@joej said:

Hehe, you just call everything you like systemic, i get it. ;D

I’m establishing a pattern for relating the concepts I want to explore. Specifically, coining the term systemic environment in order to distinguish that from systemic story. Every existing systemic game is a systemic environment game.

I think that this article was pretty good as an introduction https://the-artifice.com/systemic-games-philosophy/​

They used the definition: Systemic games are games that are created such that all their individual systems can reach out and influence one another.

While talking about it, we can look at each part of a game and see if it’s systemic or not. That includes physics, chemistry, combat, animations, crafting, traversal and so on. For each of them the question is if they interact with all other parts of the game in the way they should. For example, if your game has character animations and resource gathering. If the animation isn’t connecting with the resource you gather, it’s not systemic.

Besides, Uncharted 4 is my other favorite example showing complex character animation.
Pretty impressive.

Naughty Dog continued to improve their animation systems in The Last of Us part 2. It’s really well done. They did a lot of physics concessions in order not to annoy the player. For example, you will usually pick up the resource by reaching for it in a way that looks realistic. The same for opening doors or switching weapons or anything else. But if you do several things at the same time and also move around, it will often skip animations. You really shouldn’t be apple to pick up the things in the way you are allowed to in the game, but they opted to make it less realistic for making it consistent during hectic gameplay.

Another (in development) game with physics-based animations is Examina. I’m curious what you think of it.

Nah. I' from the reality simulation camp. Turns are for board games. >:D

People like me need a way to pause the game and assess the situation. I have managed in some situations by using photo-mode. But it would be better with in-game support. At least as an accessibility-option. There are a lot of situations where I need to stop time, and other times where I prefer to play the game at quarter speed. Last of Us part 1 and 2 are super-good in most areas of accessibility, including navigation and combat.

But they still lack psychological accessibility. That's where the adaptability of systemic story games can come in. Some people may not understand how easily an ambush in a game can cause a panic attack. Most games lack the stress management accessibility options needed.

aigan said:
Having to find food and water is interesting if it’s something new to learn or part of a challenge. It's relevant in the beginning when you learn about the world. After a while, it’s no longer something you should have to manage at all. That is, until the time the story takes a turn. At some point, you will find yourself in an unfamiliar hostile environment and have lost all your stuff. Now the food and water system is relevant again.

Sounds better, but it makes me realize the primary flaw of survival mechanics:

Say you need to gather food. Wee need food to survive. If we don't eat, some health bar goes to zero and we die.
That's bad.

But this is good:
Say we need ammo to shoot predators. We can make ammo from crafting resources. If we don't have ammo, the predators will get us and we die.

My problem here is the health bar is a ‘abstract mechanic’ in my terms. It's about stats and numbers.
But i do not feel to need health, since i can't do anything with it. Thus i'm not motivated to collect resources to increase it, mixing herbs, etc., it all feels like work.
I'm fine with collecting health packs, but a need to push a button to inject it is already a bit annoying.

At this point i can also come up with examples of crafting i would like:
Collect branches. Having a knife, making arrows for a bow.
Same for bullets. Collect lead, having a fire and a pot, melt the lead to make bullets.
That's good, no? I have progress on getting the systemic… ; )

aigan said:
The metroidvania mechanic is better where you get or upgrade tools that give you new capabilities, but not if it's treated as a lock and key. It should be systemic, so that you could potentially think of five other ways to do the same thing without that tool.

Yes, but also no.
Likely we need some doors which may have only one way to open.
Or, coming back the the storytellers book metaphor, we want to give chapter titles at least.
Some points must be fixed, otherwise we can't tell a story, and we can't design a game at all.
It's also for the player. If we hallucinate the entire game around the unique player, he'll feel like just talking to himself.

aigan said:
My general point about skipping repetitive boring stuff is based on story structure more than how games are today. Movies usually have a lot of time-cuts.

Yeah, but it would be good if the player can predict there's a cut ahead.

Previously this was as easy as finishing the level - cut - next level, looking different, raising motivation to explore. And most important: Giving a sense of progress. This was good. Loading times were not even that bad. More time to imagine what might be ahead.

