Dealing with "Three Problems for Interactive Storytellers"

In an article I've written, I made mention to the problems listed by Ernest Adams in his great Gamasutra article, The Designer’s Notebook: Three Problems for Interactive Storytellers. It only feels appropriate if I actually list some of the solutions I personally came up with.

1. The Problem of Amnesia – I’ve taken a look at the way in which Chris Avellone writes his stories; specifically Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords (a both indepth and humorous LP and analysis can be found here: http://lparchive.org/Knights-of-the-Old-Republic-II/), and have adjusted the way I write dialogue so that the player is given short blasts of exposition from their main character themselves, which still gives the player the information they need, and it makes the player feel as though they knew what was going on the entire time. I also take the initial part of the game and stretch it out, giving plenty of time for the player to adjust and get comfortable with the way the universe works before they need to get involved in the central conflict, where a higher understanding of the universe is required.
2. The Problem of Internal Consistency – The idea here is that the player is going to play in a way that feels comfortable to them. Therefore, the game needs to recognise this, and should be designed with an edge of freedom. By offering multiple solutions to a single problem that still gel with the character’s personality (for example, Paragon vs. Renegade options in Mass Effect), we give the player room to explore the game in their own immersive way.
3. The Problem of Narrative Flow – The most important thing I’ve realised in terms of this problem is that the player will play and pace the story to their liking. For that reason, I try to make the story more modular (short missions with interchangeable dialogue that can easily be daisy-chained in any way that suits the player) and reduce the amount of alerts that the player should follow the main story; instead, I like to make all my conflicts/missions somewhat involved or related to the central quest. If I have a mission that should be played at a specific points for pacing reasons (for example, a really emotional sequence such as Thessia in Mass Effect 3), I can make a mission appear more relevant without railroading the player by playing radio messages, adding NPCs and elements to the environment that make the world seem desperate for the player to intervene, and also play with the size of mission icon on the map. Pathos is a great tool for convincing the player that they actually are playing a major role in this game world.

One should note that Problems 2 & 3 are both fairly similar, and they are less a problem for the designer, and more for the player. Our job is to make our stories interesting so the player would want to follow our lead, but we should never have to rely on railroading. To each their own.

Keep in mind, this is not a complete list, and one that I will likely often come back to and expand. As an interactive storyteller, I'm always looking for new methods to try and bring interesting stories to my players, and keep them immersed in the world. Hopefully though, this will give designers a bit of a head-start on finding solutions to these problems.

The Cycle

When I first heard Plato's "The Cave", I was confused by it. Only now do I begin to understand.

Birth.

We are completely defenceless. We know nothing, feel something, terrified of everything.

For the first few years, we remain completely dependent on the support of others. This is our most experimental phase. We try moving our arms in new ways, spit bubbles, bite fingers, try out our bladder functions and figure out what calls to use when we need different things. We learn some basic patterns, and begin to practice them so that we can keep living to the next day. Even though we don't know our purpose, we fight for survival nonetheless.

Childhood.

We are still weak. We know little, but we feel much, and our fears grow.

In this period, we become more independent, but we still rely on the support of others. We start to be creative with our experiments. We draw on walls, eat dirt, punch bugs, urinate everywhere but our "potty", and learn the right way to say "Mum" in order to get her attention. As our guardians teach us their versions of right from wrong, we update our patterns, and we start to learn new things about the world and the way it works. We begin to wonder just where our future lies, and we practice our ideas.

School.

Still weak, yet gaining strength. We see the world as more than just colour, express our emotions in new ways, and recklessly abandon our fears.

At every turn, we begin to fight for our independence, asking for help only when we appreciate what others can do for us. We start experimenting less, and we start acting within our accepted limits of behaviour more. We practice sport, learn our favourite foods, get in fights with other kids, leave the toilet seat up, and start to form solid connections with those around us. School begins to mould and shift our understanding of the world, and with innocence, we blindly accept "truth" as "fact". We begin to accept the idea that the week is just a loop of work and rest, and we imagine where we fit in the scale of society.

Teenager.

We act strong, hiding our inner-most weaknesses from everything that could exploit us. We believe we have it all figured out, we give in to our emotions, and fight fear with fire.

We embrace independence, and are willing to fight to the death for it. We no longer need to experiment, as we know all there is to know. We make up dance moves, shove our faces with cheap treats, use dirty tactics to ruin those we despise, practice our sexuality, and use every manipulative bit of language in our arsenal to get our way. After fighting through puberty, we become ignorant to protect ourselves from the fear of making the wrong choices, and we show the world just why we no longer need education. We realise, through religion, culture, arts, sports or work, where we belong, and like a giant puzzle, we begin placing our piece in the "right" place.

---

I could go on, but you should already know how the cycle continues. As adults, we begin to reject our emotions, and we lose our fighting edge. As we grow older, we regain our dependency, and begin to see the world in new ways. It ends with us in a bed, learning how to move our arms, feeling pain, afraid about everything. We return to where we came from, none the wiser, but certainly worse for wear.

Human life is all about the cycle, the pattern. We've been breed to be as generic as possible. There's a certain security when things are predictable. Even within our teenage rebellion, the term "special snowflake" becomes prevalent. We try to be individual in the same way as the many, and so we become lost in the sea of life.

In truth, I am afraid. Afraid that I will be one of the last to understand that life is more than just a food chain or a timetable.

I do not want to see the world as others say it is. Freedom is not a word to describe the relief of responsibility. I am not "crazy" for breaking free.

I see, therefore I become.

My Gaming Favourites - Introduction

Originally, this started as summary of thoughts about BEYOND: Two Souls, but it's quickly morphed into another mess of ideas and feelings, and I hope to be able to do a regular segment.

---

I've been told by people close to me that I'm too trusting.

Maybe it's because I've been hurt before. Maybe it's because I know that pain sucks, and I don't like to put anybody through it. Maybe it's all some subconscious desire to get an angle on everybody (and not to break off into this tangent, but needless to say I'm actually quite useless at this). Whatever happens to be the case, I think I can empathise well with people.

That's the reason I find it hard to be evil in video games, and as such I can use it as a judge of what games I like, and what games I don't. In my favourite games, I can actually feel the characters as people in real life, with real stories and emotional states (which is great, considering that games are state machines). Even to those background characters there to add ambience, I can just imagine the stories of the people and want to bring them no harm based on what could be. In the absolute best games, I have difficulty in killing the enemies as I imagine what it must be like to be just "doing your job". Dishonored was great at this, tying consequence to every death.

To take this even further, the best games I've played are able to hide everything. They lower my analytical defences and suck me right into the experience. Bugs and glitches suddenly become aspects of the world I just accept. The character's motives and missions match mine. For me, the best games will hide the fact that they're a game, and blur the line between the developer's created world and my own perceived reality, to a point where I can easily transfer the lessons between each. This is, in part, my mission; to create games that are able to suck players in, so that the practical lessons I want to teach hit that much harder and stay with the player for much longer.

I know I'd make a lot of enemies this way, but in terms of how I've gamed in the past, I've never been super fortunate. For most of my early years it was demo disks and budget titles. I managed to stretch a Windows 98 budget PC right up until about 2005/2006. Even with countless upgrades, I've still yet to have an incredible 60FPS, 1080p experience with maximum graphics that other PC gamers always bang on about. I'm one of the people gifted (or cursed) to be able to not have headaches with an inconsistent and/or low framerate, and I've never been really bothered by FoV (Side Note: In terms of development, I do really care about these things when making my own games for other people, but as a personal preference, it's not a big deal for me as an individual, so long as the game experience is brilliant).

For that reason, I think that's why, when I choose the games I want to play, it has less to do with numbers and stats, and more to do with design and concept.

People have berated me for every game I've ever liked, be it Ratchet & Clank, Sam & Max, Assassin's Creed, Heavy Rain, Uplink and far more. I've learned to ignore it, but with that said, I've still been left questioning...

...why do I enjoy these games? Not just the ones listed, but all the ones on my favourites list?

BEYOND: Two Souls is what started this chain of thought. In trying to platinum this game (I'd like to one day have a blog entry about Achievements, and how I think they can be made practical), during the many countless scenes I had to reply to unlock various trophies, I started to have conversations with myself. In all honesty, I found that BEYOND had great moments, and so many great elements. But there was things missing. Something that put it on the list of my "Liked" games, but not my "Favourite" games.

That's what I want to do, for the next few weeks. To trace my gaming history, and to find the games I love dearly so, and break them down. I need to discover what makes me love them, how I love them, and what lessons I can take away for design. If I'm really good, I might even answer two other questions; why did others not like these games as much as I did, and how would I fix them if I was given time and a big budget?

