[Music]
hey welcome back last week we took a
look at the game loneliness if you
didn't get a chance to check it out hit
the link below or just go here now love
it or hate it the thing that's really
interesting about this game is that the
game mechanics have meaning that the
play not just the dialogue in the
cutscenes tells the story and allows the
player to explore an idea and that is
something I would love to see a little
bit more of in the triple-a industry so
what do we have to understand to bring
the idea of mechanics as metaphor
mechanics with meaning into other larger
games first we have to understand that
the designer has to set the bounds of
the experience so let's look back at
loneliness many of you might have wished
that there was a way to change how this
game ends but loneliness was focused on
exploring how we deal with true
alienation with completely being on the
outside being completely alone deciding
on this sort of specificity is what
allowed us to explore the idea more
fully with multiple endings we'd be
exploring a different concept which is
equally valid but would be fundamentally
different remember as a designer
crafting meaning with mechanics you
create a space of possibility your job
is simply to choose the bounds of the
experience and allow the player as much
freedom to explore as you can within
those bounds you'll never be able to
delve into everything so you should
simply start your project by asking
yourself what is it we're exploring in
fact if everyone on your team can start
at this point if everyone can agree on
what general concept you're exploring
before you really start development
you'll find that your project becomes
much more focused in holistic you'll
find that that exploration pervades at
the game not only in the design but in
the art the sound design the writing
even how things are implemented in code
getting that simple statement clear is
the first step toward creating more
meaningful games and if you've ever
wondered that's not usually how games
start James has been on the innumerable
jobs where a game either began with a
mechanic or an art style a story concept
a marketing plan or worse just started
getting built with no central idea at
all deciding what concept you're
exploring before you begin still lets
you start the actual development from a
mechanic's art style or story thread but
it'll help make sure your project stays
directed and if everyone keeps in mind
what central concept you're exploring
throughout the development process
you'll create a much more focused
impactful game that game company seems
to do an incredible job at establishing
what fundamental idea they're going to
be exploring and making sure the entire
teams on the same page for every one of
their games this means that every part
of the game from the mechanics to the
music to the visuals helps allow the
player to explore the concepts they want
to present secondly you have to
trust your audience loneliness makes the
assumption of imagination it trusts that
at some point throughout the experience
you'll personify the dots you'll think
of the most people and you know I bet
95% if you thought of them that way or
at least thought of them as representing
people most modern Triple A games seem
to have a sterility of expectations they
seem to assume that a modern audience is
unwilling to imagine that they need
everything spelled out for them in high
poly photorealistic assets if you can't
let your audience imagine you can't let
them explore
I'm not saying we should works in our
graphics or anything but we do have to
be willing to trust that our audience is
able to make the leap from the ultra
literal see this is where Silent Hill 2
shines they were willing to step away
from the literal and trust that their
audience would be able to interpret what
they were exploring they never
explicitly tell the player that the
towns of psychic landscape and that
everything in it is representational
they trust their audience and demand a
little bit more of them this is
especially evident if you check out the
remake where the fogs removed because
they'd originally embraced the technical
limitations of the system and made the
restricted draw distance an integral
part of the gameplay it became part of
the metaphor for the character's own
self-delusion and limited understanding
it also made the whole thing way
creepier and more claustrophobic which
an exploration of such a disturbed mind
should be when the remake removed that
fog it was almost certainly because they
no longer face the same technical
limitations on the ps3 they didn't need
the fog - this guy's there draw distance
anymore but to any of you who've played
it even if you didn't think of it in
terms of the metaphor consciously I bet
you felt the difference or if you've
played most of the second-rate shooters
out there you'll recognise this sort of
hand-holding they're unable to do
anything interesting with the narrative
because they don't trust the player
enough to follow anything but the most
simplistic and spelled out plot but you
know what be it portals environmental
storytelling with that tiny purposeless
room that was clearly inhabited by a
previous test subject or bioshock's
famous use of mechanics as metaphor by
taking away control during the very
moments when the words coming out of the
screen are a man chooses a slave obeys
the gaming audience really can think
Beyond and interpret rather than just
mindlessly and jest what's happening on
the screen and you know what designers
this isn't one of those either-or
situations both of those game moments
are still great even if you're just
taking them in to suggest that having
meaning in a game will make it less
engaging it's just a lazy cop-out if
you've got tens of millions of dollars
for a budget you should be able to do
both and trust me your audience will
love you for it but there is one
advantage that loneliness has that I'm
not entirely sure how to overcome in the
triple-a world and that is its lack of
an objective you have the player get to
your own goal within loneliness and this
lets you explore in a way that's
entirely personal it lets you really
craft your own story by creating a goal
you inherently influence your audience
and establish a correct way to play the
game unfortunately I think it'll take a
radical shift in how we think about game
design to create a tower experience is
much less forty-hour ones without a
clear and defined goal for the player of
course we don't have to if we
periodically have a few minutes where we
don't have a clear goal and instead
simply have a problem to work through
and the tools to interpret what working
through it means we might be able to
achieve this effect and allow the player
to explore a concept without taking away
one of the most powerful and often fun
elements of game design The Witcher
series has some moments like this
there's clearly an overarching goal for
those games but often you'll end up
getting to understand yourself better as
a human being outside the game because
of the choices you made in it that
aren't directed and lastly for Triple A
games to really embrace this idea it'll
take us as consumers we need to start
thinking about mechanics as metaphor we
need to start thinking about the meaning
that adheres in them if we can do that
it'll give creators a powerful new tool
to convey meaning and deliver us the
type of narratives that'll leave us
talking for years after we've turned the
game off I'll see you guys next week
[Music]