How To Immerse Victorious

My favorite games are adventure games. That’s not to say that I’ve played very many of them, nor that I am particularly good at them (at best I am slightly above average). The strange thing about adventure games is that, more than any other genre; they are capable of making me feel like I am truly in another place, using real solutions. In fact, it is only when solutions to problems become incomprehensible that I would deem an adventure game truly bad.

First Person Shooters have often been hailed as very immersive experiences, and often times they are. The problem is that there is an inherent suspension of disbelief involved in an FPS. The solution to a problem is usually “Kill everything”. This can ruin experiences which would otherwise make you forget about the controller/mouse in your hand, the chair you are sitting in, the monitor you are staring at.

Let me use Call of Duty 4 as an example (though by and large this applies to the whole series). The game features immersive set pieces and action sequences, fantastic voice acting, realistic characters, a gripping plot…but the whole construct falls apart for a reason that I have touched upon earlier: the health pack paradigm. Actually, the game itself features regenerative health, not health packs (which I consider to be a good move, though some would disagree) but there is a second part of the health-pack paradigm which is far more destructive than unrealistic healing. I call this “Commando Design”.

Commando design is part of all action games I can think of. It consists of 2 elements. The first is copious enemies. Call of Duty 4 would feel extremely realistic, were it not for the number of enemies that must be fought through. The screen seems to be crawling with them at all times, with far more enemies dying than is even remotely plausible.

The second element is the player’s ability to singlehandedly defeats these enemies. In CoD4 the player rarely has more than 4 allies. Yet they are undefeatable, destroying the absurd number of enemies with nary a scratch. In some games this makes sense (such as Metroid, Halo or Crysis). But in CoD it doesn’t just prevent suspension of disbelief; it turns disbelief into a black hole which the games merits are helplessly sucked into.

In video games there is nothing more important than immersion. There are actually 2 strategies to take when trying to immerse the character in a world. The first is to adhere strictly to the rules of reality. The best example I can think of that adheres to this principle is Ghost Recon (forgive me; I have limited experience with tactical shooters). True, there are still a lot of enemies in that game, but the player is so realistically limited in potential actions (and potential bullets in the chest) that you cannot help but feel immersed in the game world. Assuming you don’t have to load so many times that you explode.

The alternative to hyper-realism is acceptable abstraction. This can be seen in many sci-fi games, such as half-life. As much as Gordon Freeman fights an awful lot of people, he is equipped with the legendary HEV suit. This suit is defined enough for us to accept its otherwise ridiculous nature (such as an infinite ability to repair itself, and its ability to provide oxygen when it’s user’s head is exposed).

The general idea to take away from this is that one of the secrets to immersion is keeping the game world consistent, but not so close to reality that differences become impossible to ignore.

"Your Magic Is Now Loading"

Regenerating health bars are a great idea. They allow players to take more risks while still discouraging strings of mistakes. I’ve already talked about this in detail, but there is a flip side that has come to my attention: regenerating energy.

Let’s take Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion as an example. There is a health meter, a stamina meter and a magical energy meter (of course, all of these meters really just represent numbers, but that isn’t important in this context). The Health bar is static, while the other 2 fill at a constant rate. This makes reasonable sense, since stamina just represents the need to sit down every few minutes and magic can behave however the developers want it to. The system also works very well in the context of normal action gameplay. It requires players to manage their resources during combat without demanding long term planning. The problem comes when combat ends and the player is free to do whatever they want.

Regenerative health bars usually fill quickly, requiring only a few seconds to work. This is NOT true of energy meters. So, in the Oblivion example, once combat ends the player is encouraged to stand around waiting for their stamina and magic to replenish. This can sometimes take upwards of 30 seconds and a game should NEVER encourage doing nothing for 30 seconds. The problem is actually compounded by healing spells. Players not only have to wait for their magic to replenish, but they also have to use that same energy to replenish their health. This can extend the waiting time well beyond a minute and it’s all terribly frustrating for the player.

The most immediate solution to this problem is to have the player’s stats regenerate when there are no enemies nearby. This is functional, but it removes the player from the experience of the game. The problem is confounded in Sci-Fi games where plausibility becomes more of a factor. Many futuristic weapons rely on recharging instead of reloading and standing around for your gun to reload is just boring. Half-Life is notable for featuring a weapon like this in the “hornet gun” which reloaded its 8 shots very quickly.

Another solution lies in actual level design. By either lowering the need to use energy, or adding ways to replenish it, developers can do away with regenerating energy altogether. This has its own drawbacks in that it places a lot of constraints on level design and can also cause patterns (such as: we need to have an energy pack for every 10 enemies). It could also remove the layer of difference between energy and ammo based weapons. That said, there are some interesting scenarios to implement in this way (such as a solar based weapon that instantly recharges in sunlight).

