The Empire Surmises Back: can cerebral verbs work in video games?

What’s keeping video games from maturing thematically?  It’s not poly counts or set pieces—it’s verbs. 

I’ve said this before, haven’t I?  Games are predominantly about verbs of the body—running, jumping, shooting—instead of the mind—manipulating, lying, befriending. 

Video game stories lack complexity.  Yeah yeah yeah I’m generalizing, but how many times have you started a game as a weak dude, then gotten all the guns, and then you overpower the ultimate bad guy and save the day?  Plenty.  That’s because the verbs aren’t complex—they’re about reaching the goal by runnin’n’gunnin’, instead of dealing with complex characters in complex ways.  There’s no subtlety in verbs of the body—no surreptitious glances, no coaxing someone on the fence to join your cause, no intimidation—nor are you able to explore these subtleties within your own character by choosing neither good or evil, but the morally grey option instead.  And of course, we like situations in which there is no right or wrong choice.  Those are the best—what would you do when faced with an impossible decision?  Can you find a third way out? 

Some time ago I wrote about the value game writers would gain from having multiple protagonists in their stories (find it right here http://www.probablyentertainment.com/smatterings/2012/7/17/lifting-things-with-your-mind-game-design-and-most-important.html), and I’m revisiting it now because I’ve been listening to the Empire Strikes Back OST. 

Yeah, actually, I think that’s exactly why I’ve been thinking about this stuff.  Because that soundtrack’s GREAT.  Caps and italics, motherfuckers.  GREAT. 

While I will eventually get back to my thoughts on multiple-protagonist story lines in games, for now I’m really just returning to The Empire Strikes Back.  It’s a well-known film that I can mine for a surprising number of examples.  Because it’s GREAT. 

Luke’s journey consists primarily of cerebral verbs—he’s clearing his mind of thoughts, he’s listening carefully to a little green monster, he’s afraid of becoming Darth Vader.  These verbs of the mind are interesting, for sure—but first, let’s take a look at Luke’s verbs of the body to see if they address the film’s themes.  If they do, then why implement cerebral verbs at all?  We could make a thematically complex game while relying on physical verbs, which clearly work well in video games. 

I can only recall three major sequences in the film in which Luke uses verbs of the body: first, he’s mauled by a wampa; second, he crashes his snowspeeder and almost dies because he can’t unbuckle his seatbelt; third, Darth Vader toys with him like a chump before telling him to go fuck himself (with the other hand).  Whenever Luke’s not thinking, he’s moments from death. 

(no wonder I love that movie) 

Point being—there aren’t many verbs of the body for Luke, and the few he has aren’t interesting thematically.  They’re tense, they’re fraught with danger, but they’re not complex.  Luke wants to live.  He’s not choosing his life over his comrades’, he’s not trying to convince Vader he that can be redeemed, he’s not tricking the wampa into thinking he tastes bad.  He’s just trying to survive.  These moments are thrilling, but they don’t challenge the audience.  We’ve seen them over and over again, and if video games are going to mature, we need more interesting verbs—verbs which address the themes the designers want to express. 

On to Dagobah! 

This is the interesting stuff, right?  The eagerness of youth to change the world, struggling with the fear of failure, placing your faith in what cannot be seen.  Saving your friends when doing so all but guarantees your death.  Figuring out Yoda’s inverted syntax.  These are all verbs of the mind, and they’re fascinating.  This is the soul of the film—yeah, Han and Leia get all the action, but the really challenging material belongs to Luke on Dagobah. 

How do we handle these verbs in an interactive medium, though?  How do we make confidence a mechanic that you can feel?  How can we make the player feel the fear of inadequacy? 

The oft-used solution here is the dialogue tree.  I’ll tackle the dialogue tree in a future post, but for now, I’ll simply say this: it won’t work well here because Luke’s conflict is internal.  It’s less about convincing other characters what they should do than it’s about Luke’s personal struggle to mature.  How would we make that into a dialogue tree an inner monologue tree?  The player knows what he should do—he should learn to control his fear!  He should be confident!  He should become a Jedi already, dammit!  There’s no tension in the choices—it will only grow tiresome for the player to quickly cycle through the options until he finds the right combination that makes Luke learn to be an adult.  That’s not interesting—well, it could be, but I’ll tackle that in (still) another post about this stuff. 

Okay, so dialogue trees won’t work—what about gameplay?  It’s a game, after all—make this stuff into an interesting game! 

