Podcast, Another Podcast

Somehow I totally forgot to post this up. I was once again a guest on The Brainy Gamer podcast where I joined Chris Dahlen and Michael Abbott to talk about video games (duh!). We talked about ambiguity in games, The Path, social networking, and much more. Check it out and the rest of the podcasts in the series.

Save This!

Because my Xbox 360 finally died I decided to play some older games that have been waiting for me in a stack for some time. One of these games is Killzone (the original not the PS3 sequel). An average shooter, the game convinced me to stop playing it after about 20 minutes. Not because of the sloppy controls or the combat. No, it convinced me to not play it because I died.

Not because the game killed me in a cheap manner. My death was entirely my fault. Rather, it's where the game restarted me. About 8 minutes earlier in the game, at the beginning of the level in fact. I had gone through three major events since then and the game hadn't saved the game a single time in there.

What the bloody hell?

I absolutely don't understand why checkpoints are far apart from each other like this in some games. I remember Resistance: Fall of Man frustrating me endlessly as I replayed huge sections of the game every time I died. The recent Ninja Gaiden games make you go through multiple boss fights without saving sometimes. This is an absolutely punishing, horrible way to treat players. Furthermore, it's hurting our ability to grow the audience and get more people into gaming.

Why? Because a player's time is precious. We are all busy people in this world. We have lives, jobs, families, and responsibilities. The amount of time we can game isn't huge. Every time you make the player replay large sections of your game because you want to artificially make the game more difficult, you give them an out to quit your game and go be entertained by something else. Maybe they'll go watch TV. Maybe they'll play Guitar Hero. Or maybe they'll write an angry blog post talking about how this design is piss-poor.

Forcing players to replay large sections of your game after death is a barrier to entry for many players and a clean, easy place to opt out for most. Ask yourself this. What's more important? That the player get through 10 minutes of gameplay without dying or that the player keep playing your game? I would guess that the vast majority of the time the goal is for the latter to occur. That gets people playing and enjoying more of your game. It gets them to tell their friends or have other people try the game. If you really want to punish players for dying, why not make it only on your hardest difficulties for those players who want that sort of challenge?

We're getting better at this as an industry but still have a long way to go. The answer isn't, in my mind, let the player save anywhere. It's almost 2010. Save state should be invisible to the player. The player should never worry about if the game is saved and how to reload and which reload to use. The game should automatically do the right thing. I'm not saying we need to go the Bioshock or Prey model and remove any punishment from death. I'm saying a light slap on the wrist is sufficient. Don't kick me in the scrotum.

There are, as always, exceptions. Survival horror games would lose much of the horror if there wasn't a significant negative consequence for death. Games who's appeal is purely based around extreme challenge would also fit in as an exception. Most games, however, implement checkpoints poorly due to them being low on the rung of important things to do during development of the game. Sometimes they are the last thing to get put in. Other times, no one is checking them to make sure they aren't too far apart.

This isn't a good reason. We need to break the mold that punishes the players for playing and trying, and instead let players embrace failure not fear it. Let's start treating our players with some amount of decency and maybe they'll actually finish our games. The best part is, this is an easy to solve problem that just takes some forethought and common sense and testing to make sure you got it right.

We can do so much better. Let's start.

Life is a Series of Down Endings

Lately I've been thinking a lot about game endings and how they aren't living up to expectations. I'm the type of gamer who goes out of his way to beat a game if I start it. I want to know how the story goes, no matter how insipid it is. However, I find myself being more and more frustrated with video game endings. Most of them end predictably. Or they end with a horrible cliffhanger that has no closure, all in the name of the all-mighty sequel.

Why don't we see more ambiguous or downer endings in games? These sorts of endings are prevalent in film and novels. Blade Runner spawned the debate on whether Deckard was a replicant or not for many years. 2001: A Space Odyssey's surreal ending has confused generations of people. 12 Monkeys and Se7en have two of my favorite endings in film history, both with protagonist "losing" in the end.

