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[Evan Balster]

So I've got this narrative game, right?  I also fancy I have a certain amount of talent as a writer, both in the sense of being able to put a story together and being able to convey it through language.

Who the hell wants to read in a game, though?

But it's not that, so much, it's this -- I've got a specific sort of feel I'm after in the gameplay experience.  Quiet.  Subtle.  Visceral.  Unbroken.  I want to demonstrate ideas visually.  I want body language to do most of the talking for my characters.  But that's hard to do.  I'm a good programmer -- a damned good programmer, but I'm having pipe dreams about using IK systems and custom body rendering to do all this and maybe it's a little far-fetched.

I've got this vision of my game as using no text, or cutting its use of language down to tiny morsels -- punctuating the most important moments in the game with a single sentence.  "Luka sees more with one eye than others do with two."  I'm in love with the idea of speaking a universal language.  But I'm throwing away a skill I have, and a very powerful method of communicating ideas.

This isn't so much a question as a regurgitation of internal conflict, but bear with me.  Recently I used Fuck This Jam as an opportunity to break away from the stagnant indecision I'd been wallowing in, and prototyped one of the game's mechanics as a sort of text adventure, which allowed me to develop its structure and gave me some hope about the project.  A 360-line script parser and a 160-line runtime are enough for me to tell a story, and for once my content exceeds my code.

At this point the most reasonable course of action seems to be prototyping the game in text and moving towards my more ambitious visions after.  I feel this may have its pitfalls if I grow too dependent on writing, though, and that the conversion may be painful.


So I ask you, writers of TIGSource:  If I think I can tell a story without words, is it worth forgoing my skills as a writer?  Doesn't speaking the language of action resonate with what a game is?  Or am I simply crippling myself with unnecessary restrictions and technical goals?

[moi]

I don't consider myself as a writer, but I will say that the language of action is maybe not so different from the written language, it's all a question of rythm and of choosing what elements to show and what elements to suggest.

[Evan Balster]

Suggestion -- yes.  I have a million ideas about that.  My characters largely have a sort of placid nature, and I like the idea of making their emotions more implied than express in many situations.  While that's not quite expression through action, I feel it works in much the same way.

[Graham-]

My game has no text and a lot of story. I'm planning for most of it to be communicated through character behaviour, sometimes meaning just animations.

IK systems isn't even in the right ballpark. They wont solve your problems for you. They are just tools. What you need is to build a vocabulary.

For example: FF6 chars can fall over, sit-down (like wounded, feinted, tired), wave a finger, raise their arms (in exclamation/celebration), and lower their heads. They can also blush, walk, walk slowly, and run. These are a set of things used to re-enforce narrative elements. In a sense they are their own vocab. They have a range of expression.

You can teach the player to read very complex mannerisms. One example from my design is like this.... The NPCs communicate complex ideas through very subtle maneuvers, so when one char points his finger at you he does so in a way that communicates elements of a wide range of his feelings at that moment. There is no strong system of interpretation in reality for this kind of thing so I'm going to build one and teach the player it.

The design is complicated, but I think I can give the gist with an example. The whole game will consist of challenges during which the player will have to master the meaning of his companions'/enemies' behaviour. Simple system: NPC acts, player responds, NPC/the-game responds in a way that indicates the level of success achieved by the player i.e. did he interpret correctly or not. This stuff happens non-stop for the entire game. That way I can teach the player to be aware of subtleties in NPC behaviour.

Simple example for you.... Say your chars have 2 "axes" of expression: love/hate and anger/sadness. You could create 3 walking anims for each axis: high, med, low. So you'd get this:
  . high love                      | high anger
  . medium low/hate         | med anger/sad
  . low love (high hate)      | low anger (high sad)
So 6 anims total.

Then you can blend the anims using some skills - this is your IK equivalent. So you can blend in two ways: you can create a gradient for each axis, creating something like "32% love," or "95% sadness;" and you can blend each axis together, creating something like, "high love _and_ medium anger/sadness."

Make sense?

Like: high love mixed with medium anger/sadness - shows a char with a lot of love and no particular anger/sadness.
Of course you can mix the gradients too: 72% love, 10% sad.

And you can repeat for other kinds of anims... attacking, gesturing etc.

Then you can add stuff for concepts - like sign language (!) - like a circle motion with the head to represent hunger.

--

Speaking through action _does_ resonate with what a game is. The single most powerful method of communication for an NPC is through their mechanics - the ones the players are always engaged in, the reason they're playing.

