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Illusions the Game

Gaming

The first Round Table of 2009 is as follows:

Putting the Game Before the Book What would your favorite piece of literature look like if it had been created as a game first? In a time when bits of Dante’s Divine Comedy are being carved out and turned into a hack-n-slash game, I find myself longing for intelligently designed games–games with a strong literary component–not merely literary backdrops. So rather than challenge you to imagine the conversion of your favorite literature into games, I challenge you to supersede the source literature and imagine a game that might have tried to communicate the same themes, the same message, to its audience.

So, anyone who knows me well knows immediately what book I picked, but as fast as I picked that book I also ruled it out.  My first thoughts were of how impossible it would be to make a game that illustrates the same message.  I then spent several days trying to pick another book, another piece of literature, something else… but it was a fruitless search, and I knew that in the end I would have to accept the challenge and try to design a game with the idea that it existed in the same place as the book had the book not existed.  I racked my brain looking at computer games and card games and board games and schoolyard games and everything I could think of to craft my game out of, and it was then that I realized that it didn’t matter.

First, allow me to introduce you to the book, which I feel is one of the finest if not the finest piece of literature ever written, Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah by Richard Bach.  The story is about a man who decided to get away from the life he had and trying to figure out what live he wanted by getting in a biplane and taking up barnstorming (flying around, stopping at small towns and offering to take people up while you do turns and loops and whatnot for a small fee).  This man, Richard, has an unlikely meeting with another barnstormer, Donald, who is the Reluctant Messiah of the title.  Richard is a man escaping the world because of all the restrictions in it, and Donald is a man escaping the world because the people refuse to see it has no restrictions.  Donald teaches Richard that the world is nothing but illusions, that anything is possible and that the only limitations anyone has are the ones they insist upon themselves, and the only things that really matter are entertainment, learning and other people.

For our game, let me start by paraphrasing a quote often found on the back cover of the book:

Here is
a test to find
whether your mission in game
is finished:
If you’re playing,
it isn’t.

If Illusions were to be a card game, it would be like Mao, only it isn’t just the dealer who knows the rules and unveils them, everyone participates.  If Illusions were a schoolyard sport, it would be like Calvinball.  In fact, if you look around, other variations of the “make up the rules as you go along” game exist for pretty much any medium.  Even MMOs have their sandboxes (Second Life, etc), and even in more rigid MMOs (World of Warcraft, etc) the game itself has no defined end and it is up to the player to decide under which conditions they consider the game to be “finished”.

Of course, getting people to want to play a game that has no rules (but potentially has all rules) is tough.  Without the rules, most people won’t know what to do, and whether they realize it or not, their dislike of the “game” is probably tied to its similarity to “life”.  The game is what you make of it, as much as life is what you make of it… and that is the point.  In whatever form the game were to be presented, a player could easily make up a rule that allows them to instantly “win”, however the question isn’t whether or not they won but if they enjoyed it, if they got something out it.  Maybe by throwing down the “I win” card in the first round they do get something out of it, they smile, they laugh, and yet if they do it enough they might find that no one wants to play with them anymore, which itself is an opportunity for learning: if you want to play with other people, other people have to have the opportunity of winning.

As you make up and play with new rules, you discover how they affect you and those around you, and you can find which rules lead to the most fun in the game, for everyone, and those are the rules that you will end up keeping around.

Back in High School, a group of friends and I would play cards at lunch.  On days when people were angry at stuff we sometimes played Egyptian Ratscrew (though we used the F-word instead of “screw” because we were teenagers), but that could lead to much pain, so more often than not we played Mao (mentioned above).  And while one guy was the one who brought us the game and the initial set of rules, each dealer was allowed to craft their own set, as long as they named it (so that players could file rules learned under a heading for later play).  We had tons of fun making up rule sets and yelling at others when the rules that were made stunk (the lunch monitors had to drop by and ask us to quiet down at least once a day as we got into heated disputes).  In the end, the rules that stayed and made their way into every dealer’s set were the ones that made people laugh, even when they forgot the rule and got penalty cards.  By the time we crafted the master rule set that we settled on (called “Neo-Einteinian” if I recall correctly), players no longer cared if they won or lost the game, they just loved playing it, and to me that should be the goal of every game.

