Thoughts on Bioshock Infinite

Introduction
So I just finished Bioshock Infinite and I feel I need to write something about it. There is a lot that is really good about the game, but the way it all comes together seems like a wasted opportunity. This does not mean it is a bad game, far from it. I played the entire game in a couple of days, a rare thing for me, and had (mostly) fun doing so. What really stuck to me, though, is how it abuses its own premise. The capability for true greatness can be seen throughout, but is constantly hindered . This is also why it is so interesting to talk about it. By taking a closer look at Bioshock Infinite we can perhaps learn to harness its dormant potential.


Narrative
Before we get into it all, I need to clear up a concept. When I talk about the narrative in a game, I see it as the totality of the experience. It is not just cut-scenes and audio-logs that make up a narrative, it is also the shooting, jumping, and all other actions that I perform as a player.

While not that many talk about narrative in this way, I think it is really how most of us interpret our experiences. When we take part in interactive storytelling, what we really care about is our activities and the scenarios. While we of course are able to talk about the narrative in a separate, dual world-like, sense, it is not how we live through the experience. We do not absorb gameplay on a purely abstract basis, we connect it to the game's virtual world and incorporate it into our subjective narrative. The journey we take through the game becomes our narrative.

We want to play the story. I think this is true for anybody who has interest in a videogame storytelling. I see this as the gold standard for any work of interactive fiction, and it is through this lens that I will inspect Bioshock Infinite.


Combat Design
First up, I will go over the combat. I am not fond of combat in games, mostly because it is so overused, but when done well I have nothing against it. The grandfather of Bioshock Infinite, System Shock 2, is a great example of combat done right. Every enemy conveys an aspect of the story, the flow complements the overall mood and the tactics are connected with the progression of the protagonist. When fighting in System Shock 2 an engaging narrative is created; one that ties neatly in with the rest of the story elements.

On the other hand, Bioshock Infinite's combat has probably the worst narrative connection of recent memory. It is basically on the level of Smash TV; arena like battles where you need to kill all hostiles in order to progress. Enemies just run at you and attack, lacking any of the awareness-state nuances seen in previous Shock games. It all boils down to a hectic and often chaotic spectacle. While it can have some charm, it very rarely creates any sort of narrative experience. It is just a matter of clearing waves of enemies in order to move the story forward.

Worse still is that the elements of the battles have little to do with the story. Enemy fiction does not get any better than them being the henchmen of whichever bad guy happens to be your current antagonist. The same is true for your powers. The different magical spells acquired seem to be there simply because they were present in the previous game. They get mentioned on some billboards at the start, but serve no further narrative purpose. Like so many other things in the game they are there just to comply with the predefined combat mechanics.

The game also features looting and vending machines, elements that seem to belong in neither in combat or the story. Yet again these elements are there because they were in the previous game. Possibly also for fear that the player might get bored. To me the overall impression is just one of disconnect. It is a clear example of how much the little touches in earlier games mattered. Combat in System Shock 2 is probably a lot less complex than that in Bioshock Infinite, but because it ties neatly into its fiction, the emergent narrative is so much more engaging.

By having this detached fighting system, a very interesting question is exposed. Does Bioshock Infinite need combat at all? The problem is so obvious that many mainstream outlets have picked it up, something I have never seen before. But before this issue is dealt with, there are other things to discuss.


Basic Elements of Story
I will now go over the different ways in which Bioshock Infinite chooses to tell the story, and point out the many problems that it has with its story's basic constituents.

The first thing to note is how the combat design spread to and corrupt other parts of the game. When in combat mode most of the normal storytelling bits go away, but when leaving a combat arena many of the combat mechanics still remain. The most obvious of these is the looting. In System Shock 2 this made sense, but in later installations it has been simplified and lost much of its narrative connection. The problem peaks in Infinite, where it boils down to mindlessly searching and emptying any vessel in sight. Searching objects would be used to contextualize the backdrop, but it does the opposite here. Much of the scenery is turned into power-up containers. This cheapens exploration, giving it a mechanical and forced feel. All these problems get so much worse when the contents of the loot directly contradict the surrounding environment; for instance, starving children standing next to barrels of fruit. The insistence to place coins everywhere is a similarly damaging feature. Adrian Chmielarz has written a very revealing article of how these elements infest the very beginning of the game.

Vending machines that turn up in strange places and magic potions thrown about are all also hard to mold into any sort of narrative. But perhaps worse of all is how the combat ties into, and corrupts, a major character and theme of the game.

For most of the journey the player is followed by a young woman called Elizabeth. She comments on scenery and keeps the narrative going.The game shows how having a character that stays out of the way, and manages herself, makes her a lot easier to get attached to than one who is in constant need of attention. When not in combat she is a great companion who has her own personality, feels like a fluent part of the game and is of great narrative importance. It is really something to take notes from. But when in a fire fight, which is the bigger part of the game, she is reduced into a power-up dispenser and portable lock-pick. I guess the intention was that this would help the player bond, but because it happens so often it just dispels the illusion. As the game passes, she turns more and more into a gameplay device, and less of a living individual.

Another prominent feature of the games fiction is the existence of parallel worlds. Elizabeth is able to peek into these, opening tears that can let objects travel between dimensions. This is an intriguing concept and something that should be possible to explore in an interactive story. As it turns out, except for a few rare occasions,  the only real interaction with these tears is during combat. They are simply used to conjure up generic objects, all used for their mechanical gain only. Here we have a feature that could have had an almost limitless array of exploration opportunities, and it is used solely as a gimmicky combat tool.

