Preamble Please feel free to slap me about (with a large trout, as necessary) if my ramblings make no sense, as I have proven myself a game design theory incompetent. I'm mostly asking questions, free associating and brainstorming here. Prologue The majority of gaming genres are predicated on doing - swashbucking combat, stealthy pilfering, white-knuckled strategizing, athletic competition - in large part, I suppose, because of the fact that such active interactions with other people or with objects are very well regulated. It is comparatively trivial to delineate between valid and invalid interactions, and thus provide structure for the challenge or set of choices that comprise the core of the game. Trivial, that is, when compared to the complex interactions, rules, heuristics, intuitions, emotions and other factors that influence dialog and drama. Mary J Had It Wrong We want more drama! I'll be honest, twitch reflex games and obsessive micromanagement simulations simply hold little appeal for me, and even my trusty old sports games have gotten rather stale. They're fun for playing with other people, but sometimes I want relatively short, engrossing games that I can play alone in arbitrarily-sized increments, like owning a DVD of a good movie. I want great stories and characters, but not just as the backdrop for a bunch of running and gunning or hacking and slashing, nor as "mind candy" for puzzle gameplay. This being GameDev, there are no provisions for aimless "I want" rants, so I decided to set about trying to figure out how to make what I'd like to see. What I'd Like to See I've been watching a lot of old movies recently, and one thing I consistently marvel at is how taut stories and tight narrative direction create just as exciting and visceral experiences as an explosion- or effects-laden "blockbuster." Violence and sex are powerful elements, but they motivate, create and alter the situations in these films, not resolve them as in modern films and games. I'd like to see exactly that sort of approach to a game. As I mentioned earlier, I'd prefer a compact narrative. I find most contemporary games too long. "40 Hours of Gameplay!" is a heck of a lot of time, especially when you factor in all the dying and loading, and it is frequently achieved through repetition of an action. I like games where I can play through the entire narrative in a single sitting without raising the ire or suspicion (that I'm a hopeless geek) of a significant other: we're talking three hours, tops. Obviously, I'd also like a design that awards penalties without forcing repetition or precluding resolution/success. Clearly this requires a fair amount of dynamism in both design and implementation, such that each play through is sufficiently unique. "Step Right Up On The Platform, Sir" The target audience for this would be casual gamers or other gamers taking a break. The objective would be pick-up-and-play simplicity, which precludes gamepads, complex keyboard maps or cluttered interface. We have a two-button mouse on a personal computer, with a keyboard for auxilliary input. In addition, it'd be nice to have greater depth that simple dialog trees (match-the-response-to-the-prompt). Somehow, using that mouse and a simple interface design philosophy, we want to be able to move the protagonist/avatar, speak to others, observe surroundings and specific objects and so forth. We also want to stay away from Lucas Arts-esque use-object-with-other-object-or-action-in-thoroughly-nonsensical-and-non-intuitive-fashion gameplay. Epilogue As I said at the top, feel free to slap me in the face with a smelly fish if I'm making no sense. Also feel free to point my ignorance in the direction of any games that implement these features. Finally, feel free to ignore me. It's late and I'm sleepy, so I'll stop right here and hope/wait for feedback.

I mostly agree with you. Stories do more for me than endless gameplay within some rather narrow boundaries. Ideally, merging the two would be a great things - A game with a compelling story that allows the player to act within that story in a convincing way. The truth is that no one has pulled that off yet, and while I'm definitely giving this some thought I don't think it will be happening anytime soon.

So the alternative is to restrict gameplay somewhat to allow the story to be rich enough. Make parts of the game linear, so you don't have to write a zillion plot branches. How do you feel about the Myst-style games? The stories were kind of neat I think but the bit of gameplay that they contained was way too boring. The only field where I've seem something like this implemented well is interactive fiction (which is a euphemism for text adventures). Try playing Photopia if you haven't already. It is probably a little awkward if you are not familiar with that kind of games, but it was the only game I've played through in the last few years that felt like I had finished a good novel when it ended.