So, as you can see, I deviated from the stated purpose of this month’s Round Table as I didn’t actually design a game for my book, but I think that’s because the fundamental message of the book is actually the fundamental message of game design in general.  The creation of any game is an exercise in the game of Illusions.

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I am a Twit

Random Thoughts

I suppose it was inevitable.  Eventually, Internet social tools become so strong that I end up joining in.  First there was MySpace, then Facebook and LinkedIn, and now Twitter.  In case you can’t follow that link, my name on Twitter is Jhaer, the same as my Xbox Gamertag.  There is a story behind that name which I don’t often share.

On the bright side, I am considering deleting my MySpace page because I barely go there anymore.  One should be mindful of one’s Internet Footprint and not leave inactive accounts all over the place.  Its kind of like “Going Green” but digitally…

Smiles, everyone… smiles!

Random Thoughts

Being born in 1974 means that my impressionable youth is crammed with the television and movies of the late 70’s and early 80’s.  Chief among my earlier memories are those of watching Fantasy Island on TV.  I am dismayed that only season one has been released on DVD.  I’ll likely purchase it someday, but I don’t have the heart to rush out and get it since no further seasons have been released.

Even more disheartening though was learning of the death of Ricardo Montalbán.  He brought to life both Mr. Roarke of Fantasy Island as well as bringing us, arguably, the best villain of the Star Trek franchise in Khan Noonien Singh, from both the TV series and the epic Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan.

Rest in peace, Señor Montalbán, in soft Corinthian leather.

Again with the phones

Stuff on the Net

Not Palm this time though…

To me, one of the most irritating innovations in recent times has been the blue tooth headset.  I have lost count of the number of times I have thought someone was talking to me only to discover that concealed on the other side of their head wrapped around one ear was their phone.  It is funny, however, when the person in question is an animated talker, you know, one of those people who talk with their hands.  Using a traditional phone at least one hand was occupied holding the phone and the other hand often calmed down, but with both hands free some people get quite into their conversations.

One of the disadvantages of the blue tooth headset was that you still had to have the phone, in your pocket or on your belt or in your bag or something.  Well, LG has solved that by making a phone that is a watch.

I don’t think I would want one.  I’m not so good with watches, they get horribly beat up on my wrist.  In fact, I have to replace my watches fairly regularly because the glass/plastic gets scuffed to the point that you can’t read the time.  But even though I wouldn’t carry one that doesn’t mean I can’t still think it is cool.

Excited about a phone

Stuff on the Net

Over the years I have owned a number of phones and played with many more.  At the end of the day, Palm’s phones, particularly the Treo line, were the ones I liked the most.  With its mixture of PDA and phone capabilities along with other random things it can do, Palm’s phones were solid.  If you know me, you know I’m not a fan of the iPhone.  Much like I’m not a fan of the iPod or the iMac or iTunes or pretty much anything that comes out of Apple.  When it comes to MP3 players I have enjoyed my Zune very much and want to get a larger one to hold all my music.  And while I have seen a number of very nice applications pop up for the iPhone, none of them yet have made me even consider buying one.

On the other hand, Palm announced their new phone, the Pre, today.  Some of the innovations they’ve come up with on their new webOS make their company name apropos as I felt like putting my face in my palm, like the fact their apps are built using HTML, javascript and other basic web tools.  According to Palm’s blog, the people from Pandora made note that it only took them three days to write up a webOS version of their application as opposed to the months it took them on other platforms.  Flipping through the screenshots of applications looks beautiful, and easy to use, and then to cap it all off there is a slide out full QWERTY keyboard instead of just an on screen one.

And the best part yet, its a Sprint exclusive phone which means that if I decide to get one at some point down the road I don’t have to change providers to do it.

About the only thing that could get me more excited would be for Palm to announce that in addition to phones they’ll also be putting their new webOS on netbook-like devices (and not cancel it this time), because really, the greatest flaw of the netbook is that it is a small laptop, when it would be much better to approach them as a large PDA.