There's two last questions I'd also like to answer, and it's one that's far more personal.

"How has this game changed my life?" And if so, was that change more positive or negative? Just maybe, I'll be able to trace down why I'm so trusting, alongside why my narcissism is so bad among other personality flaws.

It'd be nice if people held me to some kind of rough schedule, given the fact I now find time slipping with all the other various bits and pieces of projects I'm working on in the background, but realistically, I will try and do right by my audience and be as orderly as possible.

As a final note, you might have noticed that all the games I've mentioned (with a few exceptions) are story-heavy and AAA. In the long run, I will absolutely need to discuss puzzle games and Indie games. The thing about puzzle games, however, is that since I'm a writer who wants to teach, and most puzzle games are designed to be time-wasting, many of the ones I spend a lot of time in go against my own principles I wish to live by, and as such I won't include in my favourites list.

The Nastiest of Us

"No matter what, you keep finding something to fight for."

-Joel, The Last of Us

 I said I'd write an article about The Last of Us. I don't really think this will ultimately count, but I need a scratch-pad for some heavy thoughts at the moment.

The Last of Us has been hard to analyse after finishing it. Not because the subtext is difficult, or because information is hard to find; there are just so many articles, videos and other content available on the web to process all kinds of useful information about the game. Actually, that part has been both fun and enjoyable.

I've mentioned a number of times before in my blogs the word narcissism. Truth be told, I am one. The ironic (or not so ironic) thing of it is that for most of my life, I always weirdly imagined I was in some way different; that I was some kind of new make of human or that I would have or would get some kind of super disease that nobody has ever had. A lot of my assessments were the first of their kind partly for the challenge, but mostly for the recognition; I had the first CGI animation for the HSC for example. It should be noted that none of this ever worked out, which is what scares me a little more.

Have you ever had somebody tell you that they think you're special? That you're the one they care about, or that they think you'll do great things, or just do well in life in general? Well, imagine being told that by yourself every minute of every day. Imagine that a simple compliment suddenly becomes a heavy drive, one that acts a bit like a virus. It's unhealthy to have extreme expectations and always fail at them. It's unhealthy to consciously or unconsciously manipulate circumstances to better suit your Id. It's unhealthy to bring yourself down because somebody did what you wanted to do first.

First is an interesting word, because it implies a lot about the people it's applied to. It can be used in both good or bad contexts. In the world of narcissism, it's generally bad. If you let yourself buy into your own hype, you move further from the real world, as if you become closer to sitting in front of a mirror each minute of every day. Sometimes we need to be last, in order to prevent bad things from happening.

Take, for example, my Dad. Today, he did his usual rant while at the dinner table, insisting that because I was playing video games, I am entirely a slacker, but moreover that me entering a game design course was secretly a plot so I could play video games all the time. One could argue that this is the first time I've touched a game in months, but I digress. If I had been the first person to truely study games and their indepth impact on human psychology, I wouldn't have been able to give him a satisfactory answer. Now, frankly, since I'm coward, I didn't give him much of an answer at all, but by being the last of us I had a much better constructed argument in my head that would have likely blown him away. The first attempts at things are usually of poor quality in comparison to what comes far further down the track.

While studying the games I've recently finished, including The Last of Us, Journey, BEYOND: Two Souls and Ratchet & Clank: Nexus (one of these is not like the other), I've had these two different viewpoints both try to chow down on each other, vying for attention. My narcissism is heavily tied into my emotions, and so I can get fairly deeply upset when I see other people take "my" fame for an idea that I probably wouldn't have constructed as well as they have, something that my rational side tries to argue. A lot of times I notice this; the rational side wants to bring up these brilliant arguments on why I should avoid/do certain behaviour and feel certain things, but I usually end up relying on my gut feeling and emotions to guide me, which is dangerous.

Narcissism isn't some special disease or something truly unique like I would have hoped. It's more of an indicator of how one values their own survival. To a degree, we're all self-centred, but some can overcome that easier than others. In the interest of appearing modest, I'd like to believe I can overcome my deeply rooted narcissism in order to help others, but sometimes I feel as though it's a challenge that I'm not quite ready for, still being young and whatnot.

The reason I mentioned The Last of Us in the beginning was not entirely for some silly little pun to lead into this big personal debate. There is in fact a point. The Last of Us, to me, was this very beautiful reflection of me. It's as if Neil Druckmann had taken out the most core elements of what make me who I am, and stick them into a world not far from utter destruction. The thing was, for most of the game it was subtle, and there were plenty of moments I disagreed with in terms of Joel's actions, but over time as I came closer to the characters, it really started to hit me on how close I could be to Joel.

Without spoiling the ending, that was the most uncomfortable, and yet more enjoyable (on a rational level) moment for me. It was 3 words said by two characters in the end, that without the rest of the game wouldn't have made sense, but having gone through it all, nailed the point. The Last of Us, in terms of what I'm taking away from it, is less about surviving in this dystopic environment, and more about the realisation of cause and effect, how scarily flexible human personalities can be in the correct scenarios, and most importantly, how narcissism really doesn't differ between the extremes of the cold and harsh workplace, and the cold and harsh wastes.

The Last of Us has made me question a lot. It paints a picture of how all human accomplishments can be made useless and forgotten, just through human nature itself, yet deep down "I" don't want to be forgotten. Isn't that the point, though? If you were truly successful, your lessons and tools will live on longer in memory than you do? That feels like one conclusion that could be drawn from The Last of Us, and in one final concluding strike, I'd like to try and apply it to something important to me.

Since 2013 I've had this idea. It's gestated a lot, and taken many different forms. It's been refined, modified, cut down and built back up. It is supposed to be this revolutionary game idea, yet it encapsulates everything I've spoken of in this entry. I think The Last of Us mirrors a lot of what is going on with this idea of mine and myself. There is a stubborn refusal to let go, and to allow my narcissistic traits to take over under the belief that what's good for me will be good for everybody. And at this point, despite having said all I have, I cannot bring myself to throw it away or to stop thinking about it. At this point, it's a bit like a daughter to me. Something I care about so ferociously, I'd be willing to sacrifice the world for it. And even though they are entirely different in every single design standpoint except for the fact that they're both games, I've come to the conclusion that it happens to be;

The Last of Us.

A Touching Story

There's so much on my mind right now.

ASIO attempting to pass new laws to essentially remove Internet privacy in Australia. The still ongoing drama in #GamerGate and the overwhelming amount of ridiculous back-and-forth between genders. My inability to stay focused long enough to be able to get important work, such as writing for employers and my own personal game designs, and unimportant hobbies, such as sorting LEGO and reading, done without drifting off into a world of wasted time and impossible dreams. My ex-girlfriend continually pushing forward new drama to the forefront. Family drama and upcoming commitments causing levels of stress and worry.

Things are a little busy right now.

So, what do I want to write about? I have this intense desire to get something out since it's preventing me from doing anything actually productive, but I don't want to touch on any of the issues I've discussed above...why not talk about my writing?

About 2 years ago, I likely wouldn't have considered myself anywhere near the level of a professional writer. I mean, technically speaking, I'm still not a professional, but I'm (hopefully) making content people enjoy which is public, so hopefully that counts for something. I don't shy away from criticism; rather, I try and seek it out. Not only does it help improve my writing, but it also makes me look a bit more modest. That's where the narcissism kicks in.

I think what's interesting about how I used LEGO was that I was less interested in how the smaller pieces fit together to make a bigger model, but rather how the big models fit together to make an overall scene. I still remember some of my first stories, such as the Alien Attack of LEGO City. Essentially, the Bionicle robots had arrived to destroy LEGO City, but were faced with great hardships, including betrayal, a lack of resources (known as potato chips) and even larger monsters there to defend the city. Ultimately the Bionicle forces learned the true power of friendship and gave up. All through reenacting the story, I had to give every character, including all of my generic little construction workers, a voice and some actions.

Now of course, I think we all did very much the same with our own toys. We created these vast worlds in our heads and played our action figures like puppets, but I believe the difference lies in the fact that I was always trying to weave these stories into one another, and play with even greater elements of the composition. As I got towards my pre-teens, I was setting up complex audio systems and creating these unique special effect moments (at one point I had to make an "airplane" that could explode but come back together as fast possible, just in case I missed my audio cue). Moreover, I know from what I've seen with most children who play with LEGO and what I've talked about with a few people in the LEGO community, a lot of other kids would be so obsessed with their own creations ("MOCs" being the technical term). I didn't care at all about what I had built; for me, the important bit was how well I could use something to convey a story.

