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Original post by Kest Accessible is extremely relative. If you make the content as accessible as possible, you'll have something on the level of a children's book. You have to draw a line somewhere. The location of that line is what the topic is about.

Make that call based on your target audience.

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Original post by Kest If it was known that players of a game would be highly knowledgable, it wouldn't just change the type of presentation, it would change what is practical to present.

I think you should make a distinction between gamers who are intelligent and gamers who are simply very familiar with games. You should also make a distinction between what is necessary to communicate whatever it is you're trying to present, and what adds to the immersion of gameplay (type of language, for instance).

In your examples, you present the exact same notion with different phrasings that really do not make a difference. Why write "Cover that vector" when you can attract more gamers with the alternative, if the prior implementation does nothing to enrichen the game?

Again, it's about smart game design, and being able to communicate with different kinds of people. In a theoretical sense, you can create a game that is targeted towards a very small audience (friends, someone you know, or even yourself), but in a practical sense, you're trying to sell lots of copies - thousands or millions of copies!

When I design, I want as many people to be able to play it. If there's something that isn't easy to explain, then I will - through smart game design - present the concept in the game so that the gamer will understand it by the time he needs to draw use of that concept. Let him or her learn something while playing my game - why would that be a bad thing?

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Original post by Metallon Quote: Original post by Kest Accessible is extremely relative. If you make the content as accessible as possible, you'll have something on the level of a children's book. You have to draw a line somewhere. The location of that line is what the topic is about. Make that call based on your target audience.

I guess I'm having trouble defining one for this purpose. I could imagine many games being played as much by the inexperienced as the very educated.

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In your examples, you present the exact same notion with different phrasings that really do not make a difference. Why write "Cover that vector" when you can attract more gamers with the alternative, if the prior implementation does nothing to enrichen the game?

Because it can become goofy in some situations. As an adult, would you enjoy reading a novel that was written to allow young children to understand it? That's an overly extreme example, but it is the same issue. In order to avoid that goofiness, it would sometimes be better to completely avoid the complicated issue altogether.

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When I design, I want as many people to be able to play it.

Some of these complicated concepts would not need to be known to play or enjoy the game. Two scientists in Doom 3 talking about dimensional portals wouldn't prevent a player from running down the corridor and blasting demons. But it could lead to some enhanced experience in the game. How much attention do you give it?

I want to be able to play the game (intuitively without reading a manual), usually this means the controls are similar to the control schema of similar games

If I wanted to play a realistic simulation (flight simulator) than I wouldnt mind learning the control system. If I wanted a good story I would go read a book.

I think there's two different things we are talking about here: game instructions and in game dialog. The instructions should be written in plain simple English. It shouldn't matter how complex the game is, a skilled communicator will be able to explain it in a clear, accessible manner. The in game dialog however should be in whatever way is appropriate for that character, but I would still aim for accessibility, especially for any critical conversations.


Aim for newspaper level comprehension. In Australia journos are taught to write for a 6 grader. Which is basically not throwing in complex words just because you can, and don't use cliches - Younger people and people outside your culture may not understand them.


Also if you are approaching this from a 'user is dumb' angle, IMHO it's the wrong one. It's *your* job to explain how to play your game, not the user's to be uber-smart that they can decode your needlessly complex explanations.

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Original post by Kest As an adult, would you enjoy reading a novel that was written to allow young children to understand it?

Some of my favorite books were written in such a way. The key is they don't dumb it down. They assume an intelligent audience, just one without a lot of experience.

One of my favorite stories C.S. Lewis told was of him being in a restaurant and him saying, a bit too loudly, how much he disliked prunes. A young kid then exclaimed his own agreement. I think many, even most, adults would laugh, but Lewis claims neither he nor the kid did, because they knew prunes were far too serious a matter to laugh about. Or, from my own life, I have a young cousin who I believe is much more intelligent than I am. If I seem, in some sense, "smarter", it's only because I've got a better part of two decades head start on him. It would be a terrible mistake to dumb something down for him.

So, I'd say design for someone as intelligent as yourself, but also someone who has less experience with the required concepts than you do. I think it's too easy for anything else to come off as condescending.

Kudos to those who have mentioned the aspect of communication. It's both art and science and can be as challenging as the most technical technobabble.

If you enjoy breaking down and understanding really complex concepts (as many programmers do) it can be very aggravating to feel like you have to spoon feed everything to your audience ("Pablum for all, because the baby can't eat steak," as Robert Heinlein was reported to once have said).