Do not write a story _then_ try to translate it. The story you create in an action-expressed way will be limited by the vocabulary you create. Mario jumps and runs, then his entire game is about jumping and running. You can create a diverse story with action-only expression, but you must know what those expressions are before creating a story out of them. Imagine designing Mario levels assuming Mario can do anything then deciding he can only run and jump, and in only a very particular way.


  

[gimymblert]

Sorry if it's in french but that's the basics, then you would need the book "animation survival kit" and making comics from scott mccloud and you will have all the basic bricks

[Alec S.]

I think there are two issues going on here, and it's what you mean by action.  Communicating primarily with visuals and movement is something that resonates with what a movie is.  It can be used in games, just as words can be used in movies, but I think the equivalent for games would be communicating story through interactions and mechanics, which is another sort of action.

That's not to say that communicating through visuals, action and sound rather than relying on words isn't a noble goal.  Here's a movie clip for inspiration:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fx15s_HAkgU

[Graham-]

Yeah, they are different. Mechanics are just so much more complicated....

[Evan Balster]

Graham:  This topic was meant to discuss action as it plays into interactive storytelling rather than the technical implementation of that action, and that was the nature of my question.  Regarding the specifics, I plan on doing things subtler than intentful gestures and explicit expressions.  I want logic for eye contact between characters (or the lack thereof), body posture and the like.  People are always doing things with their hands, as you'll notice if you go to a public place and people-watch.  Always doing something that gives them tactile feedback -- I want to model that sort of thing too.  I don't think a set of blended animations will suffice, so I'm interested in investigating a more semi-procedural approach.  Hence my mention of FK/IK systems for modeling all of it in addition to intentful motions.  But again, this all gets a bit far fetched.


Gimmy:  I'd definitely do well to look into some books on animation and body language.


Alec...

I've got some ideas on the interactions in this game which I've been thinking over for a long while.  The body language I mention isn't something I envision as a mechanical part of the game, but would be ever-present.  You wouldn't control it directly, but you'd certainly have an influence on it.  The game itself is very much about interpersonal interactions and self-exploration on the part of the protagonist, and these things are manifest in the mechanics I've designed.  The player would be capable of reminding the character of something which makes him frustrated or wistful, but wouldn't be able to make him act that way directly.

[wccrawford]

I think the best writers already tell the story through action.  For a book, they're limited to words.  For a game, you'd actually show the actions instead.  Isn't the advice usually, "Show, don't tell."?  It can be taken literally, but it is meant figuratively.  You don't say "Jack is cool."  Instead, you write about things Jack does and let the audience decide he's cool.  Likewise, you don't tell a game story in text when you can show the action on-screen. 

I think your overly-elaborate IK schemes are actually a whiff of the future.  LA Noire was lauded for their facial changes.  That's just the start.  Having full-body body language will be important in future realistic games.   (There will always be room for stylized games, though.)

[Graham-]

@ OP

The reason I brought up that stuff is b/c it seems like you're slightly underestimating the problem. It's like you're asking what a level design will look like before you even get the gist of your mechanics.

Whatever vocab you create out of action will be a very small subset of an actual language. When you understand what the subset is, say by exploring how you might build it, then you can ask real questions about what sort of story you can tell (and how you might do it).

If you do have a very general question about story through action I don't know what it is. The general answer is yes, any story can be told. What matters is how rich your "action language" is, how easy it is to "read," and how well you teach the player it.

[gimymblert]

Body langage isn't hard to do at all, it's mostly parametrics. The real problem is parsing and generating "sentence" with meaning. But even that you could still use "template" and match them to situation "pattern" by filling the splots, basically making a chatterbot but with body language. As there is no such a things in game, it would be a major progress if you pull it even in a crude way, kinda like eliza.

[Evan Balster]

I've always fixated on how a game's player-avatar is the one thing that is onscreen at all times.  Why, then, is the character so much simpler than the world around it?


Gimmy:

I plan to supplement the body language with some symbolic stuff, though I'd like to minimize its use where possible.  I acknowledge that motions alone aren't going to be enough to convey everything I want to convey.


Graham:

It's a less-than-ideal arrangement in that my story is decided in the broad strokes and I'm in the process of evaluating whether a system of my creation will be able to convey it adequately.  Text is the conservative decision -- the fallback, perhaps -- in this regard.  My goals with the "vocabulary" of this language are creating things that are intuitive to read, but ideally can be very subtle.  Culture-independent mannerisms:  Shifting weight from one leg to the other when uneasy.  Avoiding eye contact with another character when a lie is told.  Exchanging glances wordlessly.

