storyworlds: from movies to games to real life and the other way round

On one of my previous articles I discussed the difference between movies and games in regards to the environment. I was particularly interested in the notion of whether the artificiallity we sometimes find in movies is intentional in games. I felt that, the article response was a bit weak becuase the nature of the topic was very ambigous and broad.

However, today I am taking a slightly different look at the two, specifically how games are made of movies, and how that may change the story or alter the perception of the story. I will base this off one of the blogs I am following online SOURCE by Martin Nerurkar and try to weave in ideas that regard social interactions in the encapsulation of the "event." This article was a reaction to a very major multimedia expo that is currently happening in San Fransisco involving major industry leaders from movie and game studios. They are all focusing on what we call "narrative design," or in other words "story worlds."

In the article, a speaker by the name of Marie-Laure Ryan listed themes that constitute narrative-design, they were as follows;


-An inventory of existents


-A space with certain geographic features


-Physical laws


-Social laws and values


-Events. A history of changes that happen in the narrative


-Mental events

Most of these I have already mentioned and covered, but it is important for the sake of establishing conections within gaming and films to re-annalyze some of these themes. You will notice that in this list, there is a clear notion of the importance of time, ("events"), rules as was mentioned in the last article "physical laws," and "inventory of exsistents" social importance e.g encounters (social was and values) and the users interaction with all this "mental events." Basically my entire investigation narrowed down into a list! From here I am going to wing it...

One of the key ideas that the article seemed to moniter was the "story", that much like vernacular design, some stories have developed and manifested further through the transition of media. I will bring to light a personal example: Alice in Wonderland. Now I have actually just recently finished reading this insanley popular book because it came free with my android tablet (so I was kind of forced to read it, being a fan of adventure and strange new environments). It was from the very begining chapters that I began to understand how some of the themes I was exploring, particulary memorable moments in architecture that revolved around social encounters, helped in making this story exactley the brilliant story that it was.

It it also wasn't as if the author, who wrote this amazing novel in the late 19th century didn't realize the importance of that as well, in fact it was perhaps one of the major notions of this novel. Take the first page, where Alice is sitting on a green pasture;

"once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or
conversations in it, 'and what is the use of a book,' thought Alice 'without pictures or conversation?'"

This basically goes to show the authors argument, that a good story, like a good game, or like a good movie, or like a good book (in this case) should have some level of social interaction to be appeasing to us (as social creatures). Following this, Alice falls into her epic adventure where she meets the strangest creatures and has the strangest arguments in the stragents environments that are broken up into what seems like a million individual events that keeps me turning the pages and keeps me reading more and more. Thus, it is clear to me now how relevent this novel is in my investigation, becuase it argues and abides by all the arguments and notions I brought forth; that a good game should be memorable, it should instill events in our brain, and meaningful social encounters in quality environments.

Reading the article the writer mentions a person named Jason who narrowed down narrative design into two familiar strategies, expansionst and the other "fold in on itself to provide denser information about the character themselves, to help viewers get into their heads." We are comapring Lost to Breaking Bad....

"The former is expansionist, where the transmedial material expands on the world an adds new histories, characters and events. The Breaking Bad material on the other hand aims to “fold in on itself” to provide denser information about the character themselves, to help viewers get into their heads."

Now it is clear to me that The Adventours of Alice in Wonderland were clearly expansionist, just think about what we started with (basically just Alice and a rabbit) and what we ended with... also, I am not bringing forth Alice in Wonderland as an example simply because it abides by the key notions I have mentioned about characters and events. The point is,  the book itself has turned into numerous movies, games, in fact as we speak a new game "Alice" is comming out soon as well, for a second time. So what this allows me to investigate is how the experience of the story changes between media.... (which is really is a new thought for me altogether).

image taken from source

Have you ever heard the saying, "let the readers use their imaginations;" What do you visualize when you read a book? What do you realize when you see the movie of the book? What do you come to think of playing the game of the movie of the book or vice versa? Specifically how do you re-exerpience the environment, the social engagement around the environment and how does the environment seem to re-inform the social engagement and your whole notion of time? This is clearly "a developing storyworld"...
In the article sourced above,  "Jason also noted that there are three different kinds of tie-in games to movies and TV shows:

1) Exploratory: These games allow you to explore the fictional storyworld yourself.
2) Imitational: Games that allow you to “try on the skin” of the story characters. These often fail because the expected drama from TV and Movies is missing.
3) Narratively: Games that try to retell the story of the movie in the game. This is almost never done for TV shows. Here the approach is usually to have the game be “one extraordinary episode”.

In other words their are certain techniques games use to tie into movies. And its not as if movies don't use games... take Tomb Raider for instant, the whole story could of been arguabley redfined once Angelina Jolie came forth as the leading actress, and various set designers strived to accomdate the script, her acting etc.
 and the faithfulness to the game, (it wasn't very faithful)...

Another great example (I could go on...) is H.P lovecrafts Cthulhu monster that reappeared in various forms of media (probabley most recently in Southpark)...

Now this is all very interesting but then we come to think of it... don't video games essentially, and I am speaking very macrospocially here, always borrow and reinterpret things that already exsist! Isn't that what its all about! People say that "anything is possible in games," but that anything is always taken from somewhere. I suppose, one thing I've learned from reading Alice in Wonderland and just generally playing good games, is that good games have the ability to take everyday exerpiences and exaggurate them and alter them to the point that they leave you with something memorable but convince you that they made perfect sense and that for that time that it took you to play you were in that other reality that was worth being in. It goes without saying that the ability for games to give you that exerpience is something that is clearly a difference to the experience of real architecture, otherwise why would computer games be so popular? Its funny to think however, that in a way real architecture strives to achieve the impossible level of brilliance found in games, but games strive to achieve the level of realism and clarity found in real architecture. I think that in the future we will see this relationship more clearly, especially as games continue to become more prominent in society....

a new look

I have talked substantially over the past month and a half about the way in which social engagements in architecture in real life and in gaming is controlled, often by altering the perception of time for the user. We have seen how this control is done through clustering time into events and emphasizing these events so that they are memorable for the user. Likewise in architecture I have shown how by differentiating types of spaces in regard to the kind of engagement that is happening through the architectural language, meaningful and memorable spaces are created, and thus are also clustered into events in retrospective memory.

Games often use a kind of language as well in spaces, these can make the events seem unique, and therefore memorable. This whole phenomenon is very subtle and often not spoken of, but it is no secret and every good fps does differentiate between the events so that the game has a clear progression and that the movement through the spaces (levels) etc. is clear and the feeling of progress more satisfying.

I recently found a blog online where players were discussing the game “Fallout 3” by Bethesda Studios, there seemed to be a clear reference to the architecture in the game as they were discussing the overall experience.

Andrew B said “Playing the new fallout game has altered my perception of inhabitable spaces. A pile of junk could be home to vicious raiders.”

To which Cacapis replied “Haa! I'm an old time fan of fallout. It's really cool to see their interpretation of the post apocalyptic Washington and the way each significant structure has been appropriated. The Jefferson and Lincoln memorials, the pentagon, etc etc. I really hope there's a fallout 4.

I think some games really make you experience some form of architecture in a new way. In the end each type of play has maps modeled to suit their needs. For instance a map that's useful for a single player mission in an FPS is not quite suitable for a deathmatch.
I think that games just started to make a very rich experience in an architecture that has its own particular set of rules completely different from reality.”

It seems that a key theme here was that the game architecture in Fallout reinterpreted real architecture, through the alteration of iconic buildings and spaces that the players could relate to and by doing this changed the perception the players had with familiar spaces. This phenomenon was undoubtley well taken by the players and hence was clearly memorable. I mentioned in the beginning of this post how this control is done by emphasizing the events. In this case an emphasis was done by clearly tapping into the users existing memory of iconic buildings and emphasizing those spaces by creating a dramatic change to those buildings so that they are still recognizable, but in a way new and intriguing.


