more "The Art of Game Design," and the subconscious

As I'm starting today's entry with a Guinness in hand, it's safe to say this could be a long one. I'll probably be rambling a lot, and like always will decide to stop at a seemingly random point, topping the post with the suggestion that I'll get that last thought in on the next entry. That last thought just never seems to make the cut.

I made it through another 13% of "The Art of Game Design" (heretofore AoGD). The book has become considerably more intense, and rather than roll back and allow the author to simply "tell me how it is," I've begun to rebel a little bit here and there against some of his ideas. The author himself seems to think in a rebellious manner, even his own thoughts seem rarely good enough for him. For this reason, I think it's safe to say that scrutinizing the book is actually in the spirit of the book, which makes for a fairly weak rebellion after all. Oh, the paradoxes...

In any case, I over-used quotations in my last post, so I'll try to be better about that in this one. Also, I've been referring to too many places as "chapters" when they are actually only sub-sections. It's hard to tell the two apart on a Kindle, so I'll just refer to pretty much everything as a "section" from now on.

I'm going to skip right to the stuff I consider ripe for discussion. The next Lens that I found truly compelling was the Lens of Resonance. This Lens is all about finding a value in an experience that is rooted very deeply in our psyche. An example given was the resonance of the story of Hercules: a man "virtuous enough to defeat death." This idea of virtue having not only intrinsic value, but intrinsic power, is something I know I've grown up seeing all over the entertainment industry, from cartoons to top budget films. With this in mind, I thought of my own dream game, and thought: "What is my deep resonance?" I know that I have one. I'll explain.

My game fundamentally involves a player who begins as a new angel, which I call a "fledgling." The actions that the player takes cause them to evolve continuously into a more angelic being, or an increasingly demonic one. All along the way, they fight with other fledglings (remember, this is an MMO), and the way they do so determines in what manner they progress in terms of this "alignment." However, when they finally get to a certain point where they are an angelic paragon, or a demonic one, they have the option to "turn pure." After they do so, they are pure demon or pure angel, and their actions no longer impact this kind of "alignment." The player becomes morally infallible, and the game completely changes in terms of social dynamics for that player.

Now, leaving out all the features and mechanics I've designed (which pains me to not discuss), it seems clear to me that there is some kind of deeper resonance with the idea of evolving into an Angel or a Demon, and with actually being one. In my mind, many if not most/all of the good guys and bad guys we see all over the entertainment industry are just rehashes of the very old myth of demons (and angels of course). This is not rooted in Christian mythology, it dates back much farther, and the ideas of ideologically opposed spiritual beings seems to have arisen independently all over the world in ancient times. The reason for this may be scientific, but it makes the idea no less resonant. So what is the resonance, exactly? The best I've come up with so far is: a being that is pure in its motives cannot be defeated by one that is not.

These motives may be "good" or "evil," it makes no difference. The more pure the motives, the more powerful the being, and pure motive is perfect power. This theme is present in every movie, show, or game in which the "boss" is the strongest, hardest to kill, and the most ideologically pure. The hero is also the strongest, hardest to kill, and most ideologically pure. As you move down the chain of command on either side, you find a gradual decline in power that also corresponds to ideological purity. A good example is Star Wars: Yoda > Luke > Obi Wan > Mace Windu etc. Star Wars even goes through special pains to ensure that its strongest heroes become increasingly ideologically pure throughout their development, to ensure that it correlates with their power. Darth Vader is a perfect example of this: he is extremely powerful, and ends up as one of the dark side's strongest ideologues (before betraying the emperor). While this is not present in every game/movie/show, it is present in enough to suggest strong resonance. This resonance is already written into my game design, and it makes me very happy to now be able to articulate, define, and tweak it more clearly.