While Bioshock Infinite paints a breathtakingly beautiful world, it is all on a "look, don't touch"-basis. The code governing the game's plentiful NPCs are on par with an old school JRPG. They are all static automatons waiting for the player to show up so they can deliver their one canned response. This is especially jarring in a detailed first person game where objects can examined so closely. I think that even the slightest AI improvement, such as moving out of the way, would help tremendously. The rest of the scenery follows the same formula. Apart from a few, and often rather boring assets, the world is static and void of interaction. It is evident that most code complexity has gone into the combat mechanics, instead of features that give rise to narrative.

Building from its pedigree, the game is of course loaded with audio-logs. The System Shock games handled this quite nicely and tried to fit them into the fiction. It has since been abused in many games, and I have to say Bioshock Infinite is one of the worst examples I have seen. The reasons for recording are dubious and, worse of all, the placement is awful. For instance, you can find personal recordings of the city's ruler lying on the table of  a crowded cafe.

After the game literally smashes a book about Quantum Mechanics in your face, you expect the technology to at least be somewhat justified. This would also make sense as the game has plot aspects that encourage thinking about similar topics. Older games in the series have at least tried to do this; making sure that creatures and contraptions form a coherent whole. But in Infinite, almost nothing is explained. I am not saying there needs to be an in-depth explanation, but it must at least seem plausible in the fiction. When the game is so dismissive with most of its story elements, it is hard to give anything a deeper consideration. This directly counteracts the intended deep themes of the game.

Also worth noting is how simplistically written the characters are. The game paints a backstory and world that could allow for really elaborate discussions. Instead we just end up with villains without much depth. The game simply points out that both sides can be evil, and that is it. It is a shame, as these kind of worlds are often great ways to explore many social issues; China Mieville's books being excellent examples.

What we arrive with is a game that does not seem to take its fiction seriously. It builds up this extraordinary backdrop but never makes any attempt to pull it all together or make any deeper explorations. It seems content with being shallow. It really is a shame.


Narrative Focus
I will now drop the specific details and talk about the narrative experience as whole. Here I think the flaws show up even more clearly. I can forgive that specific elements make little sense, but I find it much worse when a game lacks a clear ambition and focus in the way Bioshock Infinite does.

It seems obvious that the narrative has not been intended as the main source of engagement  During most of the game understanding and enjoying the story is not of importance. There is always an arrow telling you where to go, combat encounters are frequent and there is ever present loot to be found. The game never relies on you being caught up in the narrative, but makes sure that you are constantly exposed to the core gameplay loop. Despite this, the story is a very big part of the game, the world reeking with narrative elements. It seems like the game is not sure what it wants. It tries to do two very different things, and end up doing neither particularly effective.

It feels like an attempt to tell a serious story through a theme park ride. The game tugs you along these fantastic, but mostly lifeless settings; often stopping to engage you in some repetitive activity. It is hoping that the sheer spectacle of the ride and constant feeding of candy will make you forget all of its short comings. Because the game is such a straightforward ride, there is never any proper thematic exploration. There is a lot of things to discuss after a play session, but nothing of the sort happens during actual play. An engaging narrative never emerges, and the good things left are punctured by unrelated activities.

Because of the game's insecure nature I am forced to constantly doublethink. I need to neglect certain elements, forget what I have heard/seen and toggle my view of the world. When in smaller bursts, one can often see past this. For instance, it is possible to feel part of a play even though you know it is just actors on a stage. But when the conflicting elements are so interconnected and frequent it just gets harder and harder to ignore. In the end, the only way for me to go on was not lose myself in the fiction at all. I had to take it all in on a very superficial level. The doublethinking just became too much. It was still possible to enjoy the game, but all along it was evident that a lot was missing.

To me, Bioshock Infinite stands as a clear example of how a lack of focus lessens the emotional impact. Had the game just made sure to set a firm focus on telling a story, it could have been so much more. I am having the same kind of feelings I had after playing Dead Space 2; the feeling of unlocked potential, that the developers just did not dare to take the game were it should have gone. I hope that people playing Bioshock Infinite will see this and take note.

No combat?
Back to the question I asked earlier: is combat needed? This is something that has been uttered by many: that the violence is detracting from the story. This is response is awesome, and I cannot recall the issue being raised in this way before. But at the same time, I have not seen any good examples of what to have instead. This is what I will talk about here.

First of all, note that the combat does not need to be removed. It is possible to have a narrative focused game with a lot of fighting. System Shock 2, or whichever other immersive sim, can be checked to see how it can be done much better. That is not really that interesting though; it seems much more rewarding to see if we could do away with the core combat gameplay all together.

Before going into that, it is worth asking the question if it is worth it. Would the experience improve? If the goal is to have a game that is about relationship, revolution and parallel universes then I would say yes. Some quick reasons:

• Having any sort of cognitive demanding activity has been shown to decrease our capability to feel emotions.  Not having combat can heighten the sense of empathy and connection to the characters.
• Avoiding combat removes the tunnel vision that comes with it. Competitive fighting makes players focus on a very specific activity and make it easy to ignore other aspects of the game. The world's non-combat features come to a stronger focus if combat is dropped.
• As I have argued at length, the common combat design drastically decreases the set of actions we can let the player do in a game. If fighting is removed more actions can be added for the themes we want to explore, actions that will make the player think more deeply.

