Well said, Kugels.

In the first area of the game Max Payne...the player comes home to find his family dead, and a few thugs waiting for him...the story is set up imeadiantly...yet another tale of revenge.

But the player never really has any idea of who Max or his family are beyond the token plot elements...

Additionaly when players take control of a game character, they play them as if an extention of themselves...one person could play Max as cautious, another as more outgoing and confrontaitional...yet in the cut-scenes and story passages...Max can come off as a very different person.

The other problem relates back to the story...the family (which the players has no real bond with) has died...Why is death used so often to try and envoke sadness in games? True, in real life the death of a loved one can be extreamly sad...but when the players have no bonds with the characters...when the characters are treated as little more then tokens..."Max has a wife who died"...might as well be "Max had lost his bus pass".

Story wise, what is more interesting?

1) Max Payne, a cop, comes home to find his family dead. He then sets out for revenge.

2)Max Payne, a cop, with a loveing family. Finds that his latest investigation has illicit links to his imeadiant boss. In order to serve justice, Max puts his family in the line of fire.

The first is just a typical B-movie action flick story...The second is more of a character study...What sort of a man would put his loved ones at risk? Does his job meen more to him then his family?

Effectively the second method would allow a much stonger emotional bond...such a game could start off with Max prepareing for his day at work...kids running around, wife trying to dress them for school...then it''s off to work, then later returning home...this could be basied on near real time...come home late and the family is crabby...players would have to remember to be at school for their kids school play...as far as the plot involveing the police investigation, the family life wouldn''t have much initial meening...in fact it could seem distracting, as if the family doesn''t want you to "play the game" but rather spend time with them...the more time Max spends on the case, the more bitchy the family becomes...but the more time Max spends with his family the more bitchy his supervisors become...so the player has to decide (effectively roleplay) which is more important To Max...his family or his job?

By choseing the job...the investigation plot moves forward...possably leading to the family being threatend, even killed....by choseing the family...the investigation stalls, but the family life improves in subtle ways....and most importantly, such a game wouldn''t need cut-scenes at all...the player should always have control of the character...not some pre-scripted sequence

I''m just trying to point out that the approch is going to have to change before a really emotionaly effective game can be created...the above game description need not some super advanced AI routines...nor some fancy azz 3D engine...it could be done in 2D with something approching typical console style RPG game engines (minus the battles)...just simple pop-up text balloons and menues...but with far more carefull attention payied to character development...the characters need not be real world realistic, but they must be realistic to the world inside the game.

quote: Original post by MSW
Effectively the second method would allow a much stonger emotional bond...such a game could start off with Max prepareing for his day at work...kids running around, wife trying to dress them for school...then it''s off to work, then later returning home...this could be basied on near real time...come home late and the family is crabby...players would have to remember to be at school for their kids school play...as far as the plot involveing the police investigation, the family life wouldn''t have much initial meening...in fact it could seem distracting, as if the family doesn''t want you to "play the game" but rather spend time with them...the more time Max spends on the case, the more bitchy the family becomes...but the more time Max spends with his family the more bitchy his supervisors become...so the player has to decide (effectively roleplay) which is more important To Max...his family or his job?

The trouble is that this still has to be a game. This idea could work as a movie. But the time spent with the family will essentially just be an interactive cutscene if there is no core gameplay there. The gameplay mechanic of deciding how to balance your time between two things is not deep enough to make it dominate the game. If you do make it deeper, it''s less of an action game than it is a management sim.

To deepen emotion by developing characters, create gameplay interaction with characters in a manner that reflects their personality.

FF7 did this well with Aeris. Her caring nature is really brought out via interactive gameplay when she heals Cloud during actual battles. Many people will tell you that Aeris is one of the only game characters that they''ve ever felt emotional about.

The girl in ICO is another example of developing a character by using interactive gameplay. In the story, she is a damsel in distress and so the gameplay reflects this by having you guide and protect her from enemies.

Considering the Max example -- why couldn''t this information be gained first through a cutscene (Max and his loving family, his boss, whatever) and the details keep popping up during gameplay?

Anyway, I *LOVED* how Max Payne included that Acid Trip segment, where he hallucinated that he was trying to save his family again and he just kept going through the same room over and over -- and when he finally gets there, the perpetrator in his dream is in fact -- well, I''m not going to give that away for those who haven''t played the game but I will say, so many scenes in that game made me feel savagely angry at the horrible people who murdered his family, oozing with a PERSONAL desire for revenge -- and simultaneously a vast, terrible pain for his loss. By the end of the game, I felt almost as cold and indifferent and lost as he would have felt, facing the world alone.

Max Payne is my all-time favorite example of a game evoking emotion and connecting with the main character on a personal level. In my opinion NO game has come so close to my ideal.. I''d have to say that its been in my top 3 ever since I played it several months ago. Max Payne was sheer brilliance, and I want to see more games do what Max Payne did (more so would be great, but if they can match it, I''ll play it).

(Note: I wasn''t really a big fan of the extreme violence in the game. It was the emotion, the connection on a personal level, that moved me.)


