A short game design idea (rough)

Every moment is now gone.  Each person stuck in the same point.  Except this man.  He walks alone in a city frozen in time.  He travels around the city happily observing the constant sun, the cheerful people.  He writes into his notebook noting all these moments.  Some are insignificant.  Some will be forever remembered.  Everything is kept into a journal and he takes down the time with his pocket watch.

As the days progresses subtle things start to change.  Smiles seem to disappear even in places they shouldn’t.  Day begins to turn to night.  Clouds form in the distance.  Over time our hero grows impatient.  He wants to know what is happening.  He checks his pocket watch.  It still remains unchanged.  Frozen like the people surrounding him.

Now he begins to notice that people are missing.  On grueling discovery has him find a man formarly pointing out a bird to his daughter now standing alone with his hand chewed off.  An old man on a couch has now been half eaten.  The married couple is now only a single woman standing outside a church.  Even his pocket watches time has changed.

Our hero is now confused and seeks to discover what is going on.  He returns to his time machine.  Pictures of these happy moments are now as twisted as they remain.  Scared he begins to inspect these pictures.  They all seem to be looking in a direction.  Towards the clock tower. 

Our hero sets out towards this tower in search of some truth.  He goes towards the great clock and enters a coffee shop at its base.  Its resedents frozen but all remain unharmed.  A man uncomfortably frozen spilling hot coffee on the floor.  The light is dimmer here so he turns on his flashlight.  As he does a frozen statuesque monster appears infront of him.  Afraid he points the light at it.  Screaming the monster runs away knocking over frozen people as he goes.

Our hero must escape.  He must run.  His only tool is his flashlight.  The monsters seem to be afraid of it.  He returns to his hideout but his machine now lays in ruins.  Scribbles on the wall are the words “its not yours”  and “give it back.”  Plastic maniquines all pointing at the door watches covering their bodies.

Frightened he begins to pack his bags.  He grabs things that emit light and leaves.  But upon exiting he sees that it is now raining outside.  There is no one on the streets and everything is cold.  Our hero journeys into the city avoiding the darkeness.  This demon stalks him.  He avoids its grasp.

As he walks along a cold store the tvs turn on.  They becon him into the store.  The tv’s proclaim they are watching our hero.  His every move.  They have seen him once before.  They all them him that he must return time to its previous state.  They claim the growth of the great tree depends on it.  Even a single vein in a leaf is important.  He must resume time.  They become frightened when he pulls out his pocket watch.  Its arms now retreating as if going back in time.  Our hero proclaims he knows where an old machine is.

This dark entity follows our hero to the clock tower.  He travels through the library and into a small corridor.  There in a long and murky hallway he is forced to fight the demon.  The demon proclaims “I WANT MY WATCH BACK!”  At the end of the battle he stands over it, laying there covered in tar, it speaks to him.  “I have seen it” says the putrid beast “I have seen the base where all things lie.”  Black liquid flows down its face “I went mad u see, mad at how small I was.”  Skin now reveiled under the dark layer of sludge.  “I have seen the seeds that sewed reality, the birth of every universe on every plane of exsistance.”  Blood now poured out of his nose.  His eyes wide with fear.  “How small I’ve become.”  A dead man now lies at our heroes feet grasping onto a small chain.  The hero reaches down and removes the object.  Its metal case seems untouched by the grease.  Holding it up to his face our hero inspects the device.  His eyes widen.  Fear grips the man and as if guided by some unknown force he lifts his hands up clicking the button that protrudes out of the top.  Its metal casket opens and the tick tick tick of a pocket watch fills the room.  Our hero lay dead on the floor covered in tar.  The monster holding his pocket watch moves away to open the door at the end of the hall.

Inside the room a small device, no bigger than a house cat lies on the only table in the empty green room.  Setting aside his two identical pocket watches the man stares out of the window.  His eyes now filled with tears as rain pours against the glass.  The small device on the table unaware of the mans cries as he pushes the button on the device. 

A man points out a bird to his daughter.  Another eats alone on his couch.  Someone spills hot coffee on the floor.  A couple walks down the stairs of a church avoiding the happy rice as it falls from the sky.  And a solom man stands alone in a room and cries.  Cries for the life he took.  Cries for a pocket watch he stole.  Cries for his own death.

Alternatives to competitive Design

Since the first pixels left their hard drives set on a wonderous journey to explore the deep recess of imagination they were of course confronted by lasor fire seconds after creation and sent back to the hard drive they were formed in.  This has been the standard for video games for the last 50 years or so.  In fact the first interactive game had you shooting missiles.  So why are we always intent on killing each other in video games, which are by all means, an equivalent to literature?  It seems that the only thing games have really done in the past  is put the player in a world, give him/her a stick and tell them to go forth and conquer.  It's a shame since games seem to have great potential because of their interactive elements.  Elements that could potentially be used to create a player driven story deriving character traits from the player themselves.  This has been done to some extent in games like Mass Effect but then they just send you and your gun on your way.  A few games have given the player a non-violent alternative but still follow a liniar plotline.  So what gives?  Why the violent nature in our vast repiture of games considering the source, boardgames, are so subjective and non-violent?

But a few games seem to be bucking this trend with new story driven elements.  In these games the player may be given an image.  Something subjective that the player assigns meaning to.  At this point the game is no longer pass fail and becomes more about the expeirence.  Since a persons view of things can't really be called better or worst than the competitive nature of games is gone and a more opinion based veiw takes its place.  This view is common in most modern entertainment (save sports which has a purely pass fail attitude [fan opinions aside]) and gives the audience a magic circle.  Of course sports have a magic circle, ball goes in net, team scores point.  But beyond believing that a ball going into a net has any subsequent value the magic circle is limited to the rules of the game.  Imagery games take the opposite perspective by taking away the competitive nature.  They let the player make their own story about events.  This gives way to alternating opinions about events and can be resonably assumed that this subjective view changes based on each persons perspective.  By any sence these games are a form of art as well as function.  

