without order, you can’t think of anything that makes sense.

Sometimes you just need to do something outlandish.  Something crazy.  Something chaotic.  Sometimes you have to do something that will catch people off guard, shake them up and jolt them into new ways of thinking.

Sometimes you have to do something nobody expects.

“Gaming” can mean many different things; for example, the American Gaming Association has, as their purpose, “Building a better understanding of casino entertainment through education and advocacy”.

On this blog, of course, I mostly talk about computer games, or occasionally dice-and-pencil games like Dungeons & Dragons.

I’ve been seeing some articles recently about how games can be “addictive” and encourage people to play them.  Some people take the position that games can take advantage of quirks in the brain’s organization, encouraging players to spend money on them.

Is this possible?  Well, the American Gaming Association reports $92.27 billion gross revenues in 2007…

We can often think of games as a series of obstacles, or a series of “tests”.  The game tests various things to see if the player can get to the next area, level, etc..  Can you defeat the enemies without being defeated in turn?  Can you solve a puzzle?  Have you already collected the eight Macguffins?

Depending on the type of game, the tests can look for different things.

Many games test timing and dexterity.  Racing games, shooters, fighting games; these usually require the player to manipulate the controls to achieve their goals.  In order to get past these tests, the player needs to practice.  An interesting thing about these tests is that the player often enjoys passing a lot of very similar ones over and over.  However, some players may become frustrated if it requires a lot of practice to gain enough skill for the game’s tests.

Some games have tests in the form of puzzles.  The player has to figure out the answer to a question or riddle.  Games like this are traditionally referred to as “adventure” games; most interactive fiction falls into this category (almost all, in fact).  To get past these tests, the player needs an insight.  These tests have the characteristic of not really being able to be replayed.  Many players may get frustrated if they are unable to reach the required insight.

Finally, some games test in-game accomplishment.  Perhaps the player needs to “gain levels” to pass a certain challenge, or collect a number of randomly-appearing items.  This happens a lot in the so-called roleplaying games.  To pass these tests, the player needs to spend time.  This basic concept can be re-used a lot in one game.  This kind of challenge can appeal to the largest segment of players, as anyone who spends enough time playing can pass the test.

An interesting wrinkle occurs when one test can substitute for another.  For example, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night features bosses that may be fought in an action-sequence fashion.  Really manually-skilled players can defeat the bosses without taking damage; however, players willing to spend the time can “level up” and buy equipment to stack the deck in their favor.

So there’s this game entitled Braid. It’s gotten a lot of critical praise. I bought it and I played through it, and I don’t regret my purchase, even though some aspects disappointed me.

Failure is, of course, part of the creative process. Failure is not a bad thing because it helps people learn. The problem is that sometimes people fail in such a way that you really have to question how they’re thinking; sometimes you just feel like their entire way of thinking has to be torn down and started from scratch.

In this blog post I’ll go through the various ways that Braid failed, and what made me angry enough to want to punch someone.

The (Lack of) Story

I would probably describe Braid’s story as a pastiche of Jorge Luis Borges; it recapitulates themes that I’ve seen in Fritz Leiber (The Man Who Never Grew Young) and also a bit of Infocom’s Trinity.

This isn’t a bad failure, of course. The idea of a Borges pastiche is better than the vast majority of games even try to include. In this case, in my view, it’s better to reach far and fail.

The real problem is in the presentation of the story. Someone who talked about it (I feel bad that I can’t remember who) put it this way: “Story? You mean those bits of text I ran past before every level?”. By placing the story bits in easily-skipped blocks of text, they weren’t integrated with the game.

There is an argument to be made that the game mechanics themselves express certain ideas. That’s fine, but there are two problems; First, the text and mechanics aren’t well integrated, so the text is pointless, and secondly I’m just not entirely sure what ideas the mechanics are supposed to express.

False Puzzle Advertising

One of the points that you notice in Braid advertising is that, while playing the game, you can rewind time.  If you make a mistake, like a mistimed jump, you can rewind the game and try again.  In fact, the very first level has a couple of puzzles of this nature.  The rewinding almost works like save states; you can keep trying until you get it right.  The implication is that dexterity and timing won’t be important, and that the game will only test your puzzle-solving abilities.

This impression is false.  The game soon introduces elements of symmetry breaking; some game objects are immune to rewinding, so that rewinding does not produce the same game state as previously existed.  Timing and dexterity are important, and if you thought otherwise, too bad.

Difficulty Cliff

A difficulty curve is an idea in gaming where the game starts out easy and then gets harder. As the player masters the basic skills, they’re prompted to develop more skills, or else hone their skills to perfection. In theory, having the challenges too easy leaves the player bored and having them too hard makes the player frustrated. Hence, there’s the idea that if you graphed the difficulty over the course of the game, it would make a smooth curve upward.

