Marc LeBlanc: Tools for Creating Dramatic Game Dynamics

Games have been used as a story telling medium since ancient games such as Senet in which the story was to pass through the underworld to the land of the dead. We explored storytelling in ancient games in our studies of The Royal Game Of Ur.

In board games today such as Cluedo the story is that there has been a murder which each player will investigate and eventually discover the details of the murder. In monopoly, a game heavily played during the great depression in America your goal is to earn money which is used as a scoring mechanic although also allows for the story to be driven by the players and their respective decisions.

Creating drama within games is difficult however due to limited control over how the game will be played each time, especially for a game such as monopoly. The tools used to create drama for games come from how we implement mechanics and dynamics.

For us to begin to create drama within games we would first need to understand what has been proven to be successful in story telling within books, films and games in the past. The dramatic arc helps us to visualise the rise and fall in drama for a good story.

In a romantic comedy film; drama starts with an event which creates tension, we define this as a conflict which will create the tension. Tension will then accumulate to a climax which is where everything goes haywire and the audience or end user should be at an emotional peak to the drama created. The end part of a story is the resolution, or sigh of relief for the drama having come to a close.

Uncertainty

Pseudo Feedback or 'Illusory Feedback' systems are a tool used to keep losing players interested in the game and feel like they can still win, providing a positive and dramatic gaming experience. For example, in a racing game you may put a lot of corners on the track, forcing the cars to move slower around the track, to make a time difference between the players feel less than it actually is. The winning player will still be ahead by 'x' amount of seconds although because the losing player can still see the winning player they will feel like winning is still possible as they 'catch up' to the winner at each corner. These are different to adding a mechanic to allow the losing player to physically catch up. An example of this would be to give the losing player a speed boost to get them back into the game.

Fog of War is a mechanic used heavily in strategy games such as Starcraft and Warcraft. In a multiplayer game of Starcraft the players can't see what strategy the other player may be trying to use due to unexplored parts of the map not being visible. Scouting becomes an integral part of the game as knowledge becomes power in strategy games so drama can be created based around how players react to what they see. Players may hide unit producing structures or parts of their army or flank the enemy in a blind spot. This eventually builds dramatic tension as the game goes on and the fighting becomes more hectic until the game comes to a resolve and only the winner is left.

Hidden Energy is used in many games although I can't think of a better example than the one used in the article I've read on this topic. Racing games and a 'speed boost' mechanic can cause drama if each player has the same, limited amount of 'speed boost' at the start of a race. You could use the speed boost to gain an early lead at the start and then make your aim to block people trying to pass you . You could also use 'speed boost' if you fall behind at some point or crash to get back into the race. You could use 'speed boost' throughout the game in moderation on straight roads to utilize the use of the speed boost. You could also use the speed boost too late and by then it doesn't make a difference. Because of the many different ways it can be used, drama can be created very easily using it because only you would know how much of it you have left.

Escalation is used as a mechanic in which an action will gain more and more points as the game goes on. A single action will gain you 5 points although towards the end of the game the same action may earn you more points or may come more frequently. This creates drama and builds towards a climax because the scores may appear equal towards the start of the game and then one team may just dart ahead or one team may take an early lead only to be overtaken as escalation is put into play.

Cashing out is a mechanic in which the score is reset to zero at the end of each round. The best example I can think of is Counter Strike. Counter Strike is a round based FPS in which the goal is to win as many rounds as possible. This creates drama because one team may be dominating another for one round and then the other team may begin to collect themselves and take a few rounds back. Often the winner of games like these are the most consistently better although the odd round can be lost due to luck or a counter in strategy from a team. This creates drama in Counter Strike because strategies are constantly evolving to throw the opposition off.

Inevitability

Dramatic tension however is not only created using uncertainty. Inevitability is important because the player needs to know when the game is resolved and how it will be resolved. In Starcraft the resolve comes from wiping out everything your enemy has. In monopoly the resolve comes from becoming bankrupt. In a racing game a player will cross the finishing line first. A ticking clock mechanic such as a deck of cards diminishing or an actual game timer may be used. In a fighting game you may have a decreasing health bar.

Inevitability gives the players a sense of progression throughout the game and provides awareness to the players regarding when the game will end and how. These mechanics are often irreversible although we've all played racing games in arcades I'm sure and have found that checkpoints will reward players with added time on the ticking clock.

Resolving Dramatic Tension

The dramatic tension usually ends at the point where the outcome of the contest is known. The climax should happen as late as possible to allow for a more dramatic finish due to the tension building throughout the progress within the game. We need to make sure the resolution is clear in order to leave the game feeling fair at the end and everyone knows why the game has ended or it may lead to the game feeling unresolved.

