It’s simple, though. Like, really, really simple. Too simple, which is too bad, because I was looking forward to trying it out, in hopes that it would be like that old Lucas Arts series, X-Wing. X-Wing is basically Microsoft Flight Simulator, but set in the Star Wars universe. It’s a space dog fighting game.

Whatever happened to X-Wing, anyway? It was one of my favorite games 15 years ago, and they haven’t released a new one since 1999. Popular old franchises are always money-makers, so why haven’t they brought back X-Wing? I would totally build an eyefinity setup to play a remake of that game. I really would.

Still, it’s rare that game companies to actually bring back an old franchise or game without screwing it up. They usually rely too much on fan-service, which stops them from the innovation that made original games really great.

I’d rather not have that happen to X-Wing. So here are the things that X-Wing needs to be an awesome game, in no particular order. This is, of course, on top of all the regular things it needs to succeed: updated graphics, great control, a good UI, a robust PC version (don’t dumb it down for consoles, please).

Online Group PvP Battles: I want to roll into a system with 3 buddies in my squad and raid a space station while making Star Wars Jokes about things coming from behind and why I’ve switched off my targeting computer. Or defend a space station from other players. Or attack a capital ship while warding off other fighters. But the game needs group PvP with a variety of objectives, or maps, or whatever, that support lots of players playing online together. 12v12 dog fights in an asteroid belt. 4v4 Space station defense (one side attacks, one defends). 8v8 Capital ship Attack/Defense. 32v32 Assault on the Death Star. Of course, Deathmatch (Single Player PvP) should also be supported in some fashion.

Constant Gear/Character Progression: There should be a constant progression system – something like a cross between an MMO and Call of Duty – gear (ship upgrades), achievements, unlocks, or something like that. Games that don’t have something like this seem dated.

Single Player and Group Storyline Missions – the campaign should be playable as a single player or a squad of at least 4 players, like Borderlands. I shouldn’t have to explain why this would be awesome.

Those three features would start it off right. Get to work, LucasArts. Stop hinting about it and just do it.

When I called the number on the back of my card to reach the bank I knew what I was in for: a phone tree, followed by a transfer, followed by more phone tree, and so on, until the thing was resolved. I was ready for it, but I was already a little miffed because my card was denied for what I thought was no reason (my account balance was several thousand times more than sufficient for the movie ticket I was trying to purchase).

I called the bank and started moving through the phone tree. I pushed several buttons trying to talk to someone, entered in my account information, and began to wait. 15 minutes later (my phone has a call timer) a voice answered, took my information again, even though I’d already entered it into the phone system, determined that I had the wrong department, and transferred me to someone else. 15 minutes after that, a new voice answered, took my information again (I was in a mall and had to go to a secluded corner so I didn’t announce my SSN to the world), informed me that I’d contacted the right department in the first place, and promptly put me back on hold for the first department. I had to stifle a scream when the first department answered and asked for my information for a third time.

Luckily, the guy on the end was competent – he explained what was going on and got it sorted out for me. I borrowed the price of the movie ticket from my buddy, got my new card later that week, and went on with my life. I’m generally a pretty easy-going guy, but having my card denied on guy’s night out, having to borrow money from my friends, and waiting for 45 minutes on hold on top of it – I was pretty pissed.

Rather than just complain (but that’s all I’ve done so far, you say!) I’d rather try to solve the problem with technology. So here’s the idea: more and more people have smartphones now, why can’t businesses create an app that allows me to get in line from my phone but not wait on hold? Why can’t I open an app for my bank (or the business I’m trying to contact) that functions like a small website – I describe the issue, type in the relevant information, and then go back to what I am doing? When my place in line comes up, my phone buzzes, just like one of those vibrating buzzer things at a crowded restaurant that tells you when your table is ready, and I can switch the app to voice and talk to the agent?

This isn’t a novel idea, really. We have all the technology to make it happen, so why aren’t businesses doing it? They already have apps. They already have websites and agents waiting to take calls – why can’t the technology be linked? To take it a step further, why can’t the app offer to entertain me with a game while I wait? I’m not one of those people who think that we need, as a species, to be entertained all the time. But while I’m waiting on hold for a customer support representative (“Your call is important to us. All representatives are currently busy. Please stay on the line and wait for the next available representative.)  that’s one of the times when a distraction would go a long way toward keeping me happy with the company.

There are a number of obvious advantages to this:

• I would be happier as a customer and more likely to stay loyal to the company. This would be a killer feature for me. I would stay with a business that had something like this. When some businesses have this feature and others don’t, it becomes a huge differentiating feature. I would switch to a business that offered something like this.
• Customer service levels could go up, because the agent would have my information ready, with my account information pulled up, before we began to talk. It would also be easy to determine, since my information was already there, if I was trying to contact the correct department.
• It’s possible, since customer calls would take less time, that businesses could take more calls per hour, lowering response time or needing less employees to handle call volume. This lowers the bottom line for the business, and makes the suits and shareholders happy.
• It’s moving toward a future where communications are more unified. People stop looking at all the different communication methods (email, voice, text, websites, video, etc.) as separate things. It gets consumers to adopt multimedia communication (like video chat) faster and more willingly. This helps everyone, customers and businesses alike.
• It helps minimize the errors that invariably occur when giving information over the phone (how do you spell your last name again? Is that D as in Dog? Or B as in Boy?).

