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[Gnarf]

so i don't see the mere existence of goals as the big problem with games, as they do, just the *types* of goals that they commonly have. [...]

i think the reason most games are the way they are is because it's very simple to code shooting or jumping or moving, but relatively harder to code more complex things. but computers are now powerful enough to handle complex simulations rather than simple ones, and it's a pity the power of computers in videogames is usually going towards modeling in detail how a head explodes rather than modeling a game's forest's ecosystem in detail, or modeling a game's town's economy in detail.

Then... model forest ecosystems? I don't quite see what the big problem is. If computers weren't good enough to do what you wanted, but now they are, then it's just to go ahead and do it. It's not like anyone's trying to stop you.

[AshfordPride]

OH ME OH MY ANARKEX WE HAVE BEEN FOUND OUT

ALL THIS WAS A CLEVER RUSE, WE ARE ACTUALLY JUST TWO TWELVE YEAR OLD CHILDREN STANDING ON EACH OTHER SHOULDERS INSIDE OF A TRENCHCOAT DESPERATELY TRYING TO MAKE OUR COMBINED 23 TACTICAL NUKES MEAN SOMETHING IN THIS GREAT SWEEPING WAVE OF CHANGE THAT IS THE GLORIOUS SECOND COMING OF NONGAMES

well at least here you're basically admitting that you are making fun of them and not seriously considering what they say.

We laugh at them, you guys tell us to be serious.

We be serious, you guys tell us we're TOO serious.

We take it easy, and you guys tell us we're just laughing at them.

Fucking thing.

the rest of the responses are largely defensive emotional reactions to something you're attached to.

NOT MY HALOS

TAKE MY CHILD, MY ARM, MY LIFE

BUT DONT TEAR ME AWAY FROM MY HALOS.  MY GEARS OF WARFARES 2.  MY PRECIOUS MADDENS.

i'd like to see more games about breaking up marriages

i think the reason most games are the way they are is because it's very simple to code shooting or jumping or moving, but relatively harder to code more complex things.

I certainly don't know much about much, but I certainly do know that Tale of Tale's probably aren't breaking their back coding any of their games.  And I'm pretty sure that 99/100 times any nongames are going to be infinitely easier to code than ANY given commercial game.  

[Anarkex]

(Go fuck yourself)

I guess that was the only thing you objected to in my entire post. I'm not going to argue about women here, that's not the point of this thread. In any case, it doesn't matter. What I'm trying to say is that widening the demographic of people who play video games has nothing to do with the number of intelligent people playing good video games. This is the closest Michael Samyn came to being right in the entire article: baiting people with "candy and pacifiers" does not make them gamers.

So back to business.

I especially like the idea of not seeing video games as a subgroup of games, but something that doesn't need goals or rules.

This is basically what I got from Erik's presentation, and I can't really make any sense of it. Goals aren't something that are forced on you,or decided on by the game dev. Every action has a goal, even if you don't acknowledge it. So, the actions of a player in-game always have a goal, even if it's something simple and obvious like learning the controls or exploring or something.

And what makes you think games "don't need rules"? The mind cannot FATHOM a world without rules! Everything, everywhere in the universe, operates on rules so complex that we can't even imagine it. And video games are just simulations of smaller universes with simpler rules.

It all really comes down to what alistairaitcheson said. There are some rules in games that I guess maybe you or Michael Samyn is tired of or something, so you call it a "convention" and you say it's something games don't need. But If I'm playing an FPS, I'd like an HUD to show me my health and ammo. It's completely subjective which rules are important and which ones are unnecessary, and it's only when all the rules work together that we can pass judgment on a game. As designers, we just have to decide for ourselves which rules are the ones we'd like to implement. There's nothing revolutionary about that: it's called designing a game.

Also Paul jesus christ man I'm not mad or anything. This is enjoyable for me. If I type in caps it's for emphasis, not because I'm actually screaming at my computer screen. And yeah, part of it is me putting on a show for the people reading, because I want to make this interesting and exciting. Is there something wrong with that? It doesn't alter any of my opinions or the points I make. They are there, even if you're too blinded by my vitriol to see them.