Obviously this is just one very specific device to emphasizing events, but like in any good game, the level design is made to support the gameplay, and fallout is a game which focuses on the post-apocalyptic future of Washington. That also implies that all the buildings were made to stage interesting and dynamic social engagements that revolve around that theme. As I mentioned in my previous post, and as Cacapis seemed to spot as well; by creating environments that are facilitative of the gameplay, it serves to host a completely different set of rules than reality. This is important, because here is the major difference between architecture in reality and in games in regard to the way both treat social engagements through events.


I will now introduce an extreme example to highlight what I have said. Take for instance the Nazi book burning memorial in Berlin. Here is a space that requires a very specific engagement between the user and the environment, a very direct way that has also carries symbolic and cultural significance. During the Nazi regime, many books were burned at this site in 1933; an artist interpretation was to create a little glass window on the spot where the users would have to kneel down to look through the hole.


 
Through the hole was a monochromatic space with empty bookcases symbolizing the “event” that happened many years ago. The kneeling down aspect of the place on behalf of the user, forces the user to pay respect to the tragic event. This space carries with it a very serious message; it commemorates an event that happened many years ago hence it is also very historical.


The actual movement of the users with the mechanics of space; the kneeling down and the observation is also significant in this space when we contrast movement capability in games. In gaming there is a different set of rules that revolve around the player in relation to the keyboard and mouse that is fabricated intentionally to limit movement capability and target specific actions that revolve around the gameplay, any action or movement in a game is no surprise, nor spontaneous, it is carefully mapped out and specified for the gameplay. In contrast, the specific movement of kneeling down in this space is borderline coincidental, it is created only physiologically targeting curiosity, and is actually signified by the fact that out of all the spontaneous movements and actions we may find between users in reality it succeeds in luring people to create one unified movement, the kneeling down. Thus the movement in this space is special because it is specific, where as in gaming, movements would perhaps be more special if they succeeded in being more spontaneous in relation to spaces.


Furthermore although both types of spaces are made to be memorable; the memorial, as a work of art, challenges the user on several levels that are much broader and complex, tapping into the culture and commemorating history. Where as in gaming the spaces have a very direct and subjective role as they revolve around a more targeted set of rules; rules that apply to only the gameplay. Any real depth, message and motive in most all commercial fps is directed towards play and thus the environments are treated as such, were as in this memorial, it is anything but that. Therefore the social engagement between the users of this space is rooted in respect to the tragic event, the kneeling down is also highly symbolic of that respect. Hence this space carries with it symbolism, cultural significance and respect. Although games may pose such a facade, they are still games, and therefore will aim to fulfill needs rooted in play.


Most importantly and perhaps the largest difference can be found in time. This space is timeless, it can be revisited over and over again and it will always remain the same, because it represents a single event that happened in the past. In a game, the game must eventually end, the interaction with the environments are grouped into singular events that are only there to progress the storyline. Therefore, the pages must keep turning and the spaces represent events that are of the presentence even if they pose a historical facade.


It is important to highlight this major difference, because it is these set of rules that define the way social encounters in spaces are experienced in the "event."

events that are not memorable

I have some spare time and I figured one way to emphasize the importance of "events" in games, especially in regards to the social engagement would be to present a bad game. I have already shown some good games lately so it would be easy to compare.


In games such as DeadSpace one can easily spot the unity between the main character, the enemies and the environment through the aesthetic, that’s not bad of course. The problem is that it just doesn't, change, ever, it applies to every environment you are in. So the game feels like the waiting room in a doctor’s office, it just drags on forever!

image taken from source

The ribbed style is articulated in every environment, in every enemy and is constantly seen on your main character. It’s used to impose a vulnerable feeling the player has on his main character that can easily be torn apart like “spare-ribs.” But it’s used EVERYWHERE! And therefore gets quiet boring. The game does not differentiate between one spaces or another in a meaningful way, your horizon of expectancies is always correct, because you are always in the same type of environment fighting the same type of enemy and therefore the entire game is just one very long event. There is little to no progression.


What’s nice to see is when specific character matches their specific environments; this in turn creates specific events that are much more memorable. Dead Space just seems like one big blur of constant gore and death, and doesn’t create a clear timeline in the player’s head of how long the game took.

Representing Artificiality through the medium; is it deliberate and desirable?

A couple of notes: I have been very busy since my last post as I am now in Warsaw. However while I was here I have managed to secure an Interview with CDprojekt (makers of Witcher II & Baldurs Gate) in September, a solo game developer through a guy at work sometime hopefully next week and I am still waiting to hear back from City Interactive (sniper Ghost Warrior & Combat Wings) and Peoplecanfly an Epic Games Studio (Painkiller, Gears of war & Bulletstorm), hopefully more will follow when I return to the Netherlands. So those are all things to look forward to this holiday, got myself a recording device thingamajig and will post it online as soon as it happens! 

Last post I was left with an interesting question from Mark; "do games as a medium employ the deliberately artificiality of representation that one finds in film, or do they tend toward a kind of realism?" And although I already had a reply for about two weeks, I didn't post it yet, don’t ask why it’s just one of those things...

I’m afraid this question is a bit narrow in that there are certain things it doesn’t consider. It suggests that games have to make a choice between being deliberately artificial, like the developer purposefully wants you to think everything is fake! OR that the developer wants you to think everything is real! The truth in this case is somewhere in the middle. Now player’s maybe playing games, but they’re not all dumb and they know, that what their playing isn’t real, that does not mean they don’t want to be convinced! Now there are hundreds of ways to convince the player, and I do not know all of them. But one thing that is certain, is that it’s not all graphics, and that it certainly has a lot to do with the social interactions, I talked about this in detail in "the relevance of social encounters and time in architecture of fast paced first person shooters.”  

One of many examples of the artificality we find in movies; a good example is Sin City, is how the visual style of the movie is clearly not in par with reality. This makes the movie more interesting, because its something different, and more; if its used well, i.e in par with the storyline it has the ability of convincing the viewer that things do make sense, nothing contradicts. So the artificiality maybe labled “artificial” because its obviously not real, but what may keep it interesting, and real to the movie is that the medium used to employ this style follows through with it and uses it effectively in relation to the messages and contexts of whats happening inside the medium, in essence that nothing appears random... (i.e its designed well)...

In games, its very common to see the phenomena of altering the behavior of NPCS in relation to the environment and gameplay and vice versa, so they do not have freedom of thought and are clearly artifical. This is done, because the developers don’t really have a choice if they want to make a good game. Everything in games is done to support the gameplay, if this artificiality does not support the gameplay, the game is bad, and not true. So in this case, if we assume the NPCS were real, were exactley as intelligent as real humans and had freedom of thought, they may just walk of and do random things in the game world and the last thing they may do is support the gameplay. Therefore in actuality the way the characters coincedentally do things that are just so conveniant for the player is aritifical, but if the developers find a way to make these occurances seem very logical or perfectley likley in the world that is the game world, the player is convinced and this artificallity seems appropriate.

Sometimes, and this can be seen in terrible fantasy games; the artifical world the developers created condraticts itself. This can create a feeling like the world falls beneath your feet and nothing makes sense, because given that this aritficallity is aritifical in the first place (meaning it is not like on Earth, fair enough) but if it doesn’t even follow through in the games world, that certainly screems in your face; “IM FAKE!”. Therefore their neads to be unity. Obviously in games a common version of artificallity, would be that things are too coincidental and too perfect, for instance that Dog would fit so perfectly into his environment, it’s a bit surreal, but it seems wonderful and memorable, and that too convinces the player. 

