Facade is about character relationships. If you missed it, surely interesting.

Its interesting, but I think they implemented it in an unsustainable way with a lot of symbolic AI. Lots of work is needed. But I would do the modelling more based on the experience dynamics. … Well. Will continue expanding on it in future articles.

And there were similar, purely text based games before that inspired it.
Though, with generative AI on the rise, this surely feels prehistoric pretty soon. But still interesting, impressive and very out of the norm.

You would sort of still need the things I'm talking about. ML-based AI can be used for combining all the system variables to actual sentences and speech. But there would still be systems in the background.

The other game is Disco Elysium. Probably even further away from your idea, but idk.

Played Baldurs Gate 3 recently. Like those games but its all hand-written narrative. Its the polar opposite. It's writing everything rather than writing nothing. 🙂

aigan said:
That sounds fund and interesting. Link?

It's all gone, but i still have some gifs:

Looks interesting. 🙂

It's pretty easy to make such games on a quantized grid with top down view.
The quantization makes everything predictable, and the top view gives oversight.
In a modern 3D action game, you have nothing of this.

It makes things more complicated, but the world can still use grids for some things. … I had an idea for world modelling based on 1m cubes a bit like minecraft.

The primary problem is the player can't observe the complex, entangled causes and reasons, and giving him feedback is almost impossible.
To me, that's really the primary design problem we want to solve. We have sacrificed so much for 3D. Bringing some things back would enable new games, even without much invention on other fields.

Do you mean for puzzle games? Or what type of complex causes?

aigan said:
Life is Strange

Ha, well this game was the exception where i actually liked the cutscenes and blah blah.
They did it so well, it felt like a new genre. Tried it because i expected some come back of point and click adventures. Although it's made for teen girls, i could not wait for the next episode. : )

aigan said:
But it's also, in my opinion, a big problem with hand-written dialogue, that all the things said lack relevance for the things you actually do in the game. If something is said, it should be things I can use to improve my chances to achieve my goals in the game. That alone, will categorize almost every line of text in games today as useless.

Yes exactly. It's usually one of two options: The game is boring and you only play it to see the next cutscene, or the game is good and the cutscenes become annoying interruptions.
Even if they make both parts well, it just does not merge. It remains two different things, and attempts to connect them feel shallow.
(It's just that - unlike you - i do not know how to do better.)

aigan said:
And I would prefer to skip the violence. Don't want to hurt people, regardless of how bad or evil they are supposed to be. And a systemic game could adapt to that.

Brings me to my primary question: What could we do in a game other than shooting? (Or other forms of combat)
To me, Penumbra felt like big progress on this. (The not so well known predecessor of Amnesia)
It's like a narrative FPS, but without the gun. And i have not missed it.
So you have to hide from monsters instead killing them. Pretty much stealth gameplay - nothing new.
But instead the gun there is a new mechanic: Interaction with dynamic and static objects, based on physics simulation, with an interface where you control object movement with mouse movement.
They did this well. To open a drawer, you grab and pull it. So even such a simple thing becomes an immersive experience. In fact it's by far the most immersive game til current day, imo. The freedom from the physical options made my gameplay very creative. I've tried lots of ideas, and even they mostly didn't work, it was lots of fun.
There are no horror games on your list, so maybe that's not for you. It also was the most terrifying i had played to this date. But maybe worth a look, due to ideas about ‘control scheme’ and freedom based on simulation.

Compared to that, HL2 was just baby steps.
But i'm certain we still only scratch on the surface of what physics simulation can add.
It's one thing if stuff on screen looks real, but another if it also behaves like real.
We can make NPCs feel like actually alive - which is impossible from using just blending static animation and fixing issues with some IK.
Once they feel alive, killing them also becomes much more tense.
Which made me kinda accept to lack an answer to ‘what else than shooting’, but i'm still all ears… ; )

aigan said:
And the game can't let the player act on the information since that would introduce branches. That is, if a player hears a bit of information about where to go, the game would have to force the player to go there, since that is the story the designer created. And that takes away the choice to do anything else, and thus takes away the need for the player to actually take in the information given. They will just let the game guide them to the next part. Some players would not want a more unguided experience, but there are those who do.

