One of the most important aspects of human beings, overshadowing and enveloping all the specifics of behavior and development, is change. People change, people make changes, and people are changed by things. Human beings are not static; even an individual who stands perfectly still is still aging, still using up energy, and so on. People exist in a constant state of flux, adjusting to their environments and surroundings in order to survive and thrive. Simple changes lead up to larger organization and eventually technological cultural developments, and it is through change that humans (or any other life forms) became what they are.
Naturally, if you're trying to make believable people, this is an aspect that ought to be included. This doesn't just have to be in the present tense (i.e. change happening when the camera's on), but can also be reflected in a character's past or history. It doesn't have to be big changes, like personality development or standards, either. Even the changing of clothing is a "change", though a routine one. All the elements of the decision-making process are part of change, because making a decision is putting change into action. Essentially, though, acknowledging change, of whatever kind, serves to deepen the character's relationship to the environment they're in. It creates a cause for all their "effects": the nature of their personality or their physical appearance, the skills they possess, the knowledge they have, and so on.
The human body is a machine. It's built to adapt and thrive just as the human brain is. It's not as specialized as many other animals, but it has the capacity to improve, and it has internal mechanisms that require changes on some level or another. These changes can show, through visual evidence, a character's past and their status. When thinking about or visualizing the body, it's often best to assemble it piece by piece. So let's start from the top:
Face
The human head is pretty important for a lot of different things, but in terms of visual design it's most important because it's a focal point for interaction. Therefore, the design of the face and its components will be the first thing we focus on. The face can represent several different things. It can be gaunt or chubby depending on the individual's weight and lifestyle. It can be unmarred or weathered depending on the hardships that the individual has faced in their life. It can be smooth or wrinkled based on their age or quality of life. The basic facial model is made up of a combination of bone structure and skin, and reflecting proper conditions allows even these basic aspects to tell a story through visual cues.
In addition, there are different things that can be added to the face through believable means that affect its visual profile. The most basic of these are facial hair and makeup, since these are things that are generally part of daily life. Showing facial hair and its growth might be justifiably considered a pain for artists or designers, but the representation of its growth and the character trimming it makes it feel more like real hair and less like something stuck onto the character. Similarly, makeup ought to be something that's applied, rather than being permanently attached to the character 24/7. Both of these things affect a character's face, so making them malleable rather than permanent allows a degree of logical changes within the realm of believability.
Hair
Hair has a combination of easily-malleable and difficult-to-change properties. The latter includes basic properties like color and texture, while the former reflects the fact that hair can be cut, trimmed, tied back, put up, and so on. Therefore, a combination of these two factors makes hair more relevant to a character's decision-making processes while still retaining a justifiably interesting aesthetic. The issue for believability is connecting the fashion to logical choices and processes rather than being something the artist thought looked good.
Probably the easiest and simplest way to alter hair is to tie it back or braid it. This can signify several different things depending on your perspective, but from a general utilitarian standpoint long hair being tied back means that it's not in your face and thus communicates a more no-nonsense approach. Short hair can convey the same message. The nature of the hair, even in such cases, is also variable; compare a stylized short hairdo to a simple buzzcut, or a quick, unkempt ponytail to a tight, professional one. The texture of the hair also conveys aspects of a character's life, depending on whether it's clean and loose or thick and raggy.
Not only simple or utilitarian hairstyles make commentary, of course. If a hairstyle is justifiably elaborate, it says something about the character and their willingness to spend time and effort shaping their hair into that form. Adding this element of believability turns it from a simple design choice to a visual cue just like any other hairstyle; without that element, it doesn't mean anything. If visible effort is a part of the universe, then a complex hairstyle can signify wealth, vanity, or just a willingness on the character's part to spend time on their appearance. There needs to be that element of effort in order for a complex hairstyle to be appreciable as part of a character rather than simply an artist doing what they think looks good.
Finally, it's important to convey the weight and nature of hair, even if that's fairly low-key. The consistency, thickness, and solidity of hair help make it feel more real, and what I see with a lot of artists is basically making the hair like some kind of glossy, solid mass. Hair flows, moves, and sways. If hair gets in your eyes, it's harder to see. It can be grabbed at or get caught on things. These simple things appeal to sensory concepts, just like many other "believable" materials, and if it's real to the characters it's more real to the audience.
Body
Like the face, the body can be shaped by a character's lifestyle. Weight, muscle mass, skin tone, and skin consistency are all simple elements that, in their own ways, reflect where a character's from, what their life was like, and what they're capable of now. It's the difference between a scholar and a laborer, or a noble and a commoner. Like any other part of a character's appearance, a character's life makes visible changes on their body. Some parts of this are easy to reflect; tanning in general is pretty simple to understand, whether it's a farmer's tan or a beach tan. Weight is also pretty simple, at least when you're creating a divide between starving beggars and opulent aristocrats. In more modern contexts, the "weight = wealth" issue isn't nearly as common, but in any setting or situation where food is a rarity, the ability to be fat and unhealthy is something that most folks won't get away with.
Muscle development, on the other hand, is reasonably complex. I think this giant image that I'm linking right here says things a lot better than I can, but the basic lessons that should be taken from it is that muscle development isn't like an on-off switch, but is dependent on the cause of development and the locations being developed. More importantly, the body-builder physique (which some of us probably think of as being the peak of musculature) isn't necessarily the best physique possible when it comes to muscle development. However, both form and function have their uses in believable development, because they're just alternate routes by which a character has come to their current condition.
Most importantly to this topic, bodies change in the long term. To use a classic example from the children's novel "Holes", the main character's body is described as going from tubby and pale at the beginning to lean and tan from all his time in the desert. There are certainly many other examples, but the body is something that is influenced by environments and lifestyles. It's something that's more long-term than hair is, and it's not as directly controlled by the character, but it's a malleable element that can be used to show changes in a character's situation.
Outfitting
I've already done some articles on outfitting - whether it's clothes, armor, or gear - but the role of those things in this article is the fact that, underneath their clothes and gear, people are people. Humans are universal across any setting they're present in. Clothing and equipment, however, reflects their life as well, because it's a combination of available resources and needs that must be filled. Clothes need to be made from materials that are available, whether it's cloth, linen, fur, or some other material, and they need to fulfill some role for the characters who wear them.
Relatedly, a character's possessions ought to be considered logical items in their own right, not just part of an iconic outfit. Clothes can be changed and chosen depending on necessity and availability. The person wearing them is relatively constant, but clothes are the most easily altered element of a character's visual design. Like any other part of a character's design, ignoring cause-and-effect with regards to equipment and outfits makes them less meaningful in design terms. As I mentioned with Soul Calibur, a character who wears clothing that makes no sense for them (or wears the same outfit all the time) feels less like a character and more like an artist's plaything. In contrast, creating justified reasons for clothing choices makes a character feel more like someone who's actually making decisions, which allows the audience to better suspend their disbelief.
If there's a lesson I'd like you to take from this article, it would be this: people change. Things change. Situations change. Change happens all the time. If you can reflect that in your characters and your designs and your story choices, the world will feel more real and more developed. Everything that happens ought to be explainable and justifiable in-universe, and that doesn't mean you can't have cool things or interesting designs - just that they need to be as impressive to the characters as they're meant to be to the audience.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Monday, May 16, 2011
Analysis: Soul Calibur
This is kind of a weird game to look at on a blog about believability, so this article's going to be a bit more informal than usual. Soul Calibur is a weapon-based fighting game that takes place in the real world, including countries and regions from all over the globe. It's hard to say that Soul Calibur was ever meant to be "realistic", but there was a time that it was meant to be at least a little grounded, and that period has been far exceeded by how cartoonish and over-the-top it is. Still, the few traces of a basis in reality (and how those concepts were either eliminated or marginalized) is worth exploring, at least a little bit.
Setting
Soul Calibur centers around two swords, Soul Edge and Soul Calibur. Soul Edge is a sentient sword that cultivates slaughter and death to absorb more souls and grow more powerful, while Soul Calibur is (initially) not sentient, but can be used by the right wielder to defeat Soul Edge. In essence, Soul Edge is the focal point of the setting; without it, Soul Calibur (the series) is just a generic historical fighting game. In gameplay terms it still is, but the story and all the characters are organized around interaction with Soul Edge, either with obtaining it or destroying it.