So In the other sense of the notion of “artificiality” The NPCs’ are programmed to simulate realism (that is a realism of the game world), so they are artificial in every sense as a simulation. Some games cover there NPCS in masks. They give the NPCS the role of a robot or hologram for instance, which would in any case have an AI and is programmed to behave in certain ways, and that by definition “tends to realism” as you said. The reason the NPCS are often unified to the gaming environments is to convince you that they belong, that they are unique to the world your in… that they fit the contexts, the story and everything that goes with it, to convince the player that the environment he/she is in is developed! Especially in fast paced FPS where you only play for a couple of hours and first impressions are very important to help the player differentiate character roles, backgrounds etc. 

Now the importance of being convinced cannot be emphasized enough to clear up the fact that artificiality is ok, if things are interesting enough/developed enough... I have yet not talked about the most important thing, the rules of the game...

A)   Just like in movies, books and anything worth reading or seeing, games have to be worth playing, they have to be extraordinary so by obviously in some sense they are not realistic and often games will make that very clear through art styles etc, but that isn’t the important realism we are talking about I take it...

B)    Just like in shows like House or the A-Team we measure the level of success of the characters based on the challenges they solved.

C)    The level of achievement of solving these challenges in our minds is benchmarked around the rules of the movie, in House it is science, in A-Team it is justice.

D)   In games, there will also be a set of unchangeable rules the player has to cope with while dealing with challenges, (some simple ones are your health, ammo, your special abilities if any, the environment itself (if its underwater, in space)) if they work solidly and well they convince the player that things work. If things are at odds they player may feel like the rules of physics went out of control and that the world is falling apart and things just generally suck!

E)    Once the player is convinced, the game seems to be realistic, regardless of how artsy, violent, or stylized the game is.

F)    NPCS  are there to enhance this realism because you can relate to them, and the more (like you)they are in the game to convince you, the better, especially if they do a good job in teaching you how to engage with the worlds "rules."

G)   But most importantly everything in the game is to support the gameplay, if anything gets in the way it doesn’t seem realistic, because by definition, the realism is benchmarked on the games world, not our own world. So logically, characters have to look like their environments, and this artificiality we talked about, seems strangely enough, realistic if anything!

I found online an article by a designer; Jespur Juul who wrote a book "Half-Real" which deals exactley with this whole phenomena, here is what he had to say:

"The Half-Real of the title refers to the fact that video games are two rather different things at the same time: video games are real in that they are made of real rules that players actually interact with; that winning or losing a game is a real event. However, when winning a game by slaying a dragon, the dragon is not a real dragon, but a fictional one. To play a video game is therefore to interact with real rules while imagining a fictional world and a video game is a set of rules as well a fictional world." -Jespur Juul

Jespur here clarifies some of the juxtapositions players are experiencing in games; giving us another look at the whole argument about intentional artficiality. So to answer the question, the act of artificially connecting the NPCS to their environments is deliberate, but is also what convinces you of how they connect to the storyline, this is what makes the game realistic (to itself) and by connection it’s what makes it realistic to you at the end of the day.In movies where you are distanced, this artificiality is clearer, but in games, where you literally take the reins, this artificiality of extraordinary characters that perfectly match their environments becomes your reality, and seems, real!



However, one thing that movies accomplish that games have a very hard time accomplishing is tradgedy. This whole notion was taken from Jespur Juul's research into the two: Martin Nerurkar an architect/game critic who attended one of Jespur's lectures had this to say:

"Here Jesper took a closer look at the elements that make up a tragedy and why it’s so difficult to recreate that in games. His theory is that this lies within the paradox of failure. Usually, when we as players succeed in some task within the game, we are happy, as is the protagonist. Likewise, when we fail we are frustrated and suffer, as does our protagonist. In Tragedy however we need to delight at the failure and misfortune of the protagonist. Our long-term aesthetic desire for a well-rounded story has to overcome our short-term desire for the protagonist to succeed, something that’s quite strong in video games."

We have seen how games can be artifial, but intentionally, but in a way thats convincing, and how they place the player in an extraordinary position by creating a list of rules that are in fact real, but take place in  another reality. And how their are yet certain things games can do that movies cannot, and vice versa...

The Encounter

This is going to be a very odd blog, but I have come to a revelation and have a burning urge to put finger to keyboard so to speak. 

Following Gabe's interview and watching this thirty minute video (thanks again Mark) about the implications of games in our world I have come to a very important realization about the role of the social encounter in games as oppose to real architecture. 

I couldn't attach the video: here is the SOURCE

It seems that the social encounter in a fast paced FPS is simply like another architectural device, like a column or a window to an architect, if you will. This is because the developer has complete control over what the NPC's can say or will do through programmable AI's and cinematics. Notice the way Gabe describes Alex in Half Life 2 as a method that they used to impose emotions and indications to the player regarding the plot and what the player must do. Hence the social encounters in games are like another a architectural device in the environment that holds the player by the hand and points him in the "right direction." All the actions of the NPC's are no mystery to the developer, and the environment is built hand in hand with the social encounters.

Consequently in real architecture, the social encounters are the big mystery, they are things that we predict and built round in hope that we will hit the nail on the head. Many architects simply distance themsleves from the social encounters and take a position of a facilitator. Price once said that "you can feel bad in a building regardless of how good it is." This is very true!

However this is all regarding the NPCS in games and second party people you may interact with in real life. How about YOU as the user....

In gaming, their is a little gap of uncertainty, because the player is indead human, and humans are very spontanous. However where as in real life you are only limited by the freedom of your limbs, in games you are limited to the keyboard and mouse giving you the illusion of being completley free.  And the movements themselves in games are again, programmed to allow you to behave in a way the game wants you to behave. The keybaord functions are like another set of "rules," to engage with the environment the developer was so nice to setup for you. Gabe talked about the reason the crowbar became such a big deal in half life; how the crowbar acted as a type of feeler around the environment to get a touch on relationships and distances. How bullet holes were far, but the crowbar was an upfront tool for the engagement with the environment and how they worked really hard to get the subtleties of the "bounce-off" of the crowbar mechanically "correct." So in a way as in the developers percepective the crowbar played the same role as the NPC, just another device to allow the player to engage the world he/she was cast in.

In real life, architects have to work around the complete spontanous behaviour of people, and things that could happen in certain unpredicatable situations (i.e a fire and how people would circulate in that instance).

Another major difference is the physcological impliations of being in a game. Being inside a game, you are a bigger risk taker, you observe the environment in a very different way. You may try to jump of a cliff to get to the other side more readily for instnace because you know that if you "die" you can always load back.... In reality that is not the case, hence the physcological implications for the user in the gaming environment is a bit more exciting. (this is all stuff I realized from the "SOURCE" by the way)

But going back to what I was saying  about social interactions again. If you recall my last post, I questions where to draw the line about the social interactions themselves. Do they have to be with two real people. Is one real person and an artpeice a social engagement? I talked about Zumthor and the way he diffrenciated spaces in regard to human/human vs. human/artpeice. An art peice is an indead an inanimate object, but in a way so are NPC's they are simply animated inamnimate objects that give the illustion of a social engagement, (I am not talking about multiplayer for the purpose of this research).  So I suppose what I am truly interested in is the general differences in games as oppose to real life by which the developer or the architect allows the real life HUMAN user to explore a series of "events" through engagements. Because if the interaction with an NPC can be labled a social engagement, then in a way (and by abstraction) so should the visual conversation one has with an art peice in a musuem, the NPC is afterall indead a work of art.... (food for thought) or to the developer another tool to create a relationship in between the user and the world.

