Analog world and its illusion
Usually the choice in games looks like this:
The situation is clearly outlined and clearly reports on the possible options. Although this system is mainly used in interactive cinema, this type of choice exists in almost every genre. It is easy to direct him and he easily creates a sense of moral drama. However, this is missing a very important aspect of decision making in real life: in it you almost never know what options you have and what they will lead to.
')
Here is another selection example:
The player can avoid the projectile, going down or going up. This selection is very similar to the one above. However, there is no explicit clue asking the player about the direction he chooses. Instead, the choice is indirectly transmitted through the mechanics of the game. And unlike the explicit choice, the options here are not clearly defined. In this case, the choice may not be enough ethical component of the previous example, but it is much more interesting. In addition, it seems to be an integral part of the gameplay, and not an artificially created situation.
Super Mario creates this selection from the very work of the basic game mechanics. Another genre that creates a choice with the help of mechanics is a simulator, but he manages to add more philosophical depth to the options. For example, if the simulator focuses on survival, then you may not have enough food for all members of the group, and you have to choose who to live and who to die. With the right design, such moments create an amazing impression, but more often it is not possible to achieve it. Dying from hunger, members of a group rarely evoke the same strong feelings as in scenes of games like the Walking Dead. Let's see why this happens.
To make a choice, the player needs to understand what he is really doing. In this case, the key point is providing the player with opportunities. A player must have a clear mental model in which he understands how various aspects of the world work and what abilities can be used to influence them. The choice arises if the player is clear that he can develop in two or more different directions. That is, the player understands that he can create at least two different plans , and he needs to choose one of them. If this is perfectly clear, then the player can make an informed choice.
In most games such a choice arises constantly. "What ammunition to use?", "Which way to go?", "Sneak or attack in the forehead?". As I explained in a previous post, the choice of plans is a fundamental part of the gameplay . The choice has depth only if something important is at stake. Therefore, the player needs not only to understand that he makes a choice, but also that an important decision is made. To cause the right emotional reaction, the choice must be properly furnished and prepared.
Games like the Walking Dead easily cope with the preparation for the selection. First, the game makes it clear that the choice is being made. It is impossible to miss. Secondly, since so much attention is paid to the choice, it is clear that it is the most important thing here. In addition, the Walking Dead has a well-developed scenario, and its designers have worked well to prepare the situation before making a choice. Such a game is relatively easy to create for the player the desired emotional state.
It is much harder to do it in the simulator. Here, the player constantly has to make choices, and it is more difficult to single out the critically important and insignificant ones. From the player can completely elude the meaning of the choice made. For example, take a situation in which a player needs to choose those who must die. It may happen that the player does not understand that the members of the group are running out of food, or thinks that they can survive in some other way. That is, at the critical moment when the player decides questions of life and death, he can think of something completely different. But even if the player has realized the meaning of this choice, then the situation may lack preparation. The player may be in the wrong mood, or not enough to become attached to the characters, and so on.
Of course, you can improve the simulation, so that it takes into account a larger number of parameters. However, it is very easy to face the deceptiveness of complexity, which I recently wrote about . It is highly likely that adding complexity will go unnoticed and it will simply complicate the design and writing of the game code.
Therefore, you can use the golden mean. Instead of giving explicit choices, you can create a situation that develops by virtue of the gameplay mechanic. The situation is not created dynamically, so it is quite possible to correctly place accents in the script that prepares for it. In this way, the player can create the desired attitude. Then, when the situation itself is a choice, you do not need to show a menu with explicit options. Instead of explicit instructions, the choice may appear from the mechanics of the story (for example, the character can speak), or, better, from the design of the situation itself. Then the player chooses the option, but not through the abstract menu, but through interaction using standard gameplay mechanics.
