Not-So-Spatial Spaces

Let's think for a minute about how a game works. There are rules, and objects, and objectives, and we have to know the best possible way to play by the rules so we can complete the objective. How do we do that? We play with it, and we get a better and better mental model of how the game works, which in turn allows us to react faster to things in the game, and make better choices in our strategy.

For this reason of course, it's important to have a good interface. A person should be given a consistent and exact model of what is happening in the world; spatially graphics need to be consistent. A monster's avatar should increase in size consistently with each step it takes closer to you, a fixed rate of change; units in strategy games need to be represented correctly in how far apart they are from each other. It's completely rigid and mathematical.

So why am I posting about this? Anyone can see that in order to figure something out, feedback needs to be consistent. On the other hand, what does this kind of an interface suggest? It suggests that pretty much every game we play is of a consistent formula, and that we're experimenting with it until we boil the game down to pure consistent logic. Nothing wrong with that, there needs to be some basis for every system, however:

Why does our information need to be represented so spatially consistently all the time? Well, no other reason than that the logic of most games is so damned reliant on spatial factors. One of the reasons that books, plays, movies, etc. can be so imaginative is that there doesn't need to be this precise idea about space. As long as it looks feasible, we can assume that they're in a real-world situation, and their ideas don't have to be subordinate to the tedious and boring parts of reality.

We also don't always need to be loaded with information about hit-points, damage, bonuses, etc. Take the first Command and Conquer: even if there was no information on hitpoints and damage, it took about one failed assault to realize that you shouldn't send infantry against flame-based weapons or a group of undefended tanks into a field crawling with rocket launchers.

So I'm getting on a tangent away from my larger point, let's get back to it. The key information of many games shouldn't require such exact feedback on the screen. I'm not talking about first-person shooters or platformers, those are games that are about space; but for many other games, we're talking about how objects are related to one another, how one player interacts with another, alliances, etc. If we want games to move further towards concepts like story, relationships between characters, human behavior, etc; then there's no point in thinking so hard about things like space. In fact, I don't want to see such constraints on space in a game of this type because everything else risks becoming subordinate to it. On the other hand, having a space to move around in within a game makes it feel a lot more real. So, here's a proposal for the best of both worlds; take a look at this application of dynamic programming to shrink an image with 'retargeting':

http://www.milkandcookies.com/link/66481/detail/

Notice how there's no need for proper scale and distance between objects when they shrink it down. We probably wouldn't notice that so much was changed if we were just looking at the pictures casually. It preserves the exact same idea, and does a better job of it than if we scale it, where parts of the picture gradually become obscured. What I'd like to see is an RPG (or something like it) that follows this model. We can slow down or speed up the character accordingly to make sure that the player doesn't just shrink the screen to speed up movement (I think everyone would agree that that would mess with suspension of disbelief). This way, the player feels like he's moving in the real world, but we have a lot more flexibility with artistic representation of the game. What feedback on space the player is getting isn't important, this isn't a strategy game where we have to know where to place artillery and how close the enemy is to our base, we're simply traveling a world where we talk, buy, explore, and so on.

This image retargeting might be a bit of a silly example, on its own it doesn't mean much, but it also brings across a general point. The algorithm is able to preserve a sense of reality without being constrained by space. In doing so, it does a lot better of a job of making the shrunken picture convey the important information. We need to do this more often in video games, or else the important information will always have to do with space, something that really only matters if we're testing our ability to understand how things move in a space. Doing something else will bring the player's cognitions elsewhere and expand the medium. This clearly isn't off limits to video games, we know enough about computer science to make space look continuous without letting it dictate the rules of the game.

The Body

I was reading over Steven Poole's archives when I saw an article he wrote for Edge Magazine about the ways in which video games have been giving their characters real bodies for the first time. Snake, in Metal Gear Solid 3 can now can be poisoned by his food, continues to hurt until he puts a bandage on his cuts, has to eat, and heals as he rests. Unlike many characters, he seems to have a body, not just an avatar.

This is definitely an interesting step foward in games, but I was going to bring up the broader point that it seems that we have no conception of a body in video games most of the time. Instead, it's always an avatar with data stored inside of it; health, items, ammunition, an alias, but no real sense of an existence that precedes this.

And as we hurtle through the digital age, that we're thinking of ourselves more and more in terms of a conscience that floats around from place to place. After all, we spend a lot of our time on our cell phones, or on the internet, where any sense of our body being tied to our identity is gone. I oftentimes find myself looking in the mirror and then realizing "oh wait, that's me?" So is there not some social implication to playing an online game?

When we start to play a game and get engrossed, our sense of self most definitely changes. Our set of functions becomes the logistics of the game itself. We're more ethereal in our connection to what we're controlling in the game; when I play StarCraft I am as much the marines, battlecruisers, and tanks at my command as I am my body when going through my normal life. At the moment it's all I'm thinking about, and it's how i'm defining my position.

So perhaps it's worth it to think about how much most video games rely on a sense of essence. I think that there's a lot to be added to the experience of a game by enriching the player's sense of existence; give him flaws, give him an itch on his back, give him body fat and dirt under his fingernails. It's a wild guess I admit, but I think that we can add a lot of emotion to games doing this; every art form has a set of aesthetics, and this could be part of our own. I'm talking about the jump from 3d models with "hitpoints" to humans beings capable of being hurt, not damaged; growing, not gaining experience; living and breathing. From there we can also lay off of the mind/body duality: if we can connect the player to the character through a functional body, then the player can experience being the character instead of the character being a subservient representation of the person playing, and this is important if we want to bring the player completely into a different world.

It's all a wild guess, and I admit this isn't my most concise or well written entry, so send some comments and I'll be happy to discuss. My general point though is that we need to give the player a real sense of existence to move games forward, not just an aethereal essence.