Form Follows Fun

I have continuously been highlighting some of the primary differences between architecture in games and in real life on my on-going quest to understand how social engagements are held between spacial situations in architecture in video games and reality.  So far I have noted down five primary areas where the two diverge and where the differences are made clearer. In summary I have these areas:

The first is perceived time, perceived time in real life architecture is something that can never be controlled directly but it can be distorted. I have mentioned several times about how in Amsterdam, time seems to flow faster in a typical street as you pass far more buildings (as they are narrow and tall). How a doctors waiting room can feel like forever to many of us and also how in the design of grocery stores, some designers are aware of this and use various techniques to control the way people perceive time to make them shop for longer. Consequently the diversion of playing a game in a different medium with rules and relationships to time affects the actual perception of time in the real world. Many gamers suffer from this, thinking they’ve only played for two hours when they’ve played for four. This also implies that perceived time in games as well as real architecture is used as a tool, or has the potential to be used as a tool, in order to target the users memory. This is done by designing moments that strike the user. This can become a very positive thing, as it directly affects the way the spaces are perceived. As we are all traveling through space with only two eyes, our impression of a space at the end of the day is built onto our memories. Controlling perceived time allows control over these memories that leave an impression on the user. In games I call these groups of memories, perceived events which in a way work as plot nuclei affecting the cognitive timeline of the game on our understanding of how long the game took. Similarly, we can relate this to landmarks in real architecture; journeys through a city are affected by landmarks which leave an impression distilled in our memories that work in the same way. 

This brings me onto my next point. Another look at time deals with the physical manner in which games are put into events. Physical time or “events” in a game are very specific things where spaces don’t age and are specific to the particular events that are taking place, which relates to the storyline. In games this can be done physically, in Prince of Persia sands of time, time is a tool used to win the game, as in Max Payne and Brink time is controlled by the player in order to tackle the obstacles more easily. 

               “Games are very often concerned with control, and in order to give it to their players, they need to make a very clear distinction between what is allowed and what is not. Space is defined as a place where the player can move or cannot, and the breaching of its rules is usually defined as a “bug” in a game, an error not foreseen by its programmers. Time is another defined entity. The rules that govern it dictate that it can be stopped; its possible to pause games or rewind them by saving and reloading. Max Payne also includes these genre-defining features of third person shooters, i.e the possibility to save and a strict control over the places that can and cannot be visited.” P. 71 space, time, play.

Spaces in games are tailored to be grouped into events (that effect our memories) closed of by loading intervals (or “memory gates”) which take loading time. In architecture time is very physical in a manner. The whole notion of “waste in Transit,” the fact that buildings uses change as we change as societies change. The notion that buildings fall apart and that spaces are never the same at any one moment. Or even the days, in which spaces are occupied, they are never the same in one hour as the next or at the same time as the next, because spaces in real life are affected by exterior contextual anomalies and variables of galactic proportions. This is a big challenge to architects because it also implies that much of the spaces made are speculative of the future. Time is of course one variable out of many uncontrollable elements architects have to take into account. This is no challenge in video games, as time is always in the presentence (even if the storyline brings the player back in time), the story itself must keep going for the game to end, and time is left to be played in the present moment (you can never play a game in the past or future of its coded contexts, that simply is physically impossible) but you can visit a building in the future and experience its change as a dependent on time.  

A video game takes place in two parallel spaces. To play a game you must occupy a real space as well as a virtual space. Jespuur Juul talks about this phenomenon in his novel (which for the time being I forget the name of, but it’s irrelevant for now J ). This has huge implications about the way the user perceives and engages real architecture as well as virtual architecture. The realization that you are in another world effects the way people behave in a game, and for some games such as Ubiquitous games which spill onto real space, this can become quite interesting, or as Mcggregor describes it; “A situationist dream come true!” The notion that dying in the virtual world is meaningless, allows people to behave in much braver more experimental ways in space. This is in fact, one of the reasons games are so fun to play! In real life, people are conscious across a wide array of variables; such as the taboo's and the social codes (no running around drunk, no yelling in the library, etc.). Thus the rules of social behavior are indeed different, and games can at best model those behaviors. This means that the social engagements that take place in games are designed as well. Designed social encounters implies that the NPC’s are scripted with an artificial intelligence, which also puts them in a position as an architectural tool in enhancing the spacial qualities of the “event,” in a game.

This notion of freedom of movement is another primary difference. The physical manner in which people behave in real architecture as oppose to architecture in games is nearly completely different. In games no movement is at all random. It maybe perceived as random, but in fact, it has been meticulously coded. Every jump and strafe, crouch and walk has been programmed by choice. This is because people who play games seek specific sensations and experiences which can be given. This also implies that spaces in games are not as much of a matter of speculation into people’s behavior as it is in real architecture. It is no secret, that an architect’s biggest challenge, the area on which ideas are made and sold is based around accurately predicting, promising and researching the ways people will engage with a building all the while not fully knowing for certain how people will behave in a building. This was the whole basis on which high-modernism was built, making flexible spaces where anything can happen, taking into account speculative future uses or a diverse range of activities. The problem with high-modernism is that in practice it never really suits any of those needs well as it isn't tailored to anything specific. In games, this is much less of a challenge, sought experiences and programmed movements for the players, allow the players to be more engaged and much more of an architectural tool then a nuisnence or a challenge. Also every space is made for the preent moment as we discussed as is thus potentially (if designed well) can acheive a standard of perfect tailorship to the actions and contexts of the game and narrative. Thus the challenge in developing spaces in games moves from dealing with speculating on how people will behave in a space, to fulfilling those experiences to the fullest. Where as in real architecture, it is the very physical spontaneous movements of people architects try to accommodate, “Naturel interaction, based on people’s spontaneous gestures, movements and behaviors is an essential requirement of intelligent spaces”-  Flavia Sparancino sensing places. 

This brings me on to the narrative. This can often be directly seen through any sort of engagement between the user and an object. This is made by the simple fact that in games all the characters are in fact fictional and used as architectural tools to expand on the game, where as in real life we see instances where the architect tries to engage the user directly with the architecture in a physical sense such as inside a museum, where art-piece and user are communicating on a more meta-physical level. Hence, by the simple fact that the narrative is recognized by designers as not strictly person-to-person I will expand this argument as such. In games social engagements are also often made as cinematic. They are often controlled, and are made to seem real by trying to encapsulate events through npc’s and direct the players’ actions through npcs. This engagement is literally core to the game as the way the player engages with the npcs’s is one of the strongest tools at a designers disposal to convince the player and make them feel like part of the games’ narrative, this yields a lot of fun. We are infact social creatures, and it is through social means that we enjoy living, ever since before we were strictly humans, but wondering apes. The need for sociality is embedded deep in our genes. That is not to say however that architects don’t expand on this. We have seen how in Peter Zumthors art museum, the subject of social interaction was the art piece, and it was displayed as such and differentiated from human-to-human social spaces. In architecture in real life, the narrative is often much more subtle, it is evident in historic buildings that have gone through changes in style (of life and art). In games, this kind of depth is cosmetic usually. Writing on the walls with messages, narrations by outside sources, radio signals and carefully planned objects that reveal a bit of the story. These are all controlled very directly. 

All this in summary is just me mentioning the five key areas; perceived time, physical time, dual space habitation, freedom of movement and narrative. I believe that these five key areas play an important role in the way social engagements are held between architecture in real life and in games. I realize I have not gone into depth in this article, but I will! Many of these claims can be backed up by some of my past articles and interviews, however! As long as I am convinced that what I am saying is true, I will continue to act critical of myself and continuously investigate these claims.

