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[Core Xii]

When you get an aquarium or tender a garden, do you expect to be able to play with it for hours on end?

No, but then we're discussing games, not aquariums or gardens. They are distinct things for a reason.

The experience I'm looking for is more of a simulator where you regularly check in and tend to things, make adjustments, fix things, change things and then see how it evolves the next few hours, next day, next week.

That's all fine and well, although it's more of a toy than a game per se... Artificial life simulators and such fit this criteria. The difference is, they run as fast as they can/you allow them. This is the important part. The game should not make the player wait on purpose!


Dwarf Fortress sort of does this, with its world generation phase, and I suspect other features in the future. Though you can't really impact the world as it's generating, so I guess not...

[Seiseki]

I think it's all about what we expect or want from a game.
And I don't believe that you can generalize and say "A game should never ever do this or that.."

Especially considering how people play mobile games, usually in short intervals when they've got some time over. Like coffee breaks, lunch, when taking a dump, etc.

No, but then we're discussing games, not aquariums or gardens. They are distinct things for a reason.

Well, do they have to be?
If I set up a goal, I want this game to feel like a garden or aquarium. Is that just completely wrong from a game design perspective?

This is the important part. The game should not make the player wait on purpose!

But isn't this all about expectations. You don't stare at your fish saying, damn it fish, you're making me wait on purpose, or damn it tomato plants, you're making me wait on purpose, grow up already!

Now of course there has to be a lot of active things the player can do and tend to. Stuff to check up on and react to.
 And there's nothing actually telling him you can't do anything more right now, except himself saying "now the eco system is balanced, I'm happy with this, I'll check back later".
In theory you could keep fiddling with it, but there needs to be a point where the player feels satisfied.
It's not World of Warcraft where you're like, "moar, must play moar, don't tell me to stop!".
It's just not supposed to be that kind of experience.

But for it to work, it relies on a few factors being true.
1. Player feels fascinated/interested in the sim.
2. Player feels satisfied with the time invested.
3. The system reacts to the players input over time in a satisfying way.
4. Enough variation and interesting mechanics to keep up the interest.

[YellowLime]

What does having to wait an arbitrary amount of time to be able to play again add to the value of the game?

You could argue that it is a more fulfilling experience because it makes you wait, instead of perpetuating "instant gratification" culture. Or that it stops us from acting like MMO addicts. But to me, this is not enough of a reason. I simply don't like to wait to play an engaging game.

I'll admit that I'm biased towards this kind of structure, because it delves into casual, micro-transaction based games, like Tiny Tower, or The Sims mobile, etc.

You know how these work. They are "free", but you will have to wait 5 hours for that floor to get built. But hey, you can also pay so that you don't have to wait. And this works, because people don't like to wait to play.

The only exception I can think of to this "wait for things" structure that escapes the "freemium" model is Animal Crossing, and that ends up satisfying because there are other things you can do instead (Maybe you'll have to wait to get that fossil mailed back, but you can still go fish, or run errands). You have more control over the time you play.

And hell, TF2 is also like this! Technically it's also freemium, but it's doing it right. You wait for drops, and see whether you got the weapon you wanted. And if you didn't, it doesn't matter, because you can do other things (like playing the damn game).

tl;dr: If people like a game, they want to be the ones who decide how much they can play.

It's not like we are babies that need some form of control over the time we spend playing.

[Seiseki]

Yes, that's why it's important that there's no "hard-stop".
That you can still do stuff, but since it's your eco system, you might not want to do anything.
I mean you can have a garden and an aquarium that you can do ANYTHING with, but that doesn't mean people will spend hours doing stuff just because they can.
And I think that's the key here, because the player needs to have a certain mindset.
He needs to feel satisfied with the time invested, but while still feeling engaged in the game.
This might be tricky, but I believe it's possible.

It's also supposed to be a bit on the nerdier side.
I keep on calling it an aquarium, it might as well be like a science experiment.
And Heck it's an eco system, it wouldn't make sense for it to be fast paced.
And balancing the game around a fastforward button sounds weird to me.

