Random Thoughts

Back from california today. Not a big fan of flying.

Anyways here's some random thoughts.

Read two books on the trip. Super Freakonomics and Talent is Overrated. Both are pretty good.

I'm not sure there is a connection between self-efficacy and mastery. Self Efficacy is the belief that you are in control of your life. Hoping you can overcome obstacles seems reasonable. If there's a problem, try to overcome it.  A generalized belief that you have control over your own destiny seems like trash. If improvement through practice requires small challenges outside your comfort zones, why not just approach each of those problems one by one? Don't create some vague belief system that says you're probably right.  Because you're not. You are wrong.

Modern Science is like the catholic church of the middle ages. Access to the bible is limited as peer reviewed journals and scientific data is limited. (It's Not like those are in a book store or easy to find on the interwebs.) Priests translated the bible from latin/greek and spoke it to the laypeople. Authors like Malcom Gladwell or whoever wrote freakonomics write in understandable bits and bites.  They do the hard work of finding and interpret the scientific texts for the hoi polloi.  Maybe I should just buy books for their reference sections and try to get at the actual information. Too bad thinking for onesself takes effort. It's much easier to have someone else think for me. Laziness wins again.  =/

I wonder what intelligence is. Maybe everything is learned (aka Nurture). Geoff Colvin makes a pretty good case that talent is bullshit.

I need a feedback model for Melee. ORLY said after a tournament he was frustrated. That he either messed up his tech skill or made a bad decision. That seems like a shitty model for feedback. How do you know why you lost? How do you know what to improve? If you keep losing to same people, how the hell do you know if you are improving, stagnating, or getting shittier? I don't even know. Like I have my own mental model of the game. I fit each piece of data in there, but I'm not the best so clearly this could be improved. Maybe I could work on understanding failure. If you can isolate the problem it's much much easier to fix.

I watched the best samus play a few games. Was impressive. Maybe I'll write out those reflections.

How do I improve my decisiveness? Lol just asking that question highlights my hesitation. If I was decisive I would know what to do. Regardless how can I practice it? Just make decisions? Maybe the problem is lack of preparation. Maybe I should believe in self-efficacy so I have less doubt.

Gonna have to dig through Talent is Overrated and make some practice methods. Hope they work.

First day of classes is tomorrow. I hope the people don't suck.

20 Reasons why Super Metroid is the Best Game Ever. #15-11

#15: The First Battle
For your first fight on the planet Zebes your greeted by these guys.

The space pirates.

The first fight is such a cool moment. Your alone on this barren planet.  Everything is still quiet. Maybe a little too quiet.

But why should you to suspect anything? You've seen the room before. Even if there was something about to kill you there'd be a warning. Ridley had those glowing eyes and all. Then when you walk through the door - things get real.

Your first fight isn't a single goomba strolling across the screen. Instead of just one stupid guy there's two of them. And they aren't approaching you morosely. They start right in your face.

Oh ****

This moment scared the crap out of me as a kid. They even cue the intense music.

Action/Thriller movies use the 'in your face' surprise in the exact the same way. Something funny is going on -so the protagonist hides behind a tree. They glance over the side and see that the coast is clear. They catch their breath, peek over again and bam - close up of a velociraptor.

What makes this room so well designed is not just the surprise but how easy it is.  These space pirates are like the red coats. They are made to die.

The one on the left has no room to move (not that he's very fast anyways). He's lined up nicely to die. If you spaz and start jamming the attack button he will blow up before he ever attacks.  The dead Zebetite is the perfect height to do nothing.

The one above you crawls on walls and jumps around. It might be hard to hit. But no. This poor guy has no room to move. It's like he's trapped and waiting to be shot. Not to mention they only take 1 shot to kill.

The first battle is as scary as it is easy.



#14: Color Codes
Most games use color to set mood and theme. Super Metroid uses color beyond just aesthetic. Its colors inform and individualize.

Items and doors are color coded. If you don't have an instruction manual (or just didn't read it,) you should still be able to figure out how to open each door. Their colors match a specific weapon.

Missiles are red and they open red doors. Super Bombs are orange and they open orange doors. While that may seem mundane, it really matters.

What if the doors were all the same color? You would have to guess and check which item works for each door. That would suck.