Real Spaces vs Virtual Spaces and Discussion

When id-software released Wolfenstein 3D, they released much more than a game; they gave the opportunity for gamers to be immersed into a virtual world. This was made possible not just by the fact that Wolfenstein was a first person shooter, but by the fact that it was released as shareware, implying that other people could modify the game or make new games using the engine, allowing there creativity to flourish in creating spaces of there own. With the spread of the internet, new games began to arise and players for the first time began to really integrate socially into the world of gaming, inspiring new communities and using shooting as a method of communication and integration of creative thinking and new worlds. Suddenly anybody could develop, and mods began to release quickly. Id-software allowed for first person shooters to become an inspiration and form of integration for players from all around the world. 

This was also seen in counter-strike which till today is recognized as the most popular online first person shooter. The spaces in counter strike are nothing like the real world. 

“To consider counter-strike as architectural artifacts would be like describing a ghost town.” –p43 space time play

Instead counter-strike works in a whole different way. Playing this game is moving through a series of spaces that would normally be disconnected as it provides a diversity of maps where players battle each other. Hence players jump around different maps, (most of which are created by other players) found in different servers and battle each other in various arenas. 

The spaces themselves are highly thought out, every door opening, every vent shaft every corner is carefully considered to give both opposite teams equality in vantage points. The spaces mimic ordinary real-life spaces but are morphed such as to provide fun. Whilst at the same time, the game is highly strategic where players need to constantly communicate with one and another on the map to surprise and tactically take the enemy down. Hence, through first person shooters, games began to jump out of the screen into the real world not just through social online communities but also real-time through microphones and loudspeakers.

“This gets close to the very foundations upon which architecture in our mediated world will have to be based: giving access to environments that are real and virtual at the same time. To do so, architecture will need a theory that combines both architecture’s physical and medial aspects.” p43 space,time,play

Hence the question that this brings forth is regarding spatiality in computer games. In some senses the central element that games try to articulate is spatiality, and we can see this in most every shooter; the main notion that these games are concerned with is spatial illustration and mediation. Hence it is possible to classify games by observing the way they establish spaces. 

“More than time (which in most games can be stopped), more than actions, events and goals (which are tediously similar from game to game) and unquestionably more than characterization (which is usually nonexistent), games celebrate and explore spatial representation as a central motif and raison d’etre.” –p.44 space, time, play (allegories of space). 

But why on earth do we refer to all these architectural environments as spaces? Why do we not label them rooms or places? 

Anita Leirfall, a cyberspace theorist has this to say:

“Cyberspace should be seen as a system of signs. In fact the ‘sign space’ is an example of an operation which reduces or limits the richer and more extensive –or all embracing- notion of three dimensional space. A place is always a limitation of, or in, space. Place can never exist independently of its spatial origin. It must stand in a necessary and inevitable relation to space to be considered a space at all. (…) every attempt to give a definition of space will face the problem of circularity, while the definition must presuppose space as already given in its definition!” (Lierfall 1997, p.2)

Much like Jespuur Juul who recognized how players situate themselves in multiple environments whilst playing, real world and game world. Lierfall believes that cyberspaces and virtual spaces are in fact real “regions of space” which unlike to many of our mindful presets are not riddled with autonomous qualities. 

“This is an important point. “Cyberspace” and other such phenomena (e.g computer games) are constituted of signs and are therefore already too dependent on our bodily experience in and of real space to be ‘hallucinated’ as space. Moreover; the fact that they are not real space but objects and places is the only reason we can perceive them at all. If this were not true – that is, if they were not objects but real space (somehow) computer mediated – then we would not be able to tell them apart from real space unmediated.” Space, time, Play p.45

Defining spaces has never been an easy topic, and for so very long we have been trying to put our fingers on the types of spaces that we know. Henri Lefebvre categorized spaces between real physical space to abstract space and social space and distinguished between representational space (i.e the environment in which the computer screen is situated) and represented space (i.e the space inside the computer screen). Lefebvre strongly believed that all space was socially constructed by the society (ibid. p38). 

Whilst represented space is symbolic and rule based, and riddled with metaphors and logical systems, a reprentational space whilst seeming to be completely free of social rules is still in our minds a conceptionilized space, and at the end of the day a refinement from real physical space (i.e natural space) which is man free. Hence, our conceptualization of space and our manifestation of physical spaces (i.e as can be seen in cities) are in fact riddled with rules and logical systems. These systems are man-made, they are how we choose to configure our spaces and this is easily seen in computer games where these rules are a real sought experience.

The dilemma with computer games is that they are both representations of space and representational spaces in themselves, as they are both “conceptual and assoicitative.” Thus spaces in computer games are something new, a hybrid of metaphors and associations but at the same time an arena of spaces for sought experiences. 

The problem lies when we continuously define spaces in computer games as virtual spaces, because it creates a mental image of a space that is completely detached from our own. When in fact “the difference between the spatial representation and real space is what makes gameplay –by-automatic –rules possible. In real space, there would be no automatic rules, only social rules and physical laws.” And it is those real spaces in which the virtual spaces have been made to be played and enjoyed and as we are developing our architecture and our world, we begin to see that it is not necessarily just true that virtual spaces cannot exist without real spaces, but that some real engineered spaces could not have existed without virtual spaces… (i.e http://www.razkeltsh.com/#!__2011-great-court/slideshow9=0)

And then we have games that really get a hang on how to control the player by controlling their sense of real world time... I just read an article online http://insertcredit.com/2011/09/22/who-killed-videogames-a-ghost-story/, the notion of how games have the ability to play with the players perception of "real time" and use that to create suspense riddled with all the usuals such as challenges and rewards. Hooking the player is control :) Control over the player is control over their perception of the real environment as much as the virtual environment...

What do we mean when we talk about architecture in games? Why should an architect care about computer games? And what can a game designer take from architecture?

I really hate to ask this question, because its so broad and arbitrary and yes it is one of those questions that never ends! One of the first questions I was asked when studying architecture in the Savannah College of Art and Design as a newbie to the course was; “When does a cave become architecture?” our professor proceeded to question whether simply inhabiting the cave implies the cave is architecture, whether it needs to be deformed and to what extent? This proceeded to a never ending debate across three hour and half seminars that had to be forcefully stopped for the sake of progressing through the course; by the end we simply decided it was inconclusive, and even then a burning urge in every one of us felt there had to be some kind of conclusion.

Similarly this question popped in my mind when the head of the department of architecture Flora Samuel at the introductory meeting in first year here in Sheffield proclaimed that she and the other tutors “simply loved buildings.” A thought entered my head instantly which for some reason questioned “Do you mean buildings or do you mean architecture?” To me architecture is a phenomenon that much like any art, be it a martial art or a fine art;  extends further than simply being a theory to concern yourself with but also a way of thinking and being that extends into daily routine. I personally experienced the same trains of thought when composing music as to designing a school.  