I guess most players do want less guidance and more freedom. It's the promise of RPGs, which is the current king of genres.

And those games rarely force you to go somewhere. Most of it is side quests, and you're free to do them or not.
Some may even disappear, depending on your choices. : ) So yeah, currently the freedom is restricted to choosing the order of your quests freely, or choosing your gear, leveling up before you fight some difficult boss, taking story branches, and choosing the skin for your avatar.

We all agree this is not perfect and improvements would be great.
But how would your systemic alternative look like?
No prescripted quests at all? Generating them procedurally? How in detail, providing examples?
Generating dialogue commenting the emerging story as well? Using speech synthesis if we want audio? Using multilingual story and speech generation?

You need to explain it to us, but not by defining goals.
We need examples so we can imagine the idea.
Even if NetHack is a working example, you should still provide examples.
For those who don't know the game, or fail to get into it like i.

aigan said:
WD Legions was not good but had an interesting concept and did some things well:

Skimmed through parts of the video. Their work is something i expect along the RPG promise. Generating characters procedurally and simulating their daily routines.

But i'm not convinced about this to be actual fun. I have tried the game, but played only for 10 minutes or so. Then i thought ‘Meh - why did they remove the well developed character from the former game? Now it's all boring people in every day situations. I don't feel motivated to do anything here. I'll pass and refund.'

But maybe i confuse this with WD2. I was not really aware there are 3 WD games already.
Anyway, that's probably the main concern: Procedural boredom. It won't compete good and linear stories made by a single human writer. So likely we need to combine both approaches.
And to make systemic approach a real win, we must find what the freedom can add but the linear approach prevents.

I feel split in this sense. As a developer, i want freedom and options.
As a player i have a very hard time to feel motivated by a game. I reject most of them within 10 minutes. That's not because refund periods are short. I just don't need more time.

So i guess building up primary motivation needs to be done first and in other ways, and solving this problem is not really part of the systemic approach. From that i rather expect the game grows with me as i play it, if i have decided to play it at all in the first place.

aigan said:
As I said, my plan is to start out with no graphics and only high level plot-points. A sort of interactive story-outline generator. Next step would be the scene level. After that it would be the beat level. After that comes additional work on systems for psychology and sociology. Only after that could you start with something similar to dialogue. That would be at version 6 or later.

Ok, this and the following is the explanation by example i needed. : )
Makes sense, and i can imagine much better now.

aigan said:
The first versions would include a very limited set of possible story developments. And as a result, it would be a rather short story and be mostly similar on each playthrough, even if places and persons are moved around. But I have planned for a way to do it so that a single person could make something interesting and engaging, within a reasonable development time.

Yeah, by keeping it small, the primary advantage should already show.
Scaling up and putting more money in is always possible. But as we have seen, bigger games are not necessarily better games. More cooks just spoil the broth.

aigan said:
You don't need that much to make something that would work well compared to games of today.

Yep, i feel the same. (No critique on current games intended. It's games first, so drama is second by definition, usually.)

aigan said:
But I also have several ways to rotate things.

Well, ideally we don't need to rotate at all. Ideally the game just knows what the player might want to do, and cares about the details.
That's how it's mostly done, and sadly the only way that really works.

But this mindset conflicts with freedom and creative gameplay. I'm aware of that. My attempts in games to be smart from using physics objects always felt clumsy, due to the limited options of control.

A difficult problem i can not plan on paper. I need to create more playable prototypes.
It's not just about interacting with objects. As we approach realistic character simulation in any form, the player avatar itself becomes an object we no longer could control precisely without lag.
But after some time, i feel it's as much opportunity as it is a problem.
I'm even willing to sacrifice beloved first person perspective in favor of third person, which felt like a no-go to me some years ago.

aigan said:
Do you mean for puzzle games? Or what type of complex causes?