Braid’s difficulty goes up very quickly. In a sense it’s more like a collection of puzzles than a smooth experience. The player is tossed into the game and told to beat their head against the puzzles until they have a flash of insight (more on this later).

What really bugs me about this is that there’s one set of levels dealing with the element of time flowing backward; they gradually introduce the implications of the new mechanic in a very smooth way over several levels. To me, that section has a very smooth curve.

It’s just that that section is only unlocked after you’ve beaten everything else in the game. A messed-up difficulty curve is the kind of thing that happens a lot; it can be hard to get right, and after all it’s a lot easier to create puzzles than to solve them. So, this failure is understandable, but I can’t help feeling that it drove a lot of players away from the game.

The Impossible Puzzle

In the first level, there’s a puzzle I could never have solved.

At this point there will really be spoilers, if there weren’t before.

But anyway, you read that right, in the first level there is a puzzle I could never have solved. The basic framework of Braid is that there are worlds, and each world has several levels, and each level has several puzzle pieces. The puzzle pieces are the goals, they’re what you’re trying to collect.

Each world also has a picture frame where you can assemble the puzzle pieces into a picture. Once the picture is complete, you’re finished with the world. (Except for “bonus stars”, apparently, but I don’t really know much about those; they’re not obvious.) Each picture frame appears in two places; there’s one in the main hub of the game (the world select screen), and there’s one found somewhere in each world. So, going through the game it’s obvious that the puzzle pieces are a scoring mechanism. They don’t have any game effect, except unlocking the final world once you’ve completed all the others. The picture frame makes a nice alternative to a progress bar, showing you how far you’ve gotten in the game.

So, near the end of the first level is a puzzle piece that seems impossible to get to. There are no platforms or clouds near it, no enemies to bounce off of. It’s sitting high up in the air, unreachable.

Eventually I got so frustrated with this puzzle piece that I poked about on the internet to find out how to get it (more on this later).

It turns out that some of the puzzle pieces—only the ones in the first world—actually have platform pieces on them if you look closely. Instead of simply collecting these pieces, you had to rearrange them within the picture frame found in the world to create a platform allowing you to reach the last puzzle piece.

Let’s go through all the ways this makes no sense:

• If you thought the puzzle pieces were only a scoring mechanism, you could never solve the puzzle. It’s as if, in some other game, you had to climb up your health meter.
  
• If you were going to wait until you had collected all the pieces for the first world before manipulating them, you could never solve the puzzle.
• If you dismissed the picture frame within the world as being superfluous and only using the ones on the main screen—where you can see them and your progress all at once—you could never solve the puzzle.
• If you assumed that the game would point out all the game elements that were important and make sure you had at least a basic idea of what they did—like it does for every other game element—you could, that’s right, never solve the puzzle.

Walkthrough Bullying

So, if you got frustrated with Braid, you might want to find some hints. Your search might take you to the walkthrough page on the official Braid website.

Spoiler alert: This is not a walkthrough.

Jonathan Blow (creator of Braid) apparently takes the position that hints or walkthroughs interfere with the experience of the player solving puzzles on their own. That’s a position that I can basically respect, although I disagree with it. (Me, I believe that very often the sense of relief you get from solving a puzzle doesn’t make up for the frustration you have to go through.)

The problem is that the “walkthrough” doesn’t just say “solve the puzzles on your own”. No, the “walkthrough” actually lures you in with the promise of giving hints…and then it chastises you for asking for help.

This “walkthrough” is more like a hazing ritual. You have to go through a certain amount of pain before you can join the inner circle, and you get humiliated for your weakness.

This “walkthrough” amounts to Jonathan Blow slapping you in the face for not being good enough to play his game.

In a sense it may not be a failure of Braid itself, but it’s a grave mistake by Jonathan Blow that he needs to apologize for before he can move forward.

Recently I’ve been thinking that a game design is a social contract.  I’m sure this isn’t a new idea, but it’s important to me and I feel like writing about it.

The basic “flow” of game design and play works like this:

• The game designer creates a game.
• The game designer makes that game available.
• The game is transferred to the player(s).
• The player(s) play the game and derive some sort of fulfillment from it.

Some Notes

The “game” includes rules, play materials like a game board, content, software, anything and everything that is provided to let someone play a game.  In this case, “game designer” is really shorthand for an entire game production company.

The game is “made available” by selling it, publishing it on the web, perhaps even providing a client-server arrangement so the player(s) may interact with the rule systems.

