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Infusing Games with a Moral Premise

Sunday, July 5th, 2009

My main complaint with morality choices in games is that they seem to be a collection of random situations that the developers hope players will find engaging. But they are unconnected and don’t contribute to any sort of analysis of what the whole gaming experience means.

Cultures thousands of years ago first used values to help influence behaviors and decisions among their people. Values have been so fundamental to the evolution of civilizations that they have helped spawn legal and religious systems that continue to this day.

The strength of a society is often derived from how strongly the public defends its core values. If its people do not strongly protect their values, then it is deemed to fall eventually, as those in power subvert their own laws once deemed inconvenient. It’s worth considering creating games based on values, since values have served an important purpose for thousands of years and will continue to do so.

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King once said, “How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

If we agree that games with a narrative have a moral universe, full of characters that follow their own moral values and gameplay choices made by the player following their own moral values, then do games have an arc in their moral universe? Do characters go through a moral arc? Does the player?

Too often the main character does not go through a moral arc. The ideal is that the player also goes through the very same moral arc as the player character. However, this depends on the structure of the game. A game may have a linear narrative progression that players simply go along for the ride, whether they agree with their character’s pre-authored moral arc progression or not.

The other option is for the game to react to the player’s choices, interpret where they stand on the moral arc and reflect that back through a slightly non-linear, though heavily guided narrative. This is where the dialog possibilities in games lie, as I mentioned previously in my blog article titled, “Dialog in Games”.

This article proposes a framework that can help establish a game’s and character’s moral arc and how to make sure the gameplay and narrative are in sync.

Creating a Moral Premise
A lot of what I’m going to talk about is heavily borrowed and adapted from the concept of a Moral Premise which is covered in the book, “The Moral Premise: Harnessing Virtue and Vice for Box Office Success” by Stanley D. Williams, Ph.D. Williams makes clear in the book that he isn’t the originator of this idea either, rather it was something he observed as existing in many popular and successful films. The idea of a Moral Premise being central to a story is derived from many past writers such as Aristole’s concept of a “controlling idea” and Lajos Egri’s concept of a “premise” in stage plays. While reading the Williams’s book, it struck me that the concept may work in videogames even better than in other art forms such as theater, novels and films.

As stated by Stanley D. Williams, “The Moral Premise is at the heart of all successful storytelling from ancient history right up to the modern day. We find its controlling nature in the writings of Plato, the Bible, and Aesop.” (p.XXII) The Moral Premise serves to describe a story’s moral meaning. It is the practical lesson of the story and the moral does not refer to only what is right, but both what is right and wrong. The juxtaposition of both right and wrong leads to conflict of values, which all good stories require.

Before we can begin creating moral premises for games, we need to look at its structure. The moral premise has four parts to it.

  1. Virtue
  2. Success
  3. Vice
  4. Failure

The designer or writer chooses a virtue that they personally believe in and includes its opposite, the vice. Then, using the two, virtue and vice, they construct a statement that they believe to be true. Or coming up with the statement first and then figuring out which values are involved can form the Moral Premise.

For example, say I want to make a game about the virtue trust and therefore I include its opposite, the vice suspicion. Next I formulate a statement that I think is true about trust and suspicion that I wish to use during my dialog with the player through gameplay and narrative.

“Trusting others leads to cooperation and success,
but misplaced suspicion of others leads to mutiny and failure.”

Notice there are two parts to this statement. Part one says, “Trusting others leads to cooperation and success.” Part two says, “Misplaced suspicion of others leads to mutiny and failure.” The game mechanics must be constructed in such a way that through play, the player experiences the truth of either side. Think of it as two sides of a coin, they are inseparable, but a player might only bare witness to one side throughout their play, depending on their choices.

The use of a Moral Premise naturally leads to games that allow multiple play paths. A player could have the following moral arcs through a game:

  1. At start: trusting others. At end: trusting others even more.
  2. At start: misplaced suspicion of others. At end: learns how to trust others.
  3. At start: trusting others. At end: is suspicious of others for no reason.
  4. At start: misplaced suspicion of others. At end: has greater misplaced suspicion of others.

Path 1shows how people can achieve greater heights of their potential if they work hard enough. Path 2 is the ideal narrative path showing dramatic change in the player and their character from harmful actions to helpful actions. Path 3 is a tragic tale of falling from grace. Path 4 is another variant on the tragic tale but potentially more tragic as we see someone who can’t escape flawed past actions and falls deeper into suspicion of others.

The nice thing about this concept of using a Moral Premise to make a statement about values is that it can be implemented in purely game systems form or it can be skinned with a narrative to give it context.

Examples of a Moral Premise
As an example, in the purely game mechanics form, imagine a 2D topdown game where you have to escape a maze, but must ask for others to help you. Asking another NPC blob is done with a simple button press and represents entrusting another person with a task to help everyone escape the maze.

However, if you follow behind too closely or ask a specific NPC blob repeatedly, the NPC blobs interpret this as suspicion towards them and they are likely to not cooperate. Mechanically, the player needs to ask once and leave the NPC blobs alone to do their thing, to trust them. While this isn’t deep, hopefully it illustrates the potential.

The problem with a purely system driven game like this is that it’s too abstract. Players won’t know the game is really about the value of trust in society. It won’t come across as a dialog either because it will be hard to tell which questions are being asked, if any at all.

To help with this, the game mechanics of a Moral Premise can be coupled with a narrative to give the Moral Premise context, making it easier for players to understand and reflect upon the moral lesson. This is why stories have been so powerful in cultures over thousands of years. People can relate to them and internalize their meanings.

If we take the above Moral Premise and put it in the context of the player as a captain of a pirate ship with gold treasure, then we can see more clearly the truth of the statement. If players put trust in their shipmates, then at the climax in the narrative when the ship springs a leak, the crew valiantly plugs the hole long enough to reach shore. If players don’t trust his or her crew, everyone fends for himself or herself and you are left alone on the sinking ship.

Without trust that everyone will get an equal share, everything breaks down into a last man standing sword fight, where everyone kills each other and there is no happy resolution. The pirate ships’ treasures sink to the bottom of the ocean, metaphorically representing the group’s morals.

To engage in a dialog, the game designer can use the Moral Premise in story and gameplay to setup situations and characters that ask the player questions. Perhaps something like, “Is it OK to spy on others to protect the groups interests?” The player can answer through a dialog response if it’s posed via character conversation. The game notes the player’s answer and then presents a gameplay situation that tracks the player’s commitment to it. Based on player responses and behaviors and the designer’s own point of view, the game can present counter-points that hopefully persuade the player to reconsider their beliefs if needed or encourage their current viewpoint.

