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Can Illogical Videogames Still Be Enjoyable?
Thanks to Skotos for its editorial arguing that there's a certain level of 'realism' that all games must stick to in order to be enjoyable. The author starts by suggesting: "Bringing realism into a discussion that includes fireballs, trolls, energy swords, blasters, and nanotechnology is, at first glance, totally out of place", but goes on to explain: "Fun [videogame] environments both surprise and reassure us. They surprise us by working on rules that are very different from those of the real world, and reassure us by having an internal consistency and logic that is reminiscent of that we find in the real world." Are there some games which break all rules of logic and still remain addictive?
Now off to RTFA ;)
This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.
NT
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"Are there still games that break all rules of logic ..?"
I don't know about today, but definitely in the earlier, 2D era there were plenty of games that had at least completely illogical aspects to them. I recall that being a huge draw to games for me. There have been a number of recent articles concerning this very same subject, and while some of these have expressed a desire to see more "realistic" content, I say we should try to hold onto that original nonesense to some extent.
Take, for example, Super Mario Brothers 3. As far as I know, this is held as the best 2D Mario ever conceived. The game worlds were plentiful, varied, and fresh. But take a moment to look at the actual gameplay, specifically the logic employed in it:
In order to obtain the powerup that allows mario to fly, one has to first obtain the *leaf* object. One the leaf is obtained, Mario acquires a *racoon skin cap*, and by batting the tail on the hat up and down fast enough, Mario is able to lift off the ground.
There is a certain logic in this over time as the player is introduced to the game vocabulary, and experience with past platformers gives them added intuition, (like the ability to grasp the concept of powerups and other platform style gameplay).
However the symbolism involved is just... what? Leaf? Racoon hat? What?
Beautiful!!
Of course there is the underlying logic found throughout the game that the article speaks of, and this I can agree on simply because it's a logical assumption in itself to have common and established ways for the game to communicate to the player. Otherwise there will be no progress, and then no one will play it.
Are there some games which break all rules of logic and still remain addictive?
Grand Theft Auto III
I find the less realistic ones more fun, Zleda, FF7, Mario and such. Games where you can do completly unrealistic things like have mushrooms fall through your head that make you grow bigger, or gamws where you play little songs on instruments and are transported to different places, not everybody likes those kinds of games. But I think they are the best.
I've gotta go with Spock, really. Logic, even if it's not real-world logic, is a must, because it enables you to actually learn and adapt new strategies to fit a game. A game has to be predictable, not in a plot sense, but in the sense that, once immersed in the game world, you should be able to expect certain reactions and consequences from certain actions.
There's not much more satisfying than grokking a game's engine or AI or setup well enough to use its own internal logic against it. But in a legitimate way, not cheap exploits like fake-talk or rocket-jumping.
L
Chess, Tron, and Warioware.
silly post.
The first and foremost rule of SciFi (and fantasy) is exactly this.
While a SciFi story tells of something that cannot happen in the real world (at least as of the time it is written), it will first set the rules, define what can and cannot be done. This can include adding technology that doesn't exist in the real world, yet-undiscovered scientific discoveries or even completely imaginary impossible concepts such as magic or the force.
But once the pieces are set, SciFi takes extraordinary care to play fair by those exact rules. The moment this unwritten law is broken, we, the spectators/readers, instantaneously lose interest.
Try and remember how you reacted in Matrix: Revolutions when we found out Neo can make a quadgizillion sentinels explode in the real world with sheer thought alone.
We lost contact with the movie at that moment. It became illogical, according to the rules it itself had set forth. It lost consistency. And in doing that, it lost us. Doing that in any form of SciFi/Fantasy work - whether movie, book or video-game instantly repels the spectator because he cannot put himself in the shoes of th ehero and follow any of the plot when the director/writer throws "Oh yah, we didn't tell you but the hero can destroy all the bad guys instantaneously with a twitch of a finger"-type twists.
We lose interest. Most SciFi writers/producers are well aware of this, and have been since the birth of the genre. It's anything but new.
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"Realism" is not "logic" is not "consistency". It's a vocabulary list. :) The article and summary seems to just confuse all these things. There isn't any connection between them.
:)
A game can be consistent, unreal and illogical. Super Mario 64, for example.
A game can be consistent, unreal and logical. Someting like Unreal or Quake comes to mind.
You can have various combinations of the above and still have a successful game, though I'm betting an inconsistent, unreal and illogical game would not be very easy to play.
When trying to understand Mario logic it helps to eat the mushrooms.
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
The correct way to write "tanooki" is "tanuki".
In the japanese mythical stories, "tanukis" are creatures with transformation abilities.
if this is anything to go by
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
One popular site dedicated to geekish errata features a game called Karma Whoring. The rules often change, and the system slowly adapts to ensure that older methods of gaining "karma" become less and less effective over time.
However, the methods involved in gaining these "karma points" often defy logic. From bashing large corporations to posting urban legends ("X is slow because it's network-transparent!") to the foolishly mundane ("You're new here, aren't you?"), there are many methods of gaining karma.
Unfortunately, the methods involved for losing karma are nearly as abundant. From asking why people care about a given topic to using in-game artifacts known as "flames", there are many ways of reducing your supply of karma points.
Sometimes previously positive actions will lead negative results. For instance, all searches for karma start with a story relating to something called an "article". Previously one could be assured a high karma bonus by locating an article (which to many adventurers is easier said than done) and making a copy of what it contained. However, the system seems to have adapted to this method of gaining karma and now generally uses an attack (known as "redundancy") to counteract it.
Sometimes methods can have unpredictable results, depending subtly on exactly how the move was executed (such as the increasingly popular "Michael is the suxx!"). Karma Whoring has an unpredictable scoring system and changing rules, yet is played by thousands on a daily basis.
Somebody get that guy an ambulance!
are games that contain illogical content.(I know, it's probably a terrible estimate) And how many games are there that have perfect physics, and are correct logically? You tell me. I would probably say (in my opinion) that for me, it's the logical stuff that appeals to me in a game to a great degree, but it's the illogical that reminds me that it is a game, not real life, and that games are supposed to be fun.
