tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193968969153274146.post2285292123604374244..comments2023-05-20T12:08:52.031+02:00Comments on In The Games Of Madness: Planning - The Core Reason Why Gameplay Feels GoodFrictional Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00278352641328669040noreply@blogger.comBlogger24125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193968969153274146.post-32217245016462014632017-07-12T12:06:28.037+02:002017-07-12T12:06:28.037+02:00Every. Point. Missed.Every. Point. Missed.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193968969153274146.post-85872058157636759582017-07-06T06:49:06.379+02:002017-07-06T06:49:06.379+02:00A fascinating post. I believe you are pointing to ...A fascinating post. I believe you are pointing to the same thing as I am when it comes to describing what makes gameplay distinct. You propose that planning is the essence of gameplay. I propose in my blog that games are about the play of measurement. <br /><br />https://journals.billo.ws/why-games-are-about-play-of-measurement/<br /><br />I think our theories line up in the way that one cannot plan without measuring! The mechanics found in games are just ways in which to play with measurement. Win/loss states are not what makes games distinct.<br /><br />The focus on narrative as a game mechanic is a dead end - it's a definate play mechanic though.<br /><br />Thanks for the post!Chris Billowshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05100249063666323693noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193968969153274146.post-76238786374579474042017-06-22T15:18:52.082+02:002017-06-22T15:18:52.082+02:00Thanks for the great post, Thomas.
(hi, btw)
-Ch...Thanks for the great post, Thomas.<br /><br />(hi, btw)<br /><br />-CharlieCharlie "Flayra" Clevelandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10457053840891229531noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193968969153274146.post-61426637667207539632017-06-06T23:47:48.581+02:002017-06-06T23:47:48.581+02:00"I think this is a different kind of predicta..."I think this is a different kind of predictability. You plan your jump and you know very well what happens if you press the button just right (success) and what happens if you fail doing that (gory death).<br /><br />You can predict the game, but the thing you cannot predict is yourself. What I mean by that is that without training you can't be sure you perform an action such the press of a button at the right time perfectly."<br /><br />But why are you having difficulties timing a jump?Because you don't know the exact time you need to press the button. It's the same kind of unpredictability, lack of game knowledge.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193968969153274146.post-49771726176378300762017-06-06T17:47:45.846+02:002017-06-06T17:47:45.846+02:00This is a key challenge. In other formulations of ...This is a key challenge. In other formulations of the universal interaction loop (player model <-> rules) there isn't a separate narrative model that exists. There is only the player model. And feedback that confuses or obfuscate the player's predictive modeling tend to damage their ability to plan well. <br /><br />Some things to think about<br />- The player mental model is initially composed of pre-existing schema (or other models that have been useful in the past). Think of it as a means of jump starting the creation of a task specific mental model. <br />- Much of what game feedback does initially is trigger those schema so the player thinks they have an understanding of what is happening. This happens as part of the atomic interaction loop however. <br />- Some feedback is highly *evocative*. It triggers schema that have a strong emotional payload. Horror games do this a lot. <br />- Once people play a lot, their repurposed schema are discarded or updated based off actual experience. We call these model updates mastery and the emotion associated with them is often 'fun'. <br />- With mastery, evocative stimuli often diminishes in power. Players see it in context of the game functionality and not older, emotionally loaded schema. <br /><br />Horror games are in some ways a wonderful edge case to this type of interaction model. They intentionally break a lot of best practices in order to create dissonant emotional responses. However, once you know the model, they are still operating entirely within a known design space. <br /><br />Happy to chat more about this more,<br />Danc. Daniel Cookhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10437870541630835660noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193968969153274146.post-37899116881241559722017-06-06T17:05:49.274+02:002017-06-06T17:05:49.274+02:00I love your analysis, especially your candidness a...I love your analysis, especially your candidness about your own designs' strengths and opportunities.<br /><br />You should definitely check out Characteristics of Games if you haven't already: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/026201713X/Caseyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06751696948312999348noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193968969153274146.post-72002619333662744642017-06-04T22:55:21.887+02:002017-06-04T22:55:21.887+02:00I think this is a different kind of predictability...I think this is a different kind of predictability. You plan your jump and you know very well what happens if you press the button just right (success) and what happens if you fail doing that (gory death).