When I say the player(s) derive “fulfillment”, that could be “fun” or “enjoyment”…or it could be “interest” or “engagement”.  Like watching a film; take as an example a documentary about war.  It’s easy to imagine such a film that would be most definitely not “fun”, but also a valuable experience.  So there may be games that will provide an experience that is valuable without being “fun”.  (See Greg Costikyan’s analysis of Grey Ranks.)

There might be games that follow models other than this one, and it might be cool to explore them, but I think this model will serve for the purposes of this post.

The Social Contract

So far I’ve just made observations.  What I’ve described is how games work.  But now let’s think about this further.

When a game designer makes a game available, certain expectations come into play.  In essence, the designer is promising that their game will follow the model stated above.  In other words: The game designer promises that playing the game will provide the player(s) with a fulfilling experience. That’s the entire point of selling the game; this concept underlies every game transaction.  The player(s) play the game because they believe it will provide them with a fulfilling experience.  That’s why they follow the rules.

How can the contract break down?

Perhaps the player(s) follow the rules but the game just isn’t fun.  Well, it happens; a failure of skill on the designer’s part, perhaps.  Not every film is wonderful, nor every book, nor every game.

Another failure of the contract is when the designer wants the player(s) to do something within the game, but nothing in the game tells them this action is available.  In a trivial example, if you publish a game with no instructions, you’re breaking the social contract.  Sure, in certain contexts the controls might be “obvious”, but I think it’s unwise to rely so heavily upon cultural context like that.  If someone doesn’t have the requisite knowledge to play the game, they’ll just be frustrated.  It’s in a designer’s best interest to provide instructions.

(An interesting counterpoint to the previous bit is towlr.  Towlr games are intentionally obscure.  However, I don’t believe this is a violation of the social contract, because the towlr webpage says: “Contrary to conventional design wisdom, the towlr games come without instruction and without explanation. Your job is to discover their secret, and score deliciousness.”  In essence, the instructions tell you that if you attempt to solve the riddle posed by each game, you will enjoy the experience.  I think it’s clear that this fits into my social contract model.)

Some games actually attempt to engender behavior in the player(s) that is contrary to the game rules.  Well, I say “some” but I only have one example at hand; Vampires, by Victor Gijsbers.  You can read through the game’s rules, the author’s commentary, Greg Costikyan’s commentary and several posts on the subject (including a couple by myself and a few by the author).  I won’t say any more about the game here, except to say that I don’t think anyone would, or even should play the game “as written”.

This might work as a Flash game or a console game; it requires multiplayer.

The idea is that it’s an ordinary racing game, say like Burnout, Gran Turismo et al..  Or it could be a simpler top-down game like 4×4 Off Road or even RC Pro-Am way back in the NES days.  There is one player-controlled car in a “pack” of racers.

The point of the game is that there are four people playing at once, trying to control the car.  The controller inputs are put together in a voting algorithm that decides what input is actually used at every instant.

This could make for some interesting gameplay.  Racing is the kind of game where, if there’s one path that’s really good and one path that’s less good, a path that’s “between” those two paths will also be “between” them in terms of results.  The function is monotonic, in other words.  Of course that’s not true, but the areas where it isn’t true might be interesting.

I could envision a more skilled player trying subtle maneuvers and being frustrated with the less skilled players…However, at the same time the less skilled players are being shown more skillful ways to play the game!  A team of four really skilled drivers might be in perfect sync…or they might have completely different ideas of what to do!  In the end it might be the teams that work together well that will do the best.  (Perhaps a tournament mode with 16 players driving 4 cars?)

Certain games allow players to customize aspects of their character or in-game situation.  Consider Cosmic Encounter; each player has a special power representing their particular alien species.  Classically these powers are randomly selected, in the form of cards dealt out to the players at the beginning of each game.  Of course, some play groups might let players choose their alien races, or else negotiate the distribution.

That’s the great thing about powers on cards; you can easily shuffle them up and deal them randomly, or you can let players choose in some other method.  Those two methods would provide for different experiences; therefore, players have an easy way to vary their experiences of they choose.  The really important thing is that you’ve allowed players these two options without any extra work.

What other scenarios might profit from this strategy?  Some games allow customization, so let’s think of doing them randomly.  A randomly chosen character class in a game like Kingdom of Loathing?  How about a randomly generated Master of Orion 2 race?  How about the other side, a randomly generated option that might benefit from direct choice?  This one is actually much harder to think of; I suspect if people play a game where this happens, somebody eventually hits upon the idea of letting people choose; Diplomacy comes to mind.  I’d be happy to hear more examples in the comments!

I recently had a bit of an insight into game design.  Perhaps it’s something that other people know about, but I’ve never heard it articulated before.  In any case, it’s important enough to me that I’ve started thinking of it as “the Chaoseed Principle”.

