What if Game Graphics Never Aged?

An anonymous reader writes "If you've heard of Procedural Synthesis, you already think it's amazing. It's been used to create some extraordinary visuals in tiny packages, like .kkrieger, which is less than 96 Kilobytes big but still has graphics that look like like a modern PC title. Beyond that, there's even more that Procedural Synthesis might be able to do; what if your old video games never aged, never looked out-of-date? Imagine putting Halo 2 into your Xbox 360 only to have it automatically upgraded to look like Halo 3 in graphical quality. This article examines the unexpected way that Procedural Synthesis might impact gaming in the generation after the Xbox 360, PS3, and Nintendo Wii."

Comments

Disposable Games Vs Design Patterns

[eldavojohn]

When I read this Slashdot article, all the rules of software design came flooding back to me. Low coupling, high cohesion, encapsulated complex structures, all that jazz. Before you even started to program a complex FPS game, you might start by carefully separating the layers and keeping things like two dimensional surfaces rendered to be de-coupled from other things like the AI of the enemies. Separate the garphics from the rest of the gameplay. I completely buy into the possibility that games can be designed well enough to abstract their graphics to a point where the same exact graphics package can be used in even several different types of games.

When I read this article, it sounded like a classic example of someone going nuts with the design patterns that encourage encapsulation and separation of layers to improve modularity. Like someone had actually put in a lot of effort to the game to reduce the amount of effort that will be required later when new platforms and libraries come out for the game. On top of that, the imagery doesn't come from a data file but instead is derived on the fly from a library of procedures--something easily achieved by the strategy pattern. The funny thing is that if other games have abstracted their graphics packages sufficiently, they should be able to rework the libraries to be procedures instead or maybe even build adapters to .kkrieger's procedures.

Why don't we see this more often in all games? Because I think most games today are disposable. They're built for one console or platform with the intent of only running on the current version of Windows or Mac and with no interest in coming out with new releases that support new hardware or software. They do this because games are construed as novelty software that expire as the user tires of them. Games like WoW or other MMOs might bring about a shift in the way game designers spend their efforts. Maybe games will start to take a longer time to develop but last a hell of a lot longer than they traditionally have?

Re:Disposable Games Vs Design Patterns

[xenocide2]

What a silly progression. Games aren't nessecarily stories. PacMan was no less a classic for it's shallow plot, nor Tetris less addictive. I'd much rather see them focus on innovative gameplay than improving the plotline in "The next epic quest where a lone boy finds some friends and saves the world." It's a lost cause; if you seek a story, read a book, watch a show. Games are not storytelling.

Re:Disposable Games Vs Design Patterns

[stunt_penguin]

Plot != 2-3 minute cut-scenes. Half Life 2 and the ongoing story of what is effectively HL3 (the episodes) has one of the finest game plots ever (even though it only gets about 7/10 in pure originality stakes), yet hasn't got a single cut-scene, just a few pauses in gameplay in Dr. Kleiner's lab early on (during which you have enough to do), and a quick note from the man in black.

An adventure game (FPSs and RPGs, the likes of GTA games) that does not have a plot may be fun and may satisfy the visceral need to shoot at stuff, but the lack of a soul, a central concept, a dramatic tension will mean that the game's design and construction will suffer as a result; there's no motive for anything. Plot done properly is an essential part of a really satisfying game experience.

That's not to say that games that lack plot can't be good, or fun, or interesting. It just means that if you're lobbing bullets at someone, it's nice to know why. Makes you aim for the head/crotch a bit more.

Re:Disposable Games Vs Design Patterns

[paralaxcreations]

You're right, games aren't storytelling. That's what the poster above you said, that they should work on it.

By your same argument, graphics have nothing to do with games, and thus shouldn't be worked on either. Pong was 2 lines and a box. When books were first written, I wonder if anyone said "paper isn't for writing on, if you want a story, listen to your father's." When film first came out, I know many people said "it will never take off, no one wants to watch pictures on a screen," but here we are today, with people on the Internet telling others to turn to film for storyline because it doesn't belong anywhere else than the two established mediums.

It's more than possible for a game to have good graphics, good storyline and plot, and innovative gameplay. Unfortunately, the past few years have been fueled by video card manufacturer's pumping out graphics technology faster than most software producers have been able to keep up with, and so audiences became captivated with "oooh shiny water"...gameplay and storyline dropped by the wayside while pushing eye candy to the limit flourished. Like all things, though, people got tired of all glitz and no substance, and we're seeing that curve level out.

With mobile devices becoming more and more popular, we're beginning to see gameplay-based games gain some popularity again, and focus will probably shift there for the next few years as portable technology gets smaller and faster. At that point, computers will be what PCs are today, we'll see a shift back to storyline for a few years as RPGs gain popularity on the Nokia Futura in the Japanese market (and some may make it Westward), just in time for the next big graphics push, this time cell phones (if they're still called cell phones at this point) will be included.

Yes, I play the occassional game on my cell phone while waiting for class to start, or when the power goes out (as it tends to do often this time of year in Tampa, FL).

My point is, some people play games as digital puzzles, brain-teasers if you will. Some play them for the graphics. Some play them for story. Yeah, you can find brain-teasers in the back of the Sunday paper, you'll never beat the graphics of the real world, and story can be found in books and movies. That doesn't mean those are the only mediums "allowed" to do such things. Games, in the end, are about having fun, and what's fun to you isn't always going to be fun to me. Diversity is king. No, games are not storytelling, they are not graphics, and their not gameplay. They're any of them, and a smart publisher will offer all three, and then some.