[Dustin Smith]

the rest of the responses are largely defensive emotional reactions to something you're attached to. which is completely normal human behavior of course, when someone criticizes something you love (in this case games) there's an urge to hit back, to attack them. nonetheless sometimes tigsource acts better than this, and that's what used to make it appealing.

Paul,
I'm not butt-hurt because ToT's an affront on my belief structure -- it's just that I played through The Path, The Graveyard, and Fatale and didn't see any, you know, gameplay. I'm all for experiential experiences but they don't work for me. As I said before ToT can do their thing, but just like racing or sports games I simply don't care for them.

[FredFredrickson]

I especially like the idea of not seeing video games as a subgroup of games, but something that doesn't need goals or rules.

This is basically what I got from Erik's presentation, and I can't really make any sense of it. Goals aren't something that are forced on you,or decided on by the game dev. Every action has a goal, even if you don't acknowledge it. So, the actions of a player in-game always have a goal, even if it's something simple and obvious like learning the controls or exploring or something.

And what makes you think games "don't need rules"? The mind cannot FATHOM a world without rules! Everything, everywhere in the universe, operates on rules so complex that we can't even imagine it. And video games are just simulations of smaller universes with simpler rules.

Well said! I think it's hard to expect players (or viewers, if you're shooting for "art" or  "notgames") to want to invest time and explore the universe you present them for no reason other than for the sake of doing it.  It's like making a movie or writing a book that has no message, no point.  Why would anyone care?  Why should they?

[Gnarf]

And what makes you think games "don't need rules"? The mind cannot FATHOM a world without rules! Everything, everywhere in the universe, operates on rules so complex that we can't even imagine it. And video games are just simulations of smaller universes with simpler rules.

I think the idea is that if you notmake a notgame then it has no rules.

[Sam]

I guess that was the only thing you objected to in my entire post. I'm not going to argue about women here [...]

That was the only part I objected to - the rest I just disagree with.

Speaking of disagreeing:  Widening the demographic of people playing games does have something to do with the number of people playing 'good' games.  Even if those newly attracted people are only playing 'bad' games (which I assume is your point) they will gain experience with the basic mechanics and dynamics at the root of other games, which will allow them to migrate to 'good' games far more easily than if they had never played a game before.  Certainly they'll not all migrate, but some fraction will.  Even big strong men like yourself read children's books before they moved on to Ecce Homo.

--

@FredFredrickson
Hopefully they will care to explore your universe because it's interesting.

My understanding is that a part of the Notgame thing is for players to want to interact with your world because that interaction and that world is interesting, rather than because they feel compelled to in order to collect 100 stars, defeat the boss and save the Princess.

I believe this is related to the talk of removing many of the rules around designing game worlds: Specifically that they should be designed to provide a clear goal to the player and present obstacles to reaching that goal.

[bento_smile]

The ultimate irony of notgames, is that it's prescribing a bunch of arbitrary and vague rules to define a movement which is focused on creating games without rules.

Despite the weird and un-gamey nature of my own games, I've felt welcome on every indie games forum I've been on, with the exception of notgames.

Edit: It just struck me, that the impression notgames gives is one of reducing the scope of games, rather than broadening it. Which is a shame, really.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

@gnarf - hm, who said i'm not? that's kinda exactly the game i'm making right now actually. i just wish others would also try some interesting things. it's just sometimes i think there are like only 5 prominent indies i can think of offhand trying interesting / experimental things (increpare, cactus, tale of tales, jason rohrer, and erik svedang) with ten thousand other indies just making platformers and shmups and stuff. but perhaps that proportion can't really be changed, it's probably a natural phenomenon.

@thedustin - ya, they had no gameplay. they weren't fun. but do games have to be fun, and have to have gameplay? that's kind of their point: they specifically set out to make games without gameplay, games that aren't fun, but which may be worthwhile to play in other ways. and you're saying it's a fault that they achieved what they were going for? even though many people appreciate those games for other reasons (just check out the tale of tales forums and read the posts of their fans)?

[SirNiko]

My only problem with ToT is that their marketing is so very negative. "No" this, "No" that. It's not about what they've added, but what they've removed. By extension they're claiming these things are all bad, things that need removal like a bad habit.