Glad I got that down, finally, I can rest....

Words from the Developers

Below: So far I have said quiet a bit, constantly highlighting the differences and similarities about how time in architecture in real life and in video game are captured through social interactions. I also recently showed a video from Half-Life 2 that provided some evidence of this, in playing with Dog. However I thought it would be a good idea to provide an interview with Half Life 2 creator Gabe Newell, who talks about his experience in writing the Half Life trilogy. Gabe says many things about writing games, and a lot of them clarify many of the claims I have made throughout the research I conducted so far.

Capturing the "Event"

The "event" in gaming is a cluster of time, intentionally captured and categorized by the developer to infuse a meaningful instance around a social encounter. To the player the event is often pre-ordained upon entering a new environment, for example upon entering a large open space; the player may expect a difficult encounter with the enemy. A good "event" is often memorable and in my experience; the more dynamic the social encounter is, the more memorable it tends to be. For example playing with Dog in Half life 2 (released in 2004), was really positively reviewed for that exact reason;

This instance illustrates as well how a certain event maybe pre-ordained around a space. In this case this large open space facilitated the event of playing with Dog. This "event" is indeed a cluster of time; the playing with dog, and is memorable because players find a kinship and bond with the character Dog in the game. It also bridges the two halves of the story, hence serves as a plot nuclei in the development of the story. Hence the ‘event’ revolves around a social encounter which helps making the event not only memorable but as piece of storyline that makes the game progress.

In architecture in real life, it is indeed possible, even commendable to consider those small instances, and make them memorable for the user. One architect I have to bring forth to illustrate this is Gorden Matta-Clark, who was  “more concerned in voids, gaps, spaces, abandoned and underdeveloped places, for example, places where you stop to tie your laces and places that have a disruption of your daily movements.” (Mannino 2006) To Matta-Clark, the "disruption in daily movements" was in itself the "event," the memorable moment that gave him a sense of perhaps touch on time throughout his daily activities. Also, this goes to show how even the spaces we perceive to be the most insignificant, or unusual, can be considered and exploited to create a memorable "event" in a space. Taking this further in my research-interest, I argue that indeed an "event" is what gives people a sense of pleasure in an environment. And to highlight the difference between architecture in real life and in games, is that they don't only revolve around the type of "events" you find but also around the way they usually capture social encounters.


The difference of course between "events" in fast paced FPS and in reality, as I have outlined in past articles, is that in reality these spaces can often be revisited over and over again without a the likelihood of a significant change in the ambiance of the space. Where as in these fast paced FPS, if they are re-visited (which they really never are) they will be in a very different light, as in games, everything is made to support the gameplay. Hence, time itself serves as the difference between the type of events that happen in life or in games.

Another architect which comes to mind is Peter Zumthor, who in some of his works, really seemed to consider the “event” in order to support the buildings’ functionality. “When I concentrate on a specific site or place for which I am going to design a building, when I try to plumb its depths, its form, its history, and its sensuous qualities, images of other places start to invade this process of precise observation: images of places I know and that once impressed me, images of ordinary or special places, places that I carry with me as inner visions of specific moods and qualities; images of architectural situations, which emanate from the world of art, or films, theater or literature.” – (Zumthor) This goes to show Zumthors’ concern for creating “events” or as he phrased it “architectural situations” through his encounter with meaningful memories, gave him an urge to  install them in the buildings he was working on.
 

One example that exemplifies what Peter Zumthor is trying to achieve in creating spaces in which memorable “events” occur can be seen in his Museum of Modern Art in Cologne through his use of transition through materiality. 

from top to bottom

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIVU0U-Ft3KXw7fRxuNhqamq2jpSJeZzvOceGeVH6lriDxNaNSQYKCJRQTXuM8C-Hid6nu7G3mMgt7Ygvkt20MXB8xTBhmr7SqbqFiuOVwbTL-SBVzLkFGPgzrObfGtQ8-Jv6KKpHJ5kkI/s320/Zumthor+Bregenz+Kunsthaus+Austria.jpg

http://archidose.blogspot.com/2008_07_01_archive.html

Nearly all the gallery in the museum, as dynamic transitional spaces, were very ordinary in alabaster white, as to exhibit the work in its own natural beauty thus leaving a space that is completely used to outline the artwork. Hence, in a way this illustrates how the social encounter inside the space is between the user and the artwork itself, whether this would be labeled "social" is perhaps debatable, but Zumthor seemed to design with an understanding into the type of interactions that were happening in mind. For instance, in rooms which have services and more human social encounters that take place (e.g café or even the cloakroom) these rooms are punched into the spaces with a beautiful wooden frame like the framing of the paintings on the wall feeling warm and static inside. Simply entering the spaces makes you feel like you are walking into a painting. Thus Zumthor, clearly differentiates the types of spaces in regard to the type of social interaction that is involved.


Zumthor was always big on materiality, and the human interaction with the tangible. In this case the change in material creates an effect that makes the spaces such as where hang your coat in memorable, and installs “events” in peoples’ minds that elevate the value of the environments within the museum, making the building as a whole a very positive series of spaces to inhabit. This is seen in this case, by specifically creating a difference in the language of architecture revolving around the type of encounters that are taking place; i.e human, or art-piece. Again, not all these interactions are "social," and Zumthor seems to highlight these differences through the materials.


To be frank, this phenomenon is not that unheard of. In video games, the aesthetics of the environment are often made as well to revolve around the social encounters very specifically. In the example of, playing with Dog, above, the environment was very trashy matching the aesthetics of Dogs appearance which was very make-shift. Often game-developers create an environment that unifies the social encounter with the other party in some way or another. In a like manner, Zumthor was unifying the spaces with the other party as well, the very white and bright gallery spaces to outline the artwork with which the user would be interacting and the very wooden cozy service rooms, where the users would be static and interacting with each other. All these interactions are hence perceived as individual events with which the encounter, is the main subject of concern for the designer.


Thus it seems that architecture as well as games can try to capture events in memorable ways often through the use of outlining a social encounter. Consequently, as I have said several times in the past posts; as social creatures, it seems that social encounters create plot points in the environment that give a sense of time in a space. In games, this creates the timeline of a storyline, a sense of time that we perceive that gives us a mental image of how long the game took. In architecture in reality, time can also be mentally controlled, through the use of creating these “events” through architectural language. In the case of the museum, creating spaces where social encounters occur, in a certain warm way (the texture of the wood) facilities a positive feeling around the environment and enhances the appreciation of the space. If this appreciation is "good enough," the instances will turn into memories in our minds, that will be grouped as "events" (as memories often are)...

power on time

In the last article I outlined the importance of the consideration of the phenomenon of time in architecture in much the same way we see it considered in games in what I labled 'events'. However, in this article I will continue that discussion in bringing some examples of where we see time considered in the design process in reality. I stumbled upon an article by a student, like me, in Australia (of all places) who was interested in a completely different topic, 'architecture and anarchy.'


Now Linda Bennett was interested in how governments exploit architecture for control, how 'cities are a product of capitalism,' and how sadly architects are part of this game. Thus the 'practice of architecture as a culture of hierarchy that appears entirely at odds with the ideals of anarchy,' this is because 'architecture is dependent upon commissions and regulations; the architect must work within a time frame, budget and brief, and is restricted according to safety, money and law.'


