This month’s guest blogger is Jozef Purdes. Jozef was a long time contributor and editor for Netjak, a game review site marked by above average writing and a very simple layout. He was also the eye on Independent Adventure Games for the now defunct indie game site DIYGames, a position that earned him much praise for his sharp criticism and willingness to play games that most people have never heard of.

Jozef’s contribution addresses points raised in another article on adventure gaming and offers his own insights into adventure game design, from plot points to interface issues.

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Rules of the Game

Mark Newheiser has written an excellent article on adventure game interfaces. In his essay, he focuses primarily on how the interaction between the players and game developers shaped the evolution of the adventuring interface. He describes the existing prevalent adventure game interfaces, their evolution and the impact each interface type had on puzzle design. However, he ultimately concludes that in order to retain a high quality of puzzles, adventure games must make the user interface easier by mimicking real life more closely. I believe that this is not necessary the case. In fact, in my opinion adventure game designers face a wholly different challenge: to introduce new, strange worlds to the player in an easy to digest manner.

Before digging into the finer details of Mark’s article, let me imitate him and define a few terms. First of all, I will use the word interface in the same context as he does. A game interface is not only the visual output and methods to control the game, but also the means to achieve your goals. In the case of adventures, this includes the way puzzles are structured, how inventory items are collected, the amount of linearity in the story and other things. These elements are technology independent. This has allowed Mark to examine interface changes as being driven by the players and developers, instead of technology, which plays a much more prominent role in other gaming genres.

Other definitions resemble Mark’s as well. The only change I’d make is the definition of the gaming world. The author refers to it as the gaming environment the player has to navigate. In my opinion, a world is much more than that. It is also a set of rules that govern the world. For example, a science fiction game may include an alternate set of physical laws, or a fantasy setting may allow the characters to perform magic tricks. Much later into his article, Mark refers to these rules as the “conceptual space of the game”, and cautions that good puzzles should be always integrated into this space. However, he doesn’t explore the design of new conceptual spaces any further.

This results into a very unusual finding in Mark’s article. He sees the interaction between the players and designers as one-sided. In fact, several times he mentions that the goal of the player is to figure out the developer’s way of thinking, and to use this to solve the puzzles in the game. This is a gross oversimplification. In fact, the designer faces much greater challenge in guessing the player’s thought process.

Adventure games, as Mark points out, attract a much wider and more varied audience than other game genres. The developer must thus make sure he or she caters to the lowest common denominator, up to a point where the game becomes too generic. This is where my extended definition of a gaming world comes into play. By carefully explaining the set of rules that govern the gaming environment, the developer takes away the ambiguity of some puzzles, and offers the player the challenging task to think outside the box. For example, imagine that the player’s character needs to join the Ku Klux Klan to solve a task. Many non-American players will need to learn what KKK is, and even the vast majority of Americans may find it difficult to complete the task without learning about the rules that govern KKK meetings. This is where the developer needs to give the player a carefully measured amount of information, in a way that does not break the flow of the game. This task can be successfully accomplished only if the developer correctly guesses the player’s way of thinking.

There are plenty of ways to communicate the set of game rules to the player, so let me list only the most common ones.

* Characters with amnesia. You wake up with a headache, in a strange place. You don’t remember who you are. This is a very common setup, primarily in text-based adventures. It is remarkably effective, though, as it allows the game designer to give the player very carefully measured amounts of information. Unfortunately, it has been so overused that many times this simple introduction to the game prompts some players to quit.

* Unusual action verbs. Mark describes the point-and-click interface used in early Lucasarts games, where the player could select from a list of verbs. A very effective and inconspicuous way to throw off the player is to include some unusual commands. This will inform the player of the possible actions, but also allow for some more challenging puzzles. For example, a game may allow actions like “lift” or “kick”. These verbs are usually not present in the list of verbs, and so puzzles requiring these actions may come across as more challenging.

* Companion. Many games have a companion character, which explains various nuances of the gaming world. This is one of the most efficient narrative ways for the developer to explain the game rules to the player. In addition to serving as guides, these companions often flesh out the story. Grace Park in the first Gabriel Knight game, for example, allowed for some romantic tension between her and the main character. On the other hand, Oscar, the automaton in Syberia, was a great comic relief in an otherwise very serious game.

* Essay. Some games, especially those who aim at more serious and involved players, contain an essay, which the player should read before starting the game. This is quite an unusual approach, which serves a dual function: it introduces the game rules, and it serves as a filter, discouraging some players and setting expectations for the rest. This prescreening process may result in the players viewing the game more favorably than they would otherwise.

* Sequels. Game sequels usually don’t play by the same rules as standalone games. When developing a sequel, the developer faces a choice: the game may explain the old rules again, which could frustrate the fans of the series, or it can come with a new set of rules, which may alienate the existing fan base. Consequently, developers tend to aim sequels at existing fans of the games, who presumably already know the rules governing the gaming world.

* Unusual setting. This is by far the most difficult, yet most rewarding way to explain the game world rules to the players. As I mentioned previously, developers aim at the lowest common denominator, up to an extent. They may choose to create this lowest denominator by creating a setting that is unfamiliar to every player, and thus control very tightly what each and every player learns about the gaming world. A good example of this is the independent adventure Two of a Kind, which is set in a world where very person has some superpower. The developer had every non-player character explain his or her superpower to the player in a way that did not break the rhythm of the game. Another game, Mysterious Journey II: Chameleon, is notorious for throwing the player in a very unfamiliar territory, but explaining next to nothing. Still, as long as all the players are roughly on the same level, the developer can guess much more easily their thought processes and design the game accordingly.

These are only the most common ways to control the player in a game. By taking away most of the familiar elements from the player and condition him or her with new, unambiguous rules that govern the given game, the developers can shape the thinking of the players and thus design puzzles that offer just the right amount of challenge and fun. Unfortunately, only the best game designers succeed in this, and many games leave a lot to be desired in this respect.

Mark’s article focuses on how changes in game interface affected the nature and quality of puzzles in adventure games. He does discuss several important interface developments, such as graphic adventures, various levels of verb commands and the existence of inventory, and he draws some very insightful conclusions on where the puzzle design should go from here. However, he makes one wrong assumption: he assumes that the interaction, or mind-reading, between the player and the developer goes only one way. Because of this, he overestimates the rate of development in puzzles in the coming years. As long as the developers are able to throw the players into strange worlds, the main challenge will be to explain the rules governing these worlds to the players, and not to increase realism in games.
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Interested in being a guest blogger? Drop me a line at troy DOT goodfellow AT gmail DOT com.