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[Alex Vostrov]

This blog post that I just made is going to touch a nerve.  I still think that it needs to be said.

I’d like to relate to you an experience that I’ve had recently.

It was the day after I released the Zombie game.  I was deliriously happy with success and telling everyone in sight about it.  I bumped into a co-worker in the break room that day.  She has a management position within the department, a couple of kids and absolutely no interest in games (other than as a parent).  In other words, she’s a “normal person”.

Usually, I don’t bother to explain my game design obsession to non-gamers.  They’re not interested, so why bore them?  Well, that day we were chatting about events and I mentioned my game.  She wanted to know what it was about.

It was there that I had a rather uncomfortable experience.  How do I explain to a mature adult that I just made a game about killing huge crowds of zombies?  I mean, I made them pop in large satisfying blood clouds when they die.  This struck me with full force at the moment – I must have had a deer-in-the-headlights look.  Fortunately, I read a lot of game design theory.  With the virtuosity of an abstract art museum curator I said that the game was about territory control and resource management – which it is.

Have you ever tried to explain a game to a non-gamer?  Why do you have to eat mushrooms and jump on top of enemies?  Killing people makes coins fall out?  We take this stuff for granted and ignore it, but outsiders see it for what it is.  We are living in a delusional bubble where violence and immaturity have become banal.

From that moment, I had a new goal.  I want to make games that are as meaningful as the books that I read.  I want to make games that I can show to my co-workers and not feel like I’m 12.

[Kekskiller]

Haha, that's so true. You know what? I LOVE IT.

[Inanimate]

That is a really nice

(A.) Title

(B.) Story

(C.) Revelation

(D.) All of the above

[Zenorf]

Have you ever tried to explain a game to a non-gamer?  Why do you have to eat mushrooms and jump on top of enemies?  Killing people makes coins fall out?  We take this stuff for granted and ignore it, but outsiders see it for what it is.  We are living in a delusional bubble where violence and immaturity have become banal.

Very true. This was very amusingly covered in a japanese game show last year. Perhaps someone can remember and pull up the link. It's funny and relevant.

Also. What's worse is that as indie devs we all live inside a bubble inside that bubble. We often go "Yay! pixels" and mainstream gamers just sit and stare at us. To us it's beautiful and classic. To them it's a 20 year old shit game.

From that moment, I had a new goal.  I want to make games that are as meaningful as the books that I read. 

As an art form or as a relateable story? If it's the latter it's not too important and you may as well write a book I reckon. Gaming is a hobby and much like other hobbies including those done by "normal" people it's hard to relate to for outsiders. If a baseball card collector had gone on for an hour to your boss about a new card he got and all it's great stats and history she would likely have given him the same look don't you think?

If it's the former though I can't comment. I don't really understand gaming as an art form I have to admit.

I want to make games that I can show to my co-workers and not feel like I’m 12.

Don't worry. The Wii, iphone and Pop Cap have this totally covered. You just make what you enjoy. We'll still love your zombie killing games

[alspal]

I guess you can choose different themes for your games so that they reflect your real interests. That's only natural. Edmund McMillen/Paul Eres/everyone is doing that.

[Alex Vostrov]

I guess you can choose different themes for your games so that they reflect your real interests. That's only natural. Edmund McMillen/Paul Eres/everyone is doing that.

In Edmund's case it's being trapped in a box with a talking cancer growing out of you. =) I kid, I kid.

I don't know if theme is enough.  If the mechanics are the same, your message hasn't really changed.  Does anyone see Schindler's List: The Platformer?

[alspal]

Sure, it could be a platformer collectathon where you save the jews from being shot by nazis etc.

[moi]

I know a coworker friend who's from the SNES generation he told me he loves oldschool games. Even to this guy I feel silly trying to talk about my games, and most of the time I end up avoiding the subject

[Alex Vostrov]

Sure, it could be a platformer collectathon where you save the jews from being shot by nazis etc.

I'll let this stand by itself.  Either my head is stuck far up my ass or this idea is so obviously surreal that it requires no comment.

[Zenorf]

I don't know if theme is enough.  If the mechanics are the same, your message hasn't really changed.  Does anyone see Schindler's List: The Platformer?

Platformer no but the sandbox style point and click adventure puzzler was awesome simply cause you could do so much more than the film showed. (I know it was a book first but the visual style is obviously inspired by the film). You go around and yeah there is a lot of talking but the conversations lead to the people having different dispositions towards you. Gaurds are more likely to turn a blind eye when you are up to something you shouldn't be and you can do all kinds of sabotagey puzzles to save more and more jews.

Sure you can't save them all and there is a little historical inaccuracy but the point is you can do things a little differently and you can even save the little girl that had the red coat. Or if you like you can just line em all up and shoot them for a 5 minute long game but that's fair cause it's a totally open ended game.

The hardest thing is when you have to make an example of a prisoner to cover your own actions "for the greater good" so you have to choose one of several prisoners you'd been talking to before to take a bullet for you.

[Alex Vostrov]

Platformer no but the sandbox style point and click adventure puzzler was awesome simply cause you could do so much more than the film showed.

This gets thumbs up from me, with one minor quibble.  Toss the puzzles; keep the story.  Olympic runners don't need crutches.

[gimymblert]

Even when game had something interesting, you still had too much dilution across silly action.

• - ho but this game discuss reaally important issue like [serious bullshit (think aynd ryan objectivism as exemple)]"
  - Interesting, maybe i can have a look
  - Oh right! let me show you [firing some game (like bioshock)]
  - That look great, sure it doesnot look like those silly pixelly mario when i was young
  - This is the introduction were you are introduce to [serious bullshit premise]
  - mmmm
  - [30mn of shooting gallery later] oh yeah and you can decide [serious bullshit (whether to harvest (kill) or save little sister)]
  - meh, all you do is shooting, you cannot talk? why are you running like that everyware, that look silly, it's non sense and it's boring
  - Wait, in 30 mn (of random action) i will show you [serious bullshit (snippet of scenario that doesn't say much except at the end when it became less silly)]
  - It's too long, it's boring, this is not interesting, you are just wandering aimlessly shooting people, that's all i see. I don't want to wait that long to see pointless audio crap and badly animated cartoon... [leave with delusion and disbelieve]

SRSLY! We have a problem of pacing, telling, clarity, accessibility and maturity.

edit for format

[drChengele]

So, you don't think about how ridiculous gaming conventions are until you have to talk to non-gamers? I think about it ALL THE TIME. My problem is a complete opposite - I would like to be able to instil some more ridiculousness. Frankly I don't see what stopped you from saying "Oh it's a silly little thing, about murdering zombies en masse. Arcadey stuff like that sells right now. Zombies are in right now, see, in the pop culture and the games industry in particular. It's not mindless though, it's designed with territory control and resource management in mind." There's really no point from shying away from what you've made, even if non-gamers are involved. The sooner we all realize WHAT we're making, the better.

Funny thing is, it's a pretty schizophrenic situation out there right now. Games were SUPPOSED to be ridiculous up to some undefined point in the past, but for some reason now everyone thinks they should be more "serious" which somehow unfortunately translates to plot related stuff. While games were limited to colorful balls and bees and sprites on the screen you could do anything. My (arbitrary) rule of thumb on it is that if your game is side-viewed 2d or is a puzzle, then it is abstract enough to get away with all sorts of silliness (which doesn't forbid such games to be serious and dark). But once you go to isometric and 3d land, and start emulating a world, and wish the player to immerse into this world,  you might want to reconsider coins popping out of dead spiders (Diablo, I'm looking at you). These games are no longer the timewasters that Super Mario Bros 3 used to be, they attempt to pull you in as a part of the setting and don't realize how ridiculous they look. Half-life (all of it), the holy grail of immersion in gaming, is just as ridiculous as doom in some respects.

You hit a huge nail square on the head and I've been thinking of writing an article on the topic but I don't have an outlet to post something like that. Just think about any game in existence, not taking just the plot but the mechanics as well, and try to look at it through the same eyes as you would a book or a film.

I don't think there are many games out there that aren't ridiculous to explain in at least some way, including the flagship titles of AAA industry.

Gamer: "So this game is set in a postapocalyptic future, see, it's got brilliant atmosphere and RPG elements that add up to a unique--"
Non-Gamer: "What the HELL, I just shot that guy through the head TWICE, why isn't he dead?"
Gamer: "Well your weapon is pretty weak, and he's probably a high level raider, so--"
Non-gamer: "WEAK? It's a 9mm automatic, I don't care who he is, if you shoot someone point-blank, through the head, with two rounds, from a firearm, HE IS FUCKING DEAD."
Gamer: "Yes, but his hit-points..."
Non-gamer: "What is this 'hitpoints' you're talking about? I never heard the term in medschool".

[Zenorf]

So, you don't think about how ridiculous gaming conventions are until you have to talk to non-gamers? I think about it ALL THE TIME."

Even during sex? Dude you are hard core. Maybe he never talked to a non-gamer before. Or maybe his article just works better if it features a revelation so he's telling it first person like the coffee and blow job joke in good will hunting.

I don't think there are many games out there that aren't ridiculous to explain in at least some way, including the flagship titles of AAA industry.

I loved the original PC Rainbow 6. You got shot. Usually your guy died. If he was lucky he was incapacitated so you could just never use him again or if he was very lucky he was just wounded and took a few missions to recover.

I know what you are going to say, that jumping between the heads of several guys is totally unrealistic but they do do that in hollywood films as well. Of course Hollywood films are often pretty ludicrous as well but with many well established stupidities such as rambo, where taking a bullet slows him down for a couple of minutes before he goes off, kills half the russian army and then drives away laughing across the desert. Presumably to the nearest hospital where he can drop his macho facade and squeal for help.

RPG elements

To me that always translates to "bullshit levelling stuff to give a false sense of achievement and player reward at the expense of a more realistic and intense gameplay mechanic"

Mass effect is a prime example. If you stripped all the levelling crap out and all the bollocks trekking around scanning planets you'd have a much more intense gaming experience in my opinion,

and one that would be more enjoyable for multiple play throughs, but what do i know?

[gimymblert]

Seeing your avatar with daffy reminds me something: animation was supposed to be ridiculous and fun... Expert animator like JOHN K believe animation dead right after the 50. I think any animation expert can recognize the sheer awesomeness of the american animation between the 30 to the 40, the timing and the pacing, the animation inventiveness and life still left un match to this scale at this day. Something was really lost since...

But i'm glad we have move on or else i could not have experience the sheer awesomeness of ghost in the shell 2nd GIG oav. Something totally different in tone and in style, not counting in seriousness, regarding old cartoon of old. Of course they were ridiculous in a good way, they were high craft, they were art, but they were sugar, you cannot eat sugar too long, you need all sort of meal.

Today's game are the 40's of animation, a peak in fun, from here it can only decline toward new interest...

[J. R. Hill]

Platformer no but the sandbox style point and click adventure puzzler was awesome simply cause you could do so much more than the film showed.

This gets thumbs up from me, with one minor quibble.  Toss the puzzles; keep the story.  Olympic runners don't need crutches.

Re-quibble!
Hey man, if you saw an Olympic runner crutch his way to victory you know it'd be awesome.
Likewise having an awesome story is great, and the puzzles compound the awesome.

[drChengele]

I understand where you're going with your Rainbow 6 example, and indeed, there have been other games which are realistic to semi-realistic simulations to which this thread doesn't apply. They are far in between but they exist. IL-2 Sturmovik and Red Orchestra come to mind, and Heavy Rain sounds like something that might be applicable, though I haven't played it.

I think Hollywood movies you mention are a good yardstick - they can often be ridiculous, but are rarely unwatchable. But if someone made a World War 2 movie with immediatelly effective medikits even James Woods would immediately gain the right to ridicule him publicly. That's how ridiculous games are.

Viewed objectively from a plausibility standpoint, 99% of "serious" games are, by default, more ridiculous than the most hideous things the film industry has to offer.

Instead of embracing this ridiculousness as one of the great strengths of the medium and revel in jumping on heads of turtles, games industry is currently on a holy crusade to implausibly emulate reality and become Hollywood's little brother (and is failing miserably at the task). Gaming could have its GitS today if it wanted to, but the devs are too busy with the latest deferred shader to bother with a PLAUSIBLE implementation.

Quite simply, almost all the "realistic" games require of the player to shut down a portion of his brain while playing. It a sorry state of affairs that could be different but isn't. Obviously 90% of people don't think this is important because they still associate video games with Mario level silliness. This is not bad at all. The problem comes when people making Bioshock include a health bar in the game that can be replenished by eating stuff and then want it to be taken at the same standard as a piece of cinema or a book. They are making all of us look bad that way.

I couldn't agree more about mass effect and RPG conventions in general, but that's another story.

[Chromanoid]

i think we have to describe games as what they are
a game where you shoot zombies is a game where you shoot zombies. when you have to describe a movie that has the same theme it is a bit difficult too.
it is a pity that most games only have such one dimensional meanings. as an excuse one could say it is hard to change because action games should base on a small set of rules to be playable. maybe cinematics can help against one-dimensionality but non-gamers associate the interactive part of games with games (which is often very similar and lacking in variety).
if the gameplay is similar to board games or other long known activities like solving puzzles/riddles etc. the game is accepted well or at least the non-gamer understands it. but if you want to present a game where you shoot zombies by maniac button pressing your counterpart has to know something about videogames and their nature of entertaining in very simple repetitive ways.

[Zenorf]

I understand where you're going with your Rainbow 6 example..

nah. I was totally agreeing with you. Just saying I miss the concepts that were around at the time. I also want a mirrors edge sequel but that's a totally different discussion.

immediatelly effective medikits

That's just flavour of the year decade design by numbers shite. I scoff every time I see medkits in "realistic" games, and I'm not just talking about WW2 games but sci-fi or drama. Farcry 2 for example. What a pile of crap with it's magical injection of super healing in it's "gritty and realistic" universe. I'm not just ragging on mainstream games. The original Halo brought the regenerating health bar to the masses but it made sense in that context. He had an energy shield but if his armour was damaged it didn't automatically repair. Sadly they just simplified it by the second game to be recharging health. Then stupidly used the same system for ODST but I'm getting back to ragging now I'll move on.

Bioshock

Bah. Bioshock is 10 steps backwards from system shock 2. It can go fuck its self.

[Ben_Hurr]

What a pile of crap with it's magical injection of super healing in it's "gritty and realistic" universe.

What would you propose 'realistic' games do?
One hit kills on the player if they're shot?  If there's a more realistic solution that's still fun, I'd love to hear it. :O