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The Tom Sawyer Experiment
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Let's do a mind experiment!

Let's take a masterpiece of the world literature and try to transform it to a piece of game!

I hope you all no the scene from Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer, where aunt Polly told him to paint a fence. It is a geat scene, and it is a scene, well made for interaction. We have the arena in front of an old fence, we have the hero, we have his opponents, we have some goals to choose from or to exchange among them, we have the dialogs.

The story:
Tom Sawyer has to paint the fence, unwilling and in fear that the other children will laugh at him, and, long things short, managed to make them give him things to get the chance to paint a bit of the fence!

What set of actions do we need to get interesting interactions?
What is the start of the level?
What is the goal?
What is the core of interactions?
How can we involve the gamer emotionally as Shakespeare did within his plays?
Is that possible?

How do we implant suspense and surprise?

My quick idea on this would be as follows:

>What set of actions do we need to get interesting interactions?
>
Tom Sawyer's gift is the ability to convince people that they want to do something he wants them to. This is done using speech, so we would have to come up with a way to make dialog interesting.

>What is the start of the level?
>
You start with the unpainted fence. A bucket of paint, a single brush, and a deadline (paint the fence before supper).

>What is the goal?
>
The goal is to get the fence painted with the least amount of effort on your part.

>What is the core of interactions?
>
Dialog trees. You need to talk to the other children, find out their weakness, and exploit them by saying the right things at the right time.

>How can we involve the gamer emotionally as Shakespeare did within his plays?
>Is that possible?
>
There's the rub.
You've got to somehow make the player emotionally involved with Tom. Personally, even Mark Twain couldn't make me care about that creep.

The following is a bit off topic but deals with 'gameplay balance';

Quote:

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bad chess players dont use them. good ones can build solid rock defense lines with them that can get you into troubles.

lots of games ditch this completely. for example would everyone agree that a pistol is useless against some tank. as a consequence it gets removed from the gameplay one a tank arrives.
in chess there would still be situations and possibilities to use this gun effective against a tank unit. sure its way more dangerous and chances are bad to win but if worst comes worse its still an option.

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I have been thinking about this some more and the simple solution would be to give the soldiers a chance to blow up a tank using a particular strategy or simply a bomb. You are right, games should use this way more, because it would make things more interesting strategically.
A bit like a Spy can usually kill a General if he strikes first in the Stratego games. Normally a Spy has a very low rank and is the only one who can kill a General, except when another General attacks or if the General steps on a Bomb.

Example a.) normal 'cannonfodder' soldiers aim with there pistols at a generator on for example the back of the tank. The soldiers their pistols are the only guns that can damage that generator, which upon destruction destroys the tank.

Example b.) give the 'cannonfodder' soldiers an item or special action/upgrade which makes it possible for them to plant a bomb on the tank. Perhaps it's required to do something before it's possible to blow up the tank and every soldier should only be able to use that special action once. (otherwise the balance get's distorted).

A lot of games do not really provide strategies to withstand a much much stronger opponent who get's stronger and stronger and at some point the outcome will always be that the stronger player will win. This is fine off course, the best player should win, but it would be more interesting if it's possible to fully come back after having nearly lost the game. This off course shouldn't be too easy, otherwise matches/wars would last forever,

Quote:

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There's the rub.
You've got to somehow make the player emotionally involved with Tom. Personally, even Mark Twain couldn't make me care about that creep.

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I don't think this is quite possible on the PC yet. Look at Half-life 2 or even a game like Fahrenheit, were any of you really emotionally involved with the main characters other than having the (obvious) curiousity of wanting to know how the story would end?

Cheers

Wow! I got a reply!


I think its all about suspense and surprise, and what you and/or the main character has/have to care for!

That's similar to Blattsalat's approach, but from a different start point. If a simple soldier with only a pistol can win against a tank with a strategy which the player finds step by step, then this works for suspense and surprise, as far as the player has an inkling, but didn't expect it the way how it appears.


Speaking about Tom Sawyer: Is Oliver Twist a better hero for a game?

I don't remember wether I cared about Tom, when I read the story for the first time, I was involved in his situations, I was he, anxious that something bad happened.
The paint the fence scene isn't dangerous, it is a comedy, the death within a comedy is laughter, it is getting ridiculous! When the others laugh about you, you know you have lost!
What have you lost? Not your life, not your health, you've lost their respect, and respect is their willingness for collaboration, you've lost your mental strenght, your power, your scope of action.