So why not games? Does player agency mean that players are unwilling to accept that their actions could still not save the day? Or are we, as an industry, too immature to know how to pull off a sad ending? Or do we just lack a set of balls?

We need to explore concepts further such as sacrifice, symbolism, tragedy, fate, inevitability, and failure in our games. We should be willing to do something outlandish that will cause players to talk about the game and consider the ramifications of what they just experienced. We shouldn't be scared to incite outcry in players, just to sell sequels. We don't do these things to anger and piss off players, but rather to push players to new levels of understanding. Life, after all, is a series of down endings if you believe Dante from Clerks.

Of course downer endings can also backfire. Just ask Jerry Seinfeld.

Wolfenstein Released

I'm really happy to announce that Wolfenstein is now on store shelves in North America and should be slowly trickling onto store shelves worldwide over the next few days. The game has been a long time coming for us at Raven and we're very proud of the game at the end of the day. I hope you are able to find the time and money to pick up a copy of the game and check it out. It's a really fun shooter experience that I think any action fan will enjoy.

Big thanks to everyone who supported us during the development of this game, id for the awesome license and help, Activision for the support throughout the life of the project, Endrant for the multiplayer component, and all the Wolfenstein fans.

Like any game, Wolfenstein isn't perfect and we understand that. We're getting overall positive reviews so far and I'm sure reviews will continue to trickle in over the next couple weeks. So I'd love to hear what you love about the game and what you didn't love. I want to know what works and doesn't work for you as a gamer. This way we can learn some lessons and improve for our next game. You can add a comment to this thread or hit me up on on Twitter and I'll try to respond.

On to the next game!

Design Lesson 101 - Uncharted: Drake's Fortune

Monsters are a key part of our culture. Whether it's vampires, werewolves, zombies, or any number of weird creatures we've created in video games, monsters have always been a huge draw. Much of Greek mythology revolves around the slaying of monsters such as the Hydra and Medusa.

The concept of something wholly sinister, wholly inhuman, and wholly foreign to us scares us and enthralls us. These creatures don't exist in the real world, so instead we read about them, watch them on film, and of course kill them in video games.

The thing about monsters is they often represent something very supernatural and different. As a result, they can act anyway we want them to and players will buy it. A monster can fly, teleport to any location, or turn you to stone by looking at you and players are willing to suspend any disbelief because monsters don't need to act like humans. However, when we put monsters in a game, this freedom can pose a problem. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, by Naughty Dog, exhibits this problem towards the end of the game with the introduction of monster enemies.

Design Lesson: When introducing new enemies, it's important to build off of the original strategies of combat instead of creating a completely different style of combat that is at odds with the player's original combat strategies

That's a long way of saying, don't make me change the way I play your game completely when you've taught me to play a certain way for the last six hours. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune spends a lot of time teaching you to use cover. It teaches you to stay behind cover, to move from cover to cover, to pick your shots and execute them carefully. It's not Halo, where you run around circle-strafing and firing from the hip.

That is until you get towards the end of the game and the monsters show up. Let's ignore the fact that monsters didn't fit my narrative view of the game world (I viewed the game world as being a realistic world, whereas I've had friends tell me that they viewed it as more of an Indiana Jones style world where monsters do exist). The issue is that the behaviors and optimal way to defeat the monsters is completely at odds with the combat for regular enemies.

The monsters have a melee attack only and frankly it's rather powerful. They also have a tendency to swarm you and move fast, making it hard to aim and take them out methodically. They will attack you at once and kill you fast. You cannot sit still. The monsters encourage a frenetic set of behaviors. In fact, they encourage behaviors that are the exact opposite of what you do the rest of the game.

The first time I encountered the monsters I tried to line up my shots and aim faster, not moving much from where I was. I died an awful lot doing this. Then I picked up the shotgun, started to run around in circles and fired from the hip instead of aiming, letting the auto-aim take control. This is how I succeeded. Combat completely changed with these enemies. There I was running around in circles like an idiot just firing over and over until everyone was dead, instead of jumping from cover to cover, thinking about how to flank the enemy, and being patient.

