Learning Things - Learn to Play: Designing Tutorials for Video Games - page 47

these things happen within a few seconds of the behavior in question,
it is likely that the player will continue that behavior. We accomplish
this in games with juicy feedback, cool explosions, and neat things
to look at and do. We also accomplish it by gradually releasing the
restrictions we place on the player, like giving access to more islands
in Grand Theft Auto ™, or making you more badass in World of Warcraft
as you level up. Saints Row IV ™ is the master of negative reinforce-
ment, which makes me think Volition ™ has a talented psychologist on
staff. The game places restrictions on your powers for a brief moment
at the beginning of the game and then throws the doors open, which
provides for nearly endless motivation and, of course, fun.
The other two elements, punishment and extinction, serve to
remove behaviors. Punishment is obvious: the dog is yelled at when he
eats your favorite shoe, or your child receives an “F” in French class
for consistently making jokes about the pronunciation of “phoque.”
Extinction removes behaviors by failing to provide a reward in time. If
you mow your neighbor's lawn while trimming your own and you are
never thanked for it, over time you will stop. If you work your fingers
to the bone on a special project and receive no recognition, you will
eventually do the minimum required to complete future projects for
the same employer. If the dog sits on command and receives no praise,
the command loses its efficacy. Because extinction was discovered by
providing no feedback, it is extremely important that you provide any
feedback within about 3 seconds of a behavior occurring. If you con-
sistently provide positive and negative reinforcement when players do
a behavior, the result is motivation and a continued behavior. If you
consistently provide extinction and punishment to players, the result
is de- motivation and a discontinued behavior. However, sometimes
players misinterpret your attempts to prune them, and instead just
stop playing. “But Matthew,” you ask, “how will I punish my players'
bad behaviors, like falling down holes or shooting civilians in the face
with bazookas, without risking de-motivation?” “Simple,” I callously
reply: you should start your punishments small, even reward them
for failure, but your reinforcements should always be huge and amaz-
ing. Save the brutal, nightmarish, eldritch punishments for later. This
fosters learning through scaffolding. Heavy Rain does a great job of
this: when you fail early on, Ethan scratches himself with a razor—
not much of a punishment, but enough that you know you have done