“There and Back Again: A Hopscotch Tale” is a cooperative hopscotch game themed around Lord of the Rings. It is designed for nine players, but has handicap scenarios for less. The game is extremely difficult, and designed so that some players must fail for the others to succeed.

In playtesting the game was met with enthusiasm. The high difficulty was confirmed (which I attempted to tone down each iteration) but the result was exactly what I wanted – people were highly engaged with one another, encouraging each other and strategizing together to overcome the very difficult game.

I count this a success. We’ll see what grade I receive.

My latest reading: How to Do Things With Videogames by Ian Bogost. I found the book a little disturbing, and estimate that about half my colleagues would be more disturbed than I was. Here’s what I think about it.

At a glance, the title is misleading. This would be more accurately called, “what people are doing with videogames.” Bogost proposes that we can measure the maturity of a medium by the breadth of its uses, and follows with a collection of essays demonstrating the many uses of videogames today. In chapters with titles like “Reverence,” “Pranks,” and “Snapshots” he compares current games to other media, both profound and mundane. Cooking Mama becomes a training simulator. Passage is Dada art. While I think Bogost is stretching a bit to make connections on some topics, he succeeds in offering a different perspective and a glimpse of what form future work in each category might take.

On the other hand, the title drives home the book’s final point like the twist of a knife. “Media,” writes Bogost, “are not democratized; they’re tamed instead.” As videogames mature and are put to broader use, they will cease to be special. They will no longer be under the purview of gamers and game designers – they’ll just be another tool that everyone might use, like photography or radio or television. And when a title like “How to Do Things With Videogames” sounds as textbookish as “How to Do Things With Music” or “How to Do Things With Television,” we will know that videogames have succeeded as a medium. That will be a sad day for gamers who like that their hobby is niche.

It’s interesting that by taking this broad view, the book somewhat justifies many games (often casual games) that have been panned elsewhere. A game can be terrible by mainstream standards but fill an unexpected role very well. An example close to home: My wife has been playing Bubble Blast 2 on her phone lately, and she usually plays a few rounds in bed before falling asleep. For her, this game falls squarely into Bogost’s “Relaxation” chapter – she’s not just having fun or killing time, she’s actually winding down. From a mainstream standpoint it’s simple and repetitive and should get boring by the thousandth level. But as a meditation it succeeds because it’s so simple mechanically and aesthetically.

If I’m taking one thing away from this book, it’s that I’ll stop labeling people as gamers. I don’t think of myself primarily as a televisioner or a moviegoer, so not everybody who plays games needs to be a gamer, either.

On the south side of Pittsburgh, between the Monongahela River and I-376, stands a fairly unassuming office building. From a distance, one might have a hard time telling it apart from its neighbors. From the outside, there’s nothing to suggest that this is the place we affectionately call “The Dream Factory.”

Once you step inside, though, all doubts melt away.

Welcome to the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University, where I’ve just completed the first week of my Masters program. The Center began under the guidance of Don Marinelli and the late Randy Pausch. It’s a place where artists and technologists work together to test the limits of digital entertainment.

The first thing you notice walking the halls is that this place is a veritable museum, complete with a student-created timeline of entertainment tech that fills over 50 feet of wall. At every corner you’re greeted with something new and wonderful – it’s a living immersive environment, designed to illustrate the breadth and depth of the medium being studied. Not a few prominent visitors have left their mark here as well.

Graduates of the program have worked on Pixar films, Halo games and Disneyland rides. Even before graduation, ETC’s numerous partner organizations suggest real-world projects that students tackle as a group. Work takes place in Pittsburgh and at satellite campuses around the world, from Osaka, Japan to Barcelona, Spain.

My colleagues and I have been plunged into what’s called the immersion semester (read: boot camp). In less than four months, these eighty-odd students will churn out nearly one hundred “virtual worlds:” small experiences, toys, and games, each crafted in two weeks by a team of four or five students. These worlds will utilize cutting-edge interfaces including head-mounted displays, depth-sensing cameras, audience tracking and more.

The resources we’ve been given are incredible. Powerful workstations, all the latest software, numerous digital learning resources and a robust library of books, movies and games. Funding is all provided for travel, presentation and project expenses. There are elaborate field trips designed to teach us about crafting experiences. A tour of entertainment media companies is planned. They even keep the kitchen stocked! There are virtually no limits – this is the ultimate learning environment. Public schools across the nation cry out in jealousy.