Brian Lacy
Smoking Monkey Studios

Comments? Questions? Curious?
brian@smoking-monkey.org

"I create. Therefore I am."

thelurch: I won''t comment on anything you said, as I refuse to spend my time responding to someone who doesn''t phrase their objections in a mature manner.

I wish I''d checked this thread sooner, before the posts really piled up, nonetheles...
Dauntless, I don''t believe entertainment is a limitation on a game at all. I believe its a requirement . It''s a simple fact, computer games, books, movies, are all forms of entertainment. If they are not entertaining, people will not spend their time on them. It''s really than simple.

quote: Why limit games to such pre-conceived notions though? Comic books started out as kids entertainment, a way for adolescents to fantasize about being powerful or just relishing in the fantasy of having such amazing beings exist. But as time wore on, writers realized that comics could be more than mere adolescent entertainment and they strove to wrote stories with some pretty powerful messages and meaning.

I really think you''re misunderstanding the definition of entertainment. I apologise for how patronising that sounds, but it''s the only conclusion I can reach. Comic books did indeed start out as entertainment, and they still are entertainment. It doesn''t matter whether people used to be entertained by the drawings, and are now entertained more by the deep storylines. It''s still very much entertainment.

My original comment about games as an art-form was badly worded, so I''d like to partially retract that if I may. I consider the creation of games, movies etc as an artform. Anything in such creative fields is an artform.
What I was trying to say is when people start creating games, thinking about making it solely "arty" and "meaningful", rather than entertaining for the end user, is when games will stop being enjoyable to play.
No matter what medium, be it film or game, the experience has to be enjoyable overall. Don''t confuse this with "fun", you can enjoy a sad ending just as much as a happy ending. But if you''re making a game sad, or meaningful, at the price of entertainment then the game isn''t going to be enjoyable.

I''ll cite the afforementioned FinalFantasy7; Aeris died, and that really choked me up, but it was an overall entertaining experience. It was very well done, to leave the player feeling angry at Sephiroth, to really make them feel the same anger towards him that Cloud would. That was well done, and I believe was crucial to the storyline. My emotion was targetted towards a character, rather than the game.
The problems occur when people start trying to affect the player emotionally, just for the sake of evoking emotion. If that emotion isn''t targetted properly, them it will produce negative feelings towards the game, and will not be entertaining, it will be irritating.

Things like this have to be approached very carefully in games. People assume they can tackle them just like in films, that''s not so. In films, you have no control, so when someone dies (for example) it''s sad, but you don''t feel like you''ve had something taken out of your control, which is a very frustating feeling.
Games however, are interactive by nature, the player gets used to being in control, and when something in the game happens that is beyond their control, it can leave a feeling of helplessness and frustration. Again, that will have a negative impact on the game.

The key problem, that has been demonstrated even in this thread, is that many game developers fail to recognise games and movies as two very seperate mediums, and think if they throw in "movie-like" elements into their game, that it will have the same effect as a movie.

Andru-

**WARNING highly philosophical elements ahead**

What is enjoyable is different for different people, which is why I believe the term "entertain" is too limiting. What''s more important than entertain, or to provide enjoyment is to provide something beneficial or meaningful. It doesn''t neceesarily have to make you feel happy, or make you feel joyful, or make you feel anything other than you have somehow improved yourself in some way.

THAT is key. Games must provide something of benefit back to the player, but it doesn''t have to be enjoyment. If it makes you feel like you are somehow better for having played through the game, then people will want to play it. If all games are is a visceral and temporary feeling of entertainment, then the medium will stagnate. Games need to eventually broaden their horizons to be something more....indeed, I''d say the very word "game", should be a small subset of what computer "entertainment" can be.

Look at sports games. Are they entertaining? Sports can be about enjoying the game, or about becoming better. As the old saying goes, "its not if you win or lose, its how you play the game". In other words, you take more out of the game than victory or the mere playing for just playing''s sake.

Perhaps I come from a different background, but I have a pretty storied history in martial arts, and I see a difference between the act itself, and the purpose of the act. The Japanese even defined the differences....calling formal styles, "jitsu" (literally meaning technique) and sports styles "do" (meaning "way"). So Aiki-jistu means the "the art or technique of harmony", and Aikido means "the way of harmony". So what''s the difference, and how does this relate to anything? The "Do" styles teach that it is a way of life, that you take what you learn and apply to your whole arena of life. It has over time come to mean "sport style", which is why people tend to see Judo as a sport, and Jiu-jitsu as a martial art.

But they key here is that you can take from more than that which you are presented. Jitsu styles do it covertly, passively, on the students own terms. Do styles do it consciously, with active intention to provide the student insights in understanding that he can use what he learns holistically.

Right now, games are at the "Jitsu" philosophy of entertainment. They are the simple means with which the player interacts with a virtual world to get his enjoyment out of. I think its time we elevate to a "Do" philosophy, where we consciously guide the player to something beyond the mere interaction, where the player realizes that there is more to the game than the game itself. Does this mean that a game can''t exist just for the sheer heck of it? Of course not. I enjoy a brain dead deathmatch from time to time just like everyone else. But I yearn for something more....and I think if we start looking beyond the confines of a 14-30yrold male consumer market, then we as game designers will see that there are so many more possibilities to game design than JUST enjoyment.

quote: Original post by Dauntless
Right now, games are at the "Jitsu" philosophy of entertainment. They are the simple means with which the player interacts with a virtual world to get his enjoyment out of. I think its time we elevate to a "Do" philosophy, where we consciously guide the player to something beyond the mere interaction, where the player realizes that there is more to the game than the game itself.