The dialog topics you can have with players are endless. You can have a dialog with players about the right of mankind to serve only their own interests and no one else’s. Doesn’t that sound familiar? In fact, it sounds a lot like the ideas presented in BioShock. Upon a closer look, BioShock already uses the concept of a Moral Premise, though, not as well as I think it could have.

Examination of BioShock’s Moral Premise
BioShock’s Moral Premise is:

“Extreme selfishness and greed leads to destruction,
but selflessness and generosity leads to creation.”

We can see that “Selfishness and greed leads to destruction” is true when one player harvests all of the little sisters for their own gain and they get the bad ending[4]. In that ending the player destroys the lives of the little sisters and escapes with them to bring his brutality upon the world outside of rapture.

If the player acts selfless and generously by rescuing all of the little sisters, they get the good ending[5]. In the good ending, years later on the player character’s deathbed a family of little sisters surrounds him. His selfless actions to rescue them all created a loving family.

Implementation Issues of the Moral Premise in BioShock
However, there are several issues in BioShock regarding the application of its Moral Premise.

  • There is a Ludonarrative Dissonance.
  • Players can embrace the vice and still “win” the game.
  • Harvesting vs. Rescuing doesn’t make the Moral Premise clear until the very end.

Clint Hocking wrote a great critique on BioShock[6], explaining that the gameplay mechanics allow the player to be selfish and greedy through harvesting the little sisters, yet narratively, they have no choice and are forced to be generous in helping another character, Atlas and his family to escape.

A solution and one that applies to all games that use the Moral Premise on purpose is to allow multiple narrative paths that match the multiple gameplay paths. Perhaps players are given the explicit overall goal to escape Rapture and presented with the choice early on to go it alone (selfish track) or to help Atlas and his family (generous track). On either track, the player’s own moral values are tested constantly, in progressively more complex ways that are more difficult to deal with.

In the end, if the player defeats the final boss while on the selfish track, narratively, they do not succeed in escaping Rapture. They are stuck there forever, to live out the rest of their lives as a brutal selfish and greedy dictator. If they finish on the selfless (generous) track, they escape with the little sisters to start a new life and family.

Related to the above issue, in BioShock’s current state, players at the beginning of the game are given the goal to escape Rapture and even if they embrace the vice of the Moral Premise (selfishness) they still “succeed” in their overall goal. This creates a false Moral Premise that says,

“Selfishness and greed leads to freedom and destruction,
but selflessness and generosity leads to freedom and creation.”

Seflishness and greed does not create freedom. People who live by those values become prisoners of their own behavior, or in the case of people like Bernie Madoff, prisoners in the flesh.

The third issue with BioShock’s implementation of the Moral Premise, is that Players who choose either side of the Moral Premise don’t know what effect their choices have until they witness the end cinematic, which is good if they rescue or bad if they harvest. This is not really fair to players because they should have more immediate and frequent feedback based on their behavior. This will allow them to self-correct their path if they decide they don’t like where things are headed.

Film typically shows the main character who has flawed values making poor choices and their consequences early on because they are embracing the vice side of the Moral Premise. At many junction points through out the film they are given a chance to switch sides and are shown the possibilities of living life another way.

This is the personal psychological struggle they go through as they decide how to approach the problem they are trying to solve. Often another character will offer them a chance to embrace the virtue of the Moral Premise but the main character needs to see the value of it own their own. They need to come to an epiphany in which they realize what they believed in the past has been wrong and to be successful they must change their behavior.

Examination of Mirror’s Edge’s Moral Premise
Mirror’s Edge also features a Moral Premise, but it is strictly in the narrative and not within the gameplay mechanics. This is the exact opposite of BioShock’s application of the Moral Premise. The Moral Premise for Mirrors Edge can be stated as:

“Running from someone’s problem leads to them becoming your own,
but running towards other people’s problems leads to solutions for everyone.”

The gameplay is about running, usually by running away from your attackers. Other times you may choose to run towards them to engage in close combat. With notable exceptions in the latter part of the game, the gameplay mechanics don’t lead to negative consequences if you run away. Running towards enemies can lead to either good or bad consequences, depending on the skill of the player. There is no consistent message within the gameplay.

The narrative on the other hand is quite clear. At 4:20 mark in this video[7], the player character (Faith) talks to her sister (Kate) a police officer about the murder of an old friend and a candidate for mayor. Faith in the cinematic expresses her value of running by trying to get Kate to run away from the scene of the crime with her. Faith says, “Come on, come with me. I’ll take you somewhere safe.” Kate refuses to act in such ways, “This isn’t the time to run! I’m not like you. Running will just make me look guilty.”

Kate pleads for Faith’s help and Faith says, “I can’t get involved in this.” But the refusal of Kate’s call doesn’t last long as Faith agrees to help before leaving the scene in a rush to avoid the police. In the ensuing gameplay sequence, Faith must outrun police and is now running towards various leads to uncover the mystery of the murder of Robert Pope and clear her sister’s name. By trying to solve the mystery, Faith helps her sister escape police custody, which could represent the imprisonment of the citizens of the city.


The city is a totalitarian society where the government controls information and spies to get even more. The citizens have given up their freedoms to live under a false sense of security (hello Patriot Act). At the end of the game, players can destroy government computer servers that collect all the communication data of the citizens, thus freeing them, temporarily from their government’s watchful eyes.

The narrative of Mirror’s Edge seems to say that running towards someone’s problem, in this case, Faith helping Kate’s problem of being framed for murder, leads to solving a problem for everyone, such as Faith bringing down an oppressive instrument of a totalitarian government.

The one but massive improvement for Mirror’s Edge’s use of a Moral Premise is to allow players to see the consequences of running away from someone’s problem and the successes that come with running towards a problem to solve it. Again, an open world like structure works best, players are introduced to the world, and maybe they see injustices of oppression by the police, yet do nothing but turn and run away. By doing that, the problem hits close to home and the player’s sister Kate gets in trouble.

It is not unlike the beginning of the film Braveheart where William Wallace wants to stay out of trouble and raise a family in peace. Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen and he’s forced to fight back.