In the last article I outlined how the developer controls the players' experience of events by considering the movement of time relative to social encounters; it seems that in much the same way we experience control in reality. What I am interested in was how this relative linearity in which architecture is designed in cities to implement a higher powers' desire, considers the dimension of time to facilitate this control and how that may affect our social encounters. Linda Bennett talks about Le Corbusier, how 'he proposed the eradication of “social chance” and “architectural wilfulness” through mechanical efficiency and regulation of city structures.' Now although Le Corbusier may have gone to the extreme of this notion of control, for example 'Plan Voisin,' a plan that called for the eradication of Paris, to be rebuilt in a very controlled and organized fashion. But, considering, Linda claims that 'city planners to this day adopt Le Corbusier’s model, in which congested streets are replaced with a combination of towers and freeways'. However, even if Linda is wrong, we still do experience organized control on our social encounters in everyday life through things like traffic lights and organized queues, this is undeniably authoritarian control. However, that isn't to say this control is 'evil' or 'bad', there is no denying that “a society has to at least in part, conform to the structure of the city”, (Rollins 2010, pers. comm., 3 June) because if we don't we may live in chaos, and thus at the end of the day 'cities are controlled by the objectives of the people who make them'-Bennett.


To get more specific to the phenomenon of social encounters and time relative to control, I would like to explain how we experience this sub-consciously, daily. Linda continues her discussion to highlight how 'research shows that you’re most likely to turn right after entering a shop, that you’re most likely to buy something on an overcast day and that you walk slower when streets are planted with trees.' Furthermore that 'every space that you pass through in the city is designed with human traffic flow and productivity in mind. The city structure is a functional and efficient system which controls the way its inhabitants move through space. Individual and social components of the city are defined by corporate considerations.' Designers are aware of this, and use this! Linda brings forth a supermarket architect named Robert Smith who uses various ways to design the aisles so that the buyer always focuses on the stock. Robert Smith explains that this as a technique that ‘endures the maximisation of time spent in store and also as a way to capitalise on impulse buying.’ This shows that design in many of the spaces we dwell in daily, affect our social encounters by physically or physcologically controlling our duration of time in places.


Furthermore, from personal experience in places; I know that these physcoligical manipulations can even affect our perception of the time we spend in places. I outlined in this in the last article by talking about how time spent in doctors’ offices may seem life forever, or that time seemed like it was moving slower. I also recall the design of glass lifts in malls that affect my perception of time by enjoying views for instance. There are ofcourse hundreds of examples that even you can probably think of, simply by just exsisting in a city!


So, there is no denying that in fact, that there are places all around us in reality affect the our perception of time intentionaly, or even physicaly alter our duration in spaces to affect or social encounters from reasons stemming from efficiency to money to even enjoyments and all these reasons shape our social encounters. Thus in real architecture these reasons could be stemmed from anything (as I have outlined), but in games it is always to support the gameplay. Nonetheless, what is so intriguing is how we often overlook these coherently designed spaces. I used to think that we often overlook the dimension of time, but I suppose I was mistaken, it is sometimes precisely what is considered in many places around us...



Source

control over immidiate time

In the last post I outlined the difference between the kind of architecture we find in games to that found in reality in relation to time. I am begining to get deaper into the rabbit hole; how does the way we design a building in consideration to time affect our social encounters? We have all experianced spaces that make time seem like forever, (e.g doctors office) and spaces that make time move faster, (discoteque); mentally ofcourse and thus it would be fair to state that the perception of time in a space affects our feelings towards it. One architect I stumbled upon, Maria Lorena Lehman wrote an article on this in Discover entitled how our brain can control time.   

What I am interested in is how we can utilize time as a tool, control it, in order to change the experiance of a space, and in doing so, how that may affect our social encounters; One thing I noted down in the article is that "the brain utilizes time to understand things like distance. Timing is important for such functions as determining how far away someone is when speaking"-Lehman. This illustrates that for our brains, time in the present-tense is an important factor in spacial oreintation in regards to social encounters. She continues to explain how "a journey through architectural space can expand or contract time dependent upon the experiences encountered. Still, architects can and should use time as a tool to communicate and guide occupant journeys. Mental timing is an important factor to how architecture is perceived" - Lehman. Hence, it is important to understand that time, a dimension often overlooked, can play a major role in designing a space and be used effectivley when considered.

As I have mentioned earlier; this is often seen in games, where events (clusters of time), are created through the architecture to facillitate meaningful social encounters. These social encounters progress the game and in turn, help create the event itself.

I have not mentioned the factor of memory in relation to time however. Good games give you something to remember through the progression of the game. Thus time gives way to memorable moments, these moments create a kind of timeline in our brain which gives us a sense of how long the game took.This feeling can be obscured, controled, the more memorable moments you may have in a short amount of time, perhaps the more meaningful the game was. In a like manner, in reality the same can be said; living in Amsterdam I realize how narrow and tall buildings are and that although Amsterdam is a small city, sometimes people believe that they have been walking for ages simply becuase where there should perhaps be one building there are three tall buildings in place giving a sense that you have been walking for longer than you really have been. This phenonemon goes to show how architecturally, the mental perception of time can indead be controled. 

"Certain focal points, alignments, materials and other features can all contribute to how occupants experience, and subsequently remember a built environment. Architecture can utilize time in many instances. Such instances are reverberation time, travel time, textural rhythm and visual timing. Buildings are largely experienced through mental time – and the senses are key" - Lehman. This goes to show, that the mental perception of time is built on memory and understanding this, architecturally, can yield very meaninfulspaces; in games and in real life.

Source: Sensing Architecture

the relevence of social encounters and time in the architecture of fast paced first person shooters

10 years ago I would not of been able to write about this topic, architecture in games played what Ernest Adams in one of my previous articles called simply ‘a cosmetic role’ where in order to be convinced; buildings had to simply look ‘good’ and look ‘right,’ ‘realistic’ if you will. It seems that today, players have become more needy and in order to be convinced demand more than just realism through cosmetics. Today you will hear most people say, 'graphics are nice, but I prefer the gameplay itself.' To truly experience the spacial environment, to experience the smaller streets from the larger roads, the high ceilings, the dramatic lighting, we need to see the interactions of people through these spaces. How the dramatic lighting silhouettes running soldiers, how a market is felt through its people, who may barter, laugh, and interact with their spacial environments, that is how we are convinced today; to the point that there maybe a very good reason for the absence of people that supports the gameplay, not a reason that has to do with the computers strength to handle such a simulation. We are beginning to take ‘good graphics’ for granted, and demand more from the spaces than ever before, and in a years’ time, it would be more than ever once more. These ‘social encounters’ are felt through friend and foe alike, and play an unmistakable important role in enhancing and understanding the feeling the developer wanted to impose on the space.



Time is another major area of importance in video game. In my previous post I outlined the phenomenon of ‘waste in transit’:  the idea that buildings in the real world, may or may not take into account the unpredictable uses of the future, sometimes they even emphasize the uses of the past. Where as in games all of these may be mimicked, and in actuality the spaces in the architecture of games are designed for the presentence. Therefore ‘Waste in transit’ does not exist in fast paced first-person shooters (FPS’s), every single space is designed for an ‘event’ that supports the gameplay. Social encounters are affected by those ‘events’ and in turn affect the ‘events’ themselves. The two are not mutually exclusive, on the contrary in modern games, are very dependent of one another. Without the consideration of the ‘event’ the environment would be random, and would in some ways seem immature of the game, likewise without the social encounters to support the ‘event’ there would be nothing to play, and the realism would be gone, a player may get bored very quickly; for we are social creatures. Gaming is a realm built for those who are curious about spatial environments whether they realize it or not, the adventure and the progression is all built through spaces built around ‘events’ that progress through social encounters, without all these you may as well bang your head against a wall.


