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[DavidCaruso]

eva how do you feel about Crysis and Serious Sam 3 (if you played it past the shitty beginning levels)?

This is very important because I need to conclude exactly how much weight to personally give your opinions on shooting games. Also I was looking forward to playing Binary Domain a while back (which for some reason I still didn't buy after it was ported to PC), could you elaborate on the thing about that?

But what does eva do when she's finished playing Flower?

Fall into a deep state of disgust, like most other rational human beings who have played Flower?

the difference between sandboxes and non-sandboxes is a very trivial one if you look at it from the perspective of the player (not from the perspective of the designer, which is a common mistake made by the theorists, designers, players and others). the difference between the two is this -- one takes quite a bit of time to figure out what the (most interesting) goal of the game is, the other doesn't. that's it!

ok so the difference between a sandbox and a non-sandbox is that in the latter I can have fun immediately while in the former I have to shit around aimlessly for a few hours before realizing that the most interesting goal of the game is to delete it and play a non-sandbox game.

[Charlie Sheen]

ok so the difference between a sandbox and a non-sandbox is that in the latter I can have fun immediately while in the former I have to shit around aimlessly for a few hours before realizing that the most interesting goal of the game is to delete it and play a non-sandbox game.

yup.

[Graham.]

I like punching trees. ...

[Charlie Sheen]

Choice is an illusion really. You can give a hoola-hoop to a child and they may see a million choices, and then make several thousand over the course of a summer. You can give a blank page and pencil to an adult and they will see 0, paralyzed by analysis. A Zen master will say that infinite choice exists in any moment, in any position, if you can silence the mind.

what you're trying to say is that people are stupid and will see choice when there is none. it's called superstition and it's the reason why kids enjoy monopoly.

[Charlie Sheen]

But why is that a common mistake? It follows straightly from definition of sandbox.

god knows why.
there are people who think that sandboxes aren't games or something.
and there are people who think that if game designers didn't design their work to have clear goals then it's definitively not a game (all the while ignoring that players can seek goals for themselves; I mean, how can they know that when they are stuck in their design shoes?)

bunch of morons confusing themselves, that's what it is.

[Graham.]

Choice is an illusion really. You can give a hoola-hoop to a child and they may see a million choices, and then make several thousand over the course of a summer. You can give a blank page and pencil to an adult and they will see 0, paralyzed by analysis. A Zen master will say that infinite choice exists in any moment, in any position, if you can silence the mind.

what you're trying to say is that people are stupid and will see choice when there is none. it's called superstition and it's the reason why kids enjoy monopoly.

No, no.

Choice is everywhere. Your mind is a thing, all the time. You think and think and think. Nothing _controls_ what you think. You just think. Games are like these rule systems that help push your thinking around, ideally so that you can get into your own, personal, rhythm.

Kids legitimately have a good, rewarding, experience playing War or whatever (War is the chance-only card game) - I mean kids who are like 4. They pray to the Gods, try to flip the cards over faster, try to look for patterns, try to call out the winner sooner. They play around in their heads - their imagination, where the fun happens - until they realize the nature of the game, that fate can't be controlled, and move on.

Right? Grade 3 arithmetic is interesting to people who like math until they get it (when it becomes rote), and then they like the more complicated stuff. When a game gives you a choice, all the interesting bits are in your head - your thoughts. A game's choice isn't inherently interesting or not. War isn't inherently filled with interesting choices. It is a game that may or may not put interesting choices into the mind of the player.

Zen masters aren't losers. Buddhism, for example, (I'm sorry for the religious bent) is centered on the idea that infinite variety is available in any circumstance with the right perspective. It tries to isolate the idea that what you perceive is in your head. You aren't chained to a reality.

What I'm saying is that a choice is entirely perceptive. You never know for sure that your choice had the consequence you thought it had. Any certainty about reality is a superstition. It's all relative.

The goal of a game designer is to present situations in such a way so that the player is making a choice in his/her head. All that matters is the player's mind. Like they sometimes say in the movies (sometimes): if it doesn't happen to the audience, it doesn't happen.

People will see a choice if they feel two different approaches towards achieving a result, and they can't determine which approach will produce the result (or the better result, or whatever). ME's powerup choices seem like choices if you don't understand the basics of shooter mechanics, otherwise they seem like unknowns, because you know how variable their influence can be dependent on other factors. Though maybe after a lot of practice, or just being perceptive, you may see those choices as choices again (as many people), because you understand how each option relates to a result, and you are conflicted over which result you'd like, or which result is closer to the ideal result you know you like. However, this "advanced" choice is at odds with the narrative presentation of the choice, and then you're stuck with a partially annoying choice, or just one that only accounts for one side of the coin: narrative or mechanical.

