We play video games because their ultimately a blast to play! There is so much fun in entering a reality other than our own, become another person with often superior qualities to our own. But why are they fun to play?
In this post I will be looking specifically at Pac-Man!
To make a successful video game it needs some hooks to keep the gamer playing as well as aporias and epiphanies.
Aporias are certain things programmed into the game to make it challenging, in an essay by Kristine Jørgensen published online she defines it as,
"a localisable problem in a computer game that must be overcome by some uncertain actions. In this thesis the term implies any problem in a game that the player needs to comprehend and solve by a combination of actions."
These are often paired with the actions that overcome them - called Epiphanies. It is this that creates a sense of accomplishment along with different types of gaming hooks which will be explained later on.
So, what makes Pac-Man so fun to play?
Well, if you haven't played it before have a go!
See, did you have fun? But why?
One of the first reasons why it is fun to play is the rules, they are simple to understand and make it a game full of excitement:
- Pac-Man (you) has to get all the Pills around the board
- Power Pills can be used to capture the Ghosts sending them back to the middle of the board
- Pac-Man has to avoid the Ghosts
- You move Pac-Man with the arrow keys
Another reason why the little yellow fella' is fun to play is something called the Magic Circle, this idea was created by a historian Johan Huizinga in his book 'Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture' in it he lists multiple "play-grounds" where games are played - the Magic Circle as one of them. Huizinga's concept was later applied to Digital Games by Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman in 'Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals', in this they both agree that although Huizinga's term is a single play-ground it is used as shorthand for a fictional and temporary world created when a game begins.
The players involved within the game are within its Magic Circle, in a board game for example, the Magic Circle here would be the room it was played. In Pac-Man it is slightly different, today you can play Pac-Man on your computer so the Magic Circle is smaller compared to a board game, it is just you and the computer. This kind of circle magnifies the immersion levels considerably because there are no distractions. This kind of game, being a one player hosts Tactical Immersion - where you the player enters 'the zone', you stare at the screen and don't really think about the button presses on the keyboard.
Within the circle of a board game you as players agree to an almost invisible contract to how the game plays, but as soon as you leave the room you leave the Magic Circle. In the past Pac-Man was a phenomenon in the arcades. Tonnes of kids would flock to these machines and play and play and play trying to get #1 on the scoreboards. The Magic Circle here is much more social compared to the one on the computer, it is almost like a board game's although it is still a one player game others watching can become immersed. I mentioned the competitive element to Pac-Man, this is another and a large one to why the game is so competitive.
Both online today and back in the arcades getting the high scores means everything, and because Pac-Man is such a quick game if you loose then you can retry almost instantly - there are no loading screens! This kind of play is a specific gameplay hook. There are specific things within a game that keeps the gamer playing:
- Action Hooks-
These allow the character to be moved by the player providing interaction between the two, almost like an extension to yourself often with special/signature moves.
-Resource Hooks-
These provide a resource system in the game i.e. health or ammo. It adds another layer into how the game functions because the player has to go looking for them when they run low. This makes the game, again, more involving.
-Tactical/Strategic Hooks-
These are typical in RPG's (Role Playing Games) as they allow choice, for example, weapon choice, powers in level growth and discussed in previous posts, every play through of an RGP can be different because of these hooks. Another example is in driving games, the player may choose to draft behind other players to gain a speed advantage. Again, these are not all essential but may provide tactical advantages over other players.
-Time Hooks-
These kinds of hooks are involving the player with events to come in the future. Waiting to spawn on Call of Duty or waiting for a weapon to appear is another. They allow the player to think ahead and plan their strategy. A basic time hook is a simple timer, when it reaches zero it is game over. This is such a powerful tool in playing games, especially ones that involve tactical immersion i.e. Pac-Man or Tetris. The player will then try and beat their score and rise the ranks to be the best.
With hooks looked at, the most applicable to Pac-Man are Time Hooks and Action Hooks.