(Important to note here is that the above reasons all concern a core combat loop. The game could still have the player shooting stuff, but it would have to happen in special sequences like in Walking Dead or Snatcher.)

If we just use the current Bioshock Infinite as foundation, removing the fighting is fairly easy. The most trivial solution would simply involve taking away all of the combat sections. I have not checked this down to all the details, but I am pretty sure that Bioshock Infinite has such separate combat that you could just rip 99.9% of it out and the narrative would remain essentially intact. A slightly more interactive Dear Esther would emerge. Given almost all problems above come from some extension of the combat, I am fairly certain this simple change would make a much better game as well. (I wonder if it would be possible to mod and try and make it happen.)

This is of course not something a major studio would consider doing. The most obvious reason would be that it is hard to market and sell. This might be true, but I think there is another reason that lurk beneath. Many designers are simply dead afraid of the player getting bored. When a game is missing a "fun" core loop it gets extremely hard to test. Some experiences are only possible to be engaging to a fresh mind and cannot be easily evaluated by its creator. It is not possible to get simple objective feedback data. One has to rely on gut intuition and, dare I say it, create art.

But if one embraces the idea of doing away with the "fun" core, Bioshock can be taken beyond being a Dear Esther clone and go much further. The game already contains much of this in rudimentary form, and it just a matter of making these seeds blossom. Here are some quick suggestions:

• Adding more involvement from Elizabeth. Let the player choose what space to be explored and then let Elizabeth act out there. She can be a sort of extended interactive force. Early trailers had Elizabeth playing with masks for instance.
• Why not take more advantage of the tears. Let the exploration of tears be a main pull throughout the game. Since we are visiting worlds that are slightly similar to the one we are in, there are all sort of thought provoking things to add here. Again early trailers already showed some of this. 
• While we are at it, why not use tears instead of the audio logs. It would make a lot more sense.
• Add more direct interaction with the people and explore the themes through that. For instance, the player could find food but not enough to go around, if you give it to a kid his friends might jump on him and fight over it, etc.

I do not want to sit on a high horse here and proclaim how I would have saved Bioshock Infinite or something like that. The above are just simple ideas on top of my head. I am just trying to show the avenues that open up when we let go of that core loop and focus on narrative delivery. The above is not that hard to do; probably a lot easier than it was to do the combat code and assets. It is just that it requires a new kind of thinking. As early trailers show, the idea was already there but something, probably the urge to make combat work, led away from it.

In Closing
In one way it felt weird and annoying to play Bioshock Infinite. There was a constant bombardment of things that I found obviously wrong. Despite this the game was given perfect scores all over, the many imperfections swept under the rug. But then I saw the articles that followed, discussing aspects of a game I have never seen in the mainstream before. This makes me hopeful that we are onto something here. I am unsure if any larger studios will change, but I think the game has opened eyes of many. This might also be where all those high grades are coming from; the sight of this enormous potential; the thought of what videogames could be. That is at least my sincere hope.

GDC 2013 Talk

The Script

I just finished cleaning up the script for the GDC2013 talk and it can be gotten from here:
http://unbirthgame.com/GDC2013_PresenceSelfAndStoryTelling_Script.pdf

Additional Resources

The following blog posts are probably also of interest:

Story: What is it really about?

This goes into more depth on how to view a story. I think this is really important in order to come to terms with interactive storytelling.

The problem of Repetition

Repetition is a problem when presence is a goal. Here is a list of pitfalls and how to solve them.

Finding videogame's true voice

This articles explores the "agreeable action outcome" design some more.

Highlevel story telling design

Goals and Storytelling

Both of these explore the construction of a story space.

Puzzles, what are they good for?

Puzzles and causal histories

These articles use the "interaction for presence"-axiom to view puzzles in a new way.

These should hopefully help clear out a few things from the talk.

I also have a more academic, and much more detailed, version of the talk. It can be found here:

http://unbirthgame.com/TheSelfPresenceStorytelling.pdf

This versions does not discuss story-spaces, but provides a lot more rules for how to create interactions that support presence. It has also sources for most of the claims a I make and some more advanced discussions.

Addendum

Finally, I wanted to give the question, "Why does Minecraft and Dark Souls, despite being gamey, have such a strong sense of presence?", a better answer. So here that comes:

The reason why this can be true is because the fiction of these games correlate 1:1 with their mechanics. Let's take Dark Souls as the example. Just about any action that you make is directly, or very closely, related to the combat. It is a game about killing monsters and it takes place in world where you are tasked to do just that. The game does not suggest that the monsters have feelings, daily routines, or something like that. Their only purposes in life is to kill you and others like you. There is nothing in the game's internal systems that can take away from this fiction, it can even handle AI acting up and similar. It is a robust fiction. The same line of thinking can be used for Minecraft.

I think that the above is what has led many people astray. Right now the games that can provide a strong narrative that emerge directly from play, are games that very gamey and containing tight core gameplay loops. It is easy to think that think of this as the way forward, that to evolve storytelling we must simply find other core loops; a belief that often leads to seeing tech as our ultimate savior.

My talk (and paper) on presence and storytelling is a description of why this is not a way forward. Core loops only work so far. We must start thinking in different directions in order to take our stories into new territories.

