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By Randy_Smith

August 8, 2008

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Games: One Big Adventure?

You are by a babbling brook which flows east to west. A vial of murky fluid rests in the grass. A majestic oak tree is here. There are mountains to the North.
> Get vial
You put the vial of murky fluid in your pack.
> Look tree
The majestic oak tree appears to be hollow. There is an opening at shoulder height.
> Enter opening
Why would you want to do that!?
> Go opening
You’re too big. A bird is here.
> Catch bird
I don’t understand! The bird flies away.
> Put hand in opening
You reach into the opening. Your hand falls onto something heavy and cool… it appears to be a huge glass eye. You put it in your pack.
> Walk to mountains
I don’t understand ‘mountains’!
> East
You are next to a bend in the brook. A cobbled bridge crosses to the north bank. You hear raspy breathing and smell turnip farts.
> Cross bridge
You take a tentative step onto the bridge, alert for danger. Suddenly a warty troll wearing an eye patch appears and leaps for your throat, snarling! Tension ignites the air as you face off.
> Initiate negotiations with troll
I don’t understand ‘initiate’!
> Talk troll
“Bragh!” says the troll. The troll swipes at you. You are slightly injured.
> Bribe troll
With what? The troll swipes at you. You dodge.
> Bribe troll with vial
The troll does not appear to want ‘vial’. The troll swipes at you. You dodge.
> This is what I hate about text adventures
I don’t understand!
> Why can’t I do things my own way?
The troll swipes at you. You are medium injured.
> WTF, dude?
Do you think modern, hi-fi games are any different? Could you bribe or negotiate with the troll? What button would that be – right bumper?
> That’s exactly my frustration. Modern games wouldn’t suggest half of this possibility.
Well, maybe the mountains in the distance, but you’re just supposed to learn the language of our medium. The majority of it, like the potion…
Oh, that’s actually poison. You can put it in the witch’s wine.
> Fine, the poison would be presented in a way that doesn’t imply all these affordances.
I don’t understand ‘affordance’!
> That’s a design term attributed to Donald Norman, who is an HCI/usability guy. It refers to the action possibilities of an object. The most obvious affordance of a potion is drinking, but it seems reasonable to bribe a troll with a potion, so ‘bribe’ is also a plausible affordance.
So, as another example, distant mountains ‘afford’ walking to.
> Right. Most modern games have feedback to communicate the affordances. Like when the HUD says ‘B to pull lever’. Or the fact that all healing potions go in one pile on your inventory screen. The limitations are clear.
Is that clear?

Why would anyone new to videogames deduce that since potions go to one place their sole affordance is healing?
> Also, text input makes it worse. The cursor is blinking, ripe with promise, waiting for anything you can type. Any structure that could channel or bind your imagination has been torn away – no menu, no HUD, no controller. The purity is kind of breathtaking, like you and the game are writing a story together. I think maybe it’s the idealised version of the unique contribution videogames can promise the world. Except it doesn’t work yet. Really you’re just comparing my input to text the designer already thought of and whining about anything else.
But look at the back of the box of a modern game. ‘Unprecedented interactivity! Invent new ways to use any object you find!’ – when really they just mean that portions of the environment are destructible. They depict a city teeming with realistic life when all you’re actually going to be able to do is kill and buy.
> Yeah, it’s the same letdown. Either way, I have this moment of allowing myself to believe the fantasy is true, that I’m going to be able to try a bunch of cool stuff I’ve never done before. As a designer, I strive to bring to players the allure that the text prompt embodies: ‘Here’s a cool world, check it out, try stuff!’ Of course, it’s tricky to support once you’ve done that.
Great. So what do you want to do?
> Show eye to troll
The troll growls “Give me that and I’ll let you pass!” The troll swipes at you. You are gravely injured.
> Put eye in poison
Why would you want to do that!? The troll swipes at you. You are dead. The end.
Play again?
>
 

meathelix's picture
On August 13th meathelix said:

I'm actually planning to start a series of articles on Norman's book, taken from a very explicit system and level design point of view. ( http://is.gd/1oKo ) I think I'll start with a principle other than affordances now, however.

