Slashdot Mirror
Game Design Showdown Leads To Collateral Romance
Thanks to GameSpy for its article covering the "Iron Chef"-like Game Designer's Challenge at last week's GDC 2004 in San Jose, in which "three famous game gurus were pitted against one another to tackle one of the thorniest of game design problems: creating a love story." According to the piece: "The three 'contestants' were Will Wright from Maxis (creator of The Sims and Sim City), Warren Spector from Ion Storm (visionary behind Deus Ex and Thief), and Raph Koster the Creative Director of Sony Online Entertainment (who was instrumental in creating Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies.)" The eventual winner was Will Wright, who "created a war-time romance game that he called a 'First-Person Kisser'", in which "...a man and a woman, chosen by the computer for having similar interests and romantic possibilities, would start on opposite ends of a raging battlefield. They'd have to arrange for a place to meet and they'd try to get there without being killed."
It almost makes me want to try Battlefield 1942 just to see if there are love-sick civilians wandering around dodging shrapnel.
The big names in game design have no idea how to involve players emotionally or write games that don't involve weaponry somehow. That's sad.
he'd probably just come up with something about being in love with yourself.
In Bob we trust.
There are "emotion" games out there but emotion leads to sex and that is forbidden in the US of A. Better to kill then fuck. The Sims are a notable exception but they don't really have emotion just stats.
Of course a super game would be one that manages emotion without violence or sex. Or with. I am not sure on that one.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Has anyone here played ICO? Its a very romantic sort of game; and kinda spiritual too. The basic premise of the game is , young lad gets trapped in castle, meets strange but beautiful ethereal girl caught between life and death. Strange asphyx like creatures hound the girl, and try to drag her into another world. ICO, must solve puzzles, some of which require the ethereal powers of the girl in order to solve.
...
Although not strictly billed as a love story, I felt that the young lad and the girl had quite an interaction with each other, the animation silky smooth. The characters would hold hands, if ICO runs too far away he can call the girl and she will come running, or if she cannot make her way to ICO will yell back. To be honest im waffling and not doing the game much justice.
I just wanted to mention it because despite being a great game, its the first game ive really ever played where central characters have a significant relationship / interplay from which feelings seem to emanate from the screen and into your thoughts.
nick
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
Does it mean that the player is supposed to fall in love with an in-game character? That's probably happened more times than avid players of Tomb Raider or Dead or Alive might want to admit.
Uh... that's sexual attraction, not love.
Characters I *could* fall in love with, if they existed, and which actually made me feel *something* while playing the game, would be:
- Annah from Planescape: Torment :) )
- Fall-from-Grace from Planescape: Torment
- Kana from Kana: Little Sister (spoiler: she isn't your biological sister, stop calling me a pervert!
- Viconia from Baldur's Gate 2
- and, almost but not quite there... Bastila from KOTOR.
Not "love". Just "if they existed in real life, I'd sure like to meet them."
The Tlog - a technology blog
Everybody, actually.
I've never succeeded in anything I do in a game. I've never kidnapped a man from CIA HQ, or escaped a reasearch facility infested with mutants and aliens...
You've never gotten the chance. I have, and trust me, I couldn't have done it without Half Life. That crowbar saved my ass so many times. I would never have expected it
How to create a love story has been a sticky issue in videogaming for many years now. The "contest" part is entirely trappings... You're taking some of the greatest minds in gaming, and having them attack a fundamental problem of gaming. To say that it is an invalid exercise because the structure was loose is to miss the point. A sense of heroism is easy to create in a videogame, but love? Creepy asian body pillows aside, game designers are still struggling with how to emotionally involve players in love in videogames. Love stories are established genres in all other forms of human fiction. How can this basic part of human culture manifest itself in the gaming world?
In the words of panel host Eric Zimmerman the point is to discover "how it is that game designers begin to grapple with conceptual problems."
Spector felt the task was impossible, a position that is completely understandable. I can only assume that you didn't mean that his conclusion was garbage, but that of the other two people.
Koster's solution is interesting... The Massively Multiplayer Romance Novel. Being inherently text based it wouldn't be a financial success, but it is an interesting approach to the problem. I wouldn't fund it, but then again that's why we don't see many love story videogames.
Wright's solution is both practical and might survive a publisher's funding challenge. Nothing pulls people together emotionally like adversity. A game about meeting and solving challenges together in a life-and-death situation is far more likely to cause people to fall in love than chatting on AIM. It doesn't assume that love is already there, it just picks people predisposed like a computer dating service, and gives them adversity to overcome together utilizing gaming situations likely to cause the people to fall in love.
Honestly, Wright's solution to the problem is both elegant and implementable. Personally, I would love to sign up to help develop such a project, and wouldn't be surprised to see it implemented by somebody in the coming years. There's got to be an online dating service looking for a truly unique hook.
The ______ Agenda
Romance as a subject for video games, believe it or not, is not a tricky one. It's not as tricky as it makes it seem, at least if the end goal is to be the equivilent of the movie or the book. If you're looking to transcend that level, then it's a lot more difficult.
What makes a good book/movie romance? There are two possibilties. Either you can relate to the relationship, or you desire the relationship. This really is a matter of taste. Unfortunately, very few games actually have enough romantic tension in them to really even have a chance. What do you have?
Ok, you have the Final Fantasy games. That's obvious. (And some of the best, if you ask me). What else is there? One of the problems is that games with a "love interest" usually use the love interest as the motivation..the damsel in distress syndrome, so to speak. If you do this, it takes the tension out of the whole story. Mainly, because it cuts out most of the chance for the dialogue. Why are the FF good games for romance? Because for the most part, the characters are together for most if not all of the game.