The most important resources, of course, are the people. I am surrounded by a suite of exceptionally talented (and agreeable) students. The faculty are the most powerful, creative, dynamic group of people I’ve ever met. Collectively, they represent experience at organizations such as ACM SIGGRAPH, Disney Imagineering, ABC, NBC, and EA. They’ve cultivated a culture that encourages open doors, open collaboration, and ample encouragement. They also have a huge emphasis on “soft” skills; this program isn’t about video games, it’s about teamwork. That’s why it succeeds. That’s why its alumni are industry leaders. That’s why I’m happy to be here!

In the latest episode of the Brainy Gamer podcast, Michael Abbot interviews Matthew Burns, producer on Halo 3 and Halo Reach. When asked about how to get into the games industry in 2011 (in the last 10 minutes of the episode), Burns mentions that university game design programs are a great way to go these days, and specifically mentions the ETC at Carnegie Mellon. He and Abbot then have a short conversation about game design schools, with Abbot citing an interview with Jesse Schell for the latest issue of Kill Screen Magazine. Burns says that large studios are happily hiring graduates of game design programs, and that the graduates are well-trained and competitive in the industry.

Awesome. Nice to feel like I’m a little ahead of the curve – I start at ETC in two days!

Part of the suggested reading prior to my first semester at ETC is a book called The Spark: Igniting the Creative Fire That Lives Within Us All, by John U. Bacon. It was a quick read.

The book presents a behind-the-scenes look at Cirque Du Soleil, and the culture they cultivate. It’s presented via the fictional story of a sports agent who takes a sabbatical with Cirque. Mild spoilers ahead (though it’s not a very spoilable book).

I’ll be critical first. The book is over-simple. It’s a very easy read, unlikely to tickle too many neurons. The pace drags a bit, but it’s a short book anyway. It’s also less than revealing; this story is obviously scrubbed clean of all trade secrets, conflicts, and negative experiences. It’s Cirque propaganda.

The best part of the book (and probably the reason the school suggested it) is that it’s sprinkled with unsubtle wisdom about creative collaboration. In fact, for my own purposes, I’d like to extract those bits and list them out of context.

• People rarely work harder than their boss.
• Make your artists intellectually uncomfortable.
• Trust (of oneself and others) is a crucial skill for creative work.
• It must be safe to make mistakes.
• Embrace your own personality and experiences – don’t suppress them. Twist hardships into inspiration.
• The muse helps those who help themselves.
• Don’t compromise. Demanding to have your cake and eat it too can lead to creative new solutions.

So overall, the book was a light refresher on being a fully engaged individual. It seems to come down to abandoning inhibitions and throwing oneself into the work. I had a middle school teacher who liked to say, “Wherever you are, be all there.” What’s a good word for “something obvious that bears repeating?”

Alexis over at Tao of D&D posted a pretty intense vision for a digital D&D engine that would be infinitely tweakable, moddable, and mouldable to the DM’s wishes. I think it sounds like a super-fancy version of Rohrer’s Sleep Is Death. I would add that it needs a strong community content library, like Spore or LittleBigPlanet, because no single studio in the world could produce enough assets to uphold Alexis’ vision. I do very much like his image of zooming from world level all the way down to view the players, running around town.

Maybe there’s a better setting for this kind of tool than D&D, though… It would certainly be easier to do if you could limit it to a certain established setting and set of rules, at least to begin with. (Alexis, I’m not trying to tell you what you want – just speculating on a related vision, is all.) Is there a place for live GM-ing in digital games elsewhere? Could you publish a co-op action adventure title, and provide the tools for a GM-and-players setup to extend the play experience beyond the main content? It would take a strong community, and a company would certainly want to plant some “pro” GMs in their online service for the first year or so. What genres could you apply this to?

It seems like there might – might – be an audience for this. Player-created content games have nearly become their own genre now. What if you built an MMO where the endgame was that now you get to create a dungeon for other players to explore and/or GM dungeons live for other groups of players? Content and GMs would get ranked. You would actually develop GM celebrities within the community. More people would probably try GMing at least once, since it’s a reward for hitting the level cap. Ooh, let’s make it a space MMO, and instead of a dungeon you get a PLANET to house your dungeons. Everybody wants a planet.

Or what if, as you GMd your dungeon live, the computer learned how you GM and could automatically run like you for future players, filling in the gaps with its own game AI. Each time you GMd live, the AI would learn more from you. Programming by example… it’s the future.