<br /><br />You can predict the game, but the thing you cannot predict is yourself. What I mean by that is that without training you can't be sure you perform an action such the press of a button at the right time perfectly. And getting better at it is in my opinion part of the experience, too, because being able to time your actions just right after a lot of trying feels rewarding.<br /><br />I will demonstrate this unpredictability on a real world example (although a bit stupid one, don't try that). Would you jump between roofs? Even if they were close, you may not do it. The question is why? You can be pretty sure you would make it, after all you jumped further in school. Here comes the unpredictability. You may make too large leaps and you can miss the ledge with the last step and you can injure yourself. But by training you can build up your muscle memory and you can predict yourself and your movements well enough to make the leap and succeed.<br /><br />In my opinion it's the process of self improvement itself that feels rewarding in this sort of gameplay. It's going from "I suck at this game" to "I mastered this game". However, the catch is what happens when you reach the level where you can't improve further.<br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18123756203492639202noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193968969153274146.post-47295277178540555212017-06-04T16:31:49.557+02:002017-06-04T16:31:49.557+02:00"In Amnesia a lot of the level design worked ..."In Amnesia a lot of the level design worked by having a large puzzle (e.g. starting an elevator) that was solved by completing a set of spread out and often interconnected puzzles. By spreading the puzzles across the rooms, the player needs to always consider where to go next. It's not possible to just go with a simple "make sure I visit all locations" algorithm to progress through the game. Instead you need to think about what parts of the hub-structure you need to go back to, and what puzzles there are left to solve. This wasn't very complicated, but it was enough to provide a sense of planning.<br /><br />SOMA has none of these features, and none of its additional features make up for the loss of planning. This meant that the game overall has this sense of having less gameplay, and for some players this meant the game slipped into walking simulator territory. Had we known about the importance of the ability to plan, we could have done something to fix this. "<br /><br />This part explains exactly what i thought about Soma, even tho is a very nice game on its own right, i felt it lacked something compared to your previous games, to me it felt like you guys gave to much importance to the story and to a non native English speaker like my self, sometimes Story gets over my head but gameplay stays, and that is what i love about your past games, no matter if i understood the story at a deep level or not the gameplay was good enough for me to stick with the game till the end. Hilário Martinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17886507606189325101noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193968969153274146.post-27927501621078090182017-06-03T10:27:18.299+02:002017-06-03T10:27:18.299+02:00What is wrong about making choices with the goal o...What is wrong about making choices with the goal of achieving the best possible outcome? Isn't that how you make choices in real life as well, by calculating the consequences of your possible actions?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193968969153274146.post-13222350129822643812017-06-02T23:54:57.325+02:002017-06-02T23:54:57.325+02:00I would certainly agree that some of the features ...I would certainly agree that some of the features you listed are in fact additional gameplay features like the AI variety (which I l loved) the varied puzzles and the terminals. By what I understand to be your definition of gameplay, improved character interactions and changing dialogues could also be part of that list. The rest I would say were improvements in world building and they did work, the world of SOMA feels much more real than Amnesia. Even so, the game did feel lacking in traditional "gamey" things to do. Also while the puzzles were varied, at the time it felt that there were fewer of them. Thinking back to it now, there were plenty of tasks that needed to be done, possibly more than Amnesia but maybe they tasks were simple to the point that we failed to categorize them as puzzles (for example there was nothing that had the complexity of the cistern puzzle in Amnesia, which while simple, felt very big and impactful).<br /><br />I understand your concerns with adding consequences for the players choices. For me the number one problem with it would be breaking the player's immersion but I cannot seem to find a way to avoid it. If you introduce consequences, people will try to min-max and they will break their immersion that way. If there are no significant consequences immersion will be broken by the player realizing their choice doesn't have an impact in the world. Keep in mind that when I talk about consequences I don't necessarily reward/punishment, that would not work for a game like SOMA. I would be more interested in a change in the story especially for important choices that we make like killing the WAU or the last human. The rest of them were handled just fine I think.