The point is, whether a choice is interesting or not has everything to do with how the player can relate an option to a result. If two options conflict and the conflict can't be resolved without actually choosing one and seeing how it goes - or at least that's the best way to do it in-game - then that choice is interesting. If two options conflict and that conflict can be resolved by doing mental work, then that choice is a calculation, which in itself may have its own choices, and still be interesting that way.

If a player can't understand how any option affects a result, whether their understanding is accurate or not, then they are given no choice. If a player believes an option affects a result but does not, as with War, then they are given a choice.

Perception is everything. That's my point. It's like you say with Minecraft: critics of the game forget that the most interesting choices are in the players head, and have just been slyly planted there by the game. A game needs choices. It does not matter how they arrive, because the real game happens in the player's head. The tech is just a tool to make the game. Game's need players. Blah, blah.

[LaughingLeader]

what you're trying to say is that people are stupid and will see choice when there is none. it's called superstition and it's the reason why kids enjoy monopoly.

I heard that game rips families apart... (Okay, I lied. I've experienced it. F*** your hotels.)

But why is that a common mistake? It follows straightly from definition of sandbox.

god knows why.
there are people who think that sandboxes aren't games or something.
and there are people who think that if game designers didn't design their work to have clear goals then it's definitively not a game (all the while ignoring that players can seek goals for themselves; I mean, how can they know that when they are stuck in their design shoes?)

bunch of morons confusing themselves, that's what it is.

I think it's probably the difference between giving a kid some legos, then they proceed to build cities and give their lego characters complex stories and backgrounds, or giving a kid a soccer ball and they decides to go kick it around for a while, whether they're alone or with friends.

Some prefer the tools to create their own game (within some restrictions, i.e. you can't make a lego soccer ball (or can you?))), and some prefer to have the game dictate how the game should be played (within some boundaries as well). Interestingly enough, that kid could take that soccer ball and complete an entirely different game using it, rather than just playing soccer, so perhaps one activity defines itself as "up to you to use these tools to have fun", while the other says "play this way to have fun".

I think I may have just rambled on in a fancy way about labels. Not sure if that went anywhere. I apologize.  

[LaughingLeader]

The goal of a game designer is to present situations in such a way so that the player is making a choice in his/her head. All that matters is the player's mind. Like they sometimes say in the movies (sometimes): if it doesn't happen to the audience, it doesn't happen.

A really simple example of this are horror games. If the player isn't scared, tense, frightened, or generally uncomfortable, then all you have is a shooter with gross-looking things, or a clunky fighter with bad camera angles, and so on. I would think the ultimate goal of a horror game is to get inside the player's head, make a nice comfortable nest, then jar them consistently throughout their playthrough. If the game isn't inside the player's head, then all they've done is create some other type of game with a bad "horror cover-band" feel.

[Graham.]

Adding to the horror...

Classic crit: don't show the monster. The reason: giving hints to the monster's nature throughout the work (i.e. movie) produces a monster constructed from the audience's life experience. That monster will always be more powerful than the one you show: always. The directors job is to show the small slices that he knows he can nail that relate together in a way the he believes people will be able to relate to. That's how you get horror. That's really how you get anything....

[LaughingLeader]

Adding to the horror...

Classic crit: don't show the monster. The reason: giving hints to the monster's nature throughout the work (i.e. movie) produces a monster constructed from the audience's life experience.

Yeah. When you could finally see the monsters (easily, without dying) in Amnesia, somehow I lost the fear I had been building up about them. They made that possible really early in the game as well. From then on most of what I felt was being uncomfortable (and then slightly nauseous when I got to the prison/torture area).

The mind is really the best tool towards impacting players. Not being able to see what's coming after you can inspire you to imagine what it could be, which then can be amplified by the right stimulus.

A problem I had with Alan Wake was that the game would slow down, and the camera would zoom out to show you the enemies that are about to molest you. Who cares if it's dark (and hard to see) if the game warns me about immediate danger?

[Gimym TILBERT]

I think the discussion would be clearer if people acknowledge the difference between option and choice:

Option: different way to achieve the same goal
Choice: same way to choose different goal

Also it's hard to have choice when the goal is to reduce the opponent life to zero, you can merely optimize your skill with the DPS. DPS itself is just a measure of movement through progression of the battle, the distance being health, a battle is really a race to make the opponent reach zero on his gauge before he makes you reach it. How choice can be possible in such a settings? Most game have very little choice since it's about going from START to END, choice is therefore generally cosmetic effect to personalize your experience, since you are just doing the same thing.

