Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
That's not necessarily a bad thing, of course, but it means changing what we're saying or how
we're saying it through game systems to attract, retain, or persuade players into hearing and
engaging.
What happens when game creators simply put their thoughts out there in an expressive system
and ask players to listen without compromising or adapting? What if a game is trying to express
something real about the creator's life? As mentioned in Chapter 1, “Language,” Anna's game
dys4ia
(2012) reveals her own experiences of taking hormones through dozens of small systems;
it asks players to help unfold that story, piece by piece.
dys4ia
is a game that's less about players
choosing what happens or expressing themselves and more about a kind of listening through
interaction to understand a kind of life experience that most players don't share.
Telling and listening are part of conversations, too. Sometimes it makes sense to rest our active
responses and simply
hear
what the person who's talking is trying to say and understand
what they mean in the stories they tell—or the systems they build. Games can present us with
overt choices and ask us what we think; they can also show us that in some circumstances and
systems, choices are limited or don't necessarily make a difference. For example, as a single
immigration inspector in
Papers, Please
, you can't help every single person cross the border.
When you play
dys4ia
, you can't change the course of Anna's life or experiment with the system
to see what would happen if she stopped taking hormones or reacted differently to emotion-
ally trying circumstances. It's part of the story of her life, and it recounts through its systems
what's already happened.
When you go into a conversation, you help shape how it'll evolve and turn out. Conversa-
tions can be polite and formal or raucous and free-wheeling; the same is true of games. As the
creator of a game, even if you're not present when it's played, you'll make many choices that
determine and limit what might happen in the conversation of play. Games can present us with
overt choices and ask us what we think—like an interrogator demanding answers or a friend
posing questions to help us understand how we feel. What would you do in a difficult situation?
What kinds of choices would you make when faced with limited resources? We can also create
wider spaces within games where we invite players to come up with their own strategies, reac-
tions, and explorations into territories that we might never have anticipated as the creators of
the game's vocabulary. Or we can limit those spaces and ask players to listen—to understand
that not every system is open to being changed through the agency of players, not every story
can be diverted toward a happy ending, and not every difficult challenge can be mastered and
conquered.
These are all different ways of communicating through games, and they raise all sorts of ques-
tions. What kind of space do you want to shape? If you have something you want to say, how do
