Knit-picking
The game design challenge is always a rousing and inspiring session at GDC, and this year was no exception, but I was a little let down with the results. This year’s theme was to design a game based upon a needle-and-thread interface, and the contestants were Harvey Smith (Deus Ex), David Jaffe (God of War) and Alexey Pajitnov (Tetris). I’m not going to give in-depth descriptions of each game, since you can read it here (and I recommend that gyou do, if you were not sitting in on the panel) but instead, I’ll offer my analysis.
Harvey’s game was ambitious, and its story was compelling (and excellent satire), but the gameplay was a little unfocused and didn’t really take advantage of the unique input device as well as it could have. For a game where the primary interaction is walking around, exploring a world and interacting with it people and objects, the controls felt a little clunky. These are actions which have already been mapped effectively to existing controllers, and to shoehorn them into the needle and cloth interface felt forced. Harvey mentioned some mechanics that were designed with the needle interface in mind, but unfortunately he didn’t have enough time to expound them sufficiently. However, these additions seemed secondary to the main focus of the game. Overall, it felt like a port of a good adventure game with a few additional mechanics added on to take advantage of a non-standard controller, similar to many early DS and Wii games. If he had instead focused on the core needle-and-thread mechanics, similar to how Trauma Center focused on using the DS touch screen to perform surgery but was still able to tell a story, he would have had a much stronger design.
David’s design was more centered on the unique controller. His idea to have a paper airplane simulator, based on folding the fabric and (virtually) stitching it together took advantage of the interface in a unique way and was a rather creative use of needle and cloth, but his claim that you couldn’t do the same thing with any other interface was slightly off the mark. In fact, I first played that game with all of my friends when I was 5. We used an interface known in the industry as “making paper airplanes out of scrap paper and flying them against your friends’.”
“But Alex,” you could argue, “you’re missing the point. People like games that are simulations of real-life activities. Look at the popularity of Guitar Hero.”
“Well,” I would respond, there are those people who much prefer playing a real guitar over playing Guitar Hero, but I’ll ignore that for the sake of argument. These types of simulation games offer the player two main advantages over their real-life counterparts: cost of entry and simplification. First off, buying a guitar (or a skateboard, or a Formula 1 racing car) is going to set you back. I’m sure you could find a cheap acoustic uitar on Ebay, but if you really want to rock out with your non-gender-specific genitalia out, you’re going to need to pony up for a nice electric guitar, an amp, and maybe one of those fancy distortion pedals, all of which might run you a few hundred dollars. Guitar Hero, on the other hand, only costs a one-time investment of fifty bucks (Top Skater or Generic Arcade F1 Racing Game will only cost you a dollar per play). Secondly, the Guitar Hero interface has been specifically designed for fun, so it is much simpler than learning to play an actual guitar. In real life, it would be no small feat for someone who has never played before, to pick up a guitar and play as well as the Ramones (okay, bad example… let’s say Judas Priest). Additionally, actual guitars do not come equipped with “easy mode” (unless you count dropped D tuning). Compared to electric guitars, paper airplanes cost practically nothing and require very little skill, so there is no real barrier to entry, thus negating any advantage of a simulated paper airplane game. Of course, that doesn’t explain the wild success of Dance Dance Revolution, so I could be completely wrong.
Compared to both Harvey’s and David’s lively, humorous presentations, Alexey’s was a bit dry, but the simplicity of his design let him not only explain the short set of rules for the game and justify each of them, but also examine the problems that might arise and suggest solutions. This was a much more nuts-and-bolts approach to game design, compared to the other two designers who took more of the high-concept, “we’ll figure that out later” methodology, and it helped the audience get a better feel for the game.
Earlier in the day, Warren Spector had claimed Alexey’s old game, Tetris, to be the pinnacle of game design. Many of the criteria that Warren cited in Tetris, apply equally well to Alexey’s needle-and-thread game. The rules are simple and elegant. Each game is short, and no two games are alike, because they are player-driven. It has cross-gender appeal. And it is something that could only be done in the digital, interactive medium of videogames. Thus, it seems like a very well-designed game in theory. I can’t help but think, though, that it wouldn’t be all that fun in practice. Granted, I’ve left out some of Warren’s other criteria, such as the aesthetics of both visuals and music (both of which would be impossible to judge from an early prototype), as well as the ability to play it anywhere. Probably the biggest thing that it lacked was the constantly increasing pressure of its predecessor, and the fact that you are really competing against yourself, rather than another human opponent (even in versus mode). Regardless, by focusing on the constraints and affordances of the interface, and producing a simple and elegant set of rules that fit together in the mind of everyone in the room, there is no doubt that Alexey earned the prize he won.