Suspension of disbelief and "worlding" in video games

[vic oakland]

What I'm about to say...essentially, that graphics and, to a lesser extent, the smoothness of gameplay mechanics...are not essential components of the video game experience, would be controversial to the vast majority happily riding the wave of "current gen" gaming, but for any of us who mostly play retro, the concept of worlding and the suspension of disbelief (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspension_of_disbelief) is essential to our understanding of video games and what makes a great game.

I keep a running list of my favorite console games. Games move up and games move down. What this let's me see, however, are the qualities that, for me, make a great game.

Simply put, time and again, what makes a great game is the immediate and sustained immersion in a game world.

Maximo. Street Fighter Alpha 3. Silent Bomber. Shinobi 3. Klonoa Door to Phantomile. Jackie Chan Stuntmaster. Rez. Comix Zone. Devil May Cry.

For the time being, these are the games that create, for me, an experience of total immersion in a game world and the willing supension of disbelief.

Games, essentially, are riddles written by video game programmers, that gamers are asked to solve. What we encounter, face to face with the riddles laid out for us in a video game, is a world.

Ico. Shadow of the Colossus.

These are games that clearly are riddles. The entire world we inhabit in these games is a puzzle.

So, to me, what makes a great game, what makes for a kick ass gaming experience, is not, so much, that it mimics a photo realistic imitation of a simulated reality, but that from the very moment that we step into a game world, that we are immersed.

The power of the console is irrelevant. The power of imagination and the commitment to create an immersive experience on the part of the game designer are what makes a game great.

Psychic Force. Rival Schools United by Fate. Darkstalkers 3.

These are games with utterly simple mechanics. With each of these games, however, we immediately enter a world with rules. How we navigate those rules is up to us.

What makes a game great to me, is that the designer has thought through every component of the experience...and delivers a world that rises to the level of imagination. (Which is why crappy level design and stupid mechanics only get in the way...and why the grail of photo realistic gaming is a false god.)

Intelligent Qube. Trap Gunner. Einhander. Rayman.

Four PS1 games. Four distinct worlds. All of them totally immersive. All of them games that I keep ranking highly on my personal list.

You will have your own opinion. (For myself, I struggle to get RPG's to feel as immersive as puzzle or fighting or action games.) But I think what keeps many of us open to the worlds of retro games is the fact that game design...not photo realism...is the ticket to true gaming nirvana.

There is one reason for this.

A game is a playing field in which our imagination interacts with the creativity of the game designer. Yes. Games have rules, games are like sports, games are like anything with a complex set of rules to describe an environment.

However. From the moment we call up the opening screen (like the first page of a book) we are in constant interaction with a world designed by another person.

We pay for our ticket to the gameworld by the act of willing suspesion of disbelief, a phrase first used by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the poet. In return, we receive an interactive, immersive world.

That's why we game. That's why retro is no different than current gen.

Games are worlds. The best games are worlds that are riddles.

Game designers know this. Like poets, game designers have thought out how we will will experience a particular gaming universe.

That's why games are cool.

[Key-Glyph]

I like how you apply the concept of suspension of disbelief to video games. Any narrative is like the tiny point illuminated by a flashlight in a dark room: you can only see the small piece that is being shown to you at any given moment. A good storyteller, though, makes you believe in the rest of the room that's hidden from you. They make you believe that other events, information, history, characters, and/or truths populate that dark space, and that the flashlight beam could be directed anywhere and you'd see another piece of the story instead of a black hole or a backstage area.

I use literary terms here, but even games that lack a traditional "story" can count. When you believe in and trust the physics of Pong, and you project the general concept of a sports competition to your gameplay, bam. You've got a narrative and you're engrossed. But is that always mostly the game's doing? I think much of the credit has to go to the player, who can create and apply a narrative of their own to an experience that would otherwise be nothing more than a mashup of arbitrary goals, or who creates goals and attachments unintended by the programmers. That's not to take any of the credit away from a great game creator's skill, however. I'd say what a great game designer does is find a way to lead a game and player to create something greater between them than the sum of their parts, and that that's the real feat.

