Out of Lives: Death in Games

A friend asked me a question today that really got me thinking about games and game design. His question was "Is it possible to make a serious game about suicide?". As a subject it's a pretty dark one, and one so rarely discussed publicly; there is still a certain taboo-ness about the subject, and this is relatively understandable. Historically, culturally and religiously it is often seen as wrong or a sin to remove oneself, although not universally. In some cultures, senicide or geronticide was common practice; this means that when the elderly or infirm were unable to care for themselves or the household, especially in times of famine and drought, they were either killed or would voluntarily remove themselves from the group in order to protect them and ensure their continued survival. It is a touchy subject in today's society, especially for those who have been through the horrific experience of losing someone they know and love to it.

Games don't often cover serious topics like this, and yet the subject of death is such a common theme and simple mechanic to extend gameplay or allow players to retry sections of the game they have not yet mastered. Ryan Kuo, in his article 'Loss of Death: Suicide in Videogames' uses the example of a level from Super Mario Bros. 2, the super difficult and often frenetic Japan-only release that at one stage has the player find a warp pipe that will lead them all the way back to the very first level. This area is inescapable and the player must choose between the pipe or jumping down a hole, an action the player knows will lead to death and restarting the level. They must choose which is more preferable, death or the effort and potential loss of further lives it would take to return to this point and select a path that doesn't lead the suicide warp pipe. For most it's a simple decision to make.

A simple decision to make (Source)

Do games trivialise death then? In a sense, yes, though not in any exploitative sense. Consequences are rarely doled out for death, often simply sending the player back to a checkpoint or the start of a level. In some titles the stakes are a little higher; Kayin's impossibly difficult platform title, I Wanna Be The Guy: The Movie: The Game forces the player to restart the whole game every time she dies. To add to this, the game is unforgiving and requires repetition and twitch movement skills to complete. It is impossible to complete on a first playthrough as pieces of the environment will fall, rise, move, drop, reveal hidden traps and become an enemy itself throughout various parts of the game. Without learning where these all are and what the correct path to take is it is impossible to get through and is extremely punishing. But is this just an extreme in the same vein? Death is no less trivial, simply more frustrating than in other games.

A familiar sight from I Wanna Be The Guy (Source)

Death is not so simple in all games though, in some it is more than just an inconvenience. Jesse Venbrux, creator of the Karoshi series of games, explores using death to advance the player in his game Karoshi: Suicide Salaryman. The game is a puzzle platformer, and the only way out of each level is to find a way to kill yourself via various methods, including jumping on spikes, electrocuting yourself, ricocheting bullets off surfaces so that they hit you and much more. As the game ramps up in difficulty the player finds herself expending more and more effort to die, something we know is not encouraged in most games and so a fairly counter-intuitive operation. This action shines a light on the culture of death and violence in videogames and how willing we are to accept virtual death. Of course, there is nothing wrong with this acceptance inherently; when it comes down to it virtual death is not real, it has no consequence outside of a game and this is part of the reason we enjoy games so much, they allow us to live out fantasies, dark or otherwise, without the pain, suffering and guilt of reality that prevent us from performing said actions day-to-day. There are many games that attempt to make death more meaningful, or at least a more terrifying prospect for the player, especially roguelike-likes such as DayZ, the Hardcore mode of Minecraft (which actually deletes the world when a player dies) and many others that use perma-death as an element of play.

Eeeeep! My house! (Source)

Inner Vision, a dialogue game by Sunil Rao is one of the few titles I have come across that actually attempts to deal with suicide. The is short and simple but places the player in the role of confidant to three suicidal people. The player must talk with them, listen and select meaningful responses in order to help them find reasons to live. Every Day the Same Dream from Molleindustria deals with drudgery, repetitiveness and suicide. The player repeats the same day over and over but is allowed to make small changes to become a new person, and suicide is one of these changes, but this character's death only ends that day's dream and returns the player to their bed to repeat the day over again. The death, or attempted suicide of the game's character tells you so much about him without lines and lines of exposition, hours of cutscenes and narrative setup. Everything we need to know about this man is told in virtual silence through his actions, OUR actions in the game. So suicide and death is not just a plot point or mechanic here but a part of this person's character and this game's story.

