Molleindustria has received quite a bit of attention for their consistently critical games. Phone Story might be their most widely played game, partially because Apple removed it from the marketplace seemingly because it criticized the relationship between technology and exploitation. Every Day The Same Dream received quite a bit of positive press for its evocative message about monotony and labor. These game are great, but I really do believe Unmanned is their best game yet.
In many ways this article is a sort of scoreless review. I had initially planned to talk about a few other games that use separation as a mechanic and a metaphor, but I think Unmanned deserves the spotlight. The themes of division and delay go far deeper than the two split screens. The game itself and the way it intentionally alienates itself from war games and, indeed, most flash games, drives home its multifaceted message so well.
The issue of boredom I find particularly interesting. I briefly mention Greg Costikyan's blog on gamasutra in the piece, but it deserves another mention here. I like this bit especially:
Gamers are trained to react to "boring" games by putting them down; they are not likely to play a little longer, to understand that boredom is part of the subtext of the game, to see that it is boring for a reason, that the designers are purposefully shaping a boring experience to bring out a sense of the anomie of life, and the distancing that drone warfare brings to combat.
I also think boredom is used to highlight the danger of "fun". Kirk's child plays war games and has a grand old time. Indeed, the most mechanically satisfying moment in Unmanned is playing along with him. But that thrill he gets is so alien to the war game experience of Unmanned. I do not suggest that violent video games necessarily desensitize to the violence of war, although that very well might be the case. Rather, Unmanned asks us to question how the act of fun might be a deliberate way we choose to distance ourselves from global systems - the same global systems that might construct the backdrop of the games we make for fun. In Unmanned, division involves choice. This isn't just a story about the injustice of drone warfare, but about psychological division and personal culpability. It might not be fun to play, but it is a nuanced and important experience.
What does the way we play games say about our real life behavior? It's a question Lore Sjöberg poses in a recent article about the way our external psychology manifests itself in our virtual avatars. We touch on everything from behavioral quirks to personal notions of justice, so hopefully by the end you have a better idea of what makes Jorge and me tick. Feel like a little bit of therapeutic sharing? As always, we welcome your thoughts in the comments!
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As I've said before, I think PopCap publishes really great games. Even when it's something as simple as a match 3 game, their attention to detail and high production values set their games apart from the crowd. It's not always about flash though: many PopCap games are also great at presenting the player with interesting choices and game dynamics. This is the case with Solitaire Blitz, one of the Facebook games I've been playing as part of my ongoing quest to improve my knowledge of the social games scene.
Muscle Memory and UI
Solitaire Blitz is a variant on the Klondike Solitaire ruleset. The goal is to get all the card columns into the top stacks before you cycle through the rest of the deck or run out of time. The rules are slightly different, in that cards don't need to be stacked by suit and can be stacked in ascending or descending order (for example, a 4 can be laid on either a 5 or a 3, regardless of suit). I quickly grasped the basic rules, but found myself having an unusual problem: I kept accidentally pausing the game.
It's hard to self-diagnose behavioral anomalies, but I think my problem stems from UI design and Microsoft's hold on my brain. Take a look at a Solitaire Blitz screenshot:
The portion I've circled controls the pausing and unpausing of the game. It also houses the timer and the game's mascot: a cartoonish worm that wriggles and makes noises as you play. This draws a lot of attention to that corner of the screen, which in turn makes it easy for your cursor to drift over there. It's not a deal breaker, but it can be distracting. Who knows? Maybe this is part of the game's challenge.
However, it's not like the draw deck is hidden. On the contrary, the cards are big and they're quite close to both the top rows and the bottom columns, which allows you to see most of the important parts of the game in a single glance. But if that's the case, why did I find myself inadvertently pausing the game?
Here's my theory: Windows Solitaire has trained me to automatically go to the top-left corner of the screen if I want to draw a card. The draw deck is exactly where the pause button is in Solitaire Blitz:
I've undoubtedly played hundreds, if not thousands, of games of Solitaire in my life. The vast majority of these games were played using a particular interface that, while perhaps not perfect, has successfully trained me to play in a certain way. The fact that I kept mistaking Solitaire Blitz pause button for the draw deck isn't necessarily a slight against the game's design, so much as it is a demonstration of how much influence entrenched design conventions wield.
