Designing Heartbreak, Propaganda and Death - Extra Credits Gaming
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- Опубликовано: 16 окт 2024
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How do you create emotion and heartbreak with math? Video games can create meaningful player interactions and connections with characters but we need to stop treating them like trophies. Instead, we need immersion that makes you connect with the character to make them feel more real in the world around you. So sit back and let us drop some mathematical knowledge into your game's next design!
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how come nobody has commented on this
Congratz EC. Math has never been presented more romantic.
Really enjoyed the pseudo code as a means of providing examples in this episode!
Same. I do enjoy it when they provide examples of the problem/solution, at least in a way that gets you thinking, rather than keeping it vague and more just explainging the topic than delving into it too deep.
Been waiting AGES for you guys to cover this mechanic!
It's in need of serious rework in a lot of games I've played!
We're super happy to be able to bring it to you today!!
About the romantic interest ... if you want to portrait a relationship please add some events where the interest shows affection in return unprompted from any gifts or prompts from the player. I mean those can be influenced by the same nice variations in this video but at its core if all the affection/gift giving/initiation is coming only from the player then it can feel quite off.
The event name being "Take_Care_of_DogName_While_Im_Gone" is so powerful.
It's not like "Death_Event_DogName_Transfer_Ownership" where it is just a basic descriptor of what the mechanical event is, but "Take Care of DogName While I'm Gone," an event that triggers on a character's death, tells the designer/developer of the game exactly what the mood is supposed to be.
And, it is interestingly reusable. You can pull "Take_Care_of_DogName_While_Im_Gone" under different circumstances, and have the exact same text of "Someone drops off a dog. A note says 'Take Care of ol' DogName while I'm gone.'" but the informing context of whether that person can come back from being gone makes all the emotional difference.
ahem* John Wick 1.0
Gonna be completely honest, “Event: Take_Care_Of_[DogName]_While_I’m_Gone” made me burst into tears. Just. So MUCH.
7:40
Storywriter after making a character die while using this video's advice: "You can call me.. a cold, calculated killer."
An important thing to remember when designing formulas is that if they get too complex they effectively become random to the player, especially if there's no feedback. This happened with the initial Jedi system in Star Wars Galaxies. While there was a fixed formula for when a player was allowed to become a Jedi, it relied on several hidden factors, and players complained that they had no way of knowing how close they were or even if they were on the right track. This led to players just randomly grinding skill trees in the hopes of getting the right combos.
When you mentions conplex formulas i immediately thought of the under the hood pokemon formulas. While you can know the effect on the probability of certain items and status conditions, a lot of the in-between steps are insanely convoluted making them basically impossible to run for yourself or backwards without full on coding it. (For reference Bulbapedia has the formulas for catching in the different gens and some of them are wild, like why not just
x = rand(0,1000)÷10; (random number)
y = species's rate × modifiers; (threshold)
And then just if then for the number of shakes.
Its just amazing how convoluted the math cam be for some systems that could be much simpler for the same effect.
@@jasonreed7522 An important thing to note is that the game boy (and probably many of its contemporary systems) had no hardware random number generator. So the devs had to "manually" build one from doing weird math on the player inputs whenever they wanted to introduce randomness into their games.
Modern PCs have built-in hardware random number generators in part to save everyone from needing to implement their own.
@@jasonreed7522 Well you said it yourself as well. There are various heath, status conditions different ball types and their own separate effects to account for. Also the formulas are broken a bit more as well to DECREASE randomness. Letting the designers have some values to fill in. They most like have something like a spreadsheet to balance those very specific values to get the desired "randomness". What matters is how the average players feel and higher level knowledge of them are still valid.
This is something not really valid for pokemon by it's nature. Probably the underground tunnel findings from sinnoh but everything else is fair.
"Why do these people vote against their best interests?!"
Good question... For another time.
People vote based on how much cash the candidate can devote to their campaign, its about how many ads Joe Voter sees, at least thats what some data has shown in a 2010 study in the United States. It demonstrated 90% of the time the better funded candidate wins from local elections all the way up to federal.
And why are the people who most say the phrase always the ones most guilty of the accusation?
A survival game, like those in which you have to do chores to last for as long as possible, but the only thing that dies is the relationship instead of the characters.
Heck man, that's just real life
@@Ahrpigi It kind of is! But there's some beauty to it, isn't there? And it'd teach a better lesson than a regular dating sim too. A relationship needs upkeeping, rather than a "Build up and forget mentality". It's something to cherish while it last while knowing full well, many things can go wrong and spiral out of control... That's how you'd get interesting stories out of the game n_ n'
Regrettably it's very much not the wish-fulfilment-y way to simulate relationships that players of the genre are probably looking forward : P
Sims? It's been long since you had time to do anything but work, so now you have no friends.. but also here is a random kill event.. Let's see you burned to death yelling at the on fire grill.
Best intro for the series yet! Scott DeWitt's visual humor always adds some extra fun to an already good script.
Ah yes.
My favorite way of forming relationships with people.
Occasionally gifting people their favorite things, which we know what they are despite being in the town for 2 days and never talking to anyone before
This is one of the (few, IMHO) issues with "I was a teenage exocolonist". While there's an in-universe reason for why your character knows that Anemone and Cal both like Eggs, but Rex absolutely hates anything xeno-related, it's never touched on that your character *knows* that so early in the game. No one else ever goes *head cock* "How did you know!?".
Which is only notable because of the sheer number of major story beats where characters *do* freak out that you know stuff you shouldn't have the ability to know.
