Fable 2: In Real Life

Cooperative gaming is all the rage these days. In fact, there has been a huge surge of coop games this past year. Co-op is, in a way, the medium's zeitgeist. Not only do players love the new focus, but designers as well, who are enamored with the challenges of co-op game design. From Army of Two to Schizoid, designers are experimenting with the boundaries of co-op and learning about its possibilities and limitations. Co-op is far from new, just look at Gauntlet, but as a style of gameplay it has recently received a jolt of attention.

Among those games lavishing in co-op is Fable 2. Peter Molyneux isn't one to rest on his laurels, let alone those of others. He and the team at Lion Head are pushing the limits of what games can achieve with co-op. Other co-op games up until now have focused on cooperative gameplay, which is fantastic in and of itself. However, Fable 2 is trying to offer something else altogether: co-op narrative.

Co-op gameplay in Fable 2 is excellent design in its own right. A second player, known as the "henchman," can jump into the host player's world at any time simply by pushing start. Experience and gold can be divided howsoever the players chose by allotting percentages of each when the henchman joins. Henchmen will retain their gold and experience when they return to their own games. Combat, likewise, is adjusted when playing co-op, as players must work together to fight most effectively. But these features aren't what set Fable 2 apart from the herd. What does is the game's transgression into reality.A henchman in Fable 2 has the power to permanently affect the host player's world. Henchmen have all the freedoms of the host player. In fact, the henchman has equal power, or perhaps even greater power, than does the host player. In Fable 2, a player cannot kill his or her spouse. Spousal-murder simply is not possibly. Personally, I'm a fan of this limitation. Lion Head, while advocating freedom as one of the main themes of Fable 2, it seems does not want to support, or even allow, such atrocious immorality. Actually, I think this is a much, much bigger issue than immediately apparent, but thats for another article. However, while players cannot murder their own spouse, henchmen can. Henchmen can walk into the host player's house, pull out a gun, and shoot the player's husband or wife. And the character will never come back. The spouse is dead for all time and forever and ever.

This initially bothered me. "Griefing" comes to mind as I consider the potential ruin and sadness that could be affected upon a person. I would be extremely upset with anyone who killed my spouse in-game. And then I realized, that is the whole point. Allowing such freedom in co-op gameplay is more than just characters interacting with characters; it is about people interacting with people through the game, and the game interacting with people through their actions and decisions. This level of co-op interaction transcends the television screen, and the game becomes something else altogether.Suddenly, co-op is less so about working together and more so about the relationship between two people. Now, cooperative gameplay is about trust. Not that it wasn't before either. Working together to take down monsters or ships certainly does involve trust, but Fable 2 employs trust on a completely different level, a level of morality and friendship. How two people play Fable 2 together is symbolic of their friendship. The game becomes a sharing experience. What players do in the game, even outside of murdering or not murdering spouses, is an interaction between two people, not two characters. Playing is like dancing: when two people dance with one another, they are interacting and representing their individual emotions. This is what Fable 2 is trying to achieve. The game relates to the players, offering a means of interaction, an outlet for sharing an experience. How the players engage that world and engage one another speaks to their relationship as people. Who you play with is a sign of trust. Can you trust your friend. Can you trust that your friend won't kill your spouse? What does this say about your relationship with that person. Furthermore, how will your interactions in the game affect your relationship. If your best friend murders your spouse, how does that affect your freidnship; what is your friend trying to tell you (and I don't mean he or she hates your spouse in real life, but maybe)?

Then the game becomes an exchange between player and character. The players actions affect the world, the world reacts to the character, and subsequently the player is affected by the worlds reactions. Fable 2 fuses character and player; the game creates a bond between the two. The character is a representation of the player, the person in a polygonal form. Therefore, when two players interact in a game, they are truly interacting as humans.