 

In fact I argue that some of the best approaches to architecture are those that are least archetypal. Thinking always through walls and doors does not necessarily bring the best solutions to the table, as Cedric Price famously paraphrased in every possible manner. Brian Lawson, one of my lecturers from last year told us about how his good friend asked him to redesign his daughter’s bedroom because she listens to loud music to which Brian Lawson replied, “Why don’t you buy her a set of headphones” diffusing the problem at a significantly lower cost of time and money. The point I am trying to make is that although architecture deals with buildings and in some ways is defined as the art and science of designing buildings that does not mean that solutions have to be strict, they can be from anywhere to challenge spacial dilemmas. This much I am sure we all know! Are all aware of and simply are sick of hearing about…

But this brings me on to my main argument, that in a like manner, I argue that in some ways architecture in games considers aspects that real architecture often overlooks. I have just started, (I’m literally on the first page), reading a book called “Space, Time, Play” a spoof of “space, time, architecture”- by Seigfried Gedion. Except this book is written by about four dozen authors from both the game development and architecture industry. This five hundred paged book asks only two simple questions;  “Why should an architect care about computer games? And what can a game designer take from architecture?” We have examined Mcgregors paper “Situations of Play” in which she begs that architecture in games “is architecture in every definition of the word.”

This book I’m reading had some initial quotes I underlined in its introduction which I will put forth for this debate;

“Computer games are part and parcel of our present; both their audiovisual language and the interaction processes associated with them have worked their way into our everyday lives…”

I would like to add to this claim that computer games have really changed the way we communicate visual information, not just in our iPhones and power-point presentations but the way we conceptualize information as beings which also goes to affect the way we design especially in architecture. Think about all the forms of visual presentation that architects tend to use; in fact some game developers have found their way into the real estate industry offering clients first person walk through (such as this company http://real5d.com/). Furthermore ideas spawned from gaming which work around different sets of challenges, can induce ideas that would never otherwise be thought of in studio. This book reiterates this notion by saying that “the digital spaces so often frequented by gamers have changed and are changing our notion of space and time, just as film and television did in the 20^th century.” I think this basically sums up my point. 

“Games go even further; with the spread of the internet, online role playing games emerged that often have less to do with winning and losing and more to do with the cultivation of social communities and human networks that are actually extended into “real life”.

I experienced this phenomenon numerous times; twice in large scale both at the Battlenet Invational in Warsaw (where world famous players were competing for about 50,000 euros) surrounded by a crowd of cheering fans and also the DOTA competition in the Gamescom where prize money reached over a million euro for first place! and 150K for 8^th. I asked players round me who viewed this spectacle like as a sport (yes, its actually considered a sport! infact Starcraft II is the national sport of Korea) how they still enjoy games like world of warcraft to which I quote; “I like it because it is a social game where I can meet new people and make friends.” Hence the book is right when it continues to claim that “spaces of computer games range from two-dimensional representations of three dimensional spaces to complex constructions of social communities to new conceptions of, applications for and interactions between exsistent physical spaces.” It continues on the next page to put forth the idea that “communities emerging in games, after-all, constitute not only parallel cultures and economies, but also previews of the public spaces of the future.”

This suggests a phenomenal implication of the importance of games in our everyday culture, and already I think the point I am trying to get across about why architects should care about games is becoming more valid. After all, architects continuously speculate and research human behavior in public scenarios. Architects rarley (or if ever) get a chance of knowing what people will do and how they will behave. In games where specific experiences are sought, are thus controlled and specifically engineered to fulfill specific needs. Architects, while aim to control what humans are doing, even if is the notion of freedom in a building, i.e Fun Palace, never truly know what people will do and that’s not to say that architects don’t try to aim to hit certain targets; in fact pretending to know and accurately speculating what people will do is certainly the main obstacle architects deal with when selling their ideas! In gaming, because this challenge is basically non-exsistant, the spacial challenge moves past knowing what people will do and onto enriching and enhancing the sensations people will experience doing what they are basicaly controled to do (with the illusion of free choice perhaps) more and more. Yes, its true “people can feel bad, regardless of where they are”-Rem Koolhaas (I think), but  in games this is not the case. Spaces in games truly have the ability of changing emotions and behaviors, by controlling even the actions of the players and those of the NPC’s, thus using people as an actual architectural tool.

This is a huge difference between the two that I have only begun to realize in this investigation. Before I did see basic differences routed in social interaction, but so far, only in spaces in games can real people like you and me be used as a tool that can be easily controlled to effect the spaces in relation to even our perception of time. The book sums this up in saying that “computer game players also experience physical space differently and thus uses it differently.” I must confess I believe this quote may also go towards the real space around a player, because players occupy two different spaces, real and virtual, as Jesper Juul pointed out in one of my previous articles. Furthermore! This also goes to show that players experience two different sets of time and events, something that spacially can become very interesting, especially in what we call in the industry “Ubiquitous games” where the game unfolds in real space, fulfilling “not only the utopian dreams of the situationists, but also the early 1990s computer science vision of magicisization of the world.” 

But games have the potential to push the boundaries of physical space even further. The book claims that “Here (referring to ubiquitous games), a new dimension of the notion and use of the city becomes conceivable, one which has the potential to permantley change the composition of future cities. What happens when the spaces and social interactions of computer games are superimposed over physical space? What new forms and control systems of city, architecture and landscape become possible?”

It continues later on to claim that “for the players of cities can affect the lived environment and its occupants just as the building of houses can. In this sense playing is a serious medium that will increasingly form part of the urban planner’s repertory and will open new prospects for participation. Play cannot replace seriousness, but it can help it along…”

Hence the point is, both creative realms of architecture and game development are really not mutually exclusive. In fact I firmly believe that those game designers who really push the notion of lived environments in games to even those who simply concern themselves with the actions and reactions of players relative to and in relation to an environment and all that concerns the environment including and not limited to how the player in the real-world environments will conceive and react to these virtual environments… aren’t they thinking in what we conceive as architectural thinking too? I will have to agree with one of my interviews on this one, “as far as I know, level designers are architects”-Bennemann.

Interview with CD Projekts' Nikolai Szwed and Pawel Panasiuk

The Witcher II is a very notable game, as it was made by a developer which prides itself in being a perfectionist. Also the environment in the game, to me, felt not only very pretty, but helped the story and the actions of the NPCs' and me as they player flow really well, which is hard to accomplish in modern day rpgs'... hence there was a real sense of good design in this game, so I was very fortunate to get a chance to speak to two members of the team. 

First of all, fantastic game, I’ve played it, it’s really good, and I think one of the things that made this game really good was you know they say this game is about 40 hours long, maybe 80 hours with extra content. To me, it felt like far longer, and I think its because when you think about what you’ve done, like your memories in the game, their just endless, there are so many events!

Nikolai: Yeah well the main path is about 20-30 hours long but to actually get all the content of the game you need to play it at least twice or at least three times because…

Pawel: the thing is that you have the second act, okay, it has two paths Roche and Iorveth and a not many people know that the Witcher 2 has 16 endings in total

Wow..

Pawel: in total, and those endings depend on what you do; the first act, second act and the third and so it has 16 endings in total and to really know every single path of the game you have to play it at least 16 times.

So maybe I should go back and haha

Nikolai: Yeah its like um, an example, you have the branches of the second act are very big, its like a completely different game, but then you have the prologue, and to play the prologue in four different ways, four different paths to go because you can either save Aryan and then find him in the execution room or save Aryan and find him beaten and taken out by the soldiers or kill Aryan and find his mother Louisa at the executioner or find his mother to Chillard the guardian ambassador. So to really have all the scenes and everything from the game its you have to play it even more then two times. There are of course very major decisions you are making, but also like in real life there are many minor decisions who have consequences later in the game.

Pawel: if you want to play it, you know, in a very detailed way I advise you to make you a note and write down your paths and decisions, then when you play it a second time recall your previous decisions and for the third time again different decisions.

