posted 10-28-2000 02:28 AM               

“Being The One is just like being in love…no one can tell you you’re in love, you just know it…through and through, balls to bones.”—The Oracle from the film The Matrix

Being a game designer is very much the same way. In fact, being a painter, a sculptor, a filmmaker, an actor, or any host of other professions is also very much the same way. The actual moment of becoming any of these things doesn’t happen through external factors like getting a particular job; the moment occurs within. Being a game designer, for instance, is a conscious choice one makes. It’s a way of thinking and approaching the world. It’s the constant analysis of all types of experiences in order to understand their structure and to understand why their elements come together to form the kind of experiences they do. This brings us to my Fist Law of Game Design:

A game is an experience.

I can’t emphasize that enough. In fact, I believe it so strongly that I’m not even going to mention a single game in this introduction because I don’t want to confuse the matter. A film is an experience. A play is an experience. A book is an experience. Life is an experience. A game is an experience.

Many games create an entire world for the player to explore and experience. To learn how to do this, I turn to one of the most carefully crafted worlds on Earth: DisneyLand. Some people see DisneyLand as a collection of rides in a park. I suppose many games could be viewed as a collection of levels on a map, but as always, the devil is in the details.

DisneyLand’s goal is to create an experience for the guest. First off, they’re a “guest,” not a visitor or a customer. DisneyLand’s design surely didn’t start with rides, just as a level-based game shouldn’t start with level design. DisneyLand’s design, I’m sure, started with “experience design.”

The first thing a guest encounters in DisneyLand is Main Street. Symbolically, it’s a large, clearly marked path pointing straight at the Magic Kingdom itself. Main Street is unimaginably clean. It’s nothing like an actual street in this respect, since it’s a perfect, idealized version of a street. Next, Main Street is bright, colorful, and marked with blooming flowers. These flowers are elaborately arranged and grown in amazing patterns, and they seem to be there all year round. Main Street smells like pop corn. Do you think Disney cares if they sell one bag of popcorn? The answer is no. The popcorn is there because an experience should use all the five senses and Disney decided that main street should smell like freshly popped pop corn.

Try asking for gum in DisneyLand. I bet you’ll get the same friendly, canned response from any Disney employee: “I’m sorry, there is no gum in DisneyLand.” And friendly you can be assured the employee will be, because DisneyLand is a happy place. Now, those employees may be pissed off on the inside, oppressed and underpaid or who knows what. They’re probably cussing and playing poker in the dark bowels of DisneyLand’s underground tunnels on their breaks, but as far as the guest’s experience is concerned, DisneyLand is a happy place.

Have you ever seen a delivery truck at DisneyLand? That’s because happy, magical places can’t be bothered with such things. All deliveries take place through underground tunnels. Have you ever seen a security camera at DisneyLand? Probably not, but you wouldn’t get 15 feet if you tried to steal something. You’re constantly under surveillance from the hidden cameras, the security officer with binoculars on the 5th floor of that building, and from the guy next to you in the store looking at hats. He looks like a tourist, but he’s works for Disney. After all, security is necessary, but being watched at every step is not part of the Disney Experience.

Let’s look at the experience of standing in line for a ride. There’s no designing around this one: standing in line is a technical constraint, so to speak. Disney’s solution is the make the line just as much a part of the experience as the ride. The texture of the handrails for the line for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad was chosen to be smooth wood. Most of the people working at Big Thunder Mountain Railroad look like they belong there: usually old burly men with scraggly, salt-and-pepper beards.

There’s a guy at the Haunted Mansion whose job it is to stand out front and stare at you eerily as you enter. The people who work there tend to look a little eerie to begin with anyway.

Some rides have entire stories that take place just in line! Splash Mountain tells the story of the bear and his “laughin’ place.” Star Tours’s line has C3PO and R2D2 trying to repair a shuttlecraft in a busy spaceport. The point is that every opportunity to create an experience has been seized. The employees, the handrails, the lighting, the ambient sounds and smells all contribute to the experience.

The point is that the experience was decided on first, and the ride itself is treated as just another detail to bring that experience to life.

Game design is the same way. If you want to make a game that creates the over-the-top, action-packed experience of being a super hero, then everything else follows from this. The gameplay can’t be based on slow paced exploration. You’ve got to get as much craziness on the screen as possible. The music has to be high energy. The menu’s have to feel like super hero menus, whatever that means. Would Wolverine want to sit through a long cinematic sequence at the beginning of the game? No way. Wolverine wants to rip though all that crap and beat someone up as soon as possible, preferably within 5 seconds of turning the game on.

Whether your game is a subtle, high class mystery set in a gothic mansion, or Quake 3, or a WWII flight simulator, the experience comes first and guides you to make all other decisions. Make every possible detail contribute to that experience and you’ll make Walt Disney proud.