I actually think PopCap's way makes more sense: having the deck closer to the top row means it is in a more central location relative the bottom stacks you'll be working with. Placing it there minimizes the average distance you need to move your cursor while playing, which is important in a game in with a time limit. However, making this choice means I have to unlearn decades of behavior that has been hardwired into my brain. On top of this, the decision to put a lively, moving sprite with important information in that location further draws my attention to the area.
Again, this isn't to say that the design decisions made in Solitaire Blitz are bad; it just illustrates how influential subtle details can be.
Interesting Choices, Constrained by Time
Solitaire Blitz's game dynamics are also subject to very subtle rules. The game constantly presents you with decisions which you are forced to weigh quickly. I recorded a video and made some annotations highlighting some of the small, yet significant, turning points in one of my games:
The video only shows only a few of the myriad situations Solitaire Blitz presents to players. Playing the game is a continual exercise in concentration and examining the relative risks of your available choices:
Should you try to quickly chain together cards for a score multiplier or go for a time bonus?
Is a quick glance enough to tell how many cards are blocking the bonus time line, or do I need to count them carefully?
When considering your next move, what do you do if you have multiple options?
Is it worth the precious seconds it takes to think about the next few moves before you make them?
Is a good combo worth more than immediately unlocking another deck space in the top row?
What happens when you start clicking before the counter starts? (You can sneak a few extra moves!) What happens if you randomly click or try to make illegal moves? (You lose a bonus!)
I purposely ignored the game's larger financial model in this discussion, which is based on the Facebook free-to-play "energy" system. Unsurprisingly, you can circumvent this limitation by involving your Facebook friends in the game or by simply paying for more energy with real money. On top of all this, there are powerups you can use before a round that can do everything from extend the time limit to give you bonus cards. Similarly to the way energy is implemented, these items can be bought with in game cash earned from winning, by enticing your friends to play the game, or by simply opening your real-world wallet.
The important thing to note about this is that none of the game's core mechanics are hampered by the financial model. This is something I think a lot of social developers can learn from. Even if you never pay anything out of pocket, you'll still be able to experience the system of interesting, meaningful, cascading decisions that makes Solitaire Blitz an outstanding game.
I actually finished the game several weeks ago and had been meaning to write something about it. The problem was that I couldn't figure out what to say. I think this was partly due to the general numbness one feels after finally finishing a game as brutally difficult as Demon's Souls.
A less hyperbolic reason is because the ending is strangely ambiguous. The entire game is about making your way through ridiculously dangerous environments in order to fight massive, deadly bosses. At first, it seems like this the last boss will conform to this pattern. After all, you fight him inside an enormous living beast that also happens to be the source of the evil you've been battling for the entire game. But then, you get to the final confrontation and are presented with what I see as a joke conveyed through game mechanics: for the first time in the whole game, you're able to easily dominate your opponent.
I actually didn't get a chance to talk about the most amusing thing about the ending in my column: after you finish the game, you're immediately dumped into newgame plus mode. As if after dozens of hours and thousands of lost souls, the first thing you'll want to do is start again on an even harder difficulty setting. Imagine the research and the skills necessary to go through the whole thing again. Actually, when you put it that way, it would be interesting to see just how powerful the revamped enemies are...
It's this feedback loop that ultimately made Demon's Souls so compelling. Things start out pretty discouraging, but each time to try something new or progress a bit further you learn something that will help you next time. Eventually, you've constructed a plan and developed your reflexes to the point where you can succeed. On top of this iterative mindset, you also develop a brutal disposition, similar to the one your enemies have towards you: when you encounter a new enemy, you know that survival is about decisive, merciless action. When you reach the end and employ this mindset against the final boss, his pathetic strength serves to highlight how much you've come to resemble the brutal demons you've been fighting.
I guess the fact I was essentially transformed into a monster via systemic interactions should be disturbing, but my I suppose my mind has been warped: I just think it's funny.
Gamescom has come and gone, and with an amazing turnout at that! The yearly European game conference brings out all sorts of good news and this year, the news mostly concerns brand new games on the horizon. Join us on the EXP Podcast this week to discuss downpours, puppetry, armies of Pomeranians, and so much more. As always, let us know your thoughts in the comments below. Also, be sure to check out the show notes for links to all the game trailers we discuss on the show!
