Over the last fifteen years, we have seen the average video game grow longer and become more narrative-driven than ever. If massively-successful, story-oriented franchises like Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid, Grand Theft Auto, and Halo are any indication, gamers respond to emotion. They respond to characters, story arcs, and most of all, purpose. They want to know who they are fighting, and why. Knowing this seems to give their bullets meaning. And yet, the fact that the meaning seems to come from outside the gameplay (i.e., the backstory), is, in my view, problematic. Game designer and former Sony Online Entertainment employee Rod Humble has helped to begin what I believe will lead to a revolution of "meaningful" gameplay - gameplay that is communicative in the way that books and film are communicative. He views gameplay itself as a kind of paintbrush, and I feel he has used it effectively in his small game, The Marriage, in which he attempts conveys the feeling he gets from being married. The game is, however, abstract, and while this abstraction lessens the dramatic effect, I believe that a game designer could effectively remove the abstraction simply by doing what artists do best: representing life.
Attempting to explain every facet of the game's analogy to marriage is beyond the scope of this blog entry, but I will sum it up briefly: You essentially play the "agent of Love," as Humble puts it in his explanation of the game, trying to keep the couple engrossed in their marriage. The male counterpart is represented by the blue square, the female, the pink. Their individual sizes update throughout the game representing each respective spouse's "dominance," in the marriage, while their translucency indicates their individual level of engagement in the marriage. The player can "mouse over" the squares to cause them to come together and "kiss," after which they bounce off and go their separate ways, until the player causes them to begin moving toward each other again. Circles signify events that affect the marriage from the outside. They fly around the screen, seemingly at random.
While I am unclear about what every individual item in the metaphor actually means one thing seems clear: It is a game about balance. For example, when the couple "kisses," the masculine square shrinks in size, while the female counterpart grows. Indeed, it is clear that Humble is commenting on the differing, often conflicting, requirements a husband and wife in marriage. Similarly, colliding with or "mousing over" each circle effects each spouse differently. The player must draw upon these resources to keep the marriage alive, balancing each individual's levels dominance and engagement. This feeling of balance comes purely from the gameplay.
Rod Humble was able to create this game by taking intangible phenomena, such as marital dominance and contentment, and making them part of the mechanics of a game. He quantifies these emotions and puts them in the context of rules. He made them visual - though, abstractly visual - so that the player can literally see and respond to what is happening. Thus, I feel that Humble succeeds in the ambition he states in his explanation, which is to use "...game rules to explain something invisible but real." Humble has essentially "painted" with gameplay.
While Humble views his game as art, he recognizes one immediate failure of the game as a communicative device: It requires explanation. "I wanted a game that the graphics and other elements took second stage," writes Humble, reminding us that Chess is engaging, "whether playing with stones or diamond encrusted ivory sculpted pieces. One should not assume the game is incomplete because of its graphical simplicity...." Essentially, Humble sets out to create art with gameplay alone.
And yet, Humble admits he "cheated a little here by using colour symbolism similar to painting." Even at a more basic level, the game fails to work without some sort of visual representation - whether it be squares or circles. As unintelligible as the game is without the explanation, it still is dependent on some sort of visual representation - color, motion, etc. - to create meaning. What would happen if we truly reduced the game down to just its mechanics? I would imagine this would look like a table of numbers, moving up and down, keeping track of each object's position in space, size, color, etc. Even then, we are using numbers and charts to represent the gameplay!
It would seem that gameplay requires representation to be intelligible. It by itself cannot be used to create art - it is only a fundamental element of game design. Meaning comes from combining rules with a "dramatic" element - the element that provides context: characters, goals, etc. Thus, by replacing the abstraction of squares and circles with natural-looking characters and situations, The Marriage would not only become intelligible, but also more emotionally engaging. No longer would the player be dealing with squares and circles, but with people.
So, how do we make the conversion from abstraction to naturalism? I believe this can largely be done by simply looking at life and other media, such as film. Instead of using a change in size to indicate marital dominance, the designer must ask himself, how might this be indicated in real life? For example, as a wife gains dominance, she may take on a more demanding tone of voice, become more talkative, etc. Instead of visual translucency, marital satisfaction might be indicated by indifferent facial expressions, or a reduction in the tendency to hug or kiss. The designer has control over the inputs and outputs of the game, and can choose to make them abstract or naturalistic.
Like "The Marriage," game design is a balancing act. Too much focus on rules, and the game is unintelligible; too much on the "dramatic" element, and we miss out on that unique ability to explain difficult concepts to us through choice, consequence, and performance. I believe Rod Humble is tapping into something that could help to turn games into a medium of choice for artists seeking to convey a message, so long as we learn how to harness that power through naturalistic representation.
This image is a screenshot the tech demo for the game Heavy Rain, which garnered attention from the Electronic Entertainment Expo in 2006, due to its lifelike, emotive animation.