Let's start with something reasonably believable: the character and background of Siegfried Schtauffen. Siegfried is from the Holy Roman Empire; his father was a knight who fought for the people during the Peasants' War (though the timeline is off by a few decades), and Siegfried idolized him as a hero growing up. However, when Siegfried was a teenager, his father went off to a foreign crusade (although no crusades were going on in real life at the time). Siegfried fell in with a patriotic crowd of teens who decided to attack knights returning from the crusade based on the justification that they were cowards fleeing from battle. I think you can see where this is going: Siegfried accidentally kills his own dad, freaks out, and then hears rumours of Soul Edge being able to restore the dead. Hence, his motivation and his reason for being in the game.
While there are some factual errors present in it, the basic layout of Siegfried's background is fairly reasonable. It's based on things that make sense in the general period, and while it's not 100% realistic, it works all right for what it needs to do. It explains his motivation and background within the limits of the setting. It also ties into his character design; he's German, so he's blonde, and he's a knight's son, which explains his equipment (which we'll touch on later). It uses different elements and ties them together to create a cohesive character, rather than having certain parts just be there because "well whatever we need to say he's from somewhere". The different parts of his design are connected.
Now let's look at Sophitia. No, we're not looking at the ninja, or the zombie pirate, or the the S&M tomb guardian. We're just looking at the Greek woman. You know, from Greece, a region well-known for its olive skin and dark hair and what the heck am I looking at here. The weird thing is that the design team knew that, at the time, Greece was under the control of the Ottoman Empire, and they decided Sophitia was from Athens, and thus incorporated Athena into her backstory (though the idea that the Ancient Greek deities are openly worshiped in 16th-century Greece is equally suspect). But they neglected to include or explain the fact that she doesn't look even remotely Greek. And it's not just her; her husband doesn't look Greek either, so unless there's some little Norse enclave in Athens, it just doesn't make sense.
This brings up the essential paradox of Soul Calibur's design: they could have made it realistic, but they didn't. They could have made it UNrealistic (i.e. "not use real places and just stick it in a generic fantasy mishmash, which they ended up doing for some of the side modes), but they didn't. The fact that they put it in the real world is what opens it up to criticism, because it's objectively and identifiably wrong. They cared about some characters (Mitsurugi, Siegfried, Xianghua, maybe Maxi if you squint a bit), and for other characters they were just like "lol whatever just ignore their background". If you're going to do the research, why wouldn't you use it? It's really just baffling, when you get down to it.
Despite being based around weapon combat, Soul Calibur has always been pretty poor when it comes to actually conveying impact in any other way than "the weapon made contact with the target". People get buffeted around by blows, but there's no sense of damage, either in terms of slashing, piercing, or crushing. What the player sees is basically what happens: the model was physically moved by the force of the attack, nothing more. Similarly, armor doesn't really do anything; some characters wear it and others don't, but everyone takes the same damage and nobody's more or less visibly pained by an attack. Armor is just another form of clothing, and weapons are just sort of blunt clubs at best. It does do weight pretty well, especially with the larger weapons, but the actual "impact" part of the equation just seems underplayed.
There are two main issues to discuss with regards to design: representation of materials and the sensibility of the outfit. Let's start with the first, because the second's going to take a while. Most Soul Calibur outfits never really seemed to be made of cloth, though latex and other artificial materials are far more common. It seems less like outfits and more like superhero costumes or something. As the graphics improved and became more detailed, this became more and more noticeable: none of these characters are wearing anything that looks like it was made by human hands. Of course, they weren't really before either, but you could at least assume that it boiled down to poor textures. Now there's higher-quality textures, and they look shiny and artificial, i.e. "like modern artificial materials".
This isn't totally universal; there's plenty of characters like Raphael or Hilde who have outfits that look more convincing (in terms of the materials used), and the metal bits on every character generally look okay. But for the most part there are a lot of characters and costumes where it's just sort of baffling when one considers what, exactly, the costume is meant to be made of. On the other hand, they do have physical properties - they're smooth or shiny or...latex-y, or whatever you want to call it. It's not exactly "believable" as something that makes sense in the time period, but on the other hand it does actually portray materials, whatever their origin. I mean, I've still got some problems with them (everything's too shiny, for example), but it's not a total loss. In some cases, the simplicity of real weapons (usually a character's non-main weapons) contrasts with the unusual magic weapons, like the organic Soul Edge or the crystalline Soul Calibur. It's inconsistent, but sometimes it works.
Visual Design & Character Design
Soul Calibur doesn't seem to have a lot of decision-making logic; that is, there's not a lot of explanation of why people are wearing what they're wearing, just that they are. The chaste, noble-born alchemist Ivy wears something that can best be described as "implausible", while the modest, pious village girl Sophitia starts out kind of unreasonable and ends up...well, it ain't good, is what I'm saying. Both of those linked pictures track the character's development, with increasing amounts of sexualization. The important thing to note is that neither was believable at the start, but it got noticeably worse over time.
The odd thing is that both Ivy in particular has a history of far more reasonable secondary costumes (SC1, SC2, SC3). These costumes cover more and look a lot more like something that she (as a character) would choose to wear based on their established personality traits, though they're hardly perfect in terms of believability. They're dignified and fit in well with how the character seems to perceive herself. Yet the ones that don't make any sense in any respect other than "made by an artist to look sexy" are, for obvious reasons, the famous ones. But this is more than just an issue of showing some skin, or wearing impractical clothing to a fight (since everyone who's not wearing armor is guilty of that, and that armor doesn't matter anyways). It's an issue of character motivation and perception. Nothing about the clothing makes sense with the character or the time period; it's just the developers playing dress-up to manipulate the players.
Therein lies the problem for believability. Very few of these characters use their costumes as a way to either (a) establish character traits in terms of how the character chooses to dress themselves or (b) say something about the character through the way the costume is designed by the artist. They're there to look sexy, and while this manifests in different ways, it's still pretty much the main driving force. There are exceptions, mostly male. Siegfried is the most immediately reasonable character in terms of what he wears, at least in Soul Calibur 1; he's even got mail underneath the plate armor in the ending illustration. His armor tends to vary in quality in other games, though, and his weapon has always been a big "rule of cool" stick rather than something meant to seem like an actual blade. Raphael's weapon and clothing are emblematic of his status as a nobleman, although he gets a bit more thematically vampiric after his initial appearance (though this at least manifests in larger capes and bat-shaped jewelry, i.e. "things that exist in real life, even at that time"). Mitsurugi's gear is a bit stylized, but it's consistently respectable; even in its "one shoulder pad" ridiculousness, it looks like something a brash warrior would choose to wear.
Even though these characters have distinct visual styles and varying degrees of "do whatever's cool" to their design, they're still designed in such a way that their personalities and background are connected to their appearance. The problem with Ivy's main costumes isn't that it's stupid or sexist (well, those are problems too), but the fact that it says nothing about her character. If it DID say something, it would be something like "she's sexually open", but she's not - she's totally chaste. In the same way, Sophitia's costumes used to make sense in terms of being peasant dress or a warrior-maiden's garb or something possibly stupid like that, but there's really no way to explain her Soul Calibur IV costume other than "the artists know what people are expecting". Characters like Hilde are an attempt to reverse that trend, but it still continues in its own way.
There's a few other male characters I'd like to discuss: Kilik, Maxi, Yun Seong, and Rock. These are dudes who are not fond of shirts. There are some alternate costumes that cover more, but they're clearly willing to flaunt it if they got it. Are these characters called out on being designed for purposes of female fanservice? N-well, maybe by some people, but in most cases "no". Their costumes still seem aesthetically designed to support their concept; Kilik's a warrior-monk, Maxi's a southern-Pacific pirate, Yun Seong's a brash young patriot, and Rock's a barbarian. It seems like a natural part of their character, to the extent that it's not like "whatever, he doesn't like wearing shirts because that's hot". In contrast, most female characters who are more sexualized feel forced into it; it's not a part of their characters or their design, it's just something that's sort of there. Characters like Setsuka and Seung Mina wear sexualized clothing, but it seems like something they'd actually choose to wear for their own reasons (well, depending on the outfit). It says something about their characters, or at least their sense of style.
The point is that "sexualization" and "stylization" are not in themselves bad things, but they should be used to say something about the character. A veteran warrior is going to dress differently than a dapper young noble; a chaste scholar is going to dress differently than a geisha. The clothing says something about them, either in terms of what they choose to wear and why they chose to do so, or how the artist's choices reflect the character's personality. If you're going for the former, it's better to do so in a way that the character can understand (i.e. having clothing that makes sense to the character instead of a magic outfit conjured from the creative aether), but if you're doing the latter, you should actually have the outfit be relevant to the character, instead of throwing on a totally unrelated fetish suit.