So if i can have a cut with a change in location i like that. But in the regular case it should not surprise me. And asking ‘mission done. leave the area?’ still leaves me baffled pretty often. I should feel the cut is ahead. And personally i would put the cuts to those fixed points i've mentioned above. No need to remove things that actually work.

aigan said:
But I don’t like when the game goes the other way and puts menus in the world.

Yeah, agree that's annoying. Moving mechanics to the actual world is not necessarily a solution, but just a requirement that enables an eventual solution at all.

For a compromise, we can place the menu on a computer that is in the world, or on the phone of the avatar.
We can use 3D printers, video comm., etc.
The in-world menus in Doom3 were kinda nice.

Using a traditional GUI menu as a shortcut is an option i would not rule out either. It's much better if it's a shortcut, but not the only way to do something. Like fast travel, sleeping, and all that stuff. That's ok.
(It's not that i hate any form of GUI or HUD just for the sake of rant. I mention the GUI problem mostly regarding abstract RPG stats, which i do consider a real design fail.)

Btw, if i would use something like a quest log, then i would enrich it with images (maybe automatic screenshots). This would help me a whole lot with searching through the log and memorizing!

JoeJ said:
Say we need ammo to shoot predators. We can make ammo from crafting resources. If we don't have ammo, the predators will get us and we die. My problem here is the health bar is a ‘abstract mechanic’ in my terms. It's about stats and numbers. But i do not feel to need health, since i can't do anything with it. Thus i'm not motivated to collect resources to increase it, mixing herbs, etc., it all feels like work. I'm fine with collecting health packs, but a need to push a button to inject it is already a bit annoying. At this point i can also come up with examples of crafting i would like: Collect branches. Having a knife, making arrows for a bow.

You might like The Long Dark then, since it includes much of those mechanics. Unlike most games the crafting there takes some serious effort. To make arrows you first need to make a tool to cut down sapplings (either knife or hatchet) and forge arrowheads, which involves collecting coal and scrap metal and bringing those resources to a forge location (only a few in the game). Then once you make a hatchet or knife you have to find the right kind of sappling to cut down, then need to cure the sappling indoors for 7 in-game days. You also need feathers, which you collect from around dead carcasses. Only once all of this is done can you spend the 1.5 in-game hours per arrow to craft it (for you it takes 5 seconds and plays a sound with progress bar). You also need to make sure you have sufficient resources saved up (food, water) to craft without interruption. There's also more involved to craft a bow to shoot the arrows. It takes usually at least 20 in-game days to even be able to shoot predators, before that you have to use other tactics to avoid getting eaten. It's great fun. (this is how the hardest game mode plays, on easier modes you can find guns).

This game is a big part of what inspires me to create a survival game. It gets many things right, though I can sometimes take issue with the focus on “filling up bars”. (health bar, thirst bar, warmth bar, energy bar). That's just a matter of tuning the rate at which those bars deplete so that it is not a chore to maintain.

aigan said:
I don’t like any of these number games.

Same page then.
But i talked a lot with a Path of Exile player. The character build is an optimization problem he said. It's enjoyable and fun to tweak the stats right. And players eve trade their builds on the net.
So i guess it can be good, just not for me.

One point of confusion is: Skill of the avatar vs. skill of the player. RPG Level 20 vs. mastering rocket jump. Dumping 200 hrs into a game vs. talent.

Idk. But i'm approving dynamic difficulty. The more options the player has, the more this might be needed to compensate a breaking balance, which seems hard to avoid.
That's very hard to get right i expect.

aigan said:
They are usually not part of stories in other media.

But that's not an indicator about something being generally bad ofc.
I don't think we can learn much from other media, and they can learn even less from us.
So we might do some silly things because they just work for us.
But in this case, for me they just don't. ;D

aigan said:
The ideal design would be if the player can take on bigger challenges by getting better at the game rather than stat buffs.

Sure, but if we compensate using dynamic difficulty, the player won't feel like getting better.
If we don't, and the player does not get better, he'll fail and rage quit.
If we give him better weapons, but also harder enemies with time, it should just work in any case.

This is actually an argument for a coarsely linear progression, corresponding weapons and enemies with fixed points in a timeline, eventually.

aigan said:
but I wouldn’t want to play in a dark or depressing world.