The Exploration of Defining Me

"The unexamined life is not worth living" - Socrates

The only thing I've ever really believed about defining myself until recently is that there's no point in trying to. If anyone else tries to define me; it defines them more than myself. I am me, right now. I might be a different version of me tomorrow but that doesn't matter until tomorrow.

Breakdown of Sentence 1

Which is completely idiotic in my view now and I'll explain why. The first sentence of that statement "The only thing I've ever really believed about defining myself until recently is that there's no point in trying to." will be the first piece of this I'll be exploring.

The dictionary definition of the word 'define' as a verb is:
1. State or describe exactly the nature, scope, or meaning of.
2. Give the meaning of (a word or phrase), esp. in a dictionary.

But how do you state or describe the nature or meaning of a person? It's probably best to start by trying to define yourself. Who knows you better than yourself right?

To define yourself can mean multiple things. Sometimes you need to sit down and reflect on where you are, where you've come from and where you're going. Then decide where you want to be in conjunction with the direction you're taking from your current position. That's what I'm trying to do right now and why I'm writing this article.

To do that you would need to be able to understand what it is to define. What about your life do you define yourself by?  Intentions? Experience? Accomplishment?

To help us answer that question we need to ask another: How then do you define an action, intention or experience to be either positive or negative?

It's safe to say that without question our morals, rules and accomplishments are all defined by past experience. Since we have no power to see the future, how could we possibly begin to define it? In conclusion, to truly define something it would surely have to be defined in the present. If we have concluded that only the present can be defined the question still stands: What do you define about the present to define yourself as you are right now?

I would say the only way to define any person is by the collective and increasing experiences, as a verb, they have had up until the current moment. This would mean that the definition of a person would be perpetually evolving as they continue to experience.

When defining an experience however, would you define the action taken or the intent of the action made? An issue I'm sure at least once in your life. This happens in the old cartoon 'Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner' all the time. Wile E. Coyote will set a trap with an intention to harm Road Runner, this ends a complete different way as intended and usually results in poor Wile E. Coyote harming himself. The situation can be flipped, you may have made a decision with the best intentions and it all ended badly.

Breakdown of Sentence 2

To move onto the 2nd sentence in my initial statement: "If anyone else tries to define me; it defines them more than myself."

You can define yourself by your own experiences, how could you define another person? Put quite bluntly, based on what I've already discussed, you can't. Unless you can 100% fully empathize with every experience in another person's life it's absolutely impossible. Even if you share a single experience with someone, watching a film for example, you could never empathize with the way the other person is feeling because different images on screen may trigger different emotional responses which will affect the experiences. The experience of watching the film would be shared to an extent but never fully.

It's also interesting when you add the idea of a 'Higher Being'. Would the assumedly omnipresent and all knowing be able to define you? Even if they were omnipotent it would be impossible for them to empathize with your experience. You can be all knowing, but you would not know what it was like to not be all knowing. This was a point made to me on the topic of an omnipotent being by Joe Davine when we had a brief discussion on what it means to define a person.

Breakdown of Sentence 3

Moving on to a brief evaluation of the 3rd sentence in my initial statement "I am me, right now. I might be a different version of me tomorrow but that doesn't matter until tomorrow."

I feel like this is half right, half wrong. The statement in its entirety I feel is very nice until the we get to "but that doesn't matter until tomorrow". You are who you are, that's a fact. You may in fact be a completely different version of yourself tomorrow if you think of what experiences you could potentially go through today. Those experiences could help you to redefine yourself consciously or not.

This last section of this article will be a little more driven by personal opinion and based on my own experiences. My problem with not caring about tomorrow is that hindsight is a wonderful thing. You might not care about tomorrow, today. You will however care about yesterday, tomorrow.

There are some things you can change, the past isn't one of them. This article began as a journey of self discovery and I'm not sure if I'm even any closer to discovering who or what I am or even how to define it but I'm trying because I care about tomorrow. The future is dependent on your past experiences leading your present decisions to your future.

Conclusion

To conclude, defining yourself isn't easy. I've been trying to define myself and understand what makes me who I am for a while now and all I've came up with is this. To define yourself you would need to draw on past experiences, future intentions and what you're doing about it right now. Look into your interests. Look into the experiences you continue to pursue. You can define yourself by looking at what you want for the future right now. You can't define the future but you can define how you feel about the future right now and that may give insight into who you are and who you want to be.

It's been very interesting writing this and I've explored a lot of ideas I'm 100% sure aren't new but I feel like after taking some time out to reflect on these things I've helped to understand myself a little bit better. Thank you for reading if you didn't just skip to this point (you cheeky monkey). I know it's not something I would usually write about but I feel like it was something worth doing for myself.