What if the doors colors didn't match the weapon color? It might piss you off. Why make the orange superbomb unlock the green door? That little incongruity would drive me nuts.

What color coding does is relay information quickly. It's like a road sign - A stop sign is a red octagon and a yield sign is a red and white triangle.  The colors allows you to drive without having to stop and read each one.

The second thing that color coding does is individualize. If you remember the layout of Metroid 1, there's a lot of rows and columns - rooms which are primarily horizontal or vertical. It's easy to get lost.

Metroid 2 simplified this by having one main verticle area (the trunk,) with many horitzontal areas coming off it (the branches.) The problem is that everything looks the same in Metroid 2. The gameboy only has 4 colors.

Super Metroid leveraged the SNES's 15-bit color to it's advantage. (Yes it only has 15 bit color depth.) They made similar areas have different colors. You might miss the importance of that last sentence. So I'll repeat it for emphasis.

Similar areas

have

different colors

I enjoyed finding all the goodies in Super Metroid. In the hand-held Castlevanias I hated it.  How do I know if this wall can be broken or not? Is that the warp point to the sewers or the clock tower? How can I tell where I am if everything looks the damn same?

What Super Metroid does right is color code the levels and the weapons. It let's the player know where they are, where they've been, and what to do next.

#13: The Evil Energy Tank
The first time I fell into the wall jump pit, I saved in it. I couldn't figure out what the stupid hyena guys were telling me. I got stuck and couldn't get out. So I had to restart the whole damn game.

While I hated the wall jump pit then, I appreciate it now. What makes it great is how the much effort the designers put into the pit trap. They set you up for it, by using an evil energy tank.

This is the evilest of energy tanks. If you don't remember the wall jump pit,  you enter it by falling through the floor. This happens because there's an energy tank at the end of the hall. You walk to get it and you fall.

If new games try to get you to play will all sort of achievements and rewards, Super Metroid does the opposite. The carrot on a stick is a trap.

Now if you do remember the trap, you might notice that the energy tank in the picture is not the one I'm talking about. This energy tank is one which fills your mind with lies. This is the first energy tank.

After you get the bombs and go down the first diagonal room, you get a free energy tank. It's nearly impossible to avoid. Why would the game do that? If most upgrades are difficult to acquire, why make this one so gosh darn easy? Because it's evil, that's why. The first energy tank makes you believe that some energy tanks are easy to get. All you have to do is keep walking, you'll come across them.

That is a lie.

There's a second layer to the trick. The room before the trap makes you believe an energy tank is coming. It is a sign which says 'easy energy tank ahead.' You believe the sign because you've been in a room just like it. It's the locked room in Kraid's layer.

Here's both of the rooms side by side:

They seems similar

While the first (left) room has an energy tank, the second doesn't. When you enter the second room an alarm should go off in your brain. You should feel like their's an energy tank somewhere. If game designer's are Ivan Pavlov and the players are his dogs, your mouth should be watering. There's a treat and it's about to come.

But it doesn't. You fall into a pit and you get pissed off. That's the reason I think people hate the wall jump pit. It's not because they don't like wall jumping or learning to wall jump is hard. It's not even the save point that traps you in there. It's because they didn't get their doggie treat.

Check out this lecture by Jonah Lehrer. He talks about dopamine and decisions making.

Now it might piss you off if you got stuck in the pit. Especially if you saved and had to restart the game.  Yet consider how much effort went into the trap. That maybe the designer's put the save point there on purpose. That they might have wanted you to quit.

The evil energy tank and the wall jump pit is there to teach you how to game the game.



#12: Instructional Videos.
Here's a trailer for LA Noir. The game looks pretty sweet, but did that trailer teach you anything? Do you learn anything about how to play the game? Not at all.

Yes it's a trailer and that's not it's purpose. It's just an example of how games will play a video sequence and teach you nothing. They're there just to look cool.

Super Metroid doesn't waste your time. (If duke nukem is the father of speed runs, super metroid is mother.) It's videos aren't just to look cool but to teach you about the game. If you pay attention you will get better at the game.

Let's take a look at the intro video and what you can learn from it. (This is the video which plays at the start of the game.)

What I love about that video is that you might not realize it's an instruction video. If you don't pay attention in class, your notes will suck.