Ironic punishments: Snot edition

Ironic punishments: Snot edition

Apparently one of the behavioural challenges as a parent is to convince children to wipe snot and other related facial dirt from their face in an appropriate manner. It turns out that they learn fairly quickly that transference of snot to other body parts is not pleasant and look for alternative means. I know this because I have observed a two year old of mine toddle up to their mother saying "I want a hug," getting said hug and, while the parent was suitably caught up in a loving embrace, deposit a snotty nose onto the parent's shoulder. The parent is completely fooled by this, interpreting the snot swiping as some affectionate nuzzling. A shrewd child learns to also throw I legitimate hugs regularly so as to hide their parent's role as a handkerchief.

As they get older parental hugs are not as easy to come by. So the child resorts to the use of their own clothing. This is usually a sleeve but again a sophisticated child might note that this gives rise to external evidence and so instead uses the underside of a sleeve or shirt as a covert alternative. There is also the issue of using other materials but as those post is nauseating enough I'm not going to go there.

Child No.2, who is now 12, is not a sophisticated snot transferer. For some reason he continues to use the outside sleeve and continues to be caught regularly. He does this with a tissue already i his pocket! He even does this with short sleeves. Then again these aren't far from the nose.

We haven't been able to nip this in the bud and are worrying he may not grow out of it. So we are resorting to ironic punishments.

Our first of these is to remove his shirt privileges. He literally loses his shirt if he transgresses. This is embarrassing if in public and cold if outside. But it hasn't done the trick.

My new initiative which I have not yet had an opportunity to put into practice is to go with it. OK, so your shirt is a tissue now? Well then it is a public good. Anyone in the family can use it as a tissue. Even he admitted this punishment was a "good one" but I know it requires a supply of snotty noses on hand to really have an effect.

Anyhow given that spring allergies are around the corner I thought I'd post this to see if anyone else wants to share their strategies for dealing with perverse snot behaviour in older children.

Puzzles and Causal Histories

In the last post I brought up a few reasons why puzzles should not be dismissed. In this I will bring up another one: making the player feel as an active force. I refer to this concept as having a causal history. My hope is that it provides a new way to view and evaluate puzzles.

First I must go over the term "causal history". Basically, it means the sum of actions that players feel they have caused; any previous actions remembered as "I did...". Having finished watching a scripted sequence, the causal history will just be "I triggered a scripted cutscene". But if participating in a gun fight, the memories may be something like, "I first shot that guy,  dodged a flying knife, threw a grenade ..". Causal history is a tightly related to agency. A rich causal history increase the feeling of agency. It creates a personal experience for players; an experience where they feel much more present.

Consider these three different gameplay segments, as retold by a player.

1) As I walked up to the door a cutscene started. I watched the protagonist search for a key. Rummaging a few nearby drawers and boxes, she managed to locate it. She unlocked the door and entered the next room.

2) As I walked up to the door, I found a guiding cursor pointing at a box. Searching the box I located a key. The cursor now indicated the door as my next objective. I interacted with it, unlocked it with the newly found key and entered the next room.

3) I walked up to the door and found it locked. I had recently overheard that the orderlies hid spare keys and proceeded to search nearby boxes and drawers. Turning an dusty crate upside down a key was revealed. I picked it up and unlocked the door. I was now able to enter the next room.

All of the three have the same thing happening, but involve the player in the different ways. The dividing factor is the amount of agency provided. The player has, to various degrees, been shown or participated in a happening,

In the first example, the game takes care of the whole situation, and the player does nothing. In the second and third examples, the player does the exact same things; the third, however, provide a much stronger sense of causality. In one retelling the player is explicitly told what to do, in the other the player is implicitly hinted what do. The third one manages the latter by being designed as a puzzle, resulting in a rich causal history.

I think most will agree example three is the kind of experience one wants to strive for. This sort of gameplay set players smack in the middle of the happenings. They are present and responsible; causal agents in the narrative.

By paying attention to this concept an aesthetic for designing puzzles emerge. One wants to have puzzles that  provides the strongest and most detailed causal histories. It fits neatly with the idea brought up in the previous post; that puzzles should give the player a feeling of coming up with solutions on their own.  By focusing on causal histories puzzles become a means to implicitly guide the player through a set of actions. It entails setting the player in a certain frame of mind, to give hints and provide relevant exposition.

While trying to think up complex chains of actions for the player, one cannot get too carried away though. The rules set out in the previous post must still be adhered to. If not, there is a big risk players get stuck, counteracting the intended experience. It is a balance act, and one of  taking risks,when it comes to determining the complexity of puzzle. It should provide strong causal histories, but at the same time it can not break the flow of the narrative.

Another aspect is that simply adding more actions is not good in itself. The actions that make up the causal history must fit the narrative being told. For instance, if a puzzle-lock is added to the box containing the key, it adds nothing to the experience. It just halts the flow and gets in the way. Padding will not improve the experience, but only detract the player from what is intended. Actions should be meaningful or not be included at all.

Having puzzles is not the only way of creating causal histories. Earlier I gave a gun fight as an example of a detailed sequence of actions. This is a form of gameplay that arise directly from the underlying mechanics. If possible, it is an excellent way to create agency.Many situations are however impossible to create in this manner or just too expensive.  Classical gameplay also come with a lot of problem that often break the sense of immersion (outlined here), making it at times undesirable. It all depends on the situation. For any given segment, it is crucial to make sure that a puzzle is the best approach.

Let's summarize. Following this aesthetic one designs a puzzle in a way that gives players rich causal histories. The retelling of a puzzle should be dense with the player performing actions, not passive spectating. One must also make sure that the puzzle does not block the flow, and the actions involved must support the intended experience, not hinder it.

