As anyone who reads my write-ups knows, I like looking at the elephant from every angle (see the blind men and an elephant anecdote, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_Men_and_an_Elephant), so to speak. I keep coming up with different theories (angles to look from, or parts of the elephant to feel out), and testing them against successful games.

Recently, I’ve been playing Fallout 3 for fun… and at the same time, seeing how well my theories match what Fallout is doing design-wise. (For all those Fallout/Oblivion bashers: Yes, Fallout has many flaws, but I don’t expect perfection and can look beyond the flaws.).

Fallout is “fun” to play because it does a decent job of meeting a few basic requirements:

• Fallout creates a world that’s interesting and relevant to the player – If the Fallout world really existed, and players could teleport into the alternate Fallout reality, what would make the world “fun”?
• Fallout has an events coordinator – Games need to keep the player’s attention (aka: brain) busy during gameplay, so they don’t get bored (and overtly realize that the virtual world isn’t real).
• Fallout’s world tries to feel like a real world – If the virtual world (from requirements 1 and 2) were simulated Disneyland-like in the real world, using monster-shaped robots, people, and near-infinite resources, would it still be “fun”?
• “Please ignore the man behind the curtain” – Fallout isn’t a real alternate universe, and it doesn’t exist Disneyland-like in the real world. It exists on a computer. Consequently, the computer version of Fallout’s world needs to minimize the number of times that the game “reminds” players that it’s just a computer game.

   

   

Making a world that’s interesting and relevant to the player

If players could use a device to teleport them to the alternate reality of Fallout (yet not be subject to injury by the alternate reality – radiation, bullets, etc.), what would make the alternate-reality Fallout “fun” for players?

• The world fulfills the player’s “needs”:

o   Escapism – From the escapist’s POV, Fallout is fun simply because it isn’t the real world… and it isn’t yet another cliché Tolkien-based world either.

o   Identity experimentation – Players can experiment with being evil (or good).

o   Growing up – For teenagers, the game is about growing up: Freedom, learning, becoming more powerful, and making your own choices.

• Players uses the world to learn and understand:

o   Fallout answers the question, “What is it like to live in a post-apocalyptic world?” (I suspect people were more concerned with this question in the 1950’s than the 2000’s.)

o   Memelets – Memelets are small ideas that are scattered throughout the game world, such as observations about the sanitized 1950’s culture, thoughts about the fragmentation of society, human behavior under difficult circumstances, etc.

o   Mystery – The world is filled with conspiracies and unknowns, attractive to many players.

• Fallout players can partake in a variety of different activities that vary over the course of gameplay: Combat, stealth, theft, dialogue trees, and trade.
• Fallout generates emotions “pull” the player into the world

o   Combat – Excitement, frustration, success.

o   Stories that tug on emotions (through quests and NPCs) – Better NPC and story design could have produced a greater emotional impact.

o   Satisfaction when quests/goals are completed

o   A sense of wonder from the scenery and memelets scattered throughout the world.

• Fallout is a world that players want to change – Players can imagine ways that they would like to change the world, and care enough about the world that they try to change it. (Of course, the world must be implemented in such a way that players can cause the change.)

o   NPCs – If players can be made to care about some of the NPCs, then players care what happens to the NPCs, and will “fight” the rest of the world to help the NPCs.

   

The recipe

In other words, here’s the generic recipe that Fallout and other CRPGs follow:

• Players should want to play the game because it promises to meet some personal need, whether escapism, growing up, or finding out what a post-apocalyptic world is like.

• Once inside the world, players should want to explore it, encouraged by mystery, memelets, and other techniques.

• While exploring, players need to experiment and learn what they like to do in the world, whether it’s monster bashing, solving puzzles, or running an inn.

• While players explore, the world needs to get players emotionally involved: in the world, it’s NPCs, and other players. This is accomplished by using story techniques (quests) and/or emotionally-charged issues from the real world (such as a post-apocalyptic world). Players have to care about something in the world. As a worst-case “lowest common denominator” scenario, players must at least care about their avatar’s “level”. In a multiplayer world, players may care about other players.

• Once players are emotionally involved with “something” in the world, and they know what they like to do, the world needs to provide them with aspects of the “something” that they’d like to change in ways of their own choosing, such as helping NPCs find lost relatives, righting wrongs, or increasing their avatar’s level. Players must be able to accomplish their goals (ideally) using whatever method they enjoy (such as running their inn as a safe-house for enemies of the evil overlord, whom the player wishes to overthrow).
  
