[PATV] Wednesday, August 15, 2012 - Extra Credits Season 4, Ep. 26: Mechanics as Metaphor (Part 2)

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[PATV] Wednesday, August 15, 2012 - Extra Credits Season 4, Ep. 26: Mechanics as Metaphor (Part 2)

This week, we finish discussing how games can convey meaning through mechanics alone.
You can play Loneliness here.
Come discuss this topic in the forums!
News about the EC Indie Fund!

Read the full story here

Thalesnm

I think, even if it's an interactive media, there's absolutely no problem with a clear path IF the creators use the tools that only this media has to achieve the level of depth they want. Something like Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Shadow of the Colossus or the first Modern Warfare.

volvocrusher

The Wind Waker theme should be played more often during the end credits. And by more often, I mean always.

TrollSlayer

there is a goal in loneliness. it is forced upon the player by the canyon that the player is put in the lack of an ability to go anywhere but (north?) the player is not given the opportunity to abandon there story. the game has an end and a goal and the player fallows it regardless of the story that they tell for themselves.

werat

You should really check out game called Space Rangers. There is a lot of exploration there while having a pretty clear goal.

maicus

In architectural theory the key essence behind any design is called the 'parti.' What's important to remember is that this doesn't just have to be something simple - 'loneliness,' 'journey' or 'death.' It just has to be able to be COMMUNICATED simply, to clarify your position internally and to the public at large. 'The machinations of government from the point of view of a cog' can be just as effective a driver as 'lonelyness,' as the only real concern is how to communicate within a large group.

StranaMente

There is a recent AAA game that used a game mechanic to push the concept of the game forward without spelling it out right.
In Spec Ops: the line the execute mechanic has more to it than it seems.
If you just shoot the enemy from afar, or let him bleed, it gives you less or no ammo. If you choose to execute him (which triggers the gory and unpleasant animation), you will get more stuff (including grenades and special ammunition for your weapon).
So the choice is on you. Do you really want more ammo? At what price? Do you really want to murder a man who's already incapacitated and dying, only to keep on shooting?
And quite often you may run out of ammo and you NEED to down and execute an enemy just to get a bit more ammo or grenades.
So that’s how far just this mechanic alone can already push the concept.

Rags23

It's interesting how well concepts in this episode apply to literature and film as well. I feel like too much information in modern media is spoonfed to the audience, even in linear art forms. It makes me feel like creators are undermining my intelligence when they practically stop the show to point out obvious details that were well handled in game mechanics, body language, previously explained plot details, etc. Having information provided without breaking a narrative's flow is a hugely important to me.

Arma

I HAVEN'T PLAYED SILENT HILL 2!!! Now I'm all sad.

20x20 Productions

If More Games had a base mechanic like Loneliness Does, there would be a LOT more in-depth games out there...

Mr SP

Wasn't Silent Hill 2 HD's lack of fog both
a) Clearly a mistake on the part of the remake team, as pointed out by the original director and
b) Patched?

GuardianAngel

I think there is something to add about complete freedom and lack of a goal. I didn't get Loneliness. Actually, that's not quite accurate - I didn't get it the way the Extra Credits guys did. I only knew of and played it because of Extra Credits, and so was just focused on the mechanics. The problem is that I went a completely different direction. While the idea is alienation and separation, it never occurred me that I should want to part of any of the groups. In fact, I thought the mechanic was not separation, but creation. The influence of my dot could alter the landscape around me. I was a godlike force moving the world, not an alienated speck searching for a home. I was drawing, not chasing....

So I do think the idea of total freedom and story told only in mechanics may have a flaw. That is, everyone experiences things differently. Think of any discussion you've had about a great book with your friends. Even though you read the same words, and in a much more focused way, you all came out with different ideas and understandings. The reader shapes the narrative and characters as much as the story itself. And the same is true of game mechanics. Even with the whole team behind the same idea, it cannot account for different people reacting in completely different ways to the same stimuli....

Mutak

Speaking of goals, i'd be interested to hear your thoughts on DayZ.

Mirzero

We do have some games today that are more or less without goals. Sandbox games, if you will... where you more or less tell your own story.

I find that, generally, I don't like them. I don't want to be railroaded into a single narrow path, either... but a complete lack of direction or purpose just... gets boring. Now this may be simply because all of the current incarnations are poorly executed... I don't know... but a little direction goes a long way.

leftler

There are a few cameos in this ep. Here are the ones I know.

2:40 8-Bit Micky (from Game Heros)
2:47 I don't know
2:59 Paw Dugan (from That Guy With The Glasses)
3:37 Don't know (maybe Handsome Tom from Game Heros)

The_Ulf

Minecraft ftw.

