Darren Grey, Andrew Doull and Rob Parker discuss design analysis of games during play.
You can download the mp3 of the podcast, play it in the embedded player below, or you can follow us on iTunes.
Synopsis & Useful Links
- What 'Critical Play' means (and how it's not the same as game criticism)
- Andrew questions if the podcast has strayedtoo far from God
- The book 'Critical Play' by Mary Flanagan (which looks more at cultural elements in games)
- Seeing the hand of the designer through procedural content
- Ludology vs Narratology
- The ethereal atmosphere of Brogue communicated through various game elements
- How we play games, and how we play roguelikes differently
- Roguelikes in communication with each other and the community understanding of what to expect in games
- Approaches to critical play
- Keeping a journal of play to aid in analysis
- Playing games in unconventional ways (and whether the game lets you)
- Analysing maximalist games where details can get diluted
- Roguelikes as mass murder simulators
It is worth noting that Critical Play isn't important to developers, but also to the players. Players aren't necessarily looking to develop a new game, but they may attempt to understand 'why' they like a game, or what they don't like. From that point they might mod the game to suit their preferences, or what mechanics to look for in other titles. They may also do it for the purposes of trying to break down a game to get better at it or to uncover hidden mechanics and secrets.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I don't think Orc Breeding Pits was primarily removed from Tales of Maj'Eyal because you were committing genocide; moreso I think it was due to threats of contacting Steam to change the labeling for it. Moreso it was a threat to the game itself that caused the change.
The "genocide" label was a big part of what got players upset. There was a lot of back and forth, and DarkGod tried making changes to the game to keep people happy, but ultimately it was causing too many problems (including the Steam threat) and removal of the content was easier. Ultimately I think the "you're actually a bad guy in their eyes" piece didn't fit well with the rest of the tone of the game. Though I think since the likes of Undertale we've seen better exploration of this theme in games.
DeleteAround 21:15 Darren starts talking about how experimentation is useful to learn the rules of the game, and at the same time, punished due to permadeath.
ReplyDeleteThis is a problem with modern roguelike interpretations that focus too much on permadeath rather than freedom. Probably a whole RR episode could be done on the classic "gamism vs simulationism" split in roguelikes.
The approach of "discover everything yourself with your own experimentation while observing permadeath" might be too frustrating in games such as NetHack, ADOM, or Caves of Qud. I would rather recommend the approach in the lines of "play the game in non-permadeath modes, have fun learning the game via risk-free experimentation, read spoilers, and try to win the game permadeath now".
The ADOM newgroup in the early 2000s was quite fun, there were people experimenting with the game and sharing their findings with the newsgroup, and collected in the ADOM Guidebook. As far as I recall, the Guidebook maintainer Andy Williams did not accept findings obtained via illegal methods such as "code diving" (there was a big controversy regarding the "Improved Guidebook" which *did* accept such illegal findings), but savescumming was fine.
Also, the NetHack wiki suggests an interesting alternative: if you are in a situation in which you do not know what to do because you are not sure how the game works, recreate the situation in the wizard mode and experiment with that.
Roguelikes have originated in the hacker culture, and this culture was pretty much built around "I use my software however I want". The fact that roguelikes are commonly free software and provide extensive cheat modes is more remarkable than the fact that some people want to play them permadeath and understand the game only based on their own permadeath plays.
Yeah, I think we've discussed this before on the podcast, how save-scumming used to be a natural part of learning the game. Nowadays juggling with files is less accessible for players, especially for mobile and console players, but having an integrated lives system or adventure mode can get you in trouble with roguelike purists. Probably a topic we should discuss further.
DeleteThough in the context of critical play, it's important to remember that permadeath is integral to the mechanics, and makes understanding of the full system all the more important for maximising survivability. It's a difficult tension to bridge. I think games that have some sort of arena / random battler mode help for just quick exploration of different mechanics without risking a character built over a long time.