In his GDC presentation, “Fault Tolerance: From Intentionality to Improvisation,” Hocking said, “We as a community should reject the idea of punishing the player.”
His philosophy is clear in his game design. Far Cry 2 used a buddy system in which if the player’s character is shot down, an AI partner would drag the player to safety.
Such design isn’t necessarily meant to dumb down the game for accessibility’s sake. In an open-world game like Far Cry 2, that kind of system actually encourages players to try different approaches to the game’s challenges in order to reach a goal.
The same can be said for BioShock’s design, which didn’t force players to reload a save point after being stomped by a Big Daddy, rather dispatched gamers just respawned in the closest Vita-Chamber to continue the challenge.
Other games, for example, Call of Duty 4, are well-designed games, but are rooted in “intentionality,” in which players intend to devise goals through his or her understanding of clear game dynamics, formulating meaningful plans to achieve goals using the information and resources provided by the game.
Those kinds of games give players the feeling that they must conquer or dominate a game instead of feeling like they’re a part of the game, Hocking argued.
Improvisational, open-ended games like Far Cry 2, on the other hand, can give gamers a different sense of accomplishment. “When I play this kind of game, it feels like I accomplish something that I had done, not something that was imposed by the game,” Hocking says.
“While intentional play is a beautiful and wondrous thing, it is grounded in … domination. When we strive to understand a game to bend it to our will, we arrive at mastery. And when we master a game, we destroy it.
“Mastery is not a prerequisite to improvisational play any more than being able to sing is a prerequisite to being in a punk band.”
Sande Chen contributed to this report.