I do like dark and lonely atmosphere. Narrative FPS in the 2000's were full of that. But currently it's really hard to find related games.

I was thinking your system could serve both of us. In theory. But i guess you would need coworkers to care about the dark side then? Setting up the dark versions for story templates / fragments?

I don't believe there could be a dark version of HZD for example. No way. But for CP2077 it could work. Just turn it into Blade Runner. Everything happens at night, dense fog everywhere, fewer people and they don't talk much. More black cars. Black clothes instead pink hair. Destaurated colors. You might even simulate the story just in the background for the sake of completeness, so it's there when needed. But otherwise you would not tell me much about it. You would leave me alone, most of the time. Here and there i see somebody jumping off the roof, committing suicide. The others are deeply depressed.

hehe, i think this could work indeed. : )

aigan said:
But nothing is new. What is it you want to explore?

Well, when i was a kid, i always wanted to see alien planets. Aliens which have nothing in common with humans.

Now, grown up, i have lost interest in aliens. But maybe humans, colonizing an alien planet. With strange landscape and plants. Everything is strange. The humans have changed too. But it's not clear how. It's mysterious and pretty subtle. You have never seen their fashion style. Maybe there is an intellectual elite, hidden and small in number. And there is a primate and brutal majority, with habits reminding on animals.

Somehow like Zardoz, for example:

Not new, but currently it would be a pretty fresh take on scifi / fantasy. There is not much done on connecting those two genres.

@joej said:

Super Mario is full of such stuff. Is it a systemic game? Yes, it surely is. But there are no clumsy abstractions, no complexity bloat, no interruptions, it's all done within it's laws of physics and at real time, within it's usual controls, during moment to moment gameplay. There is not even a inventory screen.

Nice. Then there you have an example of a systemic environment game with specifically systemic combat.

But ofc. i will likely implement those things only after i came up with the idea of the potential chain reaction. Then it's no longer emergent, but just intended by design.
A matter of philosophy or semantics i would say. But if it works, that's all we need.

Systemic games can be designed to facilitate emergence. It’s a question of definition. I don’t think it would have to be unintended from the developers side. Wikipedia is currently defining it as: “complex situations in video games, board games, or role-playing games that emerge from the interaction of relatively simple game mechanics”. But it will also open up for problem solutions that the designer did not anticipate.

If you're interested, HZDs physics engine ‘Jolt’ is open source on gitHub.

I heard about that. I like many of the design decisions and solutions in HZD, such as the procedural terrain generation and the machine AI.

it would be much nicer if i could just figure out options on my own, because related interfaces are intuitive, functionality is obvious

For HZD. Lot of the systems are left for the player to figure out by themself. Resulting in most players completing the game not only without engaging in some of the core systems, but also not even discovering the existence of some of the most important things. Some of it is part of the hunting grounds and the tutorial quests. Some of it is in the machine notebook and item descriptions. But others are not explained anywhere and can only be discovered by experimentation. Not easy to make a game that will work for a wide selection of different player types. But it could have been better.

The real storyteller tunes the content before he tries to sell the book.

I tried to give a practical example of dynamic adaptation in my example article. … It’s not the same all the way through. I cover a whole bunch of topics, including how to handle unexpected player choices.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wVe958BlSbdx3UWwnW0yNMH3wRnz4kpCtlI0maJRDJ8/edit?usp=sharing

The whole idea is to solve the problem of giving the player the choice. You can’t have the content static.

but there is no way around compromises here. We'll never achieve total realism.

Any game creator can make their own compromises. But my starting stance is to not include anything without integrating them in the systems. If you can’t use the branch in relation to everything else; Don't have the branch in the game. Same goes for every single pixel.

I'm working on this. This is probably the first terrain simulation you see which is entirely 3D instead heightmaps as usual

Nice.

Since there are a lot of folks working on this, I’m happy to leave it to others. But there is a lot more to do to really dynamically generate houses that changed over generations with details coming from people who lived their lives there. Single-step generation can’t work. But we should still use something that can be regenerated deterministically from controlled sources.

I at least have an idea of how to do it on a planet scale with only having to save things altered by the player.

aigan said:
For example, you will usually pick up the resource by reaching for it in a way that looks realistic.

