Anyway, this was William Pettijohn-Hernandez’s and my contribution to the “CMU I Love You” film festival last spring. The theme of the festival was to tell a Love Story that took place at Carnegie Mellon University. I actually had the idea for this story brewing in my head for a while, and this just gave me an excuse to make it. The story draws heavily from a certain famous play. I’m guessing you can figure out which one.

The first problem that occurred to me is the fact that the typical MMO design takes for granted the fact that the player will play the game for hours at a time, sitting at a computer when they have no other current obligations. As a result, many of the ‘quests’ in the typical computer MMO require an hour or more of investment to be completed, in which the player benefits from being able to completely focus in on the task  at hand. While this structure works quite well in a computer MMO, however, handheld games are usually played in much shorter bursts, often when one has some unexpected free time available. As a result, a handheld MMO would not be able to expect the dedication and time sunk into them that is found in computer MMO’s, and must accommodate for such.

However, even after one takes measures to accommodate for the fact that most handheld games are played in short bursts, the sporadic nature of handheld gaming could also inhibit the usual social conventions of online play — and this is something that will have a significant impact on game design. The typical MMO is designed in such a way that success within a game world depends largely upon ones ability to coordinate and cooperate with other members — forming the sort of “Communities” we discussed in class. These communities designate times to meet, embark on quests, and tackle some of the greater obsticles the game has to offer. This system works well on stationary computers, as individuals are often online at around the same hours. However, when it comes to handhelds, play is much more speratic — the game is brought out when there is some lull in time; on the bus, in the plane, and so on — which means that setting up team events in advance will be difficult.

So how could one address these problems? Well, I personally believe the first problem (the problem of short play interfering with missions) could be solved, to some extent, by designing missions that are divided up into bite-sized chunks — small, seperate tasks which combine to make a complete whole. This way, the player could achieve a sense of accomplishment and have a clear indication of their progress without having to invest a large amount of time. In order to address the second problem, however, one needs to design an MMO where planning ahead isn’t such a neccessity, expanding upon the current friend-finding systems and making it even easier. If one could instantly join a friends quest, maybe existing as an NPC until a player is able to return, players would be able to instantly jump into the action. I’m thinking something akin to Left 4 Dead’s spectator mode, where the player, while still in the game, is controlled by the AI when the player is away. Obviously having the player actually be there is preferable, the the creation of such a system would probably go a long way to help deal with the sporadic nature of handheld play.

When these two issues are accounted for, however, there is still one huge problem with handheld MMO design. As handheld systems are portable, there is no guarantee that the user will have an internet connection at their current location. While I believe this issue will be solved in time, any current handheld MMO will have to take this fact into account, for the places where people play handhelds the most — planes, airports, cars — are far from universally covered, and a game where the player is frequently disconnecting — or sometimes simply can’t play — just won’t do.  For this particular problem, I am unsure what would be the appropriate solution. There are a few technical solutions to this problem — the creator of the game could provide game-specific wireless hotspots at key points or develop some sort of hardware which can connect anywhere — but the cost overhead for the company would be high and might require the development of a new system altogether. Design wise, one could theoretically include a heavy offline component, or even make it so you don’t really need to be connected to play the game at all — but that kind of defeats the purpose of an MMO. For this particular issue, I have no solution — more thought is required.

The first idea that came to my mind was the careful application of the concept of the Sphere of Influence to virtual worlds. For those who are not familiar with the term, the idea of the Sphere of Influence is that even if we have true control over our own selves, certain things will be beyond our control at all times. For example, sometimes people simply don’t listen, no matter how hard you try. One of the most frustrating things for people is to attempt to control things outside of their sphere of influence — to try to change things they can have no effect on, and reverse insurmountable tides. Applying this to the tragic narrative, it is reasonable to have enough outside forces building in the world so that the conclusion is inevitable regardless of the players actions — in this way, a uniform and powerful conclusion can be delivered without dramatically limiting the players choice in the narrative.

The second idea that came to my mind was the lose-lose scenario. Sometimes in life, and often in fiction, you are faced with a choice in which neither outcome is desirable but a choice is nonetheless necessary — like the scenario in the Dark Knight where Batman is forced to choose between his love interest Rachel Dawes and the hope of Gothem, Harvey Dent. In such scenarios, there really is no happy ending — no matter what the player chooses and no matter how many times they retry the event, there will be some degree of guilt and negative repercussions. In such a situation, I believe that time travel could actually solidify tragedy — if the player tries again and again, the hopelessness of the presented situation will only become more apparent. I am actually pretty surprised I have not seen more of these scenarios in games — perhaps they are considered to be too aggravating to the player. No one wants to have to make those decisions. Nevertheless, I could see such scenarios being incredibly powerful if used correctly.