The Game Universe Bends Towards Meaningful Experiences
In this article, I’ve introduced you to the idea of using a Moral Premise in games. The benefits are twofold; fuse narrative and gameplay into a more meaningful, cohesive experience and to engage players in a dialog. Stories have been used for thousands of years to teach people within its societies valuable life lessons, morals and profound insights into the human condition. Through a Moral Premise, there is potential to engage players in thinking about important ideas on a variety of subjects that will help them understand the world or their own lives better.

Also posted at my Gamasutra blog.

© 2009, Reid Bryant Kimball. All rights reserved.

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Posted in Game Design, Social Issue Games | 8 Comments »

A Philosophical Riddle from a Game Designer

Saturday, June 27th, 2009

Does a falling tree in a forest make a sound if no one hears it?

Does a game create an experience if no one plays it?

Also posted on my Gamasutra blog.

© 2009, Reid Bryant Kimball. All rights reserved.

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Posted in Game Design | 3 Comments »

Using Games as a Dialog with Players

Sunday, June 14th, 2009

Saying Nothing Gets Us Nowhere

Painting of Leo Tolstoy

Painting of Leo Tolstoy, famous Russian author.

My reading of Leo Tolstoy’s What is Art has greatly influenced my thinking on art and its application in the realm of videogames. Art of all forms (literature, music, painting, sculpture, theater and cinema) purposefully use their unique properties to communicate ideas and feelings of the artist to an audience.

These ideas and feelings, if conveyed by the tools of the medium with skill resonate with the audience. In a way, they are infected; they understand the same ideas and feel the same emotions of the artist. Audiences then reflect on what they think and feel in regards to their own lives and gain greater insight into their own humanity and the humanity of others.

Often during a conversation on videogames striving to be art, a point is made that to be considered art; games need to tackle more adult themes and content. Then someone chimes in that they would be OK with that, so long as the game isn’t didactic. That word has several meanings, one could be making a point too aggressively and another could be simply teaching a moral lesson.

Frequently people say they don’t want a game to point fingers and lecture to them an agenda. It seems many people want their games free of any sliver of teaching. Most of these people also think games should only provide them with pleasurable experiences and nothing else. Yet, if we are to make artistic games that mean something to players, some amount of teaching, i.e. expressing a point is necessary.

There’s a danger in avoiding any form of didactics. We’ll never make meaningful games if developers shy away from saying anything relevant and players aren’t willing to listen, even if developers have something to say. There needs to be a demand from the players and the developers need to confront their fears in delivering complex, deeply engaging and potentially uncomfortable, yet meaningful experiences.

Atomic Games’ president Peter Tamte recently spoke in defense of their new game, Six Days in Fallujah, “Every form of media has grown by producing content about current events, content that’s powerful because it’s relevant.” He continued, “Movies, music and TV have helped people make sense of the complex issues of our times.”

But apparently Tamte stressed that Six Days in Fallujah avoids sharing an opinion or comment on the morality of the Iraq war, “Six Days in Fallujah is not about whether the U.S. and its allies should have invaded Iraq,” Tamte said. “It’s an opportunity for the world to experience the true stories of the people who fought in one of the world’s largest urban battles of the past half-century.”

It’s not fair to say that Six Days in Fallujah won’t be art without having played it, but it is one example that developers frequently shy away from having something to say. Videogames will not become works of art without having the courage to make a point or sharing a challenging perspective. Otherwise, it’s pure escapism, a game to play and forget.

Six Days in Fallujah screenshot

Six Days in Fallujah screenshot

To have someone play videogames and then forget them is a tragic waste of the developer’s passion and effort. It’s not often that people have the opportunity to make art that infects others with their ideas and feelings. I want to seize the potential of my chosen art form and I think others have similar ambitions.

The question is how do we create more artistic games using the unique properties of our medium?

Games Asking Questions
I’ve heard developers talk about the idea of a game asking questions to the player, but anything can ask a question. A painting can ask, “What if people took care of the planet?” A song can ask, “Why do we hurt the ones we love?” A novel can ask, “Is exploiting the poor justified if it benefits the world’s economic growth?”

I’m not saying games shouldn’t ask questions; it’s fine if they do, but why stop there? The interactive nature of games enables them to pose questions to the player, give players the tools to answer and then interpret those answers and respond or ask deeper questions.

That is dialog. That is something unique to gaming. It’s worth exploring and it might be one path towards our own unique voice in the world of art.

A Path Towards Art: Games as Dialog
In an interview with Gamasutra’s Brandon Sheffield, Warren Spector said regarding narrative in games, “The end goal for me now isn’t for me to allow players to play a movie, ride a roller coaster ride or provide a sandbox so they can do what they want, but is to find the compromise where I can have a dialog with each player virtually. That’s what’s exciting to me.”

Frank Lantz of Area Code had this to say during a Micro Tralk at GDC 2009, “Games are not a medium. They do not carry an idea from one place to another. Instead, they are a conversation between developers and players and game systems. And that is what will propel gaming into an age of meaning”, he says.

Yes, an age of meaning. Games are about exploring. Whether it’s exploring 3D worlds, or gameplay mechanics and systems or exploring our own views about the world around us, videogames have an untapped potential to provide deep meaning for players. I think having a dialog between a designer’s game systems and the player is important. It’s powerful. It’s something that no other mass media art form can do. This could be how videogames can embrace their unique property of interactivity to enter a new age of meaning and art.

The Age of Meaningful Games
What kinds of discussions can designers have with players? How do you design such a game to be engaging and meaningful? One approach is to take a topic that you are passionate about and through the game ask the player their opinions on the topic. When the player responds, using NPCs or system events, you comment on their views. Depending on their response and your agenda, you might try to persuade them to change their opinions.

Ken Levine engages players in a dialog.

Ken Levine engages players in a dialog.

If this sounds all theoretical and useless, I’d argue that BioShock already attempts to engage players in a dialog through its gameplay. Though, the dialog isn’t particularly deep and doesn’t evolve to ask related questions.

BioShock uses characters that represent or oppose the philosophies of Ayn Rand to ask the player whether self-interest is good for people and societies. This question is posed every time the player is prompted whether they want to harvest or rescue the Little Sisters.

What’s unfortunate is that the game doesn’t challenge the players thoughts on the issue very much. If players rescue the Little Sisters, Dr. Bridgette Tenebaum gives them gifts and that’s pretty much it. If they harvest them instead, they get maximum ADAM. No new questions, characters or plot events are introduced to further question the player’s beliefs and values.