In a later section, the author tells us to state the problem that our game is attempting to solve (called the Lens of the Problem). He does not always appear to take this approach to creating new games, as it is most useful if you already have a kind of game in mind. So, I went to work defining my question, and based on the way the author tends to word his questions, I came up with: How can I create a game that quintessentially personifies the war between good and evil? I may be alone in this, but that sounds like a compelling and fun idea to me.

The next Lens is my favorite one so far. It is the Lens of Risk Mitigation. This Lens is all about finding what could muddle up your game, and how to keep it from happening. For my game, there are two major things to start with: 1) Unplayable lag or extreme server costs, and 2) A core mechanic that is either not fun or not balanced. The way around these problems is to understand the proper design cycle for a successful game. In doing so, you learn that "looping" the prototype of the game is an important key to ensuring it succeeds. However, we don't need a finished game, we can prototype pecific problems, thereby saving us great headaches down the road. For me, this would start with testing the poly counts for large battles, testing to see if the servers can handle the simultaneous players and the complex movements and acrobatics I intend them to have, and testing the core mechanic in isolation to see if it is enjoyable. After that, we start over, defining our new problems, isolating them again, and continuing. By doing this, we build our game in multiple key places at once, and gradually bring the whole thing together.

In reading this Lens, I was actually able to envision how my game could be developed through chopping it up, as well as consider how it allows the entire design team to work hard from day 1. It further taught me that, if I do learn how to program in the future, I might be able to contribute to the team by knowing just enough to help make these small prototype games; thus one doesn't have to be a programming whiz to put some grunt coding time in with other members. I'm sure this would be very appreciated by the team, even if it was mostly to see that the designer was willing to sweat code with them.

The next Lens is the Lens of the Toy. One of my top favorites, this one exposes the problem with a lot of modern games. The idea of this Lens is to take out the part of your game that makes it a "game," and just turn it into a free little world. Now, how much fun is this little world to play around in? What you've effectively done is made it a toy, and if that toy isn't much fun, it may not lend itself well to games. The best toys, such as the ball, are fun to just mess around with by themselves, but also can be made into many different games. The makers of Grand Theft Auto actually made the entire game world before they knew what the game would be about (it wasn't called GTA at the time). I find that both stunning and a great lesson. I wish more MMORPGs would take this Lens to heart.

That's as far as I got. I would like to stop here briefly and say something that's been on my mind as I read this book: I find it incredibly hard to believe that most of the people who talk down to other designers and recommend they read books such as this have ever actually read the book! The book makes it clear time and again that everyone has ideas to bring to the design table, because everyone has different experiences. Furthermore, he states bluntly that simply calling yourself a designer makes you one. And it's absolutely true for reasons that independent-minded people tend to realize in their early adult lives. Every few pages in I just have to stop myself and say "either many of those people didn't read the same book I am, or they weren't paying attention."

I'd also like to mention a point that I differ from the author about. He goes through great pains to explain the creative process and how best to coax your own creative subconscious forward. I'll address the subconscious bit in a minute, but first: I think he gets too obsessive over the environment that one must be in in order to be creative. For example, he starts talking about how smaller paper feels limited and unatural, and he likes to use huge thick sheets of paper to put his thoughts down. He also doesn't like lined paper, because it boxes him in. I then looked at my own (lined) notepad that I was taking notes and jotting down ideas on and thought: "wow, this is a cramped notepad." And then I realized it had never felt cramped until the author told me it was. This angered me slightly. He then began talking about standing on your head, standing on your chair, driving somewhere new, etc. in order to get your creative juices flowing. At the time I read this I was waiting for my car to get done with a tune-up, and I thought "yeah, this is kinda dull." But again, it had never occurred to me before he said it.

