Uncertainty and Inevitability

Our task last week was to read an article by Marc LeBlanc, it was about ‘Tools for Creating Dramatic Game Dynamics’. We had to read to see what tools were used. For the task I thought that it was another article about MDA, but in someone else’s words.

My theory was only partly right. In my last article it was clear that the designer of a game only has control of the mechanics, nothing more. In LeBlanc’s article he says the same about creating ‘Dramatic Tension’ in a game.

“We can only create the circumstances from which drama will emerge”

He then goes on to say what MDA is to him (which I still think Braithwaite and Schribier have a better way of explaining what it is)

The First tool we learn is ‘Aesthetic models’ which LeBlanc refers to as a yardstick to tell designers is the have achieved their design objective, but I think a better example is a spirit stick. If you tip it too far left or right (too much or too little) you have not achieved what you want, in our case being dramatic. To make a more visual example to make an aesthetic model, he introduces us to the    

                                                        “Dramatic arc” 

 The Dramatic arc is a general rule to make a game dramatic. With the climax at the highest point, the player will have to go though some sort of conflict. With the word conflict, it doesn’t always means battling with enemies in an RPG; it could challenge the player’s stamina (the T.V show Wipeout), test a player’s knowledge (you can find this in any game, at the pub, brain training or Prof. Layton) or see how fast a player’s reaction is.

LeBlac says the Drama is a product of two factors, saying that a game cannot achieve dramatic tension without these factors.

Uncertainty: When the outcome of the game is unknown (normally at the start of a game).

Inevitability: Nearing the end of the game, and the winner is pretty much clear.

Thou these factors give us a lucid meaning of creating dramatic tension; he dissects into two phases into a more detailed feature.

Force and Illusion is uncertainty split into two separate aspects.

Force is when the mechanics limits how much a player has an advantage over the other. We can see this example in Mario Kart Double Dash, when a player in 1^st place in the race, the mechanics will not allow them to gain an accelerator if they run into a cube, whereas, if you are one of the clever lucky few, who linger at the back, you gain some of the best weapons to win.

Illusion is a talented way to manipulate a player perspective in a game. Within illusion you can find Hidden Energy, Escalation and Fog of War. Again in Mario Kart, hidden energy can be found when you are in one player mode. You have to complete a map in the shortest time. You have the hidden energy of 3 single mushrooms which boost your speed. I personally go on the baby park map, where it is only an oval shape. Once I have completed the map, I can go against my ghost and try to best my last score. Say in my second attempt at the map I use the mushrooms to give me an early lead with my ghost, I am at the advantage by being in the lead yet my ghost has 3 mushrooms to boost up their speed, and I have none. On the final lap, my ghost uses the booster mushrooms to get a head start, and I am unable to catch up with it since I wasted my mushrooms at the start. The Hidden energy tool at first seems like it should be part of the Inevitability tool, but the uncertainty kicks in when you know that the other player has a greater advantage over you, with this uncertainty in the players mind it is creating a test for them to use their skill to beat the other player.

You get weapons In Mario Kart to try and get 1^st place and depending on what place you are in, the weapon can either aid you greatly or do nothing, this is where Escalation is being used. Without the weapons Mario kart would just be a normal racing game where the change in positions is quite slow throughout the game, but with weapons the position of each player can change within moments. If you are one of the ones at the back, and you are receive a Bowser shell (when released it skids around the race track and squashes anyone that is in the way, which slows them down greatly) you have a much higher and faster chance to overtaking a players and change the scoring positions .With Escalation, your position (score) changes faster over the course of the game with the weapons used.

Fog of war is slightly different from Hidden energy and Escalation. In Mario kart you can see the other player’s game view, but with Fog of war you are limited to what information you get. In the P.C game, Total Annihilation, Fog of war is heavily relied on as an uncertainty tool.

You start off as a single commander placed in certain point on the map. Even though you have the whole basic map given to you, unless you have scouter’s at your deploy, you know nothing about the other player’s army size, where they are placed on the map or how much energy and metal they are producing. By limiting the information you have, players can’t predict the game out come as the constant uncertainty of how big the other player’s army is always on the mind, making the game last longer. Once a player has produced a large enough army, they automatically gain more information of the map and with that; they have a greater success in winning the game.

