Non-Combat Gaming - How to Make Social Mechanics Fun - Extra Credits

We've been playing a lot of games lately, looking for a new release that we could really sink our teeth into. Unfortunately, it feels like everything we tried has been a sequel that hasn't quite lived up to its predecessor. But finally, just as we were on the verge of giving up, James had a gaming moment worth discussing. He invited a friend to dinner. Yep. He invited a friend to dinner in a game. The game was Echo Bazaar. It's a small, free, web-based game that he first started playing when he was investigating how low a budget he could get away with and still have a fantastic gaming experience. More on that next week. The game is simple and brilliantly produced on what can only be a minuscule budget. It also has some of the most interesting storytelling methodology we've seen and some of the best use of mystery. But hey, you don't have to take our word for it. It's free. Go give it a try. Rather than spend the whole episode extolling the game's virtues, we want to talk about what Echo Bazaar says about games in general. So, back to the setup. There we were, blasting, smashing, and otherwise

mortalizing our way through the best torpid sequels the AAA world had to offer. When, in the midst of all this, James stopped for 2 minutes to play a web game. In those 2 minutes, he won a philosophical debate, seduced an artist, no, not that one, and invited a friend over to dinner. Afterwards, he walked back to the TV, flipped it on, and then stopped. Hand over the controller, he realized that something was wrong. Something was gnawing at him that he couldn't quite shake off. Something sublime and yet simple and and then he had it. I just invited a friend over for dinner. When was the last time you could do that in a video game? When was the last time you saw that built into a game's mechanics? For all the hundreds of dollars worth of green and clear disc cases he had before him, laying where they'd been thrown as he tore through title after title, he couldn't find one, not one, that offered that kind of experience. This was it. This was the unique thing. We've got an episode. Now, why doesn't this kind of engaging experience come up more often in games? The answer is actually pretty simple, because it isn't based around combat. Go have a look at your game library real quick. If you can't see it from where

you're sitting, just try to imagine it. I'll give you a moment. You looking at it? Okay. What do you see there? Well, there's probably a handful of simulacra, The Sims, Rock Band, Dance Central, maybe a sports game or two. You know, games that are simulating something. Then there are probably a few complete abstractions like Bejeweled, Tetris, Katamari games, what have you. And the rest? Combat games. All of them. Shooting, slashing, sneaking, smashing, blasting, punching, kicking, brawling, throwing, shocking, head stomping, super effective in conquering, sure you can in chainsawing, ground pounding, spin dashing, unraveling, I guess. Combat games as far as the eye can see. So, why are almost all of the games this industry has ever produced combat based? Well, because it's easy. Combat provides a very simple way to infuse an experience with conflict and danger. We learned long ago that conflict and danger are both exciting. Danger raises the stakes and gets the adrenaline pumping. Conflict gives us clear goals, an antagonist and a protagonist, something to overcome. But there are

lots of other situations in life which are as enjoyable, as engaging, or as thrilling as the visceral rush of combat. Okay, so how does this relate to dinner? Well, at first we thought that James's delight in Echo Bazaar's unchaperoned gustativities lay in the meeting of his real life and his virtual existence in Fallen London. And in part, that's true. I mean, if you want to see an example of a social game where the social actually improves the game, Echo Bazaar is the place to look. But then we realized that there was something more there as well. Throughout our experience with that game, the designers had managed to make non-combat experiences fun. So at last, to answer the question of why James found this moment so arresting, it answered a question he has long been wrestling with. You see, James often hears his fellow designers say that you'd never get a game about talking to be as fun as a game about fighting. But why not? Is there something inherent to how we represent fighting in games that makes it more enjoyable than any way you could possibly ever represent non-combat interactions. I don't think so, and I think we have a simple, elegant example here in Echo Bazaar. In Echo Bazaar, talking and fighting are mechanically

identical. They're both done with a skill check against a set of stats. The only difference between fighting off ruffians and charming your way into the parlors of high society is the stat you're checking against. So, why can't we use some of the other incredible mechanics we've developed for fighting to represent other skills? I know that idea probably sounds a little silly at first. I'm sure many of you might have already jumped to the idea of using first-person shooting for a romantic encounter, and yeah, yeah, that's pretty awkward and silly, but let's see if we can come up with some more appropriate mechanics. Well, all right. First off, let's try starting with turn-based strategy games. The study of rhetoric is full of move and countermove. Conversation isn't entirely unlike chess when you think about it. So, yeah, I can see playing out a conversation on some sort of board, perhaps even getting new arguments or rhetorical techniques as I level. Or take the large battles in the first Suikoden, but instead of armies, replace the soldiers with voters and the warring characters as proponents of different sides giving speeches. Imagine playing Antony or Brutus in the forum, swaying the populace and deciding the fate of Rome after Caesar's death. Is that really any less exciting or engaging than your standard meaningless

combat sequence? Traditional JRPG combat also lends itself to non-combat interactions, as do RPG mechanics in general, I guess, since we've already used skill checks to pick locks and convince guards not to shoot us. All we got to do is find a way to better represent these mechanics visually than a character stepping forward and swinging a speech bubble. Even simple changes to existing systems, like putting time pressure on dialogue choices, or giving NPC characters a persuaded bar that functions like a health bar, but it's affected by non-combat choices, and thus by non-combat stats. Those sort of changes would go a long way, and that second option would finally let us get away from having NPC persuasion be the binary, do you have X speech skill? If so, click this option to convince. Without having to put a much higher content burden on the developer. Even fighting games give us a perfect analog. Fighting games are like fencing. They're a series of parries and reposts that require a certain amount of skill to execute. Sounds like an argument to me. Quarter circle forward punch to ad hominem. Okay, we're running out of time now, but you get the idea. Now, as we often close in saying, we don't think every game should do this. I mean, we love our Call

of Duty's and Fallouts as much as the next guy, but wouldn't it be refreshing to get a game about a part of life that doesn't center around reducing people into giblets and still have it be awesome? Hell yeah, it would. Wouldn't it be equally amazing to have the non-gibletizing parts of our standard fare be as interesting as the rest of the experience? Hell yeah, it would times two. Because you know, sometimes in the midst of all of that killing, you just want to go to dinner. See you next week.