I've also played a lot of those freemium apps where you can pay to advance the game.
And I think that's really awful game design because the player can skip ahead how much he likes.
I believe a game should have a certain pace, skipping ahead is just bypassing stages of the game. That's like saying, "This stage is boring, pay to proceed to the next."

Personally when I play those freemium apps, I wait! Then I check back now and then too see what's happened. My issue with those games is that there isn't any depth. I know for certain what happens when I build this thing, there's no surprise, "oh the thing was built.. well duh..".
There isn't any management of resources, you make a ton of choices, but they're not important ones.
It's predictable and it moves in one direction which is forward.

Also, I don't think this game would be for everyone.
A friend of mine is completely opposed to the idea because he also think it's lame to have to wait.
He also says that cultivating something over time doesn't appeal to him.
And I think most gamers might be of the same mindset, after all we play games and we usually don't tend to gardens or care a lot about aquariums. But I do believe a lot of gamers are geeks who are interested in science and simulators, those people would be the target audience.

[Core Xii]

I guess I just prefer to control my games, and not the other way around. It just seems so sinister that some company makes a game that dictates how I spend my time.

In real life, you have to wait for things. If I wanted to wait for things, I'd play real life. Since I'd rather be having fun flying space ships and shit, I play games instead, and I don't like to wait there too.

[Seiseki]

This discussion has sorta reinforced my view that it comes down to the mindset of players.
You use words like "control my games", "I don't want to wait", "dictate my time" in a quite non-objective way that assumes that these things are inherently negative, always..

Let's break them down.

1. Control my games.
This is important, just because a game uses a slow pace doesn't mean it can't offer any control.
Basically you can have tons of control, do tons of things how many times you want. But the question is would you want to?
You could spend hours probably balancing the system to perfection, or you could spend a few minutes.

2. I don't want to wait.
Well you basically wants a fast forward button so you can do things in the game and then fast forward to see what happens, do more stuff, fast forward.
The entire concept of the game is that can't be sure what will happen, but you can be sure that stuff will change based on your every action. This requires a slow pace so players can monitor and react to changes. But also so players don't just fast forward and miss the entire experience.

This wouldn't be just a strategy game where you put a long wait time on everything "just because". That's just taking an already established concept and dragging it out, no one wants that.

Waiting is a part of the concept, without that mechanic it wouldn't be the same thing.
It's not meant to be instant gratification gameplay, it's supposed to be an interesting science experience over time which requires a slow pace.

3) Dictate my time
I agree with this.
Not having a pause button means that players can't control the flow of time and say "Hey I think this part of the game is interesting, but now I have to sleep and tomorrow this could all have changed.."

I also don't think forcing the player to do tasks each day is a good idea either.
That's why the game could have science-thingies that slow down time, pause time, does certain tasks automatically.
To a certain limit of course, you shouldn't automate everything. But having the option would be important so the game as you say, doesn't dictate when you spend your time.

[VortexCortex]

It just seems so sinister that some company makes a game that dictates how I spend my time.
In real life, you have to wait for things. If I wanted to wait for things, I'd play real life.

Limiting play time isn't always sinister.  Open your mind.  In LoRD, your actions are limited per day because you're playing with other people who might not be online at the moment.  Letting someone play constantly would give them a really unfair advantage to the other players.  It keeps you coming back, not out of addiction, but to see what happened: If you had to sleep in the field you wonder if one of your friends murdered you for your gems in your sleep...

You might not want to wait for things, and play games as an escape from everyday life; However, realize that some games might have you wait because they are a part of everyday life...

Who knows at this stage what will come of the game?  It would be wrong not to go with some mechanic -- If it's not fun, you can always change it.  That curiosity angle is a powerful thing.  As a game designer one might create a mechanic (like the world changing while you're not playing), but as a game programmer one might say it's impossible unless we artificially impose logic.  Just because you run an advancement logic loop in the loading screen doesn't mean you're trying to control the player, that's just a solution to meet the game design.  It's feasible to make the game tethered to an online always on server to get the same effect, but that can be more expensive and inconvenient for everyone involved.

My issue with those games is that there isn't any depth. I know for certain what happens when I build this thing, there's no surprise, "oh the thing was built.. well duh..".