I love NetHack.
But once the pieces are set, SciFi takes extraordinary care to play fair by those exact rules. The moment this unwritten law is broken, we, the spectators/readers, instantaneously lose interest.
Try and remember how you reacted in Matrix: Revolutions when we found out Neo can make a quadgizillion sentinels explode in the real world with sheer thought alone.
Playing devil's advocate here, but who says that the writer has to delineate the rules to the reader/watcher/player? The characters were going by what they thought the rules were, and something came along to break the rules, thus keeping things interesting-- and forcing the reader/viewer/player to re-evaluate what the rules are.
Personally, games that change the rules on you-- like Metroid, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, and some of the really old shooters-- are my favorite types simply because it's a challenge to figure out how to adapt to a new situation and scenario. Certainly you can do that in a game like chess or Uno-- but if there's a twist to the rules that doesn't come into play for a little bit, then you have to re-evaluate your entire strategy and gameplay.
Admittedly, you don't want all the rules changing at once-- there has to be some consistency-- but that's probably what sets a good game aside from a great one. If you think of it that way, then shaking things up every once in a while is a really good thing.
"Why Subscribe?" Good question...
"logic" is a broader concept than "consistency".
When you say something is consistent, you have to establish what with, or you don't know what the claim means.
When you say it is logical, you sound like you're appealing to a universal concept - you don't have to ask what it's "logical about".
So when you talk about realism and logic in games, you don't necessarily mean correct physics or real-world stuff - but someone might. If you mean internal consistency, call it that. It's precise and accurate.
I don't think any game could be much fun without internal consistency. I can't solve any problems if I can't rely on experience in the game-world, except through fluke. The number of times I've been annoyed with a game because something works everywhere but the place you're stuck in, apparently just "because"...
That said, if I'm not looking for internal sense, I don't mind. I can bumble randomly just seeing what goes on. But that's not the same kind of game - there's no skill, no judgment, and no real rules. It's just an experience.
There's lots of games which are full of illogical things, in a broad sense, but I don't see how that matters.
Realism is not required for enjoyment - as with most things in life entertaining (fiction writing in general - tv, books, etc - and paintball) - it is people doing things or thinking about things that they normally can't do. Video games allow the immagination to wander in a 'new', interactive dimension. I would argue that realism, in most cases of fiction will hinder rather than help - until you start talking about virtual sex and other reality/pleasure based 'games' where realism combined with configurable fantasy is key.
But the topic of 'fun' is what I am curious about. There is something decidedly and disturbingly addicted to making abombinable snowman smack a falling penguin with a baseball bat. It isn't particularly fun, yet it is higly addicitve. There is little-to-no skill involved, yet I have seen people 'play' for hours.
So is there a different between addictive and enjoyable? SSX is fun, hitting penguins is addictive. What do you think?
I would say that the game "Tranquility" might possibly fit into this category. It's available for Mac and PC and is amazingly addictive, though simple.
http://www.tqworld.com/
"Oh yah, we didn't tell you but the hero can destroy all the bad guys instantaneously with a twitch of a finger"
He no longer needs the weirding module.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Even mid-1990s games avoided the "realism" fad thats still going around today. Half-Life is probably the most recent and clear example of this fact, a scientist with knowledge on weapons ranging from pistol, to rocket launchers, to alien weapons saves the world from alien invasion while fighting off U.S. military forces and special op soldiers with a crowbar in hand. Not exactly America's Army realism there.
Gravity. Momentum. Lighting. I can go on. Certain basic elements are just about impossible to violate while still having a game make any kind of sense, and even then it's usually by making a game so simple that they don't apply (checkers).
This is the empty head problem, just about. By removing all bias (in this case the attachment to real world causality), you lose your frame of reference, and can't do anything!
And no, GTA3 does not come anywhere cloes to violating real-world logic: it merely relaxes some aspects of it (sometimes heavily), such as the response from law enforcement.
Violating one aspect of logic doesn't make a game fail this test. You still can have plenty to go on to jump right into the game world and have it make sense, even sans manual.
You seem to have not understood what this article was all about. The main point you brought up is that a leaf that leads to a racoon suit does not seem to follow any reasonable symbolism in the real world. This type of statement shows a distinct lack of understanding. The article is discussing logical consistencies within a game. The leaf is logically consistent because whenever you get it, you are rewarded with a racoon suit. If you got the leaf and sometimes got a racoon suit and it modified the gaming experience in truly random ways, then you would have a logical inconsistency. Symbolism really has nothing to do with it in this context.
I hate liberals. If you are a liberal, do not reply.
I would say that basically every game has its own internal logic, by way of being written in a programming language. Those complaining about how the physics aren't realistic--well, the physics in these games can be explained (look at the program) more easily than they can even in our own world.
I for one would like to see more "abstract" games that attempt to to flout this rule. (Just because there is internally consistent logic doesn't mean that it has to make any sense to the user!)
Could this also be a discussion of the acceptable level of abstraction? Lots of the games mentioned still had relatively grounded concepts guiding them: Pac Man has eating and running away from things chasing you. All of the platformers mentioned involve some physics, like gravity for instance. Puzzle games can be quite abstract, but many are still addictive and enjoyable. Tetris has "gravity" though. Would it have worked as well if the blocks fell up? Could the reasons some critically acclaimed games, like Frequency/Amplitude did so poorly is because they were too abstract with too little grounding in reality?
Puzzle games as a genre jump to mind; Tetris has very little grounding in reality, and neither do more modern ones I've seen like Zoo Cube. Mario and Luigi was often completely off the wall, and I'm sure there's games that beat it in silliness (I've never played Space Chanel 5, for instance). And Wario Ware, of course, is about as near to random as it gets; imagine playing pong with a watermelon as a ball and a human as a paddle...that's only the beginning for Wario Ware....
A game defying all rules of logic would not be playable, but AFAIK this was never a point of contention with anyone. That premiss, BTW, to an argument concerning level-of-fun scaling inversely with level-of-reality-matching, is about as useful as the term 0 in an equation where you want to produce a non-zero number.
Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle. Most warped type of logic in an adventure game *ever*, and yet one of the most enjoyable ones.
Whether the game makes sence in our real world logic, doesn't matter so much as if the rules in teh game behave the same way or at least if they don't we are given a bare minimum of explanation why.
A great example of something that doesn't make sence in our world, but is consistent and makes sence within the logic of the game is, as Poole discusses in his book Trigger Happy, is rocket jumping. In our world shooting at your feet would blow your feet off, in FPS games, however, there is (typically) no way to shoot your own legs off, which may be illogical, or unrealistic, but the effect of combining the recoil of the rocket launcher with jumping is consistent to the rules set forth within the game.
An example of inconsitency that really irritated me was in the first Soldier of Fortune game there is a level in a subway. In one area you enter the restroom and when you start to leave, a bad guy blasts through the wooden entry. Nowever else in the game can the player do this and I think that even the bad guys only do this in one other situation. It is inconsistent. Sure it was done to surpize the player, but it is a cheat if that is the only place it can be done and even if you reload the game to before that, you cannot shoot through the entry (even though if you look close enough you can see the cracks where it will be blown off). It was inconsistent and irritated me. Of course consistency is not a magic bullet. Games can be consistent and still be bad.
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
Bejewled isn't exactly realistic. If it were that easy to mine for diamonds...hen it'd be really easy to get diamonds.
Is this question for real? It sounds like the writer grew up playing too many FPSes. There are plenty of games which have little realism.
Examples:
Super Monkey Ball - Sure, we have monkeys and bananas in the "real world" and I suppose we could seal these monkeys in giant plastic balls but after that it just gets wierd. Hmmm... realistic? Well, I could point out that gravity still points down. That's realistic, right?
Amidar - Alright, get this one. On odd stages, you play a monkey (back with the monkey theme I see) and on even stages, you play a paint roller. Enemies that chase you will be savages for the monkey and... what would be chasing after a paint roller? Pigs! This goes to show that the programmers at Stern didn't have a drug problem. They could get all the drugs that they wanted. Here's a link to prove I'm not making this up.
There's many more that have very little to do with reality. Bomberman, Frequency, Tempest, er never mind. I'll stop while I can still think properly.
Nothing has to stick to any predefined rules, such as the universe we live in, but it DOES have to have rules. It's quite possible for a game to just make up it's own rules, slowly introduce them to the player, and THEN proceed to selectively break those rules. But even showing off how you break the rules should reinforce the rule ("look, an exception!"). Otherwise, it will be extremely random, the player will have no idea what to do, and probably have no fun.
- Jodiamonds
I agree to some extent, and maybe I'm wrong to extend this to fantasy also, but usually when it comes to breaking the rules, that is what the story is all about.
Little guy who was weak, learns new powers, while he learns about the world around him (convienent way for the readers to learn as well). Then you have a few set rules that CANT BE BROKEN, those are they way things are.
Then the character breaks them, because hes special. To me, that's what happens in the great majority of the books I've read.
Are there some games which break all rules of logic and still remain addictive? Yes, the game called "dealing with women."
Are there some games which break all rules of logic and still remain addictive? The game of love, (love), love, (love), la la la la la love.
If you ask for games that are totally irrealistic yet, awfully addictive.
... not quite what I'd call realistic :) Even if you transform Jazz in a human, you end up with a Commander Keen...which isn't exactly your realistic game either :)
:)
/.'ers already know, is equally a classic as it is illogical.
.. :)
1. Jazz Jackrabbit 1/2
2. Earthworm Jim
3. One Must Fall 2097
Jazz Jackrabbit.
Need I to describe ?? A standard 2D platformer where you kill baddies with big guns. The fun I always had with that game was the humor that was in it, a small childish side to it, a rabbit with a gun, running like a lightning and jumping on turtles
Earthworm Jim.
Same as Jazz I guess, very humoristic game, well thought, well done and since I don't see earthworms kicking my butt everyday, I thought it would fit well as an answer
One Must Fall 2097.
Now this one, as probably all
I *never* got bored of this game, which is far more than I can say for many many games today. For some reason, I always loved this game and always will.
If you ask for real stuff, don't look there, Robots fighting each other using pilots linked to the robot... I mean...maybe in 300 years but NOT in 2097
Of course, the "robot" theme was only used to be original compared to all the fighting games but when I look at the game overall, all is unrealistic...original and fun.
A last one I just thought of, "Stunt".
Remember that old car game ? This one ranks just as high as OMF:2097. If I could still play it, I would. (Actually...I can....just too lazy to dual boot or any other solution)
IMO, realism/simulation is one type of gaming, it reaches one type of audience.
Just as MMO has a tartet audience, or sports game, or pinball games, FPS...
It is nothing but one type of gaming, it will always have fans for it, the only reason it began in the 90s is because the developers realized there was a market for it (which also happens to be when the PC games really began to bloom)
If you look like your passport photo, you're too ill to travel. - Will Kommen
It's been years since I've actually played it, but I seem to recall that a decent chunk of the puzzles in LucasArts' Sam & Max Hit the Road had little or no grounding in logic or reality. Nevertheless, it was still quite enjoyable (not to mention hilarious) -- if you had a walk-through nearby.
DecafJedi
my weblog: apropos of something
I don't think he's saying you HAVE TO, I think his point was, that's generally how successful storytelling works -- and for a reason. Pare it down to the basic elements -- setup, execution, closure. This follows well if you see a game as basically an interactive kind of storytelling. That is probably generally true, even though it's easy to cite exceptions (the old arcade game Qix is a good example -- completely abstract).
Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005
You're not a pie-like yellow guy popping pills and colored ghosts aren't chasing you around?
I guess it's time to put down the Quaaludes.
One reason why I never liked sports video games. They were so unrealistic.
I would say "Oh, that could never happen", when playing baseball, football, soccer or basketball"
Why? because I played those sports alot in real life.
Now hockey I did enjoy on the genesis because I never played it.
Same with doom, can't say I ever killed a demon with a shotgun.