            Other types of Illisonary Uncertainty include Decelerator, Accelerator and Cashing Out. The Decelerator is an object that slows a player down, thus changing the pace of the player in the game. By slowing the leading player down it gives the losing player hope, but the accelerator kicks in right after the leading player gets over the obstacle, this is where the truth is revealed and the giant difference is once again established and the uncertainty element has vanished into inevitability.

With Cashing out, the game reset after each round. At first I couldn’t think of a game using this technique and how it is connected to uncertainty, but playing Street fighter I became aware of the cashing out tool and how it created uncertainty. In Street fighter you have to K.O an opponent to win a round; once you have won 3 rounds you have won the game. The uncertainty is the fact that I have blistered my thumbs and cramped my hand in round 1… only to have to go though it twice over to win the whole game. With the resetting of the HP and the special bar, the opponent has a clean chance to win the round and even out the score.

LeBlanc gives us a wide range of Illusionary uncertainty, but only gives us 2 Force factors…which in to Illusionary factors hasn’t got as much variety, but the outcome is just as important.

Negative Feedback: making the game ‘close’ by making the scoring function as close to 0 as possible. (If you think of a racing game and the distance between the 2 cars is 7 metres, the smaller the distance the more tension is created between the 2 players’s)

Positive Feedback: Making the difference in score as large as possible (In Mario Kart, if you give a golden mushroom to the racer in front) this feedback gets rid of uncertainty and brings the game to a faster climax.

With negative feedback I think it is an important tool which gives back a dramatic tension, but with positive feedback I don’t think it is something that is needed. At the start of a game, if a player is guaranteed to have a massive head start, and have a great deal amount of success, then the dramatic tension is lost from the starting point.

As LeBlanc said once he introduced Uncertainty and Inevitability

“Tension relies on these two factors in combination-neither is sufficient by itself”

Just by reading LeBlanc’s article I am able to understand that the uncertainty tool is something that is important to create drastic tension, however, if we just stick to uncertainty the player would soon get bored or the feeling that the game would never end, ultimately making them quit the game. So I counter the ‘problem’ Inevitability is produced.

The main tool that is used is the Ticking Clock. This clock gives the player a HARD visual on when the game is about to end. In Ghost Recon, when you play split screen a small timer is always shown in the centre of the screen, thou it is miniscule the meaning of it shows the player that the game is coming to a conclusion.

The Ticking Clock isn’t just limited to the time on a screen. Other types of the Ticking Clock include the shrinking of a deck of cards (e.g Yu-Gi-Oh), the MP in final fantasy games, the game view (in bomber man, when then stage gets smaller and smaller until a winner is found) even in scrabble with the decreasing about of letters in the bag and the triple word spaces.

These types of ticking clocks could either be renewable or non-renewable; this changes the strategy a player makes. In Final Fantasy you can renew your health with items that you collect or buy. Knowing that you can renew your health easily relaxes the player. Though it does not create a massive dramatic tension, it makes the player try out more exciting strategies and lets them try out different dynamics of a game. In Yu-Gi-Oh you cannot renew the cards that have been sent to graveyard; because of this you know that you only have one chance to use a card. This non-renewable clock forces the player to think much harder with their strategy on how to go about the game, as well as loading a great amount of tension each time a monster is sent to the grave; you notice the fall of the deck and the decreasing health you get every time you take a direct hit from the enemy.

With the ticking clock function, I think it goes hand in hand with force and illusion tools, together they make a game which incorporate the dramatic tension, but also tells the that they have a limit.

In conclusion to LeBlanc’s article, I think that these tools effectively create dramatic tension in a game. Before the article I didn’t think that that Tetris had a ticking clock tool ( when you get higher) or that in Mario party it has a cashing out and a escalation tool at the same time after the players complete a game.

PLEASE CAN THE COMPUTER GAMES COURSE GO ON A TRIP IN EUROPE?