So what is the difference between game architecture and real architecture? The difference is the reason for the architecture; in games it is to support the gameplay and in turn the gameplay is the one constraint for the developer. In real architecture, it is made to support anything, and anything is the constraint. But the one thing that I find that truly highlights the difference is indeed, time itself. This can be seen through the social encounters themselves, which may be very intense, very exaggerated in order to progress the storyline. This progression makes the game move forward, the social encounters make the ‘timeline’ if you will in nearly every good paced FPS I have ever played. The social ecnounters are therefore the brain and the heart of these ‘events.’ It is seen through the freedom of the spaces and how they are built to direct you in the ‘right way’ to experience more and more ‘events.’ You will never really re-visit the same spaces, and if you do they are often different, for example either more destroyed, are experienced at a different time of day, or are simply seen from above while in a helicopter or space-ship. The point is that time is a key factor, because it goes to show how the game really does revolve around ‘events’ and  that the social encounters make these ‘events’ take place, otherwise they are just a pointless frozen moments in time that have no soul or reason to be. All this is not the same in real architecture; 'events' in real architecture do not imply the same thing, because you can revisit a building at any point in time, at any day and it will be there for you to experiance (without getting too technical), granted that it may never be truly the same as the day before (and not that you may even notice that considerably). Also buildings will age, unless you live infront of it for a good decade you will probably not notice the change. Social encounters will probably be more subtle, and will not be cinematics built to infuse a very specific 'event.' In games everything is very destined in the environments, where as in reality, its not (I am an atheist), everything that happens is queit random and not neccessarily planned as exstensivley by a higher power (the developer, or in real life e.g god). Ok, enough babbling...


I bring to the table an example which illustrates all that I have said, the new trailer to Battlefield 3, watch this trailer and see that everything is about ‘events’ and that the social encounters make the game alive and take place.

a short sum-up

Currently I am in Costa Rica and am enjoying this rare opportunity of finally adding a presentation I found on the web. This is a brief but important post, enjoy...




BELOW: The presentation below is from a student in architecture who like me was fascinated by the implication of architecture in games. In this presentation Martin Nerukar explains the methodology of writing games, his examples are mostly in FPS's. The role in architecture in games is to support the gameplay, this presentation outlines how. I particularly took interest in the various tools game writers use to control the players notion of time in games such as (cutscenes, flasbacks and sometimes an abstract sense of context such as a dark cave where time seems irrelevent). This control of time seems to play an important role in influencing the spacial experiance of games in comparison to real life, I for one find that this can be seen specifically in social encounters. One example, which is probably the most important is that time is used as a tool to enforce strong feelings towards characters in games throughout the progression and development of the story. The reliance of NPC's which direct the player, and with whom you develop a relationship with as the progression of the game developes in time influences the empathy and in turn the feelings of the player towards various environments (i.e your home, dangerous areas, the enemies home, simply the overall contexts); for it is by watching and observing how other characters behave towards the environment that the player judges for himself/herself how to engage a space. Thus, social encounters through time play an important role in the apprehension of the environment. Now, there are thousands of games, many of which do not follow this rule. However in my many years of gaming (and I've gamed a lot) short FPS’s do, hence it is important to address this issue as it is a very tangeable way in which I can contrast architecture in games to architecture in real life; a hardy task. This article does not specifically talk about this phenomenon, but it does draw at the root of game writing and therefore it connects to this phenomenon (directly/indirectley).

Experiencing Environments

View more presentations from Martin Nerurkar

cities through algorithms

BELOW: I stumbled upon this article online that focuses on a wonder in gaming that I found curious. The generating of cities made using mathematical algorithms. By definition an abstraction of real world architecture to gaming architecture is taking place, which brings up several questions, as to how on earth somebody could pull something like this of? and how convincing it could be? Apparently the benefits of such a thing, saves valuable time and resources, and often yields very interesting results compared to creations made by artists. These algorithms use hundreds of parameters, and sometimes by simply altering these parameters, very unique fiction can be created. What I am personally interested in is the implications of such a phenomena on the physical game world itself. Using AI and allowing the player to explore and interact with NPC's, how does the change of parameters affect the actual behavior of people inside the world, or what it could imply… I'm not just talking about road networks, and traffic changes, (although that in itself is interesting too) bur rather the way it would influence social encounters. Take Paris for instance, it is no shocker that the center of the city is the busiest and perhaps safest area, and that the slums exists radially in the outskirts. As the city grows so does its epicenter and once slums are now middle-class residencies. How can an AI be configured to simulate such a phenomena through changes in parameters. After all what would make a city more real than for the player to feel tendencies to stick to busier streets rather than slums, and allow for the NPC's to behave like real people in large cities do. A simulation of AI in relation to the changes of parameters within a modeled city. In a way, this phenomena could carry on what "The Sims" tried to do, attempt to model the behavior of people in spatial environments more realistically then previous games (GTA, MAFIA, lA NOIRE etc.) have done. On the other hand such a simulation would never truly mimic the spontaneous behavior of people in reality, but it can always be used as a tool, especially in architecture.

Source Here

  
Procedural Destruction and the Algorithmic Fiction of the City
 

[Image: From Procedural Modeling of Cities by Yoav Parish and Pascal Müller].

Note: This is a guest post by Jim Rossignol.

In 2001 Yoav Parish and Pascal Müller spoke at the SIGGRAPH conference in Los Angeles, California, to present a mathematical city. Their presentation contained an algorithmic approach for modeling city-like topologies. The results were remarkably realistic, and were one among a host of city-like generative systems to appear at the start of the decade.

Another, Jared Tarbell's Substrate (pictured) remains a fantastic example of how a mathematical approach to generating apparently urban patterns can also be artful.

[Image: From Jared Tarbell's Substrate].

But it was looking at the work of Parish and Müller that inspired game designer Chris Delay to develop his most recent project: the cryptic (and as-yet-unexplained) Subversion, of which little is known, other than it relies on large, procedurally generated cities for the backbone of its game world.

Having already been burned by the problems of creating content "by hand," Delay set out to let algorithms do the work of building buildings in his new game. Not only that, but he was determined to create an artistically interesting experience without artists.

[Images: From Chris Delay's Subversion].

Of course, videogames have long been the home of procedurally generated landscapes where numbers and mathematical equations played the role of the visual designer. Early paranoid classic The Sentinel made use of these techniques to create an astonishingly atmospheric 10,000 levels in simple vector graphics, from just a few kilobytes of data. Other games have used similar techniques as a shortcut to creating solar systems and vast fractal landscapes.

But when it came to cities, well, it took a long time for anyone to take up the challenge.

[Image: From The Sentinel by Geoff Crammond].

Rather than opt for procedural techniques, game designers usually elect to build their cities by hand, often with startling results. The re-imagined contemporary New York that features in last year's Grand Theft Auto 4 required a small army of well-paid artists and designers to hand-craft the entire world. Their accomplishment is unmatched, but the cost to the company behind the project is in the tens—and perhaps hundreds—of millions of dollars. To build up a living city from blank polygons is one of the most expensive possible projects in game design.

Delay, whose project is being undertaken with a tiny budget and by just a handful of staff based in Cambridge, UK, does not have the luxury of vast content teams. His vector-drawn city is far less realistic than Rockstar's textured, heaving metropolis, but there's nevertheless a beauty to it. It's a kind of mathematical map of the essential urban environment: there are roads, sidewalks, and a no-man's land of corporate moats around great skyscrapers...

Identify the key equation that define urban patterns, and you, too, can summon a city into existence.

Delay has begun to show off how his cities emerge from the ground up in a series of videos, and he spoke to me about the process.