Conclusion
Soul Calibur ultimately throws me for a curve because it's not realistic, but it's not totally unrealistic either. There's so many parts where it seems like they're actually trying to do something logical, or at least to have some sort of purpose in the setting and the story, and yet there's so much other stuff where it's just "rule of cool sexy outfit" or "the giant sword bashes the dude into the wall and stuns him briefly". It's not the style that's bad per se (again, it IS bad, though), but it's the fact that the style detracts from ways that things could have been done creatively.
History isn't that boring, guys. People had crazy fashion in real life, it's not just something made up by anime artists. But it still had certain styles to it, and it was still based on materials and techniques that were actually possible to make or use, not just "well here's some latex in 16th century Japan". I'd be okay with unarmored characters as long as the clothing looked like something people would actually choose to wear of their own volition, and while some of the alternate outfits do a better job of that, it's not really the same thing. In a game like Soul Calibur, visual appearance is one of the major defining aspects of a character in terms of expression, and Soul Calibur's developers took that opportunity to say "their characters are irrelevant, here's some tits".
So basically, to sum all this up: pick a reason and stick with it. If you're going to just be like "do what's cool, whatever", then why are you bothering to do research and make SOME of the characters look okay? If you're going to set your game in the 16th century, then why aren't you putting your characters in outfits that make sense (or at least look real in some regard) for the time period? If you're going to give your characters backgrounds and personality, why doesn't their visual design correspond with that? Why? Why did this happen?!?
Monday, May 9, 2011
Analysis: Mount&Blade
"Mount&Blade" is a classic game, and by that I mean that it's old-school as heck. This isn't just a question of style or graphics, but of the intrinsic way that the game treats the player and gives the player opportunities to interact with the world. It dumps you in a setting and says "do what you want", which is the kind of wide-open sandbox that doesn't come up as often anymore. It is an approach that emphasizes interaction, usually at the expense of writing and dialogue. While M&B's world isn't totally believable, the ways in which it's unbelievable are useful in terms of discussing why and how believability is used.
Mount&Blade casts the player as a new immigrant to the land of Calradia, a fairly simplistic and obvious collection of real-world cultures, including France (Swadia), Italy (Rhodok), Mongolia (Khergit), Scandinavia (Nords), Russia (Vaegir), and the Middle East (Sarranid). These nations war with each other in an unending struggle for territory and fame. The player's role in this is to find a logical niche, starting off slaying bandits or harassing caravans to build up the strength and numbers necessary to join a faction (or even start their own).
One of Mount&Blade's major appeals for me is that it is built on a logical universe. Calradia is made up of a series of villages, castles, and towns, and it is these things that define the world. Calradia operates on a highly feudal system; lords own property and use the income to buy troops, and then when the country goes to war they gather together to take enemy territory. Peasants bring their wares to towns, and towns send trading convoys to other countries. Bandits will set up lairs and hideouts to attack groups of peasants or trading caravans, and when the player destroys a lair, the bandits dissipate. Towns that are allowed to trade without disruption will grow richer; towns that are constantly harassed will grow poorer. You can even talk to guildmasters in the towns to see what they need, what they trade, and so on.
Calradia is interesting because it works in a fairly logical way. It's a lot of subsystems connected in a way that makes everything work and keeps the caravans running on time. On the other hand, it's a perpetual system; it's hard to actually make things change in Calradia, and the best you can really hope for is making things switch hands. Lords can't be born or die, castles and villages can't be built or destroyed, and nothing's really permanent. You, the player, make your mark in the world by rising in the ranks according to the system, not by overcoming or subverting it. Even if you lose, the worst that happens is you lose all your troops and have to build up from the bottom again. It's a neat system for interaction, but less useful for emergent story stuff.
The reason for these things is pretty obvious, though: the game is about a world that's perpetually at war so that the player can find something to do. Ergo, if important people could die in battle, the player's interaction would be limited by people constantly dying. It's a reflection of the game's thematic focus; it's not "live in a world", it's "lead a mercenary band". This manifests in other parts of the game, as well; there's a lot of detail on some aspects of the world, and a lot less on other parts.
Interactions with people generally come in two forms. The player has reputations in villages and towns based on tasks done for them; saving them from bandits, helping them get more cattle, or even something as simple as buying everyone in a tavern a round of ale will raise your reputation, while raiding and pillaging will lower it. The former is a question of sacrifice or heroism, while the latter reaps immediate benefits but results in a long-term loathing. Your reputation in villages determines how many villagers you can recruit to your cause; the more highly a village thinks of you, the more numerous (and better-quality) the troops they offer will be. A player who pillages freely may soon find themselves without friends if their army is destroyed.
The other form of interaction is interpersonal. This is done through a fairly bare-bones dialogue system, but the game does manage to capture different personalities and viewpoints reasonably well. Players can talk to lords and nobles to earn their esteem in various ways, and if a player has a good enough relationship with a lord from an enemy nation, they can attempt to convince them to join their side by figuring out their perspective and appealing to it. Some nobles are more kind and generous, while others may be more cruel and bloodthirsty, and hence different actions will influence them in different ways. Building up a good relationship can even lead to possibilities of marriage (daughters and sisters for men, the rare open-minded lord for women).
Interaction, though, is generally another field where the focus rears its head. You can interact with lords in a huge number of strategic ways, such as advising them on courses of action or dealing with political manners. Maintaining good relations has a big impact on your status as a member of the game world and how different factions and characters view you. Yet this detail is largely for its own sake; there's not a lot of dialogue outside of the "professional" problems. You can't really just chat; even the courtship process is fairly brisk and businesslike, and there's basically no interaction once you're actually married.
In the same way, the player will find themselves leading great armies, perhaps even with several named, important companions. Yet the dialogue is minimal; regular troops cannot be talked to at all, and companions only have a few lines for specific occasions. This is a scenario where more emergent things could have been done; status updates on morale (companions have them, but they are very basic), a narrative description of abilities and statistics instead of a direct stat sheet, and so on. Talking conveys information of one form or another, and games should be able to convey information through conversation rather than an awkward, unimmersive character sheet.
The reason that this sort of bothers me is that Mount&Blade is a wide-open sandbox, and hence it is a world for the player to interact with. Yet ultimately there's not enough rewards in terms of intangibles like respect, power, celebrations, and so on. You get things done, and when they're done they're done. It's front-heavy; a lot of effort put into the process of getting there, but not a lot to show for it when you've finally reached your goal. Hence, the game is driven entirely by player motivation, rather than any real rewards. In fact, that's true of a lot of the game; even the more tangible goals of gaining property and leading armies are going to be based on the player finding these things interesting, rather than the game going out of its way to make them seem worthwhile. While that's fine in a limited sense, it would be better to develop the rewards aspect more to make the world seem more rounded.
Mount&Blade's combat system is one of the few systems that really feels like it adheres to a common-sense view of fighting in that period. Everything is pretty much doing what it makes sense to do. Parrying and shields work by being physically interposed between the wielder and a blow or projectile. Armor reduces damage on the covered area, and an uncovered area can be attacked to do more damage (going un-helmeted is basically a death sentence). Weapons have swing arcs rather than simply being intangible, meaning that different weapons have different uses. This leads to intuitive tactics: in tightly packed quarters, swing overhead or thrust. In open areas, slashes are more effective. If you're approaching an archer, raise your shield; if a shield-bearer is approaching you, shoot him in the legs.
What I enjoy about M&B's combat is that it feels logical. When I mess up, I can see why. When I do well, I can see why. When I look at a video of other people playing, I can see why things happened the way they did. It's about physical location and movement, not about meta-gaming. There's a few unrealistic things, naturally, like movement and jumping in general, but overall it's a common-sense platform. Demon's Souls also tried for that sort of combat, but the nature of combat animations made it a bit more quizzical. Mount&Blade is simple: attack from a direction, make sure there's nothing in the way of you and the target. It's also challenging enough reflexively that it's enjoyable on its own, in my opinion. It's really the kind of system that should be emulated by every medieval game, because it's a way to do things that makes reasonable sense while still being engaging.