Images from Lion Head

Seamless Presentation

When Michelangelo sculpted The Pieta, he chose to make the figure of Mary larger than that of Jesus. This decision by Michelangelo was that of a specific presentation. Michelangelo is showing Mary as prominent over Jesus, literally, through her size. This unique presentation of a classic Biblical relationship leads admirers to reflect upon The Pieta's meaning and the significance of Michelangelo's decision.Game design encompasses the same issues of presentation and meaning. Like sculpture, painting, or music, game design is an art open to possibilities and options. Presentation is one aspect of design that is increasingly paramount in importance, and only limited by designers' imagination in terms of all the forms it can assume. As with all aspects of game design, a game's presentation must be designed in cooperation, or along with, the remainder of its elements. While there are countless ways of presenting information to players, the zeitgeist of gaming is shifting towards a more seamless approach. This shift reflects the western gaming culture's expectations of next-generation gameplay. Seamless presentation, as opposed to other approaches, is unique in its pursuit of an ideal immersive gameplay. These terms are synonymous; the choice to present a game seamlessly is the desire to create a highly immersive gameplay experience. Seamless presentation is by no means the be all, end all, of game presentation, but it is certainly a viable approach that is rapidly becoming more and more popular in the design community.

But what exactly are designers looking to present anyway? The answer is everything. For truly, presentation is a continuum. For the purpose of discussion, though, I've divided presentation as a whole into three parts: information, theme and story, and interaction. I will briefly discuss each of these points individually, then expound upon these basic explanations with specific examples from modern video games. As rivulets flow together to form rivers, once these three elements are presented in a similar seamless manner, they mesh and cooperate with one another to create a whole, immersive gameplay experience.Players need information to play a game. The style of presentation is the form in which any given information is fed. The most common form of information conveyance is the HUD, or heads-up-display. Generally, the HUD includes things like resource statistics, the ammo of a firearm, or the health of a character. And even simple information like these can be presented in varying forms. Take for example a vehicle's speed in a racing game. Designers can choose to feed this knowledge to players with a speedometer, or through a more simple numerical count.

But rudimentary information is not all that needs presenting to players. We all know games are more than just lives and top scores. Games evoke emotion. They have stories and plot lines and themes. Games have characters, landscapes, and environments. All of this must be presented to players. The original format for story presentation was the text-scroll. “All your base are belong to us” was as effective as it got back then. But technology has improved. And with it, game design. Since the days of text-scrolls, the continuous arrival of superior technology has inspired new opportunities for different kinds of presentation. The next-gen systems offer previously impossible or unavailable possibilities. Seamless presentation is profiting the most from these advancements.

The last area of presentation is interaction, which many would likely argue is the largest contributory element to gameplay. The presentation of interaction refers to how, or in what ways, players effect, manipulate, or respond to a game through control. Video games have always been about interaction. But just like other aspects of the medium, interaction can be presented in various ways. As we delve deeper into the next-generation of video games, a more immersive seamless approach to interaction is beginning to take hold.
The HUD or user-interface has been around since games were invented, but video games are increasingly presenting this very same information in a more seamless manner. One example is Lionhead Studios' Fable 2. The game is yet to be released, but already it is apparent that most everything the RPG has to offer will be presented with immersive gameplay in mind. This presentation includes seemingly basic information like player location and navigation. In Fable 2, players assume the role of young boy during his growth into hero or villain. During the game, players are accompanied by a pet dog to train, play, and fight with. The dog is more than just some superficial addition; governed by complex artificial-intelligence, dog and player can complete realistic and intelligent interactions. In his 2007 Game Developer's Conference presentation, Peter Molyneuax, head of Lionhead Studios and lead designer of Fable 2, demonstrates and discusses the dog as a functional aspect of gameplay.

“We ask what is his job here. What sort of gameplay can we get out of this dog? His job at this stage, he stays in front of me. That's very important. Quite often with co-op characters in games they stay to the side of you, or behind you. He's in front, he's scouting, he's looking for treasure, he's looking for new things. That's very important.”