I’m sure there are others that I haven’t considered. And certainly, creating the application and the backend that supports it would be an investment. There’s also the need for customer education about this new method. But these are small concerns considering the possible gains.

So someone do it. Sack up and make this thing. I’ll be the first customer you have.

(On a related note: why can I text Pizza Hut a pizza order but I can’t text a retailer to see if they have an item in stock? Or text my senator about how jacked up I think the political situation is? Texting is better than calling for a short message and people prefer it over voice. Why don’t more businesses support it?)

Picture is unrelated

Well, I’m just going to come out and say it. I’m having trouble finishing my second novel. It’s been months since I worked it for any decent length of time and now I’m almost afraid of touching it and messing up what’s already written. Plus, each time I sit down to work on it I have to reread 65k words to get caught up with what’s going on, as well as to get into the character voice again. By the time I’ve read all that I’m out of energy to start writing. So I’ve hit a bit of a wall.

Now, the way I like to solve problems is with creative solutions that set up self-perpetuating systems, rather than solutions that rely on constant vigilance and unbounded effort. That is to say: I don’t like forcing a stuck door every time I want to open it. I’d rather take some time to study why the door is sticking and learn how to re-hang or trim the door so it opens smoothly thereafter.

Right now, for me, sitting down to work on my novel is forcing a stuck door. It takes too much effort and is a task that can only be performed via sheer willpower, which isn’t an easy thing, nor do I feel results in good writing. So I need a brainhack. I need to figure out what’s causing my stuck door and figure out how to rehang it to get back on track. I have a method that I plan to try. I don’t know if it’ll work yet, but it’s worth a shot and anything should be more effective than continually trying to force a stuck door. This post is a description of that method. It’ll take a bit to lay it all out, but once it’s done I’d like your input. If you’ve tried anything like this I’d like to know how it worked for you.

So, I’m a tech writer at my day job. This means that I regularly dip my fingers in lots of pies: graphic design, marketing, writing, training, web development, business development, and even a little light coding on occasion. I used to use a programming idea when I was teaching in grad school to teach students a problem solving method. The writing method in this post, what I like to call “Iterative Novel Development,” is also the result of adapting a programming technique to another field, in this case: writing novels.

Sometimes, when developing programs, there is a clear roadmap from the beginning. This is ideal. But sometimes when developing a program there is only a general idea of what needs to be accomplished and it’s up to the programmer to take that idea and translate it into exact instructions for the computer to execute.

In the latter case it’s sometimes necessary to sit down and plan all the features from the beginning. However, on other occasions it’s best to take the boiled down, core functionality of the program and develop that first, get it running and working, and then add more features on top. This method can cause some messy hacks if the initial code isn’t well written to begin with, or if too many “out of scope” features are crammed in later. But in general, developing something and making sure it works at each step is a better idea than trying to write a bunch of interdependent code to support all the features from the get go and then finding out it doesn’t work when it’s all linked together.

This is the idea: the idea of developing a program, getting the core working, and then adding more features. This is a method I’d like to try to develop a novel. I think it’ll be a successful brainhack to finishing the novel. Here’s my reasoning:

I’ve spent some time examining my stuck door on this one. First, I needed to answer why I don’t sit down to work on the novel like I sit down to work on other projects. That one is pretty easy to answer: I’m no longer excited about it. The magic is gone. There’s no joie de vivre. It’s old hat. I’ve solved all the problems in the story in my head and so all I have left to do is write it down and that’s the boring part. That’s an issue.

Now, before you protest (and I can already hear, even over the internet, the vacuuming breath intake that comes right before a lecture), I know that a good part of writing is ass-in-seat, pound it out, get it down, look up after the dust settles. There’s no other way to write a book than to sit down and type and type and type. I know that. That’s not a problem for me. I regularly write 10k+ words a week of documentation at work. (Hell, look how long this post is already and barely anything has been said.) Sitting down and pounding it out isn’t an issue for me.

I also hate hate hate the idea that an “artist” is this sensitive thing that only creates art when the mood takes him and the weather is right and he’s not hungry or thirsty or in a fragile emotional state and the Cubs are winning and it’s the 17^th Friday of the year and all the other bullcrap things that need to be on that list to get the project done. Besides, writers aren’t “artists.” Writers tell stories and solve problems. That’s not a sensitive emotional thing, even if the story is about a sensitive emotional thing. Writing is about calculating the best way to manipulate the reader into the desired emotional response. That’s science type shit, cloaked in the guise of art.

So believe me when I say that my stuck door here isn’t that I’m a sensitive artist who needs the stars to align to finish a project. However, I do need to be interested in it (or be getting paid). I need to have problems to solve and goals that are possible to complete quickly. I’m a gamer, too. Maybe games ruined me for this. Or maybe I like games because games operate in the way I need to work. I suppose it can be both. Can’t it be both?