I think I live in story. I've always argued that music can change my mood, and the reason for that I believe is that I am always pitching a story in my head to the rhythm of the music. Heavy dubstep? A trailer for a video game. Sweeping and sad orchestral themes? I'm witnessing a character's undoing. The music from Indie Game: The Movie? I'm now adding voice-overs to whatever is currently going on in my life, so as to really dramatise my own story. Even without music, I still find it incredibly easy to imagine myself or other characters doing all kinds of weird things. I'm usually pitching to myself these really abstract ideas. There's even been times where I've designed blog entries such as this, but as a sort of story within the subtext. I've never really been able to replicate these imaginary entries, but in my head they were examples of perfection.

So, now that I've done plenty of gloating about how I'm so incredible for living in a world of story, let's try and shape this entry into a nice, arrow-headed point.

Living in this world of story sucks. Sure, there's plenty of drama and tension that we all so desperately crave in our subconscious, but it's not real drama and tension. It's unrealistic expectations. A lot of what I imagine and write about is things that I wish would happen.

Well, maybe I don't exactly want an army of giant killer robots to fly down from the sky and then protest that they love, me, but the point is that these stories all seem to deal with themes such a ambition, popularity, love, success, braveness and so on, so forth. Things I don't necessarily have a lot of at the current moment.

Living in a world of story is a lot like becoming so engaged in your phone on the bus, that you don't notice the poor single mother with her child in a pram wanting to use the disabled seat that you are hogging. You begin to distance yourself away from these real conflicts, and instead of striving to take them with stride, learn from them and incorporate the feelings and knowledge into your writing to make better stories, you purposely handicap yourself to avoid the unknown.

I spent writing this entire blog looking for something to teach, and hopefully this can be it; for story-writers it is the utmost important that we never shy away from reality. We are the ones that have to get punched in the face, thrown in the mud and taken for a drive in the boot of a stranger's car.

There was an article on a gaming blog site (I think Polygon) which covered this idea that game developers need to distance themselves from their main hobby, the video games, in order to make better games. At the time, I didn't want to read it. Weirdly, I knew how true it was, but there was this fear. Fear of giving up this sense I had always had, this ability to throw myself into my own story-world whenever I was uncomfortable. Fear of the unknown.

In an attempt to appear civilised, I shall attempt to link in that list of distractions I posted at the top. Right now, I don't feel stressed about these because they are painful or because they can seriously damage my future if things go wrong. I'm stressed because, in order to conquer them, I really need to experience them, and set aside my fake story world. I'd need to conquer the fear of the unknown.

I call my ability to come up with stories in an instant my "6th Sense", because it's always taken elements from the world around me and parts of my memory to form something that can distract and entertain me, and up until now it's helped me to some degree. I don't think I should completely give it up, nor do I think that I could. What I really need to do, however, is find some way to exert more control over it, to become more focused, and use it only when it will help, not hinder me.

I know this entry was long, but hopefully a hidden message has become clear. We are each held back by common themes in our lives. Once we identify the problem and the fear it's caused by, we can work towards solving them. My hope is that you will leave this, thinking about your life. What's preventing you from being the best you can be?

How much is going on in your mind?

Being Drunk on the Education of Life

I'm always been told that college is "the best years of your entire life". I'm very much inclined to believe them, most of the time. Sometimes, however, it takes a serious amount of perspective to make things turn right around.

I regularly flip a coin inside my head. It's a heavy coin, and sometimes it manages to get stuck on its side, and I'm not really sure how I want to deal with it. See, this coin represents what some would consider a "simple" choice; it's me deciding to call myself either a 'Teacher' or a 'Game Designer'.

What's in a name? All so much, and that is why this is the biggest hurdle for myself.

I've already discussed how Video Games are some of the greatest teaching tools on the planet, using the brilliant research of Raph Koster and all of those whom he researched, and I believe I've made it quite clear I want to use games to help people. So what, therefore, is the problem? Can't I just say I want to be a teacher and move on?

You can't really call yourself a teacher if all your designs/classes to date have not given one single important lesson to their intended audience. Moreover, there's this perspective that anything "educational" will be boring, repetitive and cheap, with as much passion put into it as the people who sit in the top levels of administration have for their educational practices.

I want to teach, but what? What on Earth could I possibly bring to the table that hasn't already been said, done and learnt far better by other people with much more experience than I have? Do I even have a chance to suc...

Hold on.

"Experience".

Life is all about experience.

I've never really lived a "normal" life, if you go by the standards set out in the media. Unfortunately, my weird little life hasn't necessarily been all that exciting and interesting, either. I think that grants me a certain level of fresh experiences that most people have not had, and a differet perspective that really help and change lives, if put to good use.

For example, I had my first experience being properly "drunk" (or something close to) last night. I had nearly a full bottle of Whiskey, and it certainly whisked my ass in the end. I remember the dizziness, the fuzziness, the lack of restraint, and the euphoric feeling. I was kind of lucky, I had many good people nearby to me, I drunk plenty of water to prevent a hangover the next morning and my iron stomach kept its contents. Now, certainly, I'm not the only one who experienced their first drunken night like this, so it might be a bit of a bad example to demonstrated how my life is somewhat a "weird normal", but what I want to focus on is the teaching, so please stick with me.

What could I teach in a moment like this? Well, considering that this was an overall success since nobody was hurt, most of all myself, it looks like I have found potentially the best circumstances to put yourself in when faced with a big bottle of cheap spirits, and while most of us will have greater judgement, what about children who've never even had a drop of liquor in their lives? Surely by presenting them a game that could allow them to design the first time they get drunk, and watch it play out, that may have some positive effect in the absence of guiding morals that this current education system seems to lack? Of course, there are other factors, such as what type of drunk you are (your psychology), but it seems that even on a simple scale, the key lessons can be retained.

How about something else? My first kiss. It was horrible.

I actually did make a "game" about this. A game with no goals, no interactions, just a simple linear walk through several museum exhibits. Weirdly, it actually fit the exact feel and meaning I was going for, but that doesn't change the fact what I made was disrespectful to the very lessons I bring forward to you in my blogs today.

In short, it was a terrible kiss that essentially marked the beginning of the end for a trial period between myself and a friend. I felt uncomfortable for most of it, and it made me a bit sick on reflection afterwards. Now, that's all fine and dandy, but where's the lesson in that?

Maybe the problem wasn't the kiss itself, but everything surrounding it. My preconceptions and my expectations, the environment, and the events that had preceded the kiss. Maybe this is what I could make a game about; fighting off the very orchestrated notions that media has put into the heads of the younger generations about love. You could be yourself, trying to save a Prince or Princess, but everything goes wrong along the way. Or does it?

I know the idea sounds very abstract at the moment, but that's because fleshing this out is beyond the scope of this blog entry. The point of writing, for me, is to rubberduck my ideas, and hopefully come to a conclusion that solves one of my problems, and creates another to solve. I think this blog entry was successful. It wasn't successful at solving the Coin Name Dilemma, but it's shown me I can in fact draw on my experiences to teach those who I feel could benefit from the lessons.

Maybe the thing to take away, overall, is that labels can only serve as a generic placeholder where it must be taken upon the reader to research, and get a far more indepth profile of the subject. The differences between a teacher and a game designer only seem to rest in their core audience and their application of technology, and the later is being changed the further we move into the digital revolution. I for one look forward to exploring what I can do and what I want to solve, but what I know now is that labels cannot define my mission which defines me. I am more than a product of generations of preconceptions.

I am a meta-teacher.

Upcoming Blog Entry: The Education System: A Phoenix Before The Ashes

I don't like doing these personal blog entries, but sometimes I just have to get the words out.

I really do regret leaving so soon and not talking to the teachers and students I knew, but it wasn't my event, so it's probably best that I give them the space they deserve, just like when I went through. What I'm talking about is the Year 12 graduation that happened tonight, which my brother was in. Fairly straightforward mass with some extra bits here and there, you all get the point. This blog entry isn't about them, though. Rather, it's about things I've been thinking about which got touched on a bit during this mass.

I've stayed rather quiet (except for a bit of conversation in the Skype chat) over the Mojang-Microsoft buyout. It is what it is, and I'm going to continue to remain silent on it, because I don't think there will be any major effects from it that affect me. Except one.

http://www.theverge....-goodbye-letter

Notch's words are really poignant for me, because it really digs deep down into some stuff I've been thinking about heavily over the past few weeks, and watching what is essential an industry idol bring himself down like this...even without knowing the man personal, I'm still moved.

I know I'm not really touching on the issues just yet, but I want to describe the circumstances and the context first, because it's important to understanding why the issues matter. One of the biggest contextual events I have to be thinking about right now is my internship prep. Next term, if my timetable is correct, I will be preparing for my Internship. In order to do this, I need a portfolio, which doesn't exist as of the moment. Moreover, it symbolises the start of my 3rd year of college, and the beginning of the end of my entire education experience.