I'd like ToT more if they could pick a more positive position for their company, and focus more on what their products provide that I can't find elsewhere than telling me to hate the things that I currently enjoy.

[FredFredrickson]

@FredFredrickson
Hopefully they will care to explore your universe because it's interesting.

My understanding is that a part of the Notgame thing is for players to want to interact with your world because that interaction and that world is interesting, rather than because they feel compelled to in order to collect 100 stars, defeat the boss and save the Princess.

I believe this is related to the talk of removing many of the rules around designing game worlds: Specifically that they should be designed to provide a clear goal to the player and present obstacles to reaching that goal.

My feeling is that unless the designer puts something interesting in the world, and thus, gives the player a "goal", however abstract it might be, that's still counter to what "notgames" claim to want to be.

You can't just create a game universe and expect people to want to explore it.  You put things into it to make people want to explore it, and in doing so, you (inadvertently?) establish rules and give the player goals.

[AshfordPride]

they specifically set out to make games without gameplay, games that aren't fun, but which may be worthwhile to play in other ways. and you're saying it's a fault that they achieved what they were going for? even though many people appreciate those games for other reasons?

If you set out to do something terrible, and do it, is there even a KERNEL of merit in what you are doing?  Shit man, Limbo flashbacks up in this B.  You can't validate your actions by stating them.  There has to be something PRODUCED from your actions that justify them!  If they said that they wanted to make a game without gameplay, without rules, without fun and then produced a GOOD game, then WOW, I guess games don't need stuff like that to be good!  But if they continue to make bad games, with the intention of making bad games, only for a small group of people who enjoy bad games, then all they are doing is creating a little circle in which they are basically doing nothing more than circle jerking.  They're producing games for a very accepting, deluded audience.  An audience that is very eager to write off any sort of opposition as a bunch of college aged bros sitting around drinking 4Locos, playing Modern Warfare 2, and discussing some good names for their abs.

We want new games too!  We want games that push the envelope of what games can do!  We want to play really great games too!  We're not satisfied with mediocrity or bad games, we just rebel against that by, well, playing GOOD video games.

(just check out the tale of tales forums and read the posts of their fans)

Paul, please, I have a heart condition.

[Loren Schmidt]

It seems like people are doing a good job of trying to be understanding rather than just trying to riddle this presentation with holes. I appreciate that.

It's all too easy to forget that the point of analysis is to learn, not to tear people down or 'win.' In fact I'd go so far as to say that if your approach to analyzing anything is based solely on a desire to prove yourself right, then you are doing yourself a disservice. Chances are, the person you are scrutinizing genuinely does deserve respect and there is something you can learn from them.

I'd also like to assert that arguing over what video games should be is a dead end. The medium is a huge ocean of possibilities, and we've only just begun to sail about one tiny corner of it. Michael Samyn has one idea of which way to go, and you have another. That's a good thing. Maybe if we all explore in different directions we'll find amazing things more quickly.

Bento Smile-
I totally agree that the way to encourage growth is to encourage freedom and experimentation, rather than to be restrictive and make new rules. Personally, I love the toylike video games people have been making for decades. I think we should keep making them and keep playing them. I also think there are other great possibilities out there which are worth exploring.

I especially like the idea of not seeing video games as a subgroup of games, but something that doesn't need goals or rules.

That's a really interesting question. Suppose you make a wonderful game world for people to interact with. Why should people visit it? What exactly does it offer people? Games to date have tended to assume that they need to focus on goals- using people's competitive nature or OCD collection to make people want to play the game. But there's a whole set of other set of activities and emotions that people find very rewarding...

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

@AshfordPride you do realize that probably far more people bought, played, and enjoyed the path than about 90% of other indie games, right? so in that sense, it's not just an inner circle that enjoys bad games, it's a large number of people. it's still a niche, still a subgroup, but it's a larger audience than most indie games have.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=559

here's the steam forums for the path -- it isn't empty, it has pages of people, many of which liked the game. compare that to other indie games on steam, many of which have only a few threads in their game's steam forums, or none. so it's a bit disingenuous to suggest that the people who played and enjoyed the path are some tiny alien group who enjoys bad games, they're gamers just like you and me.

similarly, many hundreds or thousands of people play the endless forest every day, which is more than can be said for many mmo indie games.

so basically, they do have an audience which enjoys the games they make, and it's not an insignificantly tiny audience of weirdos. saying that it is is just another way to dismiss them.