BentSea

Loneliness does have a goal.. it's pretty simple.. it's to move from the beginning to the end.. just because it doesn't have any restrictions on how you progress from the beginning to the end, outside of only being able to move left or right or forward or backward, doesn't change the fact that it has an end, and one way to get there.. by continuing all the way forward. The only alternative to moving forward to the end is to.. not move forward to the end. To eventually close out the window. Having and end and a means to achieve it as an alternative to simply not playing is most definitely a goal even if how you get there is open.

Personal-Space-Invader

Dead Space 2 has a great scene that suddenly leaves you terribly alone with no clear objective. Please understand, that before this moment; there's a game mechanic that lets the player press a button and see a literal line on the floor to the next objective. And for hours the game was holding your hand, demanding you go from point A to point B, fix this thing, find that thing, save this person, and here's a bright line on the floor so you can focus on killing monsters.

But suddenly you're truly alone, no objective, no crutch game mechanic to point the way, no reason to keep going, and everything around wants you dead. The game even subtly suggests "You could just lay down and die now. Why not? There's no point to continue on."

Svenne345

Thank you again for a two parter that helps mechanics show their importance over narrative and movie cut-scenes.

Also, thank you again for the link to the outro music. This show has introduced me to so many good songs.

FriedZombie

Damnit James, you touched PERFECTLY why I won't touch the SH2 remake, I wasn't as clear as explaining it as you are, I mainly said "the magic" was gone from the fog not being there, but it truly is a core mechanic to the game that adds fear and emotion to the game. This is why I like games like Lone Survivor (which you already touched base on, and hipster me was 10hrs into it before you featured it) it doesn't have great graphics but the fear is there and that's what counts. Fear of not knowing what is around the bend or how it got there, or how you got there. Now the game has a bit too much meta gaming for my likes with the eating and sleeping, and can touch on the annoying side of constantly maintaining yourself that can draw you out of the experience. That unfortunately was a core mechanic of the game that really can't be redacted without changing the whole experience, but I would of like the game 5x more if that feature wasn't included.

Overall great videos Extra Creditz, you're becoming my favorite web series of all time!

angryogre

One of the great examples of a AAA title taking this kind of approach is FF13. The game is entirely centered around the themes of fate and destiny, and the extent to which our paths are predetermined by either mystical gods (as is the case with the player character l'Cie) or by past decisions and general temperament (the Snow-Hope subplot among others). The entire game is super linear and restrictive to the player for the entire first half because the player characters feel similarly confined by their fates. The only time the game opens up is when you are on Pulse which is also the only time that your party feels some freedom, and it is there that they begin to question their fates and begin to find some hope again. Shortly after that, events force them back onto their path towards destiny and the game closes up again. Overall, the players emotions mimic that of the party. When the party was feeling confined by their status as l'Cie, the player was feeling the same thing from the game. When the party began to explore other options besides following their destines, the player was allowed to do the same. This theme is further echoed in the battle system, where everyone has a predetermined role that limits their combat options and abilities.
Sadly, Squareenix ran into the same problem that is addressed here: the gaming community couldn't see the forest for the trees and just complained about the gamer being super linear. Which it was, but that was the whole point.

Whailing

Hey, why not do a "Games You Might Not Have Tried" themed around games which rely heavily on their mechanics to deliver the narrative?

I would definitely love finding more games centred around being the story rather than simply being in a position to observe it unfold.

Oscar_GP

I'm sorry, this might seem out of place because it is actually a commentary on the game you covered last week, but my thought came out because of something you mentioned in this video.
I think that the title helped in the interpretation that the dots were people. It think it was Umberto Eco who said that the title (actually, the paratext) re-signifies the text. I think a symilar operation works in here. The fact that it's called "Loneliness" sets the gamer in the position where they expect the game to revolver around the feeling. You see a dot (clearly small), you move that dot and instantly assume that avatar as yourself. You identify. Then you see other dots (other "me"s so, logically, other people) that seem to be interacting with each other, and shun away whenever the dot you control gets close.
If the game was called otherwise, like "repelling mechanic test N0.1" or, even worse, "Tease", the way people interpret it would have been completely other.

thewizardninja

@angryogre
The problem they ran into was that they didn't manage to make the linear sections engaging at all, mainly because they went on for far too long, so the fact that it was completely linear stood out far too much. Sure, I can accept the interpretation that it was all a metaphor, but what's the point if it bogs down the gameplay for over 8 hours as a result? That's the length of a regular game right there, all spent trying to push a metaphor that ended up going over most people's heads anyway. It's a textbook case of developers making the gameplay fit a set story rather than having stories fit a set progression of play. Which isn't always a problem, it can often be the right thing to do, but in this case it clearly was a mistake. Games should always be games first, and if a game is unable to engage the people playing it in even its opening stages then it might need to rethink the way it's structured as a game.

angryogre

@thewizardninja
I completely agree that the beginning had issues. Starting your game with a 30 hours of semi-tutorial is a terrible idea, and was enough to cause me (a guy who's played more JRPGs than I care to count) to think hard about quitting at about hour 25. My point was just that a) FF13 is a good example of what this series was talking about and b) lot of the bad press that the game received was because of a mis-understanding of the metaphor.

wordsonplay

It worries me that the 3-cogs illustration you often use for "mechanics" is a stuck system. Three cogs meshed in this way cannot turn. Surely that isn't a good metaphor.