So now I’m left with this: my stuck door is due to a lack of interest in the project. My only real motivation here is “finish the work” which is enough motivation for ass-in-seat of about 800 words every two months. That’s not a good timeline to finish the work in the next decade, let alone in the next year. Not to mention that the writing suffers because those 800 words aren’t in the correct voice, since it’s hard to pick up the correct voice for the character after a two month break.

So I know my stuck door is a lack of interest in the project for its own sake. I need to figure out a way to inspire interest in the project so I can get ass-in-seat and pound it out the remaining 30k words to finish the story and what I intend to be a 95k word book. That’s the problem I need to solve.

I’ve decided to test if a technique adapted from programming is the best way to renew interest in the project. I don’t know that it will work, but it’s worth a try to get this thing in the shipping bin.

Sometimes, when developing a program, first I’ll develop the minimum functionality and get it working. At that point, the project is complete. I experience the rush of finishing the project because I’ve created a working program. I like to use a Swiss Army knife as a metaphor for this. I have a Swiss Army knife with only a blade, but it’s useable as a tool. I’d done my job and I get the rush of completion after a minimum time investment. The other advantage, since the core didn’t take tons of time to develop, is that it’s easy to see if the program sucks. If I’d waited until I spent all the time adding all the features and fringe-scoped features that crept in before I actually got the program to work, and the program sucked, I’d have wasted tons more time. So I develop each section at a time, get it working, experience the rush, and then move on to the next feature.

This is a good method because my Swiss Army knife is useable from very early on in the process. It always has a blade. Later I can add a bottle opener, a file, a saw, scissors, and all the other features I want to add. Each feature is a new project that doesn’t take much time to develop. Each time a feature is added the program is complete and I experience the rush.

Of course, there can be issues that I have to be aware of as I develop. One: even though the project is complete after every feature, I have to be mindful as I develop that later I will probably want to add more features. This means writing code that is as general and expandable as possible as I go, otherwise I will run into issues as I continue to add features. Two: there is a max limit to how much a program can be expanded from a core, before the core must be scrapped and rewritten from scratch. This is okay with a small program, but can break the project if the scope grows too large.

Still, these issues can be mostly overcome with thoughtful programming and a firm stance against too much or the wrong kind of feature creep.

So I’d like to adapt this iterative programming method to writing a novel. Obviously this method isn’t needed for short stories or other projects that can be finished using the brute force (start to finish) method in one or two sittings. But for novels that require months of continued and renewable interest, this could be a good method to ensure that the zeal is refreshed on a regular basis by completing waypoints.

I imagine it would work something like this: write a first draft of the novel that is split into several chunks, whether it is chapters or sections or whathaveyou. Make each chunk one to two sentences long and tell the whole story of the book. My current novel is planned to be about 30 chapters and I’m sitting with a blinking cursor at chapter 22. Rather than trying to brute force chapter 22, I should write one sentence for chapter 22 and then move on to chapter 23. I’ll write one sentence for 23 and then move on to 24, etc.

Rather than think about this as an outline, which is what it seems to be at first glance, it seems better to think of each of these one sentence chapters as completed chapters, or at the very least, containers for chapters. Once they are done I’ve finished my book and experienced the rush of completion. Now it’s time to move on to iteration numbero dos.

In the second iteration I’ll take each of my one sentence chapters and make them into several paragraphs that expand what happens in those one-sentence events. I plan to think about this like I’m zooming into Google Earth. I start with a chapter that is the whole planet. On the second iteration my goal isn’t to now be able to read the writing on the newspaper held by the guy on 5^th Avenue in NYC. My intention is to zoom into a country, maybe. I’m not even ready for cities yet on this iteration.

Keep in mind that this is writing that is telling the story, not providing a framework to use to build the story, like an outline would be. I want to make sure that when I’ve finished iteration two that the story is again complete. I’ve added a bunch of features, but I haven’t broken the story or left parts where the story cannot be understood or suffers. This is very important. The story must be a usable Swiss Army knife at the end of each iteration.

Once iteration two is complete, I’ll move on to three, and four, and as many iterations as it takes to build in all the features I want. I suspect that each iteration will be easier than trying to develop the story from beginning to end via brute force. It’s much, much, much easier to flesh out a scene to get it to do exactly what I want it to do if I have a clear objective in mind before I finish the scene. It’s just like writing a function in a program. I know want a function that does a specific task. That’s the hard part. Now all I have to do is break that task down into specific steps for the computer to execute. It’s just logic and science, baby.

It can be the same with a scene. If my first iteration leaves me with a chapter 22 that says: “While looking for a job, Simon finds a local newspaper with an announcement that Lucian is coming to town for a book signing. Simon decides to visit Lucian at the book signing.” This works as a chapter because it tells the action, following from the previous chapter and leading into the action of the next chapter. In iteration two I can zoom in on the individual elements a little. Depending on if visiting Lucian at the book signing is in chapter 22 or in 23, I can start writing paragraphs to flesh out my scenes. I’ll have a paragraph wherein Simon is looking for a job through various methods and finds the ad about Lucian’s book signing. I’ll have a paragraph about Simon traveling to the book signing and thinking about Lucian. Finally, I’ll have a paragraph describing the book signing. Chapter 22, which was two sentences, is now three paragraphs and is feature complete. I’ll move on to Chapter 23, then 24, and on until the end.