So its really built on your actions and decisions…

Nikolai: Exactly! Even the side quests might be done in completely different way for example you can kill the troll or try to find his wife’s murderer or for example you can give someone out to the authorities or help her run away, so there are many paths…

I’m going to direct this conversation a bit, I’m actually an architecture student so I’m very interested and I think it was very well done in the Witcher II, the level design and by level design I do not only mean the actual geometry and forms but also the way you guys manage to tailor to the NPC’s and how you use the NPC’s to guide the player in certain directions. 

Nikolai: well we have actually received the European games award some days ago, on Saturday I think for the best game world, it was the “Best Game World’ award. So this is of course, the game world is obviously about the levels, and I happen to think the world is very beautiful, the forests and so on.. but there is also we are very strict when it comes to details, there are also people working in our office. I think one of our concept artists actually studied architecture. So for example the castles, the towns, everything, even the clothes of the people are not designed from nowhere! Of course there are variations of what the actual people were wearing back in the day. But many of those elements were actually taken from books, or from sources. So we try to draw inspirations, there is also this Slavic feel to it.

Yes! I felt that…

Nikolai: Exactly so we tried to create an immersive environment.

You know when I came to Warsaw after playing the game; I was actually looking out for things that may have influenced you guys in the office… 

Nikolai: Yes! Exactly, when you have for example “Flotsam” the port part, there is actually a port crane in the game, and I do not know if you are aware of the port city here in Poland, of Gdansk.

Gdansk! Of course…

Nikolai: Well when you see the port crane, its actually pretty much the same as the medieval crane in “Flotsam”

So actually for Polish players, there is actually some recognizable objects which is actually kind of desirable. I know that many people didn’t like fallout 3, but one of the reasons it was desirable was because people could recognize and relate to many of the landmarks found in Washington to people in the US. The could re-experience some of the monuments in a different light… 

Pawel: we were really strict about the level design, you know, even small blades of grass, bits of leaves, treas. And we get together and if somebody doesn’t like it, we redesign it until everybody is satisfied, that’s why the level design is really something different…

I noticed some very specific decisions in the level design, I noticed that in the town Square of Flotsam, you have three people which you’ve watched hang when you first enter the town, but the issue is, is that they are left there even after, for your duration in Flotsam with Crowes lingering about, it was a very dramatic scene. Based on the fact that I noticed some extreme detail in the game, and that the bodies stayed where they were, it was clear to me that leaving them was a conscious decision. It was a decision right? Because it affected the town square in a very dramatic way… there would be this buetifall weather, and taverns, homes and then those three bodies left there to rot outdoors… 

Nikolai: We wanted to show the world as it was perhaps in the past, how criminals would be punished or something, they were left for the town people to mind them and to be reminded of the penalties for breaking the law, this was also our decision to make it so.

This is a personal question for you guys, what do you make of good level design, what do you think, what do you get from this game, personally? 

Pawel: To me, you have to get as close as possible to reality, you know, our forest, to me personally. I really liked it, and when you enter it and when you enter you feel really, like, in a  forest.

Nikolai: I can also say, that to me, our levels are really one of the most stunning levels in games in history. As Pawel already said the forests, but also the lighting, which is a very important matter, how its used to draw you and lead you.

I noticed that there were many areas, that the level design uses that makes you really aware of it or look at different directions, or lead the player. 

Pawel: If you really want to appreciate the level design in our game, you have to really walk in those places a couple of times: in the evening, in the morning, during the day.

And that’s what was smart, as this game wasn’t a linear game, like in a fps shooter when you push on and push on, so I think it’s important to create levels that make you see new things to keep it interesting. 

Nikolai: well, actually as you know, Witcher II isn’t a sandbox game, we have our levels which are queit big but are not as big as other rpgs’ or sandbox rpgs, but it allowed us to as you said focus on details and that all the elements that are in the levels have a real purpose. Even the example of the forest when you approach various ruins you can see that there are some signals that you are going the right way, various relics that are reminiscent of where you are heading. And many of these points of interest are also playing an important role in the plot and allow the player to go to the direction where we want them to go. 

Val: I was curious in the first level when you are playing during the siege, that was quiet contentious with reviewers, that it didn’t guide you enough, there wasn’t enough of a tutorial. And I felt that now you’ve announced that you’re adding a new tutorial. Do you know what decisions lead to first of all to having such a kind of throwing people in the deep end approach and now you are sort of going back and..

Nikolai: well first of all, the Witcher II is not an easy game, this is a very challenging game and it is also not so obvious today because a lot of developers are working to make games; easier and easier… and more accesiable. So we have made a more hardcore approach maybe, this was our decision but at the same time we were conscious that some players got lost a little bit, because the Witcher II is also a game that not everybody plays for fighting. The story is the most important thing and there were also some feedback that the fighting in the first part was too difficult for them, because it also is always a complex game.  So in this presentation actually we were also listening to the feedback of some of our players and that’s why we also decided to redesign the tutorial to help some existing players but also for new players who buy the game (for xbox and pc).  So that’s what lead to the decision and ofcourse this tutorial will be free because we also feel that this is our policy towards old players and new players alike. 

Val: are you redoing the current introduction sequence or are you adding a new tutorial before it?

Nikolai: I would not like to comment about this at this time, but you will find out in about a month… 

Going back quickly, last question; into the level design. To what extent to you think the enemies play a role in the actual level? I noticed that some were very specific like the dragon and the tower…

Pawel: Well not many people consciously realize this, but there are some different monsters, and different approach of monsters and different numbers of monsters and different points of the day. So there are some more monsters during night then during day. There are more Elven soldiers in the Urveth side attacking you during the day, and there will be fewer at night. But there will be more Nekers during night for example… 

Nikolai: Exactly, the question is to make the world believable, and its in making the NPC’s behave and have a real seeming purpose in the world that makes this. Many of the people living in the worlds communities have a schedule, they wake up and go fishing, I don’t know, the butcher cuts the meat and so on, this is the same case with the monsters. The forest as a level, doesn’t just act as a place for the spawning point of endless monsters. Again in the example of the first act where you have for example some quest where yuou have some quest to get rid of some monsters, and actually when you do that the monsters don’t spawn as often as they do when you first get into the levels. We also have some instances where monsters fight against each other because it’s not like every monster is against the main player. 

This makes you feel like the environment is more real… and revolves around with/without you… 

Nikolai: Exactly, exactly and as Pawel said, monsters who appear only at night like Drowners or only at day like Nekkers, are also a very important in the world.

But at the end of the day, this is all about gameplay and I felt like the levels were very specifically designed to accommodate an arena vs a certrain type of enemy. Like the… (I do a motion with my hand)

Nikolai: The Kyran? 

Yes that one is a good example!

Nikolai: Ofcourse as in every game we had some speciel enemies, like the dragon, the Kyran or the Drog. So ofcourse in such cases you also design the levels, to accomdaate the level to the monsters… because some of those scenes were also scripted, like the run from the dragon, you have the roofs over your head, to protect you from the fire. So in such situations its very clear how the NPC and the level work together and ofcourse to the story. 

These specifc levels are very important aren’t they? Because they give you a feeling of time. They give you a plot point in the game, which you know you’ve progressed…

Nikolai: Yes! Exactly, exactly… because they are some points in the game where you can move freely do some side quests so on, but sooner or later, you will return to the main plot. The decisions, you will see, the players make through the game have a reflections in the levels themselves. For example in act I when you decide to help Roche, there is a big feast with the soldiers in Flotsam. But when you decide to help Ioverth, the humans living in Flotsam will attack the non-humans there, and there will be a big pogrom. 

So it makes the environment much more real as it is reflected by your actions, physically… so its not that the levels are only built physically round the player but they are also malleable in a way and...