Mentioned before, Aporia and Epiphanies. In Pac-Man the in-game problems (the aporias) are the pesky ghosts and to an extent, the walls and the actualcontrol mechanics. The controls are unique in that you must press a direction before Pac-Man gets there. This emphasises the tactical side and increases the immersion. Mirrored to this, the epiphany is getting the power pills and capturing the ghosts. Mastering the controls and the navigation through the maze is another. Getting used to the controls in any game is essential but some can be very difficult to grasp. Games like this are fighting games such as Tekken and the newly released Marvel Vs Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds. Within these games are very complex moves and combos, these are the aporias but mastering them and pulling them off in an online match are the epiphanies. Click here to see this frantic gameplay in action.
Few! So, there you have it...that is why Pac-Man is sooo fun to play!
Did you ever met my friend Aristotle? Well, he was a Greek Philosopher that came up with three poetics that applies to narrative, these are known as the Arristotle Poetics:
1) Beginning
2) Middle
3) End
These are pretty key in how books, films and games are created. Imagine if the book you were reading had no ending, or you started watching a film half-way through, it would be infuriating wouldn't it?
With literature and other media of that sort using those poetics, you could say that as the audience; you were experiencing it in a linear way, from point A, to point D at the end. But is it different in video games seen today?
Are Video Games today changing traditional narratives?
As video games have become increasingly interactive and graphically immersive the way the story or plot is told can change depending on the player's actions throughout the game. Games typical of this are RPG's (Role Playing Games) where the player usually creates a character from a various array of selections i.e. race, power, clothes etc. This straight away makes it a unique experience as the main character used in the story is different to everyone else playing. In a book for example, everyone reading will have the same description on the page in every copy, imagination creates the character's looks but primarily the character is who the author wants him/her to be. This begs the question of whether or not authors are actually dying out, not the books; this will be looked at later on in the post.
An RPG that uses this 'player-told story' is the Fable series by Lionhead Studios. Fable 2 released in 2008 really played on the idea of changing traditional narratives. Check out the video below from an interview with one of the main creators, Peter Molyneux:
The 'Free-Roaming' World
A quote from the biginning of the clip is a great example to use that stresses the point that Aristotle's Poetics are not being re-written but changed and altered, "...has an incredable story that morphs around what your [the player] like and allows you to be whoever you want to be, whether its good or evil, pure or corrupt." Moloyneux talks about how the player can get married and buy houses, this really allows the story to be experienced at a unique pace to someone else. He also keeps using the word "free-roaming" when he talks about the world that the story is set, this is an epitomising point because it really contradicts the idea of a linear path typically seen when reading books. Molyneux seems like he's homing in on changing the traditional narratives seen in the Modern Warfare franchise when you follow a set path through check points and triggers.
Take a look at this other video with interviews from some writers and other fans of the game and how in-depth the story is:
The player in Mass Effect
Another game that experiments with different narrative methods is Mass Effect. This game series by BioWare really focus's on in-game choices. The main area here to talk about is the conversations. In this game the player can choose which line of dialogue to say allowing the conversation to unfold differently every time. This is similar to Fable as it gives the narrative a more user-controlled feel rather than the script writer's. Choosing different lines of dialogue can create tension between the player and the crew member, can create a love story within the main story and can even unlock various parts that would not be accessible because the player did not choose to get to know that person well enough.
In games like Mass Effect or Fable the in-game choices allow the story to unfold around the player ultimately creating a completelydifferent ending to the story. In Mass Effect for example, during the game you may wish to have more evil morales to that of one of your companions, that companion leaves the party and therefore doesn't join you at the end for support during a massive onslaught. Or if you are enemies with a party member he/she may not listen to your commands at he end of the game resulting in their demise. This links to the idea that authors are somewhat not the main element any more, they lay the foundations for the player (audience) to create their own experience. Are the players actually becoming the author? I suppose we do certain things within the story that catalyse the story to unfold but in my opinion, the idea of a game having a beginning, a middle and an end is still apparent but the rate at which they are experienced differs.