Once I have all the chapters complete in iteration two I’ve finished the novel again. In a newly started novel (mine isn’t, but assume it is for this napkin math example), I’ve now taken my novel from 600 words (30 chapters at twenty words per chapter) to 9000 words (30 chapters at 300 words per chapter). Again, my novel is complete and I experience the rush of completion. I have a short story if I want to stop here. But I don’t. I want a novel with all the trimmings.

So on to iteration three, where I’ll break down each scene into sub scenes. I can break down the paragraph that broadly described the book signing into the needed elements: a paragraph explaining something weird Simon was thinking about in the parking lot, the people Simon noticed while standing in line during the signing, the brief conversation Lucian and Simon had during the signing where they made plans for later, the activities Simon did while waiting for Lucian to finish, the longer conversation Simon and Lucian had after the signing, and what Simon did once he came home from the book signing.

Since each expansion has a clear objective, these are much easier to writing than writing a scene with no clear objective. I know the entrance conditions of the scene (the state of the characters, the state of the plot, the state of the relationships, etc.) and I know the exit conditions (what changed in the scene, and how it changed). Now the only problems I have to solve are small, simple steps describing the exact method of what changed and how, or description problems (what are some thoughts Simon might have about standing in line? How would he express them?). This is much easier and allows me to control the pacing of the scene very precisely.  Since each node can be zoomed into (but not every node is necessary for zooming), more detail can be added with each iteration, until all the needed detail is in the story.

For the record I’ll restate that I haven’t used this method to write a novel, only brainstormed about how the method might work. But already I’m aware that I must be mindful of a few things as I write using this technique. One: each iteration will take more time than the last. The first few will be quick and easy. The later iterations will take longer. But, since the story is complete at every step, I think the excitement of adding more features will prevail over the additional time each iteration takes. This is something I plan to dispassionately observe when using this method, so I can see how it functions in practice.

Issue two: the first iteration will be dreadfully important, since it will be very difficult to change the story once the first few iterations are complete. Changing the story in the middle will require scrapping large blocks of content that’s already written. This needs to be avoided. It’s something I’m very frightened about. In general I’m not the type of writer who changes things midstream – I usually have the broad strokes mapped out in my head before I begin, but it does happen. For a writer who writes to “figure out the story” as she goes, rather than “tell a story” that’s in her head, this method would not work because of this immutability.

However, I feel like this issue can be minimized by writing a quality first iteration. Once the first iteration is done, the story can be examined for suck. If it sucks, I plan to change the first iteration before moving on, or scrap the whole thing. In a way, the first iteration is the story prototype. I stand by the notion that it’s impossible to determine if an unfinished story sucks, so a complete draft, even at 600 words, is needed. This is the first iteration.

Issue three: finally, it’s also necessary to be aware that if you are the type of writer who starts a story without knowing the ending, a writer who is writing the story to tell yourself the story as you write, this method seems very dangerous to the completion prospects. I’ve found that writers who write that way have a hard time finishing a story once they know the ending, unless they are within shooting distance of the ending and can brute force the writing of it. If this type of writer sorts out too much too soon, there is a weird thing that happens in the brain, this idea that the story has already been told somehow, and interest is lost in the story. I’ve seen this happen with people who talk about their novel too much, too. They tell the story while explaining the novel to people, and then have less interest in writing it down. This iterative method could be disastrous for that type of writer, since the complete story is told in the first iteration, the mystery is solved, and there is less reason to expand and add more features to the story.

So that’s the idea and I’m going to give it a shot to finish my second novel. Since I already have 65K words brute forced up to this point, I’m only going to try iterative novel development on the remainder of the story, rather than the whole thing.

I am aware that it may be easier to iterate the remainder of the story, since I already have a firm grasp on the characters and plot, than it would be begin iteration from the beginning. This may mean that when starting a third novel I should brute force the first 20k words while the excitement alone is enough to carry me, so I can get a firm grasp on the characters and plot, and then iterate from there. It’s something to be tested in the future.

Gosh. That took awhile to write. It probably took awhile to read, too. Now that it’s all out: has anyone used a method like this to write a long form work? How did it go? If you haven’t used it, what problems or advantages do you see with this method? Do you use something similar to this? Or do you use something else? If this isn’t your writing process, what is your writing process?

Please let me know in the comments below.

Thanks for reading.

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*Next week’s Cubicle Bear Tuesday will be on Wednesday due to the holiday and my lack of preparation.

Okay, with that out of the way, I want to talk about game immersion and use that to make an argument for vocal interaction with video games. I want you to see the Skyrim trailer first, because I plan to use that game as a touchstone for this post.

Even if you’ve never played any of the Elder Scrolls games (or the new Fallout games, which are similar), if you’re into gaming at all you should know the basic idea – open world role-playing, single player, immersive as possible. Each new installment in the series brings a face lift, better AI, and improved mechanics, for the most part. But have we reached a place where those things alone aren’t enough for a truly new gaming experience?