Nikolai: changing based on the decisions… this was also very important to us!

Makes you feel like you’re actually in the game….

Nikolai: So all those elements, the monsters, attention to detail, lighting, changing environments based on the decisions makes our world really believable and I think the “European Games Award” was rightly won for our hard work.

Interview with Joe Barlos, Lead Content Designer of Funcom

I had the opportunity to interview Joe Barlos who revealed some of the unique approaches Funcom took when designing the levels for the Secret World. It’s always interesting to see how different design groups approach level design. What was interesting for me was the relationship between real world architecture they seemed to make distinct and how that translated that into the game itself in a very logical manner.

So, what was your name?

Joel

So Joel what do you do?

I’m the lead content designer on the secret world

Ok, what kind of role would you say the level design plays in the game itself?

Oh, I meen, it’s a hugely important thing, in regards to our game in particular, we are set in the modern day so the first role is that the architecture needs to be instantly recognizable in the locations where you go. So we have locations like New England, in the US, like in Maine. So the houses need to look like they belong in that area, so we actually send artists there to take photographs to copy the architecture for the game. We have another location in Egypt and naturally Egyptian architecture we need to get, not just sort of the ancient Egyptian stuff but actually the modern day Egyptian dwelling. And then we also have Transylvania, which is we are luckier and yeah we send guys there as well to take photos of like Romani camps, also Eastern European architecture as well.

That’s more the cosmetic role I would say, what about the actual physical role?

Like the actual levels? The flow?

Val: How do you go about merging the existing kind of layout of the architecture as it is in the real place and also allowing decent game-play flow for it?

Yeah, I mean, a lot of the times, what we do is the outside needs to be obviously visually perfect but the inside has to be slightly sort of more open and to fit to game-play. In terms of how we do it; the designers design what they need to happen in the level and then we hand it off to our environment artist…

Because I noticed that your enemies in this game, they vary in size completely: from very small to very large. How would you say the level design is made to accommodate the fighting?

You saw for example the big guy at the end with the tentacles and stuff and he comes up among the containers. That area was specifically designed, like the whole cargo ship crash is a part of the storyline but within that particular area, we will place out the containers to make the arena for the boss to be in. But from a design perspective, we knew that guy wouldn’t move, so we knew we could place him into that smaller area. But usually the rule is we try to make all our corridors a certain width because you have to think about camera when you’re playing a third person game, I think it’s a minimum 3m corridor width in all of our areas and it doesn’t matter what the “architecture” is.

Is there a certain criteria of pursuits you guys try to achieve when you design the levels?

Obviously its open world, in some places, so we have like villages and stuff and other outdoor stuff and then we like to let people feel a bit free, get onto roofs, jump around, see different things. Some of the stuff is horror style, so when we go into like the car parks and then we narrow things up, we control the player, we guide them through a certain a very specific level but we try to use real architecture. So like a “real” parking garage is usually very linear, so when we make that choice of a level where we want the player to feel cramped in that’s a perfect example of architecture that exists that we can use.

Val: how do you approach designing social spaces for all sorts of interaction?

So we have, for example, London in the game as one of the cities that players can visit. So in their we have an area called the “Horned Gob” which is like an English pub, so it’s sort of a triangular, a middle bar, and so around that you have a lot of space for players to gather to sit on the seats and stuff. Then upstairs we have a dance floor, like a disco-floor. So we really modeled it on like a normal night-club to be honest. But of course we try to allow space for, people to be there and we try to let not too many NPC’s get in the way of the players and socializing.

Interview with Kay Bennemann Ubisoft Business Developement Manager

Ubisoft is perhaps one of the largest developers in the game scene. Perhaps their most architecturally interesting examples are the "Assassins Creed" series where the game space is fully utilized as both an obstacle and aid in enjoying the gameplay. This company invests a lot of money in researching and modeling the cities it represents, in working with architects and architectural historians in creating a convincing and effective game environment.

I had a chance to speak to Kay Bennemann, and although he is not a developer he seemed to be very involved in the game scene as he had some very insightful things to say and seemed to express great interest in my topic. 

So you claim that Level design is basically architecture?

Yeah, in a way, it’s my perception because we would need to define first, what is architecture in and in games? Before I can actually say something meaningful…

Right…

Because the way I see it, somebody who builds a level; is an architect…

Right..

But this level doesn’t necessarily need to retain buildings or bridges…

Have you ever heard of a guy called Ernest Adams? He is this critique online and he talks a lot about this whole idea… He said that the role of architecture in games is purely cosmetic, everything that you see is a metaphor of a building; it’s a façade. This was back in 2002 and now we are in 2011, things are a little bit more different…

I meen, I heard the name of the guy, but I can’t say I know him or his work, I think he wrote some books on game design?

Yes, doesn’t matter, what I’m really looking at is the difference between architecture in reality and architecture in games… obviously in games, like you said, level design is architecture; you have the user and your building the space around the user and obviously there are different rules because in gaming everything is revolved around the gameplay

True

And in real life it can be anything, it can be political, where as in gaming even if it is has a political or a deep meaning, it’s just a façade and it’s aimed for gameplay… so there is a different kind of goal.

Right, I recall seeing some photos online of “Socialist” architecture, totally ugly buildings. But at the same time also statements; statements for strength for instance. There could be many statements that a building makes, maybe some are not intended. But in gaming...

Well I’ll give you some ideas to jump around, when we’re playing a game, and I’m specifically looking a first person shooters; where you actually get to be yourself (in a way) is that it revolves around the keyboard and mouse and some games don’t even let you jump, and therefore the game; the level design is made to revolve around the way the user interacts with the game. If you don’t get to jump there’s nothing to jump over…

I don’t know if this adds anything to the argument, but I think that in a game, a modern game, a game that has been produced in the last 10 years even, the whole experience is designed. Maybe one game is better at it than it than another game, but there are some particular games that I can think of, first person shooters for instance. Half-Life 2 is a good example where they designed the whole environment and they actually thought where the player would be looking; when he enters a new location, they also use visual clues such as lighting that would draw your attention.

And let’s not forget the NPC’s as well, the play a big role in making you look in certain directions…

True, so, sometimes I think it’s hard to generalize these things about games; so many game developers do it differently. I really know people who design the background of the game, with let’s say a city with no real design meaning applied to it. It’s more like “yeah we need this background,” and “ah, we wanted to make it look realistic…” and so it’s not as sophisticated. But at the same time another designer may say, “you know, on this building here, we need to place it 3cm more to the right because when the player comes into the hall and looks out the window and sees the building there” and for some reason this could be a visual clue that is pointing him towards another thing that you should pick up or whatever. So that of course is a sophisticated way. I’m not saying all games are necessarily designed this way or that every single location in the game is made this way. I actually do believe that many, many games use this, but they use this occasionally. Because when I play a game, I say I’m trying to find this place, sometimes I find this place only once, because what I’m doing most this time is playing. And so I believe, if it is really well made, then you don’t notice it.

And also what they do, I find, is when they make these things that make you look in certain directions, is that they are very memorable, and the more memorable moments you have in a game, the better the game tends to be…

That is true, that is true

And when you look back at all those memorable moments you create a sort of timeline, and you know how some games maybe last only five hours, but the more memorable moments you have; it feels like the game was longer,

True, true

and I don’t mean longer in a bad way, like in a doctor’s office…

haha

it changes your perception of time…

It’s true! I noticed another effect; games tend to be… they tend to get better, in your memory. I mean not the bad ones ofcourse, they are always bad, but the good ones, that really had some exceptional moments. This thing about memorable moments is true, its really true and I believe this is what game designers are looking for, they are trying to create these, one of a kind memorable moments. Maybe some of them try to be, it doesn’t matter, single-player or multi-player, but let’s say its multi-player where there is another player, and then you can always talk to the guy, you can say “remember back in the day, we played whatever, how great that was?”