If you're not really getting the picture, I think the word "change" might be enough to guide you to my viewpoint. I'm not ready, but so very quickly I'm being thrust into it. Very soon, there will be no more support, no more assignments, no more teachers, no more anything. I'll be a free man. And that prospect scares me.

I've become very accustom to the idea of having someone always direct me to something. I don't like it, but it is what it is. The reason I don't like it is because I never really want to take responsibility for my time. It leads to laziness and ultimately not achieving anything, because I always like to assume that somebody else will automatically make me into a superstar in good time, so I don't have to do a thing. Again, I hate this, but it's become the norm, and very soon I need to snap out of it, or I'm completely screwed.

I've had to really think hard about what I want to do once I leave college. Most people probably already have their entire lives worked out. They'll instantly get a great job, maybe get married down the track, and die happy. For me, though, I really don't know. I want to make games to teach. I want to do public speaking. I want to be independent, but I have no money, and I'm scared that I won't be able to make a fun game and that I won't achieve anything. What sucks most is that I'm supposed to be past these fears by now, but they keep lingering the closer I get.

I don't know what it is about the thought of my Major Project, but now it seems like I daydream about it more than ever. I'm always imagining the huge amount of effort I put into it, and I can see people happy with the end product, but I can't see what it is. It's exactly like that dream Homer from The Simpsons had, where he had an incredible invention in his dream, but he woke up before he saw it. I think what's most scary is that I'm always having ideas for what my major could be, but I'm really unsure what it should be.

I'm passed the halfway point, now. 1.75 years done. That makes me uncomfortable. It's gone so fast. The thing is, college life is far more dramatic than high school or primary school life. I can look back over the past 1.75 years, and see way more things which have happened than my previous 13 years of education. College is like an addiction; it's crazy, wild, fun, but it also passes fast, so you need to get more. I don't know where to get more, though. I don't even if I can, or if I should.

When I started writing this, I opted to just spit words out, and see what happens. Looking over it, I'm still not really sure what I want to achieve in this moment, right now. Maybe that's exactly it, though; I'm tired of this lack of direction. Everything so far has been going with the flow, and while I do make plans, they're usually very short-term, and to avoid some kind of pain, and not to better my position or achieve some awesome goal. it's kind of pathetic, really.

The Priest's Homily during the graduation mass tonight had two important things I thought about, but I want to specifically touch on one. Normally I fade out completely during these things, but he grabbed my attention as he told the story of a kid who managed to put together an image of the world, which he had never seen before as a picture, by looking at the back and seeing a man, and constructing the man. The point illustrated is that you have to fix the man if you want to fix the world.

In a draft of this, I had a long section about how I didn't think my "talents" were really talents, just a bunch of skills I've cobbled together so I can at least have a tiny shred of self-worth. I think a lot of the reason I do this is I don't want to be caught bragging. I'd rather appear modest and down about myself than feel like I'm being very pompous and arrogant. Moreover, being in a design college, every day you meet people whose skills far outrank your own. The simple fact is that speaking and writing, two things which I may be good at (even though I'm not so confident with either) don't stand up to other arts, at least in my opinion. We're visual creatures. Art, photograph, web design, that whole category. I see a lot of that, and the people who make it, and I cannot compare. Nobody wants to read. Even if they did, my content is nowhere near as interesting as something like the Game of Thrones novels. And what is speaking going to do if I have no experience to actually speak about?

I don't know how to fix the man. Lazy, incompetent, scared, blah blah blah. The situation right now appears to be a lot more grim than it actually is, though. I have food. Shelter. Friends. Family. Job prospects. LEGO. You get the picture. I shouldn't have the right to complain, but this is what spending hours a day on public transport does to you. The point is, physically, the situation is fantastic, but mentally, the situation is going very far downhill. Let's just hope I can pull a miracle out soon. That might make me feel better.

Maybe.

Goals

I don't like airing out private issues in general. There's a lot of reasons; I feel like I'm taking up others time, taking away attention from them/using them to bring attention to myself, it's too easy to make up fake problems, you lose the mystique you have about you, etc. The point is, I'm not someone who is completely open to everybody. Those who do get some of the story, don't get the entire picture.

Tonight, my friend gave me a suggestion after I decided to let loose on a few personal issues. He gave me some awesome suggestions, and while I will implement and carry them out, I wanted to write this. Not because I want people to care about me or my problems, but because once they're out in the air, you can't use them as some kind of defence against procrastination.

Even now, every bone in my body wants me to stop, turn around and keep myself "safe", but I'm not going to listen this time. I've got things I want to talk about.

I've identified myself to have narcissistic tenancies. Everyone does, but I feel like mine are quite significant, and they can come at the expense of others. For those who are not sure, narcissism relates to essentially "self-love"; i.e., you're very obsessed with yourself and your own well-being, without caring too much about others. Most people are narcissistic, but from what I can tell, it's very minor. They care very much about others and generally don't want to push themselves out in the spot light. The important thing is that they seem to be doing things because they care, not because they have hidden intentions and motivations.

If you've ever seen me walk out on the street, you might have seen me wear my Ratchet hat. It's a pretty odd thing; it makes my forehead look huge, it's bright yellow and white and it's very fluffy and has these ears that are on weird angles. It's a unique hat. A lot of things I wear are unique, but the hat seems to be the most prominent. It's one the get the biggest reaction, and I think that might be part of why I like wearing it. Keyword being "think".

When I wear the hat, the reactions I get are very mixed. Some, including my mother, feel like I belong in a mental institution. They can't understand the logic behind wearing something so odd and sticking out like a sore thumb. Others supposedly believe it's quite interesting and enjoy the change. It's sometimes nice to see something more than slick, gelled hair and baseball caps. These reactions can come through a lot of means, be it the words they say to me, right to their physical stance and facial expressions. People aren't very hard to read when you make a game out of it.

What I find most annoying is how, in the wide open public of North Sydney and Town Hall, I can wear this wild, crazy hat and not feel any bit insecure, enjoying the attention. But, as soon as I get back to my hometown, I feel compelled to get home as soon as possible. I become afraid of those around me, and even though I don't like to admit it, the constant feeling of being judged by those closest to me does bother me. It could be related to many things, such as a fear of being attacked by a bunch of twelve year old smokers (seriously). I'm not sure.

So, what was the point of discussing all of that? It ended up with me saying "I'm not sure", so clearly whatever point I was going to make has been lost. That, in and of itself, is the point. There's this theme in my life surrounding focus, and my lack thereof.

My friend brought to my attention this idea that, when I told him I was no longer sure what I wanted to achieve, I needed to think smaller. And, while that's what I would like to start doing soon, I want to dedicate the rest of this entry to discussing what I wanted to achieve, and the problems surrounding each. If I can get each out in the open, maybe just maybe, it might be easier to let go, and to focus on the smaller steps, so that I can put myself in a position to at least achieve the most meaningful ones. If I'm lucky.

Goal: Educate People Through Games
When I was a little kid, I had nothing to worry about. I really didn't. I didn't have friends until halfway through Kindergarten, and even then, I probably only ever visited them outside of school once or twice up until Year 7. I didn't have access to the Internet for a while, either, so communication with them was limited to school hours. Essentially, in the wake of my brother and I starting to grow apart, I grew up kind of alone.

That's not really what I wanted to focus on, though, depressing as it may be. See, a lack of people usually means a lack of problems (at least in how I experience life, which I hate, but we'll get to this later). And since you have no problems to solve, you feel kind of fulfilled. At least, as a kid, you don't feel like you have much of a greater purpose. Life is kind of static, and a young me revelled in it. When I wanted to solve problems, I turned to either my LEGO or my video games, which were full of them. Life, however, was pretty empty.

I went through school weirdly. For most of it, I didn't know what I wanted to achieve. At one pointed I wanted to drive trains, another become an Engineer, somewhere I wanted to be a singer, and so on so forth. The idea of being a game designer never really occurred to me because I was so scared that I would have no talent for it compared to others, that I wouldn't be able to get a job and end up wasting life. Those fears are still to some extent real, but now over then, something changed.

Sometimes, we are passed on a torch. The torch burns with knowledge, and just like before the Olympics, we have a responsibility of passing the torch on to others, provided we do it in a safe manner (i.e. don't just throw the goddam torch at the next runner). The last two years were incredible because I received the torch. I learnt things many people do not know, and I started to realise that these powerful ideas could benefit people. Suddenly, I felt this overwhelming responsibility to bring these ideas to the people, not for my own gain or others, but because I would feel wrong not sharing what I know, and helping people where I can.