But one sobering thought to keep the old ego in check is to realize that we're all idiots at something. Imagine really getting into a game and coming upon a part where you're required to understand (without Googling it) the varying types of chronic myloid leukemia. What if one of your options in a city management game was to execute (again no Google) a writ of Mandamus against an intransigent official? Or what if you could lose a game because you failed to distinguish olivine from igneous, allopoiesis from autopoiesis, or didn't understand the meaning of diseconomies of scale?

How would you feel?

I think if you look at the specific genre aspects that are popular (racing, shooters, strategy, sci-fi, fantasy) you'll notice a very popular conceit. We think nothing at all about being eggheaded wrt technology or strategy of a military or mechanical nature, but we seem to be quite forgetful that other fields of knowledge can be just as impenetrable and seemingly intentionally obtuse from the outside.

I would really veer away from looking at this in terms of IQ. I'm an idiot, you're an idiot, we're all idiots in something. Instead, why not adopt the role of a teacher and satisfy both worlds?

If the in-game dialog and phrasing is important to maintain world fiction (and personal artistic standards, which are by no means insignificant) why not create a kind of ladder of knowledge a player can climb? Maybe begin with common phraseology and then (as Jade Empire does) grant rewards for players who bother to dig into the richness of the milieu you're trying to create.

For instance, maybe you could have a sort of humorous episode where a technical character tells a non-technical character "cover that vector," with the natural response being "huh? Speak English man, we're being shot at!"

You then get a chance to explain that they mean something similar, and you also get a chance to defend the ethic behind being so precise.


If nothing else, your players will have had a chance to both play and learn something.

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Original post by Kest Because it can become goofy in some situations. As an adult, would you enjoy reading a novel that was written to allow young children to understand it? That's an overly extreme example, but it is the same issue. In order to avoid that goofiness, it would sometimes be better to completely avoid the complicated issue altogether.

I don't get this. It only becomes goofy if you make it goofy. You can make it easy to udnerstand without using unnecessarily advanced language (for instance).

I also don't see the reason behind your book analogy. A book written to allow young children to understand it will most likely not be the next Fist of God. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card is a book that I believe can be enjoyed by children and adults alike. Or the spin-off series, the Shadow Saga - they contain enough material to appeal to any "intelligent" adult, but is still appealing to a younger audience.

It's all about execution.

Having something more accessible doesn't equal making ot more goofy, or more childish or stupid in any way. If you want to communicate vital game information but still keep it within advanced levels, you have be smart about how you implement it.

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Original post by Kest Some of these complicated concepts would not need to be known to play or enjoy the game. Two scientists in Doom 3 talking about dimensional portals wouldn't prevent a player from running down the corridor and blasting demons. But it could lead to some enhanced experience in the game. How much attention do you give it?

I don't see the problem with this? One type of player will want to immerse themselves in the technical aspects of whatever's going on around them (the player character), and try to understand it. Another type of player can simply ignore it and start firing away. The problem arises when the impatient player who isn't interested in technical bla-bla wants to know what's going on. Two scientists talking? If this turns off this type of player, remove this feature. Have another more interesting NPC present this information, or have it presented to the player through some other way.

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Original post by Kest What intelligence level do you assume for your target audience?

I assume they're all quite intelligent. But as for the audience's level of computer literacy, that's quite another matter.
When I used to work on Activision's Shanghai line, I was aware that many end users of that game were not highly computer literate, so I made sure to write the help menu with a high level of detail.
If I was producing a PC game for core gamers, I'd assume a much higher level of computer literacy, and write accordingly.

I'm all for helping the player to understand. My concern is not knowing who I'm helping to understand. Or knowing when to stop helping and assume they know what's going on.

It's not a critical issue by a long shot. Just something that nags at me once in a while. Not knowing if I should use that word, or give an explanation of that concept.

Also, for the record, my use of the word "dumb" was due to my not-so-serious attitude when I posted. I can refer to myself as dumb in respect to specific situations. I didn't mean it in some literal degrading sense.

I can't answer your question, it would depend on the game. Give us realistic examples and context for them, that would make a more interesting and helpful discussion.

On a related note, there is a fine balance to thread between risking an uninformed player and a nagged player. Players are different, some want to be lead longer than others. Fortunately, the medium in which you work is not a static one. The player leaves a tonne of information through her controls to the game system. It is very possible to interpret some of that and adapt your level of helpfulness accordingly.

p.s.
I don't think of players (or persons) as more or less intelligent.