ludocarp - Tumblr blog

[ludocarp]

Race Against The Clock: New Applications

In my previous posts, I documented some ways in which a hard time limit has been imposed on games in the past in order to create or reinforce unique dynamics. I will now propose two situations in which I think imposing a hard time limit could be used to create a new experience: a short limit in an abstract narrative game, and long limit in a multiplayer mobile game.

Firstly, I propose a short exploration-based adventure game that puts the player in control of a lone survivor of a nuclear explosion in an urban area. Something in the vein of Gone Home or Dear Esther, not necessarily in terms of hyper-realistic graphics, but in terms of narrative interpretation through exploring the environment and examining one's surroundings. The twist? You are slowly dying of radiation poisoning, among other environmental influences. The player would be able to extend their life in small increments by finding food, water, medicine or other limited resources, but I imagine the player's base lifespan lasting only 2-3 minutes. This way, players may try their adventure again relatively quickly after a doomed expedition. At first, players will ideally challenge themselves to survive longer, as resources would be only mildly difficult to obtain at first, with survival becoming exponentially more difficult as time moves on. However, the hunt for resources will inevitably start to result in discoveries into who the player avatar was before the explosion. Their family, their jobs, pets, friends, what they were doing the day of the explosion and what they had planned to do with their future. All of these elements could be pieced together from clues scattered throughout the city, with absolutely no way to find them all in a single game. Not only would this game encourage both personal exploration and online discussion about individual clues, but the nature of the ability to extend the maximum survival time would also create a search to determine the longest possible amount of time one could survive for. This limit would exist, and be designed for, with some final conclusion available for anyone who could last until the end. Perhaps a glint of sunlight, or another survivor could be seen down a street. The ultimate design goal is to make players think about what really matters in the end, because we won't last. What will? And what are we clinging to? Are any of those things the same things?

Secondly, I wanted to consider a way in which a Time Limit might be applied to a multiplayer mobile game. I also took inspiration from alternate reality games when considering things such as social interaction and real-world interaction, things I believe are best-suited for mobile. Due to the in-and out nature of mobile gaming, this was quite a different challenge when compared with sit-down experiences in which the player has a greater amount of time and attention to devote to the game in a single sitting. But in mobile games, time and attention are very limited in quantity. Whether or not two players would be teamed together or pitted against each other, the element of competition is present in all games; players want to do better. And doing better often means spending more time playing a game. This was a challenge--how could I stop players with busy schedules from feeling cheated out of victory simply because they don't have the spare time to tap their screen all day? In the end I found the best idea might be to make the game work more in blocks of time--in a game that lasts a week, limiting what a player can actually do over the course of one day--and placing greater focus on strategy. My thoughts kept returning to a gardening game, where one can plant seeds and do various tasks for a while, but needs to wait for a rainfall or sunshine before any further moves make sense. Yes, kind of like Farmville, but without a pay-to-fast-forward feature. At the end of the week, there might be a gardening contest, in which contestants could be judged in numerous categories. Perhaps these categories are a mystery, or they are subject to change--maybe there is a panel of judges, each with different tastes, and players would have equal opportunities to bribe or "eliminate" (not murder... preferably) certain judges to get better scores for different types of gardens.

In fact, this is starting to sound a lot like a live version of Epic Mafia. That's a great idea for a mobile game. It's certainly difficult to try to think up a new concept for a timed mobile game that doesn't fall under the arcade genre. However,  now that I've been thinking about the idea for a week, I doubt it will go away. If I ever come up with any concepts I like that really sound like they could work, I'll post them here! Until then, Jellycarp out.

[ludocarp]

The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (2000) & Dead Rising (2010)

These two games are similar in a lot of ways, and also different in a lot of ways. Let's start with the obvious: at the beginning of both, you're given exactly 72 hours to do what you need to do. However, while both games carry darker themes and threats of the apocalypse, their aesthetics and dynamics contrast each other in a lot of ways, in part thanks to the secondary mechanics added to the primary time limit mechanic.

In Majora's Mask, the player is tasked with stopping the moon from crashing into the starting town and destroying the world. Three days passes quickly, in just over half an hour, but if the player succeeds in climbing to the top, they unlock the ability to travel back in time to the dawn of the first day using their musical instrument. After doing so, each three day-cycle takes 54 minutes to elapse. Basic gameplay then involves traveling to an area outside town, completing as much of a quest as possible, and either learning a song that opens up the entrance to a temple, or running out of time, reverting to the first day, and using what they've learned in order to complete the quest faster this time around. There is also a sort-of secret song that slows down the progression of time to half-speed, giving the player almost two hours instead of one before the moon falls. The only way progression is achieved in Majora's Mask is by taking items, songs, and boss remains back with them to the first day. Boss remains are used as proof that one of the four "Giants" needed to stop the moon from falling has been awakened--once a player clears a dungeon, the Giant stays free, as they seem to exist outside of time. So, the player technically has an unlimited amount of real time to actually complete the game, and is never forced to restart from the complete "beginning" (progression stays) as might happen in Pikmin should the player have performed poorly enough and have no promising save data from an earlier point. However, the game still ends without question after the Moon crashes, and there is no playable scenario after this point. Additionally, all world progression (besides the Giants) completely resets after time travelling. Characters have no memory of Link, cleansed lakes become poisoned again, and any disasters that Link prevented will be ready to happen again. The game really enforces the theme of being in one place at one time.

