Skyrim (Part 2) - The Dovakiin Switcheroo

      In Part 1 I went into an overview of "endless" games and the different ways game work to extend their longevity. This part will jump off from that to focus on the larger question of player satisfaction and how to avoid design dissonance. Along the way I will also explore some of the ideas brought up in the comments of my last post as they relate to this topic.

A Tale of Two Skyrims
      In the beginning, Skyrim was great. Despite not being a huge fan of open-world games, I was an instant convert. I realized right away why people loved these games - the feeling of immersion as you traverse vast landscapes and slay monsters is unlike anything I had experienced before. I was able to overlook most of its tiny flaws - its combat, for instance, was a bit simplistic for me. It didn't matter, since the overall experience of the game so great. For 98 hours I was having a great time, then the experience changed dramatically.

What in Oblivion is that?

      It was around the time I hit level 35 that the game started to lose its charm for me. I had learned most of the spells, gotten through most of the story quests, explored numerous side quests, and got some pretty awesome equipment. The problem was that I was at the point where the rewards for exploring were getting less and less interesting, and I had less and less need to level up or get better stuff.

      It was around this same time that I began to lose interest aimlessly exploring the world as I had done before. For every one area that had some genuinely interesting subplot to it, there were dozens of caves, ruins, and bandit camps purely there to guard loot. Short of going on a wiki or hunting those areas down on GameFAQs, how am I to know which areas are kickass adventuring areas and which are just filler dungeon crawls? Never mind a more casual player that hardly ever uses such resources.

      This presents an interesting design problem. Essentially the core of the game experience was not clearly conveyed to me as the player. The mechanics suggested the game was about accumulating loot and getting more powerful, fighting monsters, and completing quests. But in the grand scheme of things, the game is more about adventure and discovering what the world has to offer. The mechanics the player is exposed to early on does not set the correct expectations for the rest of the game, nor does it provide compelling incentives for exploration beyond a certain point.

What does your game say to your player?
      These days, players expect to learn how to play a game from jumping in and playing it. Often this includes a tutorial, but not necessarily. Thus the primary way for a player to understand how to play the game and what their goals should be is through the mechanics. The mechanics, particularly those the player are exposed to at the beginning of the game, teach a player what the game is about, and they can be thought of as a "language" by which the designer speaks to the player.

     Mechanics condition a player to approach a game a certain way. Whether you are a die-hard gamer, who expects to have a similar experience to similar games you've played in the past, or a new player with no expectations at all, the mechanics tell you how to play. The players level of game literacy makes no difference. They will invariably draw conclusions about the game from the mechanics that are most obviously presented to them, and herein lies the problem with Skyrim.

     Much like how action games condition players to get through the game as fast as possible, so too does Skryim put an emphasis on getting more "stuff," be it new spells, new equipment, etc. Which is hardly surprising, as it has become a staple of the genre for many years now.

Thanks, Diablo! >:(

      The problem is that once you have effectively accumulated all of the best stuff the game has to give you, Skyrim becomes a completely different game. It goes from being a stuff-oriented dungeon crawler to what is essentially an open-world adventure game, with a few combat speedbumps here and there. It's not unlike what happened with the controversial game Manhunt, which devoted the first half of the game to stealth and melee combat, then turned into a frenetic shooter later in the game.

      This kind of dissonance creates a situation where players have to choose to either fundamentally change their playstyle completely from what they were used to and had enjoyed, or walk away from the game and not bother with the remaining content of the game (which could be in the ballpark of 75% of what the game has to offer!).

      This is bad design on many levels. First, it means a good chunk of players will not bother experiencing most of your content, making it a waste of the dev's time and money. Second, it means your mechanics are basically tricking the player into thinking the game is about something it isn't. Finally, you are making an experience that ends in a fizzle rather than a bang, with players losing interest long before seeing the finish line.

Switching Gears while Keeping People On Board
      Now you could argue that there are plenty of games that switch things up on their players. If you really wanted to get nitpicky, you could say your basic RPG is like two different games: one where you are in town, and one where you are out fighting monsters. Could this not also be seen as a conflict? Not if done correctly.

      Switching gears like this can actually be a helpful tool if you consider its effect on the pacing of the game. In an RPG, for example, having the player go back to town or visit a new town helps establish a good curve of tension-to-rest, which facilitates a more enjoyable experience overall. Not only does it help create a bigger contrast between the game's highs and lows, it also gives players a chance to process the action they have experienced, and through NPC interactions understand the context of what they are doing.

      At the same time, it is important to delineate which modes of play (such as combat or visiting town) constitute the core game experience, and which play a secondary role of enhancing the core experience. For an RPG you can generally see the connection between the town and combat fairly easily - the town allows you to stock up on equipment and weapons to help you fight monsters better, and provide quests and lore to help enhance the sense of purpose behind those actions.

      Occasionally the core play experience is a matter of debate, as was the case with Guild Wars. The original concept of the game was to build it around a competitive experience, where the single player experience (PvE) acting as a prelude to competitive PvP, which the designers assumed players would graduate to once they tired of the single player experience. But that wasn't what happened.

      The playerbase instead was divided between players that loved PvP and those that loved PvE. Sure, you had people that loved both, but the vocal players were the ones at either end of the spectrum. PvP players were frustrated they had to play through the single player campaign in order to unlock the abilities and equipment they wanted, and wanted to have everything unlocked without any grind. PvE players, on the other hand, felt that would be unfair, as it would belittle the hard work they had to go through to unlock those same items from questing. So a compromise was reached where they introduced "Faction" points you could earn from PvP to spend on unlocking more stuff.

WoW developed its own suspiciously similar Arena mode some time later.

When an Object says more than a Character
      Planescape had a similar issue of dissonance. Like Skryim, it had a large number of weapons and spells you could get, as well as various items to boost your combat effectiveness, yet was ultimately about exploration and discovery. The designers cleverly used the games inanimate objects and loot to help reinforce, rather than override, the player's desire to explore the game world.

      In place of generic swords and healing potions are various blood charms, enchanted teeth, magical tattoos, talking books, detachable eyeballs, bugs that crawl in your brain to make you smarter, and many more. Every item tied itself inextricably to the lore of the game world, and functioned like a puzzle piece that fit into the larger tapestry of the game's vast and imaginative lore. Every object was imbued with a sense of purpose and mystery, reflecting the tone of the game and enticing the player to learn more about the Planescape universe.