There is one other solution that I can think of. It requires a lot of integration and may not be suitable for all situations, but it also isn’t frustrating or unrealistic. Imagine the player didn’t sit idly by while their energy replenished, but could instead interact in order to achieve the same effect. That would solve the problem while adding an extra layer of game mechanics. So, let’s imagine that we have a laser with a rechargeable battery which requires a hand crank (In the future we have very efficient lasers). A minigame could be implemented that involves recharging the gun. During downtime, it provides something to speed up the process while giving the player something to do. During combat, the player is suddenly presented with strategic decisions about when to recharge. It also follows in the trail of Gears Of War’s “active reloading” mechanic, since it gives the player the ability to influence how fast the reloading occurs. On top of that, the player can decide to only recharge a few shots instead of the maximum capacity. The only drawback of this mechanic is that it has to be implemented differently for every application.

Seeing the Myst Through the Trees

Myst is an enigma. On the rare occasion that a game is remembered more than 10 years after its release gaming public en masse will generally have chosen an extreme stance regarding its quality, whether it be reverence or derision. Myst is the exception to this tradition in that it still tends to invoke strong opinions on both sides of the fence. I thoroughly enjoying the game (Which I just finished playing yesterday). Yet, I can see why the game’s quality is in contention.

Myst is only enjoyable, (and in fact comprehensible) if it approached with the proper mindset. Most games are intended to be played with meta-game thinking. This term, coined to describe bad players in Pen and Paper RPGs, refers to a type of puzzle-solving which differentiates between figuring something out in real life and in an intelligently designed world. For example, there is a physics puzzle in Half-Life 2 that requires the player to raise a ramp in order to jump off of it. The Ramp is lifted by a counterweight that appears not to have been used in ages, as the mechanism holding it breaks upon attempted use. This is already fairly convoluted, and in real life this would almost certainly be an insurmountable obstacle. However, there is a ladder leading up to the top of some large pipes, which have a tight-rope attached to them which in turn leads to a platform which, fortunately, has a very heavy washing machine resting on it. This Maytag happens to be able the correct weight to raise the jump-ramp just enough for use, when it is coaxed onto the counter-weight. The odds of encountering this precise situation in real life approaches zero and few people, should they face this conundrum, would find this particularly obscure solution.

Myst requires a fundamentally different approach. All of the machines in the game were designed in order to be used by people. Of course, the people operating them before the player arrived were the same people who built them, thus instruction manuals are not forthcoming. Fortunately these inventors don’t want to forget important codes or keys, so they have taken note of the more archaic aspects of their machines much to the benefit of the player. Can you figure out what mindset is needed to play Myst? I’ve given you all the clues that you should need. Don’t go to the next paragraph till you have a guess.

The correct answer is this: Meta-Machine thinking. If the player meta-games than the possible solutions to any puzzle will be near infinite. However, if the player assumes that all of the MACHINES were designed than they will have enough clues to figure out how they work. For example (note: I’m about to spoil part of a “puzzle”) There is one “age”, or area as most people call them, which has a number of elevators, but electrical generators. The only other landmark in this area is a windmill. In meta-game terms there could be any number of solutions to this puzzle. However, obviously somebody wanted to use these elevators, there is no sign of a place where a generator might have been and the windmill has no other apparent purpose. Further, the journal about this age made no mention of any power supply. Thereby it is quite evident that the windmill would be used to power the elevators. The means to achieving this is also apparent; the age is predominantly water. Once the player turns on the pipes the waters path is easily followed by listening for its passage through the pipes. Anyone not having noticed the pipes running along the walkways will at this point. This will also lead to the switches that reroute the water wherever it is needed.

**end spoiler**

Myst flows so well that I could continue using that line of logic until the end of the age. Nearly every puzzle in the game can be solved in this way, and those 1 or 2 that cannot are still possible to figure out (and they make perfect sense afterwards). In fact, I am hesitant to even refer to the challenges as puzzles, since each machine really brackets other machines and every portion of the game leads into another.

Myst is intended to be played in a very existential way. Rather than constantly obsessing on how to move forward, it is absolutely vital that the player immerse themselves into the world and think purely in terms of what they have read and seen on the island of Myst. Otherwise the game will quite simply make no sense. This is a rather fortunate trait because the atmosphere of the game is such that it can only really be enjoyed to its full extent if the player is properly engaged with the world. In fact, I urge anyone who plays the game to avoid using guides as much as possible, since Myst is not at all enriched by outside influences, nor does it require them.

As a post-script, I would like to relate an account of the most archaic puzzles I have ever encountered (the game shall remain nameless since I’m quite fond of its sequel). The challenge requires the player to open an electric panel. Why this needs to be done is, in itself absurd, but we have to start somewhere. In order to open the panel the player needs a key which, for no discernable reason, is lodged in the subway train track in another part of town. In order to get the key the player must first take their clothesline off the hook. This causes a blow-up pool ring to fall into the water below. In order to free it, the player feeds the seagulls which help to release the pool ring where it becomes trapped. The player then has to go and find the pool ring next to the café. They also have to release the pressure from a broken valve in order to remove the clamp holding it together. These 3 pieces form a fishing rod. Once a hole is opened in the pool-ring the clamp will slowly close around the key. Then another incomprehensible puzzle begins.

And don’t get me started on Starship Titanic.