Recently I’ve had the good fortune of being exposed to a few games that break away from the designs seen in the current crop of “popular” gaming options.
Limbo (XboxLive Arcade): Limbo begins with no instructions and no words. There are no cutscenes and a minimalist musical score. Mechanically, the game is a puzzle-solver that is wrapped up in a 2D side-scroller. Based on this description, you might assume that the game is quite shallow. But you would be mistaken. And in a few moments, I will tell you why.
Demon’s Souls (PS3): Demon’s Souls is a 3rd Person Role Playing Game (RPG). The game drops players into a graphically-impressive dark fantasy world. There is a limited introduction and an even slimmer tutorial. The game is set at a punishingly-high level of difficulty (that cannot be changed by the player) and has some mechanics (or lack thereof) that you might see in a video game from the early 1990′s (for example, no pause, extreme punishment for player error, and arcane stats that would make most well-educated individuals scratch their heads in bewilderment). Again, we might assume that such a game would create frustration more than it would engender fun. You might even accuse the design team of essentially “falling asleep at the proverbial wheel.” But again, this unique approach actually works in the game’s favor, creating an experience unlike any that I have played in the most recent decade of gaming.
I believe these games heavily utilize two concepts to great effect:
Ambient Adaptation: A widely-accepted theory (to which I ascribe) about what makes a game “fun” is that it is the process of learning that occurs while playing a game (i.e. being challenged and then learning how to overcome those challenges) which makes the experience enjoyable. As such, we can assume then that without a challenge, and without the accomplishment of beating a challenge, we would find the game to not be very fun. Demon’s Souls pushes players into a world where the player will live and die by not only their skill, but also by their ability to learn. This environment, while at times frustrating, also forces the player into an almost continuous-cycle of learning. As such, if we agree with the assertion that learning is the catalyst for fun, then Demon’s Souls effectively seeds the game with constant opportunities for fun. Sure there is the capacity for learning in many of today’s other blockbuster games (for example, via regular skill acquisition and basic puzzle-solving), but what is so unique about Demon’s Souls is how the game, by leaving the player out in the cold with little instruction, forces even the simple actions to become opportunities for learning. In turn, these seemingly insignificant learning opportunities form a cycle of continuous self-reward, thereby contributing to the creation of an overall positive and “fun” gaming experience.
Ambient Storytelling: Jeff Watson would define ambient storytelling as “stories or games that take place in the background, rather than traditional attention-focusing media artifacts such as movies or console video games.” Although this is certainly an appropriate definition, I might propose a definition for use within the context of interactive entertainment (e.g. video games): “Ambient storytelling is the conveyance of an experience through subtle methods during the course of regular gameplay.”
Limbo is a shining example of how a story can be generated without cinematics, talking, or text. Limbo provides an ambience and play mechanics that work seamlessly together to constantly challenge the player to ask him or herself a singular question: “what is going on here?” Many games unceremoniously provide the answer to this question via the aforementioned shortcuts (cinematics, text, etc.). Limbo, on the other hand, challenges the player to develop their own story as they play through the experience. This act of imagination and creation stimulates the mind in ways that many hand-fed experiences cannot. In fact, how often do we hear people say “the book is better than the movie”? Well, ten times out of ten, the book triumphs for the same reason why Limbo’s ambient storytelling is head-and-shoulders above a pre-defined game storyline: it empowers the reader/player to become the driver of a story that is inherently thought-provoking and personalized.
It is my hope that game developers will analyze and take to heart the lessons learned from these two exceptional games. In fact, I would confidently wager that ANY and ALL games would benefit from the better use of ambient adaptation and ambient storytelling.