So why is the run and gun strategy to kill the monsters so bad? Because nothing in the game ever prepared me for this style of combat. In fact, the game actively discouraged this style of combat, by killing me if I tried to run and gun. I was taught, and fast, that I needed to be cautious. Instead of having their monsters build upon the basic behaviors and strategies I had already learned, Naughty Dog opted to have me change the way I played the game dramatically.

Instead, it would have been better for the game to encourage new behaviors and strategies that built upon the previous ones. For example, the monsters could required me to quickly move between cover and take shots instead of being cautious and biding my time, due to a ranged attack they have.

This would still have me using cover, trying to take the careful shot, but make me do it at a far quicker pace and up the tempo of the game. Or the monsters could have been used in conjunction with other enemies to make them stronger and more powerful, making it so I needed to take out the monsters first to make my own life easier. The game would force me to prioritize my enemies due to threat.

There are a number of ways the monsters could have been implemented better in Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. It's a shame that they weren't. Fortunately the monsters aren't introduced until late in the game and they aren't too prevalent even late. It certainly didn't ruin the game experience, but there was potential to take the game to the next level and I think the game missed that potential with their decision.

Having the monsters' AI force the player to build upon already taught strategies would have made the enemies more fun, engaging, and fit the game better. Instead, they feel out of place. Hopefully, this will be fixed in the upcoming Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. Until then, I can only hope any monsters reading this column will heed this advice and try to “play nice” with the rest of the game.

Designing Ethical Dilemmas Video and Slides - The Longer Version

Last week I got the chance to give a 30 minute version of my Designing Ethical Dilemmas talk at the Madison Chapter IGDA meeting. I expanded on a number of points, included some basic theory, and overall fleshed out some of the ideas. I still think there are some parts that need work, but slowly expanding the talk has helped me understand the concepts better as a result. I'm hoping to really nail this talk down and refine it some more, so I'm going to continue to research and consider the ideas to really nail them down as well as how to expand the concept from dilemmas to full ethical game systems.

There is video available of the talk. I would love for you to check it out and give me some feedback. Also, I've uploaded my slides (which are also partially embedded in the video thanks to the diligent work of Matthew Ciarlante). You can get the basic points from the slides, but I think the talk is obviously a better way to digest the information.

Authorship in Games and More Podcast

Michael Abbott of the always insightful Brainy Gamer invited me onto his podcast recently to talk about the conversation that started with my talk on 'Designing Ethical Dilemmas'. I joined Clint Hocking of Ubisoft Montreal and Borut Pfeifer of EALA. There is an interview with Clint Hocking followed by the segment I am on with all three of us. I hope you enjoy the podcast and please leave comments on Brainy Gamer's site (or here).

As a side note, I'm currently working on a blog post that goes into more depth about my thoughts on authorship and the role of narrative in games that I hope to have up this week. Also, I'm working on expanding my talk to around 20 minutes for next week's IGDA Madison Chapter meeting.

E3 Games I Forgot To List

Wow, there were a couple omissions of games on that E3 list I threw together that I wanted to mention. No idea how I just missed mentioning these games, but I'm a little ashamed, I'll admit!

Mass Effect 2 - I really enjoyed the story and feel of the original Mass Effect. The cookie-cutter secondary missions I could have lived without. Mass Effect did a good job at times at making me consider what type of player I was trying to be and make choices wisely. The combat was decent, but not great. If they can fix that stuff, and keep the great epic feel (and get rid of the atrocious load-time elevators) the game will be a big win. It's "Looking Good".

The Last Guardian - Fumito Ueda is quickly becoming one of the best game director's in the business. Ico and Shadow of the Colossus are two of the most beautiful, emotionally impactful, and fun games I've ever played. The Last Guardian looks to keep it up, with the same feeling of isolation and probable redemption. I've still never cried while playing a game, but I feel like this game could do me in with its beautiful looking gryphon-like creature. This is an absolute, must-have game. I don't know how I left this game off the original list - it is literally the game I am probably looking forward too the most.