The best example of such a design is a scene from Spec Ops: The Line . At one point, the player’s game is surrounded by civilians. These people are not too pleased with the presence of the main character and begin to throw stones at him. This is a very dangerous situation and the player understands that he needs to get out of it. At this point, the player has at his disposal only one simple verb: “shoot”. What can he do? He does not want to shoot at civilians, but also does not want to die. Here the player actually has two options. The first is to start shooting at civilians, kill several, and force the rest to escape. The second option is to just shoot in the air and scare them away without killing anyone.
The subtlety here is that the game does not tell you about the options and shooting in the air is not obvious to the player. That is what makes this choice very interesting and similar to the real one. If at that moment a hint appeared with the options of “shoot civilians” and “shoot in the air”, the situation would be completely different, and she would lose most of her emotional impact. But since you make a choice through the mechanics of gameplay, it not only feels an integral part of the gameplay narrative, but also means that the player is not sure about the possible options.
Thanks to such choices, the gameplay feels more “analog”. Inside the game, this choice is as discrete as the ones you make in the Walking Dead, but it feels completely different. It seems that there is a wide range of options, a large space of choice, and not just “one or the other.” This concept of the sensations of “analog” choice is very important and I will talk about it in more detail below.
In Spec Ops: The Line there are half a dozen choices of this type. For example, in one case a player must choose which of the two prisoners should die by shooting at him. But the game does not inform you about another choice: aim the weapon at the people who captured these captives. Another example: the player chooses whether to kill a war criminal. Again, the choices are unknown. The game just puts you in a situation in which you can kill him. That is, the player himself needs to guess what options he has.
Another interesting aspect of Spec Ops: The Line is how it deals with the consequences of choice. The solution is simple - no way. It creates situations in such a way that any choice is logically associated with the further development of the plot. Although I do not think that it is always possible to get rid of the demonstration of consequences , it can be very useful for maintaining the feeling of “analogue”. Because at the moment when you show the consequences, it becomes clear that the choice was discrete. But if you hide the consequences, the space of opportunities turns out to be wider and the player can freely fantasize about what happened.
This is a bit deeper to understand. What choice in Spec Ops: The Line denies the choice in the game with clearly shown options? The key difference is that in the first case the player is in a position of uncertainty. There is no clearly transmitted information from which to proceed, so the player is forced to fill in the gaps with his own imagination . When options are listed explicitly, this is not required. The brain always wants to optimize, so any piece of information eliminates assumptions. Thanks to this, Spec Ops: The Line provides a richer mental model of the scene. Do not forget, we are playing a game based on what is in our head, and not in the in-game systems, that is, the game itself becomes a more interesting experience.
This is what I call the “analog sense”. This is the creation of situations in which possible actions are not clearly defined, and the player can imagine a greater degree of freedom. The purpose of this technique is to create the appearance of a larger space of opportunity. Thanks to her, the situation is felt more real and organic. It partially eliminates the feeling that the designer controls each step, although in general the gameplay remains as manageable as the situations with a pronounced choice.
It is worth noting that this approach has drawbacks. As in the case of a pure simulation, the player may not correctly understand the choice itself and its possible consequences. Explicit presentation of all options will always be better in this case. But it will not be felt analog. So there are very frequent situations when an explicit choice is the right way to present. As always happens in design, you should not be attached to the style of implementation, but focus on the final results.
At SOMA, we wanted all the elections to be felt analog and to use the same approach as Spec Ops: The Line. We created the situation, and then used the standard game actions in order for the player to make his choice. The idea was to make the elections feel embedded in the gameplay, and judging by the feedback received, the approach worked very well.
The only choice in SOMA that didn’t work very well was an episode with the decision of the fate of the WAU (NRU). Here we failed to create the right emotional state and we did not spend enough time on the realization of the consequences. Basically it happened because this choice appeared at a late stage of design, and it did not have time to polish it. A good reminder that you can’t just throw such moments of choice into the game. It is necessary to make sure that at the moment of their occurrence the player is in the right state, and that he will react to them as necessary. If something should be felt analog, it does not mean that its implementation does not require a strict and consistent implementation.