You've got a tiger by the tail with this!  A greedy developer can twist a gamer's impulsiveness and curiosity for a profit, making them want to check back every minute or so. A virtuous developer can also leverage this to great effect.  The trick will be balancing benefit of active play with delayed gratification.   If there is too much benefit to active play, if the world needs constant input then it could turn habitual fast.  However if certain things just have to play out, and constant activity has little impact on them, then the player will be more inclined to set the game down and pick it up later.

Going back to LoRD: The X forest fights per day mechanic gave the player a fixed amount of gameplay they had fine control over.  One would burn through those fairly quickly or pace themselves through the day. When all actions were used up, and you could only post messages and such, you couldn't affect what other folks were going to do, so you just sort of had to wait and see. Half the game was working the social structure so that people would avenge you or like you enough not to be a dick... That social system sounds like an approximate model of your ecosystem.  Not the people themselves, but one abstract level higher.

My advice would be to identify things that affect the ecosystem a lot or a little, and balance them against changes in the world.  Don't worry if you wind up deciding over how much big changes to allow per unit-time.  Some call that being overbearing, but really that's just part of balancing it so it's more like a living thing than something you're addicted to micromanaging.

[Graham.]

My current game makes an assessment - approximation - of the change in a player's state of mind between when they played the game last and when they are playing it currently. Then it, in the background, passes time to give the player the sense that the world has gone on without him/her. The passage of time feels natural, and it properly reflects how far the player has moved mentally from their previous play-experience since they had it.

The passage of time isn't like the way it is in the real world. For some parts of the world it is but those require an internet connection - I would never rely on a system clock. Time is loopy in the game. It's like Alice's mirror. It moves along in a way that most dramatically contrasts what's happened in the player's life, as indicated by how they play the game.

Part of the joy in playing comes from trying to understand the relationship between time in the game-world and time in the real one. Since time is really a reflection of the player's personal change/growth, understanding time in the game requires an understanding of the self.

If the player plays too much the game will slow down. The relative importance of events, and their frequency, will drop as he/she plays past his/her peak engagement levels. Time will proceed at a normal speed around the player - so that the game still plays - but it will have the appearance of not moving that quickly in areas beyond him/her. When the player arrives somewhere, where time was going slowly before he/she arrived, it will seem like not very much has happened since he/she was there last. One goal is to put the player in a position where he/she will put down the game if he/she is not playing well - by playing well I mean playing engaged, I do not mean overcoming challenges. Someone else was talking about using time constraints to get the player to stop playing at appropriate times.

The converse is that players, when away from the game, will wonder if it is a good time to return it. If they return prematurely the experience will be worth less. If they return at a time when  they are likely to be engaged, then time will have passed enough for far more interesting things to happen. In simpler terms, if the player is in a mental state to be engaged in the game time passes quickly, if he/she has grown as a player since their last play-experience then time passes very quickly. Note, you can't "miss" stuff. The core experience is always available. You will regret decisions, but you will always get a second opportunity in the future to make up for them. There can be a sense of loss but not one frustration.

It's kind of tough to explain. I wrote about it a little here: http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=26091.msg735030#msg735030, in case you care. Plug.

[Seiseki]

Interesting!
I actually thought about having a time system based on how frequently you run the game.
Mostly so that time slows down the longer you're away, so after two days it might run at 50%, after a week 10%.. Just so you don't load it up again and find weeds everywhere like in Animal Crossing..

[Lez]

Time is honestly my favourite feature. I don’t care if it transitions during play or out of it, it just jives with me. To me Pokemon Gold and Silver are great examples of time passing because the game had an in game clock; it knew the time of day and week. Not the month but it was enough.

Of course it made me prioritise playing at certain times of the week to do what I wanted and limited how many things I could do a day such as only one mystery gift a day (TF2 drop !) and I never really had an issue with that, changing the clock wasn’t viable until later in the game when you got fly since you had to go back to the first town.
Of course this isn’t a topic purely about putting a clock in the game.

Personally, I like to know I can put down a game and it’s still doing something, like it’s evolving. While Starcraft and the Binding of Isaac don’t use clocks, they still feel like they were evolving independent of what I did because of either the other players or the developer. I might have missed some events, but you miss them in life all the time.