I don't think M&B would be half as immersive without its wonderful illustrations, done by Mongolian illustrator Ganbat Badakhand. These illustrations are used as a sort of reinforcing tool, being subtly connected to different events and occurrences. It depicts the world that the game's representing, and while the graphics are good enough to do that on its own, the presence of these illustrations definitely helps to establish "what we're supposed to be seeing". It's a very down-to-earth style that still manages to look stylized and interesting through positioning and visual direction.
Of course, the game's graphics aren't too bad either. The armor in M&B is some of the most sensible that can be found in any game, because it's all stuff that makes sense; hauberks of mail or jackets of brigandine, with coverage for four major areas of the body (head, arms, legs, and torso) that ensures that characters need to dress sensibly to survive. This doesn't mean that they look boring; there's a wide variety of tabards, surcoats, and tunics worn over or under the armor, but the most important aspect is that the armor itself is normal. Games generally seem to put too much focus on making the armor itself look strange or exotic, rather than having the clothes be the visually interesting part and the armor being more sensible. In addition, lords don't wear their armor all the time, and this too is something I think games tend to miss out on: the fact that, when you're out of battle, you can wear whatever you want. When it comes to armor design, business ought to come before pleasure, at least if you want it to be taken seriously.
Mount&Blade (or Warband, I should say) doesn't really look super-great in comparison to its contemporaries, and while there are some mods to fix it, this tends to detract from immersion. It's a scenario where I feel like the knee-jerk response is "gameplay is more important than graphics", and while that's true I think the presence of graphics can be used well to make the game feel more real to the player. Still, it's hard to fault the design and aesthetic in general; it's only the technical details that fall short.
Conclusion
Mount&Blade is a game that I would say needs to be experienced fresh to really understand the appeal. It's a game that gets boring after you've played it for a long time, but there's a real feeling of accomplishment in going from a low-level nobody to a great general through force of arms and quickness of wit. The first time you've built up enough troops to storm a city and claim ownership of it, it shows how far you've gone in the game world. While the period after that accomplishment is a bit dry and underdeveloped, it's the kind of RPG that really tries to portray the player's rise to power instead of just throwing him at higher-level things as he or she gains strength. It's not exactly a universal game model, but it works well for what it does, and it's easily expanded upon for new games as well.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Analysis: Bioshock
It's the same problem that games like FFXI and, to a lesser extent, Lost Planet had: the setting does not support the gameplay, and the gameplay exists in a way that ignores the setting. The difference, of course, is that while one has to go digging for interesting concepts in FFXI and LP, in Bioshock the interesting stuff is staring you in the face. However, in Bioshock those concepts are used as a distraction to try to make the player ignore the fact that the actual gameplay has nothing to do with it. Unfortunately, to make use of its setting properly, Bioshock would have to be a different game; perhaps not totally different, but different enough. There are too many things about the gameplay that just don't make sense for it to be believable. So let's start from the beginning.
Bioshock takes place in the Randian utopia/dystopia of Rapture, a massive underwater city designed by its founder, Andrew Ryan, to serve as a haven against the various societal and governmental influences that exist on the surface. One of its main goals is to escape the ideas of forced altruism that Ryan felt pervaded the surface world in the form of taxes, charities, etc. Another goal was to avoid the influence of things like censorship and moral control, especially in regards to things like research and development.
One of the things that this unhindered research results in is the development of ADAM, a material taken from sea slugs that allows for genetic modification and development. While the player mostly comes into contact with combat-related Plasmids like throwing fire or lightning, most of the Plasmids are suggested to be more utilitarian in nature, ranging from cosmetic improvements to medical advancements. However, the side effect is that ADAM eventually causes mental and physical decay, resulting in the mutated beings known as Splicers.
Rapture is eventually taken down due to Ryan's paranoid need to keep the city a secret from the surface world (though how a billion tons of material and thousands of prominent citizens just disappeared without notice, I don't know). His fear of the surface allows smugglers such as Frank Fontaine to establish a racket based on the unfulfilled needs of the populace, especially the poorer segments of the population. This eventually led to a civil war between Fontaine's followers and Ryan's followers that ended up destroying most of the city, a war exacerbated by the sanity-influencing effects caused by Plasmid usage.
The player in Bioshock takes the role of Jack, Ryan's son, who was subject to research by Fontaine that accelerated his growth and instituted mental programming. He was taken out of Rapture, then activated later as a Sleeper Agent. Jack's genetic makeup allowed him to bypass many of Ryan's security measures, and Fontaine's use of the command phrase "Would You Kindly" kept him under control. Under Fontaine's instruction, Jack made his way to Ryan's sanctum and murdered him. Following this, Jack was rescued and deprogrammed, at which point Jack made his way to Fontaine and murdered him too. The events following this depend on the player's morality.
While there's a lot of things in Bioshock's story that rely on suspension of disbelief, it's not a bad story. It's a logical set of events for the most part, and while its commentary on the Randian ideal is somewhat diluted by the necessity of crazy genetic modifiers that make people go insane, it's still fairly solid as a philosphical analysis. However, the problem is that Bioshock isn't a book or a movie. It is a game. Games are meant to be played and interacted with, and the role of the player takes Jack's role from "acceptable" to "forced".
Bioshock's plot twist - that the player is being controlled by their friendly radio voice - is designed in such a way that it serves as commentary on the traditional player-character relationship, in a crude aping of the Metal Gear Solid formula (which was already fairly questionable). However, the mechanics of the mind control don't match up with the way that the player is corralled throughout the game. The player does what they do for two reasons. Firstly, they are receiving instructions on the radio that are indicated to be issues of survival, i.e. "if you do this you will get out of Rapture". There is no reason for them not to be followed, and if there was a reason it would be undermined by the second issue.
The second issue is the fact that the path through Rapture is entirely linear, and there is no way to go except forward. It is not a question of control or exertion of free will, it is the fact that the choice is literally not the player's to make. There is nothing else that you could do except go along with Fontaine's plan, and it isn't because of the mind control. The mind control is shown to work in a very direct and unavoidable way: go here, do this. However, unless Jack's programming knows exactly where Ryan is, there is no reason for the rest of the city to be inaccessible. In addition, there is no reason for Fontaine to mess around with all the other excuses and justification: he could have just grabbed control of him immediately and told him to go kill Ryan.
In a normal plot, these would be relatively minor gripes. The fact that the game is a game is what makes it a problem. The player will try to do other things and find that they cannot. It is not because of Fontaine's insidious plot, nor is it because of the limitations of Jack's will. It is because they did not program those areas. That is the reason. Bioshock's plot is the same as every other linear FPS' plot, except they are laughing at you for it. That's it. Even if you were suspicious of Atlas from the very first moment, there is nothing you can do. Even if you really just wanted to get home, there is nothing you can do. It makes assumptions about the player's motives and then taunts them for having them even if it cannot confirm them.
What bothers me about it is how little work it required on the part of the developers versus how much praise they got for it. It was a way for them to change absolutely nothing about the gameplay while still retaining intellectual credibility. It's like making a bad game and then at the end going "I tricked you, you just played a bad game". It doesn't make the game good, it's just a poor justification for bad gameplay. The in-game justification is mind control, but the actual issue is that the programmers didn't provide any alternative paths, and to be frank the mind control justification doesn't actually cover that.
One part of the game that should have made for an interesting concept, but wasn't really used that well, was the concept of the Splicers. Splicers are human beings who use mass-produced Plasmids exactly like the ones players use, found in vending machines across the game world. They are insane individuals, but it's indicated that Ryan is coercing them through payments of ADAM, and thus they can theoretically be reasoned with to some extent. They're part of a hostile environment, but they're still people, even if they're unstable people with a wide variety of superpowers.
Naturally, the game doesn't use any of this.
Splicers are always hostile units who are grouped by class: Thuggish Splicers, Leadhead Splicers, Spider Splicers, Houdini Splicers, and Nitro Splicers. Splicers of different classes are fundamentally identical even if they're defined only by the weapon they carry. Some have Plasmids, but it's based entirely on their class, not on individual variations. They feel like factory-churned robots, not like people, and it doesn't help that there's only a few Splicer models and voices. It's supposed to feel like a city full of lunatics, but instead it feels like a game area full of standard enemy types.
What bothers me about this the most is that a lot of the voice acting is really good. It's intense, it's emotional, and it suggests a humanity that is totally undermined when it's strapped to a robot with the instructions "kill kill kill kill kill". There's even voice clips in that video that suggest Splicers can be bartered with. They have different factions, different motives, and different viewpoints. They have different origins and different Plasmids and different mutations. They should be different, and the game grinds them out like an assembly line. It's hard to take seriously when they serve no purpose other than speedbumps and pop-scares. They should have been treated like people, and instead they're treated like robots.