And this brings us to what I consider the primary skill of the game designer: the ability to structure a set of details in such a way that—say it with me—creates an experience.

posted 12-25-2000 05:46 PM               

Without a doubt, story telling has been with the human race since we first managed to string a few words together, or perhaps even before that when the magic of ink and painting was discovered. As civilization progressed, the stories became more "sophisticated," eventually becoming the huge industries of film and literature that we have today. However, we as a society have yet to fully accept video games into this artistic 'clique.' The potential of video games as a new art form is unimaginable -- the ability to tell a story that the audience can actually _interact_ with is almost beyond belief. Unfortunately, these games are generally looked upon as mindless tests of nerves with some occasional eye candy.

What the public, and many game designers, don't understand is the story-telling power video games can yield by involving the gamer and pulling them into a whole new world in which they can actually make a difference. While books sometimes demand the reader keep their wits and imagination about them (not giving the mind any time to relax), and, conversely, while movies give the audience everything they need on a silver platter (now removing the need for any thought whatsoever), video games provide a beautiful balance of the two: the environments, challenges, and choreographed events let the gamer sit back and enjoy the ride, but at the same time they are free to explore the environments, face the challenges, and sometimes even change the events, all by their own actions.

I wrote an essay recently, just for fun, about the lack of any good ending sequences in games; however, while I'm still not satisfied with these endings, I came to realize just how important every single aspect of game design is to creating a successful experience. A single sound that just doesn't seem right, one small animation that looks awkward, or the ever-present "I can't stop running into the wall" badguy, can totally ruin the experience if put in the right (or, should I say, wrong) context. This is why so much effort needs to be put into a game's design, to make sure every tiny little detail adds to, rather than subtracts from, the intended experience. One small mistake, and you'll have just another forgotten clone on your hands.

The only authority I bring to this article is the fact that I've played video games since I was around five or six years old. I'm still in college, but I aim to someday go into game programming/design and, though I know everyone says this, change the way people look at games. I don't intend to do this with more flashy lights, more blood, bigger guns, or more races to choose from -- I intend to do this by giving the gamer an experience they'll never forget. Imagine a video game equivalent of Braveheart; no, not the ill-fated gaming title of the same name, but something just as thoughtful and involving as that great movie. I think it would be a great day for gamers, not to mention society.

These days, everything is becoming computerized -- I say our stories should too.

-Nick R.

posted 12-28-2000 08:26 PM               

A great many people would like to do exactly what you're talking about: show the world that a game can be a truely cinematic, moving, gripping, involving experience every bit as intennse and well crafted as the best movie.

Unfortunately, accomplishing this a little bit like the search for life in the universe. There are all sorts of planets and stars out there, but only a very, very, very, very few that have the conditions that are just right to support our kind of life. Even on one of those, you have to get lucky with just right sloshing of amino acids to form that first protein.

Meanwhile in the game industry, only a very, very, very few companies are capable of any kind of serious attempt at what you're talking about. The production costs of the animation and voice acting alone are prohibative for any sort of huge, sweeping, gripping epic game. Yeah, yeah there's final fantasy, but most it LOOKS like a silly video game with some cutscenes here and there. Metal Gear Solid is probably the most cinematic game I've ever seen, and Shenmue pulls off at least some aspects you're looking for, though its voice acting and dialogue are stilted and laughably amateur.

Once you have a talented team capable of making an epic-scale cinematic game, and enough money to do it, and enough time in the schedule to do it, and a designer with enough clout to get the company to take some risks and make a new kind of game...once you have all that...you still have to figure out how exactly this new type of game would work.

There have been several articles written on this exact subject, one By Earnest Adams on gamasutra, I believe. The basic problem is that the idea of a GAME (player in control) is fundamentally at odds with a STORY (author in control). Obviously, there's a lot more to it than that, and a lot of things that can be done, but that's page 1 of the why it's so hard to make compelling story game that's actually all about story, rather than about some unrelated game mechanic like fighting monsters to level up or solving Monkey Island inventory puzzles.

So if anyone has the magic beans to create an immersive story game that goes far beyond Metal Gear or Shenmue...speak up! =)

posted 01-03-2001 07:43 AM               

An analogy would be the experience of driving the car or riding in the passenger seat. The question would be; "How to design an experience that allows the passenger to believe that they are the driver?" I don't believe this is possible.
Think about what it feels like to be the passenger. Not just mentally, but physically as well. You may know the destination, but you don't know when the speed will adjust (up or down), you don't know the direction adjustments that will occur that will cause you to lean left or lean right. These are suttleties that you cannot know. In addition, you don't have your hands on the wheel - you can't "feel" the road or the car. If you've ever watched your passengers while you are driving, you will notice that their body reacts differently than your when you make a directional or speed adjustment. They don't know what's going to happen, and they don't have the additional anchor of the steering wheel.