Real choice are exclusive and meaningful ie they are not "better" but different statement. A game base on choice cannot have objective, it can only have subject, it would be a true conversation between the system and the player, each of them who can reach a different conclusion that isn't a fixed script goal.

So called sandbox game are generally just a collection of goals, and generally end when there is completion of all quests. Most choice, when existent, in game are tacky and rigid, a tree makes for a bad "choice mechanics".
However I was looking to learn from rpg and how they try to give option to player, how they create great strategic choice, and how to abstract it to any game. Battle system are basically mini management game with a reachable and defined goal (progression mechanics), it broke down to 3 components:

1. information (what I can know)
2. options (how many actions can be selected, what where and when they act on)
3. potential (working name might change - how strong change will be, think elemental weakness/buff/debuff)

Basically any mechanics (specifically spell) is composed of or modify these components.  Strategy involve a mixed of planning, optimizing (for example positioning) or probing (get the right information). Action game tend to had spice with planning and optimizing (sequence of action and optimizing positioning), RPG need a lot more probing.

Regarding that I thought ME2 was a bit weak into presentation (how clear knowing something was, distance for example and obscure form function fitting) and options where generally weak (use right option on right weakness, which only increase the number of manipulation not deepen the strategy) since they don't evolve that much. Basically the probing aspect is undermine by presentation and the fact it does not change during the game.
For me there is 3 level of strategy:

1. Effort is the most simple, it's the basis behind track and field. Just brute force through it, a bit more elaborate is complex sequence to memorize and execute (techniques like hadoken in street fighter). That's a very cheap way to put "strategy", matching the right move and the right weakness fall under this. It makes the game more complicate but not more complex or even deep. The main skill is pure execution.

2. Complexity arise with observation, your ability to recognize pattern. it rely on memorization, puzzle game primary skill is the ability to look and decipher pattern. It's generally great only once.

3. Depth come with anticipation, it's about managing uncertainty, that's where you are doing management. Mind games is the highest form of depth, it basically rely on your ability to predict meaningful randomness aka opponent, you have to stir his mind into something predictable while remaining obscure to him, yet the input must make sense in a strategical sense. Fighting against pure randomness is the weakest depth you can do because it negate anticipation, of course it generally never happen because player have generally his own status and resource that had stability and control, therefore it became a game of homeostasis if the random change are just at the limit of disrupting power aka not too small that they don't have lasting effect nor too big that they can swept any strategy in one move.
Given those distinction I can say a true and pure sandbox game will NEVER have depth, not that's a bad thing, it only says that depth is a by product of fixed goal to progress to. We have absolutely no real experience about thinkig on pure sandbox game as outline above.

[shig]

Holy shit, a five kilometer long back and forth between gimmy and toast. What conclusions will they reach??? Let's not find out.

[Graham.]

Holy shit, a five kilometer long back and forth between gimmy and toast. What conclusions will they reach??? Let's not find out.

Hahahah. Well, I don't hide my nature. Theory turns me on.


@Gimmy,

In my head I've always had: an option is a single path towards a goal, a choice is a collection of options (i.e. a single one). For example, I have 3 options that make up a single choice, or in the same example, 3 choices that make up a single choice. I can say, "Benny, you have a tough choice to make; here are your options..." or "Benny, you have 3 choices...."

You mean like:
  . option: walking or driving to the theater
  . choice: driving to the theater or driving to the amusement park.

The difference is a matter of perspective. There is an implied goal given for the "choice" - theater or amusement park - which is: to "have a good time" or something like that, in which case the choice becomes an option by your definition i.e. going to the theater or the amusement part to have a good time.

I feel like there is value in the distinction though.

----

I'm going to spin off about the "execution only" strategies, or effort. Track and field, for Olympians, is riddled with choices. They have to get to a very particular mental place that gives them the edge that they need, and adapt to the changing situation, their mood and the state of their body. To a spectator, their process may seem mechanical, but if those observations were true then the competition wouldn't be interesting to the competitors or the fans.

I like to think about how interesting swinging a Samurai sword in the perfect way is interesting, because I like Japan, and anime, and all the stuff. High-performance competitors have to navigate a rich world that is their minds every time they perform. They must always find the path between their current (mental) state and the goal (mental) state - which itself has a definition that is in a constant development. As the game changes and the performer's emotions change, he/she has to find new ways to navigate around inside his head, often getting into positions that are in some significant way novel to him. Spectators like seeing how the athletes (or whatever) will "make do" this time.