Speaking of Dr. Tenenbaum, she is contrasted with another character, Atlas. The two represent the two sides of the moral question related to self-interest. Dr. Tenebaum believes it is good to help others and Atlas believes that only the strong survive and if that means killing others, so be it.

If a game engages the player in a dialog on an issue, it’s key to use multiple characters that believe in one side or the other. This functions as a shortcut to educating the player about the issue if they are ignorant about it.

Conclusion
As the debate rages on and off like an inflammatory bowel disease, never knowing when or where it will flare up again and how long it will last, perhaps we should be talking less about if games can be art and instead about which paradigms can help us create art.

The various art forms all play to their unique strengths to communicate ideas and feelings that infect the audience. The unique aspect of games is that they are data driven and interactive. A game can ask the player a meaningful question and give players the opportunity to respond with what they believe in. By challenging the player’s beliefs, a dialog ensues. The player may question him or herself and become a more enlightened individual.

And that is what art does. It helps us to reflect on our experiences as human beings and the experiences of others so that we can create a more loving, empathetic and just world.

Also posted on my Gamasutra blog.

© 2009, Reid Bryant Kimball. All rights reserved.

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Posted in Game Design | 4 Comments »

Opinion: Costly Production Decisions

Monday, June 8th, 2009

Introduction
Throughout my career I have experienced and heard from others production decisions that negatively impacted the quality of a game. The problem is, they keep happening again and again when they are easy to identify and fix.

demotivation poster

These common production mistakes can be costly because they hurt production efficiencies, create low morale, guarantee the game will slip behind schedule and ultimately lower the shipping quality of the game. Here are the some costly production decisions that need to be avoided to ensure the highest quality game possible.

One Team for Both Single and Multiplayer
If a game has both single and multiplayer components, sometimes the developer/publisher will try to share resources between the two components, such as code, assets and personnel.

This often leads to compromises between the two teams and gameplay modes that prevent either mode from reaching their true potential. It’s done to save development costs, mostly by keeping the multiplayer team small since it’s expected they can use singleplayer assets easily. It’s never that simple if you want to make a top quality game with both singleplayer and multiplayer modes.

Clint Hocking wrote in Game Developer’s March 2009 issue a post-mortem on Far Cry 2. In the What Went Wrong section, under “Managing Single-player and Multiplayer Teams”, Clint specifically points out, “…the realities of a multiplayer versus single-player game are very different, and this creative vision in itself may have been fundamentally flawed.”

Farcry 2

Only later did they decide to split the multiplayer team off to be managed separately. From the article, it sounds like they weren’t properly staffed to handle this new structure of being separate from single-player. He further states, “This led to conflict, inevitable compromises, and ultimately cascading failure of the entire multiplayer design.” Later, they had to bring in a consultant to get the game back on track.

In my own previous experience, the multiplayer team was only six people, three designers and three engineers. The amount of work we had to do was overwhelming, in addition to working with a new engine and tools being built from scratch. It was expected that we would share gameplay code and art assets with little need for heavy modifications.

The singleplayer level designs were not built to suit our style of multiplayer. Repeated attempts to discuss this with the singleplayer designers resulted in no change in design of the levels. The level artists were stretched between providing art for both modes, though most of their time was dedicated to providing art for the singleplayer levels. This required the multiplayer team to base our designs around what was planned for singleplayer, however unsuitable they were.

For a quality multiplayer experience, we needed the addition of a blocking ability to introduce more skill and dynamic gameplay, otherwise whoever attacked first won due to the auto-targeting system. Because a change in multiplayer meant a change in singleplayer, the singleplayer system designers balked at the idea of a block ability. We felt so strongly about it that we fought for the addition for months.

Only after repeated playtests where players commented that both single and multiplayer would benefit from a block ability did the system designers approve it. In the end though, because our team had so few resources we were forced to cut over two years of our work from the game and move to helping singleplayer ship on time.

Employee hits computer monitor with his keyboard.

Singleplayer and multiplayer are vastly different games each with their own engineering and content requirements. It doesn’t make sense for one team to build an RTS and an RPG game at the same time, sharing the same resources, does it? If you’re going to do it right, do it separately.

Not Enough Time for Gameplay Pre-production
It’s absurd how often pre-production is given an arbitrary amount of time for exploring gameplay mechanics. A game will have a list of gameplay features and the team is given maybe six months to prototype them. Most teams probably need at least a year to prototype all the gameplay features planned.

But most production pipelines don’t allow proper pre-production time and when the date for entering production arrives, the managers expects everyone to be ready, assuming all the answers needed for a smooth and efficient production have been discovered.

Smooth and efficient production rarely happens because the game mechanics are not fully explored. During production, gameplay metrics such as jump heights are tweaked constantly. A programmer creates a bug that inadvertently creates a cool gameplay experience that according to the project lead now needs to be incorporated into every level.

These constant changes force level designers to play catch-up, modifying their collision geometry, which causes level artists to join in this ever-expanding game of catch-up. It’s so fun that the schedule often slips and the whole team is asked to join in by putting in lots of overtime. The deadlines don’t change, increasing stress on everyone to work faster or longer hours. Usually both.

Office Space scene spoof with WoW on the computer

Ideally pre-production is done independent of a games’ production schedule. Gameplay designers need to have the freedom to explore all kinds of ideas. The smallest change in the mechanics can have a huge cascading impact on the whole game. Once all the mechanics are set in stone, then production can begin and roll much more efficiently.

Developing Game and Tech Simultaneously
This is one of the worst offenders and it happens all the damn time. You are guaranteed a world of pain if you develop technology and the game at the same time. It’s a mind bogglingly stupid thing to do.

Here’s an apt analogy. Imagine you are the racecar driver and you and your team of mechanics must finish the race under a specified time to win. Now imagine that 5 minutes before race time you find out that you don’t even have a car to drive. It has to be built first.

All mechanics and engineers scramble to put together the bare necessities of a car to get you started. The owners and advertisers are made aware of the situation and they explain they can’t do anything to help. The required finish time will not change! You, in your mangled mess of a car, if it can even be called a car, can’t go top speed because doing so causes the airbags to inflate.

Instead, you drive as fast as possible, but no faster.

In the middle of the race the car breaks down and the mechanics have stop what they were doing to trod into the racetrack, pick up the car and carry you for the remainder of the laps. But then some clever engineer comes up with a miracle plan to build jet packs for the mechanics carrying your car so they can move faster! Heroically, the whole team pitches in and finishes the race on time.

Even though the team finished, money was lost, tempers flared and reputations burned.

