Monday, January 4, 2010

Concrete versus Abstract

Philosophically, I find that there are many parallels between games and literature.  Some games are very explicit in their narrative (such as most role-playing games) while others are a bit more esoteric.  Chess, for example, has an implicit narrative, though it is not much explored in the scope of the game.  It is simply a given that kings war with one another, and the motivation therein is largely irrelevant.

The more abstract a game is, the more obscure the narrative... or the more non-fictional it becomes.  For example, poker seems to have no narrative at all, yet watching people play can be very engaging because the players themselves are the narrative.
Perhaps that approach is insufficient as well.  Perhaps it is not a linear gradation, but a planar one.  There are some games, such as "capture the flag" that have a concrete objective as well as a non-fictional narrative.

Below is a chart to illustrate the point.  As I was working on it, I had trouble coming up with anything for the extreme Fictional/Abstract spot.  Perhaps this is just a short-coming on my own part, but I think perhaps it is illustrative.

I was tempted to put immersive "sandbox" games (like WoW or Little Big Planet) in this spot, but I had to resist on these grounds: When the game becomes narrative (for instance, when the player in WoW gets involved in the plot), it does so to introduce concrete objectives.  This is most often done in the form of "quests," but - as in the case of WoW - an expansion may have a larger narrative, the concrete goal of which is usually to kill the "Boss" of that expansion.

LBP on the other hand, is in some sense, immersive, but it really occupies a spot between fictional and non-ficitional, because there is no real narrative that drives the game.  It is about the interaction of the player (as the player or even as a level designer) with the fictional sack-people.

What does this tell us?  I think that for a game to exist, people need cognitive anchors.  The more the game exists in "our world" the more abstract its goals can be.  However, a highly narrative without a concrete goal simply leaves the player saying, "Okay... so... now what?"

There is more to discuss about the value of "representation" in making cognitive anchors, which we will explore in later posts.

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