GDC - Part II - Exploration

The slides and the accompanying paper for my GDC presentation are up for anyone interested.

There were three questions people asked after the presentation that I think really contributed to the talk and enhanced even my own understanding of the topic (there were other very good questions too, but these three were the ones I really remembered).

First, someone who I don't know asked how these ideas applied to multiplayer games. This is a great question, and I had intentionally left it unanswered in the presentation because I don't play enough MP games to really consider myself qualified to tackle the problem. But I did have the opportunity to notice while I was working in the presentation that there is a certain useful parallelism between the kinds of exploration I was talking about and Nicole Lazarro's Four Kinds of Fun.

Rougly speaking, I think we can say that System Exploration maps fairly well to Lazarro's idea of Hard Fun - fun that is about optimization and winning. Spatial Exploration could be said to map to Lazarro's Easy Fun, which is a playful fun emerging from rewarded curiousity. The analogy is weaker here - but in some ways, my notion of Self-Exploration has some overlap with her ideas of Serious Fun (though Self Exploration as I talk about it seems kind of orthogonal to her 'plane of fun' - maybe echoing back to what I was talking about at Futureplay with a new axis of 'meaning'.)

Anyway if we accept this rough (though admittedly incomplete) mapping, it becomes clearer than ever that there is a fourth kind of exploration that has to do with exploring interpersonal relationships in MP games. This is obviously what Lazarro calls People Fun and what I would call 'Social Exploration'.

Again - I don't play enough MP games to really examine this 'kind' of exploration. Maybe someone who really gets MP games can use what I've done here as a jumping off point to talk about that fourth kind. Ironically, it would also probably be a lot more useful to developers than this stuff, because so many more MP games than SP games seem to offer rich opportunities for exploration. 

The second awesome question came from Frank Lantz, who caught the sleight-of-hand by asking if in fact Self Exploration was not just another kind of System Exploration. Frank is right - it is. In fact, in a game, everything is System Exploration. Even the representational 3d space of a game is still a system. If I'm playing Oblivion and trying to get to the top of some mountain but the max climbing angle is 50 degrees and I hit a fifty-one degree slope, my brain immediately stops seeing the world as a space, and starts seeing it as a system. I start wiggling the stick and jumping and otherwise trying to hit that one triangle in the terrain that is at 50 degrees just as I tap jump so I can launch myself over that 51 degree triangle and continue upward. I did a pretty bad job of answering Frank's question, but the next question kind of helped.

The third question came from Jesper Juul, who was also my teammate in The Metagame. Jesper asked - well actually, he more kind of pointed out - that while everything in a game ultimately distills down to being a system, and all kinds of exploration are really by defintion (or at least by the definition I was using) another form of System Exploration, the reality is that we (as in us pathetic humans) have a whole shitload of hardware (brains) devoted to chunking our perceptions up to look like spaces.

That is why it is easy for us to make a conceptual difference between systems and spaces, and harder for us to see my so-called 'self-exploration' as anything other than just another system. But really - space itself is just a system. It happens to be a system that is best perceived at a higher level - as a bunch of solids and gaps, rather than as a bunch of interacting particles and energy responding to a few fundamental forces. If we perceived space as pure physical interaction instead of perceiving it through a kind of higher-order lens, we might be distracted by the noise in the system and not see that the fascinating cluster of organic molecules over there is a hungry tiger about to eat us. In other words - while Frank is right, it all distills down to systems, Jesper was savvy enough to remind us not to lose track of the forest in the trees.

The real question that emerges from my presentation and from those two super-smart comments is 'how do we really make a forest of self-exploration'. We need to do a much better job of it, because right now we only have a few sickly little trees.

Finally, Chris Butcher nailed me with the dreaded 'where's the feedback' question. That's a hard one and I know it's a weakness. It's probably the biggest weakness of the presentation and the biggest hole in my own thinking on the topic. The best answer I have right now feels incomplete and not very rigorous, but it has something to do with leveraging Wright's so-called 'Second Processor' (the brain of the player). Basically my response to Chris's question goes something like this:

The game does provide certain elements of low-level feedback - of course. We need to have the animations of a disappointed AI, and his accompanying bark to tell us he thinks we have done a bad thing (or whatever). That's self-evident (it's also insanely expensive as the possiblility space around so-called self-exploration gets richer - but that's another topic). The other part of the answer is that the objective in some ways is not to have the game tell the player explicitly 'you are bad' or 'you are kind', but to have the game present the output of the interaction such that the player tells himself 'I did good' or 'I could have done better'. It's about making the game more reflective.