No More Heroes 2 - This game was amazingly subversive on the Wii and I enjoyed it a great deal, for the most part. I loved the style, the humor, the commentary on games and America's fascination on Japanese culture. I did not enjoy the poorly implemented sandbox elements of the game, however. I've read some interpretations as that being part of the subversion of the game, standing the genre on its head and making people take a look at it - but the game was genuinely poor at these moments, so I think maybe the message was either overstated or a poor choice if that's the case. In any event, I think No More Heroes 2 will be fantastic and it's definitely also "Looking Good".

I think those were my only major omissions. Not sure how I feel about Splinter Cell: Conviction yet - though it does have potential.

E3 Is The Place To Be

Two weeks ago, E3 returned (with a vengeance) after two years of being a much smaller and more intimate event (or, as many dubbed it, "teh suck"). I didn't attend the expo itself (In fact, I've never been to E3), but as I'm sure all of you did, I followed coverage of E3 all over the place. I just wanted to throw together some thoughts on things I'm excited about or surprised me at E3 that I am looking forward to (and some things I'm not looking forward to).

Surprises
Project Natal - Possibly the biggest news that came out of E3 was Microsoft's full-body motion sensor Project Natal. The possibilities for this thing are huge! I had heard rumors about Microsoft doing a motion controller, but I never imagined it would be something this ambitious. At the same time, the developer in me is not excited to use this as a platform to make games on... yet. I need to see and try it with my own hands before I can become super excited about this product.

Tales of Monkey Island - Yes! Yes! Yes! Monkey Island is one of the greatest adventure series of all time, and having Telltale work on new episodic games in the series is really exciting. I had no idea anyone was considering re-launching the Monkey Island series, so this came out of left field. Thank you LucasArts and Telltale!

Metroid: Other M - I expected another Metroid game, but not from Team Ninja at Tecmo. I wondered what they would do next with Tomonobu Itagaki leaving the company after Ninja Gaiden 2. The game looks very cool. Confession time: I haven't played a single Metroid Prime game, but I plan on it when the re-releases hit Wii later this year.

Must-Have Games
Modern Warfare 2 - Yeah, Infinity Ward is pretty much the king of FPS games. The climbing the ice wall, the snowmobile section, the explosions, the custom animations and unique breaks in combat. Sign me up. Game is so awesome looking, no wonder it doesn't need the Call of Duty franchise tag on it.

God of War III - The massive scale, Kratos looking like even more of a bad-ass than before, the over-the-top violence. There's not much not to love about this game. Really crazy how the series has had three different Creative Directors and seemed to keep the same feel and core gameplay that make it special.

Brütal Legend - I heart Tim Schafer and Double Fine. Could this game look any cooler? Awesome visual style, looks to be hilarious, tons of metal. I want this game now.

Alan Wake - This game has been on vaporware lists for a while now, but it really blew the socks off me. I love the concept and creep factor that it seems to have. Using light as a signficant weapon and part of the game is interesting and puts a slight twist on the horror genre. It looks to be worth the long wait.

Wolfenstein - Yeah that's right, I'm whoring myself out. August 4th people - pick it up for the 360, PS3, or PC. Nazis, Particle Cannons, occult, sci-fi, upgrade systems, tons of gameplay. Pretty much guaranteed to be the best game of 2009 (named Wolfenstein).

Looking Good
BioShock 2 - Not sure about the multiplayer side, but the single player looks to be right on-track for what I expect (and really I don't want BioShock for multiplayer anyway). I like the idea of being the original Big Daddy. Wish I saw more coverage and new stuff from the single player portion of the game, but I either missed the coverage or there wasn't much new shown that wasn't multiplayer.

Scribblenauts - This may be the game that actually forces me to get a DS. It pretty much lets you input any word and drops it into the world. The possibilities are endless and I love the cute style and look of it.

Assassin's Creed 2 - For all of its flaws (repetition, weak combat system, poor assassination system), I really enjoyed the first Assassin's Creed game. This game looks like it's fixing a lot of the core problems that existed and may fully realize the potential of the game. I love the new setting and the fact that your character is apparently friends with DaVinci in the game, who builds you gadgets like the flying machine. Awesome.