Not only moral choices can benefit from greater analogy. There are many other types of gameplay that you can try to make more analog. Interactive literature (for example, good old text adventure games) is a good example. Usually the player controls them by simply entering commands into the parser. Examples of commands: “take the lamp”, “look under the carpet”, “sweep the dust off the table” and so on.
That is, there are usually no clear clues as to which commands are possible. The player must speculate about the space of opportunity, reading the descriptions obtained when studying the current environment. He builds a mental model of the place and his character and uses it to determine possible actions. When it succeeds, then everything is great. The game really feels like a living, breathing world with which you interact. It feels analog.
However, this system has difficulties, and the most important of them is the problem “guess the verb”. The player can know exactly what needs to be done, but cannot find the right commands for action. It is very sad and destroys the feeling of immersion. This can be corrected by a clear indication of the available verbs. So we will solve the problem, but add a new one: the game loses the feeling of analogy.
I think you should check it out yourself. To get started, try playing a regular game of the genre. I recommend something like Lost Pig , because it allows you to use many commands, and shows (especially at the beginning) how exciting it is to play by entering anything on an empty line. After this game, try Walker and Silhouette and use only highlighted words in the gameplay. The sensations from these two games are very different. Of course, the latter allows you to move much faster and removes some of the irritation. But, on the other hand, that which is primarily interesting in such an environment disappears in it.
I think this is a very good example of how important the sense of analogy is. From the point of view of implementation, these two interactive books are very similar, almost the same. But the way to create a user interface radically affects the player's feelings. When the game forces to create an internal mental model of the world, the experience becomes much richer.
There are many other cases in which a sense of analogy can be beneficial. Another good example is puzzles. I recently played 999 , in which there are puzzles in the “exit from the room” style. Although it is quite interesting to play them, they are implemented incredibly obvious. The game wants the player to play several specific actions. In essence, it requires the player to understand the designer’s intent and find a specific chain of actions leading to success. This is not felt particularly analog.
The main reason is that the game responds only to very specific teams. Most of these commands are not part of the standard set of actions. For example, you can use a screwdriver in only one place, and so on. That is, you never actually build a mental model of how the world works, because such a model will be unnecessary. It is much better to take each object as a question: “what should I have done to them according to the designer?” Therefore, the world loses its freshness and the player does not have its rich mental model. This is a very frequent trouble puzzles.
However, there are puzzle games that manage to cope with it. One of the best examples is Portal . In this game, the user rarely feels that he is moving along a given path. He rather thinks that he is looking for a solution. The game feels analog. And this despite the fact that the decision is no less directed by the designer than in the standard game of the genre "out of the room." The main reason for the difference Portal is the constant use of a basic set of mechanics to solve puzzles. You have a portal gun, the ability to pick up some items and move around. That's all. For the passage is not used anything else. In addition, the holistic design of the entire game stimulates the creation of a mental model around it.
To solve a puzzle there can be only one specific sequence of actions. But playing Portal, you do not know about it. Most often it is not clear even after passing the section. Since puzzles are based on basic actions, it is always less obvious whether there are other possible solutions. Often there is a feeling that one could solve the riddle in another way.
Such integrity in actions also means that in the mind of the player can simulate many possibilities. He knows in advance the types of possible interactions and can use them to perform the actions necessary for the passage, without compulsory interaction with the world. This means that the player can make plans. He can come up with steps in advance and be sure that they can all be completed. As I said earlier , creating plans is the basic part of exciting gameplay. This is another reason why it is good to make an analog choice - the gameplay feels much more correct.