Ha, i was waiting for that to happen.
But i's still just for visuals, so is it 'systemic'? It's still just an illusion.
However, idk what would classify systemic animations. ‘affecting each other as it should’ could just mean ‘realistic’.

aigan said:
Another (in development) game with physics-based animations is Examina. I’m curious what you think of it.

I have tried it. It's interesting, and goes in the right direction.
But actually it's controls are bad and clumsy.
Also there is no balancing going on. A puppet on strings which interacts more realistic with the environment in a physical sense, but not in the sense of simulating life.

aigan said:
People like me need a way to pause the game and assess the situation.

I'll try to give you the option to play steadily, optionally holding on and just looking around but doing nothing. Ideally you won't need to hit the pause key.

But action games are realtime. Except Superhot, which is genius.

aigan said:
I have managed in some situations by using photo-mode. But it would be better with in-game support.

I guess you would really like my upcoming oversight solution… ; )

aigan said:
Some people may not understand how easily an ambush in a game can cause a panic attack. Most games lack the stress management accessibility options needed.

I would have thought affected people just play different games. I mean, world is full of peaceful games.
I might just exploit the gentle mode to bypass difficult situations, might get bored, play another.
The sensual people might still freak out if they hear that only two blocks away a zombie as almost killed a grandma.
Too much consideration, too much compromise, nobody really happy. Not sure if this is avoidable in any way. Better target niches specifically by not hiring Keanu, i would say.

Aressera said:
You might like The Long Dark then, since it includes much of those mechanics. Unlike most games the crafting there takes some serious effort. To make arrows you first need to make a tool to cut down sapplings (either knife or hatchet) and forge arrowheads, which involves collecting coal and scrap metal and bringing those resources to a forge location (only a few in the game).

/:O\ There we have it! I'm freaking out! Panicking!

I'm playing Wrath currently, the new FPS with Quake1 engine. It's good, but pretty hard. Frustratingly hard at times. Rage quitting hard.

There are power ups. They are sparse. I collect them. I have them all. My inventory is full of them. Every sort of power up maxed out. 9 of each kind.

There are also collectable save games. Yes, you can only save if you use such collectible. You save, one less.

I MIGHT RUN OUT OF POWERUPS AND SAVEGAMES, WHEN THE GAME GETS REALLY HARD LATER!!!

So i never use one of my 100 powerups or 70 savegames. I spare them for bad times.
Sadly, when i come across a new powerup, i can't pick it up anymore. Because my inventory is full. What a pity.
But even then - i do not use one powerup for free, to pick the new one up. I'm too lazy. And i'll manage without those silly powerups. They are for girls. Complexity bloat.

hehehehe :D

@joej said:

“pffff, idk. Take them both. Might restart to give them better hairstyles anyway. Go on and kill them. Can i go after that?”

Sounds like a generic evil option. In any dialogue, you should be able to just do something else, like go away or attack or anything else. You can also start talking about something else. Or try to join the enemy's side.

As mentioned, the contextual options can be sorted on top. But others can be constructed by going down sub-menus.

“Don't care” could of course be available in most situations.

But i still think you need something like a key scene / system seller moment, as early as possible in the game.
Maybe you do not need to inform the player directly about the new feature. It would be much more impressive if you could just show it with the early gameplay itself.

New systems should be introduced one at the time. In other games, NG+ is partly a way to skip the game tutorial by giving them everything directly. A systemic story game can do the same by knowing if it's the first time they will encounter a specific game system.

Starting with action is also a common technique for longer stories. Could be a scenario that could invite experimentation. For example a public hanging where you might be tempted to interrupt and will see all the ways it may turn out.

@joej said:

My problem here is the health bar is a ‘abstract mechanic’ in my terms. It's about stats and numbers.

This is the topic of my article about health in games that I just now reposted on https://www.gamedev.net/blogs/entry/2283684-health-in-games/​

coming back the the storytellers book metaphor, we want to give chapter titles at least.
Some points must be fixed, otherwise we can't tell a story, and we can't design a game at all.
It's also for the player. If we hallucinate the entire game around the unique player, he'll feel like just talking to himself.