      There is only one item in Skyrim that reminded me of what Planescape did - The Wooden Mask. The player stumbles across this mask in an ancient ruin, along with a note talking about how a man put the mask on and vanished into thin air. If the player puts on the mask, they themselves are transported into a magical room, with a series of busts resembling figures wearing similar masks. No further explanation is given, but the player over time realizes the purpose of this room. Finding that mask was by far the most enjoyable thing I did in the game.

      Items aren't the only way to make a stronger connection between the narrative and gameplay. Games like Bioshock did a brilliant job of making abilities and the environment itself tell a story, and support the "proper" narrative told by the various NPCs. Dead Space likewise took an interesting approach with its weapons, with each one being a repurposed mining tool. All of these are great examples of using objects in the game to reinforce the narrative, and perhaps even entice players to learn more about the game world.

      In short, design choices should be considered carefully as to make them all fit into place to form a cohesive whole, rather than compete against eachother and create a fragmented experience.

What am I Doing With My Life?
      Bigger still is the idea of making games feel more meaningful and worthwhile for players. This can only be accomplished by considering what the designer wants the player to get out of the game, beyond of the confines of the game itself.

      The most memorable games I have played are games where I got something meaningful out of playing them. Final Fantay VII's strong musical score added deep emotional resonance to the experience. Planescape challenged the player's preconceptions of reality and philosophy, making one think more deeply. Beating a match in Starcraft 2 gives players a great boost in confidence, and killing demons in Devil May Cry 3 to its awesome soundtrack gives you a feeling of thrilling empowerment.

      These are all games that made me feel something even after I stopped playing the game. They made me feel that my experience was rewarding and well worth the price of admission. After all, what is entertainment if not the trading of money for the chance to experience powerful emotions?

      That's not to say that every game needs to be a Shakespearean drama or a Nietzschean dissertation on the nature of reality. Sometimes some mindless violence or some lighthearted fun is just what players want. But too many games try to be like snacking on Cheetos - a delicious yet unenlightening experience, instead of aspiring to be like a mind-blowing documentary, which could change a player's life forever.

      In the grand scheme of things, every time we choose to do something, we miss out on doing something else. Playing a game is an investment of time and money that could be spent elsewhere, and as such games are competing for people's attention from movies, books, socializing with friends, or dating. Consider your game like a present you are giving to your players. Underneath the shiny wrapper of nice graphics and gameplay, what do you ultimately want the player to walk away with? More confidence? A stronger bond to their friends? A new perspective on life and the world around them?

      All too often developers seem to take the easy route, looking to make a game purely for someone to kill time on, or to stave off boredom. This may be well and good for an iPhone game, but if we hope to make the jump from whimsical diversion to enriching entertainment experience, we as developers need to go deeper and give players something that is comparable, if not better, than other activities.

Clearly an allusion to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

      Board games, for instance, have done a great job of blending a light, fun game experience with social bonding. In fact, some games have taken this a step further, featuring interesting player conflicts that can spark conversation, friendships, and be a vehicle by which other players can get to know each other. A board game like Battlestar Galactica is a great example of this, as it toys with the idea of trust and creates a situation where players really need to analyze each other and discern their motives in order to be successful. It creates an environment where players are asked to express their personality, which gives players a stronger emotional bond with the game and those they play with.

Rewards vs Rewarding Experience
      In discussing why Skyrim isn't as satisfying as it could be on my last post, an interesting idea was brought up. Perhaps the problem with Skyrim, and indeed many games, is that they rely on artificial rewards in place of making the act of playing the game being its own reward. Perhaps the over-reliance on these artificial measures of reward are what's holding these games back.

      I think this is a good point, especially when it comes to games like MMOs. Most MMOs task player with some sort of menial quest, with the promise of some gold and perhaps a new weapon for completing them. Now when you think about it, what kind of game experience is that? You are telling the player to go work on something boring and then get rewarded with what amounts to nothing more than a gold star. Sure, you could use that gold to get better equipment... to do more boring quests... to get more equipment...

      Compare this to the Assasin's Tombs found in Assasin's Creed II. These are areas where the player has a chance to relive the glory days of Prince of Persia, acrobatically climbing and leaping across various platforms in the environment. It makes for a nice diversion from all the neck stabbing, and as a reward gives you a seal you can use to unlock Altair's armor from the first game. This I think is a great example of how this should be done: make the end reward be icing on the cake, not a consolation for forcing your player to put up with your lack of imagination.

      Turning back to Skryim, one could make the case that because Skryim ostensibly makes getting loot and better stuff appealing, that those things detract from the game's more substantive content, and in some cases is even used in place of interesting encounters. This is the wrong way to go, and I think it is time we focus more on the experience of games being their own reward, rather than handing out trophies for putting up with tedious activity.

Gamertarianism
      "Get your designer hands out of my play experience!"
      "Get Big Designer off our backs!"
      "Let the Free Gamer decide rather than Big Designer picking winners and losers!"

      Like their political counterparts, there are some people out there that don't want to be told what to do. They don't want an authority figure dictating how they should play their games, and desire as much freedom as possible in their play experience. Some even go so far as to say that making games built around expression and freedom are the future of gaming, and there is certainly merit to that argument.

      You could certainly make the argument that giving players more freedom to play games as they please is not only the best way to go, but the ultimate future of the game medium. After all, who is a designer to say how the player should have fun in their game? Some players decide to play Skryim like they were an NPC. Others may play racing games and drive backwards just to see cars crash into each other (like myself). For many designers this kind of behavior is not only welcomed, but encouraged.

      From my perspective, however, I don't think this is a one-size-fits-all approach, as there are some games there giving the player more "freedom" can actually hurt the experience. It is not unlike the dichotomy positive and negative freedom in political theory. The former is meant to ensure freedom of one's choices in life through protective safety nets, while the other subscribes to the notion that people are most free when left alone by authority figures.

      In terms of games, one could likewise see how more designer-authored games are designed around inspiring players by introducing something new into the mind of the player, enabling engagement, yet potentially feeling overly constricting. Conversely, player-authored design revolves around a more hands-off approach where players can express themselves and create the experience they want to have themselves, yet can also feel less compelling from a lack of focus.