Straight execution can become very deep if the player is motivated, and has some way to relate his decisions to results. The decisions are made in the head, not reflected directly through action, but some nuance is represented through behaviour.

----

In your break-down, the category "potential" I'd call something like "impact."

----

I read a blog post that was linked in your recent Zelda thread, which was about the author's personal opinion about the decline of the series (well, partial decline). There is a similar point there to the one you made about Mass Effect, in which the player is given powers that have one-situation-only uses. I'm reminded of a doll my sister had when we were young: Ernie from Sesame Street. He had a button to button, a zipper to zipper, a shoe-lace to tie, a snap to snap. Each was independent. The joy came from the tactile experience. The ME example is like that doll.

Zelda, as the blog poster said, used to be about discovering within a world, or the player's skill set, or the mechanics of a screen, then became about finding the right key to put in the right hole, pulled from the player's ever-growing key chain. There is some joy in doing that - tactile - but it wears thin. What it does do is take the discovery and "choice-making" of the original titles and make them obvious to the player, though removing much of its depth; that's why it was done.

----

A "pure" sandbox can have depth. Goal setting is inherent to the human mind. Decision is all about comparing possible futures, which allows us to carry on living (and reproducing). Life is a sandbox. The technical division lies in what counts as part of the game.

If I play in sandbox, technically, then the sandbox gives me no goals: agreed. However, I might create my own games. In fact, I have to in-order to grow. I'm making choices because I'm human. Without choice I'm not doing anything, in which case I'm not experiencing the sandbox at all.

So the sandbox doesn't enforce a choice; but no game enforces a choice. Mass Effect may give me a story choice, but whether I perceive that as a choice is not a guarantee. Taking it to the extreme, if I don't understand what's happening, say because I'm a monkey (and pressing buttons randomly), then my action isn't a choice connected to the "choice" the game presented to me.

The choice that a player makes and the "choice" that a game provides are always distinct things. They share an non-definable relationship. You can in no way prove that a game's mechanics gives any given player a choice. All you can make are general statements.

So, I can play a sandbox and be inspired to set my own goals, maybe subconsciously, then make choices towards those goals. Or I can play Mass Effect and make no choices at all, or make choices that are partially related to what I'm given, or the more likely case: make choices that are heavily related to what I'm given, but still entirely independent from other players' choices in some non-trivial way.

Saying that a game "definitively" creates choice for the player or not is an arbitrary distinction. Sandbox doesn't cross a boundary where "no choice" is enforced on the player. No choice is ever enforced. All we have are games that sort-of, generally, create choices that are "something like this." In the end all that matters is whether the player encounters a choice.

But I agree with the sentiment, and nearly everything. I'm circling semantics, which are by definition perspective-based (and thus provide no right answer). But the conversation is useful.

I break down games in the way that you have all the time too. I have a big list. It's something I always want to see more of.

[C.A. Sinner]

For me there is 3 level of strategy:

1. Effort is the most simple, it's the basis behind track and field. Just brute force through it, a bit more elaborate is complex sequence to memorize and execute (techniques like hadoken in street fighter). That's a very cheap way to put "strategy", matching the right move and the right weakness fall under this. It makes the game more complicate but not more complex or even deep. The main skill is pure execution.

2. Complexity arise with observation, your ability to recognize pattern. it rely on memorization, puzzle game primary skill is the ability to look and decipher pattern. It's generally great only once.

3. Depth come with anticipation, it's about managing uncertainty, that's where you are doing management. Mind games is the highest form of depth, it basically rely on your ability to predict meaningful randomness aka opponent, you have to stir his mind into something predictable while remaining obscure to him, yet the input must make sense in a strategical sense. Fighting against pure randomness is the weakest depth you can do because it negate anticipation, of course it generally never happen because player have generally his own status and resource that had stability and control, therefore it became a game of homeostasis if the random change are just at the limit of disrupting power aka not too small that they don't have lasting effect nor too big that they can swept any strategy in one move.
Given those distinction I can say a true and pure sandbox game will NEVER have depth, not that's a bad thing, it only says that depth is a by product of fixed goal to progress to. We have absolutely no real experience about thinkig on pure sandbox game as outline above.

so yeah i think i like this part of your post a lot

[Graham.]

. It's not bad right.