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Original post by Oluseyi We want more drama! I'll be honest, twitch reflex games and obsessive micromanagement simulations simply hold little appeal for me, and even my trusty old sports games have gotten rather stale. --8<-- snip --8<-- The target audience for this would be casual gamers or other gamers taking a break. The objective would be pick-up-and-play simplicity, which precludes gamepads, complex keyboard maps or cluttered interface. We have a two-button mouse on a personal computer, with a keyboard for auxilliary input. In addition, it'd be nice to have greater depth that simple dialog trees (match-the-response-to-the-prompt). Somehow, using that mouse and a simple interface design philosophy, we want to be able to move the protagonist/avatar, speak to others, observe surroundings and specific objects and so forth. We also want to stay away from Lucas Arts-esque use-object-with-other-object-or-action-in-thoroughly-nonsensical-and-non-intuitive-fashion gameplay.

exactly my thoughts. Check out this thread: http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=286779

I was thinking of exactly what you said: Action gameplay can get stale since there's nothing else out there, and some people dislike the action gameplay altogther (not me! =D).
good non-action gameplay should have:
-little to no interfase (for story immersion)
-no pixel hunting (yuk... if objects are necesary, find another way. Usually in people relationships objects aren't really important)
-seemingly free-form dialogs (the tough one. Freedom of speech!)

now of course, the only limiting factor here is free-form dialogs. While this can be solved with sims-gibberish, i feel this breaks the suspension of disbelief. Is there a way around that doesn't involve hovering onscreen text?

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Original post by Madster exactly my thoughts. Check out this thread: http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=286779

I remember that thread. I posted twice, but then let it drop off my radar.

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now of course, the only limiting factor here is free-form dialogs. While this can be solved with sims-gibberish, i feel this breaks the suspension of disbelief. Is there a way around that doesn't involve hovering onscreen text?

Well, here's a question. It's far more important that the conversation of NPCs be comprehensible than that the player avatar speak a recognizable language, so why don't we use that approach, at least as a starting point? Emotional tokens, coupled with a variety of statement-subject or question-subject pairs, can yield just about any valid statement (which we can later vocalize via concatenative text-to-speech), and generating the appropriate response can be done in similar fashion. I think that's a viable option, interface-wise.

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Original post by marijnh The truth is that no one has pulled that off yet, and while I'm definitely giving this some thought I don't think it will be happening anytime soon.

Sadly, I must concur. We haven't (collectively, as humans) applied ourselves to a mechanistic deconstruction of narrative into discrete elements that can be dynamically rearranged by algorithms or AI. There are tools that can generate ornate language to "retell" stories represented by a sequence of tokens, but that's about the state of the art, currently.

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So the alternative is to restrict gameplay somewhat to allow the story to be rich enough. Make parts of the game linear, so you don't have to write a zillion plot branches.

Actually, I think the key is to move away from writing the plot entirely. Instead, you want to establish the forces in tension, with all the motivations and extenuating circumstances, etc, and then algorithmically continually resolve them based on AI and user input. Of course, like all theory, that sounds great but is much more difficult to implement.

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How do you feel about the Myst-style games? The stories were kind of neat I think but the bit of gameplay that they contained was way too boring.

Indeed. I'm not interested in puzzles impeding narrative progress. We don't want the story to be this background thing that you play to gain access to; we want the story to be created based on how you play.

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Try playing Photopia if you haven't already.

I tried it, but I couldn't make heads or tails of it, and I couldn't easily find instructions.


I'll be back in a few to sketch out a complete scenario. Perhaps that will help to crystallize the concept for everyone.

It's probably not the game I'd want to play, but I think the future of games moves more in the direction of what you're talking about: Short, episodic, quick to pick up and play games with very traditional subject matter like that found on TV, maybe detective, drama, soap opera, maybe even comedy games.

Further I imagine these games to be console based, multiplayer and situated in the living or family room because its more sociable. The interface probably isn't a gamepad but maybe some sort of motion sensor powered controller (there's one on the market now but I can't think of the name).