Exactley!

“and we killed the boss!” or whatever it is, and now I’ve noticed that this is something to do with your memory or your perception. These outstanding moments in your memory; they get even more outstanding the longer they are away… and then when you look at the very good games, like 20 years after they were released, whatever you played them on the Commodore 64, that’s a long time ago! You probably weren’t even born.. and you played the “Bards Tale,” and it was the most amazing RPG! It was the pinnacle and when you look at it now, you would it’s a joke.

We were talking about this, actually, Val (my friend), we were talking about fallout 2… and some of the reasons that, that was good, as a game, was because the limitation in graphics forced you to use your imagination…

That’s true, Ooooo, it’s a huge subject I’m having, a lot of modern games don’t let you use your imagination, they take everything away from you!

Val: that’s actually interesting because I was arguing the opposite when we were talking about this

The opposite?

Val: Because, Raz actually had an interview with, what was his name again?

Did you hear about this new game coming out, “Hard Reset”

Yeah, eh, must be somebody from Eastern Europe?

It’s a Polish company, flyingwildhog

Val: The guy argued that fallout 3 was worse than fallout 2 because it didn’t have that element that allows you to use your imagination.

The whole environment was very ambient and forced you to kind of create…

In fallout 2 you meen?

Yeah…

Val: my argument is that I think, that when we think that new games are so much more advanced and that don’t allow you to use your imagination. I think that’s actually a mistake, because fallout 3, as was established in that interview has pretty awful graphics; especially for its time.

Number 3?

Val: Yeah

But the reason people really liked it, and this is from blogs online where users were arguing about this, is the fact that it reinterpreted the way people perceived spaces, like a pile of junk could be a home to a raider. Also a lot of the areas were very recognizable, all the monuments in Washington and then they kind of just reinterpreted that so that people could connect to it because they knew those buildings but it changed their perception of how this whole space, could be or used…

Maybe, you could also say this might have a cultural implication, because I’ve never been to Washington, I might know some of these places from photos or TV, but they are not recognizable to me, so I had queit an issue with navigation

Right!

And I found it hard to navigate because I always thought because to me everything looked the same, brownish brown, and then some brown (pointing in various directions)

Haha that’s probably also the level designs fault

Brown here, brown there…

So your not a fan either?

Yeah

A lot of people weren’t, suprisingly, but in the US it was a big hit and I guess that’s because, you know, people could relate to it.

I wouldn’t say I didn’t like it, perhaps maybe I expected more from it, and perhaps this goes back to the memory thing. The problem with fallout 3, and this is a particular problem; the issue was that there wasn’t a fallout for years and years and years, basically the license was dead, it’s like you know fallout wasn’t a big seller, fallout 1 and 2, they sold ok… and they were very niche, you know they were super hardcore and so nobody expected a new fallout, and suddenly they renewed the license and there was a new fallout. Then ofcourse, “nerd rage,” everybody said

Val: “Oblivion with guns!”

“Obvlion with guns! Its going to be shit,” and then it turned out to be very sarcastic, very brutal, okay you couldn’t shoot people in the nuts, I miss that, but everything else was basically there, so it checked all the boxes…

And I’d like to mention something very interesting, in terms of the navigation, and to me, a lot of that was, that I blame the NPC’s in the game, because a lot of the time, they just stand there, they don’t do anything, they have no soul and they just stand there. And you look now, did you see the battlefield 3 trailer?

No…

That’s okay, but the point is, in the game the NPC’s play a major role of leading the player, of making you look in certain directions, kind of like in Half Life, with what’s her name? “Alex”

Yeah

Val: yeah

Her role, and I saw an interview where Gabe Newell talked about her as a tool for the developer to use to make the player look in certain directions and to lead the player, because your never lost in that game, you never backtrack, you always know where you’re going and I think the NPC’s have a lot to do with that.

At the same time, I would like to add that in Half Life 2, you cannot get lost… because the space that you are moving in is so limited, and if I remember the game they do a pretty good job of faking a real environment. So you might walk down the street and it looks like there is ten different streets that you could take, you know… but they would all end up in a dead end after five meters. Then they use visual clues to totally point you in a certain direction where you are supposed to go, I think what you’re getting from it is like a subconscious perception of a “real” city, even though it is not there… and so of course they also use NPC’s to move you in the certain direction or that you look in a certain direction, but I think they were only tools. They were tools just like the environmental things that they did; they were tools to give the player a sense of direction. I really believe it not necessarily in a well-designed game, but a consciously designed game where every single element has a function and even if its I don’t know; trash on the table, it is there for a reason.

Yeah…

Left4dead is a good example, I read about it, and Left4dead uses a lot of storytelling, but there is no introduction to the game, there is no storyteller, there are no large texts to read or what you typically get in most games…

Makes you want to play even more as they have to pull it off in the actual gameplay,

Yes, exactly, I think they call this visual storytelling, so you typically come across spots of places with left behind messages for their significant others or friends like for instance a piece of paper stuck to a wall that says “James, I cannot wait any longer I am going to the hospital, love you, goodbye,” and of course it’s not the real story that’s been told their but it’s something that gives you a perception of a world with depth. Those things were happening in this world before you were there… so the world becomes more solid.

Val: and then of course you always have the kind of dichotomy between telling a story and letting people create stories, when some games focus on more than others…

I personally think that games are performative, so there are people who look at games from a text analyzing way, games as texts… that’s basically literature science. But I find that too static, also many games, like quake have no story! You run around and shoot people, end of story. But in reality, Quake can be a very interesting story, but it is a story that you develop through your performance; to what you do in the game. So it might be just you, learning the greatest weapon, and its totally hard, you spend weeks on it and finally you master it. Later you remember yourself doing that, the greatest multiplayer match you ever had in Quake, and its just so awesome because in this very moment some guy tried to grab the extra damage or whatever and he didn’t reach it and whatever…

Yeah

This could be stupid stories, like a book about that might be odd, but in your mind it is something like a sequence of exciting events that happened and that is not necessarily a story you want to put in a book but it’s still something you created to your performer. So without you performing, the game is nothing. It would stand still, it’s dead.

Patterns Of Play

In this post, I will talk about “situations of play”, based on a paper by Georgia Leigh Mcgregor, a student from Sydney studying in the University of New South Wales, who like me is exploring the spatial implications of inhabiting a video game. I will discuss ideas and themes related to this post while covering my topic which explores the way we perceive video game environments in comparison to real world architecture in reference to our perception of time and the way social encounters affect and are affected by all this.

To play a game, you need some sort of contexts. These contexts have been fabricated and designed specifically to facilitate gameplay. This much has been made abundtley clear until now. Most game spaces are fictional; even if they happen in real places. Take for instance the landing of Omaha Beach in Medal of Honor and in reality. Both events are not exactly the same because in the game the developer needs to infuse a sense of fun that revolves around the rules of the game. Hence, the space itself will be different, even if it is reminiscent of the real place. However both events are real. The landing in Omaha Beach for the player is a real event, even though the world itself is not. The rules, the player is playing with are real as well, even if the virtual space itself is fictional. Hence all the engagements, interactions and encounters that are real are revolving around a space which is a work of fiction that is made to convince and appear as tangible as possible. In turn “Game space also feeds back into real space, where their intersection forms what can be termed as played space.” – Mcgregor.