The writer doesn't have to dilineate the rules to maintain consistency. George Lucas never established exactly what powers 'the Force' conferred on its manipulators, yet no-one was particularly bothered by the much more liberal force use in the prequels.
What a storyteller must do however, is to provide consistency and plausibility. The Wachowski brothers explained Neo's vaguely defined super-powers in the Matrix as being the result of his ability to manipulate a false-reality through a form of subconscious computer hacking. People accepted this, as they did 'the Force', without a second thought.
However, at the end of Reloaded, and repeatedly through Revolutions, Neo demonstrated super-human powers even when he was outside of the 'false' reality of the Matrix. Most people felt this 'cheated' them of cinematic weight and emotional investment. Without explanation, without clarification, of why the old rules were able to now be violated, the audience felt as if the change, the surprise, was designed solely to fool them, not to enrich the storytelling experience. This generally arouses naught but contempt in the audience.
Zion was repeatedly established as being 'reality', as being our world - and accordingly we cringed with the characters from the sentinel onslaught. The humans had only one effective weapon against the enemy, and using it would render them helpless to any second wave.
Now however, there were mecha, rocket launchers, mystical powers. Hovercraft used mounted weapons to defeat many more sentinels than the relative few that Morpheus could only repel with an EMP. The audience felt foolish that they ever regarded the sentinels as truly dangerous, now that they could be blasted out of the sky by 19th century technology.
It isn't change itself that offends the audience. It is destructive change, that which retroactively destroys the emotional value of the prior experience.
Audiences revile at the 'it was all just a dream/game/etc'-style surprise endings (e.g. 13th floor). In those types of situations, the change robs the previous content of cinematic weight. The character we used to care about and root for turns out to be nothing more than an avatar in a game, or a shadow of reality. The audience is essentially instructed that nothing in the story prior to the change mattered in any way. The participants were not real, and were not in real danger.
This starkly contrasts even fiction in which the unreality of the setting/participants/story is established at the outset. E.g. the Princess Bride, the Neverending Story. We knew that the story was a fairy tale, and were unsurprised when Wesley was allowed to cheat death in a story that otherwise contained no such fantastical diversions.
Changes in gameplay should be handled according to this well known maxim - changes should be constructive, rather than destructive.
Constructive changes will be things that do not force the fiction back to square 1.
A new level may yield a new weapon or new units that change the players tactics - but it should never render the player's previous choices moot.
Deus Ex shouldn't have a level in which the computer systems are hopelessly alien, effectively destroying any character who chose to specialize in hacking.
A roleplaying game should not hand-wave a character's capture and enslavement via cut-scene and remove all their equipment and experience -forcing them to start over.
Those changes would obviate the investment of the player.
Tetris might have a change that requires players to match blocks of colors to score, instead of making lines. This could be a constructive change to gameplay that would create more depth in gameplay. Yet if this new goal was switched to without any notification to the player, they would be justly pissed off that their carefully constructed Tetris block was not rewarded. The unforseeable, unavoidable change would have destroyed the prior effort of the player.
Changes can be good. But it, more than most other aspects of storytelling or game design, must be done well to not have a detrimental effect on the experience.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
Try and remember how you reacted in Matrix: Revolutions when we found out Neo can make a quadgizillion sentinels explode in the real world with sheer thought alone.
"Oh, THAT's what the Archectect meant..."
There was a stated change in the fundamental nature of the hero, followed by a display of said fundamental difference.
The Matrix was a let-down in Reloaded, not Revolutions. It's literary treason to have one episode/chapter be about accomplishing a goal (save Trinity), and the very next episode have that goal nullified as a secondary occurance.
A blind Neo and a crippled (but not dead) Trinity would have more than sufficed for the "heroic sacrafice" part of the Heroic Cycle they were going for. Killing off the focal couple was, IMO, their unforgivable betrayal of the audience and the major reason why the last move was such a let down.
Personally, games that change the rules on you-- like Metroid, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, and some of the really old shooters-- are my favorite types simply because it's a challenge to figure out how to adapt to a new situation and scenario. Certainly you can do that in a game like chess or Uno-- but if there's a twist to the rules that doesn't come into play for a little bit, then you have to re-evaluate your entire strategy and gameplay.
/.!
That's very true. I too like games that continue to reveal themselves to me as I play (various adventure games that continually introduce new equipment, or characters and maps that focus on particular skills). However, what really gets me is games that are difficult simply because they are crappily designed. Of course, I can't think of any examples. Someone post and back me up on this...
When I read the topic for the article, my first thought was that someone else had written a rant about this particular subject. I think a better phrase than illogical might be "not real," as many big-budget games are focusing more and more on realism to the point where complexity is becoming a huge issue. Did you know that Splinter Cell (an excellent game, IMHO) for XBOX has a button dedicated to bringing up the controller button map?
Returning from that sidebar, what really gets me is games that are so poorly designed that they break their own "ruleset" consistently and unfairly -- not to make the user reevaluate the rules, but simply because the designers did a poor job.
IMHO, a simple, easy to remember set of principles is what makes for an easy game. Examples:
Legend of Zelda, A Link to the Past (SNES): Any triangles formed out of scenery or objects on the screen are significant and have rewards hidden somewhere nearby.
Super Mario (all): The harder you work to find an item (i.e. the better it's hidden) the better the reward will be. The warp zones from SNES come to mind, or the extra "Shines" from Sunshine that are hidden in plain sight, but require quite a bit of problem-solving to earn.
This posted turned into my mini-rant on game design, but hey, I can be off-topic, this is
Michael C. Hollinger
totally flaunted the rules of physics and logic and is one of the best games ever.
Stunt Car Racer
So the answer to the slashdot article would appear to be, simply, "No." An illogical game would only be frustrating, but a logical game not based on reality can be fun (Qix is my favorite example). Probably, however, it would have to be fairly simple (again, like Qix) otherwise the player would probably lose interest before the non-reality-based rules were understood well enough to simply play for enjoyment.
Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005
In fact, Splinter Cell is a good example of internal inconsistency.