The end? Not for this dreamer (Source)

But game designers have to be careful about how they deal with sensitive topics such as this. Many will remember the controversy over Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and its 'No Russian' level, where the player is tasked with going undercover with a group of terrorists in an airport and has the option to assist in killing innocent civilians. It is possible to skip this scene entirely as the developers knew it may cause some controversy, and it is also possible to complete without firing at a single civilian. The scene caused outcry with many and raised many questions about the role of videogames in society, their comparison to film and television and the effect of interactivity in comparison to passive forms of media. The scene was even discussed in the House of Commons in the UK and many were very upset  and disgusted that the game allowed the player to take on the role of a terrorist but treated intervention as failure. The AI of the civilians was also a harrowing sight for many, watching as these innocent people tried to protect themselves and their loved ones, dragging the injured or themselves to safety as they are fired upon. It was too much for many, and I won't be discussing the finer points of the argument about violence in video games simply because I think a lot of it has already been said. But what this controversy showed is that people still retain the idea that games are toys for children. Despite the ubiquity of games and gaming there is still a sense that games are for kids and anything of a more serious, violent or mature nature should be censored, removed and buried. One point that is often raised about interactive media is just that, the interactive nature. When watching a film or reading a book, even if the reader is cast as the character and drawn into believing they are taking on the role in the words they read or the images they see they are not truly taking on that role. In a game, they are. Perhaps then, as games become more realistic and blur the lines, especially so in terms of their aesthetic representation and its level of realism, we will become more able to accept and learn from scenarios like this. The scene, in my opinion, was not entirely crafted to cause controversy, although there seems to be an element of it there. It told a story, tied together a plot and did a lot to dive into the character of Makharov, the leader of the terrorist group, and what kind of enemy the player is facing. Could it have been done in another way? Sure. Would it have been as effective? I'm not so sure. The emotional bang a player experiences in this scene is one that many didn't realise they could feel, and the fact that the game caused players to feel strongly about something is a huge leap forward from the pure adrenaline-pump that early arcade games tried to foster with high-speed gameplay and quickly ramping difficulty levels. A game doesn't have to cause controversy to make you feel, and I don't think that aiming to be controversial is a good move either but I do think that a bold move such as this will always be controversial until society recognises the role and impact that videogames can and have had.

An opening shot from 'No Russian' (Source)

GDC used to hold a regular game design challenge and in 2010 the theme of that challenge was 'Real Life Perma-death'. The challenge was to explore the nature of death, not just in games but in real life and in the context of games. The winning entry, for example, was from Jenova Chen of thatgamecompany. His idea was 'Heavenville', a social networking game where players are able to 'buy stock' in dead people who's stock value is determined by the amount of Google search results their name produces and their relevance considering the time that has passed since their death. Stock would inevitable rise upon death and fall as a person became less valuable in terms of their Google popularity. Another example was Heather Kelley (Kokoromi) and Erin Robinson's (Wadjet Eye Games) idea 'Last Game and Testament', a scaveneger hunt that makes the creation and reading of a will a more interactive and personal experience. Instead of writing a will the soon-to-be-deceased puts barcodes on their earthly belongings and puts information about who the object is being bequeathed to and why into the game. At the will reading the deceased's loved ones gather, take out their smart devices and go on a scavenger hunt, scanning barcodes and guessing who they think the item is for. Once all votes are collected information about who each item belongs to and why is imparted by the deceased and a final item is bequeathed to the person who guesses most items owners correctly. Kim Swift (formerly Airtight Games and Valve) presented her idea, Karma. This game would be prescribed to a terminally ill patient and is designed to allow them to play through their grief. The player has an energy bar and must play through the last two months of the life of a terminally ill patient. The player goes through various settings, like the character's work, home and stay in the hospital towards the end. An energy bar would determine how many actions can be performed daily and the player has the option to assist people in their life; helping a co-worker fix a computer, talking to a neighbour or mowing their lawn. These tasks are envisioned as unique minigames, each raising the overall karma of the player. Every two weeks the setting changes and the energy bar reduces to mimic the effects of the illness. Finally, as the character lies in hospital, barely able to move they are tasked with tracing a smile with analogue sticks. This is difficult as energy is extremely low but the whole game is designed to nurture a person through the pain they must be experiencing and the hopelessness they feel. Swift wished to teach people that though their time may be short there is no reason they can't make an impact in people's lives and be a positive force in all the negativity they face. We all deal with our own mortality in different ways, some like to escape into games to deal with life and this idea sounds perfect for people who use games in such a way. Although these are hypothetical designs at an annual panel that will probably go no further than that it is still refreshing to see that things like this are being discussed, both in a tongue-in-cheek way and with a more serious, nurturing perspective too. These are the kinds of discussions we need to have and the kinds of games we need to design to push our medium forwards as a device for storytelling, immersion, learning and healing. Games are capable of all this and it is in the hands of game designers to explore their own lives and deaths, their worries and concerns. Interactive, immersive media is the perfect tool for introspection and exploration of the existential as the audience is no longer passively and vicariously experiencing these questions but actively involved in the outcome.

