Games as reality simulation

The article tells about a certain, we can say a new genre of games. My interview with Nikolai Dybowski from Ice-Pick Lodge , an Internet article by a user named Orgota , my experience of playing games in the Sandbox genre and a relatively small experience of creating the game Cyber ​​Development made me think about it.

Wishes described by other people's words

I will cite part of the interview with Nikolai Dybowski ( full version ):

- What is a game?

- First of all, the game is a model of the world. I consider the game as a work of art, I put it on a par with a book, with a film, with a performance. Speaking in a more professional, precise language, this is an artistically organized sign system. It has an ideological component and there are, as in any other form of art, techniques that allow the consumer (the reader, the viewer, and here the player) to get at the core. A game is a work of art, it is a principled position; all other questions are secondary to me. Here, for example, they say that the game is entertainment, which in this case should set the player puzzles. “Collect fifty apples and you will be happy!” But all this matters only as an artistic device. Reception may be appropriate and may or may not work.
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- Do you already see how the artistic language of games crystallizes?

The game must be built so that the player, by his actions, brings the unfinished work, situation or proposed problem to completion. So that he finally created this work, so that he would follow this unfinished construction, and it would collapse behind it. Then it turns out that the player is experiencing a certain life - from the starting point to the finish point - and then looks at the distance traveled. He himself creates the universe, he himself asserts values ​​in it.

And if this is so, then all the choices that we put before him should be ethically filled. You can not just command: they say, pick fifty apples! - and then thankfully pat on the shoulder when the player actually gathers them. In the conventional design of the game, such a choice is valuable and justified, but when you turn off the computer and get up because of it, there is nothing left in the soul. In the game you are an elf of the 80th level, but in real life, forgive me for that, stunted zadroth. We strive to make the game solve the actual problems for a person, so that the growth of the avatar game is closely intertwined with the personality of the player. Then the game progress is reflected in real life.

- How do you feel about David Keyzhu, who made Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls and focuses on the movie-like narration?

- In my opinion, this is secondary. The game must act by playing means. Heavy Rain had a very high level of graphics, but it didn’t work to get rid of the effect of the “sinister valley”. Plastic mannequins who are trying hard to pretend to be living people - and they have almost real tears running down their faces, but why? In the same Journey, the degree of conventionality is very high and the characters do not pretend to be human, but there is much more humanity in them than in these photo-realistic figures.

- Then consider another example - Minecraft, where the level of conventionality is quite high. Can you perceive such game mechanics as art?

- I repeat: the art of the game makes iconic. The nature of the game involves some rules for achieving victory and defeat. If the creator of the game fills these rules with meaning - for example, he says to you: the general ethical system of our game is such that the game is about freedom of choice, and now you are forced to make a certain decision, so you have moved away from victory - then this is a work of art. In Minecraft, this is not noticed. But I absolutely do not pretend to the role of a high theorist, and all the more I do not say that art games are good, and games that are not art are bad. Minecraft is an amazing game, and a person who is passionate about Minecraft can dig up a lot of meanings in it. But art does not make it. Because you can just look at the battery and enlighten, but the battery does not become a work of art from this.

- How important is the dialectic for you inside the “victory-defeat” relationship? Defeat - even for the sake of art - is difficult to survive stoically, but at the same time without defeat the game loses its heat. How to find a balance between defeat and victory? Is it always possible to win the game?

Fill the defeat with meaning, make the loser understand him as a sign in this system, and everything will be fine. If we talk down to earth, I do not think that the player should be protected from defeat. This is a very popular concept - they say, one has to regret the player, do not break him, he will be upset, upset if you kill him too often, he will spit and stop playing ... This is wrong. Defeat is a very bright paint in your arsenal. Just use this paint wisely.

... I found that the gameplay is there, but instead of the player plunging into a situation, he felt it and began to act there, he simply solves the conditional tasks that we set for him. Why harmful multiplayer online games? Because they offer a false, false, artificial way of personal development. Being a weak, cowardly, unintelligent person, you work within a system where green capsules increase your intelligence, and blue capsules increase your physical strength. A person receives an 80th level, the game praises him for it, he spends months and years of his life on it, and in this game some senseless entity progresses. These conditional rules replace real progress. The gameplay is great here, but it's fake! This approach prevents the game as a tool, due to provoke a real spiritual growth. I do not want to substitute real progress for the conditional system of progress. I strive precisely for the fourth wall to fall; so that the player is not identified with the avatar, but to realize the commonality of the problems that are relevant on both sides of the monitor. If it succeeds, the game succeeds.