You play a character who is supposed to be this highly trained black-ops guy...yet he CAN'T CONSISTENTLY HIT A TIN CAN AT TEN YARDS. Unless you use the sniper rifle, of course.
This basically ruined the game for me...I'd be standing next to enemies and not be able to shoot hit them on the first shot, while they have the ability to hit me repeatedly from thirty or forty yards away. It developed to the point where I was better off grabbing people to kill them, instead of trying to shoot them.
Actually, that's true, but at least Splinter Cell's fair about it. Your aim is consistently hit-or-miss (pardon the pun) from the beginning of the game. I'd argue that the issue you've brought up with Splinter Cell is more of a game balancing issue than a rules issue, as this game (at least for me, since I'm bad at shooters) is more about the sneaking around and hiding in shadows. I actually shoot out lights more often than people when playing it, for example.
Michael C. Hollinger
Apart from sports and traditional racing games, very few games carry any degree of realism beyond some very forgiving basics (gravity, mass, etc), which are inconsistantly enforced.
The quote in the article of "a real fireball would leave a smoke trail" reminds me of someone I knew who used to argue that centaurs didn't have arms, and pegasuses (pegasuai?) only had two sets of legs. He argued that since both were clearly mammals, they couldn't have 6 limbs. For a while, he toyed with applying the concept to angels, but then decided that they might not be mammals at all.
The point being, people don't want realism. If it was realistic, you'd never be able to hit anything with your gun, at least, not aiming with a controller. Gravity would act on your bullets, and your crosshair would be off. You wouldn't be able to jump nearly as much or as high in fighting games. Your character would have an endurance meter, and your movements would gradually get weaker and less dramatic looking.
People want something which looks convincing. While most people realize that a person can't really run up and down walls as though gravity was a petty suggestion, if they see it in a game, they want it to look believable, which is to say, consistent with the movement and style of the rest of the game.
At any rate, the article doesn't really address games which don't even relate to the real world, like Pac-Man, Tetris, or Qix.
Happiness is relative, Based upon the way we live.
Dig Dug!
Try and remember how you reacted in Matrix: Revolutions when we found out Neo can make a quadgizillion sentinels explode in the real world with sheer thought alone.
This reminded me of a perfect example of logical incosistancy.
In the second matrix, Trinity is falling off that building. So Neo flys off to save her, and "catches" her flying at a speed so fast, that the buildings next to him explode.
If Trinity wasn't turned into a find red mist when Neo "caught" her, then surely she wasn't in any danger from hitting the ground.
Thanks for the fscking unwarned spoilers.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
Well the problem here is that you're assuming *I* was using "illogical" as an antonym of "realistic". I was referring to it in the context of the game world, and how it communicates to the player, and not in the context of reality in the every day world.
It would make less sense if it were written as "the leaf in Mario 3 causing Mario to fly with a racoon tail is 'unrealistic'" either. Of course it's not realistic. It *is* a video game, and unless it's a bouncing plumber simulation the descriptions "realistic" and "unrealistic" simply do not apply.
We're all gamers here, but we're not all english majors. We can still be friends.
Wesley was allowed to cheat death
Thanks a lot, you insensitive clod! I hadn't finished watching the movie yet.
I'd extend that slightly further by saying that Warioware does an very good job of communicating, but that it's drawing on the entire history of videogame-visual communication to do so.
Thus, it may be a game that has a higher amount of external logic then internal.
~Axord
I stopped reading the article when he started talking about synapses because my eyes rolled up inside my head. I'm all for technical articles on slashdot but this article made me want to find the author and slap him for over-analyzing something that no one finds particullarly pressing in the first place (see also: art history). This is my rant and I'm sticking to it.
Pretty widgets? What pretty widgets?
As long as a game is internally consistant, that's the thing.
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A game without rules or consistency is called play or perhaps art. Computers don't do this, although they can facilitate it.
Children make up games that are pretty illogical and inconsistent when playing. I'm remembering playing Dune/spaceship in the disconnected console room of a water treatment plant. It had multiple stations, lots of levers, dials, knobs and guages.
There are some Calvin & Hobbes cartoons that describe this sort of play beautifully. Google calvinball for examples. Watterson gets it.
Otherwise, games are defined by rules. Even in games whose rules change as you play, the rules are the game.
In the childrens play, it's about fantasy and exploring different roles, or just doing stuff. Convenience and other considerations facilitate this, so the dead spring back to life, roles are reversed, time is turned back as needed, and events are replayed until a satisfactory conclusion is reached, or boredom is achieved. Really, even these games have more rules than it appears, it's just that those rules are inconsistent over time, because they change quickly, and without any acknowledgement.
Art is similar. In art, each piece can have its own dynamic rules. Those rules can be photorealism, or a coloring book page filled in by someone enjoying the color and texture of a red crayon, and ignoring the lines completely. Much art is play.
This is also why playing games with children can be so exhausting for adults. It can be difficult switching gears so quickly. For kids, each one is in his own fantasy world, and any part of the game that is convenient is ignored, until that becomes impossible.
"No, I don't want to die. It's your turn to die."
Assembly is the reverse of disassembly.
I mean, is this difficult for someone?
Dig dug. Qix. Q-bert. Panic! Burgertime (admittedly, burgertime does have its realism moments; the last time I was being chased by a giant sunny-side-up egg, I did in fact kill it by crushing it under a gigantic slab of lettuce, though under entirely less preposterous circumstances.) Pit drop. Arcanus. Anything that "wraps" (Joust, etc.) Arkanoid. Boulderdash. Yar's revenge. Jumpman. Two levels from Pigs in Space. Various Epyx and Spinnaker games. Gyruss.
Unless by depart from our physics you mean that the yellow dot-eating circle all of a sudden can go through the big blue maze bars. I mean, that's pretty realistic, and Pac, nobody's ever heard of that game, Man.
Hint: if you want less realistic games, try playing a game on something older than a Playstation.