What's scary is the idea that people won't listen, that I shall be rejected, or that I will throw the torch either at the next runner, or into a big pool, so the torch is extinguished and the lesson wasted. There's such a fine line to walk to get everything perfect so it works, I'm not sure if I have what it takes, or if it's truly what I want.

Goal: To Be Stage Famous
Have you ever had an entire lecture theatre of people laughing at your jokes? There are times when those moments are the only thing you believe you live for.

I remember my first speech in Year 4/5 (but not the year, apparently). Up until that point, I had always been a little quirky, a little quiet, and generally a nobody. Yet, during that speech, for 3 minutes, I had the entire class in the palm of my hand. They were laughing, having a good time, and I put those smiles on their faces. Suddenly, I wasn't being ignored and I had found something that not many others could do as well as me.

I have a lot of daydreams. I'm not sure why, but this fictional world I create for myself is always entertaining, and it's where I like to go when things in the real world don't match up. Interestingly, lots of the time, my daydreams involve me on a stage, standing out in front of the crowd of millions, talking about whatever is important to me at the time. Something about standing out is interesting to me, but it only works when I can be the literal centre of attention.

Many of my friends can draw, sing, dance, do martial arts, drive, etc. They have these incredible raw talents that I am fairly jealous of. Whenever I see their creations, I feel like failure internally. The thing is, speaking and writing (which I don't want to admit I'm good at, when I see the many incredible works and articles written daily by others) aren't very "showy" talents, if you catch my drift. A picture or a song can be uploaded, and your friends can see that and instantly give you feedback. The recognition you get is very quick. But, in terms of speaking (I'll discuss writing later), I can't just go around to each person's house and give a lecture. It's something that requires a specific set of events to occur, and if people are not in the right mood or cannot reach the same wavelength as you think on, it's very easy to be ignored and forgotten.

It doesn't help that speaking helps greatly with sales jobs, but I feel a moral quandary with manipulating people for my own gain. I don't want to take on that evil, but nobody is going around looking for people to do public speaking, and I don't feel ready to approach games full time yet. It also doesn't help that this feels like the most immature goal of mine, and stresses how unprepared for reality I am.

Goal: To Be A Writer  Story-teller
I look through my own words a lot. Blog entries, game design documents, short stories, etc. I'm usually disappointed. Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, logical fallacies, logic gaps and plot holes. Why do people insist this is something I'm good at? It doesn't help that I usually talk up my writing abilities in a feign effort to appear confident and good at something. Really, I know that many are probably laughing at my work.

When I look at Chris Avellone, Shakespeare, George Orwell and many others, I make a realisation each time. Despite what the great painters and musicians gave us, it seems that the writers, at least the good ones, have the most profound impact. One can study a picture for hours on end, but a deep text will have so many little titbits to rip out of it, that it can take one years to really discover its true meanings. A writer can sway minds and worlds, should his audience be accepting of it.

In the year 2014, not many people want to read, at least not many that I know of. I know this because I don't want to read. In fact, I'm going to be amazed if any of you make it this far through the blog entry. We're such a speedy culture (at least in the first world western civilisation), that reading books and taking in these stories is hard. That's weird, because storytelling is supposed to be one of the best ways to communicate concepts with others. That's why we always give examples that explain and stick with the reader.

I hate it, but I live on gratification. I want people to praise me. I hate that, but it's what happens, and it's disturbing. The reason that writing talents suck is that you don't get instant gratification form your audience, especially if you make a long piece like this one. A viewer looking at a picture can give an immediate response before going indepth, but a reader must always take time to even barely skim the work before responding. And, unfortunately, I don't capture much audiences attentions. I always hype myself up on this idea that my next bit of writing is going to earn X amount of likes and all this praise and views, and of course, the unrealistic expectations and never met.

I think, though, at the end of the day, I don't think the real goal is specifically writing, but telling stories. When I played with my LEGO, my video games or even in my imagination, it involved telling stories. It's something I've always done, and there seems to be this joy I get out of sharing experiences with other people, even if they're not necessarily real. But, the problem with formats other than the written word is the amount of effort it takes. I'm not going to dive into the procrastination discussion, but I think we can see it's pretty clear I let schedules slip easily, and I get frustrated even easier.

Goal: Have a Family
I won't elaborate too much on this, because it's pretty clear. I think the real problems involving this are my social relations, and also how it can conflict with the other goals as far as resources, but we can discuss this another time.

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In the end, I don't know why I wrote this, why I'm positing it, why you're reading it, and if the response will be embarrassing or friendly. I don't like appearing too human; it wrecks the multiple persona thing I use to give people what they seem to want out of me.

I think, deep down, I just want to make others happy, because that makes me happy. Unfortunately, with the world being so big and complex, it can be hard to know how to do it best, and a lot of the time I put myself in front of others.

Let's just hope things change soon.

The Frustrating Nature of Gaming in Social Media

Edited for Blogger

Before we begin: I am not a supporter of Anita or Zoe Quinn's opinions or works. Please do not label me under any groups of which I'm not actually associated with.

When somebody steps up to the plate and brings with them heavy ideas, they don't do so easily. Many of the personalities that we know, be they developers like Phil Fish or Bungie, reviewers/critics like TotalBiscuit, InternetAristocrat or Anita Sarkeesian or those who are projected into the spotlight in the middle of drama are not at the centre of attention just because they solely want attention. Each of them has something they want to offer. Game developers want to make games. Critics want to share their opinion and discuss any relevant problems. Let's Players wants to share their experiences and build a community with similarly minded individuals. Even though they feel a big like these giant pedestals, at the end of the day, they're still human.

Everyone has ideas, and everybody has opinions, all of which are different. This is part of being human. It is unavoidable. We will all have biases, and we will all have sensitive issues. I think that this is okay. If people didn't have conflicting opinions, then nobody would be able to identify the problems in society, and we'd never be as advanced as we are. Hell, video games probably wouldn't exist without conflict. This conflict that spawned video games, specifically its predecessor games (such as sports, board games, card games and the like) were mainly about war as well as having political and religious significance. Quite a lot of times, these games would end with bloodshed, but in these primitive societies, that was acceptable.

The majority of people who read this will likely come from the USA, Canada, Australia and parts of Europe. These are first world societies. We are at the pinnacle of current technological evolution for our species, and we have moved away from the primitive behaviours of our ancestors in order for us all to cooperate and reach a greater level of scientific understanding, and a better class of life for our citizens. Clearly, with issues such as Ferguson, it is not perfect, but when you considering the Ebola epidemic, the potential invasion of Ukraine by Russia, and the various battles taking place in the Middle East, we live in a majority of peace. Even thought people still murder, still steal and still commit other crimes, the majority of us can sleep peacefully and not have to worry about if we will survive the night.

Video Games are a first world invention. I'd be willing to bet that the majority of the world does not have access to the technology that enables them to play video games. Therefore, we can argue that we are all somewhat privileged that we have the opportunity to partake in what may just well become the most revolutionary form of media the world has seen to date. The implications of games are staggering; it's not just a simple past time, but can be used a tool for education, rehabilitation, communication of social issues and so on, so forth. The video game is doing what school education has for the most part failed; giving children the ability to train up their skills and to become better members of a productive society. Even simplistic First Person Shooters offer simple lessons that can be valuable, such as reflexes, accuracy and hand-eye coordination. Some will argue that these are not as important in this day and age, but I believe that it is very dependant on what the specific individual wishes to do with their life. Regardless of which, despite their overwhelming nature, the most important things about games are that they, just like books and movies, are a past time, and cannot compensate or replace the real world that we live in. Games may enhance our experience of life, but if we allow them to control it, the effects on our health and society in general are telling.

So why is it, in a world where we can afford to sleep well, have clean water packaged in bottles and be readily available for purchase and be able to hold the entirely collective of human knowledge in the palm of our hands, ready at any point of the day, that we so easily and brutally resort to a more passive form of primitive violence over these devices of pleasure? Why, when the greatest thinkers of our time and before were able to peacefully and respectfully discuss and question life, that our potential great thinkers shot down brutally, treated as human landfill and celebrated once they are "removed"? It has taken me a great deal of time to think about this, and I'm not quite what I believe in any more, but hopefully I can come to some sort of conclusion.