"I started out with road layouts, and then began to modify the parameters," he explained. "Sometimes you'll get lovely radial, spiral patterns, or you can tell it to create a really rigid Manhattan-style grid." One set of numbers delivers the block logic of American cities, another is rather more like the spirals of Medieval European sprawls. The two merge to create something even more believable. "Every subsequent layer builds on the previous layer," Delay points out, "so the very next layer looks for the spaces between layers, and makes judgments about 'is this likely to be a skyscraper, or to be a house?' Then you zoom in, and carry on. You do another procedural generation process for each layer of detail, filling in that world."

[Image: From Chris Delay's Subversion].

A few weeks after speaking with Delay I attended Thrilling Wonder Stories—a seminar at the Architectural Association in London, curated by Liam Young and BLDGBLOG—where I watched conceptual designer Viktor Antonov explain how he had created a science-fictionalized Paris (for a now-cancelled videogame called The Crossing).

Antonov approached the problem by altering just a few parameters in the standard architectural model. For instance, Antonov had noticed a few fundamental details about how the mid-nineteenth century neo-classical core of Paris had been constructed: big street-level floors, smaller attic spaces, complex chimney stacks. By increasing the emphasis on the lower floors, and stretching them out—and by emphasizing the height and complexity of the chimneys—Antonov was able to create a thematically consistent science fiction Paris.

Simply by altering a few basic architectural parameters, he said, you were able to fictionalize the city, whilst at the same time retaining its fundamental identity. His designs were still recognizably—even mathematically—Parisian, in other words, but they were also otherworldly.

[Image: By Viktor Antonov].

This idea instantly connected back to Delay's project: what parameters would we need in order both to understand and create a science fiction Edinburgh, or Sao Paulo, or Vancouver? Identify the necessary fantasy logic within a procedural city-building system and you could recreate cities with their alternate identity in an instant. An accelerated future Moscow, or a retropunk Venice, instantly sprawling out of the monitor.

And perhaps this is not such an outlandish thing to aim for—especially when you consider the speed at which procedural city projects have been appearing across the tech landscape. Could one of these cities potentially be refitted to allow for this type of radical tweak?

Projects like Shamus Young's impressive PixelCity, or Marco Corbetta's Structure seem ripe for such strange fictions. Corbetta's system is particularly impressive in its verisimilitude: he aims to create a basic engine for rapidly generating the kinds of cities that games like Grand Theft Auto 4 require, and consequently doing so for much cheaper.

Could Corbetta's engine come with a Paris or a Barcelona preload, which could then be put through Photoshop-style filters for alternate reality logic in its architecture? A stronger skyline, weirder street furniture.

[Image: From Marco Corbetta's Structure].

More exciting, at least for the thrill-seeking gamer in me, is the fact that Corbetta is aiming one notch higher than any of his peers: he's aiming to make these cities procedurally destructible. His site contains a demonstration video of neatly arrange office interiors and a domestic library being blown to pieces with a machine-gun. What good is an imaginary city if you can't go inside the buildings? What good is a virtual downtown if you can't go crazy with a bazooka? Corbetta's work preempts these questions.

Further, it conjures visions of massive demolition exercises in parallel worlds—entering an Antonov-algorithm for neo-Rome, where gladiatorial escapades see us going through the walls of the coliseum and into the randomly generated plazas beyond.

That, perhaps, is the greatest promise of procedural cities: that soon they'll be real enough that their destruction will seem like tragedy.