I remember reading an EGM which had some information on Super Metroid. In the reader mail (literally pen and paper mail, not the fancy electronic stuff we have now) there was a letter asking about the wall jump pit and how to escape. The EGM explained that some enemies aren't in the game to kill you. They are there to help you. Maybe the designers could have made the last lesson in the video a bit more explicit.

Regardless, the intro video can teach you about the game. But it's not the only video in the game. There's also the  features video. (It plays when you do nothing at the title screen.) It teaches you some basic lessons and neat tricks: Like how to open blue and red doors. How to open gates. The different uses of the charge beam. The angled shine spark.

There's also a secret bonus video. Once you've beaten the game it unlocks.  In it you learn about the Horizontal Shine Spark, that you can bomb jumping, and even how to do the elusive Crystal Flash.

Before I finish with #12 I gotta show you one last video sequence.

So awesome.

Was that a metroid in there?



#11: The Glass tube
I'm pretty sure most people hate the glass tube. It's not hard to argue that the glass tube is the worst designed puzzle in super metroid. It's a hard lock, you have to break it to finish the game. There's no also obstacle like it. The player might quit in frustration - believing it can't be opened. Yet if you took it out, super metroid would be a worse game.

First the game tells you to break it. The empty space surrounding it is a big clue. The map station in Maridia tells you that you can go above and below it. My favorite video sequence is showing that there's some important stuff in Maridia. There's even a broken tube in maridia.

These hints tell you that it can be broken but they don't tell you how. The only way to break open the tube is to guess and check. Once you break it you have that moment of realization and triumph. It's the 'a-ha!' moment.

Does the 'a-ha' moment justify the frustration of guess and checking? Why not have the X-ray scope tell you how to open it? It would ruin the 'a-ha.'  It goes beyond simply "hurray for me. I solved the puzzle." What justifies the frustration is the set-up and location of the glass tube.

That stupid tube is the most traveled area in Zebes. If you follow the game in sequence you wil walk across it 5 times. 1) Going to kraid 2) Getting power bombs 3) Getting the grapple beam 4) Getting the gravity suit and 5) the first trip through maridia dumps you here.

This means is that once you break the tube, you realize you could have broken it all along. The only thing holding you back was you. This 'a-ha' moment is invites you to replay the game. It asks what does the game look like when I can break the tube earlier. I'll tell you: It looks wet.

The first time I tried to get into Maridia without the gravity suit I got pissed off. I couldn't sequence break  because of the water. Now I know you can.

It's just tedious.

I would not take the glass tube away from Super Metroid. Despite that it is a frustrating hard lock, it still invites you to sequence break. Once you try breaking in early, you find there's a soft lock around it. What makes the glass tube great is that it's like a cheesy gordita crunch. It's a hard taco wrapped around a soft taco.

Delicious.


Alright that's it for #15-#11. Join me next week for #10-#6.

Achievements

I was reading a few blogs on Gamasutra.com yesterday. I don't understand all the hullabaloo over achievements. Game companies have really honed in on achievements. Why is it now that they focus on it? Games have always had achievements.

An achievement is just a goal with a guaranteed reward. Games have almost always had goals.

Mario has goals - Beat Bowser, save the princess, collect the stars.

Asteroids has goals - Survive. Blow up that Asteroid.

So then do all games have achievements? Games need a goal. An objective. Well can you play a game without a goal? How about chess? I think you can play chess without a goal. Have no opponent and just move pieces around. It's a game about a 8x8 field and movement. It's not a very compelling game, but it's still a game. This because I believe games are simply playgrounds. A place to play.

A playground implies a lot of things:

Rules. -Swings and slides behave in a certain way.

Limits - A playground is a specific area.

Safety - you shouldn't die playing a game. (Well extreme games can harm you.)

The heart of a playground is a place to play. The weird thing is, play can be defined at an activity without a purpose or a goal. I don't think play is useless. Play is how we learn and experiment. Which means *gasp* learning is fun.

A game is just a place which encourages play. Goals and Achievements are a simply method for encouraging play. They are a motivation device.

