Imagine a screen with intricate patterns of light making up a streaking tunnel of stars. In the center are nine circular icons slowly floating around the empty dark center. In the center of each is an image:

• A white shield emblazoned with a red cross, bordered by growing vines and sitting atop flowers
• An iron-gray shield with a black and white crest slashing its middle and a vertical longsword behind it
• A blindfolded woman in a robe holding up scales in her left hand, a sword dangling in her right
• A glaring, long-haired yelling man, his right hand holding an open book, his left a clenched, glowing fist
• A grinning skull pierced by a knife blade, the blade point tipped scarlet
• A handsome, smiling business man juggling an A-bomb, the world, and a gold-plated dollar sign, standing in front of a mushroom cloud
• A skull and crossbones sitting ontop of a pile of vials, guns and powder
• A leatherjacketed, chrome sunglasses wearing, smirking man who has his hands in his pockets and is standing on a rainy street
• A fractal pattern made of changing, glowing numbers

You're not given any clue or hint as to what each means. They simply orbit the center of the screen until you click one.

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First of all, gut reaction: What might you imagine, without any prompting, selecting first?

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When you click an icon, a bubble films over it and it takes the center; the others vanish, and a new set of new, smaller icons appear. As you select more icons, they begin to coalesce around the central one. An example sequence might be: Select smiling business man -->A-bomb, world, dollar signs fly away to orbit around him; select A-bomb ----->Select dollar sign --------->Spinning dollar sign is orbited by a trenchcoat and silenced gun, man standing on the backs of groveling people in chains, a balance sheet, and bandolier of grenades... etc.. As you choose options, a mosaic image starts to fade in in the center of the stars. When you select the last icon, all icons disappear and you can see the image at the center of the streaking stars. It could be an image of a snow-dusted, ruined city prowled by tanks; an idyllic hamlet nestled in a field of trees; or a busy metropolis filled with flying cars. When you click, the screen goes white and then resolves to your game.

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I'm curious about the idea of using a player's natural curiosity as a means of intuitively customizing a game's settings. Mood lighting, symbols, shapes and colors would broadly track to demographics. Certain people would be drawn more toward organic, metallic, dark or light-hearted themes, which the orbiting series of icons would represent. One obvious problem is that symbols don't mean all things to all people. However, there are some fairly deep-rooted symbols (like a snarling wolf or cobra flashing fangs) which have pretty reliable, broad psychological associations; that is, snarling wolf propably doesn't mean "happy cuddly." Why Bother? Adventuredesign's latest article on the future of gaming inspired this brainstorm. I wondered what it would be like to get rid of text menus and try to tap into the subconscious a bit more in terms of UI Thoughts?

Sounds cool, but also sounds like a lot of work for a means of customizing the look-and-feel of a game interface. Unless it would also change the gameplay in some tangible way? EG. the user chooses the sword-and-shield icon, they probably like playing as a warrior class, vs. someone choosing the guy with the book and the glowy hand most likely enjoys throwing fireballs.

The downside is that after all this, people are pretty quickly going to realize that it's just a shiny and somewhat obfuscated menu system, and treat it as such. Eventually it'd be come an impediment to the player who just wants to do action X (set his interface to 'futuristic' theme, or create a new Paladin class character, whatever) and has to figure out the menu system in order to do it.

Of course, if the icons are all fairly obvious, then a pictogram-based menu would be possibly easier to use than a text-based menu. The difficulty then is in coming up with icons for more abstract actions such as "change your character's preferred type of food".

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Original post by fractoid Sounds cool, but also sounds like a lot of work for a means of customizing the look-and-feel of a game interface. Unless it would also change the gameplay in some tangible way? EG. the user chooses the sword-and-shield icon, they probably like playing as a warrior class, vs. someone choosing the guy with the book and the glowy hand most likely enjoys throwing fireballs. The downside is that after all this, people are pretty quickly going to realize that it's just a shiny and somewhat obfuscated menu system, and treat it as such. Eventually it'd be come an impediment to the player who just wants to do action X (set his interface to 'futuristic' theme, or create a new Paladin class character, whatever) and has to figure out the menu system in order to do it.

I should have been more clear here: You're choosing everything about the game, from your character "class" to the tone of the game, using the symbols that attract or repel you.

If you consistently choose hellish, violent symbols, your game will be violence-laden. If you pick the flowery, happy-puppy images, the game will nix the more violent events, change the game's lighting, and ditch any more seedy aspects.

And you're right, it is nothing more than a menu system without the labels. But in adventurdesign's article, it was suggested by Peter Molyneaux that nested menus filled with text and stats scare off a wider audience.

But there's another, more important angle: I've been imagining a game which promises a bunch of different start up conditions and a bit of mystery; you might start in a war-torn enviornment, or be born in the lap of luxury. I'm looking for a mix of mystery and intuitive ease.

OK... I think I've got a clearer picture of what you're imagining, and to the RP/adventure gamer in me it sounds like an awesome idea. :)

Are you imagining the world, NPCs etc. be (at least somewhat) automatically generated using these parameters? Or would you have a large world in which the player's starting location is defined by their preferences, along with their starting 'package'.

I suggest some text to accompany the icons to signify what exactly the player is choosing. showing a wolf, dog, sheep, bird icon and asking me to choose one is a bit confusing. what exactly am I choosing? my violence preference, my character class? personality?


some ideas:

using riddles or cryptic lines may give the player clues on the choice they will be making.
ex:
personality - "The turtles are slow, but they live long.."
violence/mood - "The world looks dark under a new moon..."
starting location-"everthing that has an end had a beginning"

the text still preserves some mystery while giving a bit more information to the player to enable them to make better choices.



personally, I would start and restart the game trying out different combinations till I figure out what the icons mean or find somthing I like. This might turn off other players who just want to start playing as soon as possible.