This topic fascinates me, as I think there's a tie between affordances, simulation depth and the uncanny valley. The more options you allow, the more the small things you didn't include will stand out. Sort of along the 'simulating near the boundaries' thing Clint Hocking wrote about some time ago.

I'm all for more player freedoms and systems that can support exploration, but like you express, I think objects should be capable of the affordances they imply within the system constraints the player resides.

Interface is key here, and consoles definitely have a more focused set of inputs than a keyboard. There is the whole "context sensitive menu" thing, and I think that's superior for players building a system model in their heads than a blinking cursor. I'm also wondering if the whole 'motion plus' thing, coupled with a decent physics engine could give us a sufficiently granular player hand to interact with the world in a meaningful way, assuming there are some checks too keep out Trespasser-like frustration.

littlewilly91's picture
On August 8th littlewilly91 said:

bloody great article Randy. It's got some serious class right there. Brilliant contrast with Steven Spoole's crappy crap crap article. It is impassioningly crap.
Anyway, I think it's interesting how people seem to be striving away from this kind of tight following of the designer's ideas, something which is beautiful in itself. -Strict linear games like Half Life 2 and Portal, which both have brilliant tightly scripted gameplay, are being abbandoned in favour of trying to super-impose that quality of gameplay into free roaming games, with the AI contriving to create these moments spontaneosly. Something which will be a huge challenge.-
An example is a scene in half life 2 episode 2 where you are stuck in a building with Alyx, and there are strange noises in the distance. Striders. "It's on the roof" Alyx says, taking cover with a special animation just for that scene. The feeling is somewhat broken however, when you die and play again, this time totally role playing- instead of the gameworld being an alive place, you now know that entering the building triggers the attack. And you know what it looks like inside, but your character doesn't. And it gets all broken. But the challenge is still there, and the story from the designers. And you are content with that. The narrative, with it's pacing and 1st person cutscenes inwhich you retain control, would just not be possible in a game based on sandbox freedom. You want to walk the same Corridors as Gordon Freeman, play through his adventure, not your own, alongside thousands of others.
A large part of games for many people is seeing how the people behind them have set them up, "you fiendish *********" i think elatedly as i get past one of the puzzles i've been stuck on for ages in portal, flying through that whole, then grabbing the box, then swishing down, and the computer voice goes "weee" and knocking the thingy off the platform...
And so maybe there will always be a place for the sandbox and a place for the linear. Although with the text games such as the one you described the possibility of freedom is dazzling and i spend half my time staring towards it, not that this isn't fun in itself. We wanna be free! we wanna be free to do what we want to do! And we want to have a good time. And we wanna have a party. And that's what we're gonna do... Erm... But it's another thin line isn't it; the designer didn't intend you to show the troll the poisoned eye, nor did they want you to sit down and smoke a pipe with it or have it be your personal sex slave, or turn into an ent because you think it might be fun, or turn his whole careful fantasy world upside down into something vague and pointless, or maybe much better. The line between playing the individual and playing the world yourself until it's not really got any personality from it's true maker. How much leeway is there between the two? Will it still be fun right accross the spectrum? What does it mean? What does it bode for this strange industry? The Holo Deck was cool, but then it was still written by the people behind Star Trek. Would some program give you the illusion of freedom and yet still guide you to the narrative and fun characters? And what, Randy, is your "project with Steven Spielberg"?

btw I like to think ppl read my uber comments. feedback! is good for the world!

Anthony_Massingham's picture
On August 8th Anthony_Massingham said:

This reminds me of that "Facade" demo from a few years ago ( http://www.interactivestory.net/ ). Slight extension of the standard keyboard-input adventure games. The limitations of user interactivity is something interesting to think about.