I’ve just finished The Art of Computer Game Design by Chris Crawford (1984) – the Kindle edition with chapter endnotes added this year. This was a pleasantly focused little book.

Given its age (27 years?), the book contains both humorously quaint period references, and shocking accurate future predictions. This by itself makes the book entertaining. The core of the book, however, is untarnished by age – these are mostly timeless design principles.

I found two points most memorable.

The first is a simple reinforcement of an idea I’m seeing reiterated several places: A good design begins with a core idea. Not a setting or genre or mechanic, but a unifying theme or message or experience that holds water prior to its implementation. This is the game’s raison d’être. It’s something I need to reflect on for a while; I’m inherently attracted to the game mechanisms that drive game experiences, and therefore risk missing the point (or forgetting to create one).

The second point is that I/O is the biggest weakness of the computer games medium, and thus I/O design may be the most critical part of the process. I referenced this idea in my last post, about Dwarf Fortress. Crawford’s new endnotes in this area don’t address the recent advances in I/O like touchscreens, pointers and motion control. Instead he talks about how little progress we’ve made in this area. I don’t want to assume he sees these new technologies as gimmicks (I’m pretty sure touchscreens will be around for a while) but he does seem a hair out of touch.

I’m tempted to make that generalization for all of Crawford’s new notes, actually. He’s got plenty to say about the odd stunted development of the industry and the large quantity of shovelware still being produced, but besides a nod to the interactive fiction community he seems largely unaware of the games and developers pushing the industry forward today. I would think Crawford would be proud of the Portals and Demon’s Souls‘, and the Terry Cavanaghs and Gregory Weirs, but there’s no mention of these. It’s a very cynical view of the industry as a whole, and it’s unclear whether he’s trying to spur us to action or is really out of touch with the positive elements of the indie game scene.

I do understand his concern that games built on rich simulation are becoming less popular, replaced by shiny action games, simpler casual experiences, and rich networked communities that generate even larger and more complex systems. I’m not ready to label this as a bad thing – it’s more about us discovering new strengths of the platform(s) than it is about us ignoring the computer’s primary strength. I also think there will always be a place for simulation in each of these arenas, if only to enrich other experiences – and there will also be a place for simulation as a core experience (see the lens of the toy, per Schell).

I gave Dwarf Fortress a good go. Three solid attempts. It’s worth a try, but I’m afraid I’m done with it. Here’s the story:

Dwarf Fortress is a simulation game where you direct a group of dwarves to build a fortress and deal with the chaos life throws at them. It’s known for having one of the steepest learning curves in computer gaming, played with a VI-esque keyboard command interface, menus many layers deep, and graphics made entirely of text characters. What you see in the screenshot above is part of my last fortress, centered on the kitchen and (manned) still, which are directly north of a long dining hall (see the tables and chairs?). To the west is food storage, and on the very edge you can see the fishery and butcher shop. To the west are two carpenter’s workshops and a mason’s workshop. Bedrooms and offices are in the north. If you’re having a hard time seeing that, don’t worry – I did too, for the first 1.5 fortresses.

Three tries

Because this is a hard game to learn, I first went to The Complete and Utter Newby Tutorial for Dwarf Fortress for help. At their recommendation I also got a tileset to replace the default-text graphics with something nicer/easier. It turns out this didn’t make things easier. The tutorial was also just enough out-of-date to be confusing in several places. I put the game down for a while.

On attempt two I checked the wiki for newer tutorials, and followed them less precisely, with more success. Each tutorial seems to include some critical information that others forget, and you would never realize just playing the game. My second fortress was somewhat successful. Mostly it got tons of immigrants and I ended up with lots of dwarves standing around idle, because I couldn’t figure out how to give them all useful jobs. Seeing disaster looming and wanting to try things differently, I started over.

On attempt three I set out on my own, only using the past tutorials for reference when I forgot an important sequence of commands. Things were going nicely – my population was holding at about 16, and every dwarf had good productive work to do all the time. I had plenty of resources, good management, crafts getting queued up, even my first successful trading agreement. Then dwarves started dropping dead… of thirst. I had the still running night and day, and reserves of wine (dwarves live on alcohol and only drink water in the most dire circumstances, apparently) and these dwarves were just dropping dead from dehydration, when there was drink available around the corner. Oh well. With half of my population gone, I called it and decided I had enough of Dwarf Fortress to consider from a design perspective.