In Dead Rising, you play as a Frank West, a reporter who heads into a zombie-infested town for the “scoop of a lifetime”. He arrives by helicopter, who he agrees to a return trip in three days. The player’s objective is then to complete other quests and survive 7.2 real-time ours until then. Along the way, the player has the opportunity to slay hundreds and hundreds of zombies. Also, find dozens of wacky weapons, crazy costumes, and new places to explore that are great for killing more zombies. While there really is a lot in the mall, if Dead Rising were an open-world game without a time limit, it might make what’s in the 3-day story take 10-20 hours to complete. Funny thing is, the only two ways to change the hard limit of the helicopter’s arrival are by failing a key quest on the final day, shortening it, or by solving every ‘case,’ (or personal quest) Frank West is presented with, lengthening it by one day.  With so many fun things for the player to distract themselves with, this becomes a bit of a challenge to do in little more than just seven hours! So how does Dead Rising mitigate the buzzkill of players having to restart the game potentially several times? Just like in Majora’s Mask, some levels of progression are maintained. Specifically, levels of experience. Pretty much everything that the player does rewards them with prestige points (pp) which work to level up Frank West, increasing his speed, maximum health, attack strength, inventory space and other skills, also unlocking new zombie-killing moves along the way. So when the player reaches one of the five less-than perfect endings available in story mode, they can restart the game with a more powerful character in addition to newfound knowledge of how to play the game.

Here’s where Dead Rising and Majora’s Mask really sing the same tune, however: since the developers knew all of the events in both games would be taking place over the course of the same three days, they were able to give NPCs their own schedules and agendas. Rather than simply standing in one spot staring blankly at a wall for as long as it takes the protagonist to come up and talk to them, the three-day constraint allowed for some believability and life to be infused into the games’ NPCs specifically by only offering subquests during certain pre-selected times. Completing every subquest in both games is well-rewarded; a new ending is unlocked in Dead Rising, and in Majora’s Mask, if the player turns in all 23 masks at the end of the game (most of which are obtained only through side-quests), they unlock the 24th mask. Both games even include Notebooks for keeping track of the people the player encounters during their quest!

More than anything, the time limit on both games allows the theme of cherishing the moments one has with other people to really shine through, something that’s hard to fully convey in any game where time doesn’t really exist.

[ludocarp]

Race Against The Clock: Pikmin (2001)

Shigeru Miamoto was attempting to make a completely new type of game with Pikmin, something that I believe him and his team really succeeded in doing. Taking control of a quarter-sized astronaut who crash-lands on an Earth-like planet, the player must command a loyal army of colourful carrot creatures (called pikmin) to fend off monstrous beasts and recover the thirty missing parts from his spaceship. However, all this must be done before the explorer's life-support system runs out of battery power--in thirty days. (Each in-game day lasts roughly 13 minutes.)

Whereas in Fallout, the focus was on human survival in a social context, The core aesthetic in Pikmin (besides exploring a new world) is that of wilderness survival. While the player may be in command of up to one hundred pikmin at once, they are more like pets than friends. There is no social interaction in Pikmin, and while the pikmin provide some small comfort and company, they are also easily killed and are otherwise adorable autonomous tools. At the end of each day, the protagonist (Captain Olimar) records his thoughts in a diary, which mainly focus on either new discoveries, or thoughts of returning home. While it is not possible to receive a game over by fainting or running out of pikmin (one new seed is sprouted the next day in the latter case), the game will end as soon as the player either obtains the final ship part, or reaches the end of the 30th day.

The always-impending 30th day is what makes Pikmin a strategy game. Without it, the player would have no need to search out the most efficient routes to take, or decide when it is best to spread out or regroup one's forces... every action requires calculation, as the player's life is at stake! The time limit is what makes Pikmin a truly meaningful experience.

[ludocarp]

Race Against The Clock: Fallout (1997)

If I had to pin down the major theme of Fallout, it would be the will to survive among humans. Persistence against all odds and by any means, either together or . And nothing enforces the feeling of impending doom more than an actual doomsday on your calendar.

