Random happenings and unlikely situations

One thing i hate when i'm playing a game is being lost; this isn't because i dislike exploration, but because it's not always easy to tell what the player can and cannot interact with. Because of this fact, exploration and problem solving are sometimes difficult to tackle. It seems that lately some games have taken a rather overzealous approach toward combating this problem. So much so that i think Zack Hiwiller's interpretation of Mario: 2010 might not be too far off...

That said this post isn't really about the fine line between lending the player a helping hand and taking the player by the hand. Instead it's about questioning the opposite scenario: what would a game that embraces random happenings and unlikely situations be like?

I recently read an interesting article about creating numerical palindromes. Apparently when you repeatedly add a number to its opposite self you end up with a numerical palindrome... often this happens relatively quickly.

For example i'll type a random number right now: 387

387+ 783= 1170

1170+ 711= 1881

While i thought this was pretty neat, i found the case of the number 196 more interesting. So far, computer trials have run until they've created numbers 300 million digits long without creating a palindrome! This reminded me of one of my favorite sections of Watchmen when, [SPOILERS] after Silk Spectre finds out her father is The Comedian, Dr. Manhattan says:

"I tried to explain. Thermodynamic miracles--events with odds against so astronomical, like oxygen turning into gold. I have longed to witness such a thing and yet I neglect that in human coupling, millions upon millions of cells compete to create life over generation after generation: Until finally, your mother loves a man--Edward Blake, the Comedian--a man she has every reason to hate. And out of that contradiction, against unfathomable odds, it was you, only you, that emerged. To distill so specific a form from all of that chaos; Your creation is like . turning air into gold. A miracle."

This is the kind of thing games do not often model. In Mario when i press 'A' i want to jump and in Halo when i pull the trigger i want to shoot. Even Noby Noby Boy, a game less game-like than almost any i've played, has a very specific set of rules that always apply. In short, games rarely include miracles.

This is a bit disappointing, because miracles are often memorable. A few years back, a friend of mine told me about an experience he had while playing Gradius. He was pretty young when these games came out and he played them all to death. At some point while playing Gradius II he found out about the Konami code. Back then, getting 30 lives was something that seemed like magic. Then he got Gradius III. He boots it up, pauses, inputs the Konami Code and BAM! He's flabbergasted as he watches his ship get instantly destroyed. This was the last thing he thought could ever happen - like air turning to gold... but it's a moment he remembers to this day!

Playing around with the idea of embracing unlikely situations is pretty interesting. What would Gradius be like if there was literally a button that caused a random happening? In one press the player could die, spawn enemies, kill every enemy on screen, be teleported across the level or into new levels. Perhaps pressing the button could just change the background music or even do nothing. Obviously, this isn't the kind of mechanic you would want in tournament play... but is this a mechanic that anyone would want ever?

I think as a button press, this type of mechanic has the potential to get pretty old pretty quick. But i still think the uncertainty of risk/reward would be pretty intense. Refining the mechanic a bit, you might make want to shape the risk/reward. For example, you could define a system where the risk rose with each press. So while early on pressing the random button might refill your health bar or increase the brightness of the screen a bit after a little while things like increased enemy damage and reduced player movement might become more common. If this kind of system were in place you could make a game that tempts the player to roll the dice. The first few times the game gets tough a player might create randomness willingly, but as time goes on this will become much more risky. An interesting aspect of this is that playing the game without using randomness would be impressive, but playing the game with lots of randomness might be more impressive!

Another possibility is to create a mechanic that is one part Incredible Hulk and one part Infinite Improbability. Instead of pressing a button to cause random happenings, your character could cause them involuntarily throughout the game. Like Bruce Banner turning into the Hulk, particularly stressful situations would cause the player to create chaos. Whether this is tied to health, movement heuristics like those found in Left 4 Dead, or a combination of these and other thing I think this method could really extend the life of this game mechanic. Not only does this provide a hook for story tie-ins, but taking a bit of control out of the players' hands could help the design team limit over use.

Comments

[Shane]

Interesting. Though I don't know if people would play a game with a negative risk - It's always frustrating when the game goes against you. Instead of the game raising the stakes, I think it should be the player. Perhaps you risk x amount of health for random damage bonuses, weapons or level unlocks, but the closer to get to zero health the greater the bonuses are. Kind of like catching common pokemon with full health and legendary with 2%. This way the game as a system is not the enemy, it stays the same, but you risk the ability to get through it for the hope of greater reward. I think It's more likely that someone would want to keep playing if it's their fault they lost and not that suddenly the game became impossible. I don't know if you've seen that video of that kid online catching that crazy rare ponyta, but he flips out for about 10 minutes, but it might be more thrilling to find this ponyta and not know if you can keep it, than to spend 40+ hours walking in the grass looking for it (which the normal player would be less likely to do).

Perhaps this made sense to you.

[lederm]

Thanks for you share it!!!!!!!