“You'll notice that something is missing in this [television] screen. And what is it? It is, it used to be here [pointing to the top-right of the game screen], the mini-map. God I hate that thing. I hate the fact that in Fable 1, you could play the whole of Fable 1 with the mini-map. The millions of pounds and hundreds of hours of work that we put in the world were worth nothing cause you were playing the whole thing on the mini-map. Can we get rid of that mini-map? Can't he be your guide [pointing at the dog]? When you come to a junction like this can he point you down there? Now he's not a complete solution, but he's a partial solution.”

The mini-map is a standard piece of game presentation. It shows players their relative position, their surroundings, and usually their destination as well. And it serves these purposes nicely. But as Molyneuax suggests, the mini-map is so convenient, it actually interferes with a players' immersion in the game world. The dog in Fable 2 achieves the same purposes as the mini-map, but presents them in a much more seamless fashion. Instead of a mini-map showing a bird's-eye view of nearby paths, the dog will run ahead of players and actually trace the paths out and, to the best of the AI's knowledge, dynamically lead players to their destinations. Moreover, the dog, being a dog, has heightened senses and will recognize the presence of nearby enemies, and as any good hunting dog would, will bark and alert players to their presence. This is contrasted with red dots representing enemies on a circle in the corner of the screen. The dog is just one example of Fable 2's seamless presentation. The dog immerses players in their surroundings through player-interaction and the emulation of a real-life creature. At the same time, the dog is seamlessly presenting to players vital gameplay information with its behavior.

A second game offering seamless presentation of information is Valve's soon to be released Team Fortress 2, an online-multiplayer first-person-shooter. Team Fortress 2 is all about class-based team competition; players join opposing teams to fight as any of nine different character classes. Each class plays differently, possessing several inherent strengths and weakness that deign them either prone or resilient to other character types. Therefore, it is essential that players immediately acknowledge who are their allies and also who are their enemies. Team Fortress 2 is a fast paced game, players need to process player-class identity quickly to tactically adapt to any situation. To achieve this end, Valve employed a unique, pervading art direction which was fully-integrated with gameplay. In an “illustrative rendering” video featurette, a Valve team-member discusses the art design of Team Fortress 2:

“Through very intentional art direction, this goal was supported by designing characters with distinct silhouettes that can be easily identified even with no lighting cues. The body proportions, weapons, and silhouette lines were explicitly designed to give each character a unique silhouette. In the shaded interior areas of the characters, the clothing folds were designed to echo silhouette shapes in order to emphasize the silhouettes as observed in the commercial illustrations which inspired our designs.”
The individual character models are directly incorporated into the game world and gameplay, making for a seamless presentation of meaningful information. This art direction is not limited to characters alone but is indeed applied to the game's entirety, including an allowance for quick discrimination of team color and map location:

“For the architectural elements of the world associated with each of the two teams, we defined specific contrasting properties. While the red teams architecture tends to use warm colors, wooden materials, and angular geometry, the blue teams buildings are composed of cool colors, industrial materials, and orthogonal forms.”

By designing gameplay around a united art direction, Valve is immersing players more fully into Team Fortress 2. Valve's greatest achievement is their integration of gameplay with visuals. Every aspect of the game works in concert to both immerse players and give them the information they need to play well.

As we discussed before, information is only one area of game presentation. Our second type is equally important: theme and story. An excellent example of this is Shadow of the Colossus, an action-adventure title designed by Fumito Ueda and developed by Sony's SCEI studio. Shadow of the Colossus is about self-discovery, and more importantly, is about self-discovery through gameplay. Several themes are presented to the player via seamless means; among these are solitude and compunction.

