It's too hard, it's too easy, oh I don't bloody know!

[Mark]

So it was a few weeks ago that we held our first Multiwinia test at the Omega Sektor in Birmingham. Chris talked about this in his previous blog post, but I have been thinking more about the philosophy of the test and the problems associated with it. Here’s the deal: Video games take a long time to develop and get right and there is no guarantee that you will sell the game at the end (imagine if you had just finished your magnum opus and were unfortunately required to launch it on the 25th September this year). So you have to take steps to ensure that your game appeals to as many people as possible. (It is at this point that the faint tolling of the alarm bell should begin.) Which in turn means that you have to get the players to at least get through the demo and decide to open their dusty wallets and purchase the full version.

Now given that your average gamer is a fully-fledged card carrying member of the MTV generation it goes without saying that his attention span sits around the 30s mark. So what does this mean for the game designer? Well it means that if the player isn’t playing within those first 30s he will not buy your game. If he gets frustrated because he doesn’t understand what to do or how to do it he’ll smack alt-F4 and return to youTube to watch the latest video of a spandex-clad American playing a harp with nothing other than a litter of puppies and a chopstick.

So we designed our usability test. We decided that every player needed to be able to understand what to do and be able to do it after he had played two Multiwinia games. Now being clever scientist chaps we had no problem in developing this test and the implementation was flawless (thanks to Leander and Gary), but it wasn’t until afterwards that I really started to think about the philosophy of what we had done.

Assuming the players needed to understand everything, immediately is exactly what you need if you are writing iTunes or iPhoto or Word or some other software package. Try that with games and you will end up with a very simple, very obvious, very boring, one dimensional game that will only appeal to your four year old.

It is this very problem that Chris and I have been wrestling with during the weeks following the test. Chris will come to the Flying Hamster every Tuesday and show me some of the new usability “solutions” that he has come up with. For the most part these are fantastic and fit really well, but every now and then the desire to make something obvious, to simplify an action or to reduce it to it’s constituent parts just rips the depth from the game and (in my opinion) will reduce it’s longevity.

So what’s to be done? Well I think the solution (unusually) is actually quite simple. As a game designer you need to recognise that the different actions and strategies within the game have different levels of complexity associated with them. It is not necessary to have a total understanding up front, and if you don’t want a feature to kick in until the third game-hour, then test it’s usability after the third hour – simple as ABC. Perhaps.

In fact the more I consider it the Usability test isn’t really about “Usability” in fact it is about managing the complexity within a game. It’s about managing what the player sees and when. It’s about making it easy learn and hard to master. It’s about being engaging and challenging and ultimately (surprise, surprise) it’s about being fun.

Now those words mean different things to different people and it is vitally important to understand what sort of people will play your game. How clever are they? What sort of games do they play? What else are they in to? A failure to consider these issues will result in you desperately trying to be all things to all people and reducing your design to the lowest common denominator.

In the past we haven’t bothered with any kind of usability test (check out the opening level of the original Darwinia if you want a lesson on how to get it wrong and I think that in the future they will become increasingly important to us. That said if we don’t figure out a way to manage that complexity issue we may end up being acquired by these guys.

[Pentadact]

I don't think the player necessarily needs to understand the whole game and be having great fun in 30 seconds, even if he only has an attention span that long. Just so long as he doesn't encounter anything he needs to understand but doesn't, during that time. Just so long as nothing frustrates him and one thing intrigues or impresses him, he'll keep playing. I think you can preserve complexity by shifting it to stuff that the player can get by without entirely understanding. It's only when he can't get anywhere unless he wraps his head around some strange and abstract notion that it's a really crippling problem.

Of course, with Multiwinia it's probably hard going. Because while the strangeness of the universe fascinates many, I'm sure there's a small-minded majority for whom something they're not familiar with causes them to think "Why should I care? Why should I care? Why should I care?" every second they're playing.

[brog]

Is this game multiplayer only?
Most multiplayer games seem to have a single player mode that trains players to deal with the multiplayer. Each game element is introduced individually, gradually ramping up the complexity until you're dealing with the full game. After this training players can come into the multiplayer where all the possibilities of the game are open to them and not be overwhelmed.
If your game is getting too complex, a tutorial (disguised as a compelling single-player campaign) might be the way to go.
But from the gameplay video a little while back it didn't look too complex. It looked like chaos arising from simple easily-understood interactions, rather than an overwhelming storm of possibilities to choose from.

[ynbniar]

Hmm…

Darwinia hooked me immediately…I knew nothing about Darwinia or Introversion having stumbled upon the game on a magazine demo disk.

It was a while ago now but I distinctly remember grasping the basics very quickly and feeling the need to explore the world and the tools at my disposal further. There was a feeling of potential…like I can do this now which opens up exciting possibilities for later.