A comparison of the rising stock of Barack Obama

and Susan Boyle in HeavenVille (Source)

I'm running through a few ideas in my head at the moment based around the concept and trying to figure out how to present it. It's a tough one but with all the examples given, and the many more I didn't mention, I think it's something that game designers are just learning to toy with. These early stages are always the most difficult and perhaps people will be more willing to accept more serious topics in games as the generations that grew up killing everything on-screen become leaders and policy-makers and as we start to see more games released with themes of dealing with the emotional side of death. Now how to implement it...

End of an Era, Start of Libella

So here I am, I've finished my final piece for the year and for my degree and now all I have to do is show up in July to collect my certificate. I achieved a 2:1 which I'm super happy with and I'm so glad it's finally over! I've been in some form of education since the age of four and now, 20 years on, I can finally say I'm done with learning organised by someone else (I am fully prepared to have that bubble burst when I start some proper work but hell, let me enjoy it for now). Now the true hunt begins though, finding a real, proper job I can turn into a career. Anyone hiring (he says with his sweetest grin)?

Sadly I am currently unable to show you my final project at the moment as it takes a bit of setup and file download and, although it worked great for the one night of the exhibition it was needed to work it has since decided it doesn't fancy it. I am awaiting a meeting with my co-designer, Francis so we can plan continued development and figure out the bugs. But not to worry! We should also be recording some footage of gameplay and taking a few high-res screens to show off to all you lovely people. Onto the show and the lessons learned.

2spooky4me guys!

First up, never put a barrier between you and your audience! For the show Francis and myself had secured a space separate from most others pieces, a double-edged sword. Being right near the entrance but not in full view of it we felt people were walking past without even stopping to look in a lot of the time. That wasn't such a big deal as we were able to grab people in by asking if they wanted to play. The problem was that initially, we had decided to hang a white sheet over our entrance onto which we stuck a Victorian silhouette of a man in a top hat. This was removed with great speed and placed on the table holding the TV. Putting that sight barrier up did us some damage in terms of foot traffic. We had assumed it would add to the mystery of the thing, make people wonder what was behind the curtain. Well apparently everyone had read The Wizard of Oz that night and figured that whatever was behind the curtain wasn't going to be any better than a fat man in a suit with a bunch of empty promises. That or they thought it was storage. Either way, that might have been ok to do had others been set up similarly and nearer to us. Line of sight is important and we broke that, didn't do enough to draw people in. The show was on the inside of the booth and really there should have been more outside of it to entice people in the first place. Hard lesson learned well!

"I can toooooootally show you a good time, don't you

trust my warm smile and happy, sunshine eyes?" (Source)

Anyway, sheet removed we soldiered on through some technical issues, got them solved and continued to show the game. We had a nice chat with Maria, a producer from Sony UK who gave us some advice on how to better present our game for a pitch meeting and the things she would like to see from us and the game, so perhaps we'll spend a little time creating a build closer to what she wanted for showing to industry types. For the course we had to design a more complete experience than what we might have made for a pitch meeting, because that's the brief we had and that's how we were marked. What Maria would have liked to see was one room where everything worked the way it was supposed to and we could show off all the important mechanics and features of the game. So there's a little life lesson for you budding designers and developers looking for funding; short, sweet, compact and dense with polished content, or as much of that as you can manage in the time frame you have.

Most of the reactions we had were very positive and encouraging, there were a few salient points we took away with us. We were aware going in that our controls weren't amazingly polished, but we'd had to do a last minute build before the show began and before we had time to make edits. This left our forward movement relatively smooth but our turning and rotation was a little clunky and slow, but that was an issue with a simple fix. One thing we picked up on throughout the course of the evening was the importance of playtesting. We had kept the project mostly under wraps, saying little and showing even less and the show was the first time anyone had played our game. We discovered so many things from people simply playing through the experience. Even though it's something I've read about and had drummed into me for years, "Playtest, playtest, playtest" it had completely slipped my mind for this one and suddenly the mystique was more important. I think there's a balance that can be achieved between secrecy and still allowing for playtesting and in this case it was tipped too far in the wrong direction. But there's nothing like an experience to teach you a lesson. But seriously, playtest!