Say what you what about graphics and AI upgrades, they’ve been improving long enough that we take these upgrades as par for the course. Better graphics help improve the experience, but each new level of graphical prowess isn’t enough anymore to improve the immersion on the same level as the first treks into three dimensional worlds and the first improvements over the 32-bit era of gaming. It’s been awhile since gaming took a new step into immersion. This is in despite 3D technologies, which are a good step, but these technologies are only graphical upgrades. Motion controls have been the only immersive experience upgrade in the last ten years, but they haven’t really been exploited in serious gaming experiences, not to mention that they are only available on consoles. The PC gamer is still sitting in a chair using a keyboard and mouse.

Now, since you’ve watched the Skyrim trailer by now, you’ll notice, right after the narration ends, the shout the character gives (around 1:10 in the video). Shouts are supposed to be an integral part of the game, from what I understand the character gains shouts as the player slays dragons. Shouts give the player upgrades and new powers. This isn’t anything groundbreaking from a game mechanics standpoint. It’s just a player upgrade path, so there’s nothing really new there.

But what if Bethesda took the chance to offer the player a new level of immersion if the player wanted it? What if players could actually say activate the shouts by saying them aloud, using a microphone, rather than equipping and using them through a menu as the mechanic is sure to actually function? Wouldn’t that raise the level of immersion to a deeper place?

Now, using vocals in a game isn’t a new concept by any means. Games have used vocal commands in the past. SOCOM on the Playstation 2 is the best example that comes to mind. The game shipped with a USB headset that the player could use to give commands to the NPC squad. SOCOM wasn’t the first game to use these commands, and it wasn’t the last, but voice control in general is not a common feature.

From my understanding, lack of good technology is the major hurdle. In SOCOM, players used commands to issue orders to their military squad mates.  Commands like “Fireteam Bravo move to cross hair” had to be said into the headset to get teammates to respond. Although this worked for some players, many players experienced two major negative outcomes: the speech recognition was terrible, causing teammates to just respond with “I don’t understand you.” Other players found that once in a hectic firefight, voice commands were too unnatural, formulaic, and convoluted to give quickly and efficiently.

Depending on the task, the margin for error for speech recognition software can be as low as 1% and as high as 50%, with some military application studies noticing a remarkable increase in errors in a stressed voice. In a game like SOCOM, a military simulator of sorts, the voice would certainly be stressed during firefights. This, combined with the formulaic nature of the commands, made issuing commands difficult. I don’t know about you, but I would get sick of saying “Fireteam Bravo move to cross hair” over and over on a good day, let alone every time I wanted to reposition a squad a few feet to the left.

Although vocal commands seem like a natural fit for a squad shooter like SOCOM, the complexity of the commands certainly introduces errors, which ruins the point of the system. However, a fantasy game like Skyrim has more opportunities for simpler vocal commands, limiting error and increasing player immersion.

Games like Skyrim would most likely use speech recognition for several things and the magic system is the first obvious choice. Chanting a spell through a microphone could be a powerful immersion tool. Fantasy games in particular are uniquely suited to utilizing this effectively because the commands can be nonsense. There are certainly some syllable and consonant combinations that are more recognizable to speech recognition software than others.

While SOCOM had to use commands like “Fireteam Bravo, move to cross hair,” a fantasy magic system could use nonsense words that couldn’t be mistaken for anything else in the command list. I don’t know much about the technology, but certainly, if the command list was only 30 single-word spells, words could be picked with enough to differentiate between them that the software could have a low margin for error: “Light” “Icelance” “Fireball” “Open” – fun ways to immerse you in a game, limited chance for errors.

A magic system is obvious, but there are other places in a role-playing game where speech recognition would add important layers of immersion to a game. Animal mounts, for example. Being able to say “Woah!” and “Hyah!” to a horse to slow or increase speed would allow the game designers to add quirks to the gameplay that made riding different animals actually feel different. Some horses could be more spirited and need more talking to keep at the right speed.

Horses in games currently feel like vehicles. They may as well be motorcycles that only do what the player wishes them to do. The addition of voice control would allow a layer of abstraction between directly controlling the animal with the keyboard and having no control at all. This would make animals feel more like animals and less like extensions of the player. It could be a powerful technique and wouldn’t require speech recognition that was very powerful. Imagine having only your voice to slow your spooked horse as it sped toward a cliff. Yeah. You’d be immersed.

Another obvious aspect that could be improved by vocal commands would be simple additions to a conversation system. Certainly the ability to fully parse sentences is beyond the current technology level, but even the addition of “Yes” and “No” and other simple commands would be a welcome addition. If an NPC asked you to save her family, surely telling her “Yes” vocally would inspire more of a sense of immersion and give rise to more emotion than just clicking a choice in a menu. Beyond that, greetings could be important. Imagine being out in the world and seeing an NPC in the distance you’d like to talk to – you could yell a greeting to get the attention of the NPC, who could approach you as you approached him.

Next, the stealth system could be enhanced. The player could use voice noises to attract guards and peel them away from the group to take them out. Or the game could monitor noise levels when the player was trying to be stealthy. Loud noises could give away a player’s position and attract unwanted attention. The immersion would certainly be increased if players were forced to actually be quiet when trying to be stealthy in the game.