A phrase often used by game reviewers is “reaching the bottom of the biscuit tin ( aka cookie jar)"…the longer you can delay reaching the bottom, or even better seeing the bottom coming the more chance you will hook the player.

Darwinia and DefCon have very deep biscuit tins…

[blaquenight]

But what is your audience? What market are you gunning for? All of us on the forums would have no problem taking the time to figure out the controls and strategies of any game (not just Introversion's). That is, I'm assuming we're all gamers at some degree beyond casual.

But if you ARE shooting for the mass audience, casual gamer...what if all they want is one-dimensional? Sure the gaming press would slam it, but it would sell. How much is the character of your game worth, monetarily?

Is it art or is it entertainment?

Multiwinia was a fun experience, to be sure. But I was very overwhelmed by...well, lack of a manual. I wasn't familiar with the game. Perhaps I'm one of the remaining few people out there who actually flips through the instruction booklet before turning the game on. I ideally would also play a one-player game or two before jumping in with a human opponent. As to understanding objectives: King of the Hill is a no-brainer. So is Capture the Flag (...or whatever...). It's just difficult to know how to achieve those objectives when my only intelligence is "There is the flag. Here are your Darwinians. Go." I had no idea about Officer's, grouping Darwinians - solely because I didn't know I COULD. As to how you can achieve getting the player that knowledge...I have no clue. You are the designers. But, that was just my impression.

[The GoldFish]

The first level of Darwinia is bad because it somewhat teaches the player to fail containment by jumping the gun and not getting the Darwinians they need.

Regarding Multiwinia, on these stakes, you only need to convey what your game is, and give a hint about what it is that will make people want to play it within the first 30 seconds, not every significant detail (probably everyone agrees here)

Many games start the player off with limited content/tools - command and conquer advances your tech tree as you progress, fps games often give you bigger and better weapons and tougher enemies, puzzle platformers start you off on simple puzzles and slowly ramp up complexity or your abilitiy to move through the puzzles.

Even bat&ball games have progression by giving new powerups, block types, and level complexities. But, as soon as you play the first level of generic bat&ball 7, you know it's a bat and ball game.

Here comes the problem for Multiwinia. There is no progression - it's multiplayer only - for example, like Quake 3 Arena was, and what progression did that have? It had single player arena tier sort of stuff, it started really simple and got a lot harder. It didn't teach the gamer anything new really except the format of its gameplay, because the vast majority of players already knew what quake was; FPS games are well established, all the weapons were familiar from the previous games - and if they weren't, you could see your opponents using them and learn from them.

If quake 3 had sat you down and explained what an FPS game was and how to shoot things, most people would have just been annoyed. Why is that? It's because it wouldn't really be conveying a new concept as, naturally, people already understand things they're already familiar with - ok, a quick refresher course is sometimes a good idea for the uninitiated, but, don't enforce it. So, given that, what is important? Explaining to the player what they don't already know, by teaching or tricking the player into learning or noticing what it is they need to pick up in order to advance.

ACTUAL IDEA HERE

Depending on how much it would screw someone's computer, I'd think one of the best things you could do is put a rolling combat demo as the background of the main menu (which can be turned off) or as an introduction (but then many people skip intros) or just put gameplay videos up on the web (again people may see these less) - this would introduce the game to them at a level they won't see at the beginning of any tutorial, but, is the basic multiplayer gameplay they'd get from the game - This *could* be very bad for other games, since sometimes it could show developments which were important to the gameplay and would be missing once the player started playing. For Multiwinia, I really don't think this is the case and it would be a good idea - as even though there is no tech tree familiarity to develop, that doesn't mean that the start of the grooming tutorial won't be damn as hell boring and possibly turn many prospective players away. A background demo could inform the player of exactly what they'll be getting once they learn the basics of the game and can play online, and hopefully, should perk their interests enough to get them involved in a tutorial in the first place.

END OF IDEA HERE

Simply having a rolling demo button won't work, because people probably won't click it, you need to (to some extent) force feed the player the information they need in order to know if they'll like your game. You need to show the graphical cues, like DG selection, and officers directing troops, so players become aware that they exist - it's not the understanding that's the problem, it's unfamiliarity, people will more than likely pick up that you tell the officers where to send your troops to if they actually see it happening, but, if they don't see it happening, they'll revert to what they already know, which is select to move from C&C etc, and they'll become frustrated when this doesn't really work out for them.

[koorb]

I think the word you are looking for is Discoverability. That being the ability for the player to discover features and actions at their command on their own through gameplay.

Micro-objectives are always great for keeping players interested. I haven't seen enough of Multiwinia to advise, but the capturing of a resource point could be a good first objective. Just make the player feel like they are making their own progress with micro-objectives and they will keep playing until they hit a stall in gameplay.

[martin]

I wouldn't have thought that most people who play a strategy game will have your 30 second attention span surely?

in fact, for a longer than 30s training exercise that has proved to be a tad popular look at portal...