I do believe that it is possible to create a game that has a lot of variety, experiences, and enjoyment, but games - by definition - do not have a pre-determined outcome. Look at baseball, at the beginning of the game no one knows what the end result will be. When one plays Starcraft, one does not know how it will end. All of the minor steps are known - harvest, build, fight - but the rest is unknown. Myst is an 'Adventure Game'. The player follows a tightly written script in an attempt to complete the adventure. The unknown is which decisions will result in success and which will result in failure (and a re-load of a saved game). It is possible for a player to stop playing the game before completing the adventure - in that case, the player has lost the game.

However, having established that the two concepts are at odds, I do believe that it is possible to create a game that tells a story. I think that it has been done many times. Games like Dues Ex, Baldur's Gate, Myst, and even Starcraft tell stories. If one follows the storyline, an adventure unfolds. Some games - like Doom, NHL 2001, and Pinball don't tell stories. I don't think these separations are bad, their designers had different goals.

In my opinion, a great suggestion for this idea is to create an adventure game that has many, many branches. The designer would plan for nearly every possible choice by the player, planning out and developing the game for each choice. A good example would be the game of Clue where every possible permutation is explored and developed. As Sirlin mentioned, this would be prohibitively expensive, but - if done correctly - would be a fantastic experience.

On another note, there is another place that seeks to 'immerse the guest in the experience' - Las Vegas. They've gone to nearly every extreme in an attempt to help the guest enjoy the experience. Having been to both venues, I think that Disney does it better. Any designer who can capture it in a game will have a winning product.

posted 01-09-2001 04:36 PM               

In Disneyland, you enter with expectations about the experience you are about to undertake, but you are then given choices about what to see and do. There is no prescribed itinerary, and yet this means that disney has gone to great lengths to ensure that the details are all there.

Games are no different. Take for example "Jedi Knight," which has been praised for its level design. The levels are of finite size, and yet large enough that the player has room to explore, arguably more space than is needed to advance the story. The player dropped into a sandbox and allowed to play.

Traditional adventure games are a little different. they are essentially interactive stories. A design goal of the adventure game is to engage the player in the decision making process and thus allow them to understand the story on a deeper level. In my opinion, this is what separates "Grim Fandango" from "Myst." Both feature surrealistic enviornments and a central storyline. However, "Grim Fandango" weaves puzzles skillfully into the plot, while "Myst" simply places them as obstacles to overcome.

I would argue that the modern RPG has begun to take this a step further by adding meaning to these choices. For example, "Deus Ex" challenges the player to make moral choices which affect the player's character and ultimately the way in which the story unfolds.

posted 01-09-2001 08:09 PM               

Disney creates an experience for the visitor and with the design they capture a visitor's attention and interest. Games have a story and an experience. It is with that they open up to a history. Star Wars is a very visible example of this. We all know that there is a lot of back story to the movies, not just the movies themselves. There are so many books that discuss the Star Wars universe it is amazing.

Perhaps were games fail is in the execution of the content. We have games with really cool graphics that are only improving. We have games that have the ability to tell wonderful, original stories. It all depends on the player and how they manipulate the game. Gamers lose a lot of interest if the game is slow to respond to their involvement.

posted 06-10-2002 10:35 AM               

I think defining a game as an experience is pretty obvious, like the article says life is an experience, so everything we do in life is an experience - games included... Using disney land as an example of an experience is great, but we should try to narrow it down some, perhaps you mean a fun experience, because life itself is not always a fun experience... The whole wolverine/music thing/cinema argument at the end is also interesting but i think it misses the point of the true essence of games. you should be able to take away all FRILLS art (includes sounds, music, and even wolverine - well his costume atleast) and still have a fun game. True, these frills ADD to the experience making it an interesting experience, sometimes even a fun one... case in point, Tetris, this is a game, that can be played with extrememely minimal art... all the disney principles fall kind of flat when applied to tetris, but the game is still fun...

posted 06-11-2002 03:07 PM               

Then there's the sub-topic of mini-game design, which I won't go into here.

posted 06-16-2002 03:05 PM               

quote:

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This is why role playing games should not include jumping puzzles, etc.

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Ah, the Ultima 8 rxperience!

posted 07-05-2002 11:47 PM               

A game is entertainment as a theme park is but you never lose at Disneyland. Everyone wins. In a Disney movie everyone lives ahem, usually

A game is a subdivision of experience if you like. Call it win/lose or Masters & Peons. Many ways to divide space, but ultimately a game tells you who you are in relation to it's ruleset.

posted 07-11-2002 04:27 AM               

Especially considering online games and how rulesets and results could differ depending on player role, ex. Neverwinter Nights.

How does a Dungeo Master win or lose? Is the Judge role entertaining?

Are there activities of a meta-player (demigod style) that are fun and challenging versus the experiences of normal players?

posted 07-11-2002 02:33 PM               

Yeah, we're getting a bit off topic and straying into a discussion of what constitutes a "game." :P