Greg Costikyan on Luck in Games

This transcript of Greg Costikyan's lecture to the Game Developers Conference in Austin a few weeks ago, titled "Randomness: Blight or Bane", is probably the best thing I've read about games in months.

There's an understandable emphasis on videogame design principles, but he also makes a number of interesting points about Chess, Poker, Go, Settlers of Catan and many other wierd and wonderful games people have played throughout history. The holy trinity of "educational, interesting and entertaining" don't often come together in one big package, but here it is. In fact, I'm so enthusiastic, I'm linking to it for a third time here just to be sure you don't miss it.

Now where can I buy his book?

The Shivah

To celebrate Yom Kippur this weekend, indie developer Wadjet Eye Games have been giving the Shivah away for free (usual RRP $4.99). It's reminded me both what's great and what's incredibly annoying about 'point-n-click' adventure games.

What's great? A story that's steeped heavily but irreverently in Jewish tradition. You play as Russell Stone, a disillusioned rabbi up to his eyeballs in debt and whose judgemental and negative sermons have turned off nearly his entire congregation. He's on the brink of bankruptcy when an old "friend" of his is murdered and he's bequeathed $10,000. Naturally suspicious, the police come calling and the adventure begins.

The graphics are crude but effective. Just like our Rabbi Stone.

The writing's good, the voice-acting plausible, and you're left with a real desire to get to the bottom of what's happened. Sadly, this is where my dislike for this kind of point-n-click adventure game kicks in, and I get hugely annoyed at the obtuse puzzles that obstruct me from solving the mystery.

"I promise lady, I didn't steal your curtains."

I appreciate that pleasure can be had from suddenly making a break-through in a game after being stuck for a while. But what's absolutely key to that being a successful game mechanic is for the state of 'being stuck' to be almost as much fun as 'getting unstuck'. For instance, games where you've got an interesting area to explore or (more commonly) things to shoot at have the potential to keep your interest even if you're not "progressing" in the traditional sense. But it's all too easy to get bored in games when you're given nothing to do but go back and forth between the same old screens, skipping the same old dialogue, and are left praying to Yahweh that you stumble on a solution.

Many people move from on from this point to say that games like the Shivah shouldn't be made as games. They should be made as films or books, where the pretence of interactivity doesn't hamper the fun part of unravelling the plot. I disagree. Dialogue has the potential to be much more interesting when you're given an element of control over it. The Shivah does this particularly well by letting you choose between responses that are, for example, 'reassuring', 'aggressive' or 'Rabbinical' (the latter meaning you answer a question with another question). Crucially, these decisions have a meaningful (or at least convincing) effect on the subsequent tone of the conversation.

Anyway, the Shivah is well-worth playing. If it's still free when you read this then it should be a no-brainer, but even for $5 it's not going to break the bank and has enough interesting ideas to make it worth a look. I'd just recommend that if you lack patience like I do (or perhaps that should be lateral thinking?), you might want to go use the guide here to help you along.