Final Project

I have often heard the phrase “Life is what you make it.”  This is based on the idea that life will not simply hand you the things you want and/or need, even if you ask nicely.  There are always limitations that exist, whether it be in the amount of money or material possessions you possess, the talents you have, or the time you have to do something.  These limits have, and always will, exist; it’s part of being human.  However, another part of being human is overcoming these limitations.  We are constantly striving to overcome our limitation, even from a very young age.  From our first steps and words, to pursuing a college degree, to climbing the corporate ladder, every major point in a life are marked by the overcoming of limitations.  Games are a prime location to look to see this human drive; you, as a player, are constantly striving to overcome the limitations played on you by the game.  This thought brought up a couple of important questions to look at when it comes to games.  What effect does limiting a player’s options have in a game, and how do players overcome/surpass these limitations?  How do these limitations effect the player’s experience of the game?

To attempt to answer these questions, I set up an experiment using Portal, a puzzle-solving game published by Valve.  I had the players play the first two levels of the game as a introduction/refresher to the controls and basic puzzle solving concepts of the game.  I then had them play the actual test level (Test Chamber 13) and limited them based on whether they had played before or not.  I imposed a time limit of three and six minutes, respectively, and then had them play through the level with the goal of finishing within the time limit.  After they played for the time limit assigned to them, I had them answer a questionnaire, in order to obtain participant opinions.  This questionnaire included questions about whether they had played Portal before, how often they played video games, how difficult they felt the limitations made the game, and how much fun they had playing the level.  Only four of my participants finished the level within the time limit assigned to them, three of which had played before and one of which had not.  However, all four of these participants ranked themselves five out of five on how often they played video games and ranked the difficulty of the limitations a two or below on a scale of five.  Those who did not finish within the limitations set ranked the difficulty somewhere between two and four, regardless of whether they had played before or not; only one person ranked the difficulty as a five out of five.  The most important result that I drew from the participants is that no participant ranked the fun they had while playing to be less than a three out of five, with the majority of my participants (13/15) ranking fun a four or five.  

When comparing my results and the questions I was asking, a few patterns emerged.  The most obvious result answered my first question: The setting of a time limit resulted in the majority of the participants not finishing the level.  However, while the limitations placed prevented the majority of the participants from completing the level, each participant strived to advance as far as possible.  No one gave up, and if they became stumped by some particular ‘puzzle piece’, they would experiment with their environment to figure it out.  To that effect, my second question was answered: no matter what limitations are placed on a player, they will strive to succeed and complete the tasks assigned to them.  This was most obvious in the participants who completed the level within the time limit, all of whom are avid gamers.  The problem-solving skills they had learned from other games carried over into Portal and helped them to overcome the limits imposed.  Even the participants who did not finish strove to overcome these limitations.  My third question had the most evidence supporting it: despite additional limitations  like time limits, players will still have fun playing the game.  Overcoming the additional limitations was just another part of the fun.  

On a side note, because many of my participants had not played Portal before, or video games on a more general scale, many had a steep learning curve on the test level.  They had to learn how utilize portals while under an additional limitation.  I feel that had they had a chance to learn to effective use portals, many more of my participants would have succeed in overcoming the limitations placed upon them.  

Problem-solving is a crucial skill to have and be able to utilize effectively, be it in a video game, advancing from one level to another, or in real life, advancing up the corporate ladder.  As Koster states, “Games are puzzles to solve, just like everything else we encounter if life.” (34)  He believes the puzzle solving aspect is crucial to games and to the amount of fun we have.  As he says, “Fun from games arises out of mastery. It arises out of comprehension. It is the act of solving puzzles that makes games fun.” (40)  I saw this in my participants, especially in those who had never played before.  There was always a sense of accomplishment, of pride, when they figured out how to solve a portion of the puzzle.  Even with the participants who had played before, something about overcoming the limitations set upon them, either by me or the game itself, gave them a sense of satisfaction.  They enjoyed themselves because they were constantly being pushed to solve some portion of a puzzle, to go beyond the limits set.

This sense of accomplishment was present in all of my participants at some point or another, and is a indication of why problem solving is so important.  We need problem solving skills not only so that we can succeed, but so that we can experience that thrill achieved by overcoming a limitation or obstacle.  We enjoy being able to boast and show off when we have succeeded.  As McMahan states, “Many users appreciate games at a nondiegetic level- at the level of gaining points, devising a winning (or at least a spectacular) strategy, and showing off their prowess to other players during the game and afterwards, during replay.” (69).  That drive to succeed, to overcome, is crucial to puzzle-solving, and all of my participants displayed it; not one of them gave up at any point, even if they were killed. 