I mean pretty anything that has a cause and effect. In a 2D game, you can usually see both of them, because you see a large part of the world surrounding the player. This enables puzzles, but also planning (Marios movement trajectory through bunch of enemies and obstacles) and tactical combat in action games (accurate prediction of multiple enemies just works).

But in 3D, you see only a bit of the world, so usually only either cause or effect, but not both.
Oversight is bad, sense of distance is bad, and this disables almost all basic requirements games need to work.
Spatial systems enabling interesting interactions can't be observed by the player.
Interesting behavior of enemies / NPCs can't be observed.
We can't do strategy games or management sims mechanics in first or third person.
At least not well, because the player can't see what matters, so he could analyze, draw conclusions, and come up with a plan.

That's the primary problem with modern games imo.
It was not noticed initially, when 3D was still new and exciting.
But now it's the norm and we realize games are somewhat shallow.
Something seemingly got lost, and people come up with all sorts of complaints what it might be.

Well, we lost pretty much everything, simply due to lack of oversight over the map / level / world.
We won immersion and the feeling to be inside the game. Good, but no longer awesome, just the norm.
So it's the time to seek for compromises between immersion and oversight, i conclude.
Complexity must be observable, otherwise it's just stress from uncertainty.

Edit:

That's also a big reason why i believe in your idea.
Story needs no spatial manifestation, it's just a mental model living in the players head.
So you can use it as a mechanic, and the player will implement all the necessary ‘rendering, physics sim, net code’ just in his mind. : )

@joej said:

Brings me to my primary question: What could we do in a game other than shooting? (Or other forms of combat)
To me, Penumbra felt like big progress on this. (The not so well known predecessor of Amnesia)
It's like a narrative FPS, but without the gun. And i have not missed it.
So you have to hide from monsters instead killing them. Pretty much stealth gameplay - nothing new.
But instead the gun there is a new mechanic: Interaction with dynamic and static objects, based on physics simulation, with an interface where you control object movement with mouse movement.
They did this well. To open a drawer, you grab and pull it. So even such a simple thing becomes an immersive experience. In fact it's by far the most immersive game til current day, imo. The freedom from the physical options made my gameplay very creative. I've tried lots of ideas, and even they mostly didn't work, it was lots of fun.
There are no horror games on your list, so maybe that's not for you. It also was the most terrifying i had played to this date. But maybe worth a look, due to ideas about ‘control scheme’ and freedom based on simulation.

Compared to that, HL2 was just baby steps.
But i'm certain we still only scratch on the surface of what physics simulation can add.
It's one thing if stuff on screen looks real, but another if it also behaves like real.
We can make NPCs feel like actually alive - which is impossible from using just blending static animation and fixing issues with some IK.
Once they feel alive, killing them also becomes much more tense.
Which made me kinda accept to lack an answer to ‘what else than shooting’, but i'm still all ears… ; )

Penumbra (2007) came a couple of years after HL2 (2004) and seems to have taken some inspiration from it. I liked the physics simulation gameplay and was fascinated by for example Trespasser (1998) that tried to do similar things. Horror games (like RE) don't attract me, but I like its point-and-click adventure aspect, but with more immersion, and more physics simulation. Thief (1998) also did some simulation but with more focus on object and system interaction, making it one of the earlier immersive sims.

The game I listed was specifically games I liked because of the relationships with characters in the game. Several of my favorite games were not on that list. HL2 was good when I was accompanied by Alyx. Not when I was alone in Ravenholm. So just to name a few other games lacking relationships but still good: Jedi Fallen Order, Death Stranding, Dying Light, Pathless, Deus Ex, XCOM (2012), Days Gone, Rimworld, Prison Architect, Tomb Raider (1996), Shadowrun, Mark of the Ninja, Primordia, A New Beginning, Thief, Metal Gear Solid 5, inFamous Second Son, Journey, Portal, Hellblade, Settlers (1993), Warcraft (1994), Doom (1993), Quake, SimCity (1989).