Another quick game to look at, Heavy Rain. This is a different take on traditional games mainly because it is a different genre all together. Heavy Rain is solely an interactive book, the main strengths in its production and experience is its story.
See how the choices that the player can choose floats dynamically around the main protagonist. This game is extending the power of what traditional novels provide: an immersive experience from beginning to end. The same is for Heavy Rain except it allows the player to deviate from the beginning point to the end point freely.
Think about this for a second, what is your home-page? What is the first page that opens on your browser? I'm pretty sure it may be Google or another search engine. It may not, but most people reading this will have it set.
Ok, think about this; how do you actually get to a website that isn't in your favourites? You wont memorise the URL, well I hope not, instead you will type into a search engine the name and from there you will gain access.
With the internet's primary use to share information, we navigate its entirety via search engines (Google, Yahoo!, Ask.com and Bing), but do these give websites a fair share in the availability to be seen by the public?
Search engines use rankings when you type certain key words into its search bar. The rankings are based on how popular the site is, how accurately matched it is to your query and now, how much they have been paid to be higher in the list that you see making it more likely for it to be clicked on. Once you click 'search' the engine goes through 3 stages:
1) Web Crawling
2) Indexing
3) Searching
(NOTE: This is quite complicated so bare with me..)
In the Web Crawling stage the engine uses a bit of AI (see my Are We Able To Create AI post for more information), sometimes known as a spider - a designed program that searches through web links, to gather the initial stages of the search. Next is the Indexing stage, here the program organises the web pages in order matching the words or phrases that was entered in the search box. The words or phrases that are looked through on the sites are call Meta-Tags. These tags are specific or key words set by the site creator allowing search engines to pick them up, an example would be this blog post. This week's topic is on search engines, information, internet etc. these will all be used as tags that will make it easier for it to be noticed. Once that has been done the final Searching stage begins, this is when all of the sites and the result of your search is displayed. Remember this all takes seconds, sometimes less. Here I'll show you, I'll do a search on Google now on the word 'pizza': lets see how long it takes...
...wow, 0.21 seconds! This just proves that search engines are the most helpful tool on the internet, look at all the results I recieved, '197,000,000', I don't even know what that is...I think 197 million? Anyway, that's allot of information right? I would say, more than enough, which is why this blog post is partly named 'Information Overload', its almost like Google is boasting the amount of results it gives - arrogant search engine!
With this large amount of information, there should be a fair chance that smaller more independent businesses, but there isn't. When I searched 'pizza' the top three pages were:
This is most probably because Dominos and Pizza Hut have paid Google to be a higher rank in it's servers. This is wrong in my opinion because it means that an independent place is stuck on page 10 of the search, the 10th 'O' in Google's interface or number 100, 000 in the list - and let's face it, your not going to sieve through every link to the 10th page.
There have been experiments done to compare how users interact with the screen (the positioning of the data from web searches), the experiments were conducted by Gord Hotchkiss:
Notice the following:
- how tightly Google keeps attention focused on the upper left corner of the search results
- how attention drops off the further down you go on the page
- ads in the right column generally do not get much attention
(www.training.seobook.com/google-ranking-value)
Notice on this picture, it shows how long each link is looked at along with the amount of clicks it receives. It shows that links at the top (mainly 1-6) are most likely to be seen, as it gets further down the page some aren't even looked at - see the eye test above.
Staying on the idea about Google rankings, in a post on ramzws.com it talks about how much you spend on getting a website created but then not even making it onto Google. I think this quote, "If you can't find your website in Google then just how much of a bargain was that $495 website?" is a great one to focus on. Because search engines are the encapsulating tool when it comes to browsing the web, if your website doesn't appear then it is almost lost in cyberspace, hardly anyone will come across your site unless they enter in very specific key words. In the blog post on 'ramzws' it says that a site costing $5000 with more pages will probably be seen on search engines more than one with a couple of pages worth $400. I reckon this is wrong, it completely isolates the more independent companies wanting to be seen on the internet although I would agree that it is some what a competitive area, companies battling it out to get to #1 on Google but they must have as much right as the larger companies surely?