Hence, the argument we have here is that game space, is indeed architectural. It is a space that facilitates events and behaviors much like real world architecture. The only difference is that the person inhabiting these virtual spaces are fictional characters which work as an extension of the user limited to specific behaviors that are fabricated and controlled by the developer.


These behaviors, according to Mcgregor form a list of “patterns” that use “architecture as a tool to unpack spatial conditions in video games.” She continues to explain the idea that game “space and architecture in reality express simple patterns of use that underlie a range of sophisticated activities that occur there.”- Mcgregor. It is no secret that in games our actions can be grouped into patterns, because they are so specific. They trigger the fundamental rules of the game because they are literally the buttons of the game; the things that make you “do” things. This engagement is basically an essential part of the “fun” in the game. What allows you to throw, kick, punch, run these are all the things that the player is playing with in order to enjoy. Hence, these rules are indeed patterns. The other argument that we have here is regarding the fundamental relationship between architecture in games and in real life… That in real life at some outlandish level, we are still limited to patterns because of the physical and mechanical behavior of our bodies. I outlined this difference in one of my pervious articles when I was comparing the spontaneous behaviors that architecture is trying to facilitate in reality and how in games it is more easily controlled through the implementations of controlling movement for the sake of play. We also saw in my interview with the Lead Level Designer from City Interactive how in making the game “sniper,” a lot of the environment was scripted in order to keep it alive. All the social engagements were a form of carefully outlined patterns of behavior that relate to the behavior of the player. Yet, the mere fact that architects try to predict movements and actions of users in buildings suggests that architects are aware of a pattern of use in reality at some level. “The activities of people in cities and buildings can be seen by patterns”-Robert Venturi.


Georgia brings up a children’s playground, which like games, tries to control the movement of the user in such a way as to infuse a sense of fun. Cedric Price’s Fun Palace, tried to do the same by giving the user absolute freedom into what he would hope would infuse a similar value he termed “delight.” Mcgregor argues that “A children’s playground is a spatial challenge; to negotiate their spaces is to go up, over, under and through extraordinary configurations of multi-colored components. A cricket pitch is a contested space on which a ritualized battle is played out, a competition that adheres to a set of special rules. A domestic house is a set of socially coherent nodes, where function is set out in familiar spatial arrangements of kitchen, bedroom and bathroom. To create or change a building is another form of activity”-Georgia. Hence it is clear that at some sophisticated level (in comparison to games) we are still using patterns when we use our spaces. A more direct example of patterns in spaces can be found in archetypal elements such as doors and windows that we open and close, even, periodically; when we leave for work/when we come back home. What I am interested is how these patterns may affect our perception of time. For instance a playground infuses fun which in turn, can create an environment where time seemingly “flies,” we have all experienced this! Or conversely waiting for ages in a doctor’s office which seems live forever. Breaking patterns, can be looked at as “special events” which create a sense of landing on time, in games I termed this as plot nuclei or the timeline effect. There is also control from external architecture; I mentioned the tall and narrow buildings clustered in Amsterdam, which make time seemingly move faster as you typically pass more houses walking down the street in comparison to other cities.


Now I have already mentioned a noteworthy author, Jespuur Juul, who in summary; claimed we as gamers occupy two types of space; or what Mcgregor labeled “game space and construct space.” This phenomenon is a clear example of how in turn we occupy two types of time; game time and real time. In games the world can revolve around a different clock than the one we are occupying in real life. This is one of the most fundamental examples of how time in games is controlled and how it in turn plays with our perception of time in games, and especially in the real world. Because playing a game and turning off your computer and returning to real life can often cause a sort of “awakening” to the gamer of how fast time moved in reality (it usually sucks).


I have outlined in one of my posts in the past how in the real world, this notion of the perception of time is indeed controlled in super-markets, in streets etc. But before I dig deeper I would like to establish that “game space is architectural in every sense of the word”- Mccgregor. Ernest Adams argues that game space is “imaginary space, it is necessarily constructed by human beings and therefore may be thought of as the product of architectural design processes” And indeed game worlds are spatial construct, made by distinct decisions that relate to contexts and the users themselves. Mccgregor has her take on this issue;


“Game space is a man-made construction, a built space often composed primarily of architectural elements. The architectural object can represent intangible concepts, operating as metaphor that contains and locates concepts in game space. As an integral part of game structure and organization, game space acts as a framework defining where we play and helping to configure gameplay.”


Therefore by extension, the developer has complete control over the way we perceive time in a game, in a sense even more so than reality, because in a game the developer has more direct control over what the player can physically do, where as in real world architecture behaviors can only be desired by the architect and rarely directly controlled.


More interesting, (and relating to my topic), Mcgregor continues, “architecture is about more than just building; it encompasses the activities that occur within them, including social interaction.” A notion I have been long exploring, the idea that architecture extends past its physical geometry and enables social interaction to occur. In game space, this is all directed towards gameplay. According to Alexander Galloway a professor of cultural and media at NYU, game spaces are held by a “cybernetic relationship between computer and hardware.” Mcgregor paraphrases “this relationship is manifest in gameplay in the action, reaction and interaction of player and game. Game space must be interpreted according to how it affects gameplay. The patterns of spatial use look at how game space and gameplay work together.” Thus it is seen how inherit in every game space is the gameplay, and by extension one cannot live without the other.


But to truly understand how social engagements occur in both game space and real space it is important to highlight the types of spaces that we find in games. The way these spaces have been defined was by relating them to real spaces.


Mcgregor explores the first which she labels “screen mediated games.” These types of games are perhaps the most common, where an interface on a screen is interacted by the player through a set of controls accessed physically by the player, and through speakers and perhaps even a microphone aurally. The screen frames the interface and thus acts as the base of the game itself. Mcgregor explains; “Game space also extends beyond the screen in what Mike Jones calls the macro mise-en-scene [18], so that game space is framed within the screen by the virtual camera. The artificial world is contained and bordered, isolated from real space. Played on consoles, computers and handheld devices screen-mediated games are historically dominant and remain the prevalent form of spatial projection.” She continues “Despite its separateness, screen-mediated game space is dependent on the conventions of real space and our experiences in it. Taking Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s notion of embodiment, in which body image is task orientated and where spatiality relates to situation not position, Bernadette Flynn argues that players are conditioned by their bodily experiences in real space [10]. Movement and navigation in game space reflects their counterpart in reality. Game players inhabit game space in a subjective manner and bring to the game world their corporeal history. Spatial practice in games then becomes a cultural act. This suggests a way in which designers and players, through their unconscious familiarity with socially encoded environments, bring spatial and social practices to the game world.” Thus it is interesting to see how game space is clearly dependent on real space yet poses the illusion of independent. This may also help explain the way in which the perception of time in games may be completely mis-interpreted. Furthermore, it is interesting to see how players from different sides of the world inhabiting completely different spaces may interact socially on screen in the same space and feel completely convinced.


There are of course games which push the boundaries of framed space in screen mediated games physically into real space. These are labeled “pervasive games” where mobile technology maybe superimposed in the actual room in what Carsten Magerkurth calls “location aware games which regard the entire world, the architecture we live in, as a game board.” Mccgregor brings forth two examples of this sort of game


“Triangler (TNO 2007) is a collaborative outdoor mobile game using GPS systems where three teammates attempt to form equilateral triangles with their bodies in the environment, enclosing enemy players. Players negotiate real world hazards as they follow player positions on their mobiles, where game space shares a direct relationship to real space.