Car crash when crossing finish line

To explain the above analogy, in game development production slows to a crawl because content creators are waiting for the game engine and development tools. The tech developers do an admirable, though naturally rushed job and release buggy tools.

This only adds to the already frustrated and stressed content creators. Producers put even more pressure on tech/tool developers to work faster and better because now the game is a month behind schedule.

Then features get cut or at least their scopes are drastically reduced. Open world? How about open city block? Morale is the hardest hit at this stage as developer’s dreams of making a great game are crushed because their favorite features are slaughtered by incompetence and a clusterfuck of circumstances. Such is the way of life for a game developer.

But it shouldn’t be. There are plenty of engines built for a variety of genres that can be licensed. If a brand-new engine needs to be developed, do it separately from trying to produce the actual game. During the pre-production phase might be the best time to build an engine so that it can be tailored for the game’s specific needs.

Hiring a Writer too Late
Story is becoming more and more important to the success of a game. A screen of text at the beginning and end of a game don’t measure up to the players’ expectations anymore.

Unfortunately, the people that know story best are often brought in much to late in the production cycle to shape the game into one that fuses the gameplay and narrative into a cohesive whole.

A game design director who came up with the game concept may flesh out some characters, mechanics, worlds, a basic plot and then design levels and art assets to flesh out their vision. When the writer joins, they are walking into a production that already has an existing world full of characters and locations and are told to improve on them.

There’s something deeply spiritual and personal about writing. It’s next to impossible to create cohesion on a game concept thought up by a game designer and then written by someone else. The writer may have a certain tone and themes they want to express through the gameplay, characters and art of the world, but because someone else designed those aspects, the expression may feel incompatible.

Additionally, the game may not have room for the writer to express the themes they want the player to explore. As the previous production decisions noted earlier are made, such as not enough pre-production time for gameplay maturation or simultaneous development of game and tech, level content gets cut and story elements bleed with it. No one likes blood, so band-aids (because it’s quick) are used instead of actual stitches. It’s messy and games ship with a scarred ludonarrative experience.

Hiring a writer earlier will make for a better game. In the near future we’ll see game designer/writer teams working together to create new games even before pre-production begins. The two will go on to create wonderful works of art because they treat each other with mutual respect. They understand that gameplay is story and story is gameplay. They are the Yin and the Yang, fighting against one another, feeding off one another, transforming each other to higher and higher levels of artistry. Their efforts emerge as a cohesive entity, one that stands alone with a reverberating soul that touches the lives of millions.

The Yin Yang

Conclusion
In the end, each of these production disasters harms the final quality of a game. With games costing millions to produce and the many millions of lives that invest dozens of hours into the fruits of our blood, sweat and tears, don’t we owe it to ourselves to eliminate these inexcusable production decisions? Don’t owe it to the very people we want to challenge and inspire, our players?

The industry is still struggling to enter a new age where games are respected by the public and mass media as an art form, capable of changing people’s lives for the better. But we can’t do that just yet. Not when boneheaded production decisions stand in our way time and time again, preventing our games from reaching their full potential.

Also posted at my Gamasutra blog.

© 2009, Reid Bryant Kimball. All rights reserved.

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Responses to The Interactive Montage

Wednesday, May 20th, 2009

Lots of great discussion was spawned after I published my article on the idea of using interactive montages in games to help with the passage of time. Ideally, it reduces the amount of repetitive gameplay and speeds up the narrative. I wanted to highlight a couple of the responses.

Kumar wrote a blog post, expanding on the idea and thought of a character generation system for an RPG using a series of Wario Ware style mini-games. Players begin creating their character during an interactive montage while at a young age by choosing a favorite toy.

This toy might indicate their gender and personality type. As they grow older they make more important decisions related to clothing style, school subjects and extracurricular activities.

Kumar suggests after a finished interactive montage, a summary can be given of the results of each mini-game on the player’s character skills and stats. While we both thought it presented some tricky problems to solve, we agreed it would be more fun than traditional character creation methods in games.

The other response was done by the blog and podcast production called Experience Points. Jorge and Scott had a really interesting discussion about which games, such as BioShock, Far Cry 2, Fallout 3 and Majora’s Mask might benefit from using interactive montages.

They also talked about differences in how games handle the passage of time throughout the normal play and whether or not time impacts gameplay. Having not played Farcry 2, it was interesting to hear that it has day and night cycles and at night you might happen upon an enemy who is sleeping, but that is pretty much the only difference. He can easily wake up and start attacking you as if it were daylight.

Thanks for the responses everyone. It’s clear to me that this concept can have many applications in games:

  • Show time passing
  • Show character growth over time
  • A metaphor for player actions

The last one can be like what we see in the movie, The Godfather. There’s a famous scene at the end known as Baptism and Murder.

It serves to equate the character Michael being baptised into the life of crime. An interactive sequence like this could make for gameplay sequences that carry more emotional weight than typically conveyed.

Also posted at my Gamasutra blog.

© 2009, Reid Bryant Kimball. All rights reserved.

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The Interactive Montage

Friday, May 1st, 2009

I recently wrote about why games might be better narrative and gameplay wise if they used less action. If implemented, one problem is that you miss out on opportunities to convey meaningful character growth or change over time. I believe an interactive montage can be a great solution for this, especially when large chunks of repetitive action sequences need to be cut.

From Wikipedia.org, “A montage sequence is a technique in film editing in which a series of short shots is edited into a sequence to condense space, time, and information. It is usually used to suggest the passage of time, rather than to create symbolic meaning…”

As cheesy as this is, it shows Rocky and his opponent training for an upcoming boxing match. There’s a lot conveyed quickly in a few minutes of time, which is the point of the western film montage.

Yet, in all my years of gaming (since the late 80’s), it seems videogames seldom use the montage either in cinematic or interactive form. Since I’m a game designer and not a film director, I’m proposing games use interactive montages to further the narrative and gameplay experience.

If I remember correctly, in Fable II, a large chunk of time passes between when you are a young child to a young adult, about to embark on a journey to becoming a hero. It is implied that the training started at a young age. A mysterious woman (Theresa) took you in after your sibling was killed. She helped prepare you for the day you were free to choose your own path, which is where the main course of the game begins.

What happened during all that time? Couldn’t that be conveyed in an interactive montage, offering a better interactive transition from childhood to adulthood?