We do this in systems all the time. When I play a racing game, the game tells me I get Gold for 01:00, Silver for 01:10, and Bronze for 01:25. At the end of the race, the game reflects my system exploration back at me by telling me I came in at 01:07.78. Now I say 'I could have done better'.

But what is important in this example is not that I know I could have done better overall - but that I know I could have beat that one car at that second turn if I had started the turn from two meters further out, and passed him on the outside instead of trying to squeeze past him on the inside when I grinded along the barrier. Yeah there was lots of low-level feedback in the second-to-second when was trying to make that turn - tons of sound and sparks and intensity everywhere - but it wasn't until I stopped to think about what I had done that the game became reflective and I was able to compare myself as I was to myself as I had hoped to be. The processor that's providing the feedback here is not in the machine - it's in the player. Again - I think while interesting, the formulation of this idea is incomplete and it is certainly absent in my talk. This is something we need to figure out.

Anyway - thanks to the folks above and to all the other smart people who nailed me with hard questions. I hope there was material in the presentation that will help you with whatever you're working on, and I hope the slides and paper over on the right will be of some value to you.

Comments

[Nat]

Clint

your talk was great. And the one the year before as well. Great job on those questions. I was still be trying to figure out what was being asked and you were already on the ball. It made me think "giving talks at GDC is scary!" Maybe another 3 years before I try to venture in those waters. You guys got hosed in the metagame.

[James O]

Thanks for the great presentation Clint, it was the highlight of the conference for me.

I find what you said in your last post (about these presentations catalyzing latent thoughts on a topic) to be quite apropos, as the essentially false ethical choices provided in games has been something I've wondered about for a little while. I think that games (being an interactive medium and thus based on action) could provide a huge potential for a very existential sort of narrative (maybe something like Hesse's Siddhartha) if only the players are confronted with harder choices. As it stands, most games allow the player to either a) save kittens or b) kick puppies, which as you stated, is not a very difficult choice.

I remembered an additional example akin to Ultima IV in terms of internal conflict; perhaps unsurprisingly it is another Origin game, Wing Commander 3. There's three specific parts of the game where the player has an optional choice that seems to revolve around the conflict of pride v. duty. In the first instance, a wingman goes on an unauthorized vengeful sortie and player can choose to go after her (to bail her out of trouble) or not; although the only consequence to going is a drop in ship morale. A little bit later, the player gets an opportunity to duel the commander of the enemy navy, but the player's carrier is about to jump from the system. The player can opt to duel the enemy, but it has to be short or he gets left behind and must re-load the game. While essentially this is a false choice (since the player cannot win the duel and return to the ship in time) it does create an interesting narrative tension (where the player has to swallow his pride and fight another day.) Later on comes the most interesting dilemma (as it is a real choice with actual consequences;) the player finds one of his wingmen has turned traitor and has the option to hunt him down. If the player does, ship morale rises and the player feels vindicated, but when the player returns he finds one of his wingmen died in a surprise attack. If the player chooses not to pursue the traitor, ship morale drops, but the wingman is not killed. This also nicely mirrors the first ethical choice (as now it is the player is heading off alone on the vengeful sortie.) I thought this series of dilemmas was interesting in that it puts the player's pride at stake (as a would-be fighter jock) against the character's duty as a military officer (to obey orders.)

Again, like U4, it's not especially deep, but it's there, and I agree with you that it's ground that needs to be re-explored.

[Brett Douville]

Clint,

You gave an absolutely fabulous talk, I think the best one I saw this year, and I appreciate the follow-up post and slides and such. I can't wait to read in these pages or others what you're up to next, since you alluded to it but could not explicitly discuss it during your talk.

One thing I'm curious about is whether meaningful self exploration of the type you describe absolutely requires an open-ended game; it sort of feels like it does, since a system with only one endpoint will inevitably mean that the designer has shepherded the player to the one right answer. I don't know the answer to this, and I'm going to have to think about it a lot further.

Re: Spiderman 2. I agree with you that the lack of moral exploration is troublesome and limits the degree to which we can truly experience what it's like to be Spiderman. However, in talking with one of the devs, I explained how you had mentioned both your respect for and concerns with Spidey 2, and he replied that the licenseholder doesn't want that exploration -- any opportunity for Spiderman to not do the right thing goes against the grain of the character.

