Let's make games for people with lives

I bet you have one, too.

The caht has life

I have a life, you know. Got to go see the “Dune” rerun at Imax before the second part and introduce The Child to the universe, then “Dune. Part 2” itself, scroll through all the related memes on Xitter, take the said Child to her kindergarten and swimming class, read “Blood, Sweat, and Pixels”, bring my film for development and practice Serbian finding out with the lab owner why the film turned out empty. Hey, it took me a couple of weeks just to write this letter! And I play games — even though not all of them take into account the points stated above.

Recently, I’ve played two games like that. One is a brilliant, award-winning hit, the other was a very interesting indie demo. I should say right away that I liked both, still playing the first and waiting for the release of the second.

Neither allowed me to save my game, close my laptop and get back when I wanted to. In the big game, this makes part of the core mechanics, in the smaller one — not so much, as I can see. Either way, in moments like that: “Damn, I need to go to bed, but if I quit the game now, I’ll lose today’s 40-minute progress!” — I feel like the game commands me. I do want to complete that mission, but maybe I should be allowed some flexibility in how I want to do that, apart from setting the game to “easy”? As a game designer, I feel this is fundamentally wrong.

Session-based games are dopamine traps, but they are happy to accomodate the player. I can play for 10–15 minutes and then peacefully go about my business.

As a game designer, I’m looking for solutions. Thinking out loud here: immerse players in the game right away, so they’d feel engaged even if they came back after several months’ absence.

Space out meaningful interactive choices (those based on moral dilemmas) so that the player can have a few of them in the minimum possible time — and quit the game when they need to without feeling like they had an empty run. Our research for the book shows it’s about one such choice per 3 minutes, so, even after a 10-minute session you’d feel happy about your progress, agency and plot development.

Design a flexible save system. I can’t always pause the game for several hours or even a day: what if it crushes? what if I need to run another resource-heavy app? or reboot my computer? But having limited save slot(s) or saves that expire after you reach a checkpoint, might help. Or, maybe the game should notice when I’m trying to beat this mission for the 3rd time and give me an additional checkpoint?

To me, not feeling like the game owns you is an essential accessibility feature. As a Nike slogan said: “If you have a body, you’re an athlete”, “If you have a body, you have a life”, — and that means the games we make should acknowledge that.

Feel the pain? Don’t? Know how to solve that? Hit “reply” or “comment” and have your say.

In other news:

• Level design as a team effort by Dana Nightingale: if you’re a narrative designer, working with other departments is crucial, so don’t miss this talk.

• And an unmissable talk for those (like me) designing a story whose flow you can barely control:

Now it’s time for me to get back to my life: design a story for a level, try on a Canon 85mm 1.2 lens on my Leica (yes, I’m that kinky), and tentatively join my colleagues for cocktails — unless that game wins and gets my evening.

Cheers,
N.