Integrity in action is not the only thing that makes Portal feel analog. An important role in itself is played by level design. He gives exactly the required number of clues so that the player never feels that he is being pushed to a certain path, but at the same time so that he cannot get completely confused about what he has to do. By not pushing the player too hard, the game makes him guess on his own. This gives a much stronger feeling of choosing one of the many solutions instead of feeling movement along a given path. Decisions never look too mysterious, so players do not have to solve a puzzle with a blunt brute force. Brute force is a very harmful behavior for the analog world, it forces the player to break the world into its main components, revealing its non-analogous nature.
Properly “holding the hand of a player” is not an easy task, and the way to achieve it depends heavily on the specific game. However, the basic idea remains the same: the designer needs the player to understand what needs to be done, but does not understand the preferred route. In order for a player to start building a living mental model of the world around a situation, a certain amount of uncertainty must always be present. But it should not be too much, otherwise it will not build a model of the world on anything.
Another example of creating an analog world is hiding in cabinets from Amnesia.We decided to simulate this process with the help of a physical interaction system, tried to make this behavior implicit and never explicitly reported how it should work. Despite this, many players still climbed into the closets and slightly opened the doors to make sure they were safe. We could add a clear hint and special control when the player hides behind the door, but we thought it would be a completely different experience. Thanks to this approach, the world began to be felt much more analog.
There are many game mechanics who would benefit from greater analogy. One obvious example is the answers in the dialogs. They would be much more interesting if the options were chosen using basic mechanics, and not an explicit menu.
How to make the scene more analog? I believe that for this it is necessary to realize two main aspects:
It is also important to focus not only on current interactions, but also to think at the level of all scenes. It requires serious preparation in order for the player to be in the right state and have the necessary mental model. It is very important to think about such things comprehensively.
I think you can get a lot of advantages by thinking about how to make the game world more analog. I also think that this topic is still far from full study. Very often, people take systems with explicit means of expression and stick to them. Creating scenes in an analog way requires much more work, but it can reward much more. In addition, this concept is well kept in mind, combining a narrative approach with good gameplay. Analog worlds - the basic part of the evolution of interactive storytelling.
The situation is clearly outlined and clearly reports on the possible options. Although this system is mainly used in interactive cinema, this type of choice exists in almost every genre. It is easy to direct him and he easily creates a sense of moral drama. However, this is missing a very important aspect of decision making in real life: in it you almost never know what options you have and what they will lead to.
')
Here is another selection example:
The player can avoid the projectile, going down or going up. This selection is very similar to the one above. However, there is no explicit clue asking the player about the direction he chooses. Instead, the choice is indirectly transmitted through the mechanics of the game. And unlike the explicit choice, the options here are not clearly defined. In this case, the choice may not be enough ethical component of the previous example, but it is much more interesting. In addition, it seems to be an integral part of the gameplay, and not an artificially created situation.
Super Mario creates this selection from the very work of the basic game mechanics. Another genre that creates a choice with the help of mechanics is a simulator, but he manages to add more philosophical depth to the options. For example, if the simulator focuses on survival, then you may not have enough food for all members of the group, and you have to choose who to live and who to die. With the right design, such moments create an amazing impression, but more often it is not possible to achieve it. Dying from hunger, members of a group rarely evoke the same strong feelings as in scenes of games like the Walking Dead. Let's see why this happens.
To make a choice, the player needs to understand what he is really doing. In this case, the key point is providing the player with opportunities. A player must have a clear mental model in which he understands how various aspects of the world work and what abilities can be used to influence them. The choice arises if the player is clear that he can develop in two or more different directions. That is, the player understands that he can create at least two different plans , and he needs to choose one of them. If this is perfectly clear, then the player can make an informed choice.
In most games such a choice arises constantly. "What ammunition to use?", "Which way to go?", "Sneak or attack in the forehead?". As I explained in a previous post, the choice of plans is a fundamental part of the gameplay . The choice has depth only if something important is at stake. Therefore, the player needs not only to understand that he makes a choice, but also that an important decision is made. To cause the right emotional reaction, the choice must be properly furnished and prepared.
