Games as Exploration of Systems, Spaces, and Self

2007 GDC session by Splinter Cell Lead Designer Clint Hocking

Reported by Neil Melville

 

I must admit that I am a sucker for this meta-psychological game design stuff, and this session promised to serve it up wholesale. I will relate what I got out of it, and that means my own thoughts and experience are included in a gestalt message from Clint Hocking and myself (as audience). This is a principle that Clint touches upon in this presentation.

Meet the Explorers

Every story is a detective Story. The reader is the detective trying to discover why he is reading the story. What message is the author trying to relay? Does it even matter what the author intends? Will each reader gain unique personal meaning because the experience is an intersection between the author’s style and the reader’s mind in the context of the reader’s own experiences?

 

Clint started by talking about the differences between an interactive game and a prepared narrative. In a story the reader follows the path of the characters. The audience has no say in the choices of the character, what they learn, or where they go. The exploration is a linear journey, and the course set by the author. The author uses a string of clues to reveal key aspects of the world, the characters, and the rules and goals of the experience.

 

Exploring in games is similar to reading a book, in that there are people and places and rules to experience, and they were created by another person. But we can choose to blaze new trails and encounter the information in an order other than what the author intended. In fact, some games are more like toys, like a pile of legos, that we can move around and push together until we have something that their original creator never even imagined.

 

So Clint defines exploration as playing with something to see how it works, and what it can do, until we become bored of it.

System exploration

In discovering the rules of a video game the player reacts to the information provided to make guesses about what can happen. The player presses a button, the character jumps. The player sees what looks like a wall in front of his character. Not wanting to be deterred by this obstacle, and based on its screen size, they make the assumption that they can jump over it.  They test this theory, and if the attempted jump results in clearing the hurdle, their theory is validated.

 

Now the player sees a mushroom with eyes. Perhaps it is friendly. The player moves the character to embrace his new friend, but instead of a happy experience, it results in the character jumping in pain and falling off the game screen. The hypothesis was incorrect, and the player uses the data obtained from exploring to revise his understanding of this creature. It is now categorized as another obstacle.

 

This rapid cycle of observation, hypothesis, experimentation, and analysis, is not only the trial and error of the Scientific Method, but is the principle manner in which a player explores a game system. Two of the tools that game designers use to empower the player in this process are Affordance and Feedback.

• Affordance = pre-emptive feedback (tells) for a player to observe that increase the accuracy of player hypothesis. The mushroom with eyes has evil eyebrows.
• Feedback = data provided (results of experiment) for player to analyze, and add to observations used in making hypotheses. A thermometer gauges the heat level in a thermostat.

Collecting the best data allows the player to optimize the effectiveness of their game performance. In order to win, you must explore. The player is rewarded for exploring with a better understanding of the game. In addition, many game systems will also reward the player for overcoming obstacles. This reward is usually an increase in ability, and new challenges of greater difficulty. This cycle of reward and challenge is designed to give the player new areas to explore over the course of the game (and staves of boredom).

Space Exploration

Not all games have spatial exploration. While it may look like Pac-man is exploring his maze to find delicious dots to eat, the entirety of the map is presented to the player from the onset. If there was a portion of the map off-screen that could be accessed by moving in that direction, then there would be some exploration in a 2 dimensional space. This exploration rewards the player with knowledge about the game environment. Even text adventures allow for spatial exploration. By learning the game topology, the player is armed with strategic information about the relative values of different locations.

 

Exploration of the game space is not limited to environments, but can include learning about characters and items. For instance, a chessboard is a known environment from the start of the game, but the individual mobility options of the individual pieces makes certain spaces unreachable, and nearby spaces my only be achieved only on a distant turn.

 

To encourage players to explore the game space, they are rewarded with game system ability. The distribution and power of these rewards determine the feel of the game. Exploration games like GTA3 encourage the player with many small items to be found. Action games like Doom have fewer, but more powerful pick ups.

 

By combining rewards between system and spatial exploration, the game creates positive feedback loops to encourage players to continue playing the game. The alchemy system in Oblivion a follows this reward pattern, in that collecting ingredients allows the player to then explore mixing potions. It is a low risk behavior that reaps benefits over a long period.

Self Exploration

Spider-man 2 rewards exploration with Hero Points. These points are ubiquitous, and you need a lot of them to but anything – new moves, better abilities, etc. But neither these points, nor the abilities they buy make you feel heroic. As much as Clint loves the game, he says that what makes Spider-man a hero is not just what he can do, but WHO HE IS.

 

When did Peter Parker become Spider-man? When he got bitten by a radioactive spider, he gained all these amazing powers, but he has just a selfish jerk in a mask. He didn’t become Spider-man until after his selfish choice to let a criminal escape resulted in the death of his uncle. He regrets his choice, and guilt and anger lead him to capture the criminal. He became Spider-man when he learned that with great power comes great responsibility.

 

So we can make choices in games, just like Peter Parker, that can be selfish or can be responsible. What makes those choices important is not whether or not they lead to reward or punishment, but that we are forced to choose between two paths of equal value. This is an expression of our values as players (and not about the game designer). What is our relationship with honesty, or valor, or compassion?

 

The game that best encouraged self exploration was perhaps Ultima 4 – where the game secretly tracks 8 virtues, which are affected by how we play the game. These virtues ultimately decide whether we will succeed in the goal of becoming an AVATAR. Specifically, this worked as self exploration because there were times when gaining points in 2 different virtues were at odds with each other, such as Honesty and Humility. It is not a choice of good or bad, light side or dark side, but between 2 equally valuable rewards.

 

The fact that the benefit of one good choice becomes unavailable to the player who chooses a different, equally viable path, makes the game seem to care about WHO THE PLAYER IS. It creates a game experience that is tailored to the player, and the player’s exploration of self become more important to winning than discovering how to become a ruthless killing machine.

 

Now Ultima 4 started incorporating self exploration in game-play, and it was a flawed rudimentary implementation – for example overpaying the reagent seller resulted in an increase in Justice, Honor, and Honesty. Ultima 4 also incorporated pseudo 3D dungeons in a rudimentary way. But since that time we have focused on making better and better 3D dungeons for spatial exploration, and have all but ignored self exploration. The only lesson we have learned is that with great power comes great graphics.

 

This lack of responsibility in games is part of why the videogame industry comes under scrutiny by those who see it more than as entertainment, but a tool for training children in proper social behavior. But it is not the players who have failed to be responsible. They have diligently explored the games they have been given, and chosen to find the way to excel in the goals we give them. They are eager to explore new systems and spaces, and even express their own values in such an environment that does not punish them for valuing compassion over valor.

Social Exploration

Clint admits to not having any expertise in the area of Multiplayer games, but in the questions that followed his address, the issue was brought up repeatedly. But he feels it important to note that this fourth dimension of exploration is just as important as any of the first three, and refers us to Nicole Lazarro’s Four Kinds of Fun.

 

Another item that came up during cross-examination is the topic of providing feedback to the player about self exploration choices. His answer, which was somewhat lame by his own admission, is that if the game bluntly dispays moral values, then it forces the game designer’s value system upon the player – which defeats the purpose of self exploration. Instead, subtle variances in game experience should provide feedback for what Will Wright calls “The Second Processor” – the player’s brain. The player may then reflect upon the choices, and determine how their expectations and desires differ from what actually happened, and how they might choose differently to attain the kind of performance they really want.

 

To read Clint’s own words on the session, visit his blog at http://www.clicknothing.typepad.com/