Another form of pervasive gaming that overlays game space onto real space are augmented reality games like Human Pacman (Cheok et al 2004) which places virtual items into the real world. Using wearable computers and head mounted displays Human Pacman superimposes game objects and game patterns onto a predefined area of urban space. Players see both the real environment and virtual cookies, collected by physically entering the space that appears to contain the object. Gameplay requires the player to act within the real world and game space corresponds dimensionally to real space.”


The last type of game Mccgregor brings forth is “Ubiquitous games” which literally recognize the edges and boundaries of the framed space as a concept in the real space. An example of this, is the tamaguchi, a simulation of a pet that lives inside the contained frame of the console, interacting with it and possessing the illusion through diverse scripted animations to the player that it is recognized by this pet. Mccgregor labels this phenomenon as embedding and explains “Embedded game space can also occur when virtual objects are used within a specially constructed play space. An augmented tabletop game that uses a physically modelled landscape in conjunction with virtual inhabitants embeds gameplay in a contrived reality. Game space is placed within an artificial real space.”


Whats interesting in embedding is that unlike the screen-mediated games, ubiquitous games are mostly real-time and physically interact with real world rules perhaps. Hence all the social interactions possess a more aware realization on behalf of the player as it is as if the characters (such as the tamaguchi) are actually occupying space in the real world. Mccgregor brings up an even more compelling example;


“Another example is Pixel Chicks (Mattel), whose advertorial catch cry is a 2D girl living in a 3D world. Here a pixelated digital character is displayed over a plastic molded house, projected above the furniture. The pixel chick sits, walks and interacts with the real space of her synthetic home. Artificial game space is given an artificial real space.”
It is no secret and I established this in my storyworlds article that games consistently borrow things from the real world and re-apply them in the game space. Some of these types of games even go as far to physically inhabit the real world as we have seen. And as far as patterns of spaces is concerned we may see that games are very often reusing and modeling patterns found in the way people inhabit real space in game space. ¬¬¬
Mccgregor puts these patterns into a list:


“The prevalent patterns of spatial use are:


• Challenge Space: where the environment directly challenges the player.


• Contested Space: where the environment is a setting for contests between entities.


• Nodal Space: where social patterns of spatial usage are imposed on the game environment to add structure and readability to the game.


•Codified Space: where elements of game space represent other non-spatial game components.


• Creation Space: where the player constructs all or part of game space as part of gameplay.


• Backdrops: where there is no direct interaction between the game space and the player.”


Whats similar between all these patterns is the desire of the player to defeat the foe by the application of the game rules. And these patterns that we see go to show that there is a “strong correlation between where we play and what we play”- Ulf Wilhelmsson. And even more so the environments control how the game can be played and how the rules applied, such as physical movement. That is also not to see the environments ability to enclose game space cannot be turned into something meaningful that evokes a strong ambiance and do not necessarily have to be static but can even be turned into backdrops of cities and dynamic environments.


Mccgregor points out that the patterns of special use in games, are not necessarily prescriptive however, just like in real architecture;


“Rules give the game a range of possibility of play, how players actually use that space can vary from what the designer anticipated. Just as real spaces can be used differently from their intended purpose; patterns of game space can change through emergent gameplay. In reality skateboarders turn the safety of the shopping center into a challenge space, in virtuality players of Battlefield 2 can ignore the fighting for the sheer spatial thrill of base jumping. The patterns of spatial use are not prescriptive.”


This all goes to show that designed spaces in games truly implies architecture in every sense of the word, and can truly evoke interesting social interaction in many shapes and forms. Time as a fundamental variable, also, in architecture can be controlled more directly in comparison to real life allowing for the game to become more immersive. But most importantly in regards to this post we have seen how Jespuur Jules notion of players inhabiting game space and real space as a fact rather than as a concept. That games have this interesting ability to influence real space beyond the screen, and that video games have the ability to really utilize space to infuse fun.

Interview with Mikolaj Pawlowski, City Interactive Lead Level Designer

City Interactive is another Polish company I had the opportunity to interview. They are very large, and focus on games ranging from flying games, to a very popular first person shooter called Sniper. They are about to release sniper 2… I had the opportunity to interview Nikoli Pablovski who worked with this company for many years and is their lead level designer.

So what is it that you do?


I am the lead level designer; I am managing a team of level designers, but we are also rather like scripters as level designers, we also focus on things like the visual design, but mostly we are making the script in the game; we are putting AI, any scripted action; explosives to be final to the game.


Ok, how would you design around the NPC in a game? I mean obviously you say you work with AI


And the design itself as well…


Yeah, well through making the level design, how would you make the characters and the level design work together? What are some of the things you consider?


It’s about the engine really, we need to make events, and connections between any logic; if the character comes from over here (points to a side) the character will make an animation like this… and if he is over here and the player is here he will behave like that….


So it is quiet cinematic?


No, no, no, not always. You can have an AI like, actually I don’t know, to be honest there is no AI in any game, all of them are scripted, so it actually depends how you call it… so you need to design how they will behave on different events, so you need to prepare them for bullet rain, sounds near their head, footsteps, or any other ideas… how they will behave, so wright a script in our case allows the AI to start to work. We are putting as well for example, cooperative animations, other stuff like random behaviors, random animations aligned with random locations and objectives, or for things like ladders and gameplay elements that you need to figure out… Heavy machine gun stands and most the elements that the game allows you to use.


Yeah, and what do you think a good level design can achieve? What are the main criteria’s and things you try to do when you make a level? Like the aspirations or things you want to get at when you design a level?


To me, honestly, the battlefield… a “real” battlefield, it’s kind of tricky when you have lots of AI’s and they need to behave properly with each other. Some are friendly, some are hostile, and they are not supposed to take you, as the player, as the main target always. This is the basic problem with all of the games really, that the player is the main object to shoot at for the AI’s but still to have a “real” battlefield, you need to have the soldiers choosing their targets properly, “this is a hostile so I need to shoot him first!” or “this is a player, why to shoot him? He is a hostile like the others… he is not closer so I nead to shoot the closer guy…” But still the main problem with games is that they are starting to be shorter, and easier. I am a hardcore gamer so it’s starting to be annoying really…


Out of curiosity are you approaching this as more of a sandbox approach where you have an open level, or is it more linear and scripted, or somewhere in between?


Something in between, some of the elements are sandbox, others are more linear… You know you need to have what we call the “logic gates” to close the environment, to reload it from the memory of the console, so that it can be better graphics and that kind of thing. You need to put those logic gates when you need to wait for a guy or you need to be there and then you will have a cooperative animation, and that you cannot go back, just because of the performance.


Yeah, I find that in sniper, because it’s a sniping game. The level design is quite different because the terrains are so vast.


This is the biggest issue, probably, there are no other games, like that and the biggest issue is that you need to have life in this area also where the enemy is. Normally, its quiet easy, you just run and gun, with close combat, the guys can be dumb, really, they just need to shoot. But in the big distances you need to script them or make them behave properly for a much more…


Large environment…


Yeah, large environment and still they need to do something… until you shoot! So, it’s a challenge, really… because they need to repair a car or something, they need to do something in the environments, they need to live in those areas as you are watching them.


And I guess in this game this is important, because you can revisit the same spaces quite often that you can walk backwards and forwards in the same space, so you want to keep it alive. It’s not like in Doom, where you just keep going and keep going, here you can go back…


Yeah, you can revisit everything so…


It has to be kept alive


Yeah, this is the biggest challenge…