You may dislike Anita Sarkeesian. You may feel that Zoe Quinn's actions are reprehensible. You may believe that Phil Fish's level of popularity is undeserved. You may disagree entirely with their opinions. That, in and of itself, is okay. As I said before, it is okay to have conflicting opinions. My first consideration, however, is that conflicting opinions need to exist, and need to challenge the status quo, if we as a society want to progress. As I said before, we wouldn't be here without conflict, and while previous civilisations may have relied on the spilling of blood, we as a more advanced form of human should rely on our power of words. Many of us do through the power of the Internet and social media. It is important that we are telling each other what we think is wrong and right, so we can work together to make informed judgements, and hopefully come to a peaceful conclusion that will successfully move us and our technology forward. Many of the most important revolutions, including that all important American revolution, were built on the conflicting ideologies of the people at the time, and regardless of whether they were the prevailing opinions, people rationalised and came to the conclusion they agreed with. Because of this, we shouldn't silence anybody who wants to challenge how our media works at the moment, but rather give them an open mic so that they can show us a perspective we may have never seen before, and consider if it can improve our society and the way we live.

All too many people believe that a conflicting opinion is dangerous. It plays into our human psychology; the flight or fight response. We are used to dangerous situations challenging us for our own survival. Unfortunately, many people in the heat of an argument cannot grasp the very different nature of fighting a sabre-tooth tiger and talking over the Internet. When people see a conflicting opinion, it is far too easy to think back over the negative things that have happened due to the opinions of people. In short, people are mostly afraid of change, This is how our brain works. Change defies our internal patterns. It means we must continue to update. We cannot rely on our grokked ideals which have kept us alive, but instead we must devote effort to practising and changing. That's hard, though, and our brains would rather avoid it. That's what many people are fighting against; they're worried that change will in some way affect the daily routine of their life that they have made optimal for themselves.

Unfortunately (moving back onto conflicting opinions), with so many conflicting opinions, it is only a matter of time before an individual feels as though they need to speak louder in order to be heard. It is not long before those who speak up begin to use more aggressive tactics, either to dissuade their perceived "enemy", or to rally support (Pathos, playing on the emotions of the people). The escalation continues, either as both sides remain in a standstill while building up more anger for each other, or more people join either side. It is not long before individuals will rely on personal attacks, a cheap tactic in any verbal argument. Whether it be questioning one's status in life, telling them bluntly to perform some ridiculous action ("kill yourself" etc) or just straight out threatening an individual, it is not long before further escalation occurs, and we see hacking, "swatting", and other criminal offences come into play. Why is this? Why do people allow themselves to become so build up over what is essentially a counter-opinion? More importantly, why doesn't this happen as often in the real world?

The one thing that the inventors of the computer never really learnt to program was empathy. It's very hard, too. Some people, such as psychopaths, don't feel it all or feel it in limited amounts (sociopaths). More importantly, though, it requires many elements. A personal connection, the ability to understand and have felt emotions, and usually the ability to see one's facial and body motions. These are all subtle cues, and in real life, these cues play into our subconscious, allowing us to reach out and act in some form of humbleness towards our peers. On the Internet, however, we are all psychopaths.

On the Internet, we have anonymity. We have an instant connection to the entire world. We have a blinking cursor prompting for input. We have no empathy. We have no understanding of what potential societal effects there will be for our actions. It is these elements, and more, that we label as "GIFT" (Greater Internet f****wad Theory). On the Internet, everything is aligned in such a way that you will not act as yourself. This is why and how many people can bring themselves to call upon death threats on individuals they've never met. This is why it's so psychologically easy to rationalise performing a hack on a major website database. On the Internet, you can't feel truly human.

So, is this the end? Must we just accept that people are going to be assholes, and move on with our lives?

You can't.

Despite those posting the messages not really caring, acting within the moment under the assumption their entire world is being threatened because you dared to bring an alternate opinion to the table, it can be nearly impossible to deal with the crushing impact of it all. If you read the conversations at the top, you now have a slight snippet of what certain individuals have had to deal with very recently for their opinions. The effects are far more reaching and devastating than just a few wasted bytes. TotalBiscuit has suffered many health issues due to the community. Anita Sarkeesian was forced to relocate. Phil Fish had to quit Video Games entirely. It doesn't matter what opinions they had; nobody deserves to suffer in the way they do, regardless of whether they are in the first world or in developing countries. It's even worse when you consider how much work can go into certain creations. I've yet to see anybody from the player or reviewer side successfully scratch the surface of how much effort it takes to build a game from scratch, as well as fit the superfluous credentials that "gamers" believe are necessary.

What should be obvious is that it's not the majority who have done this damage. It is a rather small, but very vocal proportion of people who engage in these arguments, and the unfortunate part is that they may well never understand or care about the impact of what their comments do, regardless of how perfect or generous they may be in real life. These people, as I discussed earlier, are convinced that if anything changes, only bad things can happen, and that they are somehow responsible for "saving video games".

I shall keep this ending rather brief, because by this point, most of you would have stopped reading and caring. If you love playing games, keep playing them, and vote with your wallet and time. Be respectful online, especially when voicing your opinions. Don't be a part of the loud, ignorant and disgusting force that believe they are entitled to control the future of video games, but also remember to let developers and critics know when you feel you disagree. Make sure you support your arguments with proper evidence and don't rely on any form of personal attacks. And at the end of the day, remember there's an entire world outside of games and the Internet to explore. You can make your own world just as good as the virtual worlds you've explored. Sometimes, it might be as hard as Dark Souls, but that's part of the fun.

Game Development & The Gamer Attitudes

Before we start: I'm not here to be an advocate of going outside and socialising, or doing research or blah blah blah. You do what you will with your own spare time. I can't force you into doing something you don't want to do.

I hate being informed. I hate seeing things in such a brilliant way. The reason I hate this knowledge so much is that nothing good has come of it yet; it makes me even more jealous of the people around me, and super critical of many others. It's not healthy, and it reflects poorly on myself. I'm not sure if there's anyway to right this.

I have no motivation to make some practice games because I lack the skills I need to make the games, which is the reason I lack the motivation in the first place. That's why I so easily slip into my imagination. I can see trailers for my game, interviews, concepts, art, stories...I can envision this entire massive thing, and yet I'm taking no steps forward to achieve it.

I know that down the track I'll straighten up, find the patience and motivation and make some semi-decent or better games, but right now I'm in this rut of simply distracting myself because it's too easy to just imagine fame and glory over try and achieve something greater; educate even a few people in some kind of meaningful way through video games. That said, even though I can't do it through video games at this very moment, maybe I can change somebody's opinion for the better right now.

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There's been a conflict brewing in the background for sometime now. I'm not going to mention names, but it's basically regarding game design. There's these two opposing forces between design and programming. One side wants to make something more realistic and personal, the other side wants to make something massive, distant and related to LEGO.

Let's disregard skill. Let's disregard money, copyright, people, time and everything else, and let's focus on the key problem here. It's a problem that far too many developers have coming into the industry, and it's something that upsets me a lot.

As a player, we don't really see the game as a game. We know we're playing a game, but once we're inside, we start to blend into the experience. Even when the thing becomes a buggy piece of trash, we're never really thinking about all the hundreds of systems, the thousands of assets or the people that went into putting that experience in front of you. Instead, you take notice of specific sounds, of the graphics, of the story, of summary gameplay (not an intensive look into how gameplay works, just understanding what actions you need to perform to succeed in a certain challenge). Just as you don't need to be a chef to eat a meal, you don't need to be a designer to play a game.

That's not a problem. The problem starts when long-time gamers, those brought up in and through games, feel they are so confident with what makes the games they enjoy work, that they can pull off the same.

They won't.

The problem isn't the scope. It's not the lack of training. It's the fact that instead of trying to build an understanding of why they like the games they like and why they're successful, they simply start ripping elements from these games and sticking them together. See, a human mind is made up of the various connections of patterns it learns through life. The problem with gamers is that they spend so much time in these virtual worlds, that they ultimately end up with the same patterns as everybody else because there's little variety. They changes they make in order to claim their game is "new" are minimal at best, because they themselves don't understand how or why you can/should change the game in a meaningful way.

So many gamers will say "Oh, my story is unique!" or "Oh, X feature has never been done before!", not realising that these are just surface level modifications, that only serve to create the background noise that allow original titles to stand up in front of.

I like to think all of the best designers daydream. It's said that lazy people are the smartest, since because they don't do much, they don't take in many new patterns, which means they spend a lot of time connecting patterns in new and obscure ways. It's a very healthy, important process to imagine. Unfortunately, sometimes we become too attached.

See, it's not just that these gamers essentially reuse the same ideas passed onto us by their limited libraries. The more they think about something and start to see it shape, the more they feel it's possible, regardless of all the "minor" details. They can see the finished product. How hard is it to achieve, right? They obsess over these ideas, and to them they there can be now flaws because it works inside their head. And because our head is a safe playground to experiment, the ideas become more bloated and infeasible. But you can't tell them that, because the idea is perfect.

"An empty mind is a Devil's workshop."