While Bioshock's artistic direction is certainly distinct and memorable, there are other forms of its presentation that tend to suffer as a result of not being the main focus. It is these things that primarily took me out of the game, not just in terms of logic but also in terms of tactile connection. Indulge me for a minute and allow me to tell you a story. I picked up Bioshock after not having played in a while, due to my recent interest in that time period. While I remembered that I didn't like it, I felt like it ought not to matter because I was there for the immersion. This worked reasonably well for the game's intro; the sweeping visuals, the distinct design, the detail on the different objects, etc. However, it simply evaporated as soon as I engaged in combat. The worthless little plinks of the revolver (or even worse, the tiny scratches of the Thompson SMG) drew zero reactions from the Splicers, who kept advancing without even acknowledging they were hit. Then they hit me, and all that happened was that my health went down.
Damage in a game is kind of difficult to do. Condemned is one of the few games notable for its brutal depiction of melee combat, so expecting Bioshock to be able to pull off the same concept might not be fair. On the other hand, it creates a problem. I was drawn in by the realism and detail of the world, and all of that became totally useless as soon as I picked up a gun. It turned it from a tangible, believable world to a game level. The guns and their effects on the Splicers are so unbelievable that it was almost impossible to go back to appreciating Rapture as a "real place" afterwards. It was basically necessary for the gameplay, though, which is also inhernetly unrealistic.
So how would this be fixed? My suggestion would be to make the game more of a stealth/adventure game than a high-powered FPS. Make encounters with Splicers more optional (i.e. provide ways to negotiate or evade them), but also more deadly. Problems should have multiple solutions, and the most direct one shouldn't always be the best. In essence, it needs to be realistic, not just because "realism is good" or whatever, but because it's attempting to portray a realistic world in Rapture. The world it shows it at odds with the gameplay, despite the fact that many parts of the setting are there to justify the standard FPS conventions (such as the different stores).
Conclusion
Bioshock is first and foremost a game about combat, regardless of whether you're using stealth or hacking turrets or whatever. It's a game about Splicers getting shot en masse in the face. The atmosphere of fear that the game attempts to cultivate through the use of "monster closets" and atmospheric noises is undermined by the fact that Jack is a superman who literally cannot die due to the presence of Vita-Chambers. It attempts to make the Splicers justified, but then treats them like disposable zombies instead of insane people. It tries to make the world realistic, but fails when it comes to depicting combat and damage.
What bothers me the most about Bioshock is that people praise it for its setting, and then apply that praise to the game itself. Bioshock is a mediocre game with an acceptable setting. If Bioshock is accepted as a shining example of gaming, then the bar is being lowered; it doesn't matter how well the game plays or how well it integrates concepts as long as it looks nice. In terms of gameplay, the setting only exists to justify the linearity, and even that's half-done. They could have made a game that actually worked with Rapture and the concepts it represents, but they didn't, and people are okay with that. We, as a gaming community, ought to expect more than that.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Gamism, Narrativism, and Simulationism
The GNS Theory is a model for role-playing games that covers three distinct approaches. Gamism refers to "playing to win", narrativism refers to "telling a story", and simulationism refers to the process of interacting with a consistent world. While the GNS theory itself is considered a bit outdated (the author of the theory now uses the Big Model instead), it still has repercussions when it comes to believability. While it might seem that only simulationism is relevant, both gamism and narrativism reflect different modes of thinking that can also be compared, contrasted, and included in a believable model.
Gamism: Goal Completion
The idea behind gamism is the idea behind "context-free" games or sports: the rules of the game are the rules of the game, and that's it. The goal of the game is to win according to the rules. This is not a problem in a game that has no context or story behind it, but can be problematic when the "rules" don't exactly match up with the "reality". For example, when I analyzed Company of Heroes, I noted that there were many parts of the game that simply don't reflect a World War 2 concept; the technology and reality of the situation is so different that "real" tactics wouldn't work. Hence, someone playing CoH effectively is going to use strategies and tactics that are not at all comparable to real ones.
However, this is not always a bad thing. Gamism only affects believability when the gameplay is itself unrealistic (or at least inconsistent with the presented universe). It's also possible to make games where, for the most part, logical tactics work. The Total War series is a good example of this, because the basics of combat are the same as in reality. The roles of various unit types (spearmen, archers, cavalry) corresponds to reality, and the presence of factors like fatigue and morale allows for tactics that reflect reality more closely than the average RTS. It's not wholly realistic, of course, but it's closer than most games. This means that "real tactics" translate fairly well to Total War.
Really, the objectives of a gamist player and the objectives of a real or in-universe strategist are not particularly different. Each is attempting to get the best results with the resources they have; as I've discussed, strategies that are considered "cheap" in a game would be considered innovative in real life. It's the differences that make it problematic; when the characters and players are relying on different strategies, it cuts down on the possibility for emergent storytelling when "what the characters see" is not "what the player sees". The decisions the player makes would not make sense to the characters, and that is where the issue arises.
If the gameplay elements are explained, then it's acceptable: there's no morale because the units are robotic, weapons function "unrealistically" but consistently, magic works the same way in the narrative that it does in the game, etc. This is because the gameplay is still part of the story, and thus emergent stories can still be generated. The gamist viewpoint is only disruptive to believability if it emphasizes the cracks and flaws in the game system with relation to the setting being depicted; in that way, it can be seen as pointing out errors, rather than being an error itself. If a specific choice doesn't make sense in the universe, it shouldn't be in the rules.
Narrativism: Telling A Story
Narrativism is generally defined as gaming with the intent of telling a story, focusing on things like moral decisions and character developments. It seems to focus more on authorial influence as exerted by the DM, rather than the creation of a natural world. To this end, it focuses on the introduction of themes and morals that the DM's scenarios are meant to evoke or revolve around. To use some examples from The Forge: "Is the life of a friend worth the safety of a community?" or "Does love and marriage override one's loyalty to a political cause?"
Essentially, Narrativism relies on the player's limited perception by making everything outside their perception malleable and random. Even something as simple as a random encounter table or a "fate points"-style reroll mechanic is in some way Narrativist, because it relies on the world changing outside of the player's view. For example, if a player was falling from a cliff and used a fate point, there would be a ledge or branch to catch them. The world changes based on the use or expenditure of meta-concepts. It's a style of gaming that crafts things around the players, rather than putting the players into an already-existing world. In that sense, one can see how it shares concepts with traditional modes of authorship and writing.
While Narrativism has its uses when it comes to ease-of-construction for a DM or game developer, it's not really a "believable" setup in any way. It relies on the world not existing outside what the players can see, which is really one of the most important things about believability: to make a world that feels real, instead of a fictional construct. Obviously there are some times when those kinds of things are necessary, since the DM can't keep track of everything in the world, but the more Narrativism there is, the less plausible the world in general is. It's relying on plot contrivance.
In addition, I personally don't like the concept of Narrativism as "storytelling". The difference between Narrativism and Simulationism comes down to whether the game is treated like a book or like a scenario, and both of those are things that have stories to them. Simulationism is the story of events that are assembled logically, while Narrativism is more based around DM influence. To me, this makes it feel more forced, and hence more fake: while it certainly may be touching to bring up an issue like divided loyalties or priorities, to me it has more impact if it's something that makes sense in the context of the game, rather than simply being delivered with no connection to logical events.
It's almost a cutscene mentality; sure, you had your fun playing the game and doing stuff, but the DM has an agenda to push, and the choices he asks of you are going to reflect that. The idea that character development and so on can only come out of Narrativism ignores the fact that Simulationism is about portraying events, and events are what cause character and plot development, not pre-chosen themes. The idea of a story being chosen ahead of time runs largely counter-intuitive to the kinds of stories that I endorse, specifically the concept of an emergent story.
Simulationism: Creating a Reality
The simplest way to talk about Simulationism is to say it's about being there. It's about being x character in y location with z things to interact with. It's not just the direct setup of Gamism, though, because "being x character in y location" also has roleplay implications and would affect how actions are taken and the game is played. It is centered around being a character and acting as the character would, with all the tools and information available to that character.
Simulationism is the most directly "believable" form of play, in that it is a style that specifically attempts to include the concept of believability. It relies upon making the world deep and complex so that it can be interacted with, whereas Gamism and Narrativism are both concerned with surface elements. In a Simulationist environment, everything needs to exist in case the players choose to interact with it, or in case it affects the players in some other way. Things exist not just because "they can" or because "it makes the world feel more real", but because that's part of the gameplay. Everything can be interacted with, hence everything has to exist.
