#furtherconversation

A Way To Go

In the podcast this week we talked a little about Vincent Morisset’s “A way to go”, and while it was a great experience I mentioned that I didn’t agree that it matched the intended theme. If you haven’t checked it out yet, take a look at it here first. It only takes 5 minutes to complete if you rush it, even if playing it that way misses the point.

“A way to go” is all about about the now. By it’s own admission it’s about taking time to experience everything around you, rather than progressing to a set destination. This is all but stated outright in the preface and and definitely inferred by the in-experience text.

In the podcast we both brought up that as players, we felt more of a need to reach the destination than to stop and explore what was around us. This for me is key as to why the experience failed to successfully convey it’s theme. It’s not enough to just “feel” that way though. If we’re to better understand what didn’t work, we need to explore further the why.

For me, this key issue was the repetitive nature of the focal points and moment to moment scenery. The short clips of assorted nature were nice on first view, but it doesn’t take very long for them to cycle and become meaningless. Indeed, later in the game they’re dropped entirely. Aside from being phase specific, none of them appear to be tied to progression or specific areas, which give the player little incentive to nurture that sense of exploration as the experience unfolds.

Secondly, while the natural aspect of the trees and bush contained an expected amount of visual interest, this is lost entirely in the second phase as it transitions into a virtual landscape populated by multiples of a singular tree asset. As the phases continue, we got back and forth between the real and unreal and some new techniques appear. Mostly, the ones in reality work well (where another person or people are running with you) from a visual point of view, but lack an exploration hook. Conversely, the ones set in the virtual reality feature interesting exploration opportunities via their mechanical changes but lack depth, leaving them at risk of feeling gimmicky and drawn out.

These reasons are why I felt I didn’t need to stop and explore, but why did we both feel the need to “just get on with it”? Our destination was never explicitly defined and nor did it really need to be, but the inclusion of the visible lined path gave us a goal that had to be ahead. I don’t believe the linear aspect of the path was an issue. We were being asked to stop, take our time and explore, and for all intents and purposes time and our forward movement are one and the same. Anyone taking a moment to think about how this experience was created would know that at some point it would have to end, but by having a visible line on the screen was a constant reminder. We started on this line, we were going to end on this line too.

This was further impacted after the change from phase one to phase two. We now knew something was going to change at specific points ahead and that these changes were going to be substantial. Instead of one final destination, we were now heading to a string of smaller destinations that would change everything each time. Our sense of exploration was no longer tuned to what was happening as we moved along the path, but instead we were driven to explore what would be waiting for us after our next mini-destination.

This is the crux of the issue. We can claim that each shift in phase is not a new end and beginning, and that each shift is equivalent to any other explorative action we can make in the game, but it doesn’t excuse the fact that we are now more focused on progressing forward than we are stopping and exploring where we are now. In short, the rewards of this game are now at odds with it’s intended mechanics.

At the end of the day, none of this really matters. It assumedly works as it’s creator intended, and thinking about it in this way may even be intended. However, as a thought exercise, what could be changed to drive the player towards a more exploratory mindset?

I would probably change the following:

In the first phase, some points of interest should be near unmissable to encourage players to explore without completing the path first time.

Any time you reach the end of a path (i.e. when it would previously switch to a different phase) call that the end of the journey and end the game. Hint that exploring may offer more to see.

Rather than being able to view something at all along the line, separate them into areas. Use some kind of signifer (shading trick, animation, or other effect) when players are looking in a certain direction as indicator of a point of interest. Use some other kind of cue when the player is in the rough area that links to what’s in the clip.

Similarly, instead of playing a clip for each of these points of interest, use them to transition between the different phases. This could be done in the same sequence as the original, or it could pick one at random. But, it would be cool if exploring different points of interest lead to different specific phases.

In any conversation, there's always some point afterwards when you remember something important, or find a way to better phrase an idea, or straight up regret saying something. So far that's happened to me every time after these podcasts. Sometimes it's something I straight up didn't think about until checking the recording, other times it's something I wanted to say in the podcast but didn't because we were going over time. These things tend to stay in my mind so as a form of therapy I'm going to start writing about them post-podcast here. Mostly they'll be continuations of the topics of the podcast, so if the topics didn't interest you then, feel free to skip them here.

"Couch multiplayer"

In the podcast I claimed that couch multiplayer went away at some point, only to be gloriously revived by the indie game development scene. This is not strictly true. But to better illustrate my point I feel I need to better define what couch multiplayer entails.

The act of having a person next you playing does not (in my definition at least) indicate that a game fits the "couch multiplayer" mold. Typically these games will be designed from the ground up to be player vs player (or in rarer cases, cooperative), with either no single player mode or a single player mode with an AI approximation of other players. In some cases developers can go the extra mile to turn the multiplayer mechanics it into a great single player experience as well though.

The archetypal couch multiplayer game is Pong, but they can branch across many different genres, most predominantly fighting and driving games, but they can vary greatly. In the fifth generation of consoles, first person shooters like Goldeneye also rose in popularity, and this is where the decline begins. With the next generation of consoles, both first person shooters and internet connectivity became huge. While a lot of games continued to include local multiplayer, players began to migrate more to online for more challenge and timeliness. Combine this with the burgeoning PC online scene, and the previously stalwart fighting game genre beginning to falter due to stale releases, and it's easy to see why couch multiplayer all but disappeared until it's indie resurgence.

