Preamble In video games we control our characters for the most part. We shift the joystick/paddle/d-pad and press the button and the character responds immediately. There have been games that involve different schemes, but such games usually have you as a disembodied god-like character, directly or indirectly affecting the lives of your characters. What I would like to explore is the possibility of indirectly controlling your characters. Control First off, this scheme would not be suitable to all types of games. There must be a visible character for the player to identify with; first-person view does not lend itself to anything other than direct "experience", for instance. Instinct-based control would seem to only work for a third-person view. An instinct-based system would have the focus character (hero) divorced somewhat from the player''s role; rather than being the hero, one would be the hero''s conscience, or a spirit being battling the hero''s will. Control would be effected by applying stimuli to the hero to incline him to pursue a particular course of action. This action may be something the hero is naturally inclined to do, in which case very little stimulus would need to be applied; or it may be something the hero considers anathema, in which case either a massive amount of stimulus or protracted application would be necessary to achieve the objective. Divergence of user-applied instinct and hero-inherent predisposition could have physical consequences - a sort of mental fatigue which could even result in death. It thus becomes important for the player to learn the character''s response and learn the best way to align the hero with his/her own goals. Example Scenario The "hero" is a bloodthirsty butcher given to murderous rampages upon a moment''s notice (ie, standard RPG barbarian-type). You do wish to use violence from time to time, but to successfully negotiate certain interaction situations you feel it is more important to use dialog. You constantly need to overwhelm the barbarian''s fight impulse to advance. (Of course, being the intelligent designer you are, you ensure that the consequences of "failure" are minimal in the early stages, so that critical interactions do not occur until the player has largely mastered the avatar.) Example Scenario 2 You are applying impulses to a pacificist marine biologist who is up against cold-hearted terrorists (ignore the plausiblity of the premise for now) and you need/want him to kill one of them. You succeed - partly: he knocks the terrorist out, allowing him to proceed with the larger objective, but he cannot bring himself to kill him - which may have consequences later on (again, being the good designer that you are, your terrorsts aren''t simply generic baddies). I think this could be interesting. Then again, it could simply be incredibly frustrating. What do you think?

If I were playing a game like this, I would become frustrated if I wasn''t able to stimulate the character under my indirect control to do what I want. . .

The idea is interesting, but how would you indirectly control the hero? How would the conscience the player is manipulating be manifested in the game and what challenges would it face?

I have had this idea before, and it has actually been implemented in quite a few games that I can think of, that come off the top of my head. In some cases it works well, but there is definately a frustration element when your character does stuff you don''t want them to do, or you can''t get them to do what you want. While the character is not designed to be identified as the player''s character, since you focus on this one character the whole game it can feel that way.

Pac Man 2 (snes) - this is the first game I remember playing that followed this indirect "2nd person" control style. You have a slingshot, and the only 2 direct actions you can ever take are to shoot pebbles, or shoot super pills. By shooting your pebbles at various objects in the world, you cause things to happen. If you shoot the mailbox, Pac hears the sound and goes to check it out. He''ll open the mailbox and see if mail is in it. If you shoot Pac, he gets mad and runs around screaming. Sometimes you can''t get him to do what you want, which can be frustrating, but I really enjoyed this game, due to its innovative control style.

Wonder Project J (snes) - in this game you control a fairy and have the task of making your robot boy act enough like a boy that it fools all the people in town. They are prejudiced against robots that look like people. There are numerous attributes that make up the boy and you have to "level them up" so to speak in order to perfect him. Every action he does modifies the attributes, if he does something violent, his attack goes up, but his sensitivity might go down. Anyway, back on the topic, you can try to get him to do things but he definately has a mind of his own. If he is too sensitive, he wont pick up a sword. Which is where I am stuck Fortunately, if you blow it and have a character who doesn''t work for the current task, you can go to the store and buy parts that modify his attributes. As long as you can get him to actually go to the store

Rocco''s Modern Life (snes) - another snes game In this one you have a character in the game, but your dog has a mind of his own. Although it only fits loosely, as the dog just goes left and right and doesn''t really have much ai, and it basically turns into a puzzle game, it still is more about trying to control an entity through indirect control methods. There are probably quite a few puzzle games in this veign, although this is the first one I thought of.

The Sims - I know this is kind of an obvious example, although you are mostly like a god, if you give the sims minds of their own they don''t always do what you tell them.

I wrote up a treatment a couple of years ago about a game where you were a microscopic alien that enters people minds and possesses them and you are trying to accomplish some goal but cannot leave your current host''s body. The whole game was about the conflict of getting your host to do what you want without killing him or driving him insane.