Gamasutra Article

Gamasutra Article Here

BELOW: An article I found online that highlighted some major areas of interest that tie in the role of architecutre plays in video games. This article was written in 2002. We have since come a long way, its good to see what conclusions notable people have come to see in gaming, how far we have come, and how valid they are today... The Role of Architecture in Video Games By Ernest Adams GamasutraOctober 9, 2002 This month's column began life as a lecture I gave to the Ars Electronica  festival of electronic and computerized art, in Linz, Austria. They requested  the topic, and although it sounded a bit odd at first, the more research I did,  the more interesting it got. This month's column is a short version of that  lecture. My audience was mostly artists and a good fourth of them had never  played a videogame in their lives, so I had to include a lot of background  material about game design that isn't included here. Why Humans Construct Buildings The most popular PC game of all time, The Sims, was influenced and  partly inspired by the work of an architect, Christopher Alexander's book A  Pattern Language. It has more to offer us than perhaps we realize.  As I began thinking about the role of architecture in games, I started off by  making a list of reasons that humans construct buildings in the first place: To protect people, goods, and animals from the weather. To organize human activity efficiently (factories, theaters, offices,  sports arenas) To conceal and protect goods and animals from theft (warehouses, barns,  shops, storage facilities). To offer personal privacy (toilets and private houses). To protect people from other people (fortifications, military  installations, prisons). To impress, commemorate or simply decorate (civic monuments and religious  buildings). If we look at these functions with respect to games, however, some are  meaningful and some are not. Weather, the primary reason for constructing most  of the buildings in the world, is irrelevant. If it exists in games at all, it's  usually cosmetic. Privacy, too, is normally immaterial -- most games don't let  you take your clothes off anyway. It is useful to organize human activity in games, but buildings aren't the  most efficient way to do it. There's no real need to visit a building called the  "Town Hall" in an online game when you could just send email to whoever works  there; but the building provides a convenient metaphor for the functions that  the Town Hall provides. Theft, likewise, may or may not be possible in games; if  it is possible, a building provides a convenient metaphor for concealment and  protection -- a way of indicating that an item is inaccessible to thieves. In  Age of Empires, once a resource is placed in the storage pit, it's protected  from theft. The storage pit is really a magic place that converts resources from  being vulnerable and unusable, to invulnerable and available for consumption.  The game could call it anything it likes, but it calls it a building. It's not  much like a real building, though: it never fills up, and if you burn it down  you don't lose the contents. The Treasury in Dungeon Keeper was more like  a real treasury: it could get full, and people could steal money out of it if it  wasn't guarded. Two functions that do translate over directly are military activity and  general decoration. Just about all wargames make use of constructed edifices as  a means of concealment and protection for troops, and any game that tries to  create a sense of place uses architecture to define how that place feels to be.  In short, buildings in games mimic the real world when necessary or  aesthetically desirable, but this is not always the case. There are no buildings  in chess. Games do have a problem portraying outdoor spaces. Because of the limitations  of looking at a monitor, we can't create sweeping vistas or panoramas that feel  like the real thing. If you've ever tried to photograph the emptiness of a  desert or the Great Plains, you'll know what I mean: an essential part of the  experience is the sense of being surrounded by vast open space. Players sitting  in a room, looking at a CRT, never feel that way. Another part of that sensation  comes from the sheer length of time it takes to get anywhere. Most games allow  you to move pretty fast -- no more than a few minutes to walk from one side of  the world to the other so, the sense of scale is diminished. And of course  aerial perspectives reduce the impressiveness of everything: the Great Pyramid  is no big deal from 5000 feet up. We're not very good at natural objects,  either. In 3D games, straight lines are cheap and curves are expensive, so we  tend to avoid curves. But look at an oak leaf: it's nothing but curves. With  thousands of leaves per tree and thousands of trees in a forest, there's a good  reason why we leave forests alone. As a result, most 3D games tend to feel  rather sparse and sterile. Bauhaus, yes; botanical gardens, no. The Primary Function of Architecture in Games The primary function of architecture in games is to support the gameplay.  Buildings in games are not analogous to buildings in the real world, because  most of the time their real-world functions are either irrelevant -- the  real-world activity that the building serves isn't meaningful in the game -- or  purely metaphorical. Rather, buildings in games are analogous to movie sets:  incomplete, false fronts whose function is to support the narrative of the  movie. Movie sets create context and support suspension of disbelief. They also  diverge from the real world for narrative purposes. Consider New York as seen in  a movie by Woody Allen, who loves the place, versus New York as seen in Taxi  Driver. Sets are part of the story; they can make a place seem more (or less)  beautiful, dangerous, tacky, etc. than it really is. Gameplay (in non-social  games) consists of challenges and actions taken to overcome them; architecture  supports the gameplay by helping to define the challenges. There are four major  ways in which this happens: constraint, concealment, obstacles or tests of  skill, and exploration. Constraint: In board games like chess and checkers, there are no  boundaries except for the edge of the board. The challenge of the game is  created by the rather arbitrary rules governing how the pieces may move. In  representational games, we want units to move the way they would in real life,  not according to some artificial rule; but most of the time we don't want them  moving anywhere they like. Architecture establishes boundaries that limit the  freedom of movement of avatars or units. It also establishes constraints on the  influence of weapons. As a general rule, projectiles do not pass through walls  (no matter how flimsy) nor do explosions knock them down, nor fires burn through  them. Concealment: Few computer games are games of perfect information, in  which the player knows everything there is to know about the state of the game.  Architecture is used to hide valuable (and sometimes dangerous) objects from the  player; it's also used to conceal the players from one another, or from their  enemies. Obstacles and tests of skill: Chasms to jump across, cliffs to climb,  trapdoors to avoid -- all these are part of the peculiar landscape architecture  of computer games. Some of them can be surmounted by observation and logic,  others by hand-eye coordination. Exploration: Not quite the same as overcoming obstacles, exploration  challenges the player to understand the shape of the space he's moving through,  to know what leads to where. Mazes are of course one of the oldest examples of  such a challenge. If the game doesn't give the player a map, he may have to rely  on his memory to learn his way around. In recent years we have started making  better use of subtle clues: sunlight coming through a window means that we're  near the outside; a differently-shaded patch of wall indicates a secret  door. Persistent worlds like Everquest use buildings for a variety of social  functions as well, of course, but as those are largely obvious and symbolic, I  won't address them here. Some time ago I came across the website of Canadian game designer Peter Lok  (http://www.dragonridge.com/). Included on his site was a  sketch of a long ventilation shaft leading from the roof of a building straight  down into an equipment room on the ground floor. The sketch included the  following notation: Shutters that open and close. Must jump down when open and fan is  on. When closed you plummet and shutters are electrified. Have 2 sets of  fan/shutter. Must land on ledge above fan. Blades will kill  you. Equipment room with ducts and access doors to  labs. Considered as real-world architecture, this is isn't very sensible. The fans  must blow out rather than in (that's why you don't plummet if you jump in while  they're on). You might need two fans in order to move a given volume of air, but  why would you need two sets of shutters? And why in the world are the shutters  electrified? Above all, the remainder of the building is undefined. Like a movie  set, it's just a false front, a container for the ventilation shaft and the  equipment room below. As game design, however, it's perfectly functional, though not entirely  obvious to the inexperienced gamer. It supplies constraint (the player starts on  the roof and must go down the ventilation shaft to get to the equipment room);  an obstacle challenge (the fan blades and electrified shutters which, reading  between the lines, we can tell must go on and off at intervals); and an  exploration challenge (the player doesn't know what's at the bottom of the shaft  until she gets there). Here's another example of how game design diverges from reasonable  architecture. Notice the strange and wasteful design of this building complex  from Quake. This building is designed to be explored, not used. Figure 1. A map of a building in Quake. Or consider this oddly-shaped valley from the Militia level in Counter-Strike. The building at the end is fairly rational, but the shape  of the valley itself is optimized to create combat challenges through constraint  and concealment. It's designed with lots of things to hide behind, allowing  small numbers of snipers to cover the whole valley -- in both directions. Figure 2. The Militia map in Counter-Strike. All these things are examples of the environment supporting the gameplay,  even if they're rather peculiar in real-world terms. The Secondary Function of Architecture in Games If architecture were only about supporting the gameplay through constraint,  concealment and so on, it could all be bare grey concrete. But architecture has  a secondary, and still highly valuable role to play: to inform and entertain in  its own right. It does this by a variety of means: Familiarity. Familiar locations offer cues to a place's function and  the events that are likely to take place there. If we see a kitchen, we don't  expect to find a blacksmith making horseshoes. We rely on players to use common  sense about the function of certain kinds of familiar spaces, and it's cheating  (a conceptual non-sequitur) to violate their legitimate expectations without any  explanation. If you can crawl through the ventilation ducts to get past the  security guards, it's not reasonable to meet another security guard inside the  ducts -- unless you've made so much noise that one has gone in to  investigate. Figure 3. Gabriel Knight is waiting for the maid to finish  cleaning this hotel  room. Allusion. Game architecture can make reference to real buildings or  architectural styles to take advantage of the ideas or emotions that they  suggest. There's a vast amount of material to borrow from in the real world,  from the ruinous spiritual grandeur of Stonehenge to the gruesome expediency of  the gas chamber at San Quentin. Figure 4. Soul Reaver is a game about a vampire that eats  souls, so a cathedral has powerful  connotations. New worlds require new architecture. To create a sense of  unfamiliarity, create unfamiliar spaces. This has the disadvantage that it robs  the player of a frame of reference, and can create confusion rather than  emotional resonance. To avoid this problem, you can name the buildings when  necessary. Among the buildings in Figure 5 is the Brothel for Slaking  Intellectual Lusts, a place where you can pay scholarly prostitutes to talk to  you about philosophy and art. Figure 5. An aerial view in Planescape: Torment. Note the  extreme variety the of buildings and the lack of cues as to their  function. Surrealism. I complained about pointless surrealism in my first "Bad  Game Designer, No Twinkie!" column, but architectural surrealism does have a  point if it's connected to the gameplay. It creates a sense of mystery and more  importantly, it warns the player that things are not what they seem. A surreal  landscape tells him that the game may require extreme lateral thinking or  strange leaps of logic to win. Figure 6. Myst had a strong surreal element in its  architecture. Atmosphere. To create a game that feels dangerous, make it look  dangerous. The city street in The Longest Journey, below, looks like the  concrete canyons of Manhattan with their looming high-rises, dim light, and  graffiti. The rose window of the cathedral, partially hidden in the background,  suggests a place of sanctuary nearby. Figure 7. The city of Stark, from The Longest  Journey. Comedic effect. Not all game worlds are familiar, dangerous, or weird;  some are supposed to be lighthearted and funny. Note the Disneyesque bulging  walls and off-kilter windows of Planet Threepwood, below. This isn't so much a  building as an architectural joke. Figure 8. Escape from Monkey Island. Architectural clichés. Games, like other forms of popular media, often rely  on clichés and stereotypes to set a scene and establish player expectations  quickly. These are a sort of variant on familiarity, without the benefit of  being informed by real-life examples. The scene from Dark Age of Camelot below  includes all the necessary elements to suggest a sort of Lego-land medievalism:  you have your dragon, your symmetrical castle complete with banners, your Olde  Worlde half-timbered building, and even your mystic runes graven in stone. This  place may not look like any place in the real world, but thanks to Hollywood and  earlier games, we know exactly what's supposed to happen here. Figure 9. Dark Age of Camelot. Conclusion Architecture -- meaning both landscapes and structures -- is what turns the  bare grid of the chessboard into the living world of the computer game. Its  importance is on a par with character design in creating the player's visual  experience. Character design tells you who you are; architecture tells you where  you are. But more than that, it also tells you what might happen to you there,  and even sometimes what you ought to be doing. Perhaps there will come a time  when student game artists in college routinely study Viollet-le-Duc and  Vitruvius, Gaudí and Gropius. I hope so. Our games can only be the better for  it. Copyright © 2002-2003 CMP Media  Inc. All rights  reserved.