I have ADD. As such I've had many coaches and tutors who've taught me create my own goals, schedules, and deadlines. Finish this paper by this date. Go to this class then work on this homework. All these things are tools to get me to do something. They're there for the motivation. The difference between goals and achievements is that achievements have a guaranteed reward.

Just as a goal motivates without a guaranteed reward, you can have a reward without a goal. People can play a game entirely because they like collecting coins. Some people work at a job entirely for a pay check. I've worked a lot of shitty jobs. Fast food, paperboy, janitor (which is

literally a shitty job.) The work itself is not fullfilling, I just wanted the money.

Cary Zhang just gave me one of his books from his class - Everything Bad is Good for You: Steven Johnson. In the book Steven makes a case for popular entertainment. In it he uses an example of Troy Steele (which was taken from from Julian Debbel) Troy played Ultima Online. He played it a lot - he even was a grandmaster blacksmith. To become a grandmaster he had to grind the blacksmithing skill for literally months. (That sucks!) Steven Johnson asked the question 'why would anyone do such a thing if it is so mindless and unrewarding? Especially considering Troy had a fairly mindless day job - a carpenter building molds. Steven believes the answer is because of gratification, specifically delayed gratification.

I think a better question would be to ask, why does he work as a carpenter? What makes him do the same monotonous thing every day? Why would anyone work a mindless job? The only reason I can think of is for the paycheck. In other words, for the reward. If the task itself is dull and boring you create interest by adding a reward structure. In the case of Ultima Online the reward is building a bigger house or getting to a higher level. In the case of a shitty job, it's getting paid. Troy Steele is in it for the reward.

A paycheck, a quest for epic level gear, and a Star from Mario are essentially the same thing. They are a reason to play. What happens if you take that away? With a shitty job, take away the paycheck and people will stop working. Take away the Stars and no one plays Mario. Take away the epic level quests and people stop logging in.

Or do they? Will people play a game without a goal? Of course. They will do it for the fun of it. They like jumping around with Mario. They find their job fulfilling. In other words they have intrinsic motivation. They've set their own goals, and made their own achievements.

I think it's more important for a game designer to create mechanics and systems that are enjoyable for their own sake. Motivation is more of a symptom of a good game than it is a cause. I wish people would write more about what makes a good mechanic, instead of what makes a good achievement.

20 Reasons why Super Metroid is the Best Game Ever.

Super Metroid is one of my favorite games. I remember playing it for the first time at our local Target. It was their demo game. You got 5 minutes to play the game before it reset. I could never make it to the second save station. When I bought it, I played it to death. Even now I will practice speed running or do a no boss run through.

But Super Metroid is an old outdated game - released in 1994. I've had 17 years to play other games. Yet none have surpassed Super Metroid. The care and detail of it's design is just unreal. I want to look at why it's so gosh darn amazing.

So let's return to a time before achievements, before Facebook games, and before the MMO's. To a time of 16 bit gaming and 2-dimensional graphics. Here's a look at Super Metroid and why it is the greatest single player game ever made.

Super Metroid - Reasons #20-16

#20: The Chozo Surprise

Super Metroid sets up expectations then breaks them.

A good example is the first miniboss: The Evil Statue

The set-up:

"Hello I'm a generous Chozo Statue." "Here's some missiles!"

Expectation:

"Hello again!" "Here's some Bombs."

The Surprise:

It's a trap!

Lots of games do this. They set an expectation then break it. Mimic Boxes and Apples which fall up.

What makes this the chozo surprise great is that it plays on a meta-expectation. The standard procedure for most games is "Fight Boss then Get Reward." A good example is Megaman. The game is structured around that idea. "Get Reward then Fight Boss" turns that expectation on it's head.

It also plays on the expectations of Metroid 1 and 2. You have two games telling you "Chozo Statues are your friends." Super Metroid gives you a nostalgic surprise. Super Metroid understands it's gaming context and plays on those conventions.

#19: The Charge Shot

The Charge Beam is the coolest weapon ever designed. That one mechanic - charging your power, has many interactions.

Here's what you can do with it:

Many games will give you a tool or a weapon that does one thing. This blue key opens that blue door. These flippers only let you swim in the water. This sword only does more damage. That's stupid.