StoneCypher is Full of BS
Game Developer magazine has a series of articles that are trying to determine the 400 rules of game design. Things are usually in the format of "Game logic should be internally consistent, except when it shouldn't." I know that sounds a little pathetic, but it's really quite interesting and far more comprehensive than I am willing to attempt to communicate right now.
Here is a little bit of info on the project, but I can't quickly locate any meaty content online....
"The 400 Project is an ambitious attempt to collect "The 400 Rules of Game Design." These rules are being published in the column "Better by Design" in Game Developer magazine. This web site is the first place they have been collected and will serve as their long-term home."
I have misplaced my pants.
It depends on the type of game and the player's expectations.
For example, SWG continues to have problems with the database. It's not as bad now, but there was a time when random items might disappear just because you left your house, or moved across server lines, or bought something from a vendor.
This sort of inconsistency resulted in major annoyance to anyone who suffered it because it was so unpredictable and arbitrary. No one was immune, but crafters were the most heavily hit.
The fact that these are bugs doesn't change the effect. People will work around bugs that are consistent (if a certain special attack never works, people won't use it). It's the lack of consistency or logic that annoys everyone the most because it can't as easily be worked around. And when it affect an "economy", it's even worse because we know it's supposed to follow certain rules.
Were you moving? Did you let the crosshairs sit so Sam could draw a bead? I didn't find the aiming to be all that bad...
What IS an example, in SC, of bad internal consistancy, is that only some lights can be shot out.
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This is about internal consistency. I'm sure someone can prove me wrong, but I can't imagine a game having any success (read: providing enjoyment to more than a few people) without a strong, predictive, internal consistency.
Every game spends some time teaching you it's rules, and then you play the game based on those rules. The better games will continue to refine the rules as you progress, giving you more opportunities for solutions. Things like combining tactics or maneuvers to do things you couldn't do before.
Games like Civilization have tutorial levels to teach you about the interactions that you have to manage and understand. If the world reacted randomly, it wouldn't be much fun to play.
Games like Shinobi give you situations where you can jump or kick or throw, and as you progress, you had better learn well how the bad guys move, and how your actions work, because you have to use that knowledge to jump over the wall, and throw the star to hit the guy while kicking the thing so you can land on the TINY FUCKING LEDGE (it's been 15 years and I still have a little resentment about some of those jumps).
I have misplaced my pants.
As long as your differentiate between changes and revelations, you'll be fine.
The fact that Neo was in a computer generated world was a revelation. The fact that he could be Super Neo was a revelation. The fact that he can wish Sentinals dead is a change.
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I've seen a number of games that cut loose all ties of "reminiscent of the real world". Even Tetris is pretty close - it has gravity, but not much else from the real world. Neither do solitaire card games, or some arcade and home computer games I recall from the 1980s. The Atari coinop vector graphics game Quantum is a good example. But as for defying logic, well, most videogames and computer games stick very strongly to whatever the principles of their internally defined reality are. Programming itself is sometimes referred to as "logic", making a game work consistently is kind of like "carving with the grain of the wood". I know some card games and party games that are about changing the rules of the game as you go, but even those involve following the rules about how to change the rules (even if those change over the course of the game), strictly adhering to what the rules are at any given time, etc. I guess the most willfully and deliberately illogical game I can think of is the old Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy game, by Douglas Adams. At least in the early parts (I never got far), you had to perform actions that would, after you try them, happen to trigger lucky side effects you couldn't possibly have predicted from anything you were told before, you just had to try things until some combination of actions worked out for you. Though there was the internal logic of being able to try the first three steps and fail on the fourth, then try again knowing that the first three steps would lead to the same result again (even if you had to go back to a saved game to do so). I think the main purpose of having game controls, physics, etc. not behave in any kind of consistent way that you could learn or deduce and then use to try to play the game better would be in a gag game made to frustrate or annoy people until they realize it's a "joke" and give up. Even then, certain kinds of formalized behavior produce better humor and practical jokes than total randomness and total unpredictability, I would say.
Furcadia - A free online game with user created content, DragonSpeak scripting, & more.
Um... explain what's so logical about Tic-Tac-Toe. As far as I can tell, that game follows no rules of realism or logic that I've ever heard of.
"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play."
The sci-fi components themselves were acceptable, as were the near-miraculous victories, rescues, and whatnot, but flawless English broke the illusion every time. I think this has a lot to do with self-selection, as she is by no means a sci-fi buff, whereas I and my father love the stuff. We're more willing to let some details slide in our quest to soak up the adventure.
Except for when it comes to Independence Day, which I thought was some rollicking entertainment right up until they introduced the patently ridiculous virus. And if that wasn't enough, it boggled my mind that the aliens were using what should have been Stone Age technology by their measure: two-dimensional monitors observed by living creatures. I would have expected some extremely intelligent AI to be automating most functions, and would have expected multi-dimensional holographic projections, not 20th-century computer monitors. Perhaps the budget was strained to its limits, but this seemed to me where the creator didn't go far enough to create internal consistency, rather than going overboard, as is usually the case.
While a SciFi story tells of something that cannot happen in the real world (at least as of the time it is written), it will first set the rules, define what can and cannot be done. This can include adding technology that doesn't exist in the real world, yet-undiscovered scientific discoveries or even completely imaginary impossible concepts such as magic or the force.
I have to disagree with your definition of Science Fiction, it is correct for Fantasy but not for Science Fiction. The best definition I've heard was in a speech given by Phillip Dick (The most prolific SciFi writer in the 20th century in my opinion). Dick stated that Science Fiction is a story in an alternatre reality that could possibly happen but did not necessarily have to occur. Look at Blade Runner, nothing in that movie is outside the realm of possibility but it is not currently where we are in the timeline.
Then Take a story like Star Wars, this isn't science fiction. Yes it has space ships and hyperspace and giant moving ships that blow entire planets up yet manage not to mess with the planets gravitational forces at all, but this is all fantasy and bad fantasy to boot. The common misconception among people is that SciFi and Fantasy are virtually the same genre, they are not. They deal with two completely different set of criteria, although they can APPEAR similar.