Remember the mini-games of blacksmithing and wood chopping? Why not make those a bit more interesting by setting them to quick music and intercutting between the two (plus other scenes). This can work well because they use the same gameplay mechanic of pressing a button when the swing meter hits the right spot.

Imagine seeing the camera focus on you as a young boy, the swing meter slowly arcs back and forth and matches your animation of struggling to wield the axe. When you hit the sweet spot you chop the wood piece successfully. Do this several times and then cut to a close up of the wood piece. The music tempo increases, the swing meter speed quickens and you find yourself in flow. Then it cuts to a shot of your arms, no longer scrawny but now bigger, with toned muscles. Chop some more. Cut to a new scene inside the blacksmith shop. Same tempo, same swing meter mechanic. After a few successful swats of the hot metal the game cuts to a new shot of happy customers admiring your work. And so on… you get the idea.

I think the biggest challenge for interactive montages is keeping the gameplay consistent and fluid while showing varied and dynamic scenes of high interest. There’s a risk of having the same problem that quick-time event “interactive cinematics” have, in that players are so focused on the UI and not the narrative aspects.

Anyway, it’s an idea I’d like to see tried in games. I’d love to hear from others if they disagree or agree and have thoughts for improvement.

© 2009, Reid Bryant Kimball. All rights reserved.

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Commentary: Design Lessons from Torture in Games

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009

Last week saw the release of several crucial memos written during the early years of the Bush administration regarding official government policy on the use of torture on detainees caught in the war on terror. It’s a hot topic on TV, with CNN and MSNBC news programs covering it nightly. The New York Times has written editorials calling for the impeachment of Jay Bybee, one of the lawyers who authored some of the damaging opinions. Blogs are pointing their readers to petitions for special prosecution investigations and impeachments. Readers are having heated discussions about the revelations, particularly what it all means for the American people and the consequences we face if we don’t impeach and hold those responsible accountable.

Over the years, since the Bush regime’s use of torture was first revealed, especially with Abu Ghraib, there has been small indie videogames released featuring torture as their core gameplay mechanic. This is not an exhaustive list but only a small sampling. Most of them are forgetful but one of them embodies a valuable lesson for game designers. Here is a small and certainly not exhaustive sampling of the most notable torture games I have found.

Nick Anderson: Torture Time!

Torture Time!

This is a sad case of a rush job trying to capitalize on timeliness of current events. If you play it, you’ll notice it’s very easy to fail and have no idea why. It lacks proper feedback in the waterboarding stage, doesn’t make clear what the goal is and what the rules are. It has other “mini-games”, but they aren’t really games. Overall, it’s an example of what not to do in a torture game and worst of all, it doesn’t say anything worthwhile.

Torture Game and Torture Game 2

Torture Game 2

Torture and Torture 2 flash games are more “simulations”, though that’s even too generous a word. It’s more like a sick toy, where you are given a set of tools, such as spears, razor blades and even a chainsaw. Choose the tool and inflict the damage. The character is rendered as ragdoll, so it is lifeless and lacks empathetic qualities. That’s unfortunate, because it ignores the human toll and misrepresents the horrible fact that torture is done to living, breathing human beings who feel the same joy and pain that anyone else does. The design lesson I learned from this was that nothing is off limits for games or sims. No topic is too sick or controversial. The Torture games have hundreds of posts from people making suggestions for more torture actions and tools.

Rendition: An Interactive War on Terror

Rendition Game

Rendition is a more interesting piece. The author states it is a political art experiment and I’m not so sure it works as intended. The concept is that you have to interrogate a detainee, but there’s a language barrier and the only available actions are to torture the detainee by beatings. The designer says it’s a statement on our own culpability, in that we have to act to stop torture, in this case, by quitting the game. When the player is awarded points for each type of physical beating they engage in, I feel it works against the author’s intent. The design lesson here is that it’s really hard to make artistic statements in games and you must choose your mechanics wisely so not to confuse or conflict with the message.

Big Bugdet Games

Recent big budget titles have flirted with the topic of torture, but handled them just as irresponsibly.

Gears of War 2 (NOTE – spoilers ahead)

Gears of War 2 - Tai commits suicide

Gear of War 2 does not have any torture gameplay but does touch on the subject in its narrative. It features two characters that have been tortured and both die within moments of being freed. One commits suicide while the other is murdered.

The design lesson I learned from this relates to narrative design, not gameplay design. Narratively, it conveys a disturbing message that those who are tortured are not worth reintegrating back into society and thus are better off killed. Try telling that to John McCain.

Also, I can’t understand why Dom, who’s been searching for his wife the whole game would kill her, no matter how tortured or close to death she was. Nothing in the narrative gave me insight into why his character would act this way and it felt wrong. I wonder if no one had a good answer for how to wrap up this plot thread after that cinematic ends, so it was decided killing her would be “convenient”.

Gears of War 2 - moments before Dom murders his tortured wife.

World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King

WoW’s Wrath of the Lich King has a quest called The Art of Persuasion. It’s clear looking at the quest details the designer is well aware of the concept of extraordinary rendition, where detainees are sent to other countries to be tortured by other people because they are not bound by any “code of conduct”.

World of Warcraft's The Art of Persuasion

The item details for the Neural Needler are particularly striking. During the quest, the object the player uses on the prisoner is called a “Neural Needler” and its use description is, “Use: Inflects incredible pain to target, but does no permanent damage.” In the book, “A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror” by Alfred McCoy, it states, “As its most troubling legacy, the CIA’s psychological method, with its scientific patina and avoidance of obvious physical brutality, has created a pretext for the preservation of torture as an acceptable practice within the intelligence community.” The methods developed by the CIA in the 60’s and 70’s were being used throughout the Bush administration. Specifically, techniques such as sleep deprivation, exploitation of phobias and stress positions were used in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, Poland, Morocco and other secret locations around the world known as blacksites. Those three techniques do not use direct physical pain and evidence of their use is detailed in the recently released memos.

The Art of Persuasion quest

While it’s good that the quest in WotLK is a little more accurate in the approaches of torture; using outsiders and inflicting only psychological pain, it’s as far as it goes in handling the gameplay of torture responsibly, which leaves a lot to be desired.

Richard Bartle stirred up controversy by explaining that he was disappointed with the quest because he felt like he was forced to torture when he did not want to because it went against his morals. Adam Bishop recently wrote about a similar situation in Far Cry 2. He did not want to destroy a malaria medication and almost stopped playing the game because it did not allow him to resolve the conflict in a way that he felt would be morally acceptable to him.