Is it good?
Understand, I’m not upset that things fell apart. Perhaps the central idea behind Dwarf Fortress is “Losing is fun!” and the game does reflect this. Everyone loses, because there is no win condition, but every loss is new and different; it’s the antithesis of boredom.

In one way, the game plays magnificently to the strength of its medium. This kind of calculation and simulation, tracking a million variables and simulating the agency of dozens of denizens is something that simply can’t happen in any other medium. It’s a perfect recipe for emergent behavior and unique experiences, producing stories suggested and shaped by the system but coauthored with the player. Perhaps it is the apex of PC gaming.

Is it bad?

Dwarf Fortress also contains a deep fundamental flaw, that prevents it from being the amazing wonder-game I want it so badly to be: It’s not designed around the I/O.

I’m reading The Art of Computer Game Design by Chris Crawford right now. In it, he explains that I/O is the primary weakness of the computer games medium, especially input. Computers can handle huge amounts of data, but have trouble moving that data between the computer and the player. In particular, it’s extremely difficult to create an input structure that is both expressive and intuitive, and Crawford writes “I maintain that a good game designer should eschew the use of the keyboard for input and restrict herself to a single simple device, such as a joystick, paddle, or mouse. The value of these devices does not arise from any direct superiority over the keyboard, but rather in the discipline they impose on the designer.” Dwarf Fortress’ input is busy, at best, built on a paradigm that isn’t familiar to most people. Expressing yourself to the game is kind of a labor-intensive process.

The cumbersome input might be forgivable if the output wasn’t just as opaque. I don’t mean the literal display using text; while that takes some learning, it’s surprisingly lively and imagination-enabling. What’s missing is powerful, tangible feedback on what’s happening in the game, and on the effectiveness of the player actions. As a result, the player is often unsure of whether they are being successful, or doesn’t see problems coming because the game doesn’t bring them to the player’s attention.

In The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses, Jesse Schell describes “the loop of interaction,” whereby the player sends their intentions to the game, and the game must respond with clear feedback indicating whether the player’s intentions were carried out, and probably influencing what the player will do next. Dwarf Fortress is already at a handicap in this respect; the player gives orders but never directly controls the dwarves, so the player’s “actions” are rarely carried out right away. Furthermore, the game fails to communicate critical elements of its rich simulation back to the player which makes it hard for the player to make informed choices. For example, I had no idea my dwarves were thirsty until they were literally dying of dehydration. After three games, I’m not sure how I would have discovered this at all – although there is a page to view a dwarf’s recent thoughts, I never saw anything related to personal needs there.

In summary, I feel like Dwarf Fortress was built first around its simulation, not around it’s I/O design, and – just like Crawford and Schell suggest – it suffers badly for it (as a game… as a simulation, it’s probably just what the designers intended).

Takeaway

I really do love the idea of Dwarf Fortress. Here are the parts I like, and where I think they are done better.

DF is a Large Simulated System. I love games that model the essence of a complex system, like SimCity, Rollercoaster Tycoon. These games often show emergent behavior. Their replayability is through the roof. They really take advantage of the medium, and they are some of the best learning tools in games because freedom to play with a system brings understanding of that system. Good feedback is essential for sims, from SimCity’s R/C/I meters and city advisors, to Rollercoaster Tycoon’s constant stream of feedback about guests’ thoughts and feelings, all sortable and searchable.

DF implements Nurturing as Gameplay. Taking care of virtual characters can be deeply satisfying – Tamagotchi anyone? – and it’s a form of compelling, non-violent gameplay. To be nurturing, though, you must know the needs of your subject. Again, this is an issue of feedback. Rollercoaster Tycoon makes it easy to understand the needs of thousands of guests, collectively or individually. The Sims actually displays meters for how hungry, thirsty, or bored your sims are. Better, each game gives fantastic visual feedback about the characters you are nurturing. Sims dance with joy, throw tantrums, or break the fourth wall and yell at the player when they’re unhappy. Guests in RCT are perfectly expressive for only being a few pixels tall – a single glance will tell you whether a guest is happy, bored, angry, nauseous or tired. I never understood what my dwarves wanted as intuitively as I did the people in these games.

DF creates a Procedural History. For every player the game doesn’t just generate a random landscape, but an entire random history of the world to go with it. I think this is an amazing idea and I can’t think of any other games that do it, but I also feel like it’s underutilized in DF. While it does lend a surprising sense of realism to the world, I never got far enough to really discover that history or connect it to my game. I can’t wait to see (or make) a game that can generate this kind of procedural history, but also carefully weave it into the player’s narrative in a convincing way.