This is a conversation about high, but here we can highlight several theses: (1) the game is a model of the world, expressed in an interactive language (2) the techniques in the game must carry a certain semantic task, (3) the player must have a wide degree of choice in behavior within manifestations of his “I”, (4) the presence / absence of good graphics does not affect the construction of an ethical model in the game, the presence of which brings the game closer to art.

And this is how Orgota describes the difference between genres and the desire for reality:

Amusement parks and sandboxes - games from different genres! Although on the forums for some reason they are placed in one section, completely different people play these games! Those who “relax” in an IMO will never play either hardcore or sandbox. And no most licked and advanced graphics them in such a MMORPG not delay. The man came after work, he has an hour before bedtime, so that a little "unwind." He knows in advance that he will now go with friends to the raid or will be engaged in quests that he did not have time to finish yesterday. Forced mileage from a cemetery to a place of rep mobs? He will take it as a tough mockery! He did not plan this, he does not have time for such nonsense. "Where are looking developed?!". Moreover, the "vacationer" does not have time to craft. After all, for crafting, you need somewhere to get resources, find a machine, and then also try to sell the finished ones. "Buyers are not announced immediately, do not wait for them when the money for the cherished gun is needed here and now!" To farm such a person is boring, there is no time to trade. In order to rotate in the gaming economy takes time, but it is just not there. But he wants to have fun in the game!

What is hardcore? This is a risk. Loss of property, skills, housing - any risk. And the players who chose the path of a peaceful life in the IMO, but at the same time risk everything, since they simply “live” in the hardcore sandbox. In my opinion, it is always more pleasant to create something, not to craft for a tick, but because others really need your craft. And it is more interesting to trade in a live, not ruined economy falling from the sky goods. It also makes sense to extract resources only if the game does not have the opportunity to buy these same resources for three kopecks from a premium merchant. Maybe all this provide a classic amusement park? By and large - no, because there is a conditional, toy economy, curtailed to such a state that its presence does not interfere with the “rest” normal fun. Therefore, traders, crafters, Pveshera gladly settle in the hardcore sandbox! But for this you need a game balance between them and PVShers. So that the risk for peace players is not excessive.

... Today, at the peak of popularity, the theory of our respected psychoanalysts that going online is the flight of the weak, with an unstable psyche of people from the harsh reality. In a fictional perfect world, without anxieties and dangers. Therefore, MMO games and create in accordance with the concept of escapism. With a fabulous, "gingerbread" graphics a la Second World War, comic battles, fights, painless death of game characters. So as not to break the vulnerable psyche of the player. And there are already a lot of such games. Most did not meet the expectations of their developers. Not so many people “hide” in them, as was expected in theory.

Players are clearly waiting for something else. Players want to escape into reality! They need a risk, a sense of danger, a sense of loss. What is just not enough in everyday life. Determining the quality of real life of a player in an MMO is actually quite simple. It is known that he has a computer, Internet access, free time. And this means that he, at least, does not die of hunger, is not in extreme danger, and all his basic needs are met. So maybe he just lacks a sense of risk, and for that he came into the game!

And in more detail about the values ​​of the player:

Any player has their own values ​​in MMORPG. This is not only virtual money and property, but also the level of the character, his skills, as well as any achievements gained during the game. The human psyche acts in such a way that we cannot “treading water”; we need to always strive for some accomplishments. To get something from life, to achieve something. At the same time, we do not want to lose our achievements. So we are arranged.

But game developers have only positive motivation in the arsenal of their funds. They cannot make us suffer losses and suffer, since we have the opportunity at any moment to leave their universe and go to another. But as a result, MMORPG almost from the very beginning of the development of the online gaming industry faced the problem of inflation of game values. As an example. You are a crafter, new to the game and sew troll skin pants. To whom will you sell them when MMORPG is full of things? After all, there is no compulsory opportunity for players to lose their values. In this case, the game is more like a scheme of pumping than the actual game.