      Giving players the ability to determine the direction and even playstyle they want to engage in certainly has its advantages. On a purely business side, it means the difference between making 5 games targeting different audiences and making one game that can appeal to them all. Likewise it also means that if a player gets bored of one type of playstyle or just wants an extra challenge, they can try it out without having to pop in another game.

      Deus Ex: Human Revolution worked because you could approach the game through stealth, combat, social interaction, hacking, or any combination of those and the game still felt like a cohesive experience. By contrast, if you were to be a real adventurer and wander around Skyrim, you would have to go against the grain of accumulating more stuff in order to enjoy yourself.

      Perhaps the key is to create an ever-illusive game that both allows for freedom of expression yet feels directed enough to produce an interesting experience.

The Next Frontier
      As games shift more toward player-authored experiences, I believe it is important not to forget the strengths of designer-authored games. These two paradigms need not be in opposition to each other, but can be used together to great effect. Consider The Witcher 2, which divided its game world into chapters (or levels, if you will) which acted as a hybrid between an open-world play experience and a tightly directed narrative experience.

      Consider also how every mechanic works together, and what those mechanics communicate to the player. If Skyrim had, for example, added more interesting ways to navigate and interact with the vast environment as a game like Journey does, perhaps it would feel like a more coherent experience. When all of the game's elements are reinforcing each other, rather than fighting each other, then you have a much more enjoyable game experience.


     I will be taking a brief hiatus from posting for about a week or so to focus on other projects. Stay tuned for future posts!

Skyrim - This is Going to Take a While

Battling for the Fate of Skyrim... until it gets Old
      I've never really been into open-ended sandboxy games. For me I just felt like they have far too much content for me to care about. Sure, they might have an interesting main storyline to follow along with, but I just feel like these games always seem to outstay their welcome for me. When I put a game like Skryim down, the experience doesn't end on a high note, but a low one. The game just fizzles out into obscurity to gather dust in my gaming library.

      I had played Fallout 3 a few years ago, and was initially intrigued by the exploration and the immersive nature of the game. That is, until I reached the level cap, and felt so powerful that the game really lost any sense of challenge or tension. I had barely explored a quarter of the map and I was already bored with the game. I had plenty of powerful weapons, with little need for better ones, and the story just wasn't interesting enough for me to want to see more of it.

Bah! This is just Fallout 3 with Elves!

      When Skyrim first came out, I looked at it with similar suspicion. Sure, it was the fifth entry in the popular Elder Scrolls series, and I had heard many people rave about how much they love it. But I was still skeptical... until I saw it on a Steam sale on Christmas for $40. A $20 savings within a month of release for a major game! I had never seen such a thing, so I thought "screw it, why not?".

On a side note, if you ever see Alpha Protocol for $5, go for it. Best $5 I've spent in a long time.

      Granted, I clocked in 98 hours into the game, which is nothing to sneeze at. I genuinely got pulled into the thrill of exploring the game world like I never had before, and I was eager to discover what was around the next corner as I explored its vast landscape. But around the time I achieved 80 points in Destruction magic and about 60+ in Conjuration, I could easily summon Dremora Lords and hurl Incineration spells practically at will. Combat suddenly became boring and mindless. Sure, there were stronger enemies, but they were more damage sponges that a major threat, and fighting tougher foes like Dragon Priests came down to more luck than skill, as they could easily one-shot me if I wasn't careful.

      I ended up just setting the game down to easy mode to fight Alduin and beat the main story quest... then I was just done with the game. I hadn't seen the Stormcloak/Empire conflict to its conclusion, nor killed all of the Dragon Priests, or learned all the Dragon shouts, but I didn't really care. The game just got stale for me and I ended up moving on to other games.

And by moving on I mean going back to playing Starcraft 2.

      When it comes to games, I prefer my games tighter and more focused, with just the right amount of content and good direction to create a game that comes together into a satisfying whole, where completing it gives me a feeling of triumph and enrichment. "Endless" games just don't seem to do it for me.

A Tale of the Bearded Muse
      I recently read a blog post of a friend of mine, who went into a personal story of his own shifting taste in games. He talks about how his interest has shifted from wanting to beat games as soon as possible, to savoring the experience of games and taking his time through them. Further, he dreads seeing the games he's enjoy come to an end, and has thus become more interested in games that essentially never end, like MMOs.

Craig during Freshmen year.

      His tastes sound like the complete opposite to what I thought made games fun. This intrigued me, and inspired me to delve into the core appeal of what one might call "endless" games.

A Little History
      Old-school games back in the Atari and Arcade days largely fell into two camps. The first were games that presented the completion of the game as the ultimate goal and challenge. These games were marked with a constant, forward momentum, minimal exposition, and were largely about the thrill of conquering the challenge the game had to offer. From Golden Axe to Metal Slug, these games were typically your light brawlers, shoot-em-ups, or fighting games that drove the player ever forward toward a final, climactic confrontation.

      The second were games that a player could never win, only hold out until they inevitably lose. Games like Asteroids or Centipede are good examples of this, where the player's main driving motivation was to get the highest score for bragging rights and the sense of accomplishment.

It was a simpler time.

      As games moved out of the arcades to the home, new approaches developed to increase the longevity of games. This included such things as having multiple endings, hidden content, optional challenges, multiplayer, or even tools to allow for player-authored content.

      While not every game offers a massive breadth of content, there are plenty of games looking to give players the ability to enjoy their games for as long as possible.

The Neverending Story
      A number of different trends have emerged over the years geared toward making games last longer and keeping players hooked. These trends fall roughly into a few catagories:

• True Endless Experiences
        These are games that do not have an end state. Games like Farmville are great examples of this. Rather than setting out an ultimate goal for the player to complete, they instead give players a set of tools by which they may define and work toward their own goals. Such games lack any true terminal goals, which end the game experience upon completing, but do often use incremental goals to give players a sense of forward momentum and achievement.
  

  Clearly looking to go into the Pro League

  
        As far as actual objectives are concerned, however, these are externalized from the game itself and put into the hands of the players themselves, so they can decide for themselves what they want to achieve. Often such games also lack a definite loss state, removing an element of games that could potentially turn off players from playing further.
  