I think it would be worth giving it a try. It could be a little lke Morrowind's beginning, only in reverse action. I explain. In Morrowind, you start out as a prisonner and only give the details about you in order to fill the blanks that come in a predefined story. With this system, you, in fact, create a string of elements that have to be linked in order to have ful meaning and be related in a way to the main story. Or maybe, you could have different stories? Would be incredibly cool and even more incredibly difficult: "have the story your unconscious has been begging to live from your birth..." Would be interesting though. I would be at loss at how choosing anything, and would probably end up doing things randomly, but at second play, I may choose to make things differently.

Yours faithfully,
Nicolas FOURNIALS

I would pick the guy in the leather jacket, because only the last two choices don't have any obvious connotations of violence or black and white morality, and the very last one doesn't have any people. (This is a pretty dubious and unbalanced set of choices.) Actually, probably what I would do if I could is start several new games to see what the options were, or read a walkthrough so I could tell which choice would please me best throughout the game.

I think the idea of psych profiling the player and using this info to customize the game to them is a good idea, but I think this particular example tries to cram too much info into one image and is further hampered by not presenting that image in context. Take smaller bites. ;)

I like the idea, but I think it still needs some polishing. It’s a subject I call adaptive gaming I like how your using it and kind of wish I could do something similar in my game,. I’m also thinking of using adaptive gaming in my game but in a different way then you have applied it. The way I plan to use it involves manipulating in game variables to shape the players experience to their tastes. The aspects you prefer will become more prevalent and the aspect you dislike will diminish in importance and relevance.

I can see what you’re trying to achieve with the bubble system but I think some text might serve to better anchor the player to what is happening. A simple question that explains the choice you are making would be enough

I have always thought of personality development as a sort of life journey and it might be more effective to portray the choices in this manor.

Consider this example:
Questions are shown in text, choices would be images. Roman numeral following a number indicates that the choice is not affected by the preceding choice.

Q1 - Where are you?
C1 - An empty white room, a labyrinth, a dark forest, on a path stretching beyond the horizon.
A1- the path.
Q2i – What lies behind you?
C2i – A place you can never return, an enemy in close pursuit, the path continues endlessly behind, the place you have always called home.
A2i – a place you can never return.
Q3ii – What time of day is it?
C3ii – dawn, morning, noon, afternoon, sunset, night.
A3ii - sunset
Q4iii - Who do you meet along the way?
C4iii – An injured traveller, a lost child, a dangerous looking criminal, no one.
A4iii – An injured traveller.
Q5 - What do you do?
C5 – Help them, pass by, steal from them.
A5 – Help them.
Q6 – What do you asking in return?
C6 - Payment, that the traveller accompany you, nothing.
A6 - nothing
Q7i – As you continue on your journey you encounter :
C7i – A wolf, a tower, a broken bridge, a large sack.
A7i - tower
Q8 - How would you describe the tower?
C8 - a crumbling ruin, soaring into the clouds, dark and foreboding,
A8 – soaring into the clouds
Q9i – What does the tower contain?
C9i – Someone to save, something to find, something to learn,
A9i – something to find.

That was probably too verbose to explain with simple icons but you could still use imagery to show the choices. The questions are dived into three sections, how you see yourself (1-3), how you see others (4-6), and how you see the world (7-9). Based on the answers the player gave a personality profile could be determined and that used to do all the things that you want, shape the world, game play, and interface. I could explain the symbolism of the different choices if you like. Although I really tempted to write a full questionnaire and see what people on gamedev’s responses are, it could give an interesting incite into the people on these forums.

What would be interesting idea was to have the profile shape other aspects of the game in subtle ways, such skills names. What if the profile determined the names of skills?
So speech skill could – be conversation, integration, coercion, or diplomacy based on the player profile. That’s just an example but those sorts of small details are what could really make this an interesting game aspect and go along way towards tailoring the player’s experience to them personally.

I agree with S&S, this could do with some context.

I'm not a great believer the idea that you can make profound psychological insights into people's personality from decisions made without context in this way. Perhaps it works for some, but I'm the kind of person that likes to understand exactly what I'm being asked, and I'll experiment in order to figure out the context if no context is given. My first choice will therefore be essentially random - just an experimental answer in order to try and understand what's going on.

Also - why do we want to psych profile the player? Surely we want to psych profile the character the player wants to play, rather than the player himself? Or do we assume that the player will always play himself, thus defeating the concept of roleplaying?

something to think about:

by explicitly asking the player to make a choice, I think the player automatically switches to gamer mode. The player is likely to think "hmm.. what will give me the best stats, chances, etc in the game" It is expected that every input of the player is meaningful somehow to the game.

How about implicit choices.

design a city with multiple paths, some paths have roses, others are beaten down and dirty, etc. then take note how frequent a player travels on the roads.
doors, pathways, buildings can also have subliminal themes. then if the player chooses the beaten down path often enough, gradually remove the rosy paths, and maybe introduce rain or dark clouds. just keep the motifs in the background and the paths equal so the player will not realize he is choosing.

Some other examples are a dog following the player, the player can ignore the dog, shoot it , feed it, etc. then use the choice made by the player in the future.