I got a bit stumped by the question of what to do in the game. The focus on violence has worked since it's something that could be implemented as a game and gives immediate tension and feedback, resulting in motivation to get better. But it’s hardly the only type of game. And most types of games can be done in 1st, 3rd, isometric, overview or abstract user interface. There are 1st person games focusing on social, puzzle or detective gameplay.

A systemic story can be used in any type of game, replacing or adding to their side- or main quests. Doing it with full AAA fidelity (quality) would take AAA-money and iterations over several games. But using it as a better version of Skyrim radial quests, or in a roguelike, or any type of sandbox game, would not involve that much work. Especially if done with shortcuts, as is usually done in games anyway, with dialogue taken from a pool. I don’t advocate for continuing using hand-written dialogue for all the reasons I talked about. But more elements of systemic story could be used along with traditional game design.

I have a specific starting point for my version of a systemic story game, that would be an adventure game set in an medieval isolated village. Part of that is to have natural limits of the things that would have to be implemented while holding to the principle of having everything visible reacting properly with everything you can do. Would hope to inspire more games to use systemic story so that I could play something like Witcher, but with systemic sandbox and systemic story and possibly in 1st person.

Since the systemic story could be used in many types of games, it could still be a game with the primary focus of killing thousands of hordes of enemies. But I would focus on improving the things that haven't already been done. And that would be the freedom of taking the story in infinite directions. To make it clear. This means that you would walk to people. Talk to them. Go to other people. Talk to them. Explore places. Detective work. Resolve conflicts. Get out of situations.

If you look at adventure films or books. There can be a fair amount of action but the actual kill count by the main character often doesn't come close to what you see in most video games that try to deliver a story in a similar genre. The Indiana Jones film has a lot of action. The main character murders about 13 people. That’s not a lot compared to the Uncharted games that were inspired by it. The Telltale Walking Dead has a potentially engaging story that doesn’t have a stupid exaggerated body count. Lets have something similar, but with a systemic story and in a simulated sandbox like Project zomboid. The main story is about trusting other people. Not killing zombies.

JoeJ said:

aigan said:
Life is Strange

Ha, well this game was the exception where i actually liked the cutscenes and blah blah.
They did it so well, it felt like a new genre. Tried it because i expected some come back of point and click adventures. Although it's made for teen girls, i could not wait for the next episode. : )

Love Life is Strange 1 and before the storm. Much more than Life is Strange 2. They also did a pretty good job with choice and consequences. And one of the better implementations of actual detective work, with deducing where to go next from the board where you put up all the collected evidence. The suicide scene had a good connection of how you can influence the outcome by actually paying attention to other peoples situations. But not so good that it sort of hinged on you breaking peoples trust by snooping around their belongings.

Anyway. Its an example of the type of game I would like see implemented with systemic story. And it's not about killing everything in sight.

Also liked Life is Strange True Colors, but not as much as LiS1.

@joej said:
We can make NPCs feel like actually alive - which is impossible from using just blending static animation and fixing issues with some IK.

I got the feeling from some parts of infocom games. And that's only text. And as I pointed out, also from very few pixels animated. While thinking about how to create connections to characters with procedural generation and simulation, I think the NetHack pet, prisoners in Prison Architect or settlers in Rimworld work well with very limited details. For example, a character in Rimworld can take a break from the job you assigned them, to go out in the fields and just lay down on their back and gazed at the stars. Their personalities are simulated and depend on a lot of factors. But it really just has to simulate enough to not make things that seem stupid. Characters sitting down or behaving anxious when you leave the controls for some seconds are a good example of that.

@joej said:
Even if NetHack is a working example, you should still provide examples.
For those who don't know the game, or fail to get into it like i.

NetHack is a sandbox game. Systemic environment. Not really systemic story. It was an inspiration for me as a systemic game. The point here was that nothing has taken the next step, with making the story systemic. And it's also an inspiration in that everything included has a systemic interaction with every other object and system in the game. Not like in many point-n-click games where most of the things you see are stuff you can't interact with. And that goes for most 3D games today, except for some sandbox games, mostly in the survival or colony building genre.