Does story end with the pipe?

Saw this one and I couldn’t resist posting it (Credit to Original Author here). Also, it looks like my neglected 360 will be getting some love soon. Too Human (August 19) and Spore (September 7) aren’t far around the corner! Even though it is Will Wright, I feel like I’m committing some horrible sin against gaming by buying it, EA has tainted far too much in my opinion.



I have to say, Rules of Play is a wicked book so far. I can’t even hope to deliver the lessons within as well as the authors have. So instead, I’ll point out quotes that really stuck with me in hopes that you’ll pick it up some day, or at least read the sections through Google you cheap bastard.

Meaningful Play (Page 34):

Meaningful play occurs when the relationships between actions and outcomes in a game are both discernable and integrated into the larger context of the game. Creating meaningful play is the goal of successful game design.

Discernable - The player can perceive the immediate outcome of an action
Integrated - The outcome of an action is woven into the game system as a whole

Uncertainty (Page 189):

Uncertainty is a key component of every game. If a game is completely predetermined, the player’s actions will not have an impact on the outcome of the game and meaningful play will be impossible.

This sounds obvious, but I’ll be referring to it here and there as I blog, for example:


Storyline in a video game, the narrative drive that gives the character (but not necessarily the player) a reason to continue, has always been an well-debated issue in game design. Not surprising considering some games do well treating it like a 3-act movie, some like an epic work and others with no story at all. I’m not referring to the ludology vs. narrative debate, I’m pointing out the purposely defined and hand written events that get character X from point A to B. This aspect of design is most commonly limited to video games, especially big budget productions, and an interesting article by Duncan Fyfe has surfaced pointing out some concerns that come with storyline in games.

One issue they point out is that the narrative structure of games that are so heavily inspired from film and literature roots (ironically quite detached from the roots of gaming itself) lacks “an intuitive metric: it’ll fall between one and one hundred hours”. What they mean is, you can easily see how far you are in a book, feel how long you are into a movie, and the dramatic tension usually flows in a structure within that metric. Games typically lack that sense of common structure and give the player no scope in which to frame their progression, and thus, have no idea what to expect. As Fyfe puts it: “Expectations frame experience”, and as a designer, the game experience is everything. If the player has no idea if the boss they just killed was a grunt in the scope of the story or the final boss itself, there is little meaning to be found in that victory. As I pointed out from above (once again, credit to Salem & Zimmerman), without meaning, play breaks down.



3 games I’d like to point out this week are: Machete Chamber, Life & Dino Run.

Machete Chamber: Essentially an action-based “dodge the bad things” & trivia hybrid in a gameshow setting. Correctly answering questions grants typical prizes such as shoes and cars. Poor performance usually results in jeers from the crowd and dismemberment. I felt the need to mention this game simply because losing limbs seems to have a real emotional impact on a player, try it for yourself and see how you feel after losing an arm or a leg.

Life: Life (as I’m sure many of you know, and if not, shame on you, go play it) is a linear boardgame where players compete to make the most of their lives, typically through acquiring financial assets and collecting unique “once-in-a-lifetime” events. While a sunny family game indeed, I began to wonder (as my dark twisted mind tends to do) what it would be like if a darker, more mature version was made as a satirical look on western culture, emphasizing the negative events life throws at us. I wonder how players would value their experience if instead of landing on a “Baby Girl!” tile, it was “You got a girl pregnant at a one night stand, deal with it”. Humour can cause smiles just as easy.

Dino Run: A simple but fun platformer where your little dinosaur tries to outrun extinction from a meteor impact’s wall of death. What I find is really well done is how well the designer conveyed the sense of impending doom and cranks up the tension the closer the wall of death gets. Try it yourself and you’ll see what I mean.