Even though I have not used this approach much for actual work, it has already made me see a few puzzles in a new light. I think there is a lot of potential in this concept and look forward using it more. It might of course turn out to be the wrong way of thinking, but so far so good.

Puzzles, what are they good for?

I recently came a across this article from AdventureGamers about puzzles, and it got me thinking. The article covers the different ways in which puzzles have been swapped for other activities over the years, something that I am very interested in. There is so much great about adventure games that just seem to be held back by their puzzles. It always seem that they break the flow of the experience. I find that many adventure games are more engaging to play when you have a walkthrough close at hand. Of course, consulting a guide has it own share of problems, and is far from an optimal way to play. Some other solution must exist.

Ever since we started Frictional Games, a big goal has been to try and fix this somehow. With each game we have incorporated new ideas in order to deliver a more streamlined experience; to try and minimize the problems that puzzles tend to cause.

When we started our Super Secret Project our initial idea was to get rid of traditional puzzles entirely. A focus from the start was to have levels where the goal was very clear. We wanted to create "scenes of drama" where the player would be free to role play without worrying about solving puzzles. But as the project has progressed, more and more traditional puzzle design have slipped in. I have been aware of this for quite a while, but the AdventureGamers article slapped me in the face with it. Despite all our efforts to the contrary, we seem unable to remove the puzzles entirely. There is just something that makes them a crucial ingredient.

The three main reasons seem to the be following:

• Goal. They give the player a goal. When a situation is set up in the form a of a puzzle it is so much easier for the player to understand what to do next. It sets up a framework on how to behave, act and what outcomes to strive for. Actually, it is more accurate to say that setting up situation in a comprehensive manner gives you a puzzle. So the puzzle-element is simply a sort of side effect. (For those interested, here is an entire blog post dedicated to this subject).
• Structure. It is an excellent way to set up a structural framework and provide flow. It is impossible, and story-telling wise unwanted, to allow the player to go in whichever way or do whatever they please. It is necessary to set up scenes in such a way that it confides the player to a certain path (or paths). Puzzles provide bottlenecks that are implicit and goes along with the narrative. If you want the player to visit rooms A, B and C before going to room D, you can set up a puzzles that achieves this. This system also lets the player drive the story forward. Instead of it the game telling the player when it is time to move on, the player is the ones in control. It also sets up a nice way to control the flow of the narrative. For instance, if the player is required to slow down and remain in an area for a while, you can have them searching for clues or engage in other puzzle related activities.
• Immersion. Puzzles are a great way for the player to become part of the story. When solving a puzzle players use their knowledge of the game's world in a way that has an effect on the narrative. Players become one with the story and base their decisions on that. The puzzle is not there to test the player's wits and/or hinder progress, but to increase the sense of presence. By having something that requires the player to connect the dots often makes it much more engaging. Like how a description in a book can be more compelling if written in an indirect and/or metaphorical fashion.

I find all of these strong arguments for having puzzles. But at the same time the problems of puzzles remain. The AdventureGamers article point a few ways in which games have worked around puzzles; but the problem is that this mostly also removes what is so good about puzzles. For instance, The Walking Dead uses important dialog options to make the player part of the story. But in order to this, the game needs to have long cut scenes and reduce its scope of interaction. Players no longer push the story forward or get implicit goals. The game simply tells them what to do and when it is time to move on. For all its accomplishments, The Walking Dead fail to deliver a game where you play all the way through. This is not the kind of experiences we want to make at Frictional Games.

Instead of thinking about what to replace puzzles with, it is more rewarding to consider how to evolve them. How to improve them in a way that keeps the good traits and removes the bad. The first step towards this is to consider why we have puzzles at all. I think a major reason many adventure games gets problems with puzzles is because they are never justified. Every puzzle is seen as a "fun challenge", a feature with intrinsic value that should not be questioned.  I think that simply asking the question: "how does this puzzle serve the overall experience" is bound to be a good start.

Once it has been decided that a puzzle is really needed, the next question is what kind of complexity it should have. If you want a game that is about engaging the player in a narrative, you really want the puzzle to be as simple as possible without losing any of the benefits  So what is simple enough? My current gold standard is:

"A puzzle should make players to do something in such a way that they feel they came up it themselves."

This means that the puzzle must give the player some kind of "revelation" and must not feel spoon fed. The path from encountering the obstacle to performing the solution should not be too obvious or simple. However, this often means puzzles become too complex and/or difficult. The solving problems then devolves into "guess the designer" which ruins the intended effect. The player should be kept inside the game's world and never be forced to think outside of that. What follows are some of the ways we try and solve this:

• Locality. All ingredients for solving a puzzle should be in close proximity to one another. This makes sure the player does not get stuck because of missing a clue or an item at a now distant location.
• Multiple Solutions. Having many ways to solve a puzzle is often used as a replayability feature. In our games, it is instead used to make sure that the solution feels natural and intuitive to a wide range of players. In many cases we have actually implemented whatever fitting approaches that testers have tried (to the point of even allowing button mashing as a way to progress). 
• Low Item Density. By making sure there are not too many locations, objects, characters, etc, one can avoid confusing the player and leading them on stray paths. Too few items can also be a problem of course, so one has o have a bit finesse.
• Coherent Simulation. This means that mechanics work globally and are consistent throughout the game. For instance, a pickax is able to break any object made of ice. Most of the recent great puzzle games like Braid and World of Goo use this approach; however all these games are set in fantastic realms where the mechanics come before the story. In a narrative driven game aimed to have a sense of "reality", it is much harder to be 100% consistent. We have tried it with physics and it comes with all sort of trouble. More info here.
• See it as an Activity. When possible it is often rewarding to think of puzzles as an activity. This push you out of mindset of just thinking about having clever solutions. If you want to have puzzles that are there to enhance our storytelling, they need to stop being seen as challenges. 
• Part of the World. The most obvious, and also hardest one: puzzles should always stay consistent with the story. If not, it will be painfully obvious when one is encountered. Resident Evil is a poster child of this; very few of its puzzles make sense in the game's world.
• Story Coherent Hints. I think the best way to make sure that the player is not stuck is to have protagonist comments, notes, or whatever auxiliary means, show the puzzle from different angles. This in order to make sure that the player has not misunderstood some concept and is seeing the puzzle in the "right way". If players get stuck, the most common cause is that there is some step in the logic that they failed to catch. By having subtle hints it is possible to minimize this from happening

The above tips are meant to facility a smoother experience for the player while trying to solve the puzzle. Another important issue is how to make it clear that there is a goal at all. Player often get stuck in games because they do not realize what their objective is, what puzzle it is that they are supposed to solve.  Here are three ways that can help overcome this problem:

• A Clear Goal. This is probably what we have tried to use in most of our games. It basically means that you make sure players know where to go next. In Amnesia we always tried to have some obvious obstacle or let some kind of note/vision give a hint. As a back-up we also employed a somewhat immersion consistent todo-list, where further hints where given. 
• Hidden, but guided. Sometimes it is possible to never tell the player exactly what to do, but guide and/or confine them in such a way that they will stumble upon it eventually. A simple, but effective, example is in Silent Hill 2 where you need to escape a well by finding a loose rock. It is a great way to create a sense of panic, and since the solution is so easily found it never becomes frustrating.
• Spelled out Solution. This is when you just tell the player front up exactly what they are supposed to be doing. This might seem kind of of boring, but can work really well in some situations. A perfect example is the food rationing in The Walking Dead. Here it is obviously clear what you need to be doing, but a quite hard to decide who to give food.

Despite following all these rules, it is not sure that you come up with a puzzles. It is vital to not see them as stumbling blocks along the players's journey. You want something that enhances the player's time in the game's virtual world. Not something that reduce it.

A very bad example of this is in the remake of Broken Sword. When encountering a locked door, a sliding puzzle pops suddenly pops up. Disregarding that I loath sliding puzzles, this is really bad. It has nothing to do with the game's narrative. I gain nothing in terms of a connection with the story by solving this. It is simply there to hinder my path. What makes it worse is that the obstacle itself, a locked door, is not really interesting. The designer has taken an uninspiring set up and made it worse. This is a bad usage of puzzles.

A good example is found in Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, where you need to open a passage to a priest's secret hideout. Upon arriving at the church you are not aware of there even being a hide-out and need to read this in a note. Here is also a clue on how to access it; the church bell must be rung in a certain order and opening up a secret passage way downstairs. I think this sort of puzzle is great; it requires a combination of lore, exploration and force the player to make narrative connections. It also lets you interact with the environment in an interesting fashion. By both discovering and opening the secret passageway the player has an active role in the progression of the story. 

There is a catch though. The mechanism for opening the hideout makes little sense. The whole town would notice whenever the priest wants to go to his lair. But in the end, it does not matter. It satisfy enough criteria to still be a good puzzle. This is a really important aspect of the craft.

Coming up with puzzles is hard. Coming up with puzzles that are coherent, engaging and fit with the flow of the narrative is extremely hard. If you want to make an engaging and varied adventure, it is impossible to make every puzzle perfect. Above all else, the puzzle must fit with the experience that you want to create. Players can see past strange mechanics (like the above bell puzzle), live with simplified inventory system (like in The Walking Dead) and other sub-optimal solutions as long as it serves to enhance the experience. This is very important to remember when creating a puzzle. 

The goal is not to make players think you are clever or to do the most complex set up. The goal is to make sure all parts serve the experience as a whole. It is very easy to forget this (I have done so many times myself) and it does not help that puzzles are fiendishly hard to evaluate. But I think that with the right mindset, it should not be an insurmountable challenge.

As mentioned in the start, over the years puzzles have been pushed aside for other mechanics. Games with more progressive design either push the puzzle elements into the background (eg Uncharted) or base all around a specific mechanic (eg Portal). I do not think it is time to give up on the more classical adventure game puzzles yet though. By this I do mean that we should go back to the interconnected puzzle design of old days (as explained here). Instead we should try and look at puzzles in a different light and see how we might change them and reinterpret their role. This post has been an attempt to do just that, but I think there is a lot more to explore. It would be very bad to abandon the quest to combine storytelling and puzzles just yet.

Those interested in more puzzle discussion might want to take a look at series of articles on puzzle that I wrote a few years back while working on Amnesia. They can be found here. The posts go through some other aspects of puzzles design that should be of interest..

I am also interested in getting your input and/or links to other articles on this subject. It is not easy to come by good writing on puzzles, and even harder to find something that discuss narrative-serving puzzles, so I am very grateful for any feedback and tips!

Bullying, what is it good for?

You know what the thing about bullying is? I don’t like it.

“Great,” you are probably thinking (rolling your eyes), “this is sure going to be deep and insightful post.”