I’ve finished lots of experiences since I last posted about one, and haven’t had a chance to reflect. Here’s a quick blurb on some favorites.

Reality is Broken by Jane McGonigal
A fascinating read, recommended to anyone. Part one in particular, “Why Games Make Us Happy,” is packed with valuable ideas about human happiness and motivation. Toward the end of the book I found her ideas a bit less satisfying, but I think it’s only because she’s one of the first to really explore this space; she’s laid a foundation upon which others will certainly build. It’s been a long time since I was compelled to take this many margin notes in a book.

As a side note, I got to hear McGonigal speak just prior to reading the book. She’s an excellent public speaker, too. I was glad that the book wasn’t identical to her talk.

The Art of Game Design: A book of lenses by Jesse Schell
Opposite of McGonigal’s book, in good ways. McGonigal has written for the masses, while Schell’s textbook is definitely targeted pre- and in-industry. For me, it was best near the end (around chapter 23) as Schell finishes talking nuts and bolts and begins laying out some industry realities. In less than 100 pages, he tackles motivation, teamwork, communication, professionalism, taking criticism, dealing with management, hype cycles, business basics, and game ethics. It goes by quick. Schell works very hard to string all his ideas into a cohesive whole vision of the game design process, but also leaves me wanting more information on each topic.

Of course, I’ll probably go through this whole book again while I’m at ETC.

Bossypants by Tina Fey
My wife enjoyed this more than I did. An entertaining memoir. Besides the humor, you can tell that Tina Fey is extremely intelligent. Her intellect and intuition serve her well in comedy and well in this book.

Neuromancer by William Gibson
The original “cyberpunk,” which visualized the Internet as a TRON-esque virtual space. Gibson’s writing never reaches the refined starkness of Bradbury, but he makes up for it with staggering creativity, an immersive world and an action-thriller plot to string you along. I kept thinking, “why isn’t this a film or a game?” Oh wait; it is. Moreover, you can thank this book for Deus Ex, the Matrix, and Second Life. You might think that the influence this book had on all this modern media might make it seem unoriginal now, but it easily stands above all its thematic descendants. This might have just made it into my top-ten fiction list.

The technology this book predicts is pretty staggering, from the portable computer to digital intrusion detection systems to bodymodding. I wonder when we’ll start seeing modular skyscrapers (aka vertical trailer parks)?

Braid by Jonathan Blow
Awesome game, though I don’t get all story/art/metaphor fuss around it. The last level, taken by itself, was a brilliant compact narrative – otherwise, it’s just a good puzzle game that thoroughly explores a few very unusual mechanics. It was very satisfying to finish without hints.

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup
The first “real” roguelike I’ve really learned to play (I don’t think Spelunky counts) and stayed with long enough to get to the mid-game. More puzzle than grind, which is impressive in a randomly-generated game. Best feature: A good tutorial! Now if only Dwarf Fortress had one…

SpaceChem by Zachtronics Industries
Woo! This is my kind of game! Chemistry-themed puzzle solving via visual programming! The opportunities to feel clever are endless here. Optimization has never been so fun! The game also gets fiendishly hard (I haven’t finished it yet). My only complaint is that the boss levels seem to encourage inelegant solutions.

VVVVVV by Terry Cavanagh
Picked this up with Humble Indie Bundle 3. The good things I heard are true. Short and sweet… and yes, I did beat the Veni Vidi Vici.

Where were we? Ah yes, Minnesota.

We pulled in to our KOA outside of Rochester and set up on a corner lot. It didn’t take long to notice the unflattering sign pointing at us.

But it turned out to be a nice campground. We had a chance to go swimming (poor Reggie had to watch from behind the fence) and people were generally friendlier here than at past KOAs. They were also the only KOA we visited that actually had a person riding around on a Segway, which was pretty funny/awesome.

On the fourth, we drove into town to see the Mayo Clinic. We know a few people with a vested interest in the place, so we took some pictures and had a chance to pray over them.

The architecture in the area is very eclectic, and satisfying to walk about. The Mayo building in particular is a huge modern enclosure of mirrored glass and multicolored panels.

The more traditional buildings are impressive, too.

That night we went to Rochester’s 4th of July celebration. They had a very impressive fireworks show, which Reggie found disturbing so we left a bit early.

That night we were blessed with dry weather so we could pack up a dry tent. Early in the morning we loaded our things and headed for Chicago.