Puzzle-solving itself is all about examining the limitations placed on the player by the game and figuring out how to overcome said limitations.  We explore all the possibilities until we find out what works, never stopping or hesitating in our pursuit of the answers.  As Bogost states, “This is what we really do when we play video games: we explore the possibility space its rules afford by manipulating the symbolic systems the game provides.  The rules do not merely create the experience of play- they also construct the meaning of the game.”  (121)  This idea was reaffirmed by the results of my test.  While the majority of my participants did not actually finish during the time limit assigned, they all pushed to overcome the limitations set by both the game and myself.

Limitations are a crucial part of any game, no matter what they control.  Overcoming these limitations is what drives players to succeed, and they can find unique ways of doing it every time.  The surpassing of these limitations is crucial to the fun that a player can experience.  In short, while limitations do exist, they exist to challenge the player to rise about them, and the result of this is fun.

Works Cited:

Bogost, Ian. “The Rhetoric of Video Games." The Ecology of Games: Connecting Youth, Games, and Learning. Edited by Katie Salen. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2008. 117–140.

McMahan, Alison. “Immersion, Engagement, and Presence.” The Video Game, Theory Reader. Mark J.P. Wolf and Bernard Perron, eds. New York, NY: Routledge (2003)

Koster, Ralph. A Theory of Fun for Game Design. Phoenix: Paraglyph Press, 2004. 34-98. Print.

Survey Questionnaire:

Name of participant:

Have you played this game before?:  Yes     No

If you have not played this game before, 

have you seen this level played before?   Yes      No

How often do you play video games? (1-never, 5-all the time):  1   2   3   4   5

Did you finish the level within the set time limit:   Yes      No

If not, why do you think this was?

If you have played this game before, how much did the added limitations increased the challenge for you? (1-not much, 5- very much):  1   2   3   4   5

Why was this challenging for you?

If you have not played this game before, how difficult was this game for you? (1- not very difficult,  5-very difficult):  1   2   3   4   5

Why was this challenging for you?

How much fun did you have playing this game? (1- Not much fun, 5- lots of fun):  

1   2   3   4   5

Why was this game fun (or not) for you?

Procedure Run Down:

How I identified participants:

• I choose my participants from my group of friends.  

Why I felt they were appropriate:

• The reason for this is, while not all of them where avid gamers, I know them and I knew they would give me honest opinions.

Where, when, and how I conducted my research:

• I had the participants come in on their own time over the course of a week and a half.  I had them sit down and play the first two levels of the game as an introduction to the controls of the mechanics.  I then loaded Test Chamber 13 and had them play through it.  After they played for their allotted time, I had them fill out the survey.  I analyzed the answers later for use in my paper.

Repetition within MMOs

For one of our recent play sessions, we played WOW as a class.  We all started up a trial account, joined the same server, and created new characters of varying classes, all Tauren.  Many people had never played WOW before, as spent a good deal of the time adjusting the game world and the controls.  However, I had recently been playing on a trial account and had already played as a Tauren, so I had already done all of the quests available to my beginning character.  As such, I found myself becoming quickly bored, despite playing as a different class than I had the first time.

This is an issue that I believe most MMOs have.  From both my experiences on WOW and Guild Wars, it is fun to create a new character so that you can experiment with the different class types, but you always dread grinding through the same introductory quests.  There is no variety, so you must always grind through the same quests.  And MMOs lack the strong presence of an obvious, directing storyline that many other games have.  In that sense, it is much harder to start over.

Grabbing my attention

In a post, Josh Bycer discusses something he calls the "Fifteen Minutes of Game".  He talks about the "elevator pitch", in which novices in the game industry must distill the central ideas of their game down to fifteen seconds, in order to focus their thoughts and core concepts.  He then applies it to himself and games, stating that "A game has about 15 minutes for me to get into it, or the chance of me finishing the game is lessen."  His reason for this is you can usually see any major technical issues within the first 15 minutes of the game.  If they exist, they're bound to be a major issue throughout the game, thus ruining the experience.  

I find myself agreeing with parts of this.  If there is a technical issue that is obvious that early on, I find myself getting discouraged.  If the story intrigues me, I might try to fight past the issues, but otherwise I'll just pass on the game.  Another  point for me is that the story can often save a game for me.  Resonance of Fate, a JRPG I played over the summer, had a storyline that quickly captured my attention; however, the battle system within the game had an extremely steep learning curve.  Either you got it or you didn't. There was no middle ground. In my case, the interest I had in the plot drove me to push past the curve and advance through the game.

Social Gaming- FIFA

In the last of our play sessions this semester, one of the games we played was FIFA 12(?).  We played in groups, 2 on 1 due to the limited number of controllers available.  Despite not being much a sports-game gamer, I found myself enjoying the game and interactions I was having with my classmates.  We kept a friendly banter throughout the game, cheering on our teammate and trash-talking the opponent.  I think the reason that I found myself enjoying FIFA was due to this social interaction with my classmates.  Social interaction is a integral part of being human, and games that address this point are often some of the most enjoyable.  However, this social interaction is a crucial part of the game; without it, I doubt I would have enjoyed it as much.