Good mechanics are elegant. They do one thing, but in context do many things. Take Jumping from Super Mario. Jumping is simple - Mario moves up, but in context it has many uses. You can land on enemies to kill them and to do super jump. You can land on top of blocks and break them. If you run then go higher.

The Charge Beam, like Jumping, is elegant. It does one thing - Charge your power, but in context does many things.

#18: Soft Locks

With an open world game, designers need someway to guide the player through it. Someway to pace their experience. One of those tools is the Soft Lock.

Here's a bunch of Soft Locks.

A Soft Lock uses the game's physics and mechanics to limit the player. The super hot room is a classic one. You take too much damage to get to the end of it. Without the Varia Suit or Red Tunic you can't progress. A soft lock is basically a subtle and integrated hard lock.

A Hard Lock is a gate with an single arbitrary Key. You need a blue key to open the blue door. You must defeat the dragon and then the king will repair the bridge. There's only one way to progress and it's unrelated to the game's mechanics. Essentially Hard Locks are about status. Which is why I hate them.

A Hard Lock is like a Member's Only sign. You need a member's card to proceed. If they are all over a game, it feels like the Game Designer's breathing down your neck. "Sorry son, you have to play the game my way. (Evil Laugh)" No thanks Sakurai. I think I'll play this other game.

Soft Locks are closer to tests, challenges, puzzles and bosses. They are about performance.

To me they feel almost justified. 'Well of course I can't get there yet, I can't jump high enough. The game just doesn't work that way.'

The other reason I love soft locks is that you can game the game. The player can do some lateral thinking and pick the lock.

Here's a couple ways you can cheat at Super Metroid.

Cheating is awesome.

#17: The Morphing Ball Spy

Before you get the Morphing Ball, the Planet Zebes is lifeless. No enemies, nothing interesting. Once you get the Morphing Ball this happens:

What a cool effect. You've trigger an alarm. Something has happened. Something has changed. But more than just a neat special effect or an unspoken narrative, the Morphing Ball Spy is there to teach the player an underlying truth about Super Metroid. Once you get a new item or ability everything changes.

With the Morphing ball the player can explore the world in a new way. The Morphing ball is like a light you can shine on a dark and empty room. Now those 'meaningless' small passages have meaning. You can get through them. The Morphing ball is more of a viewpoint than it is an ability.

The Spy is like Samus' Uncle Ben. With your new found spider-powers you can light up a dark world. The morphing ball not only changes you, but how you see everything else.

#16: Secret Rewards

Super Metroid is full of secrets. More than just Missiles, and Upgrades it has secret rewards hidden in the game. There's a secret reward in one of my favorite rooms:

The Speed Boosts Lobby

What a beautiful room. Before I talk about the secret reward I want to highlight how well designed this room is.

The bottom half is wonderfully orchestrated. Everything in the bottom half tells you where the secret passage is. The Lava says "Don't go down." (and it foreshadows the upcoming test.) The little jumps tell you to "Stop Running." The green guys tell you "look up" and "Shoot us first."

If you listen to them you will find the passage rather easily. Right when you enter the room if you stop and shoot up at the green guys you will 'magically' open the secret passage.

What a Convenient Secret:

With that out of the way let's look at the top half. It's the part with the secret reward. I don't mean it has secret missiles or energy tanks, the room has no secret items. It's the Red Guys.

For a long time, these guys bothered me - I didn't understand why they are there. They aren't an obstacle to overcome. They don't block the door. They aren't very difficult. If you wanted just an arbitrary enemy, why not use a different enemy? Why use the little red guys? I didn't understand until I started doing speed runs. They're there as a hidden reward for keeping your head cool. There's five of them because they make a nice sound effect.

The next room over is the Speed Boost explanation room. When you get the speed booster, the stage shakes and lava rises. You need to run like hell. You'll run up a long corridor all blue sparked (weird that blue sparks = speed,) At the end you'll crash into the blue door and kill your speed. Hurray, you're safe.

But if you keep your head cool and remember to open the door and keep your speed boost. As such you'll slam into the little red guys. They are your secret reward.

They are your fireworks.

That's reasons #20-16. I'll try to have at least 5 reasons a week. I want to write a lot more about Super Metroid. Especially going over the level design in detail. But I'm going to try and finish this first.

Join me next time for reasons #15-11.