[martin]

I've never played WiC (world in conflict?) but at the other end of the scale is black and white II - every time you play the campaign it forces you to do a terrible tutorial.

Turn camera left
Turn camera right
Throw big rock into small target in a way that the actual game *never* requires
etc

I *hate* that tutorial, in fact I played B&W at a friends house and it was the tutorial that put me off buying it :p

[brice]

FWIW I would suggest you follow BOTH tracks. Mold two UIs and flip the switch by user control or, if you're ambitious, by algorithmically gauging the players progress / abilities.

Modes. Make the intro mode as easy to pick up as a 30 second iTunes purchase. Then switch modes to the real game where the depth lies. If the players prefer WiiPlay, leave them alone with mode one. Happiness is subjective.

But don't emasculate your creative visions and leave the world with a burnt out husk of a seed which will never germinate... (Switch to a feminine earth metaphor as you like.)

The programming cost of a split UI cannot possibly be greater than the agonies of delay you're struggling with right now. Bite the bullet and do both tracks. Everyone will win.

Give us a game that contains more than 30 seconds of heart. You already know your schizophrenic audience. The buyers need their 30 second fix. The gamers need more.

You can't cram a lotus bud into a pipe and expect to smoke the unfolding blossum in a 30 second puff.

So why try.


(beating a dying horse... As I understand Multiwinia, the game is not the game. Like Halo. This time you are going to truely follow through with the final promise of Darwinia. This time the real game will be what the community cooks up with the mod system you provide. This time no one will curse Sepulveda because this time the tools will be usable by more than the few.)

[The GoldFish]

Maybe the point didn't come across? My point was, yes, have a tutorial, but don't have that be the 30 second introduction as what the game is and what it's about. I was saying don't have a tutorial about how to play stategy games, have a tutorial about how to play Multiwinia. Introduce the basic idea of what Multiwinia is OUTSIDE of these tutorials, so the player already knows WHY they are learning something, not that they are simply learning something which they may not care about (rock in a small hole, as martin noted).

Anyway, I don't think this is really an arguement or anything; it's putting forwards ideas, but uh, I honestly think simply showing videos of how to play the game to the player as the tutorial is a bad idea - it's too abstract, there needs to be interaction! Seriously I had concerns with the SupCom tutorials because their UI was arranged different to mine and I couldn't find the minimap. OK, that's stupid, I'm sure it was really easy to change, but it annoyed me no end.

With "over the shoulder" interaction, if someone doesn't pick something up quickly it can be explained further (but not so they feel stupid), and if they do pick it up quickly, then it can be glossed over and moved on from. I agree that having videos and then "have a go sessions" (videos would have helped so much as an uplink guide) may work a little better than just the videos, but just leaving the player to it with only the option to rewatch the video still isn't a good idea in my books. They need to feel involved and engaged - maybe start off with having a pincer movement attack on someone from 2 allied factions, showing you (in mirror image) what you should be trying to accomplish and getting tips along the way on how to do it, and moving onto more complicated lessons from there.

I'm not sure everyone is getting this, but, people are comparing MW to games like C&C, SupCom, Portal, etc. Quick example, when was the last time you saw a TV advert for one of these games? That's not how these games work at all. They're established franchises now, they're advertising to different groups. Like it or not, Introversion do NOT have this big cloud of people interested in everything they do, they only have a small cloud. Steam allowed them to sekk many times more copies of their games simply by giving them an outlet lots of people use. How many games are there now on Steam? They need to get noticed and if they don't get noticed in 30 seconds then people are NOT going to care.

edit - also, please never listen to Brice. o_O

[wwarnick]

...Supreme Commander set itself apart from the standard RTS format quite a bit...

Well, Total Annihilation did anyway.

wwarnick

[DEMONIIIK]

I'm confused by "first level". Are you guys referring to the Garden level, or the demo/prologue level of the Launchpad?

I can't say the Garden level was bad or good, but this is also because I first picked up the demo level before I got the game, and whether I got the old version or the new version where they injected a bunch more teaching/clarification, I learned it rather quickly. In fact, the demo pretty much taught me the whole game, and it just took me a while to get good at it (that came with the purchase and play of the game).

As for the whole engineer-soul-collecting thing, I learned that bit (which then helped me out for Containment) because I A) read what Sepulveda said about them, and B) noticed the little number inside their icon getting bigger, which led me to look at the engineer, and noticing them picking up souls and trailing them behind (and they were even caught in the same area as the number (in the middle), which also helped me understand that number = souls carried).

In fact, the only things that really confused me about the game was the Armour (which I figured out after a few accidental deployments) and the Officer (figured out by playing with them... and I was mainly only confused by why I couldn't place them at towers. Oh yeah. He said it promotes Darwinians. Ding). Oh, and the Trunk Ports. After beating the Garden level, I kept trying to get my guys to go through (like everyone else in the world who played Darwinia did, I'm sure xD).