        Games like Farmville in particular have the appeal of being about management and control. For people that with busy, chaotic lives, these games provide a little "island" of their very own which they have full control over. By the same token, however, they can just as easily be seen as boring, as your progress does not lead you to any goal outside of what you define for yourself.
• Faux Endless Experience
        These are games that feel like they go on forever, but in reality have a finite amount of content. Sandbox games like the Grand Theft Auto series or MMOs like World of Warcraft are some of the most famous examples of this. They provide a large amount of missions and objectives directed within the game, and that content is distributed such that players may take on different tasks at their own pace and in the order of their choosing. This gives players a greater sense of agency in the narrative of the game, as well as making their experience unique in comparison to their friends.
  

  Oh my, how did this get here?

  
        MMOs and Sandbox games diverge a bit, however, in their core appeal. For MMOs, it is the social element that keeps many players coming back, even years after the game has gone out of style. People build friendships around their guilds, trade things at auction houses, and enjoy major raids and other group content. These kinds of games leverage the sense of camaraderie among players, and in some cases can allow for rather compelling emergent social drama to emerge, energizing the playerbase by showing just what can be done in the game's possibility space.
  
       Sandbox games go for more of a hard-coded system of emergence, based on different permutations of the games' many interacting systems. From the behavior of civilians to physics systems, they create a space where the player can enjoy causing mayhem and delight in watching how the world will react. Perhaps the funniest thing I have heard happening comes from a story a friend of mine told me years ago about Fallout 2. He was in a city (New Reno, I believe) talking to this mafia boss type guy at a bar. He ends up pissing him off, so the Mafia guy starts shooting him.
  
  
  
        Now, the interesting thing about early Fallout games is that if someone is firing a ranged weapon and it misses, it has a chance of hitting someone else in the line of fire. In this case, it hit a prostitute on the other side of the bar, who immediately became hostile, pulling out a knife and attacking the mafia guy. The mafia guy kills her, which aggros the rest of the prostitutes in the city, which proceed to attack him, which aggros the rest of the mafia guys. In other words, one stray bullet started a full-on mafia vs prostitute war.
  
        In essence, these types of games are most often about exploration and taking in the game over the course of a long time. Often they are the ones that have the largest amount of substantive content for people to sink their teeth into. Yet such games can have their own problems, where the grind of trivial side quests and objectives can become boring, especially after main story objectives are complete.
• Session-Based Play
        Many games today either include a multiplayer mode or are based entirely around the multiplayer experience. These games, while often having far less content than massive, sprawling games, often enjoy longevity equaling or even exceeding the playtime of even the largest sandbox games. Most of these experiences are competitive, like League of Legends, though some like Left4Dead hold the promise of having more co-op focused games in the future (though Left4Dead does have a competitive mode as well). In either case, they rely heavily on an energized player base and community to keep them active and in the spotlight for players (not unlike with MMOs).
  

  Tired of me bringing up how awesome League of Legends is every other post? Me neither!

  
       Such games overwhelmingly provide a virtually unlimited play experience, though the narrative possibilities have not been explored nearly as much. Perhaps the closest to that trend is in the upcoming game Diablo III, which will feature randomized quests, in addition to its traditional randomized loot and dungeons. Until we have more sophisticated systems of dynamic narrative, I believe our best bet at an unlimited narrative experience comes from the players themselves.
  
        These types of games are perhaps the most like their old arcade counterparts, with each session being a competition to reach some ultimate goal. Yet even after the goal is achieved, the game isn't over. Far from it, as the game encourages you to experience the struggle to reach that goal over and over again, with the thrill and unpredictability of human allies and adversaries providing an emergent narrative of sorts for the player to enjoy.
  
        As I alluded to, the biggest pitfall of session-based games is that for the most part they are competitive, or otherwise focused around overcoming a challenge, which can limit its appeal among inexperienced and casual players.
• Community-Driven Content Creation
        With the advent of level editors and authoring tools, it has become easier than ever for players to not only play with one another, but share a piece of their creativity with the communities of their favorite games. Starting with Starcraft (if I'm not mistaken), excellent content development tools were made and, perhaps more importantly, integrated into the main game such that players could easily stumble upon mods and custom maps.
  
        Further, there have been games like Minecraft designed entirely around user-generated content and mods and sharing it with others (thanks to Minecraft's multiplayer mode). This kind of initiative goes beyond just providing more content for players, but actually makes that content feel more meaningful, as it is made by friends and fellow gamers that the player can relate to, perhaps motivating them to get in on the action.
  
  
  
        Games that feature this create a much more intimate relationship between the player and their game, as it allows them to be a part of the game they love and through it create their own mini-game experience of their very own. Of course, getting people to want to do this requires players that are interested enough in the game in the first place to take the time to make such mods, not to mention the extra development time required to make such tools, so it isn't always the best option for all games.

The Story Continues
      There is yet one other point I touched upon I have yet to cover - the idea of player satisfaction - the feeling of triumph and the validation that the time spent with a game was worth it. Alas, that is another story entirely, and rather than shoehorn it into this discussion, I will leave it for my next post. Stay tuned!

Mage Knight - Lessons from the Tabletop

What? A Board Game in a Video Game Design Blog?
      As much as I have devoted the last several years to the study of video games and how they are made, I have come across certain board games that have also caught my attention. Not the Monopoly or Scrabble games everyone knows about, but the kind found only in specialty shops, alongside Warhammer figurines and D&D manuals. They are the kind of games that I feel don't get enough love these days.

     Consider this: video games have been steadily evolving over the past several decades, but this evolution has been held back by technological constraints. Alongside those technological constrains are the rising costs of utilizing these new technologies, driving the cost of developing video games up higher every year. What this means is that as games get more expensive to make, you start to see less variety and experimentation in the medium, as an ill-fated risk can mean a death sentence to a development studio, or a major loss the stockholders of a major publishing company.

     By contrast, the board game industry has been steadily growing. While remaining very much a niche market, they are able to thrive and grow without the constraints put on video games. The costs of development are very low, and a game prototype can be whipped up by a single designer working with a team of dedicated testers. And since the technology never really changes (aside from making pieces look fancier, etc), board games are able to enjoy a steady and constant forward momentum toward innovation and new creative frontiers.

     Mage Knight the Board Game* is an example of some truly excellent game design to come out of the board game world. It's one I felt like highlighting here to show just how much video game designers can learn from our board game designer friends.