Making Mystery part 2

Eating Cake

Dirty dishes don't really bother me. But when I see a plate covered in crumbs, I get rather upset. Someone bought cake and I didn't get to eat it.

Knowledge is a lot like food. An idea can give you energy and help you grow as a person. Just as there's more food than you could possibly eat. Not just in terms of variety but also capacity. Your brain and stomach have a limit. It takes a scientist to build rockets, just as it takes more than the average bear to be a hot dog eating champion.

If you'll pardon me for mixing metaphors, there's more to the analogy: if food is like knowledge, learning is like eating. If you want to eat the cake your first step is to find it.

Where is the Cake?

The first part of learning is Perception - the act of gathering information. You need to get the cake before you can stuff it down your face, just as you cannot learn something if you can't see it.

The primary way that we gather information is through our senses - Sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell.

Look for the Cake

Sight is our primary sense. Most technology revolves around sight - Reading and writing, Television, and computers all use sight. Games are they same way: You see the Goomba touch Mario and then you see him die. If you were reading a text message when the Goomba touches Mario you would have no idea why you died.

I have a problem with learning new fighting games because I have to focus on the controller instead of on the screen. Quarter Circles and Shoryukens are not built into my muscle memory.

There’s this fun thing with fighting games and sight - You don’t actually see the game. The hit box on Ryu’s sweep could be shorter or longer than his actual foot. The health bar is just a representation of damage. You don’t know if you've done 850k or 870k damage to Sentinel, you only see that he has a little bit of life left.

Obfuscation is a problem with video games in general. Video games are a black box. The player never actually sees the game. What information a game shows is incredibly important.

Hear of the Cake

Sound! The best of all the senses, mostly because of music. The mood and feel of a game is shown with music. It resonates with your emotions and adds to them. You can hear the speed of Sonic and the intensity of Master Chief. If you are playing a horror game, hit the mute button. Zombies turn from frightening to comical.

Sound effects reinforce sight with a redundancy. You see Mario jump and you hear the ‘Boing’ sound. Sight and sound work together. Without this redundancy there can be confusion and frustration. Walking across the street is a good example. If you pressed the walk button, but you don’t know if the machine registered your input. I press it about 10 times to make sure. Cross walks could use a ’Boing’ sound effect.

Grab the Cake

We also perceive information through touch. Tag is a game based on touch. You know you’re it when you feel the it person touch you. Many children’s game use touch. Gooey Louie, Jenga, or Touch Football.

In Chess, you see the pieces and the board, but you don’t have to. If you close your eyes you can Perceive the game through touch. By feeling what piece is where, you could form a mental image of the board.

A side note: If someone is born blind their brain doesn’t have the faculty for sight. The neurons have been rewired for other uses. A doctor can’t cure those born blind by repairing the eyes. They must also teach the brain to see. (I‘d link this awesome video but I can‘t find it gah!)

Smell and Taste the Cake

Taste and smell are rarely used to show information in games. I use smell when looking for a smash brothers tournament. I know I’m in the right spot by the stench. Wine Tasting is a kind of a game which uses flavor. A player uses their tongue to determine how woody or fruity a wine is.

To lead into the next section: here's a little puzzle.

The Wizard's Cake

You want to be a wizard. So you start searching craigslist for wizarding schools. Scrolling down the list you see that all of them have very difficult entrance exams with side effects of death or mutation. Continuing down the list you find a school less violent requirements. It reads - "able to eat cake." Considering that you're an award-winning cake eater, getting in should be easy. You could even get scholarships! To apply you only need to click on the "Apply now!" button.

Click. A mini-wizard jumps out of your screen and casts a spell on you. He informs you that the spell he cast was a Cake-numbing incantation. For the next 48 hours you cannot see, smell, touch, taste, or hear cake. If anyone tells you about cake you will hear them talking about something else. If you read about cake you will see it as something else entirely. If you can find and eat cake in the 48 hours the spell will instantly wear off in a dazzling array and you will be accepted into wizarding school. He jumps back into the screen and wishes you the best of luck.

How would you find the cake? How would you begin to eat it? Is it even possible?The short answer is yes. The long answer is in Making Mystery part 3.

...to be continued in Making Mystery part 3: Eating the Invisible Cake