I think that might be a bit of a cop-out, having had a few days to think on it. In Spiderman 2, I'm often making the wrong decision -- I'm webbing around the city trying to get to my next spot and passing up opportunities to do good in the random missions all the time. I do this because as a player there's only so many times I want to stop the speeding car that some thugs have stolen or whatever. (That said, I always stopped to get the kid's balloon -- I mean, think of the children!) There are no gameplay consequences for this -- I don't get the hero points or whatever, but a lack of gain is not the same as a negative, and generally I'm on the way to something that will net me more hero points anyway, so my hero points per minute probably goes down when I stop to help in the random missions.

That all said, I think there's an opportunity to be had there; it's a simple thing for us to track all those skipped missions and shape the public opinion of Spiderman in the game, and feed back on that. There's a very touching scene in the film, as I recall, where Spidey saves the runaway train, using every last bit of his strength to do so, and is then buoyed by the public around him, giving him the strength to get back into the fight. They seem to do this because they suddenly understand what a burden it is to be Spiderman, and they are thankful for it. It's a really great moment in the film, but the game can't deliver on that without potentially bogging the player down in a lot of repetitive stuff.

Anyway, I've now reached the point in my comment where I am rambling. I thoroughly enjoyed the talk and it's stuck with me -- can't wait to see what you're working on.

[Clint]

Brett - thanks for the thoughts and feedback.

I think you hit it on the head there with the way (one way) to make Spiderman more about responsibility and potentially keep the licensor happy. Track how many people he does/doesn't help, and have that feed a 'respect rating' in each neighborhood. Of course, have J. Jonah Jameson fanning the flames of the negative trends and burying the truths of the positive acts. Have the public call out 'hey, it's spiderman' in the parts of town where you're loved. Have them call out 'buzz off, jerk' in part of town where you've been lax. Turn up the incidence of violent crime in areas where you've been lax, and in the neighborhoods you've protected, have more kittens in trees, and lost balloons.

This 'rich tapestry' of feedback can give the player an overall perspective on how responsible he's been - but I do think something higher-order is missing to push it to the next level. Have a major villain who gains a serious advantage in the areas where the people dislike you. Or have the people in the parts of town you've protected well intervene and save you by buying you a 3 second distraction when Doc Oc is making his victory monologue.

Again - it's sketches. And again, I don't at all fault the devs for not doing this stuff (I understand the realities of licensing too). The point is not to say this game or that game was good or bad, but rather to say 'I am pretty sure we have the tools and capability to do this stuff right now, and make huge leaps forward.

[Sean Barrett]

"the objective [is not to] tell the player explicitly 'you are bad' or 'you are kind', but [make it so] the player tells himself 'I did good' or 'I could have done better'."

This is definitely how the combination of Frank's and Chris's questions struck me; that providing in-game feedback will drive it towards being system exploration instead of self-exploration.

It reminds me of your previous discussion of the scene in Splinter Cell where you're given the option of killing the guy or not (IIRC) but that choice actually makes no further difference in the game. (In case it's not clear, I've never played any Splinter Cell game--but then I'm 39.)

[Sean Barrett]

In fact, in that case, if the player knows the action is not going to have any game-mechanical consequences, you could argue that the player is exploring _story_, rather than _self_.

[Richie]

Hi Clint,

I heard your talk on the Thunderbird6 podcast. I thought you presented some really interesting ideas. I liked the sound of the continums you used to describe features that games can articulate. I was wondering if you would mind posting the slides from that talk?

Thanks for the mind meat
Richie

[Clint]

Richie:
The slides I was referring to in the TBird6 podcast were the ones on the right titled FPLAY 2006 The Last 3d Revolution - linked directly under the ones from GDC.

[Matt Severin]

Hey Clint,

I already mentioned to you at the Ubisoft party how much I enjoyed your talk, but then that bastard Dave Sirlin distracted me with fighting game talk.

I was also able to attend Peter Molyneux's talk, and clearly the feedback question is important in Fable as well. It's all well and good to give the player choices that play upon their value conflicts, but the feedback from that conflict has to be evident. One of the things that he mentioned was that if the player showed evidence of caring for their dog companion (by playing with it, interacting with it, etc) they would create a story branch where the dog is put in jeopardy.

As for everything coming down to just being system exploration, this was, at the same time, an acute observation and a facetious one. In my mind, your talk came down to the divisions that occur in the mental model that the player constructs, rather than the systems that the game is running.

- The player constructs a mental model of the Game Rules
- The player constructs a mental model of the "physical" space they are exploring
- And, carrying your concept through, the player of a game that promotes "Self Exploration" (with no One-handed typing jokes implied) would allow the player to construct a mental model of the character that they are playing.