In Shadow of the Colossus players become a man known only as “Wander.” The player's only mission is to resurrect a girl named Mono. To complete his quest, Wander must destroy sixteen different colossi, gigantic living stone creatures. With the help of a horse named Agro, players explore and traverse an expansive world to individually locate and defeat each beast.
In their search, players are meant to feel alone, isolated. In addition to the main character's name, Ueda presents this isolated feeling in a few ways; all of which are very simple but highly effective. In all of the game world there are only two characters aside from Wander and Agro. This in itself makes for a feeling of loneliness, being unable to interact with other people. A second effect is the size and desolation of the game landscape. Wander is dwarfed not only by the colossi but by the environments as well. The environment is constructed largely of big rock cliffs and deep, long valleys, presenting to players a sense of barrenness and emptiness. The third technique is silence; there is never music playing while Wander and Argo are traveling the land. Only the sounds of hoof beats and wind are emitted. These elements of desolation are naturally integrated into the world, seamlessly presenting a feeling of isolation to players.

Another game that has fantastic presentation of story and theme is Irrational Games' (now known as 2K Boston) recently released BioShock. BioShock takes place in desecrated underwater city called Rapture. What was intended to be a paradise has been destroyed by greed and madness. During their exploration of Rapture players must find a way to survive while searching for the reason behind the city's fall.
Players are wholly immersed in the world of BioShock. Visually, aurally, and interactively, players experience Rapture as if it were real. The story is presented to players primarily through audio-clips, being one of the most advanced pieces of technology available to Rapture. These audio logs were recorded by individuals of Rapture and are strewn throughout the game world, waiting to be discovered on desktops, dead-bodies, and enemies. Players are able to play each tape they find and as they do so learn more and more about Rapture's history. The varying denizens of Rapture offer differing accounts and perspectives of the city, allowing players to formulate their own opinions. This piece of story presentation is both functional and natural, immersing players in the game world while at the same time conveying necessary and interesting information about it.

As players explore Rapture they discover the primary theme of BioShock: no place is perfect for everyone, there is no eden for all. Players realize this theme through personal experience simply by walking through Rapture . Rapture is falling apart, ethically societally, and literally. Rapture was built to last forever, underwater and separated from other imposing societies. But in the cities negligence and metaphorical implosion, the beauty that was has been all but destroyed. Statues of grandeur once lining the walls are now nothing more than heaps of broken stone. Paintings are torn, wood is splintered and burning, the entire city feels forsaken. Even worse, the walls are leaking. No matter how well contained they build Rapture there will always be leaks.
The world of Rapture and this play experience serves to reflect the game's themes. Levine and the team at Irrational Games are presenting to players a world of moral corruption by allowing them to directly and representationally experience the effects of Rapture's greed. BioShock immerses players in Rapture with immaculate graphics and sound effects, seamlessly presenting players the story of Rapture and the themes and messages meant to be taken away.

The final point of seamless presentation is interaction. One title that has become very popular this past year exemplifies seamless interaction quite well: Wii Sports. Nintendo's Wii was specifically designed to be highly interactive and Wii Sports takes advantage of this goal quite well. Wii Sports is actually five games in one, featuring simulations of sports titles tennis, golf, boxing, bowling, and baseball. While some of these simulations are more successful than others, they all were designed with the same principle in mind: immersive interaction. With Wii Sports, Nintendo is presenting an alternative to analog sticks and buttons; they are presenting interaction that is more involving and in effect more seamless in its emulation of real-life activities.
In the tennis side of Wii Sports players swing the Wii remote as if it were an actual tennis racket, and similarly in baseball mode, swing the controller like they would a bat. In golf, players tee-off and putt as if holding a club. The remote becomes a virtual ball in bowling. And in boxing players grip and punch the nun-chuck and remote like they are truly throwing hooks.
Naturally, each of these games require different input methods or swings to play. But Nintendo designed the game to be simple renditions of each sport. Nintendo chose to present the games such that players can intuitively grasp the means of interaction. A controller pad as an interface does little to imitate playing tennis; swinging a remote, however, is physically fairly close to actually swinging a racket. By closely emulating reality, and requiring more active input on part of players, Wii Sports avoids the seams of button configurations and instead allows players to become immersed in their gameplay experience.