Blackie62

Oh God, that end credits music is giving me some serious heartwarming/tear jerking nostalgic memories of Irish stepdance feiseanna.

Sonny_69

this game and your last vids a bit ago about journey, really get my brains going on new ideas. I would hope to one day be able to create a game as masterful as those with no dialog. maybe even no sounds effects?

Sonny_69

nice ending credits music btw. great choice

mowdownjoe

That Bioshock example of "mechanics as metaphor" made me think of another game that did that and conveyed the metaphor better: The Darkness. (The original, not the sequel.) Basically, the whole final area of the game ended on such a downer note. Once you got into the mansion, the game took control away from you while you see The Darkness let loose with a crazy level of power. The devs of The Darkness 2 clearly missed the point of that scene when they said, "Wouldn't it be cool if you had control during that scene?" Maybe, but it'd diminish the whole message that Jackie is being controlled by The Darkness. Plus, unlike Bioshock, they didn't really make Uncle Paulie a boss battle. He died in 1 hit. (And he could kill you in one hit, but he'd take several minutes to grab his gun, and they put a checkpoint right before you kill Paulie so you'd get the idea that it's hopeless to try anything other than kill Paulie and let The Darkness consume Jackie's soul.)

Cuiasodo

I'm really glad you guys mentioned Bioshock as an example of mechanics as metaphor, because I was about to cry foul when it was brought up last week as a game that DIDN'T use mechanics as metaphore. (be forewarned, there are spoilers for Bioshock beyond this point) The whole concept of Bioshock seems to be the idea of choice and what it means. Andrew Ryan believes that everyone should have the freedom of choice to the point that there's almost no government regulations or censorship and the result it has on the city of Rapture is an interesting look at what this kind of freedom might mean. On the one hand, seemingly boundless technological innovation; on the other hand, people may choose to violate certain social rules and abuse power. This carries on further with the concept of the player and how choice affects the gameplay. The player can choose any number of ways to accomplish his mission but the question remains, even after it's revealed what the player actually is, how much free will he has. He can choose how to go about doing things but is he really able to choose what it is he wants to do? It's in the big choice offered to the player, the choice of whether or not to kill or harvest the Little Sister's, that the player and character are ultimately able to decide their fate.

Mechanics as metaphore, to me, is the holy grail of narrative in game design. Just like movies can use visuals to inform what they're trying to convey, games can use mechanics to the same effect. The tricky thing is, though, knowing how to go about doing it. Lonliness did elicit a pretty strong emotional response for me, but I almost felt that it was too limiting. How can I set my own goals when the goals themselves might be unachievable?

Voracious Trees

Still going to plug "Dwarf Fortress".
Also, I finally got around to playing "Lonliness", and I guess I would feel more in line with the author's intent if the mechanic allowed the little pixels to reform after you plow through them.
As it is, I feel like I am more like a sociopath out to destroy relationships between individuals than a lone pixel trying to belong to an organization.
I felt pretty evil just destroying the patterns until the world faded into nothingness. I guess my view of life may be a bit more egocentric than the designer's intended audience.

DethStrobe

Spec Ops: the Line I think does a good job at this. The narrative and goal of the narrative are pretty tightly packed together. It starts off as your generic 3rd persion shooter but it evolves in to something so much more.

Bioshock teases you and pulls the rug from under you telling you choice is an illusion. Spec Ops straight up spits in your face and tells you there is no choice.

If you haven't played Spec Ops: The Line yet, play it blind. Don't read anything about it. It will completely spoil the game. Just have some blind faith and play it. If you think story matters and that games can tell you a story that can really make you think. Spec Ops is that game.

Toastasaurus Rex

I'm just going to say: Minecraft was a missed opportunity for this. The game left no goal, no real incentive to play even, just set you free and gave you a few mechanics to figure out completely on your own. It could have been a really interesting way to explore the world around you, but because it was 100% random, there was no real meaning in it.

SlateSlabrock

When I was playing Loneliness, I pretended I was a monster chasing people away.