But I have thought about it and that is what I’ve got. I thought about it because I was – I’d like to say fortunate enough but I guess I can’t – to receive an advance copy of Emily Bazelon’s new book, Sticks and Stones, subtitled Defeating the Culture of Bullying and Rediscovering the Power of Character and Empathy. This is a book written for adults and, indeed, all adults with some responsibility towards kids. And as one of those responsible adults, I came away from the book thinking that “bullying really sucks and really I would prefer it didn’t exist. It’s just so unfair.”

However, if my teenage daughter can whine to me about things that are hard to deal with that she just would prefer wouldn’t be there – such as the cost of paintballs or why her clean clothes haven’t emerged from the magic basket that transports them to her closet or the fact she has to write another poem in iambic pentameter – I don’t see why I can’t just join her.

Bazelon is not an unfamiliar person toreaders of this blog. Her kids must be about the same age is mine and so for a good eight or so years, her issues in Slatewere my issues too. I didn’t always see eye to eye on her approaches but I was forced to think about my own after reading her work.

This time it was different. Bazelon was not motivated by anything that was happening to her kids – or if she was, she didn’t say. Instead, she was motivated by the criminal trial of six teenagers accused essentially of bullying another teenager, Phoebe Prince, to take her own life. This turned out to be a case of prosecutorial over-reach that makes what happened to Aaron Swartz look very tame in comparison.

What Bazelon does is centre a broad investigation of bullying focussing on three children. The first, Monique, is a straightforward (if that is the right word), case of a bullied child. The second, Jacob, is the bullying of a gay kid. And the third is not Phoebe Prince but Flannery, one of the six accused of bullying her. Bazelon does something that, when you think about it, is surely extraordinarily difficult. In each case, she investigates and tries to work out what really went on.

I cannot imagine what that was like. The easy case would have been Flannery because there were court documents that assembled evidence and testimony (including texts and Facebook posts). But the other cases, she would have been forced to be the judicial investigator; basically disentangling the hearsay, the inferences, the judgments, the interpretations to find out what was real and what wasn’t. All by interviewing and talking to teenagers. In reading this, I kept wondering what kept Bazelon herself from just shouting at them all asking them “to get a grip.” I know there were times I was doing that, rolling my eyes so much that they hurt. “Oh please, you cannot be serious.”

But Bazelon kept her cool and ploughed on. She took us back and forth from the stories to the academic literature on the subject. She touched on cases written about in the past. And she kept an eye on where she wanted us all to go.

And where I ended up was: I was essentially grateful; which I know contradicts how I seem to have begun this post but bear with me. Right, at this moment, my kids are not being bullied and have never been bullied to the extent of the stories Bazelon tells. It is just hard not to breathe a sigh of relief at that because what was happening to the kids in Sticks and Stones was a parental nightmare. To be sure, we, as parents, have had to deal with a bullied child (I’ll come to that in a bit) but it was dealt with and things are very good now.  But it is hard not to read this book and really just think that we are currently very lucky. Not just to not have bullied children but what personally would seem much worse, to be the parent of a bully.

To cover this, I am going to reverse the order that Bazelon chose and start with Flannery. Flannery was not bullied but, as I am pretty sure Bazelon wants us to conclude, she was bullied be the system. She was the victim of a culture that finds it easy to assign simple blame in the face of tragedy. She was also the victim of a enforcement approach that now values “making a public example” of would be wrong-doers. In that she disproportionately is harmed by the system trying to minimise future enforcement actions. Again, the analogy to Aaron Swartz would not be lost on anyone. This time, however, it was another, essentially troubled kid who died. The problem is that in some ways more lives were taken with her. All of this perhaps could have been avoided.

But this also reveals the difficulties associated with bullying. It can be mis-diagnosed. Accusations of bullying may be made where none exist. Bullying may be ignored or passed off as something else where it does exist. And this is all made worse by the fact that it is all hard to deal with even when it is properly diagnosed. This is because teenage social existence involves an awful about of pain and learning. The issue is when to intervene.

The second case of Jacob is an insidious one. Jacob was openly gay at school in much the same way as other kids are openly geeky or otherwise express a preference from differing from the norm and thereby drawing attention to themselves. It is so easy to cringe and plead for conformity just to avoid the pain. But that is precisely the wrong response. One does not necessarily expect Jacob to be popular as a result of his chosen style but when he is subject to trauma as a result of it we are creating a less free society if it is allowed to continue. The appropriate response isn’t to hide or to bide your time until you can move to an accepting group; creating social ghettos. Instead, it is to bake acceptance into the pie early.

The first case of Monique is, in many respects, what should trouble parents the most. There is a sense in which it is typical. Basically, Monique seemed to be doing just fine at school until one day, it all changed. And by one day, I mean one day. Monique went to school an unbullied although not necessarily popular kid and came home a bullied and isolated one. And it never stopped. And it was miserable. And for some reason, it seems to happen in almost every grade of almost every school in the world. I saw it happen and it happened for a time to me when I was in high school. And when it is bad, to the beleaguered parents there is no easy course of action.

The problem parents face is that they usually suspect it will pass. They advise changing strategies, avoiding the bullies and reassurance it will get better. The problem is that the reason this has occurred is that there is a bully playing this game. The bullied child is a unwitting victim of a bully’s desire to exercise power. For them to rise to the top of the social heap, they have to demonstrate some form of superiority over another. The bullied child is their victim and, moreover, they just don’t do it once and move on. Instead, it seems to be a continual target. In other words, bullies don’t spread the pain around. Not only is it wrong for obvious reasons, it is fundamentally unfair. Why my child and not some other? If it is some other, then I wouldn’t have to deal with it.

