I've spent a lot of my free time this past week working on clearing up my backlog of half finished games, games that for some reason or another I stopped part way through. One of those games were Dead Space. While playing, I noticed that I was super tense and on the edge of my seat the entire time. This wasn't due to being excited or scared (although Dead Space is really good at building a terrifying atmosphere), but the game just builds a state of tension without really letting up. You learn often and repeatedly that there isn't really any safe places. Right when you think backtracking through previously cleared rooms or entering a room with a save station in it will be safe, the game tricks you. This makes it much harder to play for long periods of time (the human body is not meant to be in a state of tension for so long. Ultimately, for a game that is built for a joyride/intense experience, the moments of tension and excitement should be the punctuation marks between moments of safety/lulls so they can be more meaningful.
One game that did this cycle really well was Left 4 Dead. The AI of the game was designed to come in waves when those lulls were getting too long and to let up when things were getting too tense. There was also a little leeway on both ends to keep it from being predictable and there were also safe houses to go to (the whole point of most of the levels) where it was guaranteed to be safe once inside. This was nice because during the tense moments, if you were near the safe house, you knew you could try to make a break for it if/when things got too bad. If you weren't near a safe house, you knew you just had to survive long enough for things to calm down a little. This same thought also tended to make me do brave/stupid/risky things since I knew I'd have a chance to try to recover if I could just last a little bit longer. If the game is super tense the entire time, it's only going to make the player more careful and deliberate instead of giving them those fun moments where they can be bold.
I sometimes think that is the point of some games. Look at Eternal Darkness. The first time I played it was after I'd heard some scary things from others who'd beaten it. I went into the game tense, thinking I would be able to ward off the shocks it threw at me. Nope. The entire time I'm playing every character I was extraordinarily concerned about what doors to open, where to go, when to look for invisible things and how low my sanity could drop before I went completely barking mad in real life.
ReplyDeleteFor some reason, typing this reminded me of a time my last day of sophomore year of high school when I brought 7 decks of cards and commenced to play Egyptian War for 6 solid hours. I actually did crack. I remember running screaming from the class room as my hand was slapped for the 40-somethingth time, climbing a chain-link fence, and chewing on a rusty hanger. Yeah. Weird.
But I digress. Eternal Darkness is still one of my favorite games to play to this day. I enjoy the tension it creates and remembering that I haven't breathed in a couple of minutes, or exhaling that sigh when I make it through a chapter of the Tome unscathed.
Conversely, if I'm going to pay $40+ for a game, I want to be in that thrill for as long as possible. A lull makes me feel like I'm forgetting something or not doing something right - Legend of Zelda, Ocarina of Time, for example.
When I'm running across Hyrule field, I'm bored out of my mind. Yes, it makes having Epona, and eventually the teleport spell, awesome. But damn if that isn't the longest freakin' trek of my gaming life ever. Now, I enjoy power-running the game, as well as my oldy-but-goody, Super Mario Bros.
It could be the game design, it could be the player, it could be a little of both, but in the end designers make games that, ultimately, they would want to play. There might be influence from the top in regards to deadlines, content, and marketing power, but really, if the game was not something you would want to play, why make it?
This was an attempted Neutral Good rant brought to you by me.
I definitely agree that some games are built to make you tense. And that feeling of tension is awesome and fun, but I feel like it's not good for it to keep you tense forever. At some point that will mess you up. There was an episode of It's Me Or the Dog and the dog was in a constant state of stress, which meant that even when it did relax, its relaxed state was still really stressed out. Things need time to decompress.
DeleteBy lull, I don't mean boring and pointless gameplay. I mean a chance to take that breath you've been holding back, take stock of your inventory/health/the situation/etc., analyze what went well/what you could do better next time (even if this is happening subconsciously). But walking is never gameplay.
I was going to say that humans normalize things (because we do) and so if things were always in a state of tension, that you'd normalize it so the highs and lows of the tension wouldn't be as dramatic, but in my experience, this has never happened in that state of tension. So for me, personally, if the game doesn't have safe areas where I can take a breath, then I'm just going to have to stop playing sooner than I would otherwise.
I was watching V play Last of Us this weekend and the tension was thick and lasting. There were [actions] we had to take to [do things] in [places] where things were still pretty [busy]. Trying not spoil anything but the excitement was pretty awesome.
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