DE4106: Expanded Practitioner Research - Game Designer Questionnaire: Benjamin Hill

Ben Hill is a Game Designer and co-founder of White Paper Games. He has most recently released Ether One, which is a puzzle adventure game that contains narrative elements that I believe would be appropriate inclusions within an Exploration Game. Ben was kind enough to provide his responses to my Project Questionnaire, which you can find at the end of this post.

Reflective thoughts:

Ben has played several games that he would consider to fit within the Exploration genre. Ben believes that the designers of these games attempted to "engage players with emotional and engaging mechanical blocks where players search for the purpose of discovering new information to expand the world that they are in." (Hill, 2014). Ben goes onto explain the various ways in which these titles have attempted to approach this, either through underpinning the player's actions through narrative, or opening up more of the game-world as a reward for the player choosing to explore. I believe that player choice is perhaps one of the most fundamental aspects within the Exploration genre. The player has to choose and want to explore, rather than be forced into it through design. It should be the player engaging with their own instinctive desire to explore, learn and gain emotional gratification through reward for choosing to engage with the game in this way.

Ben believes that there is still scope for introducing challenges to Exploration games but stresses that it is important that we as designers:

"...understand the impetus of the player, what they are going to be trying to achieve. This always results in a challenge even if that challenge is incredibly easy. If we understand this we can they tailor it to a particular experience within a particular genre...Goals in an exploration game can be vague as long as the player understands their purpose within the game world." (Hill, 2014)

I believe Ben's knowledge and experience will continue to help me develop my design model. As I work closely with Ben already, he has expressed an interest to help me test out the practicalities of the design model (once it is completed) by designing game prototypes that attempt to utilise the principles of the model, thereby testing both its validity and accuracy. This, along with my plans to utilise game-jams as an unbiased 'test-bed' should provide a conclusive set of results.

Questionnaire for Game Designers

Considering a new Design Model for the ‘Exploration’ Game Genre

Joe Shorrocks

MA Game Design

UCLan

Rationale of study: To design a completely new design model for the emerging genre of video game experience currently known as an “Exploration” game. This is a game that is centred on the emotional experiences of the player, rather than necessarily presenting the player with challenges to overcome. Recognisable titles that have been loosely included in this emerging genre are Journey, and Flower (ThatGameCompany), and The Unfinished Swan (Giant Sparrow). Other titles that explore this genre to a lesser extent are Katamari Damacy (Namco) and the upcoming title The Witness (Number None, Inc.). Journey, Flower and The Unfinished Swan have all received critical acclaim and have all sold well upon commercial release. This supports the claim that there is a demand for this type of game. However, despite their success, each game experienced unique development challenges and problems due to the nature of what they were trying to achieve. I believe that this is because the developers were constrained to traditional game design fundamentals – specifically challenge-driven designs- which are not completely appropriate for, or perhaps even compatible with, this genre. This suggests that a new design model is required, that will help future developers fulfill the potential of this genre without the difficulties experienced by the developers mentioned above.

The following questions are designed to help shape the development of this model.

Q1.  Have you played any existing titles that you would consider to be within the Exploration genre?

A1.

Yes. I’ve played numerous titles that lean heavily on exploration as an impetus for game progression. Recent titles that come to mind are titles such as Dear Esther, Proteus, Journey and Flower whereas more classic titles such as Zork, Adventure and Myst could also be categorised as using exploration in such a way.

Q2.  If yes, what were your opinions on those titles in regards to what you believe the designers were trying to achieve? Were they successful?

A2.

I think in all of these titles the designers were aiming to engage players with emotional and engaging mechanical blocks where players search for the purpose of discovering new information to expand the world that they are in. In the case of classic games like Zork, Myst and Adventure this is keenly angled towards further engagement with a designed narrative that underpins the world that the player is in. This is done with the goal that the player engages with said world as themselves or as a decided persona that they choose to take on. In the design of Myst for example this was a core design philosophy throughout development with the designers emphasising that you, the player, are discovering and interacting with this world for the first time.

The ideology that the world should be set up in a non-arbitrary way was paramount to player engagement and immersion. The same could be said for the other titles but in a lesser manner. I feel these games were successful in some outputs such as progression via exploration but in general, due to technical limitations and interactions barriers, interactions felt illogical or stunted by certain game tropes such as difficult puzzles for the sake of gating the player. If exploration is the goal, these interactions and gating methods need to feel natural to the player.

