Let’s talk about Emotion
Wednesday, February 24, 2010With the new images of the new Fable game constantly showing up I can’t help but be reminded of the words of Peter Molyneux. Molyneux always rants on about emotion and how he wants and think he succeeds in putting emotion into his games. I have all the respect in the world for that man for creating the awesome world of Fable but the Fable-series is bullcrap when it comes to feeling an emotional attachment to the game.
This is why:
In a world such as ours we are constantly aware of our emotional output and input. We get reminded every day of how much we are loved and how much things or people actually matters to us. Why do we value these things? Because all life is fragile, Human life is fragile and Things are fragile. There will come a day when my Xbox 360 will die and I’m sure as hell gonna get teared up.
There are several ways to get people to feel an emotional attachment to video-games, one of them is dependent on the time spent with the video-game. When a player spends time with a video game he/she is actually investing their time into a game then thinking that it must be worth the trouble because “I’m taking precious time out of my life to play it” and therefore an emotional attachment is starting to grow.
To get further down along the road of emotional attachment to video-games the game has to supply a reason to keep playing the game. RPGs are on the top when it comes to this part, where you create your character and level up together with it. This is where this formula comes into play: The player game rewards should be equal or more than the time the player invested into the game.
These things are basics when it comes to video-game design.
But there is also something other than that, something deeper. Sometimes on rare occasions we can feel an emotional attachment to the NPCs of a video-game. If we look at Mass Effect 1&2 we got great personalities throughout the games and players will find at least one NPC they like. The feeling of them being real however is disrupted by their their inability to speak to others and the fact that they seem to like to stand on the same spot all the time. The emotional attachment however to the NPC is real, I just wish it could be something deeper than that.
Now let’s take a look at Fable II.
Fable II holds the most basic game-mechanics found in a Western RPG. You create a character,you go on quests, you kill things, you level up, you get a hold of money, go back to town and buy stuff to make you look fancy. The thing about Fable is that Molyneux simplified the whole process. Less equipment, non-talking NPCs, communication system based on farts, simple fighting-system and in the end it’s also a really easy game right? Almost kid-like easy.
What I don’t understand is that how can Molyneux talk about emotional attachment when he has created a game, with no real NPC-interaction, no way to get to know the people around you, the only special character in the game is you and like three others. You actually fart until people like you, yay! great way to get emotionally attached to the game, not.
Let’s look at Fable II most inspiring and awesome feature: The Dog. The Dog in the world of Fable II is a friendly companion you find in an alley as a kid, some kids are bullying the dog and you knock them out. After that stuff happens and you have your furry little companion everywhere you go. It’s a nice thing. I really liked the thought behind the dog, but in the end it’s just a tool right? It’s a nifty way to find treasures and do some minor damage to enemies, in the end the dog won’t leave you and it will not die. It’s really hard to value something that cannot die or leave you, even if you would throw the poor thing right of a cliff or leave him limping from one part of the world to the other he still would think that you’re awesome and follow you and for me it makes the experience a bit poor.
This is Jenny, if you’ve played The Darkness you know what I’m talking about, Jenny is down-to-earth and the only thing that keeps the main-character Jacky sane. Jenny is a character we can relate to, she could be my friend or my girlfriend, she doesn’t say much but oh man she’s human. She makes me care.
I would love to see a game where at least one of the NPCs seemed human, almost infinite conversation options, advanced AI, a fun personality and a great partner throughout the game. I’ve played a lot of games in my days but in the end all NPC characters disrupt the feeling of immersion once they run out of things to say or do, and it makes me a bit sad.
I wish they would take the emotional attachment thing a bit further, why does a human value everything in his life? Because he/she is afraid to lose it, and therefore I wish to implement my idea of Hardcore game-mode when it comes to RPGs. It’s based upon the idea of value and loss and I’ll tell you about it in my next blogpost.
That particular scene in the Darkness (no spoilers here, if you haven’t played it yet, do it!) is without a doubt the strongest and most emotionally charged scene in videogames ever, period. I still get goosebumps thinking about it, if game developers can get players to be that emotionally invested in games then it’s definitively a big success.
Words can’t describe it, you simply have to play it.
@Henrik Wilnersson
I agree man, the scene from The Darkness sure is powerful stuff. I agree that many video-games know how to get a player emotionally invested in their characters but creating a similar bond to NPCs is rare indeed.