GDC - Part V - Smith and Smith

So this (late) post will be my last one about GDC. It will briefly cover my impressions of my two favorite sessions which I already acknowledged will probably not be surprising to anyone. Both were design talks, and both tackled specific issues in design that I have thought about often, but have never had the chance to sit down and figure out in detail.

Again - often the most important part of GDC for me is having access to the thinking that other really smart people have done so that I don't have to do it myself. Both of these talks were exactly that, as I have in the last two years wrestled with precisely the things that these two talks were examining.

Harvey Smith on the psychology of the Player-Avatar relationship

Along with my own talk, this was one of Dave Perry's Picks in the design track, and in my opinion Harvey's talk torpedoed mine below the waterline and sunk it like the Bismarck. Harvey is wicked smart, and his design philosophy, and his talks at GDC, have always been very inspiring for me, as well as incredibly influential on the work I have done.

Harvey talked a lot about a number of important concepts I have only had time to give passing thought to. I'm going to paraphrase some stuff here, but he talked about how we can build stronger player investment in and attachment to the avatar, and he talked about (what I call) the hybrid-entity that is the player-avatar. He talked specifically about ways to make the player feel a stronger sense of identity with the avatar giving specific repeated player actions an avatar-flavored realization.

For example if in your game the player can be a Priest or a Barbarian or an Alchemist and you want all players to be able to heal themselves, then give the Priest the ability to pray to his gods for health, give the Barbarian the ability to eat his enemies hearts for health, and give the Alchemist the ability to make healing potions (part of that example comes from a specific game - I forget which). If the player is playing a Barbarian, he is likely going to feel a stronger attachment to a heart-eating ability than he would to some generic class-undifferentiated particle effect, even if the ability is mechanically identical. I feel more like a Barbarian when I eat hearts than when I see a blue swirly particle effect, and thus I feel more closely bonded to my avatar.

Anyway, I left the talk with a better understanding of what it is that players (or even users - as the avatar is not a game-specific notion) use avatars for. Part mask, part expression of self, part statement of initial stance on the issues that will be addressed in the forum, part wishful idealization, avatars are a kind of projection of our self-image and all of the complexity that comes with that. He examined several techniques that designers can use to challenge players understanding of themselves, or to help players challenge their own understanding of themselves.

In some ways, I think a better design understanding of avatar is central to moving our medium foward to the point where it can truly move the general public in an engaging and emotionally compelling way, because games are really the only medium where the player actively makes a statement about themselves when they engage the media, and that statement is made (partly) in their choice of avatar.

Randy Smith on Save-Load

The only thing I didn't like about this session was that it was only 20 minutes.

The original Splinter Cell had shitty checkpoints. Chaos Theory had save anywhere, but the game was so immersive that it was easy to forget to save. But how do I fix it? I hate the fact that players are punished with having to replay areas of a game, but at the same time, playing a game where you cannot lose is boring. This is a core dilemma in game design and one that needs really smart and detailed analysis.

Randy's (too-short) lecture looked at Save-Load compulsions principally from the standpoint of the psychology of risk analysis. Players will reload based on a risk analysis of what they have lost balanced against what they think they could gain. He looked at the different sorts of risk analysis players are typically asked to do in a game, and he pointed out how formal risk analysis is a pretty good indicator of how players will behave confronted with the kinds of losses and rewards games typically dole out. It seemed pretty clear from Randy's presentation that - go figure - a better understanding of what the player is winning and losing in the moment to moment play will help us design better save systems that don't degenerate as easily into save-crawling or into punishing cycles of replaying the same area repeatedly.

As with so many things, understanding and using our tools better allows us to make better games. Along with Harvey, Randy is one of the sharpest designers out there and his deconstruction of this problem gives me better tools to use to make better games for one percent of the effort it would have taken for me to reach the same conclusions.

So the reason these two sessions rank as my two favorites are simply because they are the most practical and useful for me. Randy and Harvey did the work that I would have done if I have not been spending so much time and energy thinking about Exploration. I haven't yet had the chance to bug either of them for their slides, but if I manage to find out where they are available (neither seem to be in the GDC proceedings) I will let you know.

Comments

[Susan O'Connor]

You can email Harvey directly...that's what I did.

Thanks for the nice writeup. :)

s

[Patrick]

Harvey's talk was quite good, I think bringing the post-stasis notion of identity into play is a key thing.

Some further reading on that idea, if you will:

http://kingludic.blogspot.com/2007/03/double-consciousness.html

That post is a few ranks below W.E.B. Dubois on Google. Take that Dubois.

Once you've got that acid tab settling in your stomach, it'd be cool to read your weigh in on this topic:

http://www.plushapocalypse.com/borut/?p=22

And then bringing it full circle, here's an opportunity for you to be in a movie:

http://www.realitypanic.com/archives/296

[Harvey Smith]

Flattering as hell. Thanks.

Anyone who wants the slides can simply email me and I'll send a YouSendIt link.

Wow, thanks.

[Jason Della Rocca]

Interestingly enough, I encouraged Danny to check in with Clint. Sadly, he's leaving soon, and said he got his fill of developer footage ;)

Jason

[Frank]

I missed Harvey's talk, but Randy's was amazingly great. Much love for the hardcore, nuts and bolts game design thinking and when he started talking Kahneman and Tversky I just about flipped. Fantastic talk, this is why I go to GDC.