As a programmer I want to approach these technologically.  As a storyteller I know that human actors (made interactive) could convey the story elements I've designed.  So my goal is to simulate their role, or at worst make an awkward effort in that direction.  In that sense I have some understanding of how my "level design" and "mechanics" fit together.  At least insofar as I understand the limitations of pantomime and visual symbols, which I will concede is presently inadequate.  It's understanding and working within those limitations which is the biggest challenge for me.

Assuming (wildly) that the technical aspects of those systems are in hand, it becomes a problem of game design to find a means of implementing something like the desired story in the format I describe.

So I suppose the best direction to go from here would be to switch to design-mode and think about what kinds of mannerisms would play into a specific interchange between characters, or the behavior of the player character when left alone with his thoughts.  These are the fine strokes of my design and storytelling, into which I've yet to delve.  The moments which will comprise the broader story I imagine.

Pardon if I seemed dismissive before; you've brought up a very good point.

[gimymblert]

What I meant is that body language is already expressive (especially combine with facing and positioning) but very little has been done how different body gesture work in a sequence, in parallel, how focus sort between meaningful gesture and noise, how turn taking take place in multiple character interaction and how context modify meaning ... There is only 4 game so far that tackles that in their own different ways: Façade, The act, sweaty palm, spy party.

[Graham-]

Pardon if I seemed dismissive before; you've brought up a very good point.

That's all right.

Assuming (wildly) that the technical aspects of those systems are in hand, it becomes a problem of game design to find a means of implementing something like the desired story in the format I describe.

This is the smaller of your two problems. The tech is tied to the design. You can't assume one is complete and build the other, then return to the first to create it.

Building Mario so that running and jumping felt good took a lot of iteration. Creating levels that took advantage of that was a secondary step. You could say that the two were developed in tandem, though really the control of Mario probably usually took precedence.

You won't be able to find a general solution for expressing all of English through action, and especially not one that you can build yourself, that is interesting to interact with, and suits your game. You will be able to build something extremely small, very limited; and that limited system will reflect your strengths and weaknesses in creating it, as the control of Mario - and every other interesting character - reflected those of his creators.

I recommend being very clear with yourself about how you might express even a handful of ideas through action, then sketching out how much of your story you can tell with that, then adding more to your "action language," then seeing how much you can express with that, and so on. See the parallel to the prototype cycle? Develop some mechanics. Nail them. Then see what kind of game you can make with that. Then repeat.

[Evan Balster]

You won't be able to find a general solution for expressing all of English through action

Aha.  But this isn't my goal at all.  I want to express relationships and emotions.  These characters won't be speaking with some kind of sign language, just letting on the broad strokes of how they feel.  I'll deal with more specific ideas in other ways, though I'd like to minimize their use.

I recommend being very clear with yourself about how you might express even a handful of ideas through action, then sketching out how much of your story you can tell with that, then adding more to your "action language," then seeing how much you can express with that, and so on. See the parallel to the prototype cycle? Develop some mechanics. Nail them. Then see what kind of game you can make with that. Then repeat.

I'm inclined to avoid treating mannerisms too much like islands of meaning.  They're more interesting when taken together.  Again, I'm going for a sort of subtlety that's not well suited to the mentality of "clearly conveying specific ideas" -- this isn't my goal most of the time.  Anyway, that said I could certainly stand to start putting a list of mannerisms together as a designer and getting them operative once my tech is up to speed.

[Graham-]

Yeah I understand. The point is still valid though.

Want to know what kind of levels you can create with a "jumping" mechanic? Make a jumping mechanic, then try out a level.

I'm working on a very subtle context-sensitive system too. That system demands prototyping even more than a non-subtle one. So your argument only furthers my point.

ps. Don't wait for the tech. Prototype on paper right away.

[Evan Balster]

Yeah.

My concern was that I wouldn't be able to know how it'll work/feel until the tech was in place.  But if I do more conceptual prototyping work that'll help a lot.

[Graham-]

Well I can understand that too. I like code a lot. Programming is my background.

Just sketch like 5 things your chars can do. Implement 3. Then create like a handful of "story pieces" that arrange those 3 in interesting ways.

Then return to the general question.

[gimymblert]

Somewhat relevant:
http://computationalcreativity.net/iccc2012/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/103-PerezyPerez.pdf

[Evan Balster]

Graham:  Following your advice I've implemented the "simplest" facet of the body language I want to create -- the eyes -- though they ended up being a bit deeper than expected.  (Which is good!)  I referred to some helpful materials on anatomy and animation, which have kept me aware that what I'm doing is for all its cleverness still a very crude illusion.  But it's already enough to express quite a lot, with the help of some context.

Check it out:





EDIT: scroll down for a GIF.


I might start a devlog at this point.