Games like the Walking Dead easily cope with the preparation for the selection. First, the game makes it clear that the choice is being made. It is impossible to miss. Secondly, since so much attention is paid to the choice, it is clear that it is the most important thing here. In addition, the Walking Dead has a well-developed scenario, and its designers have worked well to prepare the situation before making a choice. Such a game is relatively easy to create for the player the desired emotional state.
It is much harder to do it in the simulator. Here, the player constantly has to make choices, and it is more difficult to single out the critically important and insignificant ones. From the player can completely elude the meaning of the choice made. For example, take a situation in which a player needs to choose those who must die. It may happen that the player does not understand that the members of the group are running out of food, or thinks that they can survive in some other way. That is, at the critical moment when the player decides questions of life and death, he can think of something completely different. But even if the player has realized the meaning of this choice, then the situation may lack preparation. The player may be in the wrong mood, or not enough to become attached to the characters, and so on.
Of course, you can improve the simulation, so that it takes into account a larger number of parameters. However, it is very easy to face the deceptiveness of complexity, which I recently wrote about . It is highly likely that adding complexity will go unnoticed and it will simply complicate the design and writing of the game code.
Therefore, you can use the golden mean. Instead of giving explicit choices, you can create a situation that develops by virtue of the gameplay mechanic. The situation is not created dynamically, so it is quite possible to correctly place accents in the script that prepares for it. In this way, the player can create the desired attitude. Then, when the situation itself is a choice, you do not need to show a menu with explicit options. Instead of explicit instructions, the choice may appear from the mechanics of the story (for example, the character can speak), or, better, from the design of the situation itself. Then the player chooses the option, but not through the abstract menu, but through interaction using standard gameplay mechanics.
The best example of such a design is a scene from Spec Ops: The Line . At one point, the player’s game is surrounded by civilians. These people are not too pleased with the presence of the main character and begin to throw stones at him. This is a very dangerous situation and the player understands that he needs to get out of it. At this point, the player has at his disposal only one simple verb: “shoot”. What can he do? He does not want to shoot at civilians, but also does not want to die. Here the player actually has two options. The first is to start shooting at civilians, kill several, and force the rest to escape. The second option is to just shoot in the air and scare them away without killing anyone.
The subtlety here is that the game does not tell you about the options and shooting in the air is not obvious to the player. That is what makes this choice very interesting and similar to the real one. If at that moment a hint appeared with the options of “shoot civilians” and “shoot in the air”, the situation would be completely different, and she would lose most of her emotional impact. But since you make a choice through the mechanics of gameplay, it not only feels an integral part of the gameplay narrative, but also means that the player is not sure about the possible options.
Thanks to such choices, the gameplay feels more “analog”. Inside the game, this choice is as discrete as the ones you make in the Walking Dead, but it feels completely different. It seems that there is a wide range of options, a large space of choice, and not just “one or the other.” This concept of the sensations of “analog” choice is very important and I will talk about it in more detail below.
In Spec Ops: The Line there are half a dozen choices of this type. For example, in one case a player must choose which of the two prisoners should die by shooting at him. But the game does not inform you about another choice: aim the weapon at the people who captured these captives. Another example: the player chooses whether to kill a war criminal. Again, the choices are unknown. The game just puts you in a situation in which you can kill him. That is, the player himself needs to guess what options he has.
Another interesting aspect of Spec Ops: The Line is how it deals with the consequences of choice. The solution is simple - no way. It creates situations in such a way that any choice is logically associated with the further development of the plot. Although I do not think that it is always possible to get rid of the demonstration of consequences , it can be very useful for maintaining the feeling of “analogue”. Because at the moment when you show the consequences, it becomes clear that the choice was discrete. But if you hide the consequences, the space of opportunities turns out to be wider and the player can freely fantasize about what happened.