Set in the retro-futuristic 1950’s-style post-nuclear-fallout year of 2161, the player’s home sanctuary of Vault 13 is running out of clean water due to a malfunctioning machine part. If the part isn’t replaced within 150 days, it’s game over! After the part is replaced, a new main quest is presented in which the player must destroy an uprising mutant army before it begins its conquest of the world. This common motif among games is made a fair bit more interesting in that if the player doesn’t destroy their base and kill their leader within 500 days, Vault 13 will actually be destroyed, resulting in the ultimate time limit of the game. Depending on the difficulty setting, it’s not actually too difficult to acquire the water machine part in time, plus its resulting doomsday can be postponed by 100 more days if the player strikes a deal with some water merchants (though divulging the location of Vault 13 causes the mutant army to find it 100 days sooner). What matters, however, especially for first-time players, is that the limit is always there, putting real pressure and true importance on every action and decision the player makes. Planning out efficient travelling routes is a must, as “fast travelling” across the map consumes days at a time. Especially during the water quest, having to backtrack between settlements in the wasteland can be a major detriment to the player’s schedule. The player’s not just concerned about their immediate survival, but their future survival as well.

Just the basic fact that the Big Bad Guys’ threat to destroy everything you love is actually, really, possible I believe dispels an otherwise certain elephant-in-the room type of ludo-narrative dissonance present in other RPGs with the same threat and similar levels of world depth. More adventure-focused games like Paper Mario are vague enough with their narrative aesthetics that I really don’t care what the bad guys are up to on a daily basis. But in games with super fleshed-out worlds like Mass Effect 2, I find it odd that no one really seems to be in a much of a rush despite the main plot of “Reapers could be coming at any time to abduct us all.” Kinda makes me want to assemble a team and head out ASAP, and later go on a bunch of weird sidequests to help my team with their emotional issues. But alas, our invaders will wait patiently for my therapy sessions to be over before taking over the galaxy.

Now, for an RPG, Fallout isn’t necessarily a long game, taking an average of 20 and a realistic minimum of two hours to beat. Running out of time takes a little over 40 hours on average. But this works out since there’s a lot of different ways to experience the game based on what kind of skills your character specializes in. The game is not only short enough to encourage consecutive playthroughs, but the temptation to just hang on to one character forever is also gone. The player can only run around for so long before they either get their biz together and save the day, or else everything gets burned to the ground anyway, which isn’t very fun at all.

[ludocarp]

Race Against The Clock: Intro

Ah, the Time Limit. Nearly every video game ever made includes at least one instance of this mechanic familiar to anyone with even a bit of gaming experience. It was especially handy in arcades, when limiting the amount of time a player had to win a game potentially offered a huge boost in quarter profits, or at least, stopping less-skilled players from hogging the machine. There are a huge variety of ways in which a time limit can be applied in a game, but I’m going to focus only on one particular—one particularly interesting, completely game-changing—version: Time Limits on entire games. The type where once time’s up, the whole game ends. The study: how this single mechanic can be applied to different types of games to create interesting and unique dynamics and potentially improve a game’s aesthetics.

This definition still leaves a broad selection of games to talk about, so let me be a bit more specific. I will not be talking about quick, arcade-type games, like those basketball free-throw games that challenge players to rack up as high a score as possible within 30 seconds or a minute. Most minigames also fall under this category (collect more coins than your opponent, ect.) This analysis won’t cover sports games, though they also fall under the Time-Ends-The-Game definition. I will be talking about games that are dedicated experiences, require substantial investment to complete, contain elements of progression, and finally, have an ultimate, impending, non-negotiable end. By “non-negotiable” I don’t mean the exact timing of the game’s end can’t be changed, I simply mean that it must be both theoretically and practically inevitable. Don’t Starve therefore is excluded from this definition as it is theoretically possible to survive indefinitely.

A bit more about the history of the mechanic before I begin. Games have had time limits imposed on them for literal ages. Ever since someone realized it was fun to try to outperform their fellow humans, but not run back and forth on a field until all but one victor has yet to collapse from exhaustion, time limits have been put in place. Time limits on non-athletic games aren’t new either, for reasons both practical and challenging, table-top games almost always have an official variation involving a time limit. Speaking from personal experience, 6-hour games of monopoly can tear a family apart. Simply declaring the richest player the winner after an hour can save a whole lot of fam-dram. And how about the crazy number of hours, nay, weeks it can take to finish a Dungeons & Dragons quest? It’s hard enough finding a group of people who are both willing and able to meet regularly to sell their souls to that black hole of a game, but sustaining that possibility is often more of a dream than a practical reality—someone moves, or gets a new job, or is suddenly consumed with their newfound passion for ice sculpting—and as the players get busy, games are often abandoned. By enforcing a short enough in-game time cap, those melancholy feelings of the slow death of what could have been are replaced by a fun accomplishment of what was.

Do enforcing these types of limits affect the game experience? Sure, a bit, but not in a way that I find particularly interesting. So, in my next few posts, I will discuss a few games with some really influential time limits, and how this single mechanic affects each game differently.