My current "grand unified theory" of avatar games

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2 October 2005

by Mike Rozak

I've been trying to figure out what adventure games and MMORPGs "are all about". When I originally broached the question to myself, I thought the two were fairly different beasts, and that first-person shooters were from a different planet. I'm not so sure any more...

"Avatar" games

Adventure games, computer role-playing games, MMORPGs, first person shooters, and modern platformers all fit into a category of game that I'm calling an "avatar game". (Anyone have a better name?) The characteristics of the game category are:

1. The game's physics are very similar to reality; Apples fall to the ground, objects break when they're hit by a large force, and characters look like people or animals. The advantage of basing gameplay on reality is that players already know what reality is like, so they automatically the basic rules of the game; all the game has to teach the player is how to translate their intent into keystrokes and joystick movements, and how the game world's physics differ from real physics. Additionally, when a game world is closely linked to reality, it's easier to escape into.
   
   Conversely, chess, go, card games, and tic-tac-toe have a physics that's very different to reality. Racing games, flight simulators, and sports games are in the grey middle, since they're based on reality, but only on a very limited slice of reality.
   
   
2. The player controls a single character that is an extension of the player within the world, although occasionally games stretch this to a few characters.
   
   Real-time strategy games are different because the player controls an army. A pet-raising game isn't an avatar game because the player doesn't control his character directly.

Sub-games

Within the world (and associated physics), players uses their characters to participate in sub-games. The most common sub-game is combat, but sub-games also include jumping over obstacles, climbing, solving puzzles, talking to NPCs, etc. See Virtual world as platform.

Some important characteristics about sub-games are:

• They should fit in with the setting and physics of the world. Making a knight solve a crossword puzzle to slay a dragon doesn't make much sense to the player, so crossword puzzles can't be used to slay dragons.
  
  
• The must be fun, at least the first few times they're played. They may become boring after awhile, but some remedies exist. See below.
  
  
• They must include variations so that when players play the same sub-game for the thousandth time they aren't bored out of their wits. See Sub-games with variations.
  
  
• The difficulty of the game must adjust to the player's and the player character's skills.
  
  
• Sub-games should be short.
  
  
• Synergy... Sub-games feed off one another. The simplest form of synergy is being able to take the loot from a monster-kill and sell it in the trading sub-game, or use the monster's horns as raw materials for the crafting sub-game.
  
  
• Conversely, if two sub-games work against one another, only one can be kept. Second Life allows players to build anything they want, but because of this, SL cannot include competitive sub-games (like combat) since players, who can build anything, will build the ultimate weapon and make combat moot.
  
  
• "Cameo appearances" can be made by sub-games that break these rules, but such sub-games can't be used as the main experience. Cameo sub-games are expensive to produce, particularly in a graphical environment.

As I noted in Choice, sub-games can be strung together to form quests...

Quests

A quest includes a goal, problem solving, and a series of sub-games that a player must complete to achieve the goal. The goal is tightly tied into the quest, and usually handed out by the game world, although sometimes games (like MMORPGs) let the player effectively create their own quests, deciding their own goals and determining the actions (sub-games) that must be completed to achieve their goals. A well designed quest leads to follow-on goals.

An example of a quest would be:

• Goal: To collect cherries for an old woman and get a reward from her.
  
  
• Problem solving: The player must determine the best rout to the cherry grove and how to carry all the cherries back.
  
  
• Sub-games that must be completed in order:
  • Narration - Talking with the old woman.
  • Travel - To the cherry picking location.
  • Combat - To kill the troll who is guarding the cherries.
  • Gathering - Pick the cherries.
  • Travel - Return to the old woman with the cherries.
    
    
• Follow-on goals - A follow-on quest might require the player to get flour and sugar so the woman can bake a cherry pie that she'll share with the player's character. With character's half of pie, the player has an excuse to visit the mayor, who happens to be a sucker for cherry pie. While devouring the pie, the mayor mentions he has a job that needs doing...