I'm going to get philosophical too then. It lies within yourself, not the game. Open yourself up and you'll see that any game can be "elevated to a "Do" philosophy." Maybe it's just that you haven't looked at them that way. To paraphrase a silly cliched movie quote, it isn't the spoon you are trying to bend, but yourself. So maybe games don't need to change, but gamers do.

[edited by - beantas on October 28, 2002 9:01:35 PM]

A game should not be a movie. That is not what is meant by including emotion in a game. You can not not win a game, or else it is not over, but that does not mean things have to go perfectly perfect at the end, you only have to compleat your origional task. How about an ending where you faced with a decision, you either fight the boss, knowing in the end that his bomb will then go off, killing you. Or you can turn around and go back. Now odviously you have to pick the first one, you win with a cost, the games is still satified and also emotionaly touched. I think that this is a little more meaningfull and intense, than if in the end you learn the bomb was a dud.

I do not like games where exactly what hapens is allready planned, in removes suspense, and the less suspence the less exciting it is. Think of it this way, you go to do a backflip on a bmx, you know the risks, and that they can happen they are not just pretend. Now would that or doing the same thing with a bunch of harnesses eliminating all risk be funner? I think the first, it would be alot more fufilling.

I do not like branching gameplay either, then you have to dull it all down so that the player misses nothing good. This is an attempt to make tha player feel in control of what is happening, but it is more just an illusion.

The difference between a movie and a game is that a movie you watch to see what happens. In a game you try to make what you want to happen happen, it shouldnt just come. Kind of like a sport. Now the more things that actually happen because of your actions the more deep it will feel. Why do you think spots games are doing alot of carreer mode things.

What i want to see is having things go differently along the way because of what you do, an interactive experience. In the end what you went to do must be done, but thats the only requirement. And any game can use emotional intensifying, weather it be through fear, sadness or whatever, all games would be better for it. This does not mean a game has to be made into a movie, but more steer away from that. If a game is more scary in the scary parts, more happy in the happy parts, more sad in the sad parts. Then the game will be more fun bottom line, and thats what all these emotion topics are for. If in the sims real plots devoloped, it would be a hell of a lot funner.

K, i havent played many final fantacy games but there has got to be one where sombody you care about dies. Now what if it was your fault, like really your fault, it would be alot more satifying then when they die because thats how the story goes. Or maybe your in a dillema and one is going to die, and you have choose which one, this cant be like the ending of the game or anything but it would really make the game more intense.

The ending of a game has to be the compleation of the origional task, i hate the idea of a game where you can not win, its just not a game anymore, cuz then the player gets the feeling that he is doing all this work for nothing, which in this case he is, so why play if you know your going to loose. I cant think of any reasons.

quote: What is enjoyable is different for different people, which is why I believe the term "entertain" is too limiting. What''s more important than entertain, or to provide enjoyment is to provide something beneficial or meaningful. It doesn''t neceesarily have to make you feel happy, or make you feel joyful, or make you feel anything other than you have somehow improved yourself in some way.

As I said in my previous post, I''m not saying entertainment should be a limitation , but a requirement . For me, FFVII provided ideas on spirituality and life that I found interesting, and pondered over long after I''d finished the game. Had Square made the design brief "make the game ponder spirituality", they would have left out the elements which drove me to play it to the end, and thoroughly enjoy the experience. By making the brief "make the game entertaining, and add spiritual elements into the story", they provide an entertaining game, which was thought provoking as well.

I''m not saying games should be purely entertainment, but they must be entertaining, if they also wish to provoke deeper thought, or the players will not persevere long enough to reveal the more philosophical elements of the game.

So games do have to be entertaining. If they are purely informative, then they are not games. They are educational software. Entertainment is the absolute key to a good game, other element must come later.

quote: Original post by Andru
My original comment about games as an art-form was badly worded. I consider the creation of games, movies etc as an artform.

In that case I apologise. I was just really shocked to hear that kind of statement coming from a developer and i guess I flew off the handle.

And upon reading the rest of your post I think I now get your point and actually agree with it.

quote:
The problems occur when people start trying to affect the player emotionally, just for the sake of evoking emotion. If that emotion isn''t targetted properly, them it will produce negative feelings towards the game, and will not be entertaining, it will be irritating.

i.e. people over simplify the problem. Like the designers of FFVII would have not set out just to create a plot where ''a good guy dies'' or ''the player feels loss'' but where the player is brought to identify with his character and feels his love, his pain and especially his hate(a la revenge)!
So as desingers we should not be looking for how to add a particular effect into a game becuase it''s sooo cooool. but rather should be looking at ways of making the experience richer, if this leads to adding all the emotional effcets then so be it.
I agree

So, no hard feelings