In essence, the more details there are in a world, and the more fleshed out it is, the more useful it is from a Simulationist perspective. This is because all those details are things that can be used by the player. Even something as simple as timekeeping adds a dimension to the gameplay, and the closer the game is to the intended reality, the more useful it is for getting into the mindset of the character, rather than periodically leaving to adopt the mindset of the game player.
There's not a lot more to say in defense of Simulationism, because it is believability. Believability and all its values are an intrinsic part of the concept. Every other article on this blog applies to the concept of Simulationism. A key point, though, is that Simulationism doesn't have to be totally detail-obsessed; instead, it's just important to realize that every detail added is a new mechanic or concept for the players to work with, and if one really wishes to connect the player and the character, the two must be in a position that their logic leads to the same place.
Conclusion
1) Gamism treats the "universe" as irrelevant, yet its goals are not totally contrary to immersion and believability; as long as the game rules accurately represent the universe, gamism is not incompatible with those things.
2) Narrativism relies upon an authorial perspective, and thus is anathema to believability. It does not treat the world as "real", it treats it as malleable and protagonist-centric.
3) Simulationism is believability, and shares all its values.
Gamism: Goal Completion
The idea behind gamism is the idea behind "context-free" games or sports: the rules of the game are the rules of the game, and that's it. The goal of the game is to win according to the rules. This is not a problem in a game that has no context or story behind it, but can be problematic when the "rules" don't exactly match up with the "reality". For example, when I analyzed Company of Heroes, I noted that there were many parts of the game that simply don't reflect a World War 2 concept; the technology and reality of the situation is so different that "real" tactics wouldn't work. Hence, someone playing CoH effectively is going to use strategies and tactics that are not at all comparable to real ones.
However, this is not always a bad thing. Gamism only affects believability when the gameplay is itself unrealistic (or at least inconsistent with the presented universe). It's also possible to make games where, for the most part, logical tactics work. The Total War series is a good example of this, because the basics of combat are the same as in reality. The roles of various unit types (spearmen, archers, cavalry) corresponds to reality, and the presence of factors like fatigue and morale allows for tactics that reflect reality more closely than the average RTS. It's not wholly realistic, of course, but it's closer than most games. This means that "real tactics" translate fairly well to Total War.
Really, the objectives of a gamist player and the objectives of a real or in-universe strategist are not particularly different. Each is attempting to get the best results with the resources they have; as I've discussed, strategies that are considered "cheap" in a game would be considered innovative in real life. It's the differences that make it problematic; when the characters and players are relying on different strategies, it cuts down on the possibility for emergent storytelling when "what the characters see" is not "what the player sees". The decisions the player makes would not make sense to the characters, and that is where the issue arises.
If the gameplay elements are explained, then it's acceptable: there's no morale because the units are robotic, weapons function "unrealistically" but consistently, magic works the same way in the narrative that it does in the game, etc. This is because the gameplay is still part of the story, and thus emergent stories can still be generated. The gamist viewpoint is only disruptive to believability if it emphasizes the cracks and flaws in the game system with relation to the setting being depicted; in that way, it can be seen as pointing out errors, rather than being an error itself. If a specific choice doesn't make sense in the universe, it shouldn't be in the rules.
Narrativism: Telling A Story
Narrativism is generally defined as gaming with the intent of telling a story, focusing on things like moral decisions and character developments. It seems to focus more on authorial influence as exerted by the DM, rather than the creation of a natural world. To this end, it focuses on the introduction of themes and morals that the DM's scenarios are meant to evoke or revolve around. To use some examples from The Forge: "Is the life of a friend worth the safety of a community?" or "Does love and marriage override one's loyalty to a political cause?"
Essentially, Narrativism relies on the player's limited perception by making everything outside their perception malleable and random. Even something as simple as a random encounter table or a "fate points"-style reroll mechanic is in some way Narrativist, because it relies on the world changing outside of the player's view. For example, if a player was falling from a cliff and used a fate point, there would be a ledge or branch to catch them. The world changes based on the use or expenditure of meta-concepts. It's a style of gaming that crafts things around the players, rather than putting the players into an already-existing world. In that sense, one can see how it shares concepts with traditional modes of authorship and writing.
While Narrativism has its uses when it comes to ease-of-construction for a DM or game developer, it's not really a "believable" setup in any way. It relies on the world not existing outside what the players can see, which is really one of the most important things about believability: to make a world that feels real, instead of a fictional construct. Obviously there are some times when those kinds of things are necessary, since the DM can't keep track of everything in the world, but the more Narrativism there is, the less plausible the world in general is. It's relying on plot contrivance.
In addition, I personally don't like the concept of Narrativism as "storytelling". The difference between Narrativism and Simulationism comes down to whether the game is treated like a book or like a scenario, and both of those are things that have stories to them. Simulationism is the story of events that are assembled logically, while Narrativism is more based around DM influence. To me, this makes it feel more forced, and hence more fake: while it certainly may be touching to bring up an issue like divided loyalties or priorities, to me it has more impact if it's something that makes sense in the context of the game, rather than simply being delivered with no connection to logical events.
It's almost a cutscene mentality; sure, you had your fun playing the game and doing stuff, but the DM has an agenda to push, and the choices he asks of you are going to reflect that. The idea that character development and so on can only come out of Narrativism ignores the fact that Simulationism is about portraying events, and events are what cause character and plot development, not pre-chosen themes. The idea of a story being chosen ahead of time runs largely counter-intuitive to the kinds of stories that I endorse, specifically the concept of an emergent story.
Simulationism: Creating a Reality
The simplest way to talk about Simulationism is to say it's about being there. It's about being x character in y location with z things to interact with. It's not just the direct setup of Gamism, though, because "being x character in y location" also has roleplay implications and would affect how actions are taken and the game is played. It is centered around being a character and acting as the character would, with all the tools and information available to that character.
Simulationism is the most directly "believable" form of play, in that it is a style that specifically attempts to include the concept of believability. It relies upon making the world deep and complex so that it can be interacted with, whereas Gamism and Narrativism are both concerned with surface elements. In a Simulationist environment, everything needs to exist in case the players choose to interact with it, or in case it affects the players in some other way. Things exist not just because "they can" or because "it makes the world feel more real", but because that's part of the gameplay. Everything can be interacted with, hence everything has to exist.
In essence, the more details there are in a world, and the more fleshed out it is, the more useful it is from a Simulationist perspective. This is because all those details are things that can be used by the player. Even something as simple as timekeeping adds a dimension to the gameplay, and the closer the game is to the intended reality, the more useful it is for getting into the mindset of the character, rather than periodically leaving to adopt the mindset of the game player.
There's not a lot more to say in defense of Simulationism, because it is believability. Believability and all its values are an intrinsic part of the concept. Every other article on this blog applies to the concept of Simulationism. A key point, though, is that Simulationism doesn't have to be totally detail-obsessed; instead, it's just important to realize that every detail added is a new mechanic or concept for the players to work with, and if one really wishes to connect the player and the character, the two must be in a position that their logic leads to the same place.
Conclusion
1) Gamism treats the "universe" as irrelevant, yet its goals are not totally contrary to immersion and believability; as long as the game rules accurately represent the universe, gamism is not incompatible with those things.
2) Narrativism relies upon an authorial perspective, and thus is anathema to believability. It does not treat the world as "real", it treats it as malleable and protagonist-centric.
3) Simulationism is believability, and shares all its values.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Analysis: Yojimbo
Premise
"Yojimbo" is set in a small, semi-isolated village that has recently been torn apart by warfare between two gangsters: Seibei, the brothel-owner, and Ushitora, a more conventional crime lord. Each backs their own candidates for town mayor, and thus the warfare has both an open and discreet nature. Indeed, one major confrontation is interrupted by the arrival of a magistrate, forcing the hired thugs to hide inside to avoid being arrested and hanged.
Into this scenario comes a wandering swordsman, played by Toshiro Mifune. The swordsman learns about the situation from several people, including a farmer, a corrupt policeman, and an innkeeper. The last of these intends to scare him off with his description; instead, the swordsman decides to stay and exploit the situation, stating that "I'll get paid for killing, and this town is full of men who are better off dead." The swordsman then offers his services to Seibei's gang, killing three of Ushitora's men to prove his skill.