This led to a cap, a point in the game, when everything that can be acquired is acquired, and, in the absence of the possibility of loss, is impaired. Attempting to somehow circumvent this requirement — the desire of players forced developers to resort to inflation of game values. In order not to let the game die, they take the property, levelers and skills imperceptibly, through the release of new portions of values.
As a result - numerous anomalies of game mechanics. “Extremity” - cap of the game, loss of content of initial levels, meaningless pumping - crafting not for the sake of things produced, but for raising the level, many hours of genocide of mobs again for the sake of level, destruction of the game's economy, etc.

Personally, I see only one way out of this situation. Players need to agree with the possibility of losses in the game.

What is the novelty of the genre?

Let's compare two games in terms of the genre of Haven & Hearth and CyberDevelopment. They are both MMORPG genres. Moreover, they are both sandbox RPGs (English sandbox RPG) - games in which the game character is placed in an open world, allowing the player to do what he pleases. In such games, instead of the main storyline, the player is offered a variety of independent tasks, places to visit, and the like.

We will discuss the RPG component. Now many games are called RPGs, but they are too different, and it seems there are not enough existing necessary terms. All existing types of RPGs I would call plot RPGs , with some difference they have a plot. It would seem in RPG sandboxes, such as Haven & Hearth or the same Civilization, the plot is secondary, because "It is given to the player to do what he pleases." But what characteristics do not allow the game to go beyond the plot? It is not strange - this is a map of the world in which the character is placed.

All plot RPGs have a displayed character on the world map. This is perhaps the very difference from the genre in which we are trying to make Cyber ​​Development, let's call it a strategic RPG . In a strategic RPG, there can be (1) global maps - representing the world schematically, just like a map, without details; (2) tactical maps - cities, combat, etc., but again without detail.

Let's try to show the difference between a tactical map from a strategic RPG and a map where a character is placed in a plot RPG. In the plot RPG for greater realism, we control the character, he moves around the map and searches, interacts with various objects, buildings, including fighting with other units, etc. In a strategic RPG, there is no character in the game, or it appears occasionally as a symbol in a tactical screen (the analogy is such as if the storyline world degenerates into a chessboard on which chess pieces are fighting).

For strategy, this is too detailed level of plot support, the presence of a story card distracts the player from planning, allows him to get carried away with the plot and look at the game like a fairy tale, a film in which he participates. But such “films” have an end or “monotony of walkers”, this is what is called “the end of modeling”.

So in Haven & Hearth there is a story map, with forests, wastelands, mountains, rivers, buildings, somewhere abandoned players, and somewhere else not. The main objective of this card is to go and search, something new for which they will give you experience. And when you get the experience, you can do something and look again. And here it is superimposed that you yourself are looking for without knowing what.

All this hinders the planning of development strategies. As a result, those who tried to play share their strategies on the forums. After that, the value of the entire storyline simply depreciates. It becomes clear how to do this or that, and it remains to be patient in order to wander around the map and fulfill the development plan (“pump over”).

Therefore, in a strategic RPG, all these “pink snot storylines” are skipped. You immediately know the technological tree of development (more precisely, the graph), the necessary items are given by one click in the appropriate place. And thus, it encourages the formulation of a development strategy that is better / worse than others. In addition, special planning screens, allowing you to set a plan for the character’s behavior, eliminate monotonous actions when it becomes clear to the player how to solve a particular sub-problem. He simply creates a clone character and builds an automatic behavior plan for him, after which the main agent can use the results. And the need for a story card disappears. In addition, there is no need to perform repetitive actions by the character. This is replaced by several tactical screens that allow you to tell your development plan.

What is the advantage? Here again you can say with the words Orgota:

In my imagination is drawn Hardcore Universe, mysterious and unpredictable. A world in which it is impossible to draw up a “pumping plan” and thoroughly calculate the time to reach the next level with the necessary efforts.

But how to do that? It seems to you that everything can be calculated, if not in the mind, then on a piece of paper and everything is only distinguished by the complexity of mathematical calculations? I will disappoint you - there are still unsolved problems of artificial intelligence, and not just mathematics. There are tasks that are not possible to calculate mathematically, programmatically or in general somehow with the desired optimality. So if such a problem is laid into the game, then no plan for “pumping”, any bot can play better than a man with his natural intelligence. Only, alas, I have not seen such games. Therefore, he began to create his own game.

Hence the ethical problematic of which Nikolai Dybovsky speaks. The gameplay is not fake, but makes the player think and intuitively solve the most complicated problems of mathematics, only he himself is hardly fully aware of this. The player does not mindlessly pumps his characters, but builds a stable, economically closed development system.