"It isn't a storage area? Really?" (Source)

All-in-all we had some great advice, some super positive feedback and learned some really important things from the show and having people play our game. I look forward to keeping everyone updated on the further development of Libella and hopefully screens and gameplay vids will be uploaded soon. Keep your eyes here and on my Twitter feed for more in the coming months.

Good Things, Small Packages

UPDATE: According to their Twitter, @ustwogames are currently working on new levels for Monument Valley, yaaaaaaaaay! :D

I recently saw a bit of gameplay for a mobile release called Monument Valley by ustwo studio and was instantly hooked by the visuals. The following day, with it fresh in my mind, I decided to purchase it and experience it for myself. What I found was a beautiful, perfectly balanced, relaxing and engaging experience. The look alone, the thing that initially grabbed me, is gorgeous; a 3D isometric view of your environment, mostly simple shapes and models, a soundless, almost featureless protagonist, solid, pastel colours and a slightly eastern architectural design. It's beautiful to just sit and watch for a while and reminded me of another amazing title, visually anyway, Journey from Thatgamecompany, an amazingly beautiful experience that I am not at all upset to be reminded of.

Simple, clean and a little bit gorgeous

Next, on to my favourite bit to talk about, the simplicity of its rules. Everything is so simple in this game one can learn to play simply by playing. There is little in the way of instructions except for a couple of prompts at the start, directing you to touch a point on screen to move your character. The character will then follow a path, if it is clear, to the point you have touched. Some aspects of the environment can also be manipulated, from dragging and rotating blocks, chunks, buildings and platforms to manipulating levers and handles in order to create a path to the goal. All of these things are clearly marked and introduced at a perfect pace, if I was ever a little stuck on a puzzle it was because of me, not the game. The more interesting and exciting aspect of the title though was the echocrome-like perspective puzzles. These can be difficult to explain, but essentially, as the perspective is changed parts of the environment will link up, move, connect or disconnect based on the viewing angle. This was a very exciting feature of echocrome and Fez, two titles that used their camera angles very effectively to produce some mind-bending platform puzzles.

If Escher made games... Dick...

The puzzles in Monument Valley are handled extremely well, and a couple had me really flexing my ability to visualize the spaces and consider the angles, but the wonderful thing about this game is that if you're not sure, try it out! The best way to figure out any of their puzzles is by twisting, turning, swiping, rotating and tapping until all becomes clear. As each chapter is split into a few separate puzzles most sections do not take very long to complete and aren't massively sprawling. This allows for experimentation, as a wrong step won't send you very far back or force you to complete a huge amount of steps for the puzzle again, only to fail at the same point. To use the phrase again this title is perfectly balanced; it feels like something that would be easy to pick up and play for most users, new or veteran, yet has enough to keep any fan of puzzles, whatever their status, happy and playing for a while. While not much of a gripe, the game is extremely short; my play-through lasted around an hour, give or take. It isn't much of a bad thing to say you want more of a game but perhaps a slightly more expanded experience would have been nice as the replay value is virtually nil. In saying all this, I think the price of £2.49 for the app was pretty fair but hope there is some sort of expansion or update that allows for further play.

More, more, more! (Source)

All in all this game follows the design principle I love so much, simplicity. With simple graphics, simple rules and a serene and relaxing soundtrack Monument Valley is a beautiful example of what can be done with touchscreen devices. These perspective and spacial puzzles I'm seeing is something really, frustratingly fun and difficult and stretches the mind, even in a simple form. Touchscreens are a perfect platform for games like this as they allow for a player to use their hands and physically manipulate objects in a far better way than any controller or mouse can offer and it was a delightful learning experience in the design of these puzzles to play Monument Valley. Thanks guys, keep up the good work!

Tap Tap Tap

UPDATE: I've had a little more time with both games and been able to form some more opinions on the features of each game. One thing I truly loathe about Tapped Out is how easy it is make a mistake. Countless times have I and others accidentally sped up a character's task with donuts, a mistake that must be rapidly rectified and is easily caused by a simple mis-tap. Family Guy solves this problem with a simple drag and drop system; players drag the task symbol onto the character's action slot, leaving little room for error. On the other hand, Family Guy lacks a  important feature that Tapped Out is great for, a small box that shows all characters available to be set a task. In Family Guy  you click on the actual character, a task made difficult when a character has decided to hang out in a corner of the town behind building where where they aren't visible. While characters can be picked up in Family Guy and moved, the Simpsons displays each available character in the corner of the screen and transports you to their menu and location when clicked. So TinyCo, maybe steal that feature for your game make it perfect? 