Following this, the swordsman (who uses the name "Sanjuro Kuwabatake") goes back and forth between the two gangs, using their fear of him to his advantage in order to demand more money. However, the gangsters are not totally passive, either; Seibei's wife plots to kill him in order to get their money back, and it is only through surreptitious observation that Sanjuro manages to uncover this plan. There's the sense that he's walking on a razor's edge, and is managing to get away with it through cunning and fear. He even gains a crafty rival in the form of the gunman, Unosuke, who is much more clever than his brothers Inokichi and Ushitora and is depicted as being very alert and intelligent when it comes to Sanjuro's schemes.
Sanjuro's downfall eventually occurs when he goes out of his way to help a family escape the town. The gangsters find out what he did (because the family left a note for him) and beat him within an inch of his life. He eventually escapes and leads Ushitora's men to believe that he's hiding under Seibei's protection, leading to a final showdown between the two that results in the latter's destruction. Following this, Sanjuro hides until such time as he's recovered, at which point he sets out to annihilate Ushitora's gang. With this accomplished, he leaves the town to enjoy the peace it has left.
Sanjuro is a classic character - the wandering swordsman who combines skill with guile. His primary trait, though, is his decisiveness. It's obvious throughout the movie that he's not doing things randomly, or just letting them happen; he's always finding a way to create a situation to be exploited.
For example, he did not simply offer his services to one faction or the other. He deliberately set things up in such a way that his skill was proven, and then used his skill as a bargaining chip to raise his price. He sets himself up as a commodity that both factions wish to control. Even when he was caught, he used his escape as a way to further his own goals.
However, his plans are not unrealistically flawless or perfect. It's more accurate to describe them as "good enough"; he knows how to manipulate people with some room for error. Other people respond in predictable, but not robotic, ways. It's natural for gangsters to desire a powerful swordsman for their group, after all. It was necessary that he proved his skill with the sword for his plan to work. They do not simply wish to have him join them because he is a protagonist. Instead, his skill with the sword is what makes him important. Similarly, he does in fact lose at one point - when his choice to help the family is discovered, and he is savagely beaten to within an inch of his life. He's not perfect, but he's clever and resourceful.
In addition, while Sanjuro's past is not discussed, he's clearly a veteran swordsman, and his age is specifically stated (almost 40). He possesses a pair of swords (long and short) that mark him as a Samurai, and his clothing bears a clan mark of uncertain origin. Given that information, while the specifics of his past are not given, it's plausible that he's just an extremely skilled swordsman who's recently down on his luck for whatever reason. The information we're given is believable, and the information we're not given is, naturally, left to our imagination to fill in.
Finally, the issue of Sanjuro's morality is a pretty important one. When he comes to the town, most of the people he encounters assume he is a mercenary, referring to him derogatorily and indicating that he doesn't care about the town. However, over the course of the movie, his motives become more clear. He rescues a family at great risk to himself, and gets caught because of it. He spares one of the thugs at the end who begs for his life - the same character at the beginning of the movie who had rejected his humble origins as a farmer to pursue the "short, exciting" life of a gangster. Even though the townsfolk assume his aim is profit, inevitably he's more interested in bringing down both gangs.
However, his moral decisions are grounded in investment in terms of time, potential profit, and risk. He has to go out of his way to do good things, and in the case of the family it's at great cost to him to do so. It's self-sacrifice, rather than simply being a "good option" and taking it. There is a great cost associated with doing good, and that is what makes the choice virtuous, rather than simply "decent" or "nice". In contrast, his choice to spare the son as he begged for his life is also good, but in a more passive way. It reflects his compassion, but it is less about him going out of his way to do something and more about "not killing him". Ultimately, this was a situation where Sanjuro stood to profit a great deal (he was offered huge sums of money to act as a bodyguard), but he chose to give the money up to help people. These are the kinds of decisions that make his morality feel more plausible; he's not good out of convenience, he's good because he thinks it's the right thing to do.
Yojimbo's setup is a classic one - a semi-isolated town with two warring factions. It's been reused in plenty of other movies and games, because it's effective at what it needs to do. But let's look at the elements involved. The unnamed town in Yojimbo is "semi-isolated": the larger government exists, but mostly doesn't pay attention to the town. The arrival of an official, and the threat he represents of bringing the state government down upon them, is a big deal, but on the other hand when that official isn't around, there's open combat in the streets.
The "semi-isolated" aspect is important because it allows for a normal flow of resources and trade goods, but also means that the area can run by its own rules. Sanjuro can interfere because there is conflict, and the conflict exists because there's no state government cracking down on it. The town provides "natural borders" in terms of area of influence, but there's also a world outside those borders to get all the resources that the immediate area can't provide. If you made the area fully isolated, you'd have to explain every resource - food, tools, weapons, clothes, and so on. If you made the area not isolated at all, you'd have to explain why the police or military don't become involved when people are fighting in the streets. It explains the underlying supply issues while still giving the factions and characters room to move around and influence each other.
One important thing that the movie did (and which was copied by Way of the Samurai, a videogame influenced very heavily by it) was to minimize the civilian presence within the town. While one might normally expect a town to be bustling, in Yojimbo the town's population is very sparse. This means that there's a very core cast of characters outside of the two factions' various thugs and goons. Civilians exist, but as distinct characters instead of nameless rabble. This minimizes their role and reduces the number of "loose ends" that might interfere with the main plot. It also makes the civilians who are present more notable and identifiable.
The two factions in Yojimbo aren't exactly morally grey. They're both reprehensible, which is why it's a "good" act for Sanjuro to attempt to destroy them both. They're not differentiated by much more than their important characters; most of them are just criminals and sellswords, with no real underlying ideology or viewpoint differences. In some ways that makes it more grounded; they're not major political groups, they're just two conflicting crime lords. Their followers are in it for money and power. It makes sense.
Despite its technical limitations, Yojimbo does a great job in portraying materials and environments - only natural for sets of that style, but it's the kind of thing that gets lost in CGI. Even in black and white, everything looks real. The simplicity of the recording means that it feels largely untouched, which makes it much more tangible than an environment that has been edited or altered in post-production.
The costuming is ramshackle, but never unrealistic; the criminal underlings wear a wide variety of cobbled-together clothing, but it feels natural instead of "these are thugs, they should wear weird things". They dress like people would dress, even when it means being somewhat impractical. It's something a person would do; they don't have to be totally practical 100% of the time, but an impractical decision should be justified by their personality. They stake a lot on their reputations and their personalities, and their clothes reflect that. They're not simple townsfolk, who would have reason to dress conservatively; they're brash criminals, and their viewpoint and society are reflected in something as simple as how they wear their clothing.
One thing I especially liked was the way combat is handled. There's a large scale battle between the two factions that's eventually interrupted (a picture of the scene in question can be seen above in the "scenario" section). Instead of two hordes of screaming, charging warriors, the battle consists entirely of two groups lunging at each other, then retreating. There's really a sense that neither side wants to be the charging group; they're concerned for their own lives, after all. Hence, the scene conveys trepidation and fear while also conveying bloodthirsty intent.
For his part, Sanjuro regards the whole thing as comical, and hence his own fights are much more dynamic. He moves quickly and surely, taking down his foes as efficiently as possible. The contrast between a hardened warrior and an amateurish thug is illustrated by this difference. The reason Sanjuro is a skilled warrior is because of this decisiveness, not just because he's better at using a sword. It's a subtle change that can actually be attributed to in-universe differences. That's one of the major features of the movie's design, really - things that make sense for people to do. The whole concept hinges on it.
Conclusion
The reasons Yojimbo works, I feel, are the result of doing a lot with a little. There's no supernatural elements or ancient conspiracies or super-powerful characters. It's a basic setup, grounded characters, and logical trains of thought. The world depicted is a simple one, and the most "exotic" thing in the movie is a simple six-shooter pistol. Yet it's a concept that grabbed people's attentions because of the way it portrays that world, and manages to be very compelling despite not having outlandish or unorthodox elements to it. It's the plot and the characters that are important, not the bells and whistles.
So, To Sum Up:
1) Yojimbo is a basic setup that's executed in an interesting and compelling way.
2) It's a good example of a movie that uses simple elements to convey a story.