Dealing with it is hard. My daughter became the target of a bully a few years ago. The bully wasn’t popular and had a history of bad behaviour. But she made my daughter miserable. Eventually, like Monique’s parents, this was only solved by moving schools. In our case, we had other reasons to shift schools than the bully but she was at the top of our daughter’s list. Indeed, she vetted new schools herself to see if there were likely bullies among them. Somewhat ironically, during the time we were in the US, the bully actually moved schools herself – to my daughter’s new school! It won’t surprise you that this was one of the things at the top of her list advocating a move to Canada rather than going back to Australia. And to tell you the truth, we were grateful with a by-product of that decision not having to deal with the bully issue again.

Bazelon covers a lot of ground with all sorts of strategies that can be deployed to mitigate the bullying problem. It is all good advice. And it is all hard work. And it has to start early and continue on while involving the kids, their parents and the school. She spends an entire chapter on social media that concludes that those running Facebook and the like should also be part of the conversation. Bazelon has shielded her own sons from Facebook for the moment. As you may know, this is where I partsignificant company with her. I want my kids on Facebook early and with some parental supervision. That way I have a chance of helping them work through these things. Moreover, in social media, all of the evidence is in writing. That makes a difference in many ways. But importantly, and I have seen this, there is much mutual support and good social behaviour there as there is bad. And to have perspective you need to see it all and not just hear about things when there is a problem.

My point is this. For the most part, incidents of bullying are fundamentally random from the perspective of the parent. It would be awful for someone to read these cases and cocoon their child. For the vast majority of kids, they won’t be subject to the worst cases. Freedom socially is an important thing that they must have in order to really learn.

That said, it seems to happen all of the time to someone. If it is happening to your kid now, I suspect this book isn’t going to help much. You probably have already investigated the literature, talked with teachers and anguished at the situation. Once it happens, you are no longer an objective player in this as a parent.

But it could happen to you. And the message of this book is that you need to think about these things in advance. Sticks and Stones may break your heart on the way, but being forced to think about this when you are less emotionally invested, will never hurt you.

So I don’t care if you, like me, don’t like bullying. But deal with it today by taking a few hours to prepare yourself with this book.

An allergic story

A well-known economist friend of mine wrote the following post on Facebook. It follows an algorithmic bent typical of those in my tribe so I asked for permission to post it here.

How to have your very first allergy attack when you have just turned two, by [a two-year old].

0. Prepare for incident by refusing to have your nails filed. 

1. Try new food. 

2. Start breaking out in hives. Scratch yourself with your pre-sharpened nails. Scream "tummy itch!" Draw blood. Repeat.

3. When adults try to give you spoonfuls of Benadryl, spit it back in their faces. Scream "mess!" Make sure it is distributed widely so no one has any idea if you swallowed any. 

4. When adults hold you down and put a dropper full of Bendryl in the back of your throat, stay quiet for a moment until they think you must have swallowed it, spray it in their faces and all over yourself. Scream "Mess!" again and smear Benadryl on the bleeding wounds where you gashed yourself. 

5. Scream and scratch yourself all the way to urgent care. Get increasingly red and puffy. 

6. When you arrive at the doctor's office, recognize the place as the same place where you got a shot last month and start screaming "Poke leg! Poke leg!" Allow this to distract you from ripping at your clothing. 

7. Writhe in your mother's arms as she attempts to explain to person at counter that you need to see a triage nurse. Scream "Lady no poke leg!" at her just to be sure she will not give you a shot.  

8. Run around to see all the toys that the very ill looking children are playing with. Try to grab their face masks and get angry when your mother prevents you from getting near. Resist when your mother suggests you should sit in a chair with her. 

9. Calm down when your mother pulls out the iPad. Play a game for 30 seconds. Switch to videos. Notice that some annoying adult has turned off the sound. Turn the sound back on as loud as it goes. Immediately attract a crowd of very ill looking children. 

10. When your mother turns the volume down, scream "Loud!" as loud as you can. Hurl iPad to the floor. Hurl yourself to the floor. Scream "I fell down!" as loud as you can. Attempt to rip your clothes off, revealing that your entire body is now even brighter red, puffed out, streaked, and punctuated by self-inflicted gashes. Notice that parents of very ill looking children now look alarmed and are holding their kids back from you. 

11. Remain on floor thrashing and scratching until nurse calls you in. Shout "Lady no poke!" to be sure you will not get a shot. 

12. Behave nicely while getting examined. Listen to your mother breathe a sigh of relief that your airways are fine. Listen to lady discuss whether you can be restrained to get Benadryl or whether you need a shot of Benadryl.  

13. Start scratching and flailing again. Wriggle out of your mother's lap and throw yourself on the floor. Bang your head on the way down. Scream and scratch more. Make sure to also rub your face so that any germs on the floor make their way to your nose and eyes. Scream louder when your mother wipes your hands. 

14. Wonder why the lady decides you should get a shot. 

15. Remain on the floor until the doctor comes in, screaming whenever your mother speaks or moves towards you. Repeat steps 12-14. 

16. Scream bloody murder when more ladies arrive with shots. 

17. Receive shot. Decide mother's lap is better than the floor. Curl up there and fall asleep while completing observation period.

To all this I added: 19. When wake up, ask for new food.

This kid is alright although the parents are somewhat traumatised. As it turns out the food in question was Indian masala sauce and so the reaction was likely to cashews there.