The Universality Of Gameplay (& Gary Penn's Rules Of Design)

Stumbled on an article detailing Gary Penn's game design philosophies earlier today.  I'd almost forgotten that it was he who taught me the idea that the same games we play on computers could be played on paper or cards.  It's a good point, and one that feeds back into my thoughts on the matter of games and stories.

After all, playing isn't always about sport-like games.  Children play "house" and "doctors" - or, in my case "space fighters on the run from robotic ninja dinosaur nazis".  In these games, story is an integral part of the game - the production of the story is, in a way, the aim of the game.

None of the theories I or anyone else espouse on game design are exclusive to computer or video games, and its why I try and avoid saying "computer/video games" when I talk about them.  Play is a universal concept that has happened as long as humanity has existed.  In some ways, it is even more primal than the concept of storytelling - animals play, but they don't (as far as we can tell) tell stories*.

So if you're looking to diversify your inspiration, you might want to consider playing more board or card games.  Its not that cool, it seems a bit sad and geeky, but I've found a few I find perfectly acceptable, and you might too.

Then, next time you're designing a game, think how it might work on paper or cards.  If it doesn't seem fun there, ask yourself - what would make it better on a computer?  Its a good way of catching a problem in a timely and economic fashion, rather than wasting time and money developing a product with fundemental gameplay issues.

* With the notable exception, of course, of my mum's cats, who tell her endless stories about their daily routines, their preference for "the expensive cat food" and their dislike of any changes in their surroundings.

Restating My Beliefs: More On Games & Narrative

As I've said before, my views on games and narrative are always changing.  Once, I believed that games were games, and stories were just tacked onto them.  Then I began to see things differently - I began to realise that gameplay itself had a sort-of narrative embedded in it, and that marrying the two narratives could produce something magical, new and exciting.  Now, my beliefs have broken completely free of the confines of that argument, so I thought I'd go back over them one more time.

Tetris, believe it or not, was the title that first made me consider the potential for gameplay to form a narrative of a kind - for Tetris might well be the one great "tragic" narrative in gameplay, comparable in a way to Romeo & Juliet.  From the introduction that makes it clear this is a "tale of woe" (much like the way in which Tetris's bucket shows no way of completing the game) to the rising tension between the families, leading to the final demise of our couple, any individual's story in Tetris is analogous to the Shakespearian tragedy, despite each player's story being unique.

I've said before that the term "storytelling" doesn't apply to films OR games.  I've recently found a new way of explaining this; considering the point at which the story itself is born.   A story is, in its purest form, words that are spoken directly from one person to another - narrated, hence the term, narrative.  When a story is told directly, the point of the story's creation is clear - the words are being spoken from one person to another.  When watching a movie, however, we are left to interpret the images on-screen into a story by ourselves.  The point of story creation is once-removed from the author themselves, in that we are left to interpret what they are showing us into a story of our own.  Games, then, are the next logical step from this - a medium thrice removed from the author, where we are given an environment where we could potentially have a story, and we are left to first manipulate this environment in whatever way we see fit, and then to construct the story in our head from this.

The argument, as I see it, is not whether games are as credible a medium for stories as movies or books.  Games are a medium completely separate from any other, even more abstracted from its most direct predecessor, cinema, as that medium is from its predecessors.

To put it another way, I have been right all along, despite my viewpoint changing.  Games are not a storytelling medium as we know it, and stories we add to them are always tacked onto them.  Gameplay, however, can form something like a narrative of its own, and in this way we can see parallels between a gameplay experience and a story.  Until we can accept games as a truly independent medium from others, we are bound to limits in what we can achieve with them.

Why The Nerds Have To Go: The Need To Diversify In Our Industry

I posed a question on twitter recently - what would games be like if more developers listened to Miles Davis instead of Dragonforce?  A joke, perhaps, but one with a serious message.

Ideas are not magical.  Its not a concept that makes for very popular discussion, but ideas are not the product of some inexplicable miracle, merely the end result of our brains processing the stimuli fed into them.  Yes, we are all capable of having our own, unique ideas, but - in the end - our ideas are not as amazing as we think they are.

Why would I bring up such a negative concept?  Because a lot of people complain about the lack of originality and creativity in computer games, but often the same people fail to notice the lack of creativity and originality in their own lives.  If ideas are merely the product of our inspirational stimuli, then its no surprise that our swarms of anime-heavy-metal-and-games loving enthusiasts fail to make waves in the creative process.

Diversification of outside interests might be the secret solution to creating exciting new games.  Instead of playing Gears Of War or watching Naruto, go climb a mountain.  Instead of buying £300 pieces of limited edition movie memorabilia, buy a plane ticket to Nepal and check out the architecture.  Even if its not something you'd normally enjoy doing, think of the unique influence it'll have on your creative processes.

Even something as small as changing your choice of background music can make a huge difference.  Try designing a fighting game while listening to Mozart, or a puzzle game to the disjointed jazz of Jon Zorne.

In short, if we want to shake up our industry, we should start shaking up ourselves first.

Warren Spector on Game Design, Part 1

A while ago, I found a .torrent file of the Warren Spector Game Design lectures.  Fascinating stuff, but lengthy and difficult to watch on a tiny screen.

So in an effort to make some of these points sink in with myself, and to make the video more watchable on a quick lunch break for my busy peers & colleagues, here's a 6 minute version of the first lecture that just contains Warren's excellent main points on player choices and experience:

Alas, I've yet to find a contact address for Mr. Spector to get his approval, so I'm publishing this under the "I don't see why you wouldn't like it, but if you don't I'll take it down" licence.

If there's enough interest, I'll edit down the other half of his introductory lecture, and then take a look at some of the guest lectures that followed.