Mafia II - Before GTA3 hit, there was Mafia and it really did a lot for the open-world genre. The original Mafia is one of the most memorable games I have ever played (At least on PC - ignore the poor console ports of the game). The sequel looks like it's updating everything into a time-period that is really interesting when you start talking about organized crime.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii - Classic 2D with co-op. Sold! Way more interesting than Super Mario Galaxy 2.

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves - I need to actually play the original (only played the demo, but I enjoyed it). This game got huge buzz at the show and looks very cool and stylish. Really like the variety of locations it looks like you play in. Naughty Dog has really shown they get how to do more mature stories, which is surprising if you only knew them from their Jax & Daxter and Crash Bandicoot days.

Cautiously Optimistic
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine - Relic has done a fantastic job with the RTS genre, and the idea for a 3rd person action game in the Warhammer universe is great. A little concerned that they won't live up to expectations, but I'm keeping an eye out.

Aliens vs. Predator - Rebellion is back at the helm, which could be a good or bad thing (They haven't done anything spectacular since their did AvP a number of years ago). Still, I like where they are going with it and I think it has got a shot of being a really fun game. Hopefully this time you can save the game more than 3 times.

Heavy Rain - This game is starting to look like a Dragon's Lair QTE fest. I think there is more to the game than that, but I'm starting to become skeptical. The storytelling, acting, and narrative look to be top-notch. Hopefully the gameplay matches all the hype that the story has been getting.

Let-Downs
PSP Go - Yawn. Expensive, no touchscreen... not a surprising move, but it doesn't excite me at all (and I own a PSP).

Halo: Reach - Mostly just because I tire of game announcements that tease and show nothing. We all knew Bungie wasn't done with Halo after ODST. Good for the hardcore fans of the series, but I just want more when you deliver "earth-shattering" news like this.

No Console Price Cuts - I suppose I should expect price-cuts in August, but part of me thought Sony may try to get an early start and price-cut now. Guess not.

No Shows
Blizzard - I didn't see anything on Diablo 3 or Starcraft 2. Surprising that Blizzard just skipped the event all together, but maybe they are saving everything for their own con. Still skeptical on if Starcraft 2 comes out this year.

Beyond Good & Evil 2 - The teaser from a while back got me really excited and I was hoping to get some more on this game. Instead I get nothing. Sigh - come on UbiSoft don't you know some of us are crazy to know the details of this game?

Half-Life 2: Episode 3 - It's been said a million times, but it bears repeating. These are not episodes.

Anyway that's enough random commentary on games. What games did I miss on this list that got you excited (or really let you down)?

Designing Ethical Dilemmas - Slides and Audio Available

Update: The audio should be all fixed up on the slides - sorry for any inconvenience. Please let me know if you have any issues with the presentation. Here is a download of the slides directly too if anyone is interested.

Well, I'm back from the conference (Actually, I never left since the conference was in Madison, but I'm back mentally). My talk at GLS 5.0 went very well, I thought. The talk was on "Designing Ethical Dilemmas" and I've embedded the slides below as well as included synced up audio so you can listen and get the full experience of the talk (The slides are idiotic out-of-context, and probably just plain stupid in-context).

The talk is about 6 minutes and 40 seconds (20 slides for 20 seconds each) and is fast paced. I've also uploaded my notes I used for the talk if you prefer to read those notes instead of listen to me speak. The actual talk starts with the second slide, as the first slide is just a title slide.

I have to apologize for the sub-standard audio quality - the only microphone I own is attached to a rather crappy Logitech headset I use for gaming, so the quality isn't all that fantastic. The conference will also be making their video and audio of me speaking available in the near future.

Next, I'm going to work on expanding this talk to be about 20 minutes for the Madison Chapter IGDA Meeting next month. So, if you have comments or criticisms concerning this talk, please let me know. I obviously want to improve and start expanding upon the ideas that I included and I welcome any input.

Thanks to everyone at GLS and everyone who showed up.

Enjoy!

Designing Ethical Dilemmas

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