What's the suspense in Forest Gump? What does he have to fear? What is his struggle for survive (exept within in the Vietnam War)? What is the struggle in peace? It is the struggle for respect, for recognisation, for love, against powerlessness, against poverty. Dicken's stories and characters are better examples in this regard.

But, we are amongst a transition, translation, transformation from a piece of literature to a piece of game. Translation of lyrics sometime is a sort of re-invention of the poem. So is this transformation.

Okay, so far Tom's struggle is a struggle against getting ridiculous. So far the start, so far a set of goals are still saved for further events, for possible surprises. In Splinter Cell the situation and the goal often changes when you reached a certain part of a mission. These events are story-like, _scripted_, they are no consequense of your action.
A story puts the events in a row within a timeline, a game has to unfold them in a range or room (or net) of opportunities and a set of options, and the player happened to put them in a timeline depending his decisions and abilities, looking back at it as his personal fortune within the games mini cosmos.

- What set of actions do we need to get interesting interactions?

A dialog tree is very restrictive.
My wish is a sort of dialog as intuitiv and fast like switching between weapons and weapon modes.
What about a sort of Eliza system?
But vice versa: You don't ask the NPCs, they speak to you, they offer you themes and items, and you can: Ask for, Agree to, Reject, Ignore - and - to make it more flexible - you can choose on a scale how strong(interested) you ask, how weak(polite) you ignore, etc.

In this scene/arena the brush and paint are the objects of desire, Tom's desire: to get rid of them and the task to paint the fence, but if offers them without hesitation he earns nothing, but the necessity to paint on his own, and an audience which pleasures he can't bear.
It is a sort of trading system:
Without rejection Tom earns no price for his brush and paint, with too much rejection the others might go away, there should be different characters which react different to offers and rejections.

There should be several goals, sort of multitasking: getting the fence painted in time to get no room arrest by aunt Polly, earning several things from the other kids which are of use in the further levels/arenas...

- How can we involve the gamer emotionally as Shakespeare did within his plays?

What, if the player has to care for the feelings of his hero? How is he forced to care for them? He has to care for the feelings of his character when they influence the control of the character. Fro instance, if the character is weak, he runs slowlier, he refuses to near some ugly laughing guys, he gets paralysid like Link in Windwaker, when detected by the guards, he don't move on like the comrads in The Thing...

How can the player imagine the hero's feelings. NOT looking at a column of mana, or when facing resistance via controls, BUT by seeing and hearing the character's thoughts and 'asides'.
Imagine a character who throws himself to the floor and swears at you with a cascade of words, when you tried a third time to push him near to a feared enemy!
That's the part where an author's and actor's art can implement emotional involvement.
Probably, not as good as Shakespeare, but trying it, should give good results, at least.

My concept of a "game mechanic" for the Tom Sawyer Scene is too complicating.
I tried to imagine a new sort of interaction as a combination of a weapon system and a dialog system.

Let's try the opposite, a simple dialog system:

Aunt Polly:
- Paint the fence! You have to finish your work until lunch!
Tom starts to paint the fence.

First kid comes, saying:
- That's funny, you are working!

The player gets answers of Tom to choose from:
1. Let me alone!
2. Wanna try it yourself?
3. Don't disturb me, I have to concentrate!

Reaction of the #1 kid:
to 1. He laughs loud, and shouts: Hey, kids come along, Aunt Polly presents a show: Tom at work!
to 2. Eh, you don't ask me seriously, do you? (and walks away.)
to 3. What's so important of your doing?

etc.

This is the easy approach. After this character comes another with different reactions and so on.

But the depth of gameplay is quite small, while you have to read quite much.

Maybe, one can take this dialog and its decisions/options to build a more and more complex gameplay while keeping an ease of use!

The depth of feelings is small, as well.

Though for children it might be good. Children are faster involved because of their lack of experiences and their stronger imagination.

But, for adults the depths have to bigger:

- the depth of gameplay,
- the depth of feelings,
- the depth of experiences!

I wonder how these are relating to each other. At least, I add them to my checklist of game properties which have to recognized while developing a game.

Please feel free to post ideas to the transformation of the Tom Sawyer Scene
_or_ to post theoretical posts!


A small theoretical addition on the connection between
suspense,
surprise,
depth of gameplay,
depth of feelings,
depth of experiences.