     *Not to be confused with the earlier miniatures game set in the same universe.
Overview
     Mage Knight is a fantasy conquest game where you take on the role of one of four Mage Knights and battle your way across the map, acquiring Fame, loot, and conquering various holdings across the map. All of your actions are dictated by a deck of cards, and gameplay is all about careful management of your cards and how to maximize the effectiveness of each turn.

     The game is far too complicated to go over every rule in detail, so I highly suggest watching this video demo of the first round of play to get an idea of how the game is played. If you want to learn more and/or put your reading comprehension skills to the ultimate challenge, both the Rulebook and Walkthrough book are available through Fantasy Flight Game's official website (be warned, though, the books are not very well written and can be very confusing). Hopefully this will make enough sense as to not be too confusing should you not choose to look into those things, but just thought I'd give you a heads up.

     So without further adieu, lets take a look at the game's various mechanics.

Put on your robe and wizard hat!

      Mage Knight has a lot of interesting mechanics that interact together in fascinating ways. It strikes a strong balance between randomness and predictability that allows for deep strategies to emerge and for fun surprises to happen over the course of the game. Below are a few highlights of the system I found particularly compelling:

• The Deck
       Each player starts with a deck of 16 cards, with one card unique to each character that is a stronger version of one of the standard cards. Considering that you draw up to five cards each turn (or more as you level up), this seems like a small number, especially for those used to games like Dominion or even Magic the Gathering with large decks. Unlike in MtG, you are most likely to be able to use every card in your deck each round, which affords you some strategy to complement your turn-by-turn tactics, rather than crossing your fingers and hoping you draw that one kickass card you stashed in your giant deck.
  
  
  
       Tied to the deck is the idea of rounds in the game. Each player takes their turns during a round until one player is unable to draw cards at the end of their turn to put into their hand. Note that decks are only shuffled in between rounds, never in the middle of one. Now, if you compare this to traditional deck building games like Dominion, where reshuffling your deck isn't a particularly huge deal, this creates a very different dynamic. In Mage Knight, how fast or slow you draw new cards has a strong impact on how long the round will go and what you will be able to accomplish, and even what you and your opponents will be able to do.
  
       Consider this: Suppose you used the Regenerate Card to draw 2 cards. Now, this means that not only do you get 2 cards, but that also means you deck is going to run out faster, which can potentially mean that other players will not get to play all of their cards.
  
       At the same time, given how wounds effectively shrink your hand size, it is no coincidence that the regenerate card, your main way of healing, has the choice of Heal 2 (trash two wound cards from your hand) or draw 2 more cards. It makes even a single wound a potentially major liability, and one to be dealt with as soon as possible.
  
       This creates an interesting system where even though you may not be able to predict what you will have from one deck to the next, you have a good idea of what you will be able to do over the course of a whole round, so there is the right balance between randomness and deterministic strategy.
  
  
  
       One could draw parallels to this in RTSes like Starcraft 2, where there is also a mix of determinism and randomness at play during a multiplayer matchup. A player is in full control of what they make, and can make predictions of what their opponent is going based on how quickly they get up certain buildings or what kind of army compositions they go for. Aside from the choices of the players themselves, and arguably the AI of the units, Starcraft is far more on the deterministic side when compared to Mage Knight, given that it is played on a computer that can handle all the number crunching behind the scenes. Board games, by contrast, rely on randomness as a shorthand simulation of complex deterministic algorithms behind these games, so generally the outcome is comparable on some level.
  
       There is a downside, of course, to having the computer do a bunch of heavy lifting so the player doesn't have to pull out a calculator. It can mean that the underlying systems of the game are more complex than the player could ever wrap their head around. You have to carefully balance the need for hiding info from the player with having just the right amount of mechanics to be interesting. I much prefer the route the Diablo III beta is going in, where by default descriptions of abilities are short and general, with the option to expand them. Dawn of War II, on the other hand, went about it the wrong way by hiding virtually every stat of every unit, to the point where you have only a vague idea of how much damage you are doing against particular types of enemies. Rather than being able to look at a number and say that its damage is good/bad, you have to just eyeball it or look over esoteric charts and stats created by fans on external websites.
• Cards
       Each card in your deck can be played in three different ways. First, you may put the card into play normally for its basic effect. Alternately, you can spend mana of the appropriate type to use its more powerful ability detailed in the lower text field. Finally, any card can be played sideways to act as a Move 1, Attack 1, Block 1, or Influence 1.
  
  
  
       This system makes it so every card use has to be carefully considered, and there are tradeoffs for every choice. Do you spend a card for its basic effect to save your mana for later? Use its more powerful effect to pull off a killer turn? Or go all in and play a few cards sideways to pull off a turn you only barely have the cards for?
  
       The most compelling aspect of this system is that it gives players ample ability to make clever moves and pull off killer combos. Not only does it make the player that pulled them off have more fun, but other players can also vicariously feel the rush of a well-executed turn.
  
  
  
       The closest equivalent that comes to mind are the Tactical Marines squad of Dawn of War 2. They are the single most versatile unit in the game. They start out quite capable enough, but at tier 2 you can upgrade them (the squad, not all tactical marines) to be anti-vehicle, anti-infantry, or anti-heavy infantry depending on your weapon choice. This allows them to be adaptable to any situation you want, though there is always the sacrifice of resources and time should you need them to switch to a different weapon.
• The Day/Night Cycle
       Each round alternates between day and night. During the day, it is easier to cross through forests (pretty common), harder to cross deserts (pretty rare), and you can use Gold mana, which is essentially a wild that can be spent as any basic mana type. You are also able to see what enemies are guarding fortifications from far away, making it easier to plan your assaults.
  
  
  
       During the night, however, it becomes harder to cross through forests, easier to cross deserts, and instead of Gold Mana you can use Black Mana, which allows you to use the enhanced versions of your spells. It also makes it so for most fortifications you can't know who is guarding it until you are directly next to the building.
  
       This works to create an interesting element of timing to how one should explore the map. Should you cross a forest and explore a new map tile, risking being stuck in a forest at night? Is it worth it to assault a Mage Tower in the middle of the desert when you are only a couple turns away from daytime?
  