These sorts of things are like the old island parable (a non-Biblical parable), where a village lives on an island surrounded by a steep circular cliff. An outsider goes to the island and begins telling the happy villagers how dangerous it is to live near this cliff, and that they need a fence in order to be safe. So, the alarmed villagers erect a fence up all around the village, and continue to live happily for a while. Then, the fence is blown down by a great storm, and the villagers huddle in the center of town, completely paralyzed by this new fear. You see, they lived happily in their setting before someone explained to them why it was unsatisfactory, and then everything fell apart. That's the sort of thing I fear this kind of "creative coaxing" tends to perpetuate. I like to be able to feel creative in a whitewashed, tile-ceilinged, fluorescently lit, dingy little cinder block building as well as sitting in a convertible on a cliff watching the sun set. Suggesting to a person that creativity only comes in certain circumstances, or is more likely to come under certain circumstances, is a dangerous road to tread down.

However, when it comes to his discussion of the sub-conscious, particularly as if it/he were a seperate person, I was overjoyed. You see, I have been having odd dreams with my subconscious self (if that's what you want to call it) for years. In fact, in college, one of my roommates' favorite things about living with me was that they got to hear about all my crazy dreams. It's important to know that I've always wondered: within our dreams, just who is controlling all the other people. Clearly it is part of my mind, but what part, and why does it/he seem to sometimes be stronger than I am? I have lucid dreams on occasion (I used to all the time, but I don't take naps as often which is what seems to cause them), and I would always attempt to ask one of these people: who are you. Well, on a couple occasions I've gotten an answer.

The funny thing is that Mr. Schell says that people's sub-conscious in dreams do not talk to them, they use art, pictures, actions, emotion, etc for expression. Well, mine talked. I walked up to a guy in my dream, put my arm on his shoulder, and he turned around, and I asked: Who are you? Of course, I meant this in the sense of: What part of me are you, or are you a part of me at all, what is your purpose in my head, etc. and, since dreams can always read your mind, he knew what I meant, and I knew he knew it. Upon asking the question, the whole dream suddenly turned black, as in the scene completely vanished, except for this man in front of me. Then, the man's face contorted, and it became my face. It wasn't my face in the sense that it's the face I see when I look in the mirror, it was a different looking face, but somehow I knew this is my face. At this point, I could only see the man's face, which I now knew was me, but (oddly, in hindsight) not exactly me with my physical face. He had a clear look of extreme pain on his face, and he sputtered out the words: "Stop...doing...this." The act of speaking appeared to put him in so much pain that he could barely get the words out. And then, after he said those words, I woke up.

I spent literally the entire day thinking about this dream, as I could not get it out of my head, and I've thought about it occasionally ever since. My subconscious said "stop doing this," but in reality he meant a lot more, which, as I said, in dreams we somehow always know the full meaning of things. What he meant was "Stop pursuing me, stop trying to figure me out, stop trying to dissect me, stop trying to make me something I'm not." You see, I had been trying to get a conversation with him for a long time, and for whatever reason he finally caved. Now, in hindsight, thinking that the subconscious may in some sense be another person in our brain, another consciousness in some vaguely literal sense, I feel guilty for having put him through the ordeal. In every dream I had that was lucid, as soon as I started to think "ok, maybe I'll pop the question," the characters began to behave differently towards me. I can't quite say how, but it was just different. That, or I would sometimes lose my lucid control of the dream. I can't say if its because I had the thought, I'm just stating that that is what happened sometimes. I have had many lucid dreams and lost control of them, so I can't define a correlation.

In any case, Mr. Schell talks about respecting your subconsciousness, and building a relationship with it. It was a very fascinating part of the book, because prior to this I hadn't read literature that discussed these kinds of experiences, and no one I've ever met has had an experience like the one I just described. One thing is for certain: In the future I will endeavor to read more on the topic, and until then will try to be good to my subconscious. After all, he really does have what I need: creativity.

Alright, this one is pretty long. While I was reading these latest parts of the book, I jotted down ideas for my own game design (since I would start staring off daydreaming, from time to time, which is one time when they always tend to come) and I had a lot of great new ones. When I ever get to the point where I'm describing my dream MMO in more detail (if I get there) I will definitely share them.

Have a great Friday night.