There are numerous ways to execute the control methods for this type of control. You can make it almost direct, borrowing a point/click interface but giving the character ai to not always follow your command (as seen in the sims). You can take that style, and animate it/execute it where it doesn''t look or feel like a normal point/click interface (wonder project and pac 2 do this). It works pretty well, giving the player quicker understanding that they are not directly controlling the character. You can allow the player to control a real entity, be it a ghost or an actual character, and let them interact with the environment to get the uncontrolled character to act the way the player wants (as in Rocco).

Or you can use another method. One that comes to my mind is like Oluseyi said - impulses. Maybe there are some sliders you can manipulate. You can''t even give the character direct commands, but you can adjust the emotional state of the character. Maybe you periodically get + points and - points when things happen, and you can spend them to increase/decrease different character attributes. In example scenario 2, maybe you just got 2 points and you put 1 into courage and 1 into voilence. The courage point allowed him to take the terrorist down, but 1 violence point was not enough to get him to kill the terrorist. If Both points had been put into violence, he may have been violent enough to kill the terrorist, but not brave enough to take him down. If the attributes are always changing and the points are distributed at decent time intervals, it could create some hectic original gameplay.

Although you have to worry about making it too much like an interactive movie.

To sum up, I think indirect control is definately a viable alternative to the norm. Nice post Oluseyi

Nice post, Saluk!

I think another obvious example would be Black & White, where you train your creature through repetition and reward/punishment; and where you get the people to respond to you either with love (if you''re a benevolent god) or fear and trembling (malevolent god). The Sims is similar, but you''re very much like a babysitter in that you constantly have to monitor the Sims and fulfill their needs - and they don''t learn. Having to tell a Sim to go to the bathroom is relatively primitive.

The difference between the impulse system I describe and the ones you refer to is the immediacy of the communication. I envision the system almost as a dialog between you (the player) and "you" (the hero), with vocalizations of resistance ("I can''t do that..." "No!" "Please... Please, don''t...") and so on. I''d make it a very atmospheric thing, with lots of silences, a heartbeat in the background (to indicate the character''s stress/exertion level), voiceovers - maybe even a vocalization of your role as impulse ("Kill him. You know you want to.") It''d be like being the bad angel on his left shoulder. Or the good one on his right, if you prefer.

In terms of the way gameplay would go, your controls (whether keyboard, mouse or gamepad) would somehow map to various pertinent impulses. You have to balance how much you apply any given impulse, because the character can build up resistance to your tactics if you''re too one-dimensional (ie, you need to use a little "stick", a little "carrot"). You must also manage your interference, because overdoing things can kill the character. The storyline that seems to suit this idea the most to me is to have the player as a fairly evil character who has been disembodied and has possessed/inhabited either the hero or an indispensable item the hero owns - like a sword. Your objective is to regain mortality - say by slaying the wizard who cast a sleeping spell on your body or something equally convenient; you must therefore get the hero to do the task for you while combatting his autonomy.

Yeah, one has to be careful not to create an "interactive movie". There still needs to be enough game in this.

@dink:
I guess I''d say this is a thinking game. I''d probably make it that you could possess one of several heroes at the beginning, so you need to learn/understand the mental makeup and character of the chosen hero, and the best way to get desired results. This early discovery stage would provide you with the tools you need for the later stages, to stave off frustration as much as possible.

The design would have to be extremely clever. There''s no room for stupid puzzles or lapses in continuity and immersion here. I suppose this is more of a one-off thing than a "new" paradigm.

One way to accomplish this kind of game would be by giving the player a set of emotion flags. Which is all the intereaction the player has with the world. They can place diffrent emotional flags on objects and adjust the level of the flag in order to cause the character feel a certain way and with certain amount intensity towards an object.

So if you wanted to get the biologist to kill the terrorist, you might start off placing a large hate flag on the terroist. Causing the character to hate the terroist it effect shown by an internal dialog. But just hating is enough to get the a the character to kill so you place a large anger flag on the terrorist as well. Now the character is feeling violent and aggressive enough but still there passive nature is holding them they still can''t bring them self to attack the terrost. So lastly you place a modertly size fear flag on the terroist. Now the character is afraid for there life and violent enough so that they feel the only choice is to try and kill the terroist.

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Writer, Programer, Cook, I''m a Jack of all Trades
Current Design project
Chaos Factor Design Document

Should the player''s character learn what the player wants? Clearly the player needs to learn what to do in order to make the character do what the player wants, but I think the character should learn too.