3) It's also a classic "adventure" model, since the movie consists of the main character interacting with the environment and the environment occasionally interacting back.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Analysis: S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is a setting founded on a short story ("Roadside Picnic") and a film ("Stalker") detailing an alternate reality centered around the Chernobyl disaster. Most gamers know it from video games: "Shadow of Chernobyl", "Clear Sky", and "Call of Pripyat". As a game, STALKER works with a lot of the concepts that I've talked about in the past. It has a central defining element to its setting. It uses realism to make fantastic things seem more notable. Its characters are dressed and equipped reasonably for the settings. It has an open, internally-consistent world. It is one of the purest "reality + weird things" settings available.
Setting
STALKER takes place in an alternate reality that is, for most intents and purposes, identical to real life. The primary difference is the Chernobyl reactor, which was used to study psychotropic weapons and technology. These experiments were responsible for creating the Zone of Alienation, a massive area around the plant where strange phenomena arise. This includes unusual or impossible weather patterns, ghostly anomalies, and hostile mutated creatures.Due to the deadly nature of the Zone, the policy of nearby governments is essentially to leave it alone apart from some minor military presence. However, the Zone also offers rewards for the diligent. Certain hazardous areas of the Zone naturally create artifacts with various magical effects, such as regeneration and increased vitality. This has led to a booming economy for those willing to venture into the Zone and retrieve these artifacts for use in the "real world". The people in the Zone are hardy adventurers who bring whatever they can from the outside (food, clothes, gear, guns) and try to survive in the harsh environment.
So this gives us two concepts. On the one hand, most of the world is normal. On the other hand, the Zone is weird. The setting's technology and basic assumption of human functioning is based on the former, and the defining elements of the game are based on the latter. In this way it can be compared to Demon's Souls: a "normal" world exists, but the game takes place entirely in the "weird" world. Outside of the Zone, the world functions as normal, and this is the source for all the food, weapons, and gear you find in the game - it was brought in from the outside. Compare this to a post-apocalyptic game, where the source of such items is generally based on scavenging and looting ancient items (that are still somehow functional).
The design aesthetic of STALKER is, naturally, based on reality. It's meant to evoke a combination of military surplus and survivalist gear; the equipment carried by the average STALKER is generally stuff a regular civilian can obtain, with the natural exception of automatic weapons and so on. STALKERS, including the player, are outfitted with carrying gear, armor, radiation protection (in the form of gas masks and chemical warfare suits), and everything else they might realistically need in the Zone. It appeals to tangible items, including those that you personally might own or could buy.
The Zone is a classic example of an open, detailed environment with borders around it. It is a detailed, largely self-explanatory ecosystem that the player can interact with. It has three categories of interactive material: people, creatures, and the Zone itself.
The people found in the Zone are generally either adventurers or military personnel. There are three consistent factions of adventurers in the Zone, though others come and go. The Loners are the neutral faction, and consist of independent STALKERs who simply want to make a quick buck and avoid dying. "Freedom" is a group devoted to studying and understanding the Zone, and are generally laid back. "Duty", on the other hand, is a hardcore paramilitary group dedicated to stopping the Zone's expansion. There's also various mercenary groups and bandits that populate the area, but they're less important.
The three main factions reflect three different opinions about the Zone: "like it", "don't care", and "hate it". They also have three overarching personalities: laid-back, profit-oriented/survivalist, and militaristic. This allows for a simple, but broad, spectrum of player identification instead of the usual good/evil split. Players might identify with them based on their goals, or they might identify with them based on their outlook. A player might not care one way or another, but poor treatment by members of Duty would make them support Freedom. It's the kind of setup where there's no "right" answer except for what the player personally thinks.
In addition, the behavior of fellow STALKERs is pretty reasonable. When they're encountered in the field, they're doing something - patrolling, exploring, gathering artifacts, or whatever. In fact, you can ask them what they're doing and they'll tell you, and if they're on their way somewhere you can ask to go with them. It's simple, but it makes them actually feel like fellow inhabitants and not just random spawns. The conversation system isn't particularly in-depth, but it's sensible. You can ask people what they're doing, what's going on in the Zone, etc. In fact, one of the easiest ways to gather information is just to ask people about new rumors. It's a sensible way to interact with an environment, and again it makes them feel like they're part of the Zone, not just random AI characters.
The monsters and mutants in STALKER are one of the more immediately fantastic elements of the series. There are two major groups of creatures in STALKER: animals and humanoids. Both groups are essentially mutated versions of real things; the former consists of mutated pigs, dogs, rats, and so on, while the latter has a bit more diversity and includes psychic creatures, invisible creatures, and giant creatures. While they're fantastic in nature, they're supposed to have real roots - they're either mutated animals or mutated humans, and in the latter case the method of their mutation determines what kind of creature they are.
One of the important aspects of the mutants in STALKER is their contribution to the sensory atmosphere. Due to the open-world nature of the game, enemy encounters are rarely direct in STALKER. Instead, the player must use their senses to detect enemies and avoid being ambushed. The baying of dogs, the growling of "Snorks", and the roar of a bloodsucker are all distinctive noises that allow the player to identify threats and move to engage them. This creates atmosphere by making sound an important, constantly-relevant aspect of the game. It's a natural cue that gives the world more depth, because the player has to respond to it realistically. The open world gives them a lot more freedom to be "realistic" and changes the dynamic of player-mutant interaction.
While there's not a widely-explored ecosystem, the creatures all feel like plausible hunters, at least most of the time. Everything hunts to eat, and if they do manage to kill something they can be observed feeding on it. Bloodsuckers, for example, can be seen taking fallen enemies to their lair, while fleshes (pig-based mutants) will drag mutant dogs away to eat. Like the human STALKERs, they have a purpose within the zone - to survive and thrive. Their habits may be a bit unrealistic and exaggerated, but they're serving a clear purpose in the ecosystem.
The Zone itself has a few naturally occurring dangers apart from its inhabitants. The most prominent of these are the anomalies, locations within the Zone that have strange, dangerous properties. They may be electrical fields, pockets of deadly gas, or air that bursts into flame when something walks into it. In most cases, anomaly fields cannot specifically be seen; there may be a haze in the air or a shimmer of the light, but the danger itself does not manifest until something has entered the field. For this reason, STALKERs (including the player) carry around small metal bolts to throw into the field and set off the anomaly. Through this method a STALKER can plot a course through the safe parts of the field.
The reason that STALKERs even bother with anomalies at all is due to the fact that anomalies spawn artifacts, small items with diverse magical properties. As mentioned, the artifacts are the main reason for the STALKERs being in the Zone at all. STALKERs go into anomaly zones to collect artifacts by using portable handheld detectors (which come in various types). Artifacts can either be used by the STALKERs themselves or sold to corporations and researchers outside the Zone. Hence, the player can often find fellow STALKERs investigating anomaly fields and gathering artifacts. This helps reinforce the sense that other people have their own reasons for being in the Zone.
The Zone's other major danger is emissions, also known as blowouts (video link). These are periodic storms that kill every creature not in proper cover (i.e. underground or a secure bunker). This includes humans and mutants; NPCs as well as the player will seek shelter when a blowout is imminent. In fact, it's possible for them not to, as corpses can occasionally be found after a blowout. The need to take shelter from them is a plot point in Call of Pripyat, explaining why the three main factions all consider the same station as neutral ground.
Anomalies and emissions aren't just random events, at least in a meta-sense. They're believable, explainable events that occur as regular parts of the Zone, and they affect the behavior of its inhabitants in a major way. They provide something for the player to interact with in the same way that NPCs interact with it. It's not a special, scripted event - it's a normal part of the Zone. Without anomalies and artifacts, there's no reason for most people to be in the Zone. Emissions aren't necessary for motivation, but they're a major issue within the Zone and affect the way people and creatures act.
Conclusion
STALKER works largely because it makes sense. Yes, the Zone makes weird things happen, but they're consistent, rather than totally random. This means that human beings (including the player, naturally) can figure things out and adapt to them. It doesn't tell you up front how to deal with anomalies or mutants, but through experimentation, exploration, and talking to fellow STALKERs, it can be dealt with. It has a lot of depth because everything works and everything has a source, and the one thing that doesn't (the properties of the Zone) is basically magic anyways. It's realistic in enough ways that the unrealistic parts seem more meaningful, and it's open enough that the true nature of the Zone and its ecosystem are allowed to influence the player.
So, To Sum Up:
1) STALKER's internal consistency allows the player to meaningfully experiment and interact with the environment.
2) The combination of realism and fantasy makes it seem more tangible and relatable to the average person.
3) People and creatures within the world have natural, sensible reasons for doing what they do.
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