Certainly you can think of other ways simple voice commands could enhance a game. Feel free to leave them in the comments below. In the meantime, let’s move on past ideas for enhancements and talk a little about how the system could be implemented.

The thing about speech recognition software is that the larger and more complex the command list is, the closer the chance there will be like-sounding words, and the more likely errors would occur. However, games are unique compared to other speech recognition applications – players don’t need access to the entire command list all the time like they would in something like a speech-to-text application. The chance for error can be limited by keeping the command list small and dynamically scaling the command list based on the activity the player is engaged in during the game.

For instance, when a player is not mounted on an animal, the animal commands could be removed from the available list of commands because there is no reason to say “Hyah!” and “Woah!” unless a player is on an animal. The same could be said for conversation commands like “Yes” and “No.” They aren’t needed out in the field when the player isn’t involved in a conversation, so they are removed from the list. Similarly, if the game doesn’t allow mounted combat, the magic commands can be removed from the list of recognizable commands when the player is mounted.

This scaling keeps the list small, dynamically scaled to the activity the player is engaged in, and limits the possibility for error. This is important, since nothing breaks immersion more when the technological limits of a system break open and reveal their guts.

In conclusion, a system like this doesn’t have to have tons of commands or be overly complex to vastly increase immersion for the player, and certainly a system like this would do much more for increase immersion than the standard graphical facelift every game gets. I’m certain, that as awesome as Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim is going to be, it would be much more immersive with some voice commands. When 11/11/11 rolls around and you’re playing the game: think about that.

I know I will be.

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Next IB: Intervention

Good Morning, Dave. Open the Airlock, Dave.

The third part of Josh Forman’s 3 part series on gamasutra about storytelling techniques inspired this post, although it’s not required reading. Still, it might help to read his ideas about medium before reading this. Here’s a link.

Anyway, to point:

Games are built on abstractions, both from the design standpoint and the player standpoint. There’s no point in “real life” where pressing X makes a person perform a jump, or a kick, or whatever. It’s an abstraction. Game designers provide a world where players connect the relationship between pressing X and jumping, and players accept that in order make their avatar jump they have to press X.

However, button input is inherently disconnected and artificial – it’s abstracted from what “really” performing that action would take. An action which might have many steps in the real world (brewing a potion, hijacking a car, performing a spinning slash, commanding an army to move, etc.) is abstracted to a single step for two reasons: adding much more development time to decrease the abstraction isn’t generally worth it for the player’s enjoyment, but also because performing multiple in-game actions takes awhile for players without added benefit.

To draw out some of the meat of this distinction, let’s talk about Heavy Rain, because Heavy Rain is a game that attempts to give players less abstraction. Players must move the controller in 3D space, simulate actions with repetitive motion (if the “real-life” version of that action requires something similar), and perform multiple steps on the route to one action. The game even supports the Playstation Move controller, which allows for less button pressing and more movement. However, even with that said: the control scheme is still VERY abstract. Shaking a controller to dry hair is more like drying hair than pressing a button, but still a long way from the actual experience. Despite strides forward by the Heavy Rain team, there is still a huge level of abstraction in the controls.

The first few hours of Heavy Rain, which you can argue are necessary from an “immersive experience” standpoint, are absolutely awful from a game standpoint. They are filled with tedious and mind-numbing actions. This isn’t, as you’d think, only due to the fact that the character is performing actions which are even boring in real life: showering, setting the table, etc. That’s certainly part of it, but the more important part is this: most of the reason these actions in the game are tedious is that many actions in the game require more skill and effort in the game than they require in real-life.

Abstraction provides us with a way to make players more skilled, faster, stronger, and better than they are in real life. A person cannot lift a car in real life, but a player can press X to lift a car in a game.

Pressing a button and shaking a controller to collect a towel and dry your hair isn’t necessarily any more interesting, from a player’s perspective, than simply pressing one button to perform the whole sequence. Pressing a button and shaking a controller is still so unlike the actual actions (despite being more like them than just pressing a button) that the additional layer of “realism” adds nothing. The control scheme in Heavy Rain too complex considering the amount of abstraction the interface is burdened with. I can set a table in real life faster than I can set on in the game, simply because the control scheme is still abstracted enough that it cannot be a simulation, which is the intent. Thus, the extra actions add more abstraction without adding the sensation of more interaction.

This isn’t the fault of Heavy Rain, but a limitation of plastic controllers and buttons.

However, there is still a lesson to draw from this, too. Adding more actions still does, at least in some fashion, somewhat decrease abstraction, even if the level of abstraction is still high. Indeed, in order to make more “immersive” and “realistic” games, we must add more representative actions to everything the player must do. The further we move from abstraction, the closer we move to direct simulation, rather than abstracted simulation. However, there are several very large problems with adding more steps to in-game actions in order to decrease abstraction:

The first and most pressing issue is the sheer number of actions a player must be taught in order to replicate the number of steps needed to perform almost any task with limited abstraction. Think about it. In real life doing anything as simple as taking a shower comes with hundreds of tiny actions. Not only would it be unfeasible to teach players an abstracted control scheme and method for each one of these actions (press X to grab the shampoo, Press Y to open the cap, Press X+Y to flip the bottle, Press X and Down Arrow multiple times to shake the bottle) the standard interfaces we use today to play games do not support it. Heavy Rain gets around this issue by using a “quick time event” system and context sensitive commands, but this still makes each short action sequence a linear enterprise, even if the game provides large “set piece” choices. A true immersive experience would allow players to choose the order of all the tiny actions, which means knowing the controls for every single one of those tiny actions. This just isn’t feasible from a learning curve standpoint.