Made it a lot more fun than I suspect it would have been otherwise.

Justin L.

At 0:43 is that a Dr. Horrible reference...? Did I mention how much I love you, EC?

RoyceSraphim

Talking out of my buttcheeks for a moment.

Couldn't you build an open world game or a sandbox game where the more you attack a nation, the more that nation would come after you and your home. This would result in a final battle where their leaders come after you and killing them results in the disbanding of that nation or your usurping that nation.

If you never attacked that nation/gang/corporation, you would never have been attacked. Their retribution was dictated by a formula observing how much you robbed their trucks/transports and maybe killed their allies, so if you just ignored them, you never would have had that battle.

I'm just picturing GTAIV where Nico ignored the gangs he pissed off as as a result had to deal with other problems as he made his fortune.

I think I need to play Valley without a Wind now.

teknoarcanist

@VoraciousTrees Actually, it's interesting to hear someone suggest DF as conveying themes in its mechanics. I guess if we were to really think of it that way, Dwarf Fortress is a game about human civilization. Ecological sustainability. Group dynamics.

On the video:
Seeing Bioshock brought up in a "mechanics as thematic meaning" discussion makes me angry, because Bioshock has always been my prototypical example of a game's theme and its mechanics contradicting one another. Bioshock's theme is a critique of Randian philosophy, and an advocacy of altruism. Right, great, except, 99.9% of the gameplay is about how you should kill other people before they can kill you. Johnathan Blow gave an AMAZING, dead-on-the-button talk about this, called "Conflicts in Game Design," which had me nodding and screaming "YES, THANK YOU," the entire time. You can watch it on youtube.

feitocomfruta

@teknoarcanist I think that's WHY the mechanics as thematic meaning applies so well to Bioshock; the conflict of theme to mechanic sets you up to always be at odds with your own beliefs. In a sense, it is making you explore your own cynicisms, biases, and blind faith. The example they use makes sense as well, because the mechanic is driving home the plot by having your character act without your control, making it forced obedience as opposed to a rational choice to kill or not kill.

Carole_Vaudry

Right away, let me laud the effort to use the interactivity so specific to games to tell a story, rather than trying to ape other mediums; the gaming community has a lot to learn from other forms of entertainment, yes, but we should not blindly follow the leader. Moreover, all three games succeed in telling a story through mechanics. Gameplay is very simple, a couple of buttons at most, and the interaction with each game world just enough to convey the message.

Some commenters have complain either about the kindergarten level of the graphics or the « emo » music. To me, the piano sadly chiming out its notes showcases perfectly the tough issues at hand. As for the graphics, well, M. Magnuson is not a programmer AND a game designer, not an artist; besides, the simplicity only makes the point of each game more potent. And boy, are those point hard truths. They do need to be put out there.

So overall, yes, they are great “games” or apps that you can play in a couple minutes each and that are eye-openers. I still have to pick some bones with them. To me, they felt far too long. Yes the slow pacing is supposed to confer gravitas and prepare you for the end screens. ; the end result was that when I got to the point of each game, I was bored out of my mind, didn't really feel the emotional pull that was intended, and had only “all that for that?” reaction.

Ok, so having first heard of Loneliness through Extra Credits, I may have started the game with hightened expectations and thus was bound to be disappointed. Maybe our culture of quickly flitting between interests has irremediably damaged my attention span; maybe I'm that egocentric that I can't spare a few minutes for something that I know matter, or maybe I just wasn't in the right frame of mind. But how many persons are going to “suffer” from similar dispositions? Keep short and sweet would be my advice, especially for something with so little interactions, so simplistic graphics and sad music: there already isn't that much to hold people's attention, don't risk impatience cutting the message short.

Again, these three games are worth the time. As drawn-out as it felt to me, this may just be my very personal reaction. And the fact that everyone will have a different reaction to them is perhaps the greatest strength of all: they let the play interactively and yet almost-subconsciously crafted his own story out of each game. If you have maybe 15 minutes, you can try all three and have spare time to ponder over them.




NDLR: This is an abridged version of an article originally published on Gametrender.

Demystify

A fascinating, if somewhat disturbing and/or confusing exploration of highly metaphorical gameplay can be found in a Japanese PS1 "game" called "LSD Dream Emulator" - true to it's name, the game is very psychadelic, as it was based off of the dream diary of one of its designers. Some hidden metrics regarding how you interact with your environment determine the nature of the dreamscapes that you find yourself in as well as its inhabitants. If you watch a Let's Play of this game on Youtube, you will see how the player's attitude can steer this game in the direction of being a light-hearted, psychadelic exploration adventure, or it can turn into a very potent psychological horror game - all without dialogue or clear narrative. Definitely worth a look.