(of course, people still dismiss things regardless of how many people enjoy it. just look at all the hatred final fantasy or world of warcraft or the sims or second life or spore get, despite their huge audiences of people who enjoy them. besides, you've already said how little it matters to you that people enjoy limbo, and that anyone who enjoys it is wrong.)

[Absurdist]

If you set out to do something terrible, and do it, is there even a KERNEL of merit in what you are doing?  Shit man, Limbo flashbacks up in this B.  You can't validate your actions by stating them.  There has to be something PRODUCED from your actions that justify them!  If they said that they wanted to make a game without gameplay, without rules, without fun and then produced a GOOD game, then WOW, I guess games don't need stuff like that to be good!  

Their point is not to make games. Therefore ToT's products should not be compared with games. The Path may be a terrible game but, IMO, it is a good "notgame."

Are paintings terrible because they have bad game mechanics?

[Anarkex]

You can't just create a game universe and expect people to want to explore it.  You put things into it to make people want to explore it, and in doing so, you (inadvertently?) establish rules and give the player goals.

You're making a good point, Fred, but don't think the rules only exist when the game gives the player a reason to play it. Rules have to exist for the game to receive inputs from the buttons, and for anything to even show up onscreen. A lack of rules in ANYTHING is more or less inconceivable.

@gnarf - hm, who said i'm not? that's kinda exactly the game i'm making right now actually.

Paul that seriously looks like a pretty cool game, but don't think it's anything more than a new twist on rules we've all seen before. From the screenshots it appears to be an adventure game with arena-shooter controls like Aquaria, with possibly some tactical and JRPG elements. That's awesome, by the way, but it's not some kind of subversion or elimination of the rules I defend, it's just using rules and conventions in a new and interesting combination. Like Borderlands, and Suguri, and Senko No Ronde, and Touhou: Shoot The Bullet.

i just wish others would also try some interesting things. it's just sometimes i think there are like only 5 prominent indies i can think of offhand trying interesting / experimental things (increpare, cactus, tale of tales, jason rohrer, and erik svedang) with ten thousand other indies just making platformers and shmups and stuff. but perhaps that proportion can't really be changed, it's probably a natural phenomenon.

If for one moment you think that Rohrer's "Sleep Is Death" is anything more than a 2-player RPG, or that "Gravitation" wasn't a platformer, or that "Passage" wasn't a top-down exploration game like the 2D Zeldas or Yume Nikki, you are mistaken. These games are just very simple and highly aesthetic approaches to traditional game genres. Most of Cactus' works, including my personal favorite "Clean Asia", are just interesting new rules and abilities implemented into, well, platformers and shmups and stuff. Blueberry Garden was a metroidvania-style platformer, even if it was dreadfully short and simple. You're letting unconventional aesthetics and your relationships with the games' creators move you to believe that these games are somehow innovating in ways that can't be found elsewhere in the industry.

ya, they had no gameplay. they weren't fun. but do games have to be fun, and have to have gameplay? that's kind of their point: they specifically set out to make games without gameplay, games that aren't fun, but which may be worthwhile to play in other ways.

I don't know what you mean by "gameplay". Games do need to have mechanics, though. Mechanics are begotten by rules, and as I said, without them, you can't do or see anything, there's no game. And "fun" is another vague term: no, games don't have to be pleasant constantly, very challenging games can be frustrating, and that's awesome. But games do need to be COMPELLING, or else, why would anyone play them?

Their point is not to make games. Therefore ToT's products should not be compared with games. The Path may be a terrible game but, IMO, it is a good "notgame."

Are paintings terrible because they have bad game mechanics?