Just my two cents, flameaway
Realism isn't everything but when things are just too off the wall it can be a hang up. In one of the older RE games you had to move statues around in a certain order to open a door in a police station. While this was obviously not realistic the task at hand was clear. In RE Zero in order to operate the emergency break on the train you have to have both your characters at oposite ends of the train entering codes! Why would this course of action pop into your head? Puzzle games like this need a certain amount of reality to allow you to figure out what to do next instead of just trying random crap till something works...
> 'movie, book or video-game instantly repels ... when the director/writer throws "Oh yah, we didn't tell you but the hero can destroy all the bad guys instantaneously with a twitch of a finger"-type twists.'
... The term is a negative one, and often implies a lack of skill on the part of the writer. '(Emphasis mine).
There's a term for that: Deus Ex Machina.
To quote Google quoting gonzaga.edu, 'An unrealistic or unexpected intervention to rescue the protagonists or resolve the conflict
We are capable on building and understanding rich models of interaction, but get confused and disappointed when someone blows them away. How upset were you when you were told Santa Clause doesn't exist?
Paragraph 1:Fantasy vs. Reality gets talked about a lot.
Paragraph 2:Too much fantasy is bad. Too much reality is bad. You have to balance them, otherwise people complain.
Paragraph 3:I like neuropsychology. I read things that told me that brains like to figure things out.
Paragraph 4:If brains can't figure something out, it reacts negatively. Brain like to make sense.
Paragraph 5:Never mind what I said previously, because games are fun because they are goal-oriented and brains like that.
Gah! Five paragraphs with no real point. Nothing to back up any claims made... and I'm not sure what those claims are. In fact, the person submitting the /. asks a question that isn't even addressed in the article. Are there games that make no sense logically but fun? Sure, take the H2G2 adventure game where the solutions make no sense. (Stick a fish in your ear? Towels? Fluff? Brownian motion?) There's your answer.
The Fantasy vs. Reality argument is really a non-argument because it doesn't exist. Well, at least the vs. part because they aren't against each other as much as they compliment each other. Every game has portions of fantasy and reality and strike a balance somehow. It would have been far more interesting to see an article written about the design decisions that go into balancing the two or when one prevails over the other. Instead there's a lot of Dr. Phil talk about an argument that doesn't exist.
absolutely. go read lucky wander boy by d.b. weiss. all about a surrealistic nonsensical game. or try dada: stagnation in blue via netjack
.
. hmmm
Don't know if this answers the question that was asked, but it's my experience.
A quick secondary example to the 'audience feeling foolish that they ever regarded the sentinels as truly dangerous' is Aliens 2, which I saw just after seeing the first one.
In the first Alien movie, there is only one alien, and its scary as can be. The characters just have no defenses against it and are easily picked off. It is finally killed by Sigourney (sp?) Weaver's character only by luck and ingenuity... and its still hella hard to kill: it dies only after being sucked out into the vacuum of space AND being blasted by the (presumably) powerful engines of the spacecraft.
Fast forward to Aliens 2, where we have a more heavily armed but still vulnerable-seeming marine squad facing down an army of these creatures who have been already established to be nearly invincible. And then the aliens get cut to ribbons by ordinary bullets. The only danger they now present to the marines is sheer numbers.
The movie itself was awesome, but I seriously felt let down by this incredible change from the ground rules set out by the first movie.
Sorry that this became such a rant, but to bring it back on topic: I'm not sure if games being internally is a good thing or not (I can't come up with any examples at the moment), but sequels being inconsistant with their originals can be extremely annoying. Case in point could be the "dumbing-down" of Deux Ex 2, if that example hasn't been beaten to death yet.
[SIG] It's like putting a moose in the blender -- a recipe for disaster!
Starship Titanic seems to be illogical as well, but it's just got it's own internal non-intuitive logic. Even when it strays from the logic, it's really just making a different logic.
It's as if any exception to one solution/logic space can be mapped on a more generalized solution/logic space.
Depending on what level you examine any game, the rules are constantly changing. This could be considered illogical if you don't have the capacity to adapt your schema as a game progresses. This is equally true for tic-tac-toe as it is for chess as it is for Civ3 as it is for 1n3@F(;. Everything has structure and logic if viewed from sufficiently far away. Everything is illogically chaotic if viewed too closely.
or maybe i've been through one too many corporate reorganizations and have lost my mind...
I think that Trinity died not for a 'heroic sacrifice' reason, but because she was holding Neo back from doing what he had to do. In order to make peace, Neo had to more or less switch sides, and he would never have done it had his last connection with humanity (i.e. his love) had still existed. The heroic sacrifice was Neo's death at the end-- Trinity's death reminded Neo of his goal.
Either way, it was a death that was exactly what Ep2 was about preventing.
The Walchowski brothers tried to be artistic with their ending and make a statement of some kind, and in doing so forgot the most basic rule of mass-media--leave them wanting more. If they wanted to write something with a crappy ending, they should have stuck to comic books.
Contra 1 - 3. One bullet and p-tayywwn. C'MON!!! It hit me in the FOOT for Christ sakes!!!!
Easy, just have 'em make a game out of Excel Saga. That sucking sound you hear is any and all sensibility being vacuumed out into space.
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have not seen revolutions (and not going to) but sounds to me like limited recursion in controlled env.
This is the fundamental difference between science fiction and fantasy. In Science Fiction, the rules may be contrary to our reality, but once they have been defined, the author generally sticks to them. In fantasy on the other hand, the author is always free to break the rules and use Magic as a Deus Ex Machina.
I find that fighting games for the most part are primary examples of illogicalness in games. Very often button combinations don't do what it seems like they should do (Like I can think of more than one example where -> + punch doesn't actually punch, or something of the sort), and almost every fighting game I can think of does the same thing that annoys me to death- when you are trying to back away from your opponent, and you get hit, it stops your backward movement, and sets you up for more getting hit, as opposed to the force of your opponents hit pushing you more backwards, as would make sense. Oh well...
... how about believable.
Many of the arguments i've read thus far have a lot to do with the logical reasoning of a situation and how it applies to rules set by the situations creator. These arguments go on to state that the enjoyability of a situation (read game/story/movie) is directly linked to how logically believable that situation is.