While we're waiting for the natural language processor and speech recognition barriers to be broken down we'll probably still be on a mix of symbolic icons and text prompts that select the gameplay (maybe coupled with the motion sensor approach so you can mime slapping a character or hugging them).

Rather than breaking completely with the object use paradigm which has us using an item at the right time to solve a puzzle or accomplish a goal, we may need to look at modeling the conceptual realm as objects so that the concepts can be enumerated, displayed and logically tested: For instance, the idea of "dropping a bombshell" ("Darling, I'm pregnant", "I stole the money", etc) gets turned into something that can be used at a specific time in a specific place, changing the game world as a result. Look to any Shakespeare as a guide for how concepts like fidelity, love, duty and truth become objects to be employed to counter other concepts or cement some result at just the right time.

Imagining a future where dramatic gameplay is the order of the day, I've always wondered one thing: When the player is an active part of a dynamically evolving plot that they help effect, will they still enjoy the story as a story? Or will the strategic parts of their minds take over such that they're more focused on conniving and manipulating their surroundings that they can't see the forest for the trees? It may be a useless worry, but I find it interesting because I believe the brain relates to a plot when observing versus when participating. (Think of all the great gut-twisting dramas and adventures you've watched, then think about how YOU'D feel if that were you in the hotseat!)

Well I have read this post twice, but I'm a very confused. I think this is a very intresting thread so I'll be happy to disucss this stuff with you guys. Oluseyi - I don't exactly get what you are saying. Can you explain a little more? Also can you describe in your opinion what is a good movie then what is a good game. I would like to have this background info to mold my response.

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Original post by Wavinator Imagining a future where dramatic gameplay is the order of the day, I've always wondered one thing: When the player is an active part of a dynamically evolving plot that they help effect, will they still enjoy the story as a story? Or will the strategic parts of their minds take over such that they're more focused on conniving and manipulating their surroundings that they can't see the forest for the trees? It may be a useless worry, but I find it interesting because I believe the brain relates to a plot when observing versus when participating. (Think of all the great gut-twisting dramas and adventures you've watched, then think about how YOU'D feel if that were you in the hotseat!)

Well, part of the gut-twisting of the dramas and adventures we've watched is our identifying with the protagonist(s), albeit with the security of knowing that we are impervious, safe from the consequences of the challenges that our hero(es) face. That said, I think that dramatic gameplay will move us into a storytelling role, and an important part of such games will be exporting completed narratives/adventures for viewing later, particularly with friends. In a sense, each player will become, first, a storyteller or narrator, and then a viewer again when "recapping" the adventure alone or with others.

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Original post by Drew_Benton Oluseyi - I don't exactly get what you are saying. Can you explain a little more? Also can you describe in your opinion what is a good movie then what is a good game. I would like to have this background info to mold my response.

In contemporary terms, there are no analogues between good movies and "good games." Movies present an entertaining narrative, which may not be about anything (I saw Napoleon Dynamite last night, and I enjoyed it even though it wasn't about anything in particular; okay, it was stupid, but stupid enough that I had a few laughs). Movies are about resolution of dramatic tension, using any number of techniques - violence, sex, guile, honesty, manipulation of anger, jealousy, etc.

Games, on the other hand, because of their dependency on interactivity, and because of the primitiveness of our storytelling and story generating technology, only have a story as an irreversible, irretrievable, immutable present, past or future which we gain acess to in increments by fulfilling a tactile challenge. It is for this reason that every game rapidly bores me; playing a typically tedious sequence over and over in order to gain access to the furtherance of a fixed narrative is not my idea of fun. Don't get me wrong. There are lots of fun games today, but, for me, they accomplish that by realizing that they are intermittent distractions, that I am not going to play for hours on end, and that requiring me to "manage" the game experience (constantly having to save and load in order to advance effectively) or replay the same sequence in a trite attempt to extend "hours of gameplay" will only cause me to discard the game.