The design lesson to take away from this is when dealing with complex and controversial moral issues, you should consider allowing players the freedom to express their views and resolve the conflict on their own terms, not yours. But then there’s an issue of ethical design authoriship. If a player wants to torture, is it ethical to allow them to do that. Is it OK to balance that out by presenting natural consequences?

Calabouço Tétrico

The one game that stands out above all the others is Calabouço Tétrico. Not because it renders the affects of torture accurately, or simulates in a systemic way how torture comes to be used, but because it expresses a Procedural Rhetoric. Ian Bogost says a game has procedural rhetoric, “Anytime the argument is being advanced in whole or in part by the way the rules function.” In other words, Calabouço Tétrico conveys an important message through its tight coupling of art and game mechanics. It can’t do it based on the art alone; it depends on the rules of the gameplay.

Calabouco Tetrico - Torture Tetris

The game plays exactly the same as Tetris, only the art is changed and the various shaped blocks are people in tortured positions. I encourage you to try it out for a few minutes. I found it uniquely disturbing because I knew it was Tetris, but it wasn’t because it transcended the abstract nature of Tetris and engaged real world concepts and ideas thanks to its art.

The important design lesson of Calabouço Tétrico is that you can dress up abstract mechanics to say something meaningful. When blocks stack up and reach the top, triggering the fail screen, the meaning becomes clear; “No matter how hard we try to keep the truth of torture and our culpability in it from rising to the surface, it will catch up to us.”

Fail state for torture tetris

Whether we did it once or 183 times, what was done during the Bush administration in the war on terror will have lasting impact for generations to come. It’s up to the American people to hold those responsible accountable. This includes the CIA operatives who were implementing the torture, CIA headquarters giving the orders to torture, lawyers justifying the torture, politicians encouraging the torture and Vice President Dick Cheney and President George W. Bush for authorizing the torture. If we don’t hold all involved accountable, then accountability will fall on the American people.

In the end, the question is, who will be holding the pitchforks demanding answers and justice? Will it be our enemies who rose from the stains of our torture? Or will it be us? If we American’s neglect our responsibility, much like what happens in Calabouço Tétrico, no matter how hard we’ll try to spin it, move it and make it disappear… it will catch up to us.

© 2009, Reid Bryant Kimball. All rights reserved.

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Opinion: Too Much Action and Not Enough Adventure Gameplay

Saturday, April 18th, 2009

Too Much of a Good Thing
A friend of mine once sampled two action films to find the percentage of action scenes contained in each movie, such as fistfights, gunfights, pursuit (car and foot) and physical stunts. I estimated action scenes made up 70% of each movie. What he showed me was surprising:

Minority Report
Action: 11 min
Length: 137 min
Action Content Ratio: 8%

Minority Report Content Ratio - 8%

Mission Impossible 2
Action: 28 min
Length: 120 min
Action Content Ratio: 23%

Mission Impossible Content Ratio - 23%

Conversely, most narrative driven action games feature a majority of the gameplay as action, whether is acrobatics, combat, taking cover or driving. If it’s not action, it’s a cinematic or a lull in the action as players move towards the next action zone. There are exceptions, but a majority of the action games overwhelmingly use action gameplay over other types of gameplay experiences. That’s too bad because I think games, especially their narratives could be improved if they used less action gameplay.

Tom Cross, who has written about dialog in games before and again recently, wrote, “While I think it’s admirable that a portion of the industry still strives to forward the puzzle/adventure genre, it’s exciting to witness the evolution of other, less popular alternatives to combat.” The less popular alternatives to combat he’s referring to are dialog based gameplay.

Generally western adventure games in the style of LucasArts and Sierra classics are avoided by publishers like the plague. But what about them pesky never-say-die adventure games? If action games were to reduce their  use of action gameplay, what else besides dialog could be gameplay?

Passport Please
Last week I fired up Eco Quest II: Lost Secret of the Rainforest (Eco Quest series by Sierra was way ahead of its time, highly recommended) and the first bit of gameplay required me to show the customs agent my passport. I had to go into my inventory, select the passport and use it on the customs agent. After stamping it, he let me through. I thought that was kind of cool. Not that I think there should be an FPS where all you do is run around and shove passports in peoples faces, but it was cool, if only because it was different.

Eco Quest 2 - player hands over his passport

Why don’t I do this in other games outside the adventure genre? Why are the mechanics of using an inventory item on people or the environment largely monopolized by the red-haired-step-child-of-the-industry adventure genre? How dare they keep this potentially wide ranging and expressive gameplay for themselves!

Let’s see how using the tried and true inventory manipulation gameplay from adventure games could work in an FPS, like Half-Life 2. The beginning of HL2 has the player arrive at a train station and eventually meets a Combine security guard. The guard orders the player to pick up a can on the ground and put it in the trash. What if the security guard instead asked for a passport? If players didn’t show it, he’d take that electro-stick and swat them, same as before. But if they did show it, he’d accuse them of trying to use a fake passport and force them into detention, where they’d meet up with their old friend, Barney like before.

HL2 screenshot

I think this would work well because of how closely it relates to the world of increased security we find ourselves in. Half-Life 2 does a great job of creating an Orwellian oppressive atmosphere, but gameplay requiring players to show a passport to the security guard could really hit home for a lot of people and help create a sense of oppression that transcends the game and enters reality.

The use of inventory objects on people and the environment is an extremely versatile and powerful gameplay mechanic. Give an NPC a flower to cheer them up or shove a piece of stone into the gears that control the crushing walls that are about to turn you into a pancake.

Snuggle and Watch To Kill a Mockingbird
The Darkness already has a segment of gameplay where players can sit on a couch with their girlfriend and watch To Kill a Mockingbird. If they stay long enough, they get achievements and eventually a kiss from the girl. This was a bold move by Starbreeze Studios to put this low-key, intimate gameplay in a high-octane action FPS. But it works, especially in service of the story because it allows players to connect with the girlfriend, setting up an emotional payoff that comes later in the game.

The Darkness screenshot
If our art form is to deal with adult subject matter and express the human condition, surely we could do less running, jumping and fighting and more hand holding, kissing, high-fiving, smiling, hugging, shitting and crying.

The Urinal Game
We game developers can’t seem to figure out how to implement dialog into our games very well. Characters can’t talk and walk at the same time. They absolutely must stand still and face each other, directly in the eye, like in Mass Effect and Prince of Persia. There’s no reason conversation can’t resemble actual conversation however.