  
  
       This is not unlike the Day/Night system of Warcraft III, though it has a bit more of an impact on gameplay. In Warcraft III the main advantage of night vs day is that at night neutral creeps would be asleep, allowing you to ambush them to gain experience for your hero easier, and the line of sight of your units was lower. If you were a Night Elf, you could also shadowmeld (turn invisible but take no other action), and moon wells (which provided supply and restored nearby units' health and mana) would replenish their mana.
  
       It worked well to create a compelling mechanic that encouraged timing of your attacks and creeping (killing neutral "creeps" to level up your hero between battles with your opponent). The one complaint I'd have about their implementation was that it wasn't a strong enough factor to make a huge difference at low-level play, and could be easily ignored after early game.
• Location Cards
        Mage Knight features many different locations you can visit, from villages, to Mage Towers, Monastaries, and even Monster Dens or Ancient Ruins. Each location has slightly different rules about what players encounter at each place, what type of enemies they have to fight, and Influence costs for their various services. All of this could very quickly get confusing for a new player, but MK has a rather ingenious way to make this easier to grasp.
  
  
  
        Each location card has the full text description of what the location does, plus an iconographic representation of the rules on the left. This I think is an excellent design choice, as it makes it easy for a player looking to remind themselves of the rules of a card to just glance at these icons and grasp its at times complex rules in a fraction of the time.
  
        The most similar analog to this in the video game world would probably be the iconography used in such games as RTSes or MMOs, which rely heavily on complex user interfaces filled with different icons players have to be able to identify and understand at a glance. However, there is still a major emphasis on having to read or be told lengthy explanations of how to use the interface, with no quick and easy way to be reminded of what they do without cracking open a book worth of help text. The closest to actually iconographically explaining mechanics would probably be fighting games, which these days has training modes that let you see each character's full moveset.
• Combat
        MK has an interesting combat system that simplifies and streamlines combat considerably, but without dumbing down the overall experience. When you attack a monster, there are three phases. First is the Range Attack Phase, where you may play any Ranged or Siege** attack cards or abilities. If you have enough points to equal or exceed the monster's defense, they are dead and you can claim your reward. If not, you enter the Blocking and Damage Allocation phase, where the monster gets to hit you, and you must either play a number of block points equal to the strength of the attack, or take wounds, allocating them to your hand or to one of your units. Finally, you enter your normal Attack phase, where you can play any type of attack to kill the monster (if you can).
  
        **Identical to Ranged, except it can be used against Fortified opponents, which Ranged cannot.
  
        This system is interesting for a couple reasons. First, it is deterministic, rather than being based on any kind of dice roll. If you have the right cards, you will be able to kill a monster. No critical hits or percent chances of getting a wedgie. This makes combat feel much more like a chess move than a bet placed on a roulette table. I mention in my previous post how I feel the best way to create the thrill of skill-based play is to make in-game actions be based on the player's choices and actions, not the random calculations of the computer, and I think this accomplishes that quite nicely. Second, it is fast and easy to get through without sacrificing it's depth or strategic potential.
  
  
  
        The streamlined nature of combat makes a lot of sense for a board game, as unlike in a video game the players are responsible for all the number crunching. It also makes sense from a game pacing perspective. Video games with complex combat systems generally have either a turn-based combat system, or feature encounters with only a few opponents. This makes it so the player can easily see when their dismembering, or stun attacks, or parrying, etc are making a difference, and the added realism makes for a compelling fight. Perhaps the best old-school example of this is the combat system of Prince of Persia 3D, which featured vertical attacks, left and right horizontal attacks, as well as the ability to feint, parry, or block as you saw fit.
  
        Cool mechanics and such may be cool in a game with a few opponents, but if you are mowing down waves of dozens or even hundreds of enemies in a game like Dynasty Warriors, it can quickly become chaotic. Not only does it pose a risk of confusing the player, but it could also very well just be completely ignored, given the pacing of the combat.
  
• Character Advancement
       Each time a player gains enough Fame to level up, they will either gain a new command token or gain an Advanced Action card (and new skill), alternating between the two each level. Gaining a command token raises your unit allowance by one and will increase your defense, hand size, or both. It is a nice, incremental bonus that gives you just a little more power.
  
       Gaining new Advanced Action card is a bit more dramatic. Most advanced action cards give you great benefits, and are sometimes powerful enough to really change the course of a whole turn. Yet for all their power, in the grand scheme of things they actually don't affect the game as dramatically as you may think. Rather than giving players a power to call upon at any moment, players are given a new ability that must be carefully and wisely used during the game round. This creates more punctuated moments of power, making the player feel stronger without dramatically effecting the balance of the game. It is more like improving your critical hit chance than your base damage.
  
        The new cards are further balanced, paradoxically, by how powerful they actually are. Because they can have such a dramatic effect on your turn, they have to be used very carefully. Many can be made even more potent if played at the right moment, making its use a very careful consideration for the player. They are powerful enough to be consistently useful, but not so useful that they become a "no brainer" ability.
  
       One could compare this system to the ability system of Battlehearts, where you gain new abilities every couple levels, but those abilities tend to have significant cooldowns. There is a decent variety between abilities that are "no brainers" that you want to use at every possible opportunity, and situational abilities that can be dramatically more powerful at the right moment. This is to be expected, of course, given the large market the game is targeting.
  
  
  
       Skyrim, on the other hand, went about this wrong, and it is one of the big reasons why I lost interest in the game after a while. There are really no situational spells or abilities in the game to speak of. All of them are useful and with the right specializations can be freely and arbitrarily chosen on a whim. The elemental system of ice being effective against warriors, lightning against mages, and fire against everybody goes a little way toward alleviating this, but not far enough.
  
       The result is that battles have very little in the way of true strategy or tactics, and your choice of what kind of spells to hurl at your opponent or weapons to use are pretty much purely arbitrary, with no clear reason to favor one over the other outside of personal preference. Again, this make sense if you are appealing to the casual crowd who perhaps isn't a Rhodes Scholar in the Art of War, but it needlessly sacrifices some satisfaction to your more hardcore players.
• Variant Rules
       Finally, I would say one of the best features of the game is the fact that there are so many different ways to play. Contained in the rulebook are numerous variant rules and scenarios which let you tailor your experience to the preference of your players. Do you want to play a tooth-and-nail competitive brawlfest for the conquest of the continent? Or are you in a more touchy-feely mood and would rather play a cooperative game? Hate everyone and want to just play by yourself? Or are you and your buddies a bunch of stoned druids that think that wandering around the forest and summoning dragons to fight is a great way to pass the time? (see the "Druid Nights" scenario on page 17 of the Rulebook). All of these options are welcome and embraced.
  