First, let’s think about tabletop RPGs.  Specifically, let’s think about the Lumpley Principle.  To paraphrase Vincent Baker: “A system of rules is the means by which players agree to imagined events during play”.  This leads to a sort of flowchart of actions.

1. A player proposes that something happens in the game world.
2. Negotiation occurs with the other players, drawing upon the rules.
3. The negotiated action is considered to “have actually happened” in the game world.

There are a few interesting things about this flowchart.  For one thing, when I say “player” I could be referring to the “game master” or other similar position that often is found in game rules.  When I say “the negotiated action”, it may turn out to be something entirely different than the proposed action.  It could be that nothing at all happens.

That’s all well and good, and I could talk about the Lumpley Principle for hours.  However, I want to look at a slightly different facet of this subject.  The Lumpley Principle talks about the negotiation, the second and third steps…

…But what about the first step?  How do players decide what actions to take?  Here’s where we get to my little insight.

One responsibility of the system is to suggest actions to the players.

Here, by “system” I’m referring to the “setting”, “flavor text”, “background story” and even “artwork” involved in an RPG release.  Some people might consider that a little too inclusive.  (Perhaps “product” would be better, but for now I’ll stick with “system”.)

I think it’s appropriate to think of the Lumpley Principle as concerning itself with resolving (or heading off) arguments as to “what actually happens” in the game.  But an RPG has to do more than that, it has to suggest actions to the players.  It has to provide seeds of interesting stories.  Sure, you know how to simulate all sorts of actions—but what actions do you take, and why?

D&D suggests you portray a warrior who decks himself out in powerful magic items and engages in elaborate tactical planning.

Ars Magica suggests you follow the story of a wizard in medieval Europe who spends decades training his magical skills and researching specific spells…not to mention scribing and copying arcane tomes.

Call of Cthulhu suggests you experience the adventures of a Lovecraftian protagonist coming up against supernatural forces that drive him insane.

My Life With Master suggests you portray a monster created by a mad scientist, who rebels against his creator but is so wracked with self-loathing that he is driven to suicide.

These are not stories that players might have considered roleplaying a priori.  A group of roleplayers can sit down at a table and play out any story imaginable without any rules.  But it’s like staring at a blank page; The totality of possibility is a difficult thing to grasp.  It helps to have suggestions from the rules, seeds that will sprout into enjoyable stories.

Now let’s pull our gaze back a bit.  The Chaoseed Principle doesn’t only apply to tabletop roleplaying games.  In fact, it can apply to any game.  Final Fantasy VII, for example, suggests you play through a very specific story.  What I find most intriguing are games that provide interesting “seeds” without constraining the action very much.  Spore, or SimCity, or Dwarf Fortress.  Sure, you could sit down and try to draw an alien monster, but Spore gives you body parts and coloring tools to suggest a host of interesting species.

So, someone I know has created this cool new superhero universe-collaborative writing project-thing called “My Super First Day”.  And I’ve contributed to it.

Whisper

Pretty fun.  This whole writing project thing may even continue.

Equipment.  Why do games have it?  Is it to give the fantasy a bit more realism, or at least plausibility?  Is it because all the other games have it?  The truth is that there are solid design reasons to have equipment in your game.  However, it’s possible some developers don’t even know the good reasons, and that can result in shoddy design.  So, since I’ve been thinking about this recently, I thought I’d go over this basic game design area.  It all has to do with interesting choices.

Let’s take an example; let’s say there’s some item that provides 5 Defense.  Then there’s another that provides 10 Defense.  In some games, these bonuses will simply accumulate; in this case, it’s just a matter of getting every item.  That’s not very interesting, though.  What if these items were, say, helmets?  Then you could only use one of them.  In that case, you’d still want to accumulate every item, or at least the best one you could find at that moment.  There might be some issues with balancing out, say, what you could afford to buy vs. how good it was.  But mostly there’s not much of interest here.  Not only that, once you get the 10 Defense helmet, you forget all about the 5 Defense one.

However, let’s say that there’s a helmet that provides 10 Defense, but also one that provides 5 Defense and 5 Speed.  Now this sounds like more of an interesting choice.  Of course it all depends on the stat system, but here are some of the things we think about: Is Speed more important than Defense?  Is it more important in some situations?  Would it be profitable to wear one helmet in one situation and the other helmet at other times?  What if you can also change your body armor, which has its own varying effects; What strategy will you use in choosing your items there?  Will you specialize in increasing one stat, or will you take a more balanced approach?  With more types of equippable items, there are more profitable combinations.  These all lead to interesting choices.  Not only that, in this scenario the “lower-level” items are not simply superseded by later ones.

Many games allow a character to accumulate items that provide benefits.  It’s definitely worthwhile to think about these systems of benefits, to make sure you have some interesting choices for the players.