Let's start with an example from Half-Life:
While trying to break out of Black Mesa, you step into a room where you observe a scene with a scientist and a govermental special force soldier. They don't see you. The scientist wants to leave the room to escape from the desaster in Black Mesa as all humans wanted, but the soldier, instead of helping, kills him!

That is a turn in the story, a surprise, and an addition to the gameplay, and an addition to the aspects of the story.

Now you recognize that the government don't want to save the humans in Black Mesa, they want to keep the secret of the laboratories and the invasion of aliens, and will kill each person that tries to leave! An addition to the depth of feelings and experience(although a sort of experience which isn't needed in everyday life).

The depth of gameplay gets a new enemy, smarter, in teams, but an enemy who has to fear the other enemy, too, which adds to the strategy of gameplay.

A surprise which feeds the suspense.

This means, in this example each of the aspects suspense, surprise, depth of gameplay, depth of feelings, depth of experiences profits from this turn.

CLAIM:
I could claim now that, the other way round:

An addition to the gameplay is optimized if is a surprise, and if it adds to the depth of feelings, experiences and suspense!

Right or wrong? Examples of this sort were helpful!

I see no reason, why it shouldn´t be possible to create identification and a deep emotional experience in a game. But maybe not all stories can be transformed into a game.

I think its often a mixture of playing the game and experiencing some kind of a "story". Even in a strategy game such as Civilization there can be dramatic, emotional situations and the player might start to identify with his empire, but it is more obvious in RPGs.

Identification is certainly one of the most important keys for a deeper emotional experience. Once we identify with someone, we are personally affected.

The unique (and very fascinating) aspect of games is, that - in my view - one should always keep in mind, that there will be a special co-author: the player. It´s the player who will really finish the game story.

And this player usually wants both: the freedom to develop his very own journey or story plus a dramatic experience. We can influence him, we can confront him with all kinds of things, but we can´t (and we shouldn´t wish) to program his / her part.
I think it´s about finding a balance between these two aspects: giving the player enough freedom and confronting him with a dramatic chain of events, interesting NPC´s, surprise, fights ...

This is maybe, what happens in this Half-Life scene: the story gets an additional dimension and maybe (I didn´t play HL) the player must make a moral choice (help the soldiers to kill the remaining civilians or (harder, but more hero-like) protect the civilians from the evil soldiers).

It´s important, that the players story and the general (written and programmed) storyline of the game remain, to some extent, connected, that they match - but in a way, that is not artificially constructed.

For example: You write some funny dialogue lines for a NPC character, that the player model meets sometime. I think it might be a bad idea, to force the player.mdl in some kind of laughing animation, simply because you can´t be sure, that the (real, human) player will find the joke as funny as the programmer. It might even result in a bigger distance between the player and his player.mdl.

Now some even more theoretical considerations ...

First of all it´s important to create a bond between the player and his hero. I would always try to make sure, that - for example in a RPG - the player can really identify with his player.mdl.

This process often starts before the game really begins: the player can choose and influence some initial attributes or special skills according to his personal taste. He can create his alter ego or a character, he would like to be. This is a great option, that movies for example do not have.The player has to become active and it is a special interactive quality of games, that has a potential to deepen the dramatic experience in a way that is impossible in other narrative forms.

In a movie or novel the hero is often regarded as a window into the story for the audience. It´s not a bad idea to choose a "man without qualities" as the hero character, because the individual member of the audience then can more easily project something of his own personality into this hero. If you analyze mainstream movies, you´ll often realize, that the heros are not the most special or interesting characters. And they often are more credible, when they react (to some sort of challenge).
Another option of course would be to have a character, where you can expect, that the audience just wants to be like him / her, because the hero is so cool, strong, beautiful (in other words: a movie star). Well, usually in movies it´s a mixture between these two options.
In a game we have at least the first option. And I would not underestimate the human capabilities to imagine something. Even in a movie, where you could show and explain everything, it is often the better idea to leave things for imagination. I once read in a book about horror movies, that the most frightening scenes do not happen on the screen, but in the minds of the audience. Or you might show a character from behind, so that the audience can´t see his face, when he has a very emotional moment.
I mention this, because so many people still believe, that identification in games is difficult or impossible because there is a lack of realism, or because the player.mdl doesn´t look or act like a movie star. I think, if the story is interesting enough, most players will fill the missing polygons with their imagination. And then of course the style element in games gets better and better ...

