Designer VS Gamer: Showdown!

DISCLAIMER: This topic really deals with single player story driven games. Obviously multiplayer games don't tend to suffer from this type of problem but instead face an entirely different set of challenges that I might cover another time...

If you ask any gamer what separates games from any other type of media then you will get a simple response. Interaction.

Games allow players to interact with the experience created for them by the designers and, as games strive for greater immersiveness they also become more and more structured. The simple fact of the matter is that game designers don't like giving gamers control of their game because they don't want them to wreck it. They want the player to play the game as THEY intended. This doesn't make the designers evil people, they just to see their visions realised as close as possible to the way they saw it.

So how can we try and mitigate the eternal struggle between gamer and designer? Well one way around it is to make the game so immersive that the player doesn't want to 'break' the experience. Story driven games usually require that the player play a role. If you make the bond between the player and the character very strong then they won't want to break the 'suspension of disbelief' (shudder), by doing something that the character wouldn't do. A good example of this for me was the adventure game Fahrenheit (known as indigo prophecy in the US). In an adventure game such as Fahrenheit there is always a tendency to make the player run everywhere because walking is slow and takes too long. When i was playing Fahrenheit I didn't run everywhere because it didn't feel right to do so. I didn't want to break the illusion that this was real. This worked because the environments were well designed and walking wasn't so slow that it became a chore. The option to run was there but I chose not to take it. (unless I was running for my life when i would break into a sprint at the earliest available opportunity!).

Designers shouldn't be afraid to give the player choice. If you have built your game right then players will take the right option. Metroid prime by Retro Studios is a great example of this. The environments are built in such a way that you dint ever find yourself trying to find 'fake' ledges (that is, something that you shouldn't be able to jump on but you can), in order to progress through the game. If you cant get to a certain area yet you just trust that the game will give you an ability to get there later on. The game signposts these invisible dead ends very well so you know when you've gone as far as you can.

Another issue that is finding itself hot topic recently with games like dead rising and Ninety Nine Nights just hitting shelves are save systems. Here its a question of the players preference of save anywhere versus the designers favourite of checkpoints or an end of level save (which are basically just really sparse checkpoints). I'm not a fan of save anywhere at all for the simple reason that the player doesn't know whats coming up, designers do. A well implemented checkpoint system should end up being better than a save anywhere system as you can save at points where one obstacle is over and the next is about to begin. Obviously for non linear games where to save is more of an issue and there is a case for saving at any time in this situation. However a save is essentially a form of infinite lives and the tension of lives can add a lot to the game experience. A designer wants to make the player dying be something they want to avoid but they don't want to make it such an inconvenience that its immensely frustrating. As with most things in life its about striking a balance.

Control VS Control is an eternal debate much like any issue where both sides of the argument have merit. How much control you give your players is a fine balancing act but if you set your case well then there is a good chance that they will follow the rules!

Tom