One thing I'd like to mention though... not all people that play games, read stories, and watch movies are as logically analytical of situations as many of the brainiacs that frequent this site are. I would actually pose that people who do NOT think on the lines of logical reasonability actually have MORE fun than the rest. Instead of a situations feasibility relying upon their ability to logically comprehend it, they rely upon their imagination to fill in the holes that a more analytical person would blatantly complain about to the point of becoming discontent.
For example, one friend of mine having the brain of 5 men considered the latest Matrix movie to be so full of holes that he promptly left the theatres out of utter frustration and disbelief. I on the other hand was more in tune with the symbolics and fantasy of the movie and consider it to be an excellent end to one of the world's greatest contemporary epic cinematic works (second only to the LotR installments).
The same thing applies to many of the games we play. He is almost logically stubborn to the point that any kind of fantasy role-playing game is anathema. I on the other hand find many of the games he plays tedious and dull while he holds that they are some of the best games ever known to man.
To wrap things up, it is a disgrace to think that only logically believable games can be enjoyed because you discount the rest of the gaming population that enjoys their games more with thier creative side.
Use the shadow of a talking skull to talk a bride into rejoining her jilted groom? What?
And let's not forget the breath mints from "Secret of Monkey Island" - poor Otis...
The puzzles do make sense, and are completely logical...after you solve them. I can't complain, though...the games have been great for years, and will hopefully continue to be.
Goo goo g'joob.
Incredible Crisis is one of the coolest games ever!
They don't get more illogical that that..
End of line..
It has momentum.
Gravity implies acceleration.
To me tetris looks like it is played on an air track table.
The FAQ now says that hummor doesn't give you karma. (as though to prove his point.)
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
Nice post. :)
Slightly off topic, but just a quick question that maybe people can answer:
There seem to be a lot of posts that end with "Read the rest of this comment" taking up more space than the rest of the comment. Is the slashdot system comment submission code bugged with an "off by one" relative to comment display?
It seems silly for the code to truncate "Changes can be good. But it, more than most other aspects of storytelling or game design, must be done well to not have a detrimental effect on the experience." to "Changes can\n\nRead the rest of this comment."
I beg your pardon? Who said anything about reality? We're talking logic here.
I do not, for instance, think that in reality, armed riders on horses automatically move 37 to the left or right of the direction in which they're facing. Nor do I think that male footmen only have the option of moving forward or attacking things at their sides, nor if they break through enemy lines and reach the edge of the world do they have the option of turning into female soverigns.
However, within the context of the chessboard, things make some sense. With regards to board layout and the ways that the pieces move, everything is highly structured, ordered, and consistent. Within its own reality, chess is logical.
Reality and logic overlap each other, but neither completely covers the other. It's possible to have logic without reality (All elephants are pink / Paul is an elephant / Therefore Paul is pink), and reality without logic (the scenes depicted in the paintings of Picasso or Salvador Dali), and in some rare cases, neither (trickle-down economics).
You cannot truly appreciate Dilbert until you read it in the original Klingon.
Well, let me use 2 examples.
1) GTA-VC. Sucks. Things out of view appear and disappear at random. You look behind for a second and a car you were chasing disappears in thin air, or you are in a locked room, watch the door, and suddenly a cop starts shooting at you from behind. Consistency badly broken, I'd say the worst thing about the game. Not to say the game itself is not enjoyable, but certainly it's less than it could be.
2) Summoner. Rocks. For the first half of the game you proceed towards some obscure end, collect summoning rings, fulfill orders of a wise, trusted friend, who begs you for help, because "otherwise we might be doomed", such standard stuff. And then, when you think "Cool, I did it!", it appears good guys are bad guys, that all the time you worked towards destruction of the world, that all you've believed in is false, all precisely built consistency gets crushed, you aren't sure of anything anymore, you get paranoid, afraid of your former friends, of getting backstabbed by someone... Suddenly the game catches a second breath and what was getting quite boring suddenly becomes an amazing story! And yes, the game sucks at several points seriously, but in general, inconsistent the storyline is great.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Just think of it as a world where nanotech went horribly wrong
The Mushroom Kingdom was originally inhabited by Goombas until Toad's race, roughly humanoid people who wear large berets, invaded and took over, just as Europeans took over the Native Americans' land in this world. But what the Goombas had that the Indians didn't was allies: the Koopas. They came to help the Goombas take back their own land.
Mario becoming tall/high? That's just the psilocybin that Toad's drug dealer friends hand out to delude Mario into interfering with inevitable Koopa justice.
If it were that easy to mine for diamonds...hen it'd be really easy to get diamonds.
Almost Apollo Diamond has patented a vapor-deposition process to make diamonds at about $5 per carat, and the resulting gemstones have even greater purity than anything De Beers ever dug out of the ground. Within 20 years, the bottom will fall out of the diamond market, unless Apollo manages to join the pharmaceutical industry in lobbying for the Cher Patent Term Act.
Anyway, puzzle games are supposed to be abstract, but they're still consistent within their own little worlds.
As for DDR, I think that's pretty straightforward. You put your feet where the arrows say to put them to do the proper dance step.
Not if you don't have the extra $50+S&H per player to spend on BNS DX-Xtreme dance pads.
I dunno what this "whack pieces" thing is. Maybe if they didn't tie it in with dancing I'd agree
The local Chuck E. Cheese restaurant has a redemption game (i.e. a game that spits out tickets based on the player's performance) called "Stomp the Spiders" or something like that. It's like Whac-a-Mole for the feet. Each of seven panels lights up and the player has to step on it before it disappears (roughly 1-2 sec judge window) to score points. DDR is based on roughly the same concept as that, except 1. the order in which the next second or two of panels will light up is displayed on a screen, 2. the timing is stricter (roughly 100ms judge window) because the audio dictates the timing (except for buggy off-sync songs such as "D2R" and "Hyper Eurobeat" but that's a discussion for another forum), and 3. it doesn't spit out tickets.
To me, logic == consistency.