Quests are used to keep sub-games "fun" since collecting a bag of cherries in order to help a kind old lady is more "fun" than collecting cherries for the hell of it. Quests also tie consequences into the sub-games. See Choice and consequences and Sympathetic goals.

Quests can be used as sub-quests in larger quests.

As I point out in The four pillars, the sub-games listed for a quest represent optimum solutions, and players should (theoretically) be able to approach the problem however they like, including growing their own cherry trees and waiting a few years for the first cherries to appear.

Meaningful choices

The experience must be overflowing with meaningful choices. (See Choice and Choice 2.) These include:

• Choice about which quests to accept.
  
  
• Choice about which order to perform the quests.
  
  
• Choice about how to complete the quest. Unfortunately, my "cherry picking" quest doesn't illustrate this, but ideally each quest should be solvable in different ways. For example: The player could opt to buy the cherries from market, or barter with the troll.
  
  
• Choice within the sub-games of the quest. Even within a sub-game, such as combat, players will have choices about how to proceed.
  
  
• Choice about the outcome (goal) of the quest. At its simplest, the player should be offered a menu of rewards, but choice goes much further. One ending for the cherry quest might allow the player to team up with the troll and lead it to the old woman, whom the troll then eats.

Story

I hate to use the term "story" because it's so loaded with meaning, but some elements of story come into play:

• As Richard Bartle pointed out in Designing Virtual Worlds, backstory is used to describe the world and its physics to players, almost as an alternative to documentation... "Player characters are automatically resurrected because they're special servants of the Gods...".
  
  
• Backstory and narration are used to introduce the quest and explain why the sub-games must be completed, and in what order. "You have to go kill a troll and then collect a bag of cherries" will have players scratching their heads, but "You have to collect special cherries that can only be found in the valley of Whyern. Unfortunately, an evil troll relishes them too, and guards them voraciously," is more compelling.
  
  
• Story and narration can be used to internalise the quest's goal. Which is more compelling? "An old and frail lady hobbles up to you with her walking stick. In a creaking voice, she begs you to fetch her a bag of cherries from the distant valley, a walk she cannot possibly make." vs. "An obese knight, who has never seen better days, interrupts your conversation with the old lady and demands that you get him a bag of cherries immediately... or else.". (I wonder if trolls like to eat obese knights?) See Sympathetic goals.
  
  
• In turn, story and narration can be used to unify all all the game's quests into a large story/quest arc. "You must complete these 50 quests to win" is less compelling than "The evil overlord killed your father and holds your sister captive. To defeat the evil overlord and rescue your sister, you must find the sword of knowing, armour of vaulting, and lyre of gold... which ultimately involves completing these 50 quests."
  
  
• Backstory and narration can provide clues to how to solve the quest.
  
  
• Story can be used as a reward for completing a quest... although it makes for a fairly weak reward. If a game only uses story as a reward then the game degenerates into a story whose progress is halted until the player solves a series of unrelated puzzles (quests), a particularly common problem in adventure games.

How games differ

As I said at the beginning, a large variety of games are avatar games. They merely differ in their emphasis:

• Adventure games require the player spend most of their time problem solving, and include a large variety of cameo sub-games.
  
  
• CRPGs rely on a few sub-games (combat, travel, resource allocation, etc.) that are played over and over with variation.
  
  
• MMORPGs introduce other players into the equation, allowing for more interesting and/or different sub-games (like trading goods in a thousand-player economy). Other players also produce an environment where players produce their own goals, usually involving defeating or helping other players.
  
  
• First-person shooters use sub-games that are based on the player's dexterity.
  
  
• Contemporary platformers are like first-person shooters except they don't rely on the combat sub-game.
  
  
• Interactive storytelling (as best as I can tell) involves sub-games involving intelligent AIs.

Having said that, some virtual worlds, like Second Life, can only be fit into this grand-unified theory with much contortion. Racing games, flight simulators, and sporting games are in a grey zone too; their slice of reality is so limited that quests are difficult to invent.