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To me, the lack of skill, a team, money, time, scope or other feasibility problems are no longer the true issue plaguing places like Kickstarter. A gamers' worst enemy is him/herself. So wrapped in experiences, many forget that what they set-out to achieve is essentially what they're playing, minus their name in the credits.

I know exactly what it's like to be that stubborn. Because of it, I can tell a good story from a bad story in a heartbeat, and the exact same can be said for a game design. Real game designers aren't just players making "cool s***" to impress a lot of people and make fat stacks of cash. They're making games because those games mean something to them. They're making games because they want to try and bring people an experience they've never had before, least of all the person creating it.

The true beauty of game design is in the fact that it itself is a game. Why bother playing a game you already know the answer to, aside from to get some shallow feeling of achievement?

Video Games Are...

Edited for Blogger 

Before we start this, I want to both apologise in advance (in case I get any information wrong) and credit Raph Koster. The discussion of patterns was based on his research presented in the book A Theory of Fun.

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Before we can discuss what a game is, we must learn about some basic human psychology.



What do you see here?

The likely answer is either a face or an electrical socket, depending on where you live (we'll hopefully discuss schemas and links in a moment). I find it quite intriguing that mind can convert 3 tiny lines on a computer monitor, and make it look as though they represent something else.

The simplest explanation of this is a single word. "Patterns".

Human life LOVES patterns. One could say our entire existence is based around patterns. Our ancient ancestors developed our pattern-seeking brains as a defence mechanism for a number of reasons; one such reason might be survivability through adaptation. Let's imagine there was a trap lying about that killed many of the other people around us, but somehow we learnt how to detect this trap by learning what components made up the trap and storing them in our memory. Suddenly, we could avoid said trap in the future so long as we look for those components we already know about. That's quite ingenious.

Alas, trap-evasion isn't the only reason why we developed pattern-recognition.

Humans are lazy. And I don't mean the whole "not getting out of bed in the morning" lazy. Our brain hates doing work. We call this the pleasure principle, one of the driving theories of Freudian psychology. Basically speaking, the pleasure principle states that:

Human life continues to seek pleasure while avoiding pain in order to satisfy the biological and psychological needs of the Id. Maturity occurs once the brain is willing to endure pain when reality requires it (known as the "reality principle", controlled by the Superego).

And essentially, doing work is a type of pain. See, pain isn't all physical. Physical pain is just nerves responding to stimuli and reacting as a kind of "alert" to the brain that something is probably going wrong. Mental pain doesn't have the same response system. Instead, we have something called "boredom".

You ever been bored during a maths class or while doing some chore? How about hearing someone saying they're ready for a "sea-change"? Boredom is another defence mechanism. See, the brain hates it whenever you're doing unnecessary activity, as I said above (I added the "unnecessary" keyword for reasons we'll see soon). Boredom occurs whenever our brain feels we're performing some action and one of the following conditions is true:

• The brain feels it has completely learned everything it needs to about the above activity, and that the activity can offer no possible benefit, so therefore you're just wasting time (A pattern is too easy to grasp)
• The brain feels it has no possible chance of ever grasping the current activity, so it just quits out of sheer frustration (A pattern is too hard to grasp)

Notice how I mentioned patterns? Because patterns play very heavily into this.

Patterns are how we avoid excess work. For the brain, a pattern is essentially just a string of knowledge associated with something. Facial recognition, passwords, locations, playing video games...these are all comprised of patterns. The brain wants to try and conquer these patterns...so that it doesn't ever have to learn them again.

I'm quite serious. I do recognise the irony. The brain is doing extra work to avoid work.

The brain will try to devour just about any pattern you try throw at it. Provided the brain hasn't already learned a pattern before and grokked it (we're getting there) or it decided the pattern is too hard to learn, the brain will get to work. If it involves physical labour, it refines and enhances your body's movements to better perform the actions. It learns the connotations and links associated with patterns. This is where your history and personal understanding of the world becomes important. The brain is constantly storing information for these patterns, and it's constantly linking information together. How you interpret an object is entirely based off everything you've learnt before. This is both good, because it saves you time relearning information, it can be disastrous if you've learnt something "wrong", since every judgement that relies on that information suddenly becomes wrong as well.

The brain keeps learning. It keeps storing. It gets better and better at this information. You study for your maths tests. You keep retrying every time you die in a video game. You keep missing the bus over and over again until you memorise the timetable. You keep pushing yourself to play the correct notes on the guitar. You get the idea. The brain becomes obsessed with a pattern as it strives to learn everything about it. Once it has, then it enters a process called "grokking". This is when it finally has learnt just about everything with a pattern, and stores it in a permanent memory bank. You are now a professional. At this point, you'll continue to use a pattern until the brain feels you're gaining no benefit from using the pattern, at which point you will enter boredom.

There's a slight situation here, however. How exactly is the brain going to get us to learn what it thinks is useful and stay away from what it thinks is "boring"? Well, the brain has a little reward/punishment scheme it has set up. Whenever you finally start to understand a pattern, the brain decides to reward you for the hard work it takes. It gives us a little boost of endorphins, which cause the feeling of "happiness". Happiness really is the optimal state of pleasure, and so we continually seek it out. The punishment for boring activities? It's nothing significantly disastrous, but the brain will begin to wonder and find other things to do. It will start to worry about other problems, such as things you need to deal with in the future. Did you forget to check your Facebook notifications?

This is why meditation is so successful and so important. It increases the range of patterns we can learn through building our focus. People like me who are very jumpy and distracted are "highly optimised"; finding most patterns useless since we've found an "optimal pleasure state" that's easy to achieve, and as such our brain finds problems for us to solve that may cause pain to us down the road.

The last thing to make note of is that the brain only has a limited space for which to store information, as unfortunate as it is. Therefore, it can't keep all patterns or information without removing something else that's less relevant. That's why we feel as though we have to relearn things after spending a lot time not doing them. Our brain removes "obsolete" patterns in order to make room for more relevant ones.


TL;DR Edition: "A game is an engaging experience of the human condition in an abstract state that involves and develops any interacting parties."

Let's break this bad boy down.

A Game is...

As I've said in another topic, the objective and subjective properties of any game are as follows:

Objective:

• Goal/Objectives
• Challenges to overcome
• Rules
• Boundaries
• Engagement

Subjective:

• Visual
• Audio
• Player Input
• World Output

We'll see many of these come up shortly. For now, just assume that every game requires the objective, and may or may not provide the subjective.

...an engaging experience...

You might be wondering why I bothered with that massive patterns lesson up above. There's a reason.

We discussed boredom. Boredom is when you are actively disinterested in a subject. It's also possible to be passively disinterested in a subject. You might be watching a movie, but not paying attention to the plot or the characters, just instead kind of listening to the sounds and seeing colours on the screen. You're sort of there, but at the same time sort of not.

Engagement is when you're physically, emotionally and mentally connected to an activity. You've devoted almost your entire focus to this activity and nothing else is taking up your attention. Engagement is a state in which you are learning and perfecting digestible patterns. So long as you are constantly engaged, you are engaging in cognitive flow. Flow is the state of uninterrupted engagement. You're playing a game which is giving you patterns that you enjoy solving and discovering. Engagement means you're having fun.

This fun only happens because you are playing with patterns. If those patterns didn't exist, you would become bored, and disengage with the game, and therefore the game would have no point existing because nobody would want to play it.

One thing to remember is that there needs to be some form of motivation. This is discussed in my game lesson topic elsewhere on the site, but essentially, we need to give a reason for our brain to care, which causes it to be engaged. Goals are one form of motivation, but there can be many others.

...of the human condition in an abstract state...

Games can't be representative of something completely foreign to us. I can't even provide example because I simply don't know what I've never known before. That's kind of the point, though. We won't learn a pattern if we don't have some connection to it. There needs to be some ground level for us to start at that we can build from there. That's why we don't teach 2 year olds rocket physics.

Games always deal with some kind of element of human nature, and that's important. We need to have a personal connection with our character (or however we interact with the game) in order for us to be both motivated enough to try play the game in the first place (refer to Experience Loops in my game lesson topic) and to assist with pattern learning. Seeing human nature in games like CoD and Mass Effect are easy, because you're dealing with human characters who are trying to survive (survival is a very big part of the human condition, although less now than it was hundreds of years ago). In games like Tetris and Pong, we're still dealing with human properties; stacking is an important activity we learn while we're young and use regularly, and Pong is all about speed and accuracy.

You might be wondering about the "abstract state" bit, however. Here's the thing about games; the consequences in games don't have any significant impact in our lives, outside of the lessons we learn and the health impacts if you sit and play for too long, ignoring your human self. If we present gamers with a hyper-realistic environment we are presented with a number of problems, such as gamers losing sensitivity with real world problems, but we also begin to sacrifice attempting to make fun patterns for gamers to grasp over realism.