The final solution I considered, and the one I think is my favorite, is the idea of utilizing a player’s momentum against them. When the player has been working towards a goal for a long period of time, they will naturally become invested in the goal and will want to see all their effort pay off. Therefore, if you put something in their way that will have serious consequences but is depicted as necessary in order achieve their goal — for example, sacrificing one of the main supporting characters — they will very likely wind up following the path despite the consequences. In order for this idea to work, the player will have to believe in the world enough to want to see the goal completed — but if successful, the game would create a tragic and powerful scenario which the player would really have no way of avoiding without compromising all of their efforts.

I am not sure if any of these methods would be successful on their own, but I do feel that they would be good places to start exploring if one were to try to find a solution to the problem of Time Travel making Tragedy Obsolete. Call me an idealist, but I can’t help but hope that one day all these problems will be overcome, and the Dream of the true interactive narrative will be achieved.

Around a week ago in this class, we discussed the pretty commonly accepted notion that games should be designed with a demographic in mind. The idea was that, when making a game, the designer needs to always keep in mind who he or she is targeting — in other words, who are they trying to sell their game too. Is the game meant for girls? 9-12 year olds? Seniors? The idea is that if you are trying to appeal to a certain group, you should change the structure of your game in order to tap into their ‘natural tendencies.’ If you are making a game for young children, for example, you will want to eliminate any tension and challenge, creating a relaxed game with simple mechanics. If you are trying to appeal to women, you want to focus on an emotional story with depth and intelligence, and to guys a game that allows them to feel accomplished and powerful. However, I personally believe that an intense focus on demographics can do more harm than good; limiting the creativity of your design and actually potentially boring the audience you are attempting to cater too.

Now, to be absolutely clear, completely failing to consider ones audience can cause one’s game, no matter how good, to be a complete non-starter. Take, for example, Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros’ Treasure — a  Wii game released by Capcom in October of 2007.  While the games art style and story were childish and fantastical, the game consisted entirely of puzzles which were challenging for full grown adults and almost impossible for children. The game was almost universally acclaimed by those who played it, achieving an average Metacritic score of 87 — but it also bombed at retail, in no doubt largely because of the aforementioned incongruities. If the game’s tone had been more consistent with it’s style — maybe still cartoonish, but slightly more mature in tone (something like Monkey Island) — the game would have been a much easier sell, and probably would not have fallen so hard at retail.

However, with that said, one must also consider the damage that an overly strong focus on demographics can cause. The only sure-fire way to cater to demographic is to emulate what has been successful with that group in the past. Works that do so may find success, but quickly fizzle out and have little lasting appeal. Great examples of this are the Gossip Girl books, which followed the established teen-girl soup-opera formula to the letter, with little innovation. The series had its moment in the sun, but was quickly usurped by Twilight — a book which stole it’s core demographic of teen females right out from under its feet. While the replacement may not be much of an improvement in our eyes, I’ve heard my sister talk about it enough times to know that Twilight’s inclusion of fantastical elements — such as vampires and werewolves — were a factor in this switch. These elements are not usually found in works of fiction for young women, because they were not considered to appeal to the demographic — but the inclusion of these elements did not drive away, but actually made the books more interesting for their intended audience.

In my opinion, the most successful games are those which know their audience but do not become entrapped by them — which reach beyond what that group is known to desire and into things that will create new and interesting experiences for them. A powerful example of this is BioShock, a first person shooter which placed an unusual emphasis on atmosphere and story. Although the game was primarilly built for the audience of adult males, the game design contained several elements — such as a complex story and emotional core — which reached outside what was typically considered to be the ‘male’ demographic. With a focus on demographics, this might have been considered a mistake, but the team decided to take these risks, and wound up being praised for them. Furthermore, the game wound up appealing to groups beyond their expected demographic — BioShock is one of my sisters favorite games, and she is not alone. Compare this to something like KillZone, a game which — while polished — never really pushed the limits of their demographic and (as a result?) never found the same broad appeal. This can also be seen in many historically great games — like Mario, a game which trumpets greater challenge and complex platforming than the typical children’s game.

To summarize and simplify, the games that a demographic finds most appealing are not the ones which replicate what has been successful in the past, but the ones that take the foundation of their interests and add in things which other games does not offer — things that, more often than not, lie outside what is typically considered “safe” for their designation. The fact is, every individual — regardless of demographic — is looking for something new; this is the reason people seek entertainment, instead of just sticking with their daily routine. If you limit yourself to the tried and true, you will find only brief success with little lasting impact. If you break outside the typical bounds of your demographic, your game will not only have more staying power because of these differences, but will also inherently reach a larger audience.

Download, and spread the awesomeness around the world.

Credits:

Connor Fallon – Creative Director

Matt Klingensmith – Technical Director

Andrew Friedland – Programmer

Peter Anderson-Sprecher – Programmer

Amos Yuen – Programmer

Kris Brakke – Programmer

Mark Slabinski – Level design

Jill Goodwyn – Art (character)

Paul Miller – Art (background)

Sarah Scialli – Voice (Queen Beeatrice)

Anyway, it’s not done yet, as the title indicates… but we will have it done by next week.

Just thought the two of you might want to know.