  This is very important: Players must be able to choose which aspects of the world they wish to change (with some subtle encouragement from clever game design). Those aspects must be flawed in fixable ways. If they aren’t, then players won’t have any incentive to do anything, or to make choices. Without doing or choosing, there’s no point creating an interactive experience (aka: game)!

• In an online game, players who try to change aspects of the world may need to cooperate with some players, and compete against others.

• Players’ changes to the world must actually happen, at least in the eyes of the player. (Fallout’s radio broadcast cleverly helps to make the player’s choices affect the world, never letting players forget what they’ve done, or haven’t done.)

• Repeat, since changing the world inevitably opens new areas to explore. Such “areas” can be both physical regions and changed circumstances, such as the same town before and after army has destroyed it. The new “areas” also have flaws that need fixing; after all, changes have unintended consequences. (Ideally, players will have some indirect say in which unintended consequences occur.)

• Some experiences in the world should create enough of an impression on players that they recommend the game to their friends. (Online games have the added advantage that players will encourage their friends to play before finishing the game because playing with friends is more fun.)

Games don’t need to follow this recipe exactly, but (I suspect) leaving out ingredients will result in a less-successful game.

Notice how Richard Bartle’s explorers, socializers, killers, and achievers appear. According to this theory, player types are people who prefer one ingredient in the recipe more than others… kind of like chocoholics or sweet-tooths.

   

The events coordinator

Any good holiday resort has an event coordinator, who is tasked with making the visitors’ experiences enjoyable and memorable. Partly, the event coordinator makes reality more fun than it normally world be.

The event coordinator also keeps the tourist/player busy so they don’t get bored and start whinging about how rainy it is, or how the local bakeries don’t make pasties like they do at home. Fallout keeps the player’s brain (and virtual body) constantly occupied so that players don’t notice they’re not a real world:

• Sensorally

o   Lots of visual stimulation (eye candy), and motion

o   Acoustic stimulation (sound)

o   Language center stimulation – Not only do NPCs speak, but a radio is playing in the background.

• Emotionally – As mentioned above, Fallout’s gameplay keeps the player’s emotion-centre of the brain busy.

• Concentration (Now)

o   Movement requires that the player concentrates so they don’t get lost

o   Traps further encourage players to pay attention

o   Monsters also require concentration

o   Players must keep an eye out for resources (like ammunition)

o   Puzzles bar the way – Although limited in Fallout

• Memory and learning (Past)

o   Players must remember and recall the layout of the land.

o   NPCs and their relationships with other NPCs must be remembered

o   Players must remember what objects and monsters do

o   Memelets are scattered around

o   Players must learn and master combat techniques

• Planning (Future)

o   Quests and goals – In Fallout, quests handed out by NPCs and the radio station.

o   Players must decide which resources they will need in the future.

   

Note: The concentration, memory and learning, and planning aspects tie in with Raph Koster’s “A Theory of Fun”.

   

Making the virtual world feel like a real world

What if the hypothetical alternate reality (step through a machine and get to the alternate reality of Fallout) were more of a Disneyland-like theme park in the real world? The world would still be in real, but located on real-life Earth, populated by robot monsters, and run by real actors, all for the benefit of players. What would the requirements be for a “fun” world?

·         All of the above.

·         The props department would have to manufacture realistic costumes, monster robots, and sets… also known as “eye candy”

·         An Earth-sized Fallout-land wouldn’t be possible. Fallout-land would still need to be fairly large though, with plenty of manufactured detail. A few thousand acres might suffice, large enough that boundaries aren’t easily encountered. The world would need to be detailed enough that it looked “real” to a casual observer.

·         NPCs (actors) would need to wander around the world and ostensibly live their own lives, pretending that the world is real whenever players are watching.

·         Players must be able to change the world (to an extent) with their actions.

   

   

   

“Please ignore the man behind the curtain”

What issues would occur if the Disneyland version of Fallout were converted into a virtual reality simulation (aka: computer game)?