I should add, though, that I really enjoy the breaking of the fourth wall: moments when a video game deliberately reminds you that it's a fantasy, when it concedes that you, The Player, are controlling things, or when it alludes to its own inability to explain the in-game happenings. The Monkey Island series did this a lot, with Guybrush periodically turning outward and lobbing one-liners at his audience ("I can't help feeling I'm being ripped off. I'm sure you're feeling the same") and occasionally making random exclamations about video games and LucasArts. Sometimes these statements are treated as nonsequiturs within the Monkey Island universe, and sometimes it's obvious that Guybrush understands his role in your life and is making in-jokes with you about it.

Portal 2 did some very clever things with this. I'm thinking particularly of the opening scene when Wheatley asks your character to say something. The message "Press A to speak" appears, but upon pushing the button your character does only what that button is meant to make her do: jump. This gets a laugh, because the game is obviously breaking the fourth wall with you. But the game messes with this trope further as Wheatley struggles to explain, in-universe, why you aren't speaking. The game itself broke the fourth wall with you while the characters did not. In this instance, in fact, the characters' firm maintenance of that fourth wall only serves to highlight its existence further and further, which actually causes more damage to it. I find this very clever indeed.

[o.pwuaioc]

I should add, though, that I really enjoy the breaking of the fourth wall

I think my first experience with that was, apart from tutorial suggestions ("if you want to do this, press A"), was Sonic looking at you impatiently if you stopped moving him for a few seconds.

[vlame]

999 for DS makes you question what is has told you in the final ending.

[Luke]

You might like to read JT's thread on Immersion:

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=17789&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

[o.pwuaioc]

Also, The Bard's Tale has the "mysterious old man" who breaks the fourth wall, while the "the bard" is clueless (although he does address "the narrator"). I always enjoy it when they do that.

[vic oakland]

Thanks for the responses. I would try to break the fourth wall here, but that's not really possible, lol.

I think the thing that creates immersion (thanks for that link)...and adds to the overall depth of a game...is when every aspect of the game has been given some thought and design.

I like games where the entire experience, from opening it up to playing it through, is designed and thought out and themed. That can be a comical game, Crash Team Racing or Bugs Bunny Lost in Time...or a fighting game, Evil Zone and Bloody Roar 2 come to mind...as well as games like Okami or Persona 4 or Beyond Good and Evil.

It's easier to suspend disbelief when the game is it's own consistent world.

[o.pwuaioc]

It's easier to suspend disbelief when the game is it's own consistent world.

What games do you see that are not consistent?

[vic oakland]

Just finished co-op plays of Baldur's Gate and Champions of Norrath.

Norrath bounced all over the place. Kittens and zombies. Ice worlds and caribbean islands. Nothing held it together. I hadn't played it in five or six years and, while the well-designed areas (ie. the dungeon areas) were still fun, the game didn't hold up, and I found myself frequently distracted and annoyed by the environments.

That's inconsistent.

Baldur's Gate has it's own zany characters and sidequests, but it was consistent. The arid highlands led to semi-melted ice areas with wolves, led to deep ice caves with unexpected enemies. (That's one good way to do an ice level, it just gets colder and colder.) Basically, the game builds upon itself and delivers a final level worthy of what led up to it.

[o.pwuaioc]

Just finished co-op plays of Baldur's Gate and Champions of Norrath.

Norrath bounced all over the place. Kittens and zombies. Ice worlds and caribbean islands. Nothing held it together. I hadn't played it in five or six years and, while the well-designed areas (ie. the dungeon areas) were still fun, the game didn't hold up, and I found myself frequently distracted and annoyed by the environments.

That's inconsistent.

Baldur's Gate has it's own zany characters and sidequests, but it was consistent. The arid highlands led to semi-melted ice areas with wolves, led to deep ice caves with unexpected enemies. (That's one good way to do an ice level, it just gets colder and colder.) Basically, the game builds upon itself and delivers a final level worthy of what led up to it.

Ah, gotcha. I see what you mean now. Some video games I don't worry too much about consistency, especially early 2D platformers for shmups (Easter Island heads, anyone?), but I do require it from my novels and movies. I detest literature where characters are unbelievable, and even as a kid I questioned English puns in books about far away lands. (Tolkien did that right, but when I was a young kid I wondered about the "grabbing the bull by the horns" joke made about a minotaur on the first page of Dragons of a Fallen Sun.) Games like Baldur's Gate definitely require consistency for me to rate them highly.