My War Against the Word "Interesting"

I've been designing games for a while - mainly board and card games.  I've been into those types of games since I was 12 and first learned how to play Dungeons & Dragons.  Back in those days, my mom wouldn't let me play D&D, so I had to try other games.  In my home town, there weren't any game stores I had access to, so I had to make do with Battletech. 

My first real experience playing Battletech was one of the defining moments in my game design career.  I was at a friend's house for their regular Battletech night, and they were teaching me how to play.  It pretty much went something like this...

Me: "I want to blow that enemy mech up!"

Them: "Wait, first you must find out what range increment it is in"

Me: "Ok...umm...medium range.  Ok, now I'm blowing it up!"

Them: "Wait a second, now you have to determine the heat you will generate."

Me: "Heat?  Really? 

Them: "Yep, your weapons generate heat, and you have to make sure your heat sinks can handle it."

Me: "So...I'm piloting a walking air conditioner?  Can I please just blow something up?"

All I wanted to do was blow stuff up, but the game's designers had other plans...

"Interesting"

Most of the people who have heard that story tell me that the heat rule is "interesting."  They usually mean it as a compliment, but I've come to regard that word as more of an excuse when it comes to game design.  "Interesting" rules rarely add to the fun of a game, and often detract from it.  I believe this is because most "interesting" rules involve some sort of tradeoff - I can't do what I want to do, or if I do the consequences make me sad.

It is a tempting road for a game designer to go down.  "Interesting" rules can create that "a-ha!" moment for a gamer, since they feel like they've figured out a fundamental strategy.  The problem is that since tradeoffs are inherently stressful, they detract from a game's replayability.  I call these games "plate spinning" games, since I'm forced to run back and forth from objective to objective, and if I focus too much on one of the objectives the rest of them suffer.  The game play ends up feeling like a chore, and as a result players may be less likely to come back for more. 

I think a good example of this phenomena is the difference between GTA Vice City and GTA San Andreas.  Vice City was an absolute blast; a gaming masterpiece that I still find myself playing to this day.  When San Andreas came out on the PC, I was jazzed - not only was I looking forward to the game play, but I'm a fan of 90's rap, so it looked like a slam dunk.

After my first few hours though, I was less excited.  I have to worry about how much (or how little) I eat?  Really?  I have to exercise or I get fat?  Really?  Too many trade offs.  The game was trying to make me care about stuff I didn't want to care about, and it turned me off.  (to be fair, the next few games in the franchise that I played, Vice City Stories and Liberty City Stories, got back to the fun of vice city.)

Now, every game has some sort of tradeoff or cost to the things we do in them.  I'm not saying games should do without them, but I think game designers should stop and ask themselves "if I let gamers do what they want to do, how bad would that really be?"  At some point it would actually be pretty bad, but going down that road as far as you can without wrecking the game balance can result in some really fun game play.  Games like WoW have flourished because they took a proven game style and removed some of the "interesting" rules, while other games (like Braid) were designed around this concept. 

So while I'm not saying that interesting rules have no place in game design, I think that they should be measured carefully against how much fun they are costing - and the designer is the one who gets to make that tradeoff!

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Comments

[Mordenkainen]

Well, all in moderation. I like complex rules when I'm expecting them. Temple of Elemental Evil, the quintessential tactical D&D game, is not for the gamer who just wants to bash some goblins' heads. Doesn't mean I can't also enjoy some mouse-button masher such as Diablo.

In the examples you mention, I think game designers have a third option: leave it in but as an optional "for-the-hardcore" feature. Which in SA it was. You only had to work out, etc. if you wanted to get all the girlfriends, etc.

The reason why I'm afraid of cutting out stuff that may not be fun for some people is because of the medic-kit issue where many games are doing away with that and putting in health-regen "because gamers want to blow stuff up instead of playing doctor". I didn't mind health-regen in Halo because it made sense with the Spartan armour, etc. but it made no sense in CoD 2 & 4, and encouraged the "go into fetal position for a few seconds" gameplay. I wouldn't even mind health-regen in Rainbow 6 (!!!) in the Easy difficulty setting, for instance.

Why games' difficulty settings only change with damage factors and quantity of ammo is something that I've often pondered, but that's a topic for another day.

[Jake of 8bitjoystick.com]

Personally I use the word Awesome. Way too much on my blogs.

[Ryan Miller]

Hey Mordenkainen,

I'm not against complexity, it's really about tradeoff-based mechanics. I think there's a sweet spot between realism and abstraction that allows a game to feel real without getting dragged down by too much simulation.