But even beyond the large huge hurdle that the control scheme would need to be complex enough, in order to differentiate between all those actions, that there is almost no chance of a player performing those actions in the correct order in anything even close to real time. If you must teach the player even fifty commands the player will take a very long time to gain fluency with those commands. That’s why we use abstraction in games in the first place.

What does this mean if we’d like to add more actions and continue to remove abstraction? It means that a different controlling interface is needed. The control interface must support many more action combinations than today’s present interfaces, but also must be intuitive and natural enough to allow players to acquire the skills with the controlling interface quickly and in almost real time. There is only one control interface I know of that allows these things: the human body.

Our current level of technology is such that the only way for developers and players to perform actions in the game is through a high level of abstraction, since button and even touch control schemes are so distant from actual experience. Also, due to the learning limitations of our current control schemes (the player must learn that X makes his avatar jump and O makes his avatar shoot), there is a limit to the number of actions a player can learn and utilize in any amount of time.

In order to lessen the amount of abstraction, we need to increase the number of actions a player can perform in a small amount of time. We also need that performance to mimic the “realistic” performance of that action as closely as possible. Finally, we need a control scheme that allows players to perform actions intuitively even though they may have never played the game before. Without that intuitive performance there is no feasible way of players learning and utilizing the actions they must perform in a reasonable length of time.

This is why “body” control systems like the Kinect, the Move, and the Wii are the future, even for the hardcore gamer. To most hardcore gamers these control schemes are currently jokes, but only because the technology is lacking. Currently even the most sensitive “body” controller in the consumer market are laggy, insensitive, inaccurate, and don’t have the fine recognition to differentiate between nuanced movements. Currently, controllers allow for more accurate actions per second, even though pressing buttons is a higher level of abstraction than using one’s body for movements. However, the more accurate body controllers get and the more developers who learn to use them to create new experiences, the chance for a game experience with less abstraction will be irresistible even for hardcore gamers.

Until we have full body controls and full-body tactile feedback for our games, games will always rely on some systems of abstraction. However, until we have skin suits, Kinect Gen23, brainjacks, or anything else that allows us to minimize abstraction, we can still minimize abstraction with good game design choices:

Eliminate Any of Loss of Player Control – Anything that takes control from the player adds more abstraction to the game should be eliminated. When in real life do you watch cut scenes? When do you stop between rooms to load the next area? Never, that’s when. Game worlds should be seamless and never restrain the player with mechanics. Any time the player has to wait or only watch the game is unacceptable.

Make Players Do Things – If you want your player to perform an action in the game, make the player do it with several steps. Cooking Mama, Majicka, Flight Sims – these games all make players perform steps to create an outcome, rather than relying on single-button abstractions.

Create Open, Realistic Worlds – This one is pretty self explanatory. There’s a reason that Western RPGs are beating JRPGs and it’s because a linear hallway simulator (FF13, ugh!) adds much more abstraction to a game than an open world.

Use Intuitive Controls – Apple touch devices are lauded because they are intuitive. Or, to put it the way a really smart guy put it: The interface fundamentally determines the behavior.  (Link to that smart guy) If you want players to quickly learn controls, make the controls mimic what they would intuitively do as much as possible.

Keep Pushing Movement Controllers Forward – The Move, the Kinect, and the Wii aren’t good enough. Make better, more accurate, and more immersive control schemes.

Develop More Tactile Feedback and Immersion – Rumble controllers are the only mainstream tactile feedback created since the creation of the mouse, the button, the controller, and the switch. Well, Rock Band added some feedback with things like the drums and that DJ device, I suppose, but those are specific to a specific genre of games that involves the abstraction of an activity that is already an abstraction: playing music. Also, sure, there’s the Novint Falcon, but that’s hardly mainstream. We need more tactile feedback to remove abstraction. Rumble, sensation, variant surfaces, haptic stuff, and whatever else.

Aside from that – there needs to be more immersion in audio and video. 3D stuff is one step that’s happening, but where is the mainstream version of the wrap-around-your-head video device? Why are we making larger and larger televisions when we should be making personal screens that fully immerse players? Screens that allow users to have outside peripheral vision are woefully outdated. Can’t we make flexible OLED screens now? Didn’t I read that somewhere? What’s the holdup?

So – that’s what I’ve got so far. Other ideas to minimize abstraction?

I’ve played hundreds of games over the years I’ve been a gamer. And every time I play a game for the first time, I like to examine the user interface. User interfaces are interesting because they are understood not to be the game itself, but rather, something separate from the game: they are the method by which a designer can bridge the player to the game. And yet, even knowing that, I had a hard time expanding that idea into a post. All I had was the knowledge that I would stop playing an otherwise innovative and fun game if the UI was bad. And I knew I couldn’t be the only one who did this. But aside from writing a post that said, “hey, UI’s are important. Make good UI’s,” I didn’t know what to write.