"All but disappeared" isn't exactly true though. Some FPS games maintained split-screen modes even now. Fighting games still exist and are indeed going through something of a renaissance. Racing games are evergreen. However, while there's always going to be casual players having their friends around for a match, or hardcore players treating it like sport, the majority of people are playing these kinds of games online now.

The huge exception to the whole concept that this is a revival comes in the form of the Wii. It effectively bridges the gap between the seventh generation of consoles and was a machine built specifically for couch multiplayer. A lot of it's best games cater for that exclusively. But maybe because of it's family friendly intent and casual gameplay, it's generally discounted as a source for this hardcore, skill-based multiplayer. If that is the case, they've clearly never seen a super smash brothers brawl fight.

Half Life 3

I may have come off a little ambivalent about Half Life 3. It's not so much that I don't want to play it, or that I don't expect that it'll be good. First person shooters have come so far in the last 10 years and it's hard to get excited about a story based single player shooter any more. Team Fortress, Portal & Left 4 Dead have all expanded on the concept of the first person shooter in interesting ways that have not yet been fully exploited. On the other hand, shooters that focus more on story and set pieces have escalated into ridiculousness in yearly series like Call of Duty  (while simultaneously losing collective player interest). Storytelling in the Half Life series is more grounded and serious, despite it's "science gone bad" theming and often bizarre plot twists, so amping up the spectacle and set pieces shouldn't really be a consideration for Half Life 3.

The question of "What should be a consideration for Half Life 3?" is an interesting one though. Story aside, Half Life 1 and 2 are considered tentpoles of video game history for a reason. Both games, on top of being well polished examples of their genre, brought forth new ideas and technology that have since become the norm for almost every game that's followed. By examining these traits, we might be able to pre-emptively guess what's going to make Half Life 3 special too.

Half life 1 debuted two traits that changed the first person shooter scene overnight. Previously, cutscenes were handled like mini-movies, with the player breaking first person view to passively watch their character from a cinematic point of view. In Half Life, the player never loses movement or view control. This allows the player to position and investigate what parts of the scene they want, or alternatively pay no attention to them at all. In some places, players could also intervene or ignore NPCs that were in danger. It was a unique and immersive idea that truly made Half Life stand out from the other shooters of the time.

Similarly, while other shooters at the time featured enemies that would do nothing but chase and shoot at you, Half Life built enemies that felt intelligent, with marines capable of assessing where you were and flanking you, or flushing you out with grenades. In addition to this, other enemies would act according to different rules, retreating when necessary. This lead to a smarter, more varied game than the current kings of FPS, Quake and Duke Nukem 3D. In a similar vein, Half Life at times paired you with an AI controlled friendly NPC and later on, kind of teamed you up with the marines you fought earlier. This was something of a first, but would later be expanded upon in greater detail in Half Life 2.

In fact, Half Life 2 took almost everything the previous game did and built on it, but the big new thing was the physics system. Introduced in the tutorial, it allowed for new kinds of puzzles through-out the game and culminated in a new weapon that offered never before seen combat possibilities. This was also pushed thanks to a trend of rapidly improving computer hardware and tech.

With these traits in mind, and considering Valve's willingness and ability to work on something until it's just right, what is likely to make Half Life 3 special? Personally,  think it's going to be a combination of this mixed with one crucial piece of new technology used in an interesting new way.

Firstly, the logical extension of the existing traits as I see them would be cutscenes, NPCs and enemies that better react to the players actions, changing the story and layout of the levels via their interactions. Imagine an NPC delivering a run down of a plan of attack, if the player watches and listens, the next sequence plays out as the plan dictates, if the player doesn't, the NPC acknowledges and lets the player take the lead. Ramifications in the next sequence could make the game easier or harder, or just different.

Similarly, the concept of a linear level of corridors should for the most part be left behind in favour of a more opened plan, sandbox style level where possible. The player should have tools that allow him to destroy structures and carve their way through the level, and enemies and friendly NPCs alike should be able to react to this accordingly.

The last element, that which is dictated by the newest available technology, is the hardest to pinpoint. If this was 2-3 years ago, I would've suspected it would be some kind of massive online co-op element to the game. Some kind of drop-in player-controlled resistance help, or players working towards the same goal either via the same actions or something asymmetric. Now, it's hard to think of any major tech that could be a benefit to gameplay. Obviously steam machines are a thing now, and Half Life 3 will need to be available for them, so that limits anything too new or fancy. Similarly, what was supposed to be the big new thing, VR Helmets like the Oculus Rift, don't bring anything intrinsic to gameplay that we don't already have either.

In the end though, while it's fun to speculate about Half Life 3, that is also what's ruining it. We've had 10 years to think about all the improbable leaps in design and tech Valve could take, but there's only so much that can actually be done in reality. When Half Life 3 comes out and all it is an extremely polished shooter, is that going to be enough?