We need to make our games fun and engaging before they can apply to real principles, which is why some of the best games in the world (Minecraft, Bioshock, Bastion, Halo, Dark Souls) all look and feel very different. The best way is to make the visual, audio and story styles unique, with just enough connection to the real world so that players will be tempted to delve deeper and discover these patterns.

... that involves and develops any interacting parties.

Here's the key thing that games need to do, which we've already discussed over and over again.

Games need to teach. They teach through patterns. As we learn and practice these patterns, we get better and better, and we are able to overcome the challenges that the game presents.

Here's something I want you to consider, however; challenges aren't always "physical". It's not always some enemy you need to click, some blocks you need to remove or a door you need to open. A challenge can be anything. Interpreting the visual world around you. Understanding the story and discovering the motivations of a character. Learning when to click the "Skip" button in buggy game with cutscenes in order to make some weird glitch happen. Completing a campaign level faster than any player on earth. Challenges can be player motivated, implied and/or instructed.

A good game provides players with appropriate challenge that allows for personal interpretation. If you give your player a single answer to a puzzle, you're not giving them the room for them to test out their patterns and try solve it in a way they see fit. This could lead to them becoming bored, as they can't find solutions which match the patterns stored in their head. Moreover, it's disrespectful to assume that the game is property solely of the designer, and that the end player should not be allowed to have fun within something they purchase for the purpose of having fun. The best way to teach players is to provide them with methods for which they can find their own answers, not the other way around.

Another consideration to be made is the idea of "develop". Development within a game can be massive or minute. It can be as small as being able to make more accurate movements of thumb when aiming a sniper rifle, or it could be as big as suddenly understanding Objectivism and all its inherit flaws. The important thing about games is that they teach.

The reason? How do you think kids learn? They explore their world through play. Kids learn how to walk, talk, and interact with objects. They continually attempt to push boundaries to see how objects function, but also what they can and can't get away with. This is the exact same mindset that players bring when the try out a game. Door won't open? Bash it open with a wrench. Play and Games go hand-in-hand, and since play is all about teaching children about the world, games should be the exact same for more mature audiences.

How would I fix The LEGO Movie Videogame?

As a studying game developer, this kind of challenge is important, and I'm glad somebody asked me to do it. Being able to identify weak areas and have solutions to try resolve the issues is important. Therefore, let me make a few suggestions that I think would improve the game, and maybe even turn it into a classic.

• Completely overhaul the gameplay and make it unique: What separates the old school classics from the TT Games? Why do we find more enjoyment in the older titles? Because the gameplay wasn't completely focused on the well-trodden, bland and boring combat mechanics. In LEGOLAND, what do you do? Place buildings, manage resources and swear at the inspector. What do you in the TT Games? Smash bricks and...smash other bricks. There's minor variations, but ultimately it all comes down to destruction. What the game needs is a complete rehash to focus on the construction and exploration mechanics. I mean, YOU'RE PLAYING WITH LEGO! I would definitely focus a lot of development time on nailing some brand new, fun and interesting mechanics that are a lot more emergent and encourage players to experiment and be who they want to be, not who the game designers want them to be.
• Make the only links to the movie as the locations: If I had my crazy ways, I would be doing what Jamesster suggested, which is to explore the various areas present in the movie. What I wouldn't do is make you stick with the already established characters. You're in a whole interactive LEGO world! You should be able to be yourself, and project the character you want to be onto the characters in front of you. Which leads me to...
• Build an entirely new story that supports the movie, not copies and ruins it: The story should change so that this is a LEGO world in another boy/girl's basement, with similarly controlling parents, but focusing on different aspects of what it means to be "special". There has to be an alternative conflict to order/chaos that applies to LEGO than can be explored, and if not, the same conflict can be interpreted in different ways. What if this story was about two kids who kept ruining each others sets because they both felt they were playing "the right way"?
• Make the gameplay challenges teach the player, not hints: The gameplay should naturally teach the player what to do, not character dialogue or tooltips. The player should progressively learn new skills by simply interacting with the world, finding interesting combinations and applying those combinations of logic to other areas. It's okay if the game gives subtle hints, such as limited coin paths and glowing objects, but if it's too obvious, players won't learn for themselves, and they'll get bored easy.
• Remove as much screen clutter as possible: One big problem both origamiguy and I both had is that, at almost every point in the game, the screen is WAY too busy. By that, there's just so much activity, it can be highly distracting. it's a natural problem with LEGO due to the bright colours, and TT attempted to adjust this by making specific colour palettes for different levels, but they ruined this by throwing in a huge amount of objects, studs, particle effects and all other manner of distractions. You don't need to have a full screen to have fun.
• Make 5 amazing open world levels, as opposed to 15 terrible linear levels: Less is more. The quality of your product suffers when you focus on quantity. Based on the reviews of LEGO City Undercover, it's clear they can do open-world fairly okay, and so I feel as thought this would be a better path to travel.
• QA Test the hell out of the game: This is pretty self-explanatory. The gameplay is extremely buggy, and the graphics are also ruined by a significant amount of visual bugs. Obviously, they didn't care much about their QA team who probably worked extremely hard to try and convince the devs to bring the game upto playable state.

I'm sure there's more, but these are the main areas I'd address. As for budget and time constraints? Unfortunately, probably not feasible. What I'd be asking for is an insane amount of work.

My Character Flaws

Edited for Blogger

I've been really thinking about some of the other problems I've been facing within myself...and potential solutions.

So, I decided to put down some of my problems and potential solutions. This is kind of like rubberducking my own problems. I'm just here to jot down some thoughts, but feel free to do this for yourself. You might find really interesting and creative solutions to some of your core problems.

Problem: My ability to read and comprehend what I've read...has gone far downhill. To a point where I have a lot of trouble even reading summaries. I can no longer read books without getting lost on the first page. Sometimes I can't even decipher stuff I wrote.
Potential Cause: Increased use of social mediums which encourage faster response time, decrease in reading complex and thick material, lack of focus and attention, and lack of study in Advanced English.
Potential Solution: Start reading more books, and limit my social media usage. Whenever I read a book, keep a big thick notepad nearby, and stop every once in a while. Draw down characters, dialogue, diagrams of information, and start highlighting/noting parts of the book for further analysis.

Problem: My ability to draw has never existed, and despite gaining a little skill with it during Production Design, I've yet to really start taking any real form or order in my abilities. Even worse is how crucial it is to the creative industry in general, regardless of position.
Potential Cause: Never practising drawing in the first place.
Potential Solution: Start attending drawing classes, if possible. Spend more time a day doing very simple sketches, and observing the form, perspective and colour/shading of various objects in the world. Try communicate to people for an hour per day using only pictures I draw.

Problem: I never challenge myself in video games; it's either easy or nothing, and I'm unwilling to play games I feel are too hard without trying.
Potential Cause: Been given the choice of difficulty in Ratchet: Deadlocked/Gladiator, and from that point forward never really being bothered to try something potentially rewarding for my effort.
Potential Solution: Don't be a pussy. Play more games, and try more games on a minimum of "Medium" difficulty. Stop playing RPGs with cheats. Start to learn to use special techniques, such as stunning.

Problem: I cannot watch, listen or read an argument/theory by somebody who is correct and successful, and will actively go out of my way to avoid said argument/theory and even try to present it as wrong without giving any solid evidence whatsoever.
Potential Cause: High amounts of egotism (present in all game developers), fear of other people using the same ideas I had to lead them to success first, and a general unwillingness to be open about certain issues.
Potential Solution: Don't be an asshole. If it's breaks I need to take every 10 minutes, do so. Just do my best to listen to entire arguments/theories I may dislike, taking notes and constructively thinking of any praise and criticism I have at the end of it. Stop having assumptions.

Problem: Allowing specific individuals on Tumblr or other websites to make me angry for a variety of reasons, complaining about them but never taking steps of action to stop the anger happening.
Potential Cause: I love to act and play a character. Angry is a single character. Being given a motivation is one thing, actually finding one personally is another. It feels good to occasionally let the hate out, even though it's at the expense of others.
Potential Solution: Simply block the users or ignore them, and find other places to play the hater. There's more constructive and useful ways to profit on anger, especially since it's a powerful motivation that can be used to deal with...

Problem: Laziness.
Potential Cause: In Year 6, I started to drop my grades and lose interest in schooling. I picked right back up to A student in Year 7, but Year 8/9 somehow caused me to start to slip, and since then I've never been able to properly motivate myself to do anything, except at the very last minute, or if it's something I have interest in which is not relevant to what's actually important.
Potential Solution: ???

There's probably more, but for now, these are enough problems to work on.