That was until a post at a personal finance blog, Get Rich Slowly, turned me on to a video of a 2009 TED talk. In the talk, given by ad man Rory Sutherland, Rory delivers this whiz-banger of a line: “The interface fundamentally determines the behavior.” I have a little joke with my buddies – before we deliver what we intend to be whiz-bangers, we always pause for a minute and preface it with “Pardon me while I blow your mind.” Rory offered no preface, but his seemingly casual revelation blew my mind nonetheless.

Contained in that little line was the seed of crystallization I’d been looking for to finally write the post I wanted to write about UI. It gave me a better understanding of why minimalistic user interfaces are better, as well as suddenly opening me to the idea that the UI could be used as an additional element to enhance gameplay, as part of the game itself, rather than just something overlaid on the game to give players important information or help players control the game.

Even taking this simple idea, we can extrapolate several general things about video game UIs:

The User Interface is the single most important piece of a game. Okay, you probably think I’m just blowing smoke, right? I mean, other things matter, too, like fun, graphics, challenge, replay value, etc. And yeah, those things are important. But if the UI sucks, all but the most dedicated player base won’t bother to keep playing beyond a few minutes. Or they will keep playing, but will be having less fun than they could be. User interfaces matter because they are how your players play your game. Better UIs will encourage players to play longer. Better UIs will make your game look like its fun to play.

User Interfaces should be as simple and minimalistic as possible while remaining functional. If a UI fundamentally determines the behavior, then what information you display to your players and how you display it is very important – it will determine how your players play the game. Including information or elements in the UI that players don’t need encourages your players to do things other than what the game designers intend players to do with the game. The idea is basically the same as George Orwell’s ideas about language: if there is no word for a concept, people have no concept at all. If there is no element of your UI that allows players to get distracted, players won’t get distracted, as least by your UI. Make it clean, simple, and emphasize the UI elements that focus on what the player needs to know and needs to do. The UI should stylistically represent what you intend players to do with your game. Make prominent the elements players need and eliminate the elements players don’t.

Interacting with the UI should be a positive experience independent of the gameplay. Think about your favorite game. Now take away the graphics, sound, and gameplay elements. Pretend that all that’s left is the interface: the HUD, the buttons, the menus, the gauges, the maps, and all the other little bits that give you information and let you interact with the game. What does the UI of your favorite game look like? Is it minimal? Bland like Microsoft Word 2003 (or any old Windows program)? Does it have sound effects, button animations, a “visceral” effect? Is it animated? How many screens and clicks do you have to do to get to the feature or effect you want?

The best UI’s, beyond being simple, minimal, and tailored to users, are fun to interact with. Wouldn’t you rather have a menu that has button animations that are fun to press because they make noises, are animated, and use fonts and graphics in an aesthetically pleasing manner? Isn’t a game more fun if interacting with the UI encourages is fun? I don’t mean fun in a “mini-game” challenging fun sort of way, but rather, a fun based on the childhood enjoyment of tactile feedback (virtually simulated)?

Next, I’d like to give some quick examples of what I think are good and bad UIs. There are so many games with good and bad UIs that I can’t even begin to broach them all, so feel free to give some examples of your own in the comments after this post.

Examples of Good UIs

Blizzard Games – Say what you want about Diablo, Starcraft, and WoW, Blizzard understands how to properly stylize a UI, as well as convey to the players what elements matter. It’s no coincidence that every MMO looks like WoW in terms of UI, or that every RTS looks like Warcraft and Starcraft, or that almost every dungeon crawler looks like Diablo. Blizzard knows how to make a good UI.

Call of Duty – The thing that the modern Call of Duty games do an awesome job with, in terms of UI, are the in game points you get for kills. They pop all over the screen, fade, and serve as a great reward for players to let them know they are succeeding. They are easy to recognize in game play videos. They display in an intuitive manner the information the player needs, but don’t hang around long to distract.

Plants Versus Zombies – Well stylized, this UI fits the themes of the game and art style. The UI is fun to interact with and enhances the game play. This is a great UI.

Capcom Fighting Games – The character selection screens on these games are bright, visceral, and make players feel as though they are already in the action due to their stylized feel.

Examples of Bad UIs

Most Console to PC Ported Games (Or the Opposite) – UIs should be designed for their method of interaction. There are so many examples of console ported games on the PC that result in awkward UIs for a mouse of keyboard. ES3: Oblivion’s weird tab menu should be on this list – it felt clunky and wrong when the game was ported to the PC. On the flipside, remember the PC to PSX port of Warcraft 2? Awful.

Here’s a great post about a bad UI that made a kid cry.

So anyway, that’s all for now. Feel free to drop a comment about good or bad UIs you’ve used. Also, if you’re interested, here is some more information on User Interfaces that I found interesting:

http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~soar/Classes/494/talks/User-interfaces.pdf

http://www.uxweek.com/attachments/0001/3069/UXWeek2010_Joe_Kowalski.pdf

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4286/game_ui_discoveries_what_players_.php