Liquid Crystal

Another Game Developers’ Conference has come and gone. It didn’t provide me with the inspiration for a new game idea, but it did help me reevaluate and adjust the development on my current project.  Here are some of my favorites:

The Kidnapping
Satoru Iwata had a couple of anecdotes of Shigeru Miyamoto’s method of making games. One involved Miyamoto picking random employees who weren’t on the development team and then watching them play the game. Now playtesting is hardly a noteworthy practice, but its what Miyamoto does (or doesn’t do) that is of particular interest. Instead of asking the player questions or interacting with them, he quietly observes what’s going on. Many of Nintendo’s games are easy to pick up and play without instruction, perhaps this is why.

Finding the Fun
The other anecdote explained the importance of prototyping. Developers at Nintendo are often split into small teams. There they begin developing an idea and are told to, “find the fun.” These prototypes can be very simplistic; this gives the team a chance to focus on the core gameplay that will be the experience. Isolating and developing this core gameplay will lay the foundation for a larger project and serve as a guiding light.

Making the “Impossible” Possible
Hideo Kojima’s keynote walked through the history of Metal Gear. During the early development of the series, he was faced with a seemingly impossible barrier. He was initially assigned to develop a combat game on the old MSX hardware. Faced with severe limitations of the hardware, the number of possible elements had to stay small. The answer? Create a stealth action game. While Kojima was faced with hardware limitations, it’s a story that can played out in a number of different scenarios.

Fez!
Finally, there was Fez. I’ll let the trailer do the talking…

FEZ TRAILER 2 from fish on Vimeo.

The original artwork for Dragon Quest

While there are many who will fight over detail, perhaps we should take a step back and look at the benefits of ambiguity.  We sometimes get too involved with painting the picture that is in our head and forget that our audiences have a tool that can build worlds out of our foundations—their imagination.

Screenshot from Dragon Warrior

In 1989, the original Dragon Quest was released into the United States amid a number of changes.  Along with a new title, Dragon Warrior, the localization team took advantage of the game’s primitive graphics and changed the art that came packaged with it. While this was done to cater to western audiences and hopefully add to sales figures, it goes to show how Dragon Quest’s ambiguous graphics allow for several points of perspective.

I don’t want to advocate the complete reversal of the show, don’t tell mantra, but I believe authors of any media should pick their battles and think about where their viewers’ imaginations can fill in the blanks.  Ambiguity adds mystery and can allow for customized settings.  In addition to these benefits, a story can be re-examined years later and infused with new elements based on the new thoughts and memories of the viewer.  The words “ball of light” could illuminate like a glow stick to a child, but shine with an indescribable brilliance to an adult.

The revised artwork for Dragon Warrior

In the coming weeks, I will continue along these lines with articles about information hiding and division.  Until then, think about this—how do we add ambiguity to our work in an age of advanced graphics and where words are sparingly used?

Exploration is less about physical travel, and more about the mind.  It is not only about discovery, but the emotions involved.  While our natural instinct is to link a scene to exploration, Shigeru Miyamoto (Super Mario, Legend of Zelda) gives an example of exploration coming from within,

“Imagine the Spirit—the state of mind—of a kid when he enters a cave alone.  Going in, he must feel the cold air around him.  He must discover a branch off to one side and decide whether to explore or not.  Sometimes he loses his way.  If you go to the cave now, as an adult, it might be silly, trivial, a small cave.  But as a child, in spite of being banned to go, you could not resist the temptation.  It was not a small moment then.  This feeling must be realized in the game.”

So as designers, we must reevaulate what we see, and learn to understand what brings out these raw emotions.  Think of words to describe the scene.  For the aforementioned cave, we could say it is forbidden, unfamiliar, cold, dangerous, dim, and isolated.  What other words does the cave description bring to mind?