More modern titles use some of these ideas but often aim to express and deliver narrative development through the process of exploration with an agenda. Dear Esther for example has minimalist design to allow for players to process vague narrative segments whilst building emotional and interpretable blocks of information that help them engage with the media. In order to do this most of what we would describe as common game functionality was stripped out. Less interaction skills and more thinking skills was the goal, however this separated the player from the world and did not allow them to engage in a natural way.

Journey uses some of these ideologies but refines player interaction to maximise emotional social output. Simplify the objective, goal and interaction of the game and allow other emotional and social factors to form the basis of the experience whilst still giving the player natural and familiar control. This works incredibly well even if some stereotypical archetypes of games make their way into the title.

Q3.  What aspects do you believe are important when designing an Exploration title?

A3.

I think human mapping in interaction is paramount to the way players engage with an environment yet this on its own is not enough to promote well structured exploration titles. In order for these interactions to engage players emotionally (when I say emotionally I mean on many different levels) the underpinning context of the environment, the process of discovery in the environment and the information discovered within the environment all need to be designed as a clear contextual system. Due to the nature of the majority of these titles (Proteus as an exception) the design of the narrative, not just in plot or in character but in context, underpins the success of such areas. In a game such as Proteus this narrative contextual system could be swapped out for a musical contextual system.

Q4.  Do you believe there are any fundamental constraints when designing games within this genre?

A4.

I think current team structure as well as individual team roles are a major constraint on the design of these types of games. A team may comprise of multiple designers on one side of the fence and multiple writers and narrative designers on the other. Firm design integration between these two disciplines needs to work seamlessly if a clear narrative (or other discipline) context is to be reached. Personally I feel it is about a new job set that is clear on design functionality as well as narrative context. These should not be separate and instead should be an integrated whole that is iterated as the game develops.

I also think traditional obstacles and challenges clash with these context driven goals but more importantly the design of player rewards need to be re-thought. Player rewards typically belong in progression; skill set development and visual achievement but in exploration games the reward for a player maybe very different. Story development, contextual connections and emotional engagement can all be rewards, especially if the game has ultimate freedom over the player’s ability to traverse the environment at will.

Q5.  Do you believe the Exploration genre is limited in terms of a particular demographic, or is this genre potentially universally appealing?

A5.

I don’t particularly think the exploration genre is limited to a particular demographic. Many other factors can be changed to a core game play structure such as non-gameplay genres that be targeted at different audiences. Other aspects such as pacing and tempo can be amended to created different, more demanding exploration experiences that still build on the same ideas discussed. In literature or film it is quite possible that an individual loves science-fiction and real-life drama. The same applies to games – game play output is a vessel for engagement and achievement that aims to create a flow. These systems can be applied to a variety of non-game genres to create unique and well thought through experiences as long as the context integrates into the game play system seamlessly.

Q6.  How important do you believe traditional fundamentals such as providing challenges to the player are for an experience of this nature? Are there any alternative approaches, or goals that you could present to the player instead?

A6.

I think there are still key traditional fundamentals that are important to the development of games in this genre. The question is how we apply them and again, in what context. Challenges can be applied to a variety of different vessels that engage with the game system, these could within the digital game structure or they could be personal to the player. It is important that when designing an exploration game that we, as designers, understand the impetus of the player, what they are going to be trying to achieve. This always results in a challenge even if that challenge is incredibly easy. If we understand this we can they tailor it to a particular experience within a particular genre.

Goals in an exploration game can be vague as long as the player understands their purpose within the game world. Games like Myst struggle with this as the player has no purpose… they just exist in the world and explore.

An example of simplified purpose: You play as a botanist who has been tasked at taking on a run-down tropical garden house. The game starts when you first enter the garden house and the player already knows who they are and what their goal is. All that is left is to explore and interact – task and level is designed in a particular manner to help promote certain interactions that allow players to gather and discover information that help them explore further, rebuilding the gardens as they go. Context is used to help build a picture of what this place used to be, why is it run down, who really employed you, how do you take care of certain plants that even as a botanist you are unsure about?

The end goal becomes clear but the journey on how to achieve that is interpretable to the player and is theirs to discover through exploration and context. This is a simple example and is by no means perfect, but it does highlight player trust whilst allowing players to explore freely without traditional game challenges, objectives and goals.