I like Halo. Yes, it's not the most innovative FPS, but the checkpoint system means I can focus on playing, and it also means that I can play intermittently and still make appreciable progress. Same with Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (actually, I found the combat in that game to be an unnecessary distraction from the main business of exploring and solving acrobatic puzzles). Not the case with 007: Everything or Nothing. I also don't like games to be excessively long, which is a major problem I had/have with Splinter Cell. As a fan of stories, I want to get to the end. Your copious amounts of filler in order to hit an arbitrary "gameplay hours" figure only delays gratification and prolongs anticipation for me, which, after a point, leads to me abandoning the game.


But none of this has really helped you. I decided to humor you rather than simply point out that my preferences are not what are at issue here, but rather figuring out how to translate an idea - gameplay that centers around the narrative and, through dramatic interaction with NPCs, shapes/creates the narrative - into reality. Returning to the movie analogy, though, imagine trying to play a video game version of Dead Reckoning. There are only two scenes or so where the central character employs traditional "action" (violence). In all other scenes it's about discourse, threats, posturing, second-guessing, trickery, cross-checking. How do we translate the experience of Capt. Rip Murdock into gameplay, such that the "story," as it were, is created by the choices the player makes? Clearly, the game will begin as a traditional story begins: with a set of characters, relationships, and a "situation" that needs to be resolved. For every user input, some algorithmic process will need to evaluate all the social forces at play and determine the subsequent trajectories of all participants. (It's analogous to a physical simulation system, such as ODE, if that helps.)

So, how do we do it?

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But none of this has really helped you. I decided to humor you rather than simply point out that my preferences are not what are at issue here, but rather figuring out how to translate an idea - gameplay that centers around the narrative and, through dramatic interaction with NPCs, shapes/creates the narrative - into reality. Returning to the movie analogy, though, imagine trying to play a video game version of Dead Reckoning. There are only two scenes or so where the central character employs traditional "action" (violence). In all other scenes it's about discourse, threats, posturing, second-guessing, trickery, cross-checking. How do we translate the experience of Capt. Rip Murdock into gameplay, such that the "story," as it were, is created by the choices the player makes? Clearly, the game will begin as a traditional story begins: with a set of characters, relationships, and a "situation" that needs to be resolved. For every user input, some algorithmic process will need to evaluate all the social forces at play and determine the subsequent trajectories of all participants. (It's analogous to a physical simulation system, such as ODE, if that helps.) So, how do we do it?

I suppose that we would need to create not a story, but a "world". There will be a "mystery" that needs to be solved, and every NPC "knows" just a part of it, or can generally help in some part of the game(positive contribution) or,on the other hand, is trying to stop you from progressing(negative contribution).

This could result into a very complex scheme, but one simpler one could be to divide NPCs into classes. We can imagine the story as a "puzze", and to complete the game we have to gather all the pieces. NPCs of the same class hold the same piece. Let's take class A, and NPCs A1,A2,A3,A4. A1 needs to be dealt with discussion,A2 with combat,A3 with bribery,A4 with trickery. Or even an NPC could be dealt with more than one ways, and you choose one based on your resources. If during the game you have gained a good gun, you deal with him with that, but if you have gained money, you bribe him. Anyway, when you deal with one of them, the game picks(randomly or based on your actions) an NPC of class B to throw at you, and so on until the end of the game. So, you can finish the game with dealing,for example, A1-B4-C3-D2 or A3-B1-C1-D4, generally any combination of those.

I'm using the term "NPC" loosely here, it can be a group of them, or a situation that needs to be resolved. Even if we have only 8 classes, with only 2 NPCs in each class(total 16 NPCs), the story will unfold with 256 possible ways. If we take into consideration that you can deal with the same NPC with different ways, the combinations are even more. And even though there will be so many ways to tell the story, they will all be dramatically "correct", because every NPCs of the same class will hold more or less the same dramatic "value". We primary apply the dramatic stucture not to the NPCs, but more abstractly, to the classes.

[Edited by - mikeman on December 27, 2004 3:15:30 AM]