How about indirect control by taking control of the autonomous nervous system of the main character(s)... If you wanted him to fight, let adrenaline flow freely . Or something like that, maybe the ability to affect the feelings of the character directly, which would indirectly affect his actions (fear would make him flee or surrender, rage would make him fight etc)?

Controlling the environment in order to control the main character(s): I liked Populous and Populous 2 because in them you control the world directly and your people indirectly. Populous 3 was a huge disappointment to me, since you could control your people like in RTS games, but you had to channel your god-powers through the shaman (pretty much the opposite of Pop1&2). The idea of Black&White was neat, but I''d preferred if it had been the people (as a collective-minded entity of some sort...) who learned from the player instead of the creature (in my opinion it was too centered on the creature anyway; I was expecting a more Populous-like experience...).

Controlling what the character(s) sense: how about a remake of the classic game Paradroid, where you take over robots by hacking into their systems, but unlike in the original, you could only control their sensors (so that you could make them see walls/enemies/friendly robots where there''s none etc). This way you would have indirect control, since the actual responce would depend on the robot you have taken over (e.g. maintenance robots would flee enemies while heavily armed robots would attack the enemies) and you wouldn''t always know what the robot will do.

This also brings to mind the idea that if you played a deathmatch of sort, you couldn''t be sure where the other players are (since they could have taken over any robot) and since attacking other robots would set off the alarm (or something even nastier), you wouldn''t just go blasting off all of them.

Or maybe even one of the players controls the robots (in a direct way) and his goal is to stop the invasion by destoying the overtaken robots. Once again, he wouldn''t know for sure which robots are overtaken and which are neutral. On the other hand, the invading players would need to be careful not to do something out-of-character (e.g. circling around or not doing the job the robot was meant for etc).

@TechnoGoth:
The emotion flags idea is interesting. Essentially you try to prey on the characters emotional disposition to get him to act in ways you find desirable. The problem with it is that it is incredibly direct - being able to assign emotional responses to objects rapidly devolves into a puzzle game: "Find the correct emotional sequence to make Sam the Scientist kill the evil terrorist!"

@Grim:
I completely agree that the character should learn, and I thought I even said so. Apparently not. Since the player (gamer/user) learns the character, he can gradually "program" the character to behave a certain way - the principle of desensitization. A "goody" character might abhor violence initially, but through gradual increase in the frequency and levels of violence the character is compelled to do the player could "turn" him entirely. Oh god, I just described Project Ego...

''"Find the correct emotional sequence to make Sam the Scientist kill the evil terrorist!"''

I think having a goal makes it a puzzle game. What if there
were a limited number of flags you could use? Say, you start
with 2 small fear flags, 1 medium fear flag and 1 large fear
flag. After you use one it takes a certain amount of time for
it to replenish.

I think I''d like the idea of being an alien so you have a
seperate brain. If Sam doesn''t realize that pushing this box
over on his way out activates a sensor that pours deadly gas
into the room with the terrorist(provided that Sam has a
thing against killing), then he''ll have no problem doing it.

Of course, if he believes he caused the death, maybe it''ll be
that much harder next time to get him to listen to his
"impulses". Then you might have to use a large aggressive flag
impulse to do something you might have done with a medium or
small flag.

-Hyatus
"da da da"

[@Hyatus:
You don''t need to insert line breaks when posting; the forum software and browser automatically reflow text to fit the viewer''s screen.]

quote: Original post by Hyatus
I think having a goal makes it a puzzle game.

I''d disagree emphatically with that assessment. Every game has a goal; is every game therefore a puzzle game?

quote: What if there were a limited number of flags you could use? Say, you start with 2 small fear flags, 1 medium fear flag and 1 large fear flag. After you use one it takes a certain amount of time for it to replenish.

This is an interesting idea, and it focuses user input solely on the character - or does it? Would your implementation have the flags applied to the character or applied to the object the character is supposed to react/respond to? A problem with it is that it is very mechanistic and eliminates the contention of the character''s natural response and the user''s persuasion. The way I envision stimulus working is as a mental suggestion with an optional physical component: you suggest that Sam kills the terrorist but he balks, so you suck some life from him or otherwise cause him bodily pain. The combination of his weakening will battling your suggestions and his weakened body will eventually cause him to cave, but you have to ensure he still has enough physical and mental strength to accomplish the task.

Good idea.

Im starting a game based on it right now!