<br /><br />Thank you for your response, it was very informative looking forward to hearing more on your super secret project(s)! CODYhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15434006595528459791noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193968969153274146.post-22177215562000510552017-06-01T21:07:23.091+02:002017-06-01T21:07:23.091+02:00This is slightly offtopic considering modding tool...This is slightly offtopic considering modding tools. Could you bring back Np++ modding and scripting like in Amnesia. If will be Codelite please make more easier to install.<br /><br />Also, did you see Unreal's blueprint approach to scripting? Something similar has Armory engine: http://forums.armory3d.org/t/build-10-is-out/305Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193968969153274146.post-56016074063760902762017-05-30T22:11:44.784+02:002017-05-30T22:11:44.784+02:00SOMA is more diverse than Amnesia not in gameplay,...SOMA is more diverse than Amnesia not in gameplay, but in the field of situations that the player is put in. Situational variety is when the gameplay mechanics remain the same, but the situation changes drastically, and that adds variety. So in SOMA, you essentially walk around and press buttons throughout the whole game, but the design separates the experience into distinct parts:<br /><br />1. Underwater sections<br />2. Upsilon/Lambda<br />3. The sunken ship<br />4. Theta<br />5. Omicron<br />6. Abyss 1: Wandering in the dark<br />7. Abyss 2: Escaping from giant fish<br /><br />All of these sections are seriously different from each other, thus creating an engaging sense of diversity. Puzzles are also based on putting the player in diverse situations, not just fixing mechanisms. In Amnesia, the game essentially had only 3 types of situations: exploring peacefully, sneaking around monsters, and solving puzzles. There was nothing more in the game, and these 3 situations never merged. The SOMA experience feels much more diverse, because the player is put in different and unique situations on every level, even though the gameplay mechanically remains the same. In this, Soma's design approach is most similar to Half-Life 2, a game that became one of the best in its genre not only through gameplay, but with an approach to design that placed level diversity above all. An average shooter (plus a physics gun) became a masterpiece when the developers swore to make each level truly different from the other ones. Just like that, SOMA's levels present unique situations every step of the way, and that's why a "walking simulator" turns into a masterpiece of its genre (horror/adventure). <br /><br />It's not necessary to code new gameplay features, when you can create a drastically different situation for the player to solve using the existing gameplay tools. A sanity meter is not needed when the in-game scene is so deviously well-designed that the player himself starts going insane (like I did in the Theta part II level). I believe games need less tinkering with gameplay, and more mastery in the design of levels, set-pieces and predicaments for the player. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193968969153274146.post-5776491180783199042017-05-30T21:49:31.293+02:002017-05-30T21:49:31.293+02:001) On top of my head
- Terminals, which has a ton ...1) On top of my head<br />- Terminals, which has a ton of features<br />- Character interaction<br />- Improved physical interactions<br />- Climb ladders and ledges<br />- Lots of minor robots that react to you presence.<br />- Dialog depends on what you are doing.<br />- Variety in the puzzle implementations<br />- Variety in environment design.<br />- Notes you could rotate<br />- Monster AI variety<br />bound to be more.<br /><br />2) The choices in SOMA could be better yeah, but consequences is a bit of a double edged sword. Gotta be careful how you present them these so the player doesn't try and optimize. This is the System vs Story space problem really. What is good about not having any consequences is that there is no way to game it and you cannot really blame the game for forcing you to do anything. But at the same time it might feel like it doesn't connect to the game's world. In SOMA we did consequences, but it was just very minor stuff like changing dialog depending on what you did. We could have done more.<br /><br />Glad you liked the story in SOMA. And yeah, lots of focus now on getting better gameplay.Thomashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02945983378935089787noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193968969153274146.post-1308836651095878132017-05-30T21:41:43.937+02:002017-05-30T21:41:43.937+02:00This is indeed a really big challenge. I haven'...This is indeed a really big challenge. I haven't got any solutions at this point, but at least some angles of attack. Will go through that in later posts.Thomashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02945983378935089787noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193968969153274146.post-77381213305266130532017-05-30T18:54:28.319+02:002017-05-30T18:54:28.319+02:00As always, great post. A couple of questions:
1) ...As always, great post. A couple of questions:<br /><br />1) In your comparison between Amnesia and SOMA you mentioned that you felt there were more features in SOMA. Could you point those out? Because having finished SOMA twice, the only thing I found to be superior to that of Amnesia was the monster variety. Puzzles were fewer than Amnesia, data buffers replaced reading, but other than that I cannot think of additional gameplay features. I certainly agree with the list you made about what made Amnesia feel like the gameplay was better (especially the sanity system, but also for me just having an inventory was very important and it was the first thing that completely put me off a machine for pigs).<br /><br />2) How do you feel about things such as dialogue choices and multiple endings? In my eyes, they allow for a fair bit of planning in a way that revolves around and serves the story. I know it's overdone but if I have one bad thing to say about SOMA is that my choices felt meaningless. Once a few hours had gone by and I was really immersed in the game, then I started feeling the weight of what I was doing and also after I was done playing the game, going back to them and reflecting on why I chose the thing I chose. But it feels to me that when you decide whether a character in the game lives or dies, there should be some immediate and obvious consequences. I know that there were times when choosing x would result in an encounter that you could avoid if you chose y, but that is not obvious. The player will most likely assume it's a scripted event, not a result of their actions. Also not all choices are made equal. Deciding to unplug a robot that is a very minor character that you only interact with 2-3 minutes is one thing, but when you chose whether you kill WAU or not, then something must happen. This was the only time I felt disappointed with SOMA since I found that particular choice to be especially hard and I was really looking forward to seeing how it would impact the world.<br /><br />I remember your blog posts when you guys were developing SOMA and how focused you were on finding the best way to tell a story. What happened one you released the game is that you told the best story ever told in any game. So now that I see you focusing on trying to bring more gameplay to narrative focused games, I'm very excited for what is coming. CODYhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15434006595528459791noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193968969153274146.post-25213746055498650402017-05-30T18:09:13.684+02:002017-05-30T18:09:13.684+02:00Comes off like a sophomoric opinion and I think th...Comes off like a sophomoric opinion and I think that is reflected in how much text it took you to justify it.<br /><br />IMO Games are made up of "stimulus points": Moments where you actually make a decision / complete some kind of task. Having to jump over something (hit A at the right time) & manipulate your jump-arc. Timing the reload button in Gears of War so you get a better reload. Tapping around and picking up coins in a lot of mobile games.<br /><br />I think planning IS a stimulus point, but I think it is just one of many.<br /><br />"Having a consistent world is crucial". What the hell does that even mean. You are professional, respected developers. Why even write something so long but unprocessed like this. Who cares if technically some abstract concept can be used to describe different elements. You could look back later and be embarassed by this.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193968969153274146.post-6475026568899211402017-05-30T17:17:34.687+02:002017-05-30T17:17:34.687+02:00I'm not an expert and I can only make some obs...I'm not an expert and I can only make some observations as a player with his own personal taste. Items crafting and Character skilling have become very boring, and I feel the same about open world games that rely on the usual narrative scheme: Main Quest and Side quests. This is the death of storytelling.<br />Items can help the narrative when they really change things around and have impact on the story and the gameworld itself (Gravity Gun in HL2 is a good example).<br />Not much great gameplay examples around, lately, and that's why I've become more and more interested in the narrative part of gaming.<br />A few examples, in my opinion, of good gameplay-narrative relationship:<br /><br />-The Swapper: the basic game mechanics are engaging and still suit perfectly with the story and its main theme.<br /><br />-Portal 1: solving the puzzles and going to the next room actually feels like a real necessity in order to make the story go on. <br /><br />-Braid: narrative is present but it becomes too abstract for my taste. Still, gameplay mechanics are so smart that you can enjoy them for themselves.<br /><br />-Brothers: A tale of two sons does something no other game that I know has ever done, it makes you use the hardware itself in order to create meaningful narrative. SPOILER I'm speaking of that certain moment in the game when the little kid must use his brother's command keys to learn to swim and survive.<br /><br />BEYOND: Two Souls<br />Using Aiden (the entity) is both captivating for itself and interesting for the way its actions impact on the story.<br /><br />I know maybe all of this above doesn't come together into a coherent point, but I just felt like sharing a few observations on good examples of gameplay.