@@treyslider6954 yea the gift system frustrates me a bit. Everything else in the game feels like it's built to imply that these characters are people who have their own lives outside of what you're doing. However, a lot of the gifts are weirdly repeatable. Like, why do none of their interests change over their lives or with how frequently you give them. They already implemented spending time working/studying with characters which a way more interesting system to build relationships alongside events.
@@treyslider6954 you talk like this is about a specific game, while I've seen this in pretty much every relationship building mechanic, from Harvest Moon to Danganronpa
I love the concept of this but I feel like most of the people that I know who like romance Sims like them because they're simple and allow them a sort of control and certainty. I think making it genuinely challenging and emotional would be targeting a very different audience then the traditional romance Sim mini game and may make some players feel blindsided.
One thing I'd add is that not every person has the same reaction to consistent gift-giving. Different characters in your example might be neutral, or even penalizing you for switching up gifts, particularly if it's something they really like or if they have difficulty adjusting to change.
One of best episodes as of late. Loved the pseudocode examples!
The dom and maria scene from GoW still hit me harder than alot of films Ive seen.
Played through Gears 2 on Xbox Series X last week. Man... Even after all these years that scene got the water works flowing lol
For some reason I found that gow2 scene sad but not very emotional.
I think Transistor is one of the most recent games to break me. And Outer Wilds Echoes of the Eye DLC
I spent an undue amount of time trying to remember who the eff Dom and Maria were in God of War. 😂😅
Oh.. Gears of course. I was struggling so hard to figure out who the hell in God of War you were talking about till I read replies.
For the roses bit, I might even suggest the decay be rolled back by other gifts they like. If someone absolutely LOVES roses, they prefer getting them. Maybe not every gift, but every so often, yeah, its a big hit.
"We created tragedy... with math!" I did that in high school, you ain't special.
thanks for making this. Very few games imo think about realism or uniqueness and opt to copy other games. Why videos like these are immensely important
You were so preoccupied with whether you could create tragedy with math, that you never stopped to think if you should
Hear ye, the parallel lines that loved. After finding out about each others’ personalities. The more they talked the more they realised how they fully understood each other, and fell deeper into love. Like magic a whole dimension grew, a new chance to intersect! But they were so alike, too alike. For their planes never do.
I dont know anything at all about code and game design but I can understand and really see how adding this in a ton if relationship-like games can make it feel so life-like and even more enjoyable!
This is a treasure, not only a bit of comedy, but fundamentally educational as well.
4:32 "We've built tragedy, with math!"
*cue Happy Earth globe*
Idk why, but the timing made me laugh.
If you want an example of how a game can make you cry, FFXIV has numerous examples. Sometimes characters die, often protecting someone else. In one case, it's you, the player. The part that causes the tears is when you have to bring word of their deaths to loved ones.
Or there's a character who's on your side pretty early. Sometimes it feels dubious - like she's just as dangerous as the bad guys. But at the end, you learn just how much she's been on your side the whole time and just how much she did for you, and it breaks your heart to think that you ever doubted her.
Or the one that hits everyone. It's merely a moment of "a boy and his dog" but the dog getting to tell the boy how much the boy meant to him. It punches HARD in the feels at a time you've already felt several emotional gut punches.
FFXIV is a master class at using emotions as part of storytelling.
If only it took some classes on pacing. Hey~o!
Great episode! Really like the math makes feelings. But also like that all the math is quite simple. It's not about advaced formulas, rather about what the small things create!
BT-7274 protocol 3:Protect the pilot
These concepts can very easily be applied to TTRPGs as well, keep that in mind for those who like wana put together their own RPG setting
I would say most DM's can make it more interesting simply with player interaction then systemifying it.
These videos always inspire me to start working on the game I've been brainstorming for a couple years now. If only they made me not lazy, I'd have something amazing.
While I don't remember the game to well, this episode reminded me of Pandora's Tower. Which feels like it tries very hard to convince you the "save the cursed loved one" relashio ship at its center is not just a 10Flowers to the next affinity level kinda deal^^
If you're going to have a decay rate for things like Relationship Affinity, instead of using a linear equation, why not something using exponents or logarithms. This works especially good, where you want a relationship to fail over time, but might want it to seem really manageable at the start. You could even set the equation so that the Affinity score balances out the Number of Turns counter, so you don't get a neat curve with a predictable fall off point.
also integrate an inverted delay curve so you can't spam flower gift action flower gift action to defeat the mechanic and randomize the optimal delay between positive actions
Excellent points. Tweaking the math changes the incentives for players and that effects behavior to a degree. I hadn’t ever considered that the math can simulate the player living under the worldview of the story and can cause a player to sympathize with the view of the game although it can just as easily break emersion if the players come to the conclusion that the rules of the world break from reality in inexplicable ways.
This discussion just had me thinking about Frost Punk.
Loved this!!! When I'm grinding Destiny2, I sometimes wander down the design tunnel. It's a fun game.
My gods, this really shines a light on one of my key frustrations where games with systems like this. I understand that relationships are hard to model, but relationships in Stardew and similar games always felt like a... purchase to me. They always felt so ingenuine, like I didn't really know this character and they didn't really know me, I just found a high value and hammered on it.
Contrast to Mass Effect, which has the advantage of being focused around massive branching conversation and decision trees, where the conversations left me feel so much more like I'd built a relationship and not a display case.
But then, that's harder to gamify, hard to communicate state changes in, expensive to implement... so I get why the gift giving formula is emphasized so.
I'm