He’s selling potions

Merging narrative with puzzles

A few posts ago (here, here and here), we discussed about puzzles, how to create them and what makes them challenging and immersive. Today, I want to talk about how a puzzle can be an interesting narrative component inside a game.

We have lots of examples, but let’s focus our attention on one specific series of games, so we can think about how puzzles can intersect with an action game: let’s talk about Resident Evil’s fourth edition.



This game (and many others of this genre) focuses its gameplay in a balance between action scenes full of despair and introspective moments, where the player must take a breath and calmly think of how to solve certain puzzles. In the example below we can see this: it’s a puzzle that uses lights inside a church. After the enigma is solved, the player triggers a new scene of action.



In a game like Resident Evil 4, the puzzles create a kind of a break in the frenzy action with zombies and other creatures. Those moments are very strategic to calm down the players and prepare the story for the next step.

Different from other shooting games, Resident Evil’s series uses the puzzles as a tool to its storytelling. Each mystery solved leads to an important narrative piece to explain the main plot. Another point deserves a highlight in RE4’s case: the gaming producers use different kinds of puzzles to test players’ “powers”. As Koster (2005, p.152) reminds us

“The toughest puzzles are the ones that force the most self-experimentation. They are the ones that challenge us most deeply on many levels – mental stamina, mental agility, creativity, perseverance, physical endurance, and emotional self-abnegation”.

There are many possibilities and many combinations. Let’s discuss more how puzzles can merge with different kinds of gaming plots.

#GoGamers

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Reference:

KOSTER, Raph. A theory of fun for game design. Arizona: Paraglyph Press, 2005.

Gaming quotes

"Someday, if society allows it, games will have their Skakespeare"

Raph Koster IN: A Theory of Fun for Game Design (2005, p.219)

From the NON-GAME to the GAME

Jesper Jull, in his book Half-Real (2005, p.36), contextualizes a game as the union of six elements: fixed rules, variable outcome, valorization of outcome, player effort, player attachment to the outcome, and negotiable consequences.

On the other hand, Juul understands that in the opposite side of games we can find the “not games”: the movies, books, children playing, and other activities that does not meet the previously mentioned gaming features. However, between the non-games and games we can see a gray area made up of elements that bring together some gaming features; Juul calls this area as borderline cases.

Source: Source: Juul, 2005, p.44.

But the question here is: is it possible for a content to transit through these three areas? The answer is yes. Let’s take as an example the work of Howard Philips Lovecraft, the author behind the Cthulhu mythos. Lovecraft’s original content are horror books full of cosmic demi-gods and abyssal creatures (non-games); but the books’ narratives were transformed in paper and pen role playing games (a borderline case that reunites some elements from games); finally it’s possible to play the computer game Dark Corners of The Earth, one product that unites all the characteristics of a game, as Juul says. Check the gameplay:


It’s important to understand the contemporary scenario of communication and consumption as a rich field to explore these kinds of transmediatic developments. Entertainment is a powerful currency to investigate new possibilities of business models.

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Reference:

JUUL, Jesper. Half-Real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds. USA: MIT Press, 2005.

Final stage

Procedural rhetoric in Super Meat Boy

Super Meat Boy, an iconic indie game*, is a perfect example of procedural rhetoric. There’s a constant difficulty in every single stage of the game and it forces the player to discover the right way to solve the different types of challenge.



One hit, you die. So, it’s important to memorize each step inside the phases. When a stage ends, it’s possible to see all the deaths of the charismatic Meat Boy happening at the same time. Check some examples of the game dynamics and mechanics below:



The idea of learning from fails dialogues with the concept of procedural rhetoric. According to Bogost (2007, p.3) “just as verbal rhetoric is useful for both the orator and the audience, and just as written rhetoric is useful for both the writer and the reader, procedural rhetoric is useful for both the programmer and the user, the game designer and the player”.

*Watch the creative process of Super Meat Boy in the documentary INDIE GAME: THE MOVIE.

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REFERENCE:

BOGOST, Ian. Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames. MIT Press, 2007.

Gaming characters

Mario, Lara Croft, Kratos, Carmen Sandiego, Sonic, the Angry Birds, Samus, and so many other video game characters are not only popular among video game fans, they are also famous in other entertainment fields beyond gaming universe.



In contemporary times, with so many transmediatic environments, it’s very common to find these characters in comics, animations, movies, toys, and other platforms. Video game characters (as movie/theater/book characters) are the key to establish a dialogue with certain audiences. With technological improvements and new possibilities in gaming platforms (mobile, PC and consoles) we have the chance to develop deeper characters and more immersive situations with them inside the gaming ambient.

About characters from the gaming universe, Miller (2004, p.90) says

. They can attract a large and dedicated group of users, even drawing people to a project that might not ordinarily be interested in interactive entertainment.
. They can increase a project’s perception of being fun or fascinating, even if the underlying purpose of the project is educational or instructional.
. They can give people entry into an unfamiliar or intimidating world and allow them to explore it in a way that feels comfortable and safe.
. They can keep people hooked, willing to spend hours immersed in the character’s life and environment.

However, it’s important to highlight that even with so many advances in the gaming field, we still have excellent games without characters. Mostly games like Tetris, Super Hexagon, Rotatio, and other abstract titles. These examples are perfect to illustrate wide possibilities to create games nowadays. We have multiple audiences with multiple interests, an interesting ecosystem to observe business, narrative and social networks.

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Reference:

MILLER, Carolyn Handler. Digital Storytelling: a creator’s guide to interactive entertainment. Burlington: Focal Press, 2004.