This is a bit deeper to understand. What choice in Spec Ops: The Line denies the choice in the game with clearly shown options? The key difference is that in the first case the player is in a position of uncertainty. There is no clearly transmitted information from which to proceed, so the player is forced to fill in the gaps with his own imagination . When options are listed explicitly, this is not required. The brain always wants to optimize, so any piece of information eliminates assumptions. Thanks to this, Spec Ops: The Line provides a richer mental model of the scene. Do not forget, we are playing a game based on what is in our head, and not in the in-game systems, that is, the game itself becomes a more interesting experience.
This is what I call the “analog sense”. This is the creation of situations in which possible actions are not clearly defined, and the player can imagine a greater degree of freedom. The purpose of this technique is to create the appearance of a larger space of opportunity. Thanks to her, the situation is felt more real and organic. It partially eliminates the feeling that the designer controls each step, although in general the gameplay remains as manageable as the situations with a pronounced choice.
It is worth noting that this approach has drawbacks. As in the case of a pure simulation, the player may not correctly understand the choice itself and its possible consequences. Explicit presentation of all options will always be better in this case. But it will not be felt analog. So there are very frequent situations when an explicit choice is the right way to present. As always happens in design, you should not be attached to the style of implementation, but focus on the final results.
At SOMA, we wanted all the elections to be felt analog and to use the same approach as Spec Ops: The Line. We created the situation, and then used the standard game actions in order for the player to make his choice. The idea was to make the elections feel embedded in the gameplay, and judging by the feedback received, the approach worked very well.
The only choice in SOMA that didn’t work very well was an episode with the decision of the fate of the WAU (NRU). Here we failed to create the right emotional state and we did not spend enough time on the realization of the consequences. Basically it happened because this choice appeared at a late stage of design, and it did not have time to polish it. A good reminder that you can’t just throw such moments of choice into the game. It is necessary to make sure that at the moment of their occurrence the player is in the right state, and that he will react to them as necessary. If something should be felt analog, it does not mean that its implementation does not require a strict and consistent implementation.
Not only moral choices can benefit from greater analogy. There are many other types of gameplay that you can try to make more analog. Interactive literature (for example, good old text adventure games) is a good example. Usually the player controls them by simply entering commands into the parser. Examples of commands: “take the lamp”, “look under the carpet”, “sweep the dust off the table” and so on.
That is, there are usually no clear clues as to which commands are possible. The player must speculate about the space of opportunity, reading the descriptions obtained when studying the current environment. He builds a mental model of the place and his character and uses it to determine possible actions. When it succeeds, then everything is great. The game really feels like a living, breathing world with which you interact. It feels analog.
However, this system has difficulties, and the most important of them is the problem “guess the verb”. The player can know exactly what needs to be done, but cannot find the right commands for action. It is very sad and destroys the feeling of immersion. This can be corrected by a clear indication of the available verbs. So we will solve the problem, but add a new one: the game loses the feeling of analogy.
I think you should check it out yourself. To get started, try playing a regular game of the genre. I recommend something like Lost Pig , because it allows you to use many commands, and shows (especially at the beginning) how exciting it is to play by entering anything on an empty line. After this game, try Walker and Silhouette and use only highlighted words in the gameplay. The sensations from these two games are very different. Of course, the latter allows you to move much faster and removes some of the irritation. But, on the other hand, that which is primarily interesting in such an environment disappears in it.
I think this is a very good example of how important the sense of analogy is. From the point of view of implementation, these two interactive books are very similar, almost the same. But the way to create a user interface radically affects the player's feelings. When the game forces to create an internal mental model of the world, the experience becomes much richer.
There are many other cases in which a sense of analogy can be beneficial. Another good example is puzzles. I recently played 999 , in which there are puzzles in the “exit from the room” style. Although it is quite interesting to play them, they are implemented incredibly obvious. The game wants the player to play several specific actions. In essence, it requires the player to understand the designer’s intent and find a specific chain of actions leading to success. This is not felt particularly analog.