I’d love to.  In survival-horror game Amnesia: The Dark Descent, the protagonist is defenseless and scared out of his mind (literally).  He observes increasingly supernatural events, which lower his sanity.  As it drops, his vision becomes blurred and the player’s controls are affected, making the player feel helpless—and he basically is.  He can run and hide, or he will die. 

Scary, yeah!  Terrifying.  And Luke’s afraid of becoming Darth Vader, of not being skilled enough, of failing his friends… but… how do we utilize that on Dagobah?  If Luke’s nerves were tested on Cloud City, and the controls become flimsier and his vision narrows, that might be interesting (especially since he’s trying so hard to be brave), but… on Dagobah, it only fits Luke’s training in the cave.  This scene is relatively short (Luke walks through the cave for a few seconds, then faces Vader), and obscured vision and handicapped controls are most effective when they ramp up.  You’re worried, you’re tense, you’re anxious, scared, terrified, barely able to go on, petrified, oh god oh god oh god it’s Darth Vader, my lightsaber feels like it weighs forty pounds, I can barely keep up, I can hardly parry, that might be an opening, I cut off his head, thank god—oh no, it’s me!  I’m in there!  Am I becoming a monster? 

We’d have to lengthen the scene, possibly add in a few jarring images of what Luke fears will happen to his friends if he fails, add an initial encounter with Vader where you must run or else you’ll die (maybe because Vader tosses your lightsaber across the cave?) or else the scene won’t crescendo properly—but this is a possibility.  It could work. 

But again, it’s only one scene.  What about all of the training, the running through the forest, the one-handed handstand while balancing rocks with your mind? 

Oh!  We’ll do something similar when Luke is trying to concentrate!  As he’s distracted, we can make it harder to place the rocks, and he needs to keep track of his balance as well, and Yoda’s jabbering some sage wisdom with inverted syntax, and… wait, how do we track Luke’s distraction?  How do we show him trying to clear his mind? 

We could… well… I dunno.  The best solutions I have are pretty weak.  We could place distracting imagery on the screen, we could utilize quick time events to approximate Luke keeping his balance, he could need to respond to Yoda’s guidance, we could bombard the player with things to keep track of and blur the screen as he falls behind, lower the timers on the QTEs, make Yoda speak backwards so it’s harder to under… oh. 

But you get the point.  And sure, this might be interesting.  It might also be a string of un-fun and frustrating mini-games that the player has to slug through to get back to the rest of the game.  It has potential, though, especially given that (still) other post I want to write about this stuff.  It could be great if implemented well, and I’ll let you know what I think would help it along… later. 

The other solution I had involved the Kinect camera, mostly because that thing’s a little frightening, and why not let it read your mind and scare you while playing?  I mean, it might be cool to verbally respond to Yoda while juggling the other distractions… but letting it blur the camera as you become more exasperated (and it can tell that)—that  could also be cool, if only possible on a single platform at this point. 

But the blurring and such might be a gimmick—perhaps it’s enough to bombard the player with distractions?  We’d have to see.  Currently, it all sounds a bit oppressive—and not that dissimilar from the runnin’n’gunnin’ and flyin’n’gunnin’ of Han and company’s gameplay, which may simply escalate player frustration.  It’d be nice to find a solution that isn’t as mentally draining as the action sequences; players like to flip between mechanics so they don’t become fatigued.  These solutions are probably utilizing similar parts of the brain as traditional gameplay—and that’s not inherently bad, but I’d personally like a solution that felt more unique. 

And I’ll be honest—I think these solutions are a little lacking.  It’s an approximation of Luke’s trials, of the mental gymnastics he must master to become a Jedi… but what about the emotions?  Does feeling distracted actually make players feel inadequate?  After overcoming these obstacles, will they still feel underprepared for the rescue mission on Cloud City?  Will these challenges make the player feel like a Jedi-in-training, like someone arrogant but uncertain, loyal but brash, afraid but going anyway, dammit? 

I doubt it, but I’d love to hear what you think.  I might have other solutions to these problems, or at least slightly different approaches that better handle internal conflict—but it’s hard! 

And creating unexpected plots on top of it?  And turning choices which are poor approximations of emotional complexity into truly compelling gameplay?  And does this still have anything to do with multiple protagonists? 

You’re goddamn right it does! 

Next time! 

(and probably the time after that, and the time after that…)