Games are an art form.
Just like novels or films, great games can explore life's issues
in ways that can help us grow and change.
Like Sculpture, or music, they can use structures in new and inventive ways to demonstrate their beauty.
But how do they do this?
How do games speak? James was recently discussing this very question with Evan hill,
A designer who has worked at Heart Machine and inXile.
So today, we thought we would bring him in to explain his take.
Game design is a language just like English, cinematography, or music,
and if we are to understand this language, we have to start at the most fundamental level.
What is a language? For this, let's define a language as any system which uses arranged parts
to communicate ideas and experience. We can describe the beauty of nature by arranging words into a novel,
arranging strokes onto a canvas, or by arranging visuals, sound and mechanics into a game.
So, games are made up of numerous elements which work together
to communicate an idea or an experience to the player,
and every one of those elements--the visuals, the sound, the narrative and the gameplay--all of them speak.
But how? How do all of these jumbled parts and pieces come together
into something that's even comprehensible, much less something moving or impactful?
Well, using what we know about language and literary theory, let's sketch an outline
of how a game becomes a meaningful whole.
Like other art forms, games can speak on more than just the surface level.
Communicate far more than what is just directly said or shown to the player.
Games can communicate in multiple layers of subtext simultaneously
So, let's dissect these different layers.
We'll call them isolated meaning, associative meaning, and dynamic meaning.
Starting from the top and working our way down, let's begin with isolated meaning.
This describes what each element of a game means in isolation.
These are the elements that are going to inform the player's first impression of a game--
every superficial component: the color palette, musical style, narrative premise, and gameplay features.
They each lend a certain energy and flavor to the work.
And these elements can combine to create radically different impressions.
Just as an example, here are some screenshots from two mechanically similar games.
Even with motion, sound and gameplay removed, these screenshots give different impressions.
If you put these on an art gallery wall and show them to people who have never played games,
these images would still convey something different.
Heck, we can even go one step further and turn both of these into a set of color swatches.
Even when isolated from the full game experience, Limbo's colors are still bleak and menacing
while Mario's colors are bright and toy-like, and this applies to every element in your game.
Your leveling system, your jazz soundtrack, your cat collecting mechanic--
whatever components your game may have, they each carry some intrinsic meaning,
so it's important to be constantly aware of these initial impressions you're creating.
Because while this may be the most superficial level of your overall design,
these elements are the starting point of the players experience.
These are the raw ingredients that you're bringing to the table,
and selecting the best ingredients is just as vital to game design as it is to cooking.
But, just as a grocery list isn't a meal, a list of features and an art style is not a game.
Going back to our definition of language,
we need to look at how each of these elements are arranged, and that brings us to the second layer.
Associative meaning: when two or more elements combine or contrast,
be they chocolate and peanut butter, or jazz and space cowboys,
the unique relationship between those elements create an experience
distinct from their separate isolated meanings
This is what we call their associative meaning.
You can see this happening in simple combinations like the contrasts and harmonies between colors.
But a more concrete and easy to spot gaming example is in gameplay feel.
The components of a gun shot: the flash of the muzzle the loud bang, the recoil animation,
and the damage dealt--in isolation, these elements are all kind of weak,
but put them together, and BAM.
You get an experience that's way more potent than any of those parts in isolation.
And this goes way beyond direct experiential elements, too.
Game mechanics and narrative are just as important to this associative process
Take Fire Emblems permadeath mechanic. It combines numerous elements:
the vivid characters, the stat progression and your personal play history, and double underlines
the importance of those things by threatening the player with their loss.
Permadeath acts like a high contrast filter for the entire game.
So we now have an idea of how players directly interact with game elements:
starting with isolated impressions, and then developing associated meanings between them
to form a coherent experience, just like the flavors in a bite of well-cooked food.
But, to get the full picture--the complete meaning that a game is capable of communicating,
we need to go one layer further
As developers, we can understand that a player is experiencing something specific, hopefully by design.
A particular emotion and opinion of the characters, or an expectation of what's going to happen next.
And once you know what the play is thinking and feeling, then you can use that knowledge
to tap into the deepest layer of meaning that a game can possess.
Dynamic meaning.
Change is the final and most powerful tool of communication in game design.
In fact, all the other tools--interest curves, three-act structures, hero's journeys--these are are all just
frameworks for delivering change . When the game changes, the experience it creates changes.
As it removes, adds, or modifies elements, new isolated and associated meanings are fed to the player.
But these variations on the experience aren't just a series of snapshots.
Each moment combines with the others to create the dynamic layer of meaning.
This process takes the ideas and the emotions developed in the other layers,
and it links them together like words in a sentence.
Sometimes it's hard to notice just how drastic these changes can be while playing,
often because they feel so natural, and that's why I think this layer to be so powerful.
When done right--when done with the players thoughts and expectations in mind,
this dynamic layer of meaning can honestly feel like a conversation.
The game is actively listening and speaking back to the player through these changes in the experience.
Sometimes these changes may come from the developers simply creating varied content,
like the narrative twists and turns of a Telltale game.
But it can also come from the game itself reacting to the player, like the system-driven possibility spaces of
Rim World or crusader Kings.
What's more, this dynamic meaning can even come from the player actively learning over time.
As you master new techniques in Street Fighter,
or uncover new pieces of the intricate lore of a Dark Souls game,
that too changes the player experience of a game.
Using all of these methods, we can use the dynamic layer to have conversations about
the traumatic nature of inflicting violence,
or share the experience of an awkward first love,
or explore the messy nature of truth.
And this goes beyond the high-level themes of a game, too.
Dynamic meaning can help us see the joy found in exploring beautiful systems,
or help us focus on sensory experiences.
When all of these layers of meaning are used to their fullest, games come alive.
Every decision that goes into building a game affects the player's experience, and what that game says.
But when the weight of those decisions are undervalued,
what the resulting game mistakenly says might be... regrettable.
These processes I've described--they are at play in every single game, intended or not.
There's no real way to opt out of them. This is just how art works.
No matter what we do as developers, our games will speak to our players,
and it's our job--our challenge--to find things worth saying.
See you next week!