You're invoking intentional fallacy. If Nintendo designed Super Mario Bros. 3 to be a good hovercraft, it would still be a good game, even though it was intended to be a hovercraft. No matter how much they wanted it to be what they said it was, it was still a game. Same with ToT. They are still making games, even if they've convinced themselves they aren't.

[Absurdist]

You're invoking intentional fallacy. If Nintendo designed Super Mario Bros. 3 to be a good hovercraft, it would still be a good game, even though it was intended to be a hovercraft. No matter how much they wanted it to be what they said it was, it was still a game. Same with ToT. They are still making games, even if they've convinced themselves they aren't.

If I removed all the text from a novel and left only the illustrations, would it still be a novel? No, it would be sequential art, or an art book or something.

In the same way, if you remove goals and obstacles from a game I think it's safe to say that you are left with a notgame.

[Sam]

@Anarkex

Alternatively: ToT are not making games, but you've convinced yourself that they are and are judging them as such.

You've done this by extending your definition of what a game is.  Specifically "video games are just simulations, and all simulations are games."  A virtual wind tunnel used to help design cars is (by your standards) a game.  As a game it is pretty terrible.  The engineering company that produced that game should buck up their act, improve player agency, add some clear goals and a story.  The airflow mechanics were well implemented at least.

[AshfordPride]

not a small group of weirdos

That's not the point at all.  Sizeable or not, they are still a minority.  A comparably tiny minority to some indie games and an even smaller one to any given commercial game.  Three pages on the Steam forums, half of them technical issues, does not have me convinced.

And I don't see how the number of fans could ever hope to matter.  The fact that a few people like ToT is disheartening, if a majority of people liked them it'd be TERRIFYING.  Either way, we get back to the point that this doesn't really change what they're doing.  I don't care if ten flies or a thousand are telling me to eat shit, I'm still not interested and it still doesn't make eating shit any more appealing.  

If I removed all the text from a novel and left only the illustrations, would it still be a novel? No, it would be sequential art, or an art book or something.

No, WarHampster, quit it with all the metaphors.  If I removed all the polygons from a game would it still be a game?  If I ate soup for the spoon would gameplay be the broth?  If I replaced your ancestors with Fruit by the Foot would you still be human?

What are you trying to say man?  We've gone down the winding road to metaphor town and have brought a whole bunch of other mediums into the fray that really have no place in this discussion.  You CANT removed goals from a video game.  You CANT remove rules from a video game.  If you can do any sort of function in a virtual world, there will always be some sort of payoff, no matter how tiny or insignificant it is.  Even if it's just a matter of exploring the whole map.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

@anarkex - i mentioned my game because it has to do with natural ecology, not because it has no rules, no goals, or didn't fit in a genre, or was a notgame. that was the context of my reply. there are also a variety of things about the game not mentioned on the site, such as the terraforming aspect, or the variety of ways to finish the game / variety of endings. the major difference between my game and similar games though is that creatures can be friended in a variety of ways, and once friended become helpers -- this too isn't unique, but it's rare when you can make every enemy in a game into a helper if you're nice to that enemy.

similarly, i wasn't saying cactus, rohrer, etc., don't make games in genres and don't use ideas from traditional games, just that they innovate in certain ways that others do not. for instance, remember how dungeon was different for every person who played it? yes, it's a platformer, yes it uses simple graphics, but innovation doesn't have to be in the gameplay or graphics or programming, you can innovate in the meta game, in the art style, and in many other ways.

likewise, blueberry garden was innovative not because it was a metroidvania, but because it has a persistent, active world which continued to evolve even when you weren't looking. seeds you planted grew, fruit was created and carried by animals to new areas, which grew new plants. you could also change the shape of the ground itself with the fruit. that's different from what metroid did. in metroid, if you left an area, and came back, it was exactly the same, nothing changed. not so in blueberry garden. in metroid, you could destroy certain blocks, but couldn't fundamentally change the landscape the way you can in blueberry garden.

i agree that games have to be compelling, but (as i mentioned) many people do find tale of tales' games compelling. and many others don't. like with most games -- this is a broken record, but just because you don't find them compelling doesn't mean they aren't, or that others don't. i don't really see how it's arguable that ToT's games aren't compelling for anybody when there's clear evidence that many people compelled by them.