About Wright's idea, I think it's a good one, but not for the romance angle. I like the idea of being able to try to balance multiple objectives within a larger game. One of the problmes of this, and the other given idea, is the human problem. Namely, the number of griefers that only try to ruin the game for other people and get a kick out of it. That's the big problem for any game that relies on human interaction.
Maybe this article doesn't paint the picture well enough. I was at this session and saw the talk in person. Spector and Wright were the two main draws for me, and I remember little of Kosters speech. To get to my point though, this was by far the most fantastic display of genius that Will Wright has shown to this day. You must understand that this question was asked on the spot (by "topic moderator" Erik Zimmerman) with no prior preperation by the three speakers.
Wright first broke down the issue at hand, took an existing game that you would not EXPECT to have displays of emotional involvment in, and in a few minutes created a very interesting concept. As an improve game design session I would say I'd love nothing better than Will Wright leading this industry himself. In person and on stage he is, quite simply, todays genius of entertainment.
Spector, however IS a little disappointing as a game designer. He floundered at the question and admitted after several minutes that he really had no idea how to incorporate something of that sort. He did, however, break down the question and the other speakers ideas, and show how he would go about implmenting their ideas in todays games, and what potential problems might arise during development. Spector is not much of a game designer in my eyes, but a very good director.
These guys know what they're doing. Designing games, especially games that are NOT the everyday production, is very, very difficult. These people are qualified, by and large, to be leading our industry, and I wish you could see them speak for yourself because it's highly worth it.
Following in ICO's steps are Wind Waker and Prince of Persia, which both borrow heavily from ICO. There were a few times in Zelda when I almost cried from parts of a very scaled down love story, but I admit they were fairly non-interactive. The snapy princess in PoP was very much Ubisoft Montreal's iteration of the girl in ICO.
I felt that the relationship between the gamer and Bastila in Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic was perhaps the best conversational and interactive relationship I'd ever "played." Instead of sketching up complicated systems like Spector and Wright tried, Bioware just hit the player with the old standard of branching conversations, but did it over and over and over again. The characters change through conversation and time, and it's this transformation in their character that makes it so interesting, and ultimately, worthy of caring for.
However, I agree with you. ICO does it best. The final scene in ICO is ranks among the best in gaming, and is without question the best demonstration of a love story in video gaming.
Grim Fandango, though, makes a pretty damn close second. It's nowhere near as "serious" as ICO, but in the way that it exercises its love story, it does it very well.
As already stated, it's pretty disappointing how poorly our obvioulsy dysfunctional gaming giants performed with the love story. It shouldn't have been a surprise though, because none of these guys have every really done anything emotionally compelling (save the scariness of Spector's System Shock). That's not to say they're gaming losers, it's just that I doubt anyone will be shedding a tear over Everquest, Simcity, or Deus Ex. Unless it's because lag made them lose some huge loot, their city is in white flight, or their inventory system is unmanagable.
I suppose one possible reason for game publisher's ineptitude in creating decent love stories, either on the fly at a conference or with years of development, is that their product's recepients (us) don't care much for love stories. I have a hard time believing that, although I suppose it might be true. I think a better reason is the one proposed by Miyamoto. Violence is the easy way to incite an emotional response. Love and sadness take far more work on a narrative level than simply coding something like Battlefield Vietnam, or even Deus Ex. It's riskier, because it's very easy for a game to come across as insincere. With technology, you're safe. It's either good because it works, or it's bad because it doesn't. Love, well now, that's far more subjective, isn't it?
With that in mind, I will say this. The copout by Spector that the technology isn't up to par is the preposterous. With that statement he made yet another step downwards from the person I was envisioned him as. Obviously, he's of the mindset I just mentioned. For him, and apparently the others, love is a technical implementation, not a narrative one. It's a coded system, not the way a character talks or walks or reacts in the game(cf. ICO).
Shame on them. The reliance of the love story on narrative is why these guys not only missed the point, but are running the complete opposite direction. The connection of the Game Design Showdown to Iron Chief is appropriate. And if that's the case, these boobs tried to build a house instead of culinating a dish.
With bony hands I hold my partner
On soulless feet we cross the floor
The music stops as if to answer
An empty knocking at the door
It seems his skin was sweet as mango
When last I held him to my breast
But now we dance this grim fandango
And will four years before we rest.
Y'know, the second I glanced at the title, my perverted mind immediately thought "INCEST!". But that's just me.
;p), I hear the PS2 port is a PG-rated version of the PC game. Since I have somewhat played the English translation of the game before, I can say a little bit on the basic plot.
:o
On a more serious note, I hear that the PC version of Private Nurse has been ported to PS2. Although the PC version is an adult game (read, not for children
Basically, you're this guy, whose name I forgot, and you're fairly weak from some sickness. You have a childhood friend (female, of course), who's good at sports. Then, one day, your mum decides to hire a private nurse for you. In the PC game, ther e is no adult scenes until the last 10% of the story. It's really just a clickathon. But the music in the game is really excellent, and you can listen to them outside of the game as a normal audio CD. The voice acting was excellent as well, and as with most adult-adventure games, there's usually a couple of different endings to get. This game would be perfectly fine even with the adult scenes removed, which is what I think is the PS2 version, named Private Nurse: Maria (the nurse's name)
POSSIBLE SPOILER
*pssssst* she's Heavenly (in more than one way)
Founder of Mirror Moon - Tsukihime Game Trans
Kana from Kana: Little Sister (spoiler: she isn't your biological sister, stop calling me a pervert! :) )
It's strange, but judging from the bishoujo games I've played, nobody in Japan is biologically related to their sister...