To listen to the podcast:
- Subscribe to the EXP Podcast via iTunes here. Additionally, here is the stand-alone feed.
- Listen to the podcast in your browser by left-clicking here. Or, right-click and select "save as link" to download the show in MP3 format.
- Subscribe to this podcast and EXP's written content with the RSS link on the right.
According to the United States Census Bureau interracial marriage is at an all time high? It really shouldn't come as a surprise. After all, interracial marriage has only been protected by law since 1967, when the Supreme Court in Loving v. Virginia agreed with the now common-sense belief love need not follow social conventions. The same year, Director Stanley Kramer broached the still heated subject in film with Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, a film about a young white woman who brings her highly educated, respectable, and black fiance to meet her "progressive" liberal parents. The film remains one of the best takes on race relations and, in its time, pioneered the rare depiction of positive interracial relations in the media.
I could go into great detail about growing up as a person of color and the ways the world seems cordoned off. It was still uncommon to see interracial relationships when watching films and television shows. Suffice it to say that, for a time, I felt perpetually stuck in ethnic boundaries not of my choosing. Like most partners in interracial relationships, the uniqueness of the situation rarely crosses my mind unless a third party comments on it ("That's different" being my personal favorite) or if I watch Friends (which always seemed so shockingly homogeneous).
Every now and then it's nice to see my lifestyle affirmed in the media I consume. This has been discussed in gaming of late by a slew of talented writers who correctly interrogate the lack of diversity in both television and games. While we are collectively on the subject, I just want to put in my vote for more diverse relationships. I too am thrilled that Dom Santiago diversifies the Gears of War cast, but it also feels a bit conformist to see him shacked up with Maria. Even in the decayed future, romantic racial lines generally follow normative values.
Also, to give praise where it is due, three cheers for Commander Shepard and her inter-species love affairs. I don't quite know how Garen and Femshep are meant to copulate, but I would guess that under the covers, even anatomical differences matter little. I should also don my hat to Gordon Freeman and Alyx Vance, whose romantic tension is palpable and completely ignores social conventions. Maybe there is a young Latino kid out there, a little me, who after playing Mass Effect, decides to step outside his internalized constraints and make his move.
None of this is to say I find all same race (usually white) couples in games aggravating. You would be mistaken to presume I didn't blush at the touching scene between Nathan Drake and Elena Fisher in Uncharted 3. But hey, when it's time to draw up a touching love story next time, why not take a look at the diversity all around us. Yes, a majority of people still marry partners of their own race or ethnicity, but these figures are changing, particularly among the young and college educated. Also, even these relatively low marriage numbers are skewed. People of all races date and cohabitate together with higher frequency than every before. Let's take Shepard's lesson and race to a galaxy full of diverse romantic options. If love can buck conventions, so can games.
This post idea initially came from pondering on books that I think would make compelling game experiences. Unsurprisingly, I tend to think about how most any media or cultural artifact could relate to video games. When I thought about books, I kept coming back to non-fiction and Into Thin Air in particular.
When I first read Into Thin Air, I could not stop thinking about it. Krakaur's narrative slips so fluidly between normalcy and incomprehensible reality on the summit of Everest, but it also takes its time. You know the fate that will befall the team, so each mistake, each piece of every system that leads to that deadly night, feels foreboding and ominous. Yet even with all the pieces laid out, it is not so easy to put everything into a sensible package.
See, most complex systems, while understandable in parts, are so intertwined and reliant on disparate pieces that getting sense of the whole is nigh impossible. Sure, we can imagine how a system works from a high level of analysis. The quantifiable metrics of trash collection, for example, can give us a glimmer into the workings of a major city. But these metrics can shed very little light on the inner workings of a family system, itself no less intertwined with the systems around it.
Situations of extreme survival provide easy opportunities into the human condition precisely because in these scenarios, systems start to break down and you can see inside, as though cracking open some alien creature's rib cage. Underneath large systems, we find smaller ones that, in times of great stress, mean absolutely everything. We have insane survival scenarios in games all the time, but very rarely do these scenarios hide anything but trivialities.