The same friend that I mentioned above also said to me once, “Don’t underestimate the narrative power of taking a piss!” I’m not suggesting the kind of pissing gameplay found in Postal or running around in Duke Nukem 3D flushing toilets. Instead, what if you were having a conversation with an NPC who was on his way to the bathroom and you had to follow him in to continue it? He walks up to the urinal and you are faced with a daunting decision. Do I hang back? Do I stand next to him or skip a urinal to give him space? Decisions, decisions! My friend explained that a lot about a characters’ relationship and comfort level with another can be communicated by how they interact in the bathroom.

You Want a Beef Tortilla Without the Tortilla?
I once asked for a Beef Tortilla, but because of my Crohn’s disease, I asked not to have the Tortilla, which confused the waiter. While I’m not asking that all action be removed from action games, I do think a large reduction can improve the narrative. I assume this may be confusing for some, but there are reasons to use less action gameplay.

First, it can help break up the pacing. Action games that are relentless tend to overwhelm the psychic energy of the player and they get burned out quickly, even bored if the action isn’t revealing new surprises consistently, which is rare to maintain over a 10 – 20 hr stretch.

Second, I think the overwhelming use of action gameplay in narrative driven games devalues the narrative purpose of action. The action would mean a lot more if it were in contrast to lower adrenaline pumping gameplay experiences.

Have you ever known someone who was quiet, never swore, but then one day, they raise their voice and let slip a swear word? Contrasting their quiet side with the sudden hostile behavior greatly emphasizes their change in behavior and its meaning.

Milton from Office Space with his stapler
Action is frequently used as a metaphor for a characters’ internal struggle to grow as a character. In a narrative driven game, if characters start the game fighting and mission after mission continue fighting, despite the character growing in physical abilities, it says nothing about their psychological growth as a character.

Remember the start of Star Wars? Luke Skywalker is a farm boy who is committed to his family and can’t join the rebellion. Imagine Star Wars was first released as a videogame. The beginning would have started with Luke already a Jedi trying to bring down the evil empire. He’d go from being a great Jedi to an even greater Jedi! Frankly, that’s rather boring to me.

Change in a characters’ psychological makeup can be much more powerful if the gameplay outside of action helps us see the transformation characters undergo. It would mean a lot more if a Gordon Freeman type character were someone who wanted to help the resistance effort by using his technical skills, but was too afraid to commit anything more, such as their life. Then over time the character is force into not only committing themselves mentally, but physically and, maybe even spiritually.

Through gameplay the player can easily experience the growth as they transition from intellectual gameplay to physical to spiritual. In the end, the player gains an unparalleled understanding of the character because they experienced the transformation for themselves. A character that is committed in mind, body and spirit has more depth than many action heroes in games today.

Conclusion
It’s unfortunate many games fill their gameplay experiences overwhelmingly with action gameplay. To create a compelling narrative experience, it’s important to allow players to experience a wide variety of gameplay with and without action. With less action, there is room for exploring a player character’s psychological or spiritual side and help give depth to the narrative experience. Adventure games and even non-traditional mini-games can offer gameplay solutions that help maintain narrative continuity with the action bits. What that will do is offer different facets of the experience that can lend greater meaning to the whole.

© 2009, Reid Bryant Kimball. All rights reserved.

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“It’s Not Just a Game. It can save a life.”

Friday, April 10th, 2009

The following video is an interview with a person who has a metabolic disorder and a WoW player. She talks about the meaning games have in a disabled person’s life.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/27311093#27311093

If the industry is dedicated to making fun games and bringing joy to as many people as possible, isn’t it time to make them more accessible to those who can benefit the most?

To learn more about Game Accessibility check out the following resources:

© 2009, Reid Bryant Kimball. All rights reserved.

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Forget Fun. Is It Engaging?

Saturday, April 4th, 2009

The word “fun” gets used often to describe games and many feel that a game lives and dies by whether or not it is fun.

However, the word fun has a very specific meaning that can’t possibly include art games. If it doesn’t include art games, then we ought to use another word besides fun when describing the goal of a game.

First, lets go over some quick definitions.

Fun –noun

“A source of enjoyment, amusement, or pleasure.”

If we take the root of enjoyment, we get enjoy.

Enjoy -verb

“To experience with joy; take pleasure in.”

If we’re going to be strict with definitions, it will be a tough sell to say an art game, like Passage is fun, that is, it provides us with a joyful experience that we take pleasure in. Instead, I found it to be cathartic (the purging of the emotions or relieving of emotional tensions, esp. through certain kinds of art, as tragedy or music.) and profoundly introspective experience.

In the past I’ve had difficulty justifying art games because it has been drilled into my head by reviewers, educators and colleagues that the only purpose of a game is to be fun. If that is true, more artful games that deal with rather painful adult themes cannot exist in this industry.

Yet, I believe games that deal with more adult themes, even painful ones can and should exist. But first we have to agree that fun is not the root purpose of games, but instead a distinct flavor of a type of quality that all games share; which is the quality of being compelling, engaging or engrossing (all used interchangeably).

Compelling –adjective

“Having a powerful and irresistible effect; requiring acute admiration, attention, or respect: a man of compelling integrity; a compelling drama”

Or… a compelling game.

Engaging/Engrossing –adjective

“Fully occupying the mind or attention; absorbing: I’m reading the most engrossing book.”

Or… I’m playing the most engrossing game.

Take note of the words, “Fully occupying the mind or attention.” What else does that remind you of? Flow, perhaps? Nearly all games have their foundation derived from the concept of flow. We achieve a state of flow when we set our own internal goals, receive feedback on how we are doing and achieve personal growth through the pursuit of those goals. Upon completion, we move on to more difficult goals and thus repeat the cycle, maintaining flow.

If we agree that all games have this concept of flow, and when implemented skillfully can induce the state of being engrossed within the experience or compelled to experience it, then we can also agree that both fun and serious adult themed games can coexist. Fun is one type of experience that can engross a player, while catharsis is another type of experience that can engross a player.

The next time you think to say that all games must be fun or hear someone else make that claim, try stating instead that games must be compelling or engaging. By saying that, you include all games that can be fun or cathartic. Eventually, this will broaden our acceptance of  which types of games can be created. We’ll get to a point where a designer can make a game about less pleasant aspects of the human condition without others dismissing it as a game because it’s not “fun”. The key question will not be, “Is it fun?” but “Is it engaging?”

© 2009, Reid Bryant Kimball. All rights reserved.

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