Now back to the main theme: In order to get the audience or the player (co-author) involved, there are lots of strategies that work in games and other forms of storytelling in the same way:

One of the keys is motivation. If the audience can understand and identify with the motives of the hero, they will start to identify with the hero himself. Of course some motives are more universal then others: the desire for love, the desire to live in peace and harmony, the wish for freedom.
In a more psychological way: the desire to be "complete".
Many stories will give you a hero, that isn´t perfect in the beginning, that is lacking an important or essential quality.

Remember Baldurs Gate II? It was the first game, that I was playing on a PC and I still regard it as a reference for storytelling in games.
The hero, that you just created starts in a dark unpleasant dungeon, in a cave. The first logical step of the player in Baldurs Gate: get out of the dungeon (desire for freedom). In the opening cutscene, you learn, that you have been tortured by the evil sorcerer. This eventually creates a desire for revenge. The most important thing however is the fact, that this sorcerer has stolen a part of your immortal soul! You are very incomplete!
It´s this theme, that holds the whole story together until the end.
Later, when you managed to escape from the dungeon, the freedom motive gets replaced by a social one: your sister (one of the NPC allies, that you meet in the dungeon) gets abducted together with the sorcerer. You may want to liberate her.
And then there is of course something, that you find in all RPGs: the desire to grow, to make your hero stronger. In games this is realized with level-ups but in movies or novels you often find something similar: the hero grows, becomes wiser, more complete. The audience likes that very much.

So there are many strong motives in Baldurs Gate and the player can choose according to his taste. All these motives are constantly reinforced by all kinds of events, dialogues and situations.


There´s so much more to say, especially about the implementation of a dramatic storyline
in a game (without destroying the players freedom). But I leave it here. It´s already such a long post ...

You made a lot of good points, it is a pity that I don't have enough time to discuss them in detail.

Just a short note:

The main difference between my and your approach is that I start from HL as the main example and you start from Baldur's Gate.

Your player as a co-author may work for games like Baldur's Gate, but it doesn't for HL. In HL you don't have a choice, no selection of the charakter and no moral decision. You have to escape and survive, and you've got complex but linear levels, with only one entrance and one exit, that's the restriction.

I think the example you are looking for is the game of DeusEx. The player does actually chance the flaw of the story by acting one or another way, you can change the future and the story that you will live by the style you play, you can even pass the whole game without even shooting just one time. You have the freenes of doing whatever you want to, and still can finish the story, just in one bad or a good way, which will in the end change the curse of the story.

Anyone who played Deus ex(at least 4 times) knows what i am talking of. This game is yet unique, even if there are other games(e.g. Farenheit) out there to claim the story changes by your doings, it does not really. Just the end changes, infact in deus ex you can play the whole game in many different manners, and even suddenly betray a group you have worked for.

All this coombined with the well thought and deep story, it is just the perfect game, till today. No other game(not even Gothic 1+2) could reach DeusEx-Level.

I probably have to look into DeusEx, but when it was published some years ago, I didn't like the greyish and depressing levels.
I will see when I'll find time to play it. Thanks.

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Continuing The Tom Sawyer Experiment:

We could complexity by giving the ability to actually paint the fence controlled by the mouse while the game observes whether the player (or NPC) makes it accurately.

This extends the options:
Tom can paint the whole fence on his own without the help of the other children to atisfy aunt Polly. But, he didn't trade things from the others which could be useful in further levels of the game.
The other children can disturb him, means influence his ability to paint accurately, throwing things at him, or dirtening the fresh paint parts of the fence.
When another child paints the fence, Tom(the player) can observe how accurately it is. Tom can stop him, take the brush and show him how to paint and the game copies and saves the movements of the mouse, so that the child continues painting the fence in the way as Tom did it.
Imagine, that the childs painting can be influenced by the others or its mood (angry, bored or becoming lazy).

That's quite a bunch of complexity added, but this way it is like a sort of minigame within the game: painting.

If we program the action more general as an action that can be accurately depending on influences like disturbance and mood, than we can use it as a general ability of an npc within the whole game:
imagine ability
to build fences more or less accurately(which are more and less stabil),
to build houses and bridges(which are less and more reliable),
to fight more or less accurately (while the player can show with his mouse how to move the sword or how to switch from one to another enemy, and the npc copies it),
to drive a coach, to ride a horse ...

[to be continued, by anyone who likes to]