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December 06, 2002 - Game Designers Vs. the Public

In every game there lies, at the top of everything, a 'Grand Design', a collection of pompous rules it is absolutely vital the game must abide by in order to stay true to the vision. Here are ours:
*The hero must visually reflect his experiences.
*The world and its residents must react in a manner appropriate to the player's actions.

The Reactive Hero
Rather than displaying traditional RPG stats, we rely on morphs that we can apply to the hero. In addition, we try as much as we can to ensure the hero looks as if he's reacting to the world as events occur via tiny animation modifications and facial expressions (rather than standing about looking as if he has an explosive wet fart held in check through willpower alone -- see Max Payne).



A Simulated World
Rather than scripting every single NPC actor in the world, we require the little people to be rather more interesting, with their own attitudes, moods, tolerances and biases --just like real people. Some of them are ****s, too. Just like real people.

During an early period of experimentation, we found that children were incredibly emotive; their reactions had an astonishing impact on players. As a result, we put considerable effort into ensuring that the little mites had an especially varied and interesting array of behaviour. The more sociopathic ones would chase chickens and kick the [stuffing] out of them. Passive scholarly spawn would trundle to school in an orderly manner and turn up at home on time for dinner like their real world consumer zombies counterparts.

Most importantly, children stare with some intensity at anything 'interesting' (women's facial hair, breasts, poo -- anything to embarrass people, really).

The Reactive Hero + A Simulated World
Now we add the two together, and let our test team loose. [Shoot].

Picture this: it's a warm balmy day in Bowerstone. The butterflies flutter by, and the heady scent of jasmine is carried toward you with each puff of wind. In the distance, children can be heard playing outside the schoolhouse, reluctant to end their games and begin class.

Footsteps; pad, pad, pad. Cut to a grim face outlined against the town gates, staring into the distance, out toward the schoolhouse.

The children have begun class now, ushered in with a few terse words from their teacher. One of the children stares, bored, out of the window. Was there something out there?

The man is in shadow, creeping into the schoolhouse step by stealthy step. The teacher has her back to him. She suspects nothing.

One by one, all of the children in the front room begin to stare at a point behind the teacher. The class falls silent. The teacher eventually hears a noise behind her, turns and...




...sees a burly naked man standing in the middle of a schoolroom smiling happily at the assembled class. He cheerily raises a middle finger. And then the screaming begins...

The Conclusion
It's a scene from the front pages of a tabloid. It also shows how the general game-playing public, or 'fequinbustuds' as we like to call them, abuse our entirely innocent features at the first opportunity. So, in defence of design, I'd like to note these points:

*The hero is smiling because nothing is attacking him and he feels safe.
*He's staring and smiling at the children because they happen to be nearby and he can potentially interact with them. Yes, we know, we know: he needs to blink more.
*The children are looking at him because he's a new thing in their view-cone. Admittedly, the focus point for the hero is his crotch. This is being fixed.
*They scream because 'flipping the bird' is seen as threatening behaviour.

The conclusion? If you build it, some weirdo will abuse it.