The main reason is that the game responds only to very specific teams. Most of these commands are not part of the standard set of actions. For example, you can use a screwdriver in only one place, and so on. That is, you never actually build a mental model of how the world works, because such a model will be unnecessary. It is much better to take each object as a question: “what should I have done to them according to the designer?” Therefore, the world loses its freshness and the player does not have its rich mental model. This is a very frequent trouble puzzles.
However, there are puzzle games that manage to cope with it. One of the best examples is Portal . In this game, the user rarely feels that he is moving along a given path. He rather thinks that he is looking for a solution. The game feels analog. And this despite the fact that the decision is no less directed by the designer than in the standard game of the genre "out of the room." The main reason for the difference Portal is the constant use of a basic set of mechanics to solve puzzles. You have a portal gun, the ability to pick up some items and move around. That's all. For the passage is not used anything else. In addition, the holistic design of the entire game stimulates the creation of a mental model around it.
To solve a puzzle there can be only one specific sequence of actions. But playing Portal, you do not know about it. Most often it is not clear even after passing the section. Since puzzles are based on basic actions, it is always less obvious whether there are other possible solutions. Often there is a feeling that one could solve the riddle in another way.
Such integrity in actions also means that in the mind of the player can simulate many possibilities. He knows in advance the types of possible interactions and can use them to perform the actions necessary for the passage, without compulsory interaction with the world. This means that the player can make plans. He can come up with steps in advance and be sure that they can all be completed. As I said earlier , creating plans is the basic part of exciting gameplay. This is another reason why it is good to make an analog choice - the gameplay feels much more correct.
Integrity in action is not the only thing that makes Portal feel analog. An important role in itself is played by level design. He gives exactly the required number of clues so that the player never feels that he is being pushed to a certain path, but at the same time so that he cannot get completely confused about what he has to do. By not pushing the player too hard, the game makes him guess on his own. This gives a much stronger feeling of choosing one of the many solutions instead of feeling movement along a given path. Decisions never look too mysterious, so players do not have to solve a puzzle with a blunt brute force. Brute force is a very harmful behavior for the analog world, it forces the player to break the world into its main components, revealing its non-analogous nature.
Properly “holding the hand of a player” is not an easy task, and the way to achieve it depends heavily on the specific game. However, the basic idea remains the same: the designer needs the player to understand what needs to be done, but does not understand the preferred route. In order for a player to start building a living mental model of the world around a situation, a certain amount of uncertainty must always be present. But it should not be too much, otherwise it will not build a model of the world on anything.
Another example of creating an analog world is hiding in cabinets from Amnesia.We decided to simulate this process with the help of a physical interaction system, tried to make this behavior implicit and never explicitly reported how it should work. Despite this, many players still climbed into the closets and slightly opened the doors to make sure they were safe. We could add a clear hint and special control when the player hides behind the door, but we thought it would be a completely different experience. Thanks to this approach, the world began to be felt much more analog.
There are many game mechanics who would benefit from greater analogy. One obvious example is the answers in the dialogs. They would be much more interesting if the options were chosen using basic mechanics, and not an explicit menu.
How to make the scene more analog? I believe that for this it is necessary to realize two main aspects:
- Selection of options should be done using a set of basic mechanics. The number of ways to use such a mechanic should be so large that the player could not easily determine all possible options. For example, if a player can only push red objects, then when entering a room with a single red object, the situation does not look too analog.
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It is also important to focus not only on current interactions, but also to think at the level of all scenes. It requires serious preparation in order for the player to be in the right state and have the necessary mental model. It is very important to think about such things comprehensively.
I think you can get a lot of advantages by thinking about how to make the game world more analog. I also think that this topic is still far from full study. Very often, people take systems with explicit means of expression and stick to them. Creating scenes in an analog way requires much more work, but it can reward much more. In addition, this concept is well kept in mind, combining a narrative approach with good gameplay. Analog worlds - the basic part of the evolution of interactive storytelling.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/334420/
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