Re:Disposable Games Vs Design Patterns

[schon]

Nobody said anything about "automatically".

From the article summary:

Imagine putting Halo 2 into your Xbox 360 only to have it automatically upgraded to look like Halo 3 in graphical quality.

Congratulations - you've taken the /. standard of "not reading the article" to "not reading the summary".

Re:Disposable Games Vs Design Patterns

[colmore]

Games aren't and shouldn't be storytelling. Games are more toycrafting with narrative metaphor.

Story games always have finite possibility. The great games are those that combine fully independant elements so that game possibility is the exponential sum of its parts. Tieing all elements to a linear (or at best, a few linear) stories vastly reduces the number of gameplay possibilities.

The most extreme example of this is the cutscene. Cutscenes are dead gametime, the equivalent of having static on the radio. Personally I blame anime (which also has long pointless exposition between the parts one generally cares about) If it takes more than 1 minute to get from powering up the game to get from powering on to playing a real (not training) level, then the designers are doing something very wrong. These are games, not movies, or something we should have to *train* for.

I think geeks are killing gaming. In the early 90s PC gaming was full of countless genres of odd, off-the-wall games. Most dads I knew (I live in a University town) had Civilization, Lemmings, Kings Quest, etc. on their office computers. These days games are increasingly fast paced, increasingly involved, increasingly require dozens or even hundreds of hours of play to uncover content (locking content is a very cheap way of artificially creating interest in otherwise dull aspects of the game), increasingly require the simultaneous use of 12 buttons. Games are increasingly only for hard-core gamers, and as a working adult with very few video game playing friends it pisses me off. I don't want to play a game for ten hours before I get to the meat. I'm not going to slog through 100 hours of repetitive menu based battles to watch some cutscenes. I want simulations, things that are fun to play with the first 15 minutes you're in the game, and won't lose interest once the game runs out of script. Or if it's a scripted game, I want something more like the old adventures and american computer RPGs, where the story was revealed along the sides as a fun *game* progressed, and the reward for getting further was getting to a cool level, not getting some non-interactive cgi cartoon of 13-22 year old's idea of "hot."

And get the hell offa my lawn ya damn hooligans.

My graphics haven't aged...

[suggsjc]

Super Mario Brothers, Duck Hunt and Rad Racer still look just as awesome as the day I first got them!

The Good?

[MiceHead]

That's an interesting thought. The article makes it out to be a bit like a magical cure, but some aspects of it sound good to me. You can often improve the "wow" factor by tossing in "more" of something. Denser foliage; more of the tiny rocks that make up the detail; and so forth. Procedural generation would mean that these wouldn't have to be placed by hand, so this could make it easier to scale the visuals with system power. Similarly, particle sprays are often done procedurally, so being able to tweak those "up" to create more complex fireworks for mysterious future hardware could also work.

Some games are still played for years after they've fallen behind the curve on graphics; this might mitigate the future ugliness, adding longevity to a popular title. Keeping gamers interested in (and talking about) your game makes sense, whether you'll be producing different titles in the future or will be focusing on sequels.

Ultimately, though, my hope is that algorithmic content generation will bring game development costs down for indies. Maybe I'm dreaming. :)

_______________________
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Dejobaan Games - Indie games for people who watch video webcasts

A bit OT

[trianglecat]

I've often wondered if the bloat in modern games is somewhat intentional as a deterent to piracy. If a game is 96k (or 300 megs for that matter) it is easily moved, stored, downloaded etc. whereas a game that is 4Gb takes much more effort, bandwidth and energy.

.kkrieger download

[in2mind]

For those who want to try the 96 k game kkrieger :
Download here (beta version) :http://kk.kema.at/files/kkrieger-beta.zip

Don't they already ?

[aix tom]

Nethack still looks as fresh and crisp as it did 20 years ago.

I can't see this working for too long...

[Adeptus_Luminati]

I can't see this working for long...

Eventually when memory (RAM & HD) are nearly free and nearly infinite, visuals in games may come close to paralelling reality (i.e. a tree in a game may look more like a real tree than it does today). A game that is developed today even with the most advanced mathematical algorythms applied in a graphics platform to be expandable to future, will not be imediately upgradable (from an end-users's perspective) to benefit from an instant graphics upgrade. I.e. you can't just shove the game in the latest new console and expect it to have graphics magically upgraded to the latest high standards. Somebody will still have to go through the entire game and add granularity to each wall, floor, and animated characters in the game which mathematics can not auto-magically generate with accuracy enough to come close to paralleling the randomness & beautify of reality. So the only alternative, I can see is to have the games of today allow future artists to ADD new graphic content into the old game with some newer gaming technology... but somebody still has to put in the effort to create & import all the new graphics.

So I think perhaps the article is misleading. Again, from an end-users's perspective, the game can't just magically upgrade all its graphics and have it equal in looks to whatever the latest high benchmark of impressiveness might be. At best, the end-user plugs in the CD/DVD into the new console (assuming it even accepts older formats) and over the internet, for a fee, newer graphics are downloadable... will users pay a small fee for this service? And more importantly, will gaming companies bother to re-create nicer graphics for old games? Is this a sustainable business model? I would venture to guess that only the most popular addictive games of all times might justify this kind of effort in a gaming company's project list.

Having said all that, I'm all for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Reality

Adeptus