My final example of seamless presentation, and of seamless interaction, is Okami. Okami was released this time last year and developed by now disbanded Clover games. Players of Okami become sun goddess Okami Amaterasu in the form of a white wolf. The fantasy world of Okami has been invaded by a demon named Orochi and infested with a dark substance, polluting the land in a purple haze. Like Team Fortress 2, Okami was designed with very distinct, pervasive art direction inspired by the sumi-e painting style. The world's landscape is like a painting of its own, formed of large brush strokes and colored with pastels. Amaterasu exists in a living painting. Though this is cool in itself, the amazing thing about Okami's art style is how it crosses the gap from being purely aesthetic to wholly interactive.
As Amaterasu, players possess whats called a celestial brush that allows them to interact with and directly effect the game world. By holding R1 the screen becomes a canvas for painting. Manipulating the face buttons and analog stick, players are able to maneuver a paint brush and interface with the canvas as they please. Brush strokes from a finished canvas are transposed into the game, assuming form, shape, and function. Painting a line through the ground, for example, will create a stream of flowers, while painting a dot will plant a seed that quickly sprouts into a tree. Throughout the game, players learn new brush techniques which allow for new and helpful interactions. Painting a circle in water will create a large lily pad for Amaterasu to stand on; painting a spiral will create wind that blows out fire; and filling in the broken gap of a bridge will repair the damage.

Clover has synergized art-style with interaction. The celestial brush not only matches this feeling but is integral to gameplay, allowing players to naturally transform their painted world as needed. Okami is not special in allowing players to interact with the world, but rather is so for its presentation, the style by which players interact. The immersion as a player is derived from painting on a world that looks and feels just like a painting. Okami allows players to interact with the game seamlessly, using a paint brush as a means to affect a painted landscape.

Presentation is the form in which information is appropriated to players. Seamlessly presenting information is to do so in an immersive manner, allowing players to feel more absorbed within the game. I could go on about the dialogue system of Mass Effect, or the free-running or Assassin's Creed, or the minimalistic style of Defcon; but if we simply open our eyes we will see more clearly how many games involve players more completely and bring about a rich, enthralling gameplay experience for them. By seamlessly presenting information, story and theme, and interaction, we can immerse players more fully into our games and come that much closer to meeting, even exceeding, our definition of next-gen gameplay.

Image Sources
The Pieta
GRAW 2
Team Fortress 2 Characters
Team Fortress 2
Okami
Fable 2
Bioshock
Wii Sports

Blocking in Action Games

First of all, I want to apologize again for not posting for a week. My brother got married and most of my family was here for a few days and it was hectic as all get out, but a ton of fun. As a warning, I'm going on vacation for a while with my family in a couple of days. You should expect new posts by the end of the month. I'll be making a more official post about this soon .Sorry again, hope you enjoy the post.

There are a lot of action games out there: Dynasty Warriors, Ninja Gaiden, The Legend of Zelda. All of these happen to be close-combat based, swords, essentially. Three other games, two yet to arrive and one already available, are also close-combat action games. These are Fable 2, Heavenly Sword, and Okami. Whats amazing is that each of these titles has a completely different combat system, and, more specifically, different systems for blocking.Fable 2 is Peter Molyneux and Lionhead Studios' upcoming 360 masterpiece. It is innovating in many ways, including combat. Fable 2 features a one button combat system. The X button is devoted to attacking with a short-range weapon, like a sword, and Y and A are devoted to bow/arrow and magic use. But today we're just going to talk about short-range combat. All attacks, throws, and combos while using a sword can be achieved with the X button alone. To attack simply press the button. To combo, players must tap X at varying intervals in tune with a beat. Players can perform finishing moves with a counter by tapping X right when an enemy attacks. The X button is also devoted to blocking with a sword. How? Just hold the button. Holding X allows player characters to block most attacks automatically. And thats it. Tap X to attack. Tap X at the right time to counter. Hold X to block. Its a simple system but becomes progressively more complex as players learn the combo system, Molyneux contends. He even once said that players will be able to beat the game no problem simply by mashing on the X button. Yes, Molyneux condones button mashing. But is there anything wrong with that? I don't think so. It makes the game simple for novice players while remaining appealing. However, he says that if players so desire, they will be able to exploit a deep combat system, all with just one button. Long story short: block by holding X.