A systemic story game will adapt to the player's choices. They should be able to go anywhere they want and find clever solutions to enter all those places. The story will adapt. The author can set up scenarios, but the end result could be very different depending on what the player does. If someone really tried to be good and clever they should be able to kill the big bad evil guy in the opening chapter, even if the author just intended it for the player to see what it is they are going to spend their next 200 hours to achieve. That doesn’t mean that it’s the end of the story. It just means that it will become a different story.

I thought that was clear by now. How can I explain this better?

So if i can have a cut with a change in location i like that. But in the regular case it should not surprise me. And asking ‘mission done. leave the area?’ still leaves me baffled pretty often. I should feel the cut is ahead.

I would only do time-skips on player requests. Yue will probably not want to just look at a black screen for seven hours while your character is sleeping. Or for the camp routines, such as making food and stuff. Or for when you are using your map and selecting a place you want to go and choose “fast travel”. You also might not have an option in case you are knocked unconscious. Like in car rides in Cyberpunk, you should be able to skip ahead.

I personally would prefer a less directed experience where the game doesn’t say “mission done”, and it’s up to you to do what you like. But the game could give you some extra info if you want it. Many games have a special combat state that is visible at all times. For those, you will only be able to fast-travel once out of combat. I would prefer the game to be more ambiguous than that, unless you have some sort of magic or advanced technology that can give you that information. But that’s up to the type of game.

Moving mechanics to the actual world is not necessarily a solution, but just a requirement that enables an eventual solution at all.

The menus can also be an interface for formulating your plans. It’s sort of a mind palace. The important part is what happens when you are done. After you are out of the menus, you should start doing the thing you planned. Giving out orders, watching your workers gather resources and start building according to your plans. (In the case of colony builders.) The actual execution can (and often is) time-skipped. But it should be grounded in the world simulation. Aka systemic.

I have currently been playing Midnight Suns, and I absolutely hate how they did the mechanics in that game. Things teleporting around all the time. It’s just a clicker game. I was hoping for more from the creators of XCOM enemy unknown.

if i would use something like a quest log, then i would enrich it with images (maybe automatic screenshots). This would help me a whole lot with searching through the log and memorizing!

It’s strange how bad so many RPGs are with finding stuff in games with so many quests and people and places and events and ingredients and all the rest. It’s like they missed the invention of hyperlinks. Somehow FF 16 got praise for including a version of that. (“active time lore”)

All events, dialogues, people, places and so on should be viewable, sorted on last seen and hyperlinked to all the connected things. And with illustrations or screen shots as you suggested.

@joej said:

Skill of the avatar vs. skill of the player. RPG Level 20 vs. mastering rocket jump. Dumping 200 hrs into a game vs. talent.

The power levels in HZD is one of the things I like about it. You get some stat improvements for armor, damage and health. But it’s not as insane as many other games. It’s much more about just having the right tools and knowing how to use them. You can basically manage against any enemy with the level 1 character and the base versions of the weapons. You get the best of both worlds and it’s still mostly about learning what to do and getting new types of tools.

This doesn’t hold for the Frozen Wilds. And even less for the Forbidden West. But the original Zero Dawn is good.

Idk. But i'm approving dynamic difficulty. The more options the player has, the more this might be needed to compensate a breaking balance, which seems hard to avoid.
That's very hard to get right i expect.

I have been listening a lot to Tim Cain and he talked about a lot of these things. It’s based on the old style of number games, but three is also a lot about systemic game design.

Actually, it’s the same thing as my principle of the quantum observer. In his version of it; the level of enemies in an area is determined by the player level the first time they enter it. When they later come back to the same area, they will experience how much stronger they have become. Thus, the game will adjust for the player power progression, and still keep the world consistent.

Another thing he talks about is how to scale up difficulty. Every enemy has a level range. So if the game wants to give you a harder fight, you can't just make your rats level 20. You will instead have to adjust other things, like the enemy compositions and the number of enemies and other things that give a greater challenge.

But for me… Levels are still a thing from the table-top board games. Computers can do better when it comes to simulation.

Somehow like Zardoz, for example

Love that movie. Have studied a lot of esoterica.