This goes back to the 7 points we discussed in McGonigal's article:

Sharing:  Sharing is a crucial part of the game, especially in regards to social gaming.  Teammates must constantly share the ball in order to effective on offense, else they have the ball stolen before they can go five feet.  It is important for teammates to share responsibility on defense, protect the goal and going after the ball.

Communicating:  This one is obvious.  Players have to communicate if they are to be effective on the field.  The more effective you are, the more fun you are going to have, because your team will be able to execute offense and defense better.

Interaction:  The entire game is interaction in a sense. Wether it be between the user and the player he is controlling at the time or between opponents on the field, interaction is involved in someway.

Competing:  This is especially important, considering it is a sports game.  A sport is, at its heart, a competition, and this carries over the digital platform.

Coordinating/Collaborating:  Players have to work together if they are going to be successful.  If one player is just messing around, running in circle, the team is going to be far less effective, and the team will most likely lose, which is no fun at all.

Negotiating:  Teammates must negotiate constantly, deciding how long to have a person control the ball before passing it on, or whose going to predominately defense and whose going after the goal.

Filler in Games- Skyrim

One of the pro-bloggers I have been following, Josh Bycer, recently made a post about filler in video games and how it can be deadly for a game.  He started off his argument by discussing the concept of filler arcs in anime, points where the show is transitioning from one major story arc to another, or when the writers have run out of ideas, and how pointless they are.  No character development really takes place, and you could completely skip the filler arc and miss practically nothing of importance.  He then applies this to games, especially games designed to be longer, like RPGs and open-world games.  He closes his argument with this:  "While the thought of having 100+ hours of game is an appealing one, the question however, is how many of those hours are actually meaningful?"

One of my recent favorites, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, is a game that could fall into this trap.  Before it was released, one of the biggest advertising points for the game was the huge amount of gameplay the player would have.  "Over 300 hours of gameplay!"  However, since it has been released, it has been criticized for this fact, with some saying much of this time can be spent getting from one point to another.

For me, this journey from one point to another is just another great point of the game.  There are a huge amount of locations to explore, from murky caves to dark, dusty ruins, from large cities, bustling with commerce, to tiny settlements of just a few houses.  Traveling from one to another was a crucial part of the game for me, because you were constantly exploring, seeing new sights and meeting new people.  Very rarely would you meet the same person on the road.  For me, every hour I put into the game, even the ones spent traveling from destination to destination, was meaningful.  It was not filler at all.

Thinking outside the box

For my final project, I have been having my participants play a level in Portal; as such, I have had a chance to analyze the level for possible solutions.  At the point in the game in which the level takes place, many of the puzzle-solving components have been introduced, including the crucial ones to this particular level: the Weighted Companion Cube, the Button, the High Energy Pellet, and the Unstationary Scaffold.

http://theportalwiki.com/wiki/Portal_Test_Chamber_13

Prior to starting the play sessions themselves, I played through the level myself many times, as well as looked up information about the level, in order to figure out as many of the possible solutions as I could.  I had my method figured out and I was ready to go.  Many players followed the general path that I had; however, some players kept surprising me, coming up with ways I had not thought of.  One completely skipped the first puzzle, simply stepping on the first button and shooting a portal through.  Another skipped most of the puzzle-solving in the second chamber by taking the cube from the first room with her and using it to weigh down one button while she weighed down another and then shooting a portal through the open door.  By doing this, she skipped most of the puzzle-solving in the second room.

This was both surprising and enjoyable for me, because I was able to see the puzzles solved from a perspective I had not before.  I learned a new strategy or two to an older puzzle, and took more from the game.  I was one step closer to grokking the game.

Immersion within Heavy Rain

McMahon defines three conditions that are necessary for immersion to truly occur in a game: "(1) the user’s expectations of the game or environment must match the environment’s conventions fairly closely; (2) the user’s actions must have a non-trivial impact on the environment; and (3) the conventions of the world must be consistent”  (pg. 68-69) Thinking about Heavy Rain, I have to agree.

In Heavy Rain, the game is set in a modern-day city, where the weather tends to be dreary.  While the exact location is never mentioned, possibly somewhere in the East Coast  (Philadelphia?), the expectation is that it is very similar to a real-life city.  To back up that point, you see cars moving about, people dancing in nightclubs, and officers working away, all of which are common occurrences in everyday life.  So when, for example, when Ethan's son Jason disappears at the mall, Ethan freaks out, just like we would.  This meets the first point.  

For the second point, Heavy Rain is realistic in that your actions can directly affect the game environment.  The characters you play as can actually die, something that is not a common occurrence in games.  

Finally, on the third point, the conventions of the game world remain consistent throughout the entire game.  Your character doesn't suddenly gain superpowers to fight to crime, or telepathic abilities to help him find his son.  You remain just a normal human being, searching desperately for his son, trying to keep him from being killed.