As a game, Fallout tries to NOT remind players that they’re playing a game:

• Simulation quality

o   The “most important parts” of reality are simulated, such as the 3D, the ability to move around, etc. (Eye candy)

o   NPC AI is critical. If quality AI isn’t achievable (which it isn’t), then the world needs to have fewer NPCs, or use NPCs in ways that don’t require much AI (such as combat).

• The game needs to minimize UI that reminds players they’re playing a game.

o   Fallout employs realistic-looking graphics (although a bit to grey for my tastes)

o   Fallout’s NPC speech is audio, not just text scrolling across the screen

o   The screen is completely filled with world-simulating 3D graphics.

§  Displays like the compass and player hit points have minimal visual impact.

o   Even when stats and maps are pulled up (on the Pip-Boy), they’re made to look like an in-game object.

§  Note: Thinking about how Fallout minimizes clutter on the screen caused me to change my game UI. I now hide the auto-map until players specifically ask for it, and even then it only appears temporarily. After making these changes, I immediately noticed an increase in my game’s “immersion”.

• Fallout’s control mechanism is so simple that controlling one’s character becomes a subconscious act.

   

   

   

Semi-relevant random thoughts

Random thought #1:

Many of the design goals are in conflict.

For example: Making the control mechanism simpler (increasing immersion) reduces the number of choices that players can make, which makes the virtual world feel less real (reducing immersion).

For example: Allowing players to make choices (increasing immersion) reduces the quality of eye candy that’s available (reducing immersion), and vice versa.

Game designers must make tradeoffs between the many conflicts.

   

Random thought #2:

In any game, eye candy can be improved by using more cut scenes, or by turning the game into a Choose Your Own Adventure (CYOA) experience. However, CYOA reduces the player’s choices, which counteract much of the “immersion” produced by providing the eye candy.

Historically, CYOA has only been successful when the eye candy provided by the CYOA experience has been MUCH better than the eye-candy provided by the contemporary game-like (procedural) experience.

For example:

·         CYOA and Fighting Fantasy books – They eye candy was only verbal (see below). There were no alternative game-like experiences to compete with, so CYOA and Fighting Fantasy books sold well.

·         Dragon’s lair – The eye-candy was cell-animated, stored on laser disc. The alternative procedural games were Robotron and Pac Man, both with poor eye candy.

·         Phantasmagoria – The eye-candy was pre-rendered 3D graphics combined with video of live actors. The alternative procedural games had sprite-based characters, or extremely primitive 3D characters, both inferior to the CYOA-based Phantasmagoria eye candy.

As far as I know, those are the only successful CYOA “games”. Since Phantasmagoria’s success in 1996, 3D accelerators have improved enough that no subsequent CYOA has been able to produce vastly-superior eye-candy. Hence, no CYOA since 1996 has been successful.

   

Random thought #3:

Why do books “work” if don’t have any eye candy?

Two reasons: (a) We’re trained from an early age (and perhaps even genetically enabled) to use words as substitutes for realistic visuals. (b) Writing is the “eye candy”, or at least good writing is.

To illustrate: Think of a paragraph from a good writer (like Dickens) and then consider that same paragraph as it would be displayed in a text MUD/IF, procedurally generated from smaller text snippets.

Dickens:

The evening arrived; the boys took their places. The master, in his cook's uniform, stationed himself at the copper; his pauper assistants ranged themselves behind him; the gruel was served out; and a long grace was said over the short commons. The gruel disappeared; the boys whispered each other, and winked at Oliver; while his next neighbours nudged him. Child as he was, he was desperate with hunger, and reckless with misery. He rose from the table; and advancing to the master, basin and spoon in hand, said: somewhat alarmed at his own temerity:

'Please, sir, I want some more.'

The master was a fat, healthy man; but he turned very pale. He gazed in stupified astonishment on the small rebel for some seconds, and then clung for support to the copper. The assistants were paralysed with wonder; the boys with fear.

Versus procedural MUD/IF English:

> Go south

You are in a dingy dining room. The room contains: Bill. Ted. Oliver Twist. The Master. Exits are: North.

> Examine master

The master is a fat, healthy man.

> Wait

Oliver Twist eats a gruel.

> Wait

Oliver Twist finishes eating a gruel.

> Wait

Oliver Twist approaches The Master.

> Wait

Oliver Twist says, “I’m still hungry.”

If a text MUD/IF could write as well as Dickens, I suspect it would be successful.