Some weeks ago (in October 2008) I underwent a painful experiment. I made another art game. In the end, it wasn't a complete success but I learned a lot and think it was a step in the right direction.
It all started when I heard about
Gamma3D - a curated art show and call for short games that use 3D glasses in some way integral to their gameplay. I had been working on and bailing out on ideas for short art games all summer and I decided to commit myself to creating a game for this (despite the fact that I missed the initial call and there was only two weeks left before they were to be submitted...). What resulted was
Toward Understanding Relationships and what follows is a description of the game, the metaphors at work (visual and system) and the motivations I had for making it.
I started with a subject that I have thought a lot about for years and still don't really have a grasp on: Communication can be hard between any two people but even harder between two people who love each other. For example, with my fiance, I will often think I hear her say something and respond to what I thought I heard. Often we will be having completely different conversations altogether without even knowing it. To make things worse, you want to do nice things for your loved ones right? Well, sometimes you don't know what is good for them at all. You only think you know and you can only make educated guesses (based on what you think you heard!). On top of all that you have your own thoughts and needs that are competing with your loved one's needs. With a busy schedule, you only have so much time and a wrong response can be lead to a meltdown.
This is the situation that
Toward Understanding Relationships dumps the player in. Words moving on the top of the screen from left to right are your thoughts and needs and the words moving from right to left are her thoughts and needs. The words that the player can stand on are his possible responses. There are up to four messages (two sets of overlapping yellow and blue) scrolling across the top at any point and there is always a possible response for each message to stand on (up to four). You can only choose one response - unless - you disengage the 'yellow you' from the 'blue you' and control them independently. The player makes decisions about what responses to choose based on the two yellow "general well being" meters that correspond to the player and his spouse.
With 3D glasses, yellow colors are hidden by the red lens and blue colors are hidden by the blue lens. The world looks differently depending on which eye you are looking through. I soon noticed that when a set of yellow words was overlayed with a set of blue words the yellow was essentially hidden but still visible only if you looked through one eye (i.e. while looking through both lenses the darker words (blue) dominated the yellow words and while looking through the blue lens the darker words were not visible and the yellow words were clear and readable). I used this mechanic/feature of 3D glasses to represent the different messages and interpretations that run through one's mind during converstations.
Gameplay isn't expected to last very long without a screen that indicates some sort of fight/argument appearing that says that either the dude or girl is unhappy. I imagine this gets pretty frustrating pretty fast (not unlike a recent
MFA thesis of mine...) as there doesn't seem to be much of a clue for why these argument screens keep showing up (even if the yellow meters are full this can happen). The screens show up because you don't know how to interact with the system yet and as indicated in the instructions, the yellow meters represent how
you think each person is doing. That being said, there is a way to win this game but its not that important. The game isn't even meant to be played for more than a few minutes and that definitely isn't long enough to figure out how to win. The game tries to get the player to experience the time constrained, frustrating and confusing decisions that happen in even ordinary and important discussions and realize that they have a lot to learn.
There is a consistent underlying logic at work behind the scenes no matter how much it may seem otherwise. There is always a right response to choose. The hard part is keeping track of what response corresponds to what scrolling message and choosing who to respond to. Learning this underlying logic is not unlike trying to learn how your partner thinks. However, a goal is not for the player learn the logic because it is right as the specifics of it only represent what I think right now about my relationship.
As for understanding the system at work, a hint is that yellow always represents the dude's thoughts, anxieties and projections. Always paying attention to the yellow leads to trouble. This is especially evidenced by trying to multitask and disengaging your two halves and controlling them independently. This leads to confusion and loss of control because you don't have time to understand your responses (not to mention the often negative implications of thinking about one thing while actually doing another). This also explains how yellow messages come from the right even when the girl is off screen.
The game is admittedly cryptic. In fact, when I was done I joked (to myself...) that I had succeeded in making a game about relationships even more confusing than
Rod Humble's The Marriage. I started by saying that this game was about something I didn't really understand and I think that is why the game is so... the way it is. How do you formally specify (program) something you are still trying to learn yourself? About something that it may not even be possible to fully understand? This is an issue that was really brought to the forefront when I designed this game. My instincts tell me that these sorts of issues can be best explored through interactive systems - but I don't know why and it sure seems difficult.
I should clarify (or confuse the matter more...) that this game doesn't try to ask a question about an important issue of humanity where the purpose is to have the player interrogate their reactions, thoughts and beliefs about it (like many of
Jason Rohrer's games). Instead, I created this game to express a sensation, a frustration, and an experience. Playing it may lead to questions and interrogation but the primary purpose was to express something that I feel and don't necessarily think. I think this prioritization is what I think leads me to my arguably unplayable games but for now I am OK with that. In my life right now, I have been trying to create games like I create music. I am still figuring out what exactly that means, but I always come back to it whenever I talk about my games. I will definitely be talking about this more later...
Labels: art games, treanor, video games