In recent years the gaming industry has received some serious slack from the age restraint system known as PEGI (Pan European Game Information) and also from the public (mainly parents) about what their kids are actually playing and simulating. As the graphics and gameplay technology have escalated massively in a very short period the realism is becoming blurred to what's real and what isn't; this along with a solid story and relatable characters gives you an immersive game. But...
...is Immersion similar to Addiction?
The reason why someone is sitting on World of Warcraft day-in day-out, forgetting he/she has a job, family and the ability to walk is because the gameplay is so immersive, and because it is so immersive it become addictive...so, there's my point.
Surrogates
Another idea to think about is how immersive an experience can get to, therefore becoming so addictive that the user will never want to get away from it. Ok, that may sound a tad drastic but there are plenty of examples in the film world and many ideas of technology have come from films. A good example could be Surrogates (click here to see the trailer), whereby people in the world can connect themselves to an avatar (a character that is created to look like or represent its creator and controller) that walks around in the real world. This type of interactivity is so immersive it may make the participants forget which world they are in and may not want to return because they can be whoever they want to be, i.e. a handy-capable person not being able to walk, then as a surrogate can run, walk and jump. Another example - Inception, a world where dreams can be accessed and feel as real as anything. There is a scene in the film where people are almost always in a dream state and actually return to the real world to wake up, their dreams have become their reality as they are able to create what is experienced in the dream. They become so immersed in their dreams that they are addicted.
Immersion can also be seen in games, the player can feel like he is 'in the game' and sometimes brings the game into the 'real world'. An example here would be Grand Theft Auto, a game for notorious criticism from the press. You take control of a character (like Niko on the left) involved in drugs and mafia work and are able to kill random pedestrians anywhere, any time.
Have you ever moved with the character in real life as if you were dodging bullets or turning a corner in a car? If yes then that means that you have been immersed in a game. Imagine if, for example, how you drive a car in Grand Theft Auto was brought into the real world:
*Strong language
That driving video and this next one exploring how a game character carries all of the equiptment shows how difficult brining a game into the real world would be:
*Strong language
With immersion there are three types, according to Ernest Adams, there is:
1) Narrative Immersion
-this type relates to the characters of the story, it makes us feel like the characters are real due to their personality. We want to know how the characters evolve within the story.
2) Strategic Immersion -this kind of immersion can be seen in games where studying the game and then acting upon what has been observed is key. An example could be chess, or Sim City. The player (acting as the mayor) studies where the best place to build new houses, shops and roads to maximise their effectiveness. The players looks multiple steps ahead of what is actually happening.
3) Tactical Immersion
-when your playing a fast-paced game where one wrong move can make you loose the game you are tactically immersed. Games such as Tetris or Guitar Hero make you so immersed that you are not thinking at all, your eyes are basically telling what your fingers are to do. See below for a video from Guitar Hero:
In a game such as Guitar Hero the player is tactically immersed and wants to perfect his score on every song and on every difficulty, therefore he becomes addicted. A scoring system on a game can introduce an addictiveness to the player, games on the iPads and iPhones recently have magnified this. Games such as Angry Birds and Cut the Rope are examples, the players want to get three stars on every level and with the highest score.
Within the circle of a board game you as players agree to an almost invisible contract to how the game plays, but as soon as you leave the room you leave the Magic Circle. In the past Pac-Man was a phenomenon in the arcades. Tonnes of kids would flock to these machines and play and play and play trying to get #1 on the scoreboards. The Magic Circle here is much more social compared to the one on the computer, it is almost like a board game's although it is still a one player game others watching can become immersed. I mentioned the competitive element to Pac-Man, this is another and a large one to why the game is so competitive.