Fast versus Slow

Gaming

One thing I have found in a few places in comments about the new game Left 4 Dead is disappointment that the zombies are fast zombies instead of slow zombies.  Sure, Dead Rising had slow zombies and it worked fairly well, but then again it was also an entirely single player game with a storyline that lasts for many many hours of game playing time.  Each of Left 4 Dead’s scenarios can be completed in about an hour (more or less depending on your difficulty setting and the people you have chose to play with).  I’m not sure I’d want to play Left 4 Dead in a story that lasted for twenty hours of play.  I mean, the story as it is is “four people wound up hiding together and have decided to make a run toward [insert possible rescue destination here]”, and it works for the time it takes to play it.  Dragging out a single run to rescue for twenty hours would likely be horrendously repetitive and tiring… just like Dead Rising is if you choose to just hang around for the helicopter, killing zeds and run none of the missions and stories (heck, even with the missions, sometimes Dead Rising is kinda dull… but I still love the game).

But could a Left 4 Dead style game work with slow zombies?

I think it could, however, it would require a number of mechanics changes.  For one, little piles of ammo, guns and grenades would be out.  As would the unlimited ammo pistols.  We wouldn’t have to remove guns, but we would absolutely need to slim down the supply of them.  We’d also need to add in melee weapons, real ones, not just pushing zombies back with your gun, but bats and shovels and other things.  Each melee item would have a power rating and a weight, swinging one would cause you to get tired.  The more you swing, the slower you swing, unless you rest up.  These things combined would allow for the encounters with slow zombies to be more tense.  If you have unlimited ammo, you can just shoot them all and walk your way to the end (if you have never seen the remake of Night of the Living Dead, one of the major changes from the original is Barbara actually putting to use the idea of “they are just so slow, you could walk right past them” and she leaves the house on her own with a pistol and walks to safety while everyone else dies inside the house), while the “tired bar” makes you sometimes choose to use your limited ammo over your melee weapon in order to survive.  The game would also need more “monster closets”, because as is Left 4 Dead avoids the monster closet by having hordes of zeds randomly show up climbing over fences and whatnot.  In order to maintain a level of creep and dread with slow zombies, you’d have to play up the idea that meeting them in large numbers is dangerous by occasionally forcing the players to deal with large numbers of them… open a door and wham, twenty five zombies are in that room you need to walk through.  Oh, and all zombies must be killed by removing the head or destroying the brain, shooting one in the leg just makes him limp when he walks, shooting both just makes him drag himself along the ground.  Did I not mention you’d need to watch out for zombies pulling themselves around at ankle level?  In fact, the game might be more focused on avoiding the zombies instead of Left 4 Dead’s plow through attitude.

While fighting slow zombies might still be made fun, I’m not sure that playing one could be.  You’d stumble around, you’d be slower than the players, and your only method of attack would be to get close enough to grab at them and bit them.  And if the players shot off your legs, you’d essentially be spending the entire rest of the map dragging after them with little hope of catching up.  However, without the obstacle of the special infected running around and keeping the game entirely co-op, you could have infection.  A player who gets bit is infected.  They will die, and they will become a zombie, how fast that happens depends on how badly they get hurt.  The game would have no health bar and include no healing, so that even the infected himself couldn’t warn his teammates.  So the other players in co-op would need to decide… shoot the infect guy now or wait until he turns?  Sure, killing him now makes you safer since you don’t have to worry about him turning, but killing him now also means that you are going to be short one gun or club as you move forward.  You start the game with four and it tunes for four, so if you have to off one of your own, you are down to three playing a map tuned for four.  Or two on map for four… or all by yourself.  To ease the sting of that, I’d probably keep Left 4 Dead’s survivor closets where you can recover a fallen friend, and from map to map within a scenario all players would get put back in.

Slow zombies in a first person shooter could definitely work, but it wouldn’t be the same game at all.

Jeremiah

Reviews

What if there was a virus that somehow affected only people who had gone through puberty and killed them, all over the world?  That is the stage that is set for the TV show Jeremiah.  Don’t bother looking for it in your local listings, it ran on Showtime from 2002 to 2004.  The first season ran 20 episodes and the second season ran for 15, and I enjoyed every single one of them.

The major saving grace of this show is that they avoided mutants and monsters, it is just about people.  The show begins fifteen years after a virus killed off all the adults, making the oldest people on Earth around thirty years old or so.  The world is in disarray.  Since kids generally don’t know how to run complex machines everything eventually stopped, and not many kids know how to grow crops so starvation was a big problem.  They learned to fend for themselves.  And now, fifteen years later, towns run by bullies have solidified and barter cultures have arisen, and some kids have even spent time reading books instead of burning them trying to regain the knowledge they lost in “the Big Death”.

