Every now and again, I open up my Tumblr account’s “Ask Me” feature, to get blog fodder from folks on the Internet. Last week, I got a gaming question that I thought we should talk about here. The question in question:
When you play games online, the physicality of them changes: for example, you click a button rather than rolling dice. Do you think this automatically makes them less fun?
As written, this question is a little loaded. Do I think the lack of actual, tangible dice automatically makes a game less fun? Automatically? No, I don’t.
I think a good user interface makes the process of button-clicking satisfying. A good UI is a pleasure to interact with, full of hearty clicks and feedback, auditory or visual, that’s almost tangible. A nice, solid UI makes play easier and richer, which can certainly measure up to just as much fun, and can sometimes be more fun.
Peggle, for example, is fun only because its UI is fun — all those satisfying sounds and positive feedback signals.
It depends on the game, though. To me, poker’s tactile experience is an important part of its appeal. I mean, I can enjoy a good online game of Hold ‘Em, don’t get me wrong, but I can get antsy in a way that’s not always helpful. It’s just different.
To re-frame the question, I don’t think LOTRO or WoW would be more fun if I had to roll the dice as often as the game presumably checks for random inputs. It might not be less fun, but I’m not sure that adding the physicality of dice would make it more fun, either.
I like a good die roll, though. I’m not a big fan of electronic rollers (for no really good reason). I like the almost mystical consultation that comes from checking the unknowable via a tiny plastic diviner.
Now, as to the harder question: Do I think the change (or absence!) of physicality can make a game less fun? Absolutely. I just don’t think it’s automatic. But, for example, I have little interest in playing Settlers of Catan on a computer — and I covet that sculpted 3D set that exists out there, if only for its physicality. It’s the physicality of some Fantasy Flight board games that so often makes me want them, even though I’m unlikely to play them very often with my casual gamer friends. It’s the physical snap of my travel Scrabble set that makes me prefer it over even the nice wooden tiles of a standard set.
More to the point, I think the physicality of board games, coupled with technological assistance to make them easier to play, is what makes things like the new Surface technology so exciting. We may see board games become more widely popular when people are able to sit around a table in some (please, please, please) high-tech game parlor, sliding electronic cards and actual, physical pieces around a digital game board while sipping on mochas. The new hybrid physicality, if I can coin a phrase, that blends digital interfaces with physical pawns could be an anchor for new third places and as many new types of popular games as Facebook’s networked easiness has. I can hope, at least.
What do you think?
When I worked at Microsoft, I got to see the Surface demos before they were shown to the public. And I agree with you completely — the physicality is what made it a compelling demo.
The most compelling feature of Surface is that it isn’t a touch interface, but acts like one. In actuality, it uses cameras underneath the display to detect what’s on the table. That allows Surface to interact with items you put on the table. For example, some of the surface demos show it interacting with transparent puzzle pieces or a drink placed on the table. You can mark items so that they can be uniquely identified to the table. I always wanted to mark collectable miniatures and use the computer to create the maps and enforce the rules.
These days I work on the iPhone and iPad, and those share much of the physicality, although in a form factor that doesn’t lend itself to players collaborating on a single device. (The form factor is more generally useful — you can carry it with you and demo it to friends, which is definitely not the case for Surface.)
My personal hope is that the iPad comes down in price to a price point where having two or three of them makes some sense. That is, a large enough screen and a low enough price that rather than having one computer you all sit around, everyone has a Pad or two, with applications designed to collaborate across multiple devices.
That might allow for more collaborative games where you are sitting across from the people you are playing against, but everyone has their own interface to the game.
Adding to that: You could still have some sort of central processing unit — it could be an iPad (which has video out) or some other networked computer hooked to a TV or a projector.
Anyway, whether you are talking a big-ass table or a set of small inexpensive networked devices, I think it is inevitable that we’re going to see some really compelling games where the players interact with the devices in some interesting ways. Hell, I want them both. 🙂
Thanks for sharing your experience with Surface and your vision for the iPad, Codrus. I’m looking forward to the day that character sheets are all on iPads, using i4e-like apps to turn potentially complicated games into easier experiences.
Think of the nuanced rules sets we could have, with complex game mechanics smoothed out by intuitive UIs. It could be a dream come true for gamers interested in complex systems for combat, resource management, or what have you. It could combine social play in the living room with top-of-the-line UIs in a great way.
We’ll see, I guess.
The history of Arcade machines and consumer electronic devices makes me expect an unfortunate tension:
* The manufacturers of such devices will want to have complete control over what games do go on to the platform.
* The parlors who buy such devices will want to be able to buy one expensive machine, then get a good selection of high-quality, yet inexpensive software, continually refreshed for years.
As a developer, I still think getting locked in to any specific environment, no matter how fancy it feels, is suicide. As a consequence, I’m focusing my development efforts on web applications that can be used in any browser, with any HIDs hooked up to it.
Here’s what I desperately hope is not the future: Hybrid physicality (nice term!) games that amount to the board and card games we have now, but on a table that shows you animations when you do stuff. That’s the route to about 15 minutes of additional fun.
This is the part where I wish I had invested more time into learning to program for real when I was in college, because I’ve got a fantastic board game prototype from back in the day that turned out to be impractical with pieces of paper but that would be gangbusters for a 3-5 person network of iPhones or iPads.
(Software developers in the audience… call me!)
Agreed — it shouldn’t be just animations. The only advantage I’d see there is that iPads (or pad-like devices) allow you to carry more games than you’d probably want to carry around on your own. The equivalent to carrying an eBook reader instead of 50 books.
Just off the top of my head, I see a couple of models:
* Take an existing game, but use the computer to enforce the rules or to assist with the game play.
An example worth looking at here is the Xbox Live Arcade version of Carcassonne. The UI limits your moves to legal moves. That’s not only enforcement (you can’t make illegal moves) but by showing you all the possible locations you can place a tile, the game play changes. I’m not sure if this is better (by showing you the legal moves, you learn what’s possible more easily) or worse (by showing you the moves, you don’t develop the skills to see those moves without assistance). I’m inclined to believe it made me a better Carcassonne player, but that could also simply be being able to play 10 games against computer opponents in the time it would take me to play a few games against humans.
Other examples here that make sense to me: Line of Sight calculations for a computerized D&D. Or or a better example, lighting and other area effects, which are a pain, even with templates to drop on the battlefield.
None of these things are too complex to run on paper — I do it every few weeks. But the computer, used right, just speeds up play and lets you focus on the fun.
* Use the computer to judge rules that would be too complex to actually play as a boardgame/rpg.
This is more the WOW/MMO model, as applied to a sit-down game. The rules for how things work can be more sophisticated — complex enough that running it as a boardgame would be too difficult or too slow for most people.
If everyone can have a different screen (i.e., everyone has an iPod Touch, or an iPhone, or an iPad), then this model of hybrid physicality also completely slays the nearly impossible board and card game problem of reliable manipulations of hidden information. That’s huge.