I came a little late to the party in terms of the whole 'Touchscreen Revolution' that's been occurring over the last decade or so. Only in the last six months have I acquired a tablet device and functional smartphone (I owned a smartphone for years but it was old and not fully functional when I received it). Though I missed out on many of the medium's formative years it is fair to say that touchscreen gaming is now pretty ubiquitous; it's hard to go anywhere without seeing someone playing a game on their phone. I've always been a fan of small games, when I was younger we couldn't afford to get every latest console and keep up-to-date on the newest releases. We often rented games for short periods, bought consoles years after release when the prices had dropped and borrowed games from friends with more extensive libraries, anything we could to play some of the amazing games we could only hear or read about.

If I'd known these words then I would have spoken them

But one thing we always had was a PC. The same rules apply, we still didn't have all the latest releases and most of our game library revolved around Golf simulators for my dad, a couple of old adventure games and some computerised board and card games. But we had the internet, and it was great! Flash games were always my favourite, they were absolutely free and there were thousands, millions of them! Miniclip, Newgrounds and dozens of other sites that have been erased from my memory by the fog of time provided small games, single and multiplayer, that could be played any time, could be stopped and started whenever you wanted, could provided hours of joy or a simple moment's distraction while waiting for something to load or download. Smart phones and tablets have now extended this further, one no longer needs to be at a PC at home or in the office but anywhere in the world. I feel like online, independent games were the setup and now we're seeing the real deal. Mobile gaming is getting more advanced, higher fidelity and much more viable as an option for game development than ever before.

Before smartphones, there was only one mobile game

The convenience, growing technology and wide availability of these devices and games is now virtually the same as it was on those websites of old but with the added advantage of being able to game everywhere. It has also given rise to new genres and ways of playing. A very notable example is the 'idle' game. These are games that don't require a players active involvement for long periods and basically run themselves. A Dark Room is entirely ASCII and button based, with no graphics that cant be created from text and is time based. The player is tasked with collecting resources and building a small settlement in the woods, expanding and exploring as you go. The game can be left for long periods as resources build up and then they can be collected with a button press. The game allows one to explore a map and fight enemies to collect more items and resources and comes with a great narrative that will keep you tapping away for days.

ASCII art can be beautiful, just beautiful...

Games like The Simpsons: Tapped Out and Family Guy: The Quest for Stuff are also similar in this regard; players build a town including buildings and characters from the respective shows and these earn money and experience on a regular basis. The player must then return, collect their earnings and continue to expand. Games like these are perfect for the busy lives we lead; I can often be seen calculating how long a shift at work is going to be and getting Homer to complete and 8 hour task so that he's ready when I get done. I can play, or not play, whenever I choose. The game is endless, has no real goals and no defined end-point or win condition but it allows me to choose when I want to play, doesn't require a large investment in time and is something I can get friends involved in. What more can you ask for from a game? Of course, there's nothing like sitting down with my laptop for a game of Left4Dead or firing up my Playstation to go through Metal Gear Solid 4 again but my phone and tablet are a great way to stay connected to games and gaming when I don't have time to sit down for a more involved experience due to a busy period in my schedule. Small games are the future as much as they have been the past and game designers would do well to remember this, especially those with little experience. While we often have grand ideas with big, open, sprawling, 3D worlds, branching narratives and expansive quest lines we can forget that smaller games can be just as powerful, if not more so. There is still lots of room for surprises and plenty of ways of screwing with the conventions that can really push the medium forward, as it is still very young and still evolving. So don't think little, think small!

On a side note, had an awesome day day yesterday eating bubble gum sundae and going to the funfair, it's all on my twitter feed. But the most awesomest part was the random find of a game design book in a charity shop. I was walking past with my buddy and we had time to kill so I suggested we go in. I sometimes look for old Terry Pratchett books as they can often be found in charity shops and I'm on a lifelong mission to get them all from charity shops for no good reason. I went straight over to the books and scanned the shelves and there it was! Inside Game Design by Iain Simmons. Just £2 and packed with great interviews and behind-the-scenes looks at the development of a few games. Follow your instincts, you never know where it might lead! Except don't always, but do when it's stuff like go into charity shops. I'm not responsible for the things that happen to you...

"My instinct says Superman will catch me if I fall!"