       In all honesty, I can only speculate on this chicken-or-the-egg conundrum of whether video games or board games started offering different modes for different players first. I am inclined to say board games, since we have had complex tabletop games like Dungeons and Dragons and Warhammer 40k stretching back to the 70s and 80s respectively. But who knows?
  
       Regardless, the benefits of offering many modes and variants makes the game much for appealing to a bigger audience of gamers, both in terms of their tastes, the amount of friends they have available, how much time they have, or how much of a challenge they want to take on. Video games have only started to scratch the surface of the potential of offering such diverse choices.

Banding together with our Board Game Brethren!
     Sure, great board games like this one may not pull in the money or have the name recognition of video games, but ignoring them would be a big mistake in my opinion. There remains a vast treasure trove of great design decisions and discoveries and concepts borne out of board games that most video games today have not even considered.

     To me, good game design is good game design, whether it is on a table, TV, or computer screen. I hope that in some small way I can help bring more attention to great board games out there and foster a greater bond of mutual collaboration between the board game and video game industries. There is much we can learn from eachother, and even more to gain from it.

Shinobi - The Way of the Badass

A Ninja Is You!
     Shinobi for the PS2 is one of those hidden gems that doesn't get the attention it deserves. This stylish, Hiro Nakamura-approved action game has you stepping into the shoes of Hotsuma, a ninja of the Oboro clan, tasked with defeating the evil sorcerror Hiruko and his army of Hellspawn and zombies. It's stylish presentation and fast-paced, well-designed combat system make it an excellent model of how action games should be done.

     Not many praise this game the way I do. At the time of its released, it got only mediocre reviews from critics and mixed reviews from players. Some people couldn't get past the steep difficulty curve (noobs), others couldn't handle its camera system (Pro Tip: Use R1 to lock on to enemies. Problem solved.) But even more seem to miss the genius of this game's combat system. Though simple, it does an excellent job of rewarding skilled players by allowing them to wield the power to take out a horde of enemies in seconds, or slay a boss in a couple well-timed hits.

     While this game certainly isn't friendly to the casual player, there is much to be learned from Shinobi. Not only does it have a great combat system, but it also successfully blends all the key ingredients that make a player feel badass.

Being Badass
     One of the most fundamental aspects of designing an action game is making the player feel empowered. Sure, it may be fun to watch a cutscene showing how awesome the protagonist is (or in Nero's case, how awesome he wishes he was), or being able to press a "kill every enemy in the room" button a la Knights of the Old Republic. But at the end of the day action games are most satisfying when the players feel they are the ones fighting the enemies themselves.

• Putting the Power in the Player's Hands
       A cornerstone of Shinobi's combat system is what it calls the "Tate System." In the game, Hotsuma wields a powerful cursed sword known as Akujiki. It is a weapon of tremendous power, but it feeds on the yin energy of the souls of those it slays (or, if no one else is available, whoever happens to be wielding it - ie you). On the plus side, each time you slay an enemy, the sword becomes empowered and deals more damage with each subsequent kill. After a string of successful kills, a player can easily one-shot even the most powerful enemies, and even cut a boss's health bar in half in a single strike.
  
       Of course, making the most out of this system is easier said than done. It requires a careful mastery of your ability to scan nearby enemies, quickly decide the best order to kill them in, and then use your coordination and reflexes to close the distance between enemies while your sword is charged. This is made easier by the Stealth Dash ability, which allows you to dash forward quickly or move around behind enemies, leaving a ghostly copy of yourself as a diversion for your enemies. This all creates a system that keeps players on their toes, and makes combat quick yet tactical at the same time.
  
       Based on conventional wisdom, you would think that say that without a proper upgrade system or additional weapons a combat system like this would get boring after a few levels. But you would be wrong. Over the course of the game, as the player comes to grok the combat system, they will naturally be able to take on tougher and tougher opponents while feeling like they are steadily growing in power. Not because they hit level 50, or have +60 strength from their Stache of Manliness, or from picking up the Ultra Vorpal Dancing Sword of Universal Annihilation, but because they themselves have gotten better at the game. They can see themselves grow in power before their own eyes, and that is the ultimate feeling of empowerment.
  

Of course if strategy isn't your thing, perhaps power-leveling to level 999 is more up your alley.



• The Allure of Power
       Power shouldn't merely be shown in a game, it should be felt by the player. If a character is calling down a meteor out of the sky, then it should deal a lot of damage and feel like it has impact behind it. It is much more exciting when your spells feel powerful than spells you see in a game like Guild Wars, for instance, which had to sacrifice the power of its spells in the name of having a balanced multiplayer experience. Calling down meteors didn't decimate a city, but instead made people trip and fall and take some damage. Woo hoo? That's not to say that kind of balance doesn't work for that game, and I loves me some Guild Wars (Guild Wars 2 could not come fast enough), but it just doesn't make the player feel particularly powerful.
  
  
  
       Dawn of War 2, on the other hand, did not shy away from having uber units and abilities, but embraced them. This is best illustrated in how they handled balance between vehicles and infantry units. In a game like Starcraft 2, you may see a group of marines take down a massive unit like a Mothership, since that is a game based around soft counters, where every unit theoretically has a shot against any other unit. DoW2 takes a different approach.
  
       In DoW2, vehicles and walkers are virtually impervious to small arms fire, walkers can fling infantry around like rag dolls, and tanks can wipe out entire squads in a couple shots. The only way to counter them it to build anti-vehicle weapons, which itself creates interesting metagame possibilities. Do you build anti-vehicle units to counter possible vehicles from your opponent, spend the requisition to tech up to better units, or build up your infantry more in the hopes of outmaneuvering your opponent? In other words, it makes a significant difference whether a player gets vehicles or not, as it can force an opponent to rethink their whole strategy to handle the massive threat they pose to their forces. Vehicles rightfully feel powerful and threatening.
  
  
• Crafting a Believable Threat
       Power just isn't interesting without an element of vulnerability. A player can be godlike in power, but if all the player ever faces are weaklings then there just isn't as much pleasure in defeating them. To really make the player feel they are a powerful warrior facing a formidable foe, both the player's character and the enemies themselves must be appropriately threatening.
  