Our second featured game is Heavenly Sword. As the beautiful Nariko, players will embark on an epic journey, and all the while slaying countless clone-faced foes. Developer Ninja Theory has invented an intruiging combat system for players to fight with. Nariko has at her disposal three combat stances. Standard is speed, hold L1 to switch to ranged mode, hold R1 to switch to strong. Meanwhile on the controller face, the triangle and square buttons allow Nariko to attack and counter. The shoulder buttons act as modifiers. They change Nariko's stance, and therfore attacks, but they also change her block.

Blocking in Heavenly Sword is fairly unique for video games. Nariko's blocks by not doing anything. Sitting there and not pressing anything allows Nariko to block any standard attacks. However, different enemy types will attack Nariko as well. Stronger blocks will blow right through Nariko's standard block. As will arrows and other projectiles. But switching to the respective stance allows Nariko to block these attacks as well. The enemies and their respective attacks come in three different types too: standard, strong, ranged. By tapping triangle just as the enemy attacks will make Nariko counter, assuming she is in the right stance for that enemy type. Ninja Theory, I think, has created an interesting and balanced combat system. Three different enemy types, three different attack stances, three different means of blocking. Players must constantly be switching up their stance to deal with the varied enemies and incoming attacks. Nariko blocks automatically. However, she will have to be in the correct stance to block the different enemy types. The other fulcrum of balance, if you will, is the players choice to attack or sit still. If you attack, you risk the chance of being hit. If you sit still, you'll be more likely to deflect an attack, or at least more focused if the need to switch stance arrives, as it will often.

The third game is Okami. This epic is the only game discussed today that has already been released. Clover Studios, unfortunately disbanded, was the developer behind Okami, and also created classics like Viewtiful Joe and Killer 7. Okami has gameplay very much like The Legend of Zelda. Which means adventure over an expansive fictional land. However, the great Ameratsu's combat style differs greatly from Link's. First, players can use brush techniques to help defeat enemies. Second, Okami has multiple weapons that she can switch out to serve as primary or secondary. The primary attack works as you might imagine, just tap the button to attack repeatedly. The sub weapon serves varying purposes depending on the weapon itself. At the beginning of the game, Okami has no means to block. She can run around, and jump, and dodge eventually. But before players cannot block until they get a weapon of the type Reflector. Equiping the reflector as a sub weapon and pressing triangle in combat will bring up a large round shiled in front of Okami. But the shield will not stay up. Regardless if the players tap or hold triangle, the shield will only stay up for a second. After the shield comes down, Ameratsu will be momentarily defensless until she overcomes her shield lag. However, the shield will only lower if nothing hits it. If the shield does block an attack like fire, it will remain up and continue to block Okami until the attack subsides. Sometimes long, constant attacks will bombard Okami, like fire or poison. Bringing up the shield before the attack hits will block the entire attack stream. Also, pressing triangle right in front of enemy will make Okami grab it and pile drive it into the dirt. Its awesome and does a ton of damage. I think its an interesting way to form a block mechanic, the shield is there when you need it but gone when you don't.

These are not the only blocking mechanics nor combat systems to be found in action games. They are a sampling, they represent a diversity of systems present in a single genre of video games. The point is, there are millions of ways to achieve something. Look at something as simple as blocking, even this can be designed in a variety of ways, as we have just seen. This is true across all of game design. Everything can be designed in different ways. This is how whole genres are born. When designing a game, dont just rely on one system or mechanic. Just out of sight, hidden in your labrythine mind, there may be a solution or superior alternative awaiting discovery.


Who do you think is coolest: Ameratsu Okami, Nariko, or Peter Molyneux?