I was worried, of course, as I always am when watching shows that were cancelled that it would end poorly.  But Jeremiah managed to tell two seasons worth of stories and even end well.  So, if you are a Netflix user and you own an Xbox 360 with a Live Gold subscription, I highly recommend throwing this show into your instant queue and giving it a shot.

Hello 2009!

Random Thoughts

Welcome 2009.  I am really glad to see you, as long as you turn out to be better than 2008.  Sure, 2008 started off well enough, there were even several pleasant points, but then like the bitch that she is 2008 turned on me.  Fuck you 2008!  Fuck!  You!

So, 2009, since 2008 has left me unemployed and broke, I’m hoping you can help me out.  Speak sweat nothings to me, 2009.  Tell me that everything is going to be alright…

Anyway, looking back at the start of 2008, I did indeed write less checks, I did continue to play betas and not buy MMOs, I did play more console games, there were more superhero books, and business did look good right up until the train wreck that has been the last three months of the year.  Looking as my resolutions… well, I did rake the yard once and I bagged some leaves because Georgia didn’t lift its burn ban, but right now the back yard is nothing but leaves.  I did not build the bar, mostly because I never had the extra cash to buy counter tops.  But I did manage to buy a lot less crap this year than I have in previous years because Netflix is awesome.  With their streaming service and our media PC, and now using the Xbox 360, we’ve watched tons of movies without buying very many at all.  Essentially, for the price of one new DVD a month ($15), we get to watch unlimited streamed movies and rotate 2 physical discs through the mail.  We did buy more books this year than previous years, but we spent far less on books that we would have on DVDs.

Oh, and Fred Thompson did not become President, so I did not eat my hat.

Where do I see 2009 going?  Well… I’m still looking for work, so I’ll be spending all of January trying to find a good job.  If I make it to the end of January without finding a good one, I will find a bad one.  2009 looks like its going to be a rebuilding year, like 2001.  After a period of unemployment, I’ll wind up taking a job I don’t want that I’m far overqualified for and begin to slowly claw my way back up the wage ladder.  My first ladder climb lasted 4 years… this one lasted 8… so maybe my next climb will last 16 and I won’t be unemployed again until I’m 50.  Or maybe I’ll do something else… we’ll just have to wait and see…

Left 4 Dead

Gaming

I am a little late to the party.  Left 4 Dead released back on November 17th, 2008, and I remember, months before, vowing that I would buy it on that day.  Considering that that day marked one full month of being unemployed, I didn’t buy it.  Most people I know who own Xbox 360’s did, and I got to listen to a lot of talk about how cool the game was.

The Tuesday before Christmas, a friend of mine gifted me with Left 4 Dead.

Quite simply, this is probably the most fun game I own for the 360.  Playing alone is often tense and thrilling.  Playing with others is frantic and heart pounding.

I think one of the most innovative parts of this game is the scenario design.  Rather than try to build one whole coherent story encompassing the entire disc, each scenario, of which there are 4 included with the game, is a separate story of its own.  In the first scenario, your group of survivors start on a roof top and you can see the hospital in the distance… so your plan is to cross the city to the hospital, which has a helipad, and call for help.  The second scenario you start out on a road heading to one town you think might be safe, and since it sits on the water you might be able to find a boat and escape.  Scenario three, your band of intrepid zombie fighters are making for the airport, looking for a plane ride out of here.  And in scenario four, you are just trying to get the hell out, but wind up at a farm house with a radio that allows you to call in the Army to your location for a rescue.  Every level of every scenario has multiple paths to the end, and playing through is an organic experience.  While in many games repeating a level gets easier unless you force up the difficulty level, with random spawns and some randomization on supplies and the dynamic AI (The Director), even playing through the same level on the easiest level of difficulty is fun time and time again.

The reason I think this scenario design is so innovative is that is sets a precedent, it manages expectations, so that in the future Valve can release new scenarios, and it doesn’t need to be a continuation of the story, or just a pack of multi-player maps, but they can drop a new mini story of a handful of levels, creating another separate game experience, without changing any of the existing game but also not feeling it is outside of the existing game.

I look forward to the downloaded content for this game.