[Core Xii]

2. I don't want to wait.
Well you basically wants a fast forward button so you can do things in the game and then fast forward to see what happens, do more stuff, fast forward.
The entire concept of the game is that can't be sure what will happen, but you can be sure that stuff will change based on your every action. This requires a slow pace so players can monitor and react to changes. But also so players don't just fast forward and miss the entire experience.

I'm talking about waiting to play, not waiting for something while playing. The premise was a game which forces you to not play it, i.e. wait.

Limiting play time isn't always sinister.  Open your mind.  In LoRD, your actions are limited per day because you're playing with other people who might not be online at the moment.  Letting someone play constantly would give them a really unfair advantage to the other players.

I was talking about single-player games. But even there, the design is bad. You should instead make a game that is either played with people who are online at the same time (see pretty much every multiplayer game ever made), or make it turn-based such that it can be played asynchronously.

[Graham.]

Interesting!
I actually thought about having a time system based on how frequently you run the game.
Mostly so that time slows down the longer you're away, so after two days it might run at 50%, after a week 10%.. Just so you don't load it up again and find weeds everywhere like in Animal Crossing..

I like that too, anything that connects the real world to the game without fucking with you.

[Seiseki]

I'm talking about waiting to play, not waiting for something while playing. The premise was a game which forces you to not play it, i.e. wait.

The game shouldn't force you to not play, but playing after a certain limit would be less rewarding, but still possible.
It's all in your mind if it feels like waiting or not, it's still supposed to be played in short intervals and not hours. Whether regularly or not should be up to the player.

And I think we've already established that you don't like playing in intervals and would rather just have something you can play through in one go which is fine, but that's not the pacing or feel of game concept.

[VortexCortex]

Limiting play time isn't always sinister.  Open your mind.  In LoRD, your actions are limited per day because you're playing with other people who might not be online at the moment.  Letting someone play constantly would give them a really unfair advantage to the other players.

I was talking about single-player games. But even there, the design is bad. You should instead make a game that is either played with people who are online at the same time (see pretty much every multiplayer game ever made), or make it turn-based such that it can be played asynchronously.

The limited actions in Legend of the Red Dragon, and timed drop cycles in Crossroads, and many many other MUDs, make them so flexible that they can be played as both multiplayer games AND as turn based with a single line BBS, or offline on a single PC.  What you say is a "bad design" is a flexible design that bridges that gap you fail to see between turn based and multi-player.  Perhaps that's a path you vow never to venture...  Pray you don't find yourself at the bottom of that ravine, with only this "bad design" as your way out.

My point is that you're preaching a false dichotomy and calling designs you don't agree with "bad". I think you think this way because your mind is closed to the reality that many games have already embraced such designs quite successfully.  I just think you lack the experience of playing them, and fear what you don't understand (I may be wrong, you could just as well be an individual with strong opinions who's yet to show much supporting evidence for them).  Modern technology has helped to alleviate the reasons such past designs were created, but with some new technology (like mobile) we're finding some limitations again, thus similar solutions are proposed or even voluntarily adopted in order to recreate a desired effect and use less resources.

Implementing a virtual version of such a system isn't inherently a "bad design" (.hack comes to mind).  The term "bad" is subjective in the first place.  It's strange of you to say one should do it one way or the other.  That's just an arbitrary limitation that doesn't even exist in reality, only in your mind.

[Core Xii]

I may be wrong, you could just as well be an individual with strong opinions who's yet to show much supporting evidence for them

You got it. I've played many of these tied-to-real-time games and none of them were fun; granted, that is merely my opinion, not objective fact. Perhaps someone enjoys them, I don't know.

many games have already embraced such designs quite successfully

What's your definition of "success" in this context? I'm sure EA considers all the soulless clones and movie-franchise games it pumps out on a yearly basis "successes" on account of making profit. For me, a game needs to do a bit more than just sell to be good and/or successful - it needs to advance the art medium and enrich our very culture and lives.

I have never seen anyone reputable praise the type of games we're talking about, not ever. I'd love for you to name some.