So imagery based games are more based in art.  A few games have challenged preconceptions about imagery based progression.  Like the ones listed above but one game has taken this tecnique to a more practical level.  In the past imagrey has been used to enhance the impact of the story.  One example was Modern Warefare 2's use of imagery (SPOILERS) when the characters ghost and roach were burned alive.  This image became more powerful by taking control away from the player (rarely done in this game) and presented them with a powerful image of those two characters being burned alive.  The player losses nothing in this but is affected by the image.  A scenceless addition to mechanics but without this scene the game would have lost impact.  MoW2's success was not the result of this scene but it does prove that even mainstream games are taking this practice into consideration.  Other games are starting to join in by making imagery the soul of their gameplay, Half Life 2 mod 'Handle with care' for instance.  This game has the player confront their characters phycological issues by confronting them with images contained in fragile box.  The player then assigns meaning to these images and the story unfolds.  Games are starting to rely less on objectives pushed by mechanics and more on players perception of events to tell the story.  This more modern day progression means that complexity in story is now being derived from more than just mechanics.  Modern day imagery seems to be another interactive story progression tool that appears here to stay.

More unfinished stuff

Mistreatment of Villain’s

I call on all of you reading this post to think back to your favorite villain in a video game.  It can be the main boss in series or just a bad guy you really liked.  What do you remember?  More specifically what is the first thing about them that pops into your mind?  If your like me you had trouble with this question as well.  For some reason beyond my comprehension I thought of G-Man from Half Life.  It’s an odd choice as you nether fight him and he never really proves that he is a bad guy (apart from forcing you to work for him).  This all got me thinking about what makes a great super villain.  In comics the bad guys tend to be way more interesting than the good guys.  So what gives, surely video games have just as good villains as comic books or movies right?  Well Firstly I think I should clarify what makes a good villain.

Powerful social characters.  In order to fight the hero a villain needs to be driven or they risk becoming stagnant and unmoving.  Often the villain will be someone with flawed moral ideals.  In many classic stories the villain is someone who seeks to solve problems.  Lex Luther (my favorite villain) only seeks to return the balance of power from Superman.  His flaw is his ego that requires him to defeat the only person he is unwilling to admit is better than him.  But as a character he battles a god and that makes him a powerfully driven character.  Anyone can just quit but Luther will always try to best Superman even tho the odds are stalked so great against him.  Often this means that the villain will be unwilling to comprimiese seeing their solution as the only viable response.  This can be great since everyone hates an inflexible response like ‘for the good of the many we must sacrifice a few.’  These characters demand respect and in video games their underlings should represent that by the way they act in their world.

Mystirious motivations.  If a villains answer to ‘why are you attacking new york’ is ‘I don’t like new york’ than said villain is lacking in depth.  A two demensial villain is easy to figure out the modivations of and this means that a great deal of discovery is thrown away from the player.  If the villain never reveils his true intentions than people remain guessing.  However Villains should be more than ‘evil.’  For something like Lord of the Rings, Mordor wasent the real Villain.  It was the hearts of man that could undo the world.  This was depicted by Boromir and Denethor because these men gave into their temtations of fear.  Of course Mordors motivations were transparent but man’s motivations (namely Boromir) were in question.  This was a great way to use characters with flaws to be villains as Boromirs want for his fathers pride was used to try and take the ring from Frodo.  These complex characters can also be admirable to some degree but thought about with suspicion since their true motivation remains a secret.

Character context inside his/her/it’s world.  A villain can be just another person without the tools they possess that give them strength.  These tools are specific to the setting of the world.  If the ultamite villain in a skate boarding game can’t skate than they are lacking characters context inside they’re world.  A villain’s tools define them and they should be well equip for the world(s) they reside in.  If the focus is about shooting than a villain should know how to shoot.  Power is granted to those who control their surroundings and a villain who doesn’t is just not that scary.

Villain intelligence.  Hopefully the main bad guy your trying to defeat isn’t as slow as his hired goons.  The villain should hold some command over the people in their world.  They must have influence and the ability to bring about change.  Villains who don’t remain uninteresting since they have nothing to lose.  For example if a hero must kill an evil tyrant that tyrant should have some element that could affect the heros life.  For a boring villain that element would be an army that could crush said heroes village but to spice it up maybe they have done this to hundreds of villages in an attempt to stop a plague from killing more.  The villain uses his intelligence to solve a problem inside the world and the story follows by reveling that solutions effects to the hero.

Finnially a faital flaw.  This one is important because villains don’t get points for being perfect.  If they were heroes would just lose and that’s no fun.  Good guys should be the rock to their scissors.  That shouldn’t be confused with a simple game of rock paper scissors though as the hero shouldn’t find it that easy to defeat the villain.  Great villains are so powerful they can stand beaten but still in charge meaning that the villain should be all to aware of his fatil flaw.  Its no fun when you win with those nanites the good doctor gave you three seconds ago but if a hero wins by removing a villains true power you’ve accomplished something.  At the end a great villain leaves heroes with a hard choice.  A moral dilemma that reveals as much about the hero as it does about the moral of the story.

So that was a sort of wish list for villains these days.  Generally those principles can be applied to anything villains are involved in but specific to video games the list changes a little.  Since video games are user dependent they offer different challenges and opportunities for the developer.  When you think of a villain in a game a lot of these motivations for good villains ring true but how does that translate to a gameplay standpoint on villains?