       In Shinobi, you have to contend with large groups of enemies, with health powerups being few and far between. The result is that you have to watch your health carefully and hope you down a miniboss before you die to a stray shot. Despite being dangerous, enemies can be easily killed. Contrast this to what God of War does when you play Spartan mode, which makes enemies both deal more damage and take less damage. The result is that battles that should be routine and quick become protracted slogs, with the player feeling like a weakling fighting superior foes, undermining their sense of power. It is far better to have enemies deal more damage yet remain as fragile in normal mode, to maintain pacing while being a little more punishing with mistakes.
  
  
  
       Just as important is to make major enemies as menacing in-game as they are made out to be in the story. In Knights of the Old Republic 2, the Sith Lord Darth Nihilus was able to kill the entire population of a planet with his mind, and keeps a derelict star destroyer together with his thoughts. Yeah yeah, the Miraluka were especially force-sensative and thus vulnerable to attack. Yes, the ship he controls isn't technically a Star Destroyer despite looking like one, and the protagonist is conveniently a "hole in the force" which makes him/her uniquely qualified to fight him thanks to being immune to Nihilus's mind murderings... while otherwise exactly the same as any other Jedi in every other respect.
  
       I suppose with all those caveats you could say it makes sense that the protagonist could kill Darth Nihilus, a god among the Sith, in a straight-up lightsaber duel. Sadly this poor, barely corporeal being of pure evil and hate couldn't be bothered to have a few captive jedi to suck the souls from to replenish his health, or even stun the rest of your party like Darth Malak did in the first game. But you know, it's cool, because he was really hungry for that tasty tasty force energy he was promised from the Jedi temple he thought he was orbiting over.
  
       But in all seriousness, after how much time was devoted to making Darth Nihulus out to be the biggest, baddest Sith in the universe, ready to take on the whole Jedi academy single-handedly, he proved to be pathetically easy to kill. Far from being an epic confrontation, you end up mindlessly wailing on him just like you would any other nameless Sith enemy in the game, albeit with a bigger life bar. It made defeating him feel less like a heroic triumph and more like a speed bump to the overarching story.
  
  
  
       Compare all that to the fight with the Kayran in The Witcher 2. In that game an entire chapter was devoted to investigating and gathering supplies and information on how to kill the beast, and you even teamed up with a sorceress to take him on (unless you didn't. Ah, branching storylines!) Then when you finally got to him, it was a hulking monster which could kill you in a single swing of his tentacles. Now that was a moment that made you really feel like a proper monster slayer.
  

Feeling Badass
     Another important component of the badass formula is crafting a compelling narrative that makes players both sympathize with the protagonist and feel the weight of the challenge they face before them. The player should feel comfortable stepping into the shoes of the intrepid hero and motivated to take on the challenge of achieving the character's goal. Shinobi and its sequel Nightshade do a great job of illustrating how this should and should not be done, respectively.

     Nightshade's protagonist, Hibana, is a mercenary tasked with dealing with a rouge ninja clan headed by her former master and lover, Jimushi. During the first cinematic of the game, she bemoans the fact that today would have been a great day for a picnic and that today isn't her day. This isn't the last time she repeats this "today isn't my day" line either.

     Now let's pause for a moment. Hibana is working for some sort of military organization, conveniently wields a diet-Akujiki with all the same powers but none of the soul-sucking side effects (because really, why bother with the original, ancient artifact that is the envy of all ninja kind when you can just use a knock-off?), and she is pretty hot. I'd say she's doing well for herself, all things considered.

     Hotsuma, on the other hand, in the span of a few days had to kill his own brother in a duel, fight undead hordes composed of his former family and friends, and wield a sword that was constantly on the verge of devouring his soul. But does he bitch about it? No, he keeps his mouth shut through most of the game and takes on Hiruko and his minions like a boss.

     The point being that if there are to be any flaws with a character, they should serve to make the character more interesting and intriguing to a player, not less. Hotsuma is one man taking on an army with no backup, shouldering tremendous feelings of guilt and loss, and playing with fire by carrying around a cursed sword. Hibana is a hired mercenary tasked with stopping an evil corporation from taking over Tokyo, who has a thing for guys twice her age and a fondness for picnics. There just isn't enough interesting conflict and motivation behind Hibana to really take her seriously as a heroine, much less a badass.

Looking and Sounding Badass
     Finally, all of the above is moot unless you have good audio and visual design to complement the game's tone. For the design of Hotsuma, they went out of their way to make a stylized, futuristic looking ninja, with a sleek look and an awesome red scarf . They also added some interesting stylistic flourishes for when you successfully kill a series of enemies. This was all complimented with an awesome soundtrack that did a great job of creating a compelling atmosphere for the game.

     There are plenty of other great examples of this, including the soundtrack of Devil May Cry 3, which complimented the dark, brooding atmosphere and worked to reinforce Dante's own aesthetic style of being a half-demon demon-slayer. God of War's orchestral soundtrack also does an excellent job of making the battle-hardened Spartan feel like a force to be reckoned with. This all goes a long way toward creating the right kind of atmosphere and tension that can increase the player's engagement.

March gloriously into battle in your... skintight suit made of magic hair?

     Or you could forget all that and do what Platinum Games did with Bayonetta. Rather than trying to characterize Bayonetta as a strong, powerful woman that can kick some ass, they pretty much decided to make an anti-badass. Aloof, sensual, and more than a bit bizarre, Bayonetta's lolipop powerups and butterflies that appear when she double jumps make for a highly stylized and unique action game. As fun as the game was, it fell short in the story and immersion department since it was hard to really put yourself (man or woman) into the gun-heeled shoes of the absurdly-proportioned Umbra witch. Rather than feeling like a badass, you just end up feeling detached from the character, and thus more of an observer of where her wacky adventure will take her.

Laying Down the Law
     Making a truly badass game transcends mere mechanics, audio/visual presentation or story, but encompasses all three of these things. Like any good game, each piece builds upon the others to create a cohesive whole. One doesn't need to be making hardcore games to see the merit in looking to the fundamentals of player empowerment and pushing the right emotional buttons to make players psyched to play your game. In my opinion making a player feel like they are doing great at your game is far more satisfying than a player gaining more stats and stuff to artificially boost their performance.