<br /><br />Stefano<br /> Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193968969153274146.post-15225938212241200142017-05-30T16:48:25.280+02:002017-05-30T16:48:25.280+02:00Uncharted series have balanced combination of game...Uncharted series have balanced combination of gameplay and puzzle mechanics to engage the player. After a stelth/gunplay section, player comes across door puzzle to solve. Other exmaple is Myst which focuses only on puzzle solving where there is a lot of trail and error for the player. We could gather these element under the same roof as the puzzle to solve. Stealth based gameplay could be just an puzzle to avoid/engage the creatures. Narrative is like sequence of events until final revelation of the bigger picture. Game is like big puzzle container which is presented to the player.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193968969153274146.post-50772205084205110652017-05-30T16:45:09.312+02:002017-05-30T16:45:09.312+02:00Interesting. Kind of felt about SOMA as many playe...Interesting. Kind of felt about SOMA as many players (I wouldn't deride it as a walking simulator, but the gameplay was a step down from Amnesia).<br /><br />I see a conflict between your idea of making the underlying system fuzzy to the player so the illusion can't be broken and the ability for them to plan though.<br /><br />Good luck with that!Federico Checozzihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12891655653345827911noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193968969153274146.post-82874965179256737152017-05-30T16:36:48.375+02:002017-05-30T16:36:48.375+02:00A really good read.Made me look upon all the games...A really good read.Made me look upon all the games I played in the past and getting amazed as to how my favourites resonate with my primitive need for planning.<br /><br /><br />Learnt a lot from this blog post,this game design minion shall remain grateful to you.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11031344637429062321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193968969153274146.post-81777177323037394742017-05-30T16:33:53.780+02:002017-05-30T16:33:53.780+02:00It's interesting to note that randomness may e...It's interesting to note that randomness may exist even in games that look purely deterministic; In DOOM for example, the amount of damage that the shotgun deals isn't fixed, so sometimes just one shot is enough to kill an enemy, while the same enemy can sometimes take two or three shots. <br /><br />Also consider this fact: when you beat a really hard level in Super Meat Boy, you feel a great sense of accomplishment, but you also feel appalled towatds the idea of having to replay the same level again. You are not sure how many tries it would take you to beat it again. Probably fewer than before, but also probably not on the first try. This happens because you didn't beat the level by using a perfect mental modelling, you used a combination of planning and guessing. Now if you replay the same level enough times the mental model would be almost perfect, and you can even speedrun the level with almost no fear of dying. But at this point the gameplay would feel much less exciting than before, when sometimes you just had to make a leap of faith. I believe this element of unpredictability is really crucial, given that the guessing is always based on some data and never completely blind.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193968969153274146.post-78157409243478693702017-05-30T15:24:04.850+02:002017-05-30T15:24:04.850+02:00This is a good point, and that is what I mean with...This is a good point, and that is what I mean with "non-trivial actions". If your plan always works then it is not very engaging. Every action needs to have a certain risk associated with it.<br /><br />But I think it is also that this is a risk you can calculate based upon what you know about the world. And simply not just a "because the game world feels inherently unknowable". There is a huge different between the trial and error that comes from random pixel hunting and from failing completing certain parts of a Super Meat Boy level.<br /><br />Makes sense?Thomashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02945983378935089787noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193968969153274146.post-57258263189911570232017-05-30T15:14:18.551+02:002017-05-30T15:14:18.551+02:00As great the importance of planning might be, it h...As great the importance of planning might be, it has to be noticed that without a certain dose of trial and error, the gameplay cannot feel good. Imagine for example starting a level in Super Meat Boy with perfect knowledge of how to beat it; It wouldn't be engaging at all. The excitement comes from a balanced combination of predictability and unpredictability: You have to jump between the two saw blades, but you are unsure of how much you need to press the button in order to get through. Good gameplay requires both the element of planning and the element of trial & error.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9193968969153274146.post-11285271449504403852017-05-30T14:23:12.334+02:002017-05-30T14:23:12.334+02:00That was a really interesting fish view pointThat was a really interesting fish view pointMrthedarkgameshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11394081768892539971noreply@blogger.com