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a dramatic plot. When I contacted him, he explained to me how that was
exactly what they were trying to do in
Far Cry 2
with the development of
infamy
, a condition in which a player who needs cooperation from NPCs
becomes both very powerful and feared by them, thus the fall. Hocking's
description reads like classic tragedy.
2
Hocking thinks that “consequentiality” may be a better axis to track
than complication and resolution over time. Consequentiality is what the
low-frequency, high-amplitude curve is mapping. In that sense, he is talk-
ing about causality and probability. I realized that causality isn't mapped in
the Freytag diagram, and the shape of the plot over time isn't mapped well
in the “Flying Wedge” diagram. We need a new way to visualize it.
A “consequential” incident may be a “small” event in terms of dramatic
intensity that impacts the probability of something “large” happening later
on. Playwrights can plant such incidents (either as causal over time or as
foreshadowing) and lead us to the conclusion that, in retrospect, a seem-
ingly inconsequential action causes a great change later on. In a land where
thieving and smiting are fairly common, a man beset at a crossroads kills all
but one of the folks who seem to be holding him up. Later he learns that he
has killed his own father. After the consequences occur, we can trace “cau-
sality” back to the consequential incident, but we can't predict it beforehand.
In games, by creating environments and NPCs with specifi c behaviors
and rules, the designer can increase the possibility for consequential inci-
dents to be generated through the player's interactions with the environ-
ments and the NPCs. When a player makes a particular choice that may
seem inconsequential, the possibility for certain actions to occur is trans-
formed into probability. Hocking (2013) provides this example:
In
Thief
(which is a highly consequential game) the low level action of
leaving a body unhidden might cause a group of guards much later in
the level to become agitated—changing the way I navigate a subsequent
series of rooms.
3
Now, this is not as hairy as what happened to Oedipus, but it might
lead to other challenges or transform another possibility into probability for
an action or event to occur later on.
2. For an in-depth analysis of the tragic component of
Far Cry 2
, see an excellent essay by Cesar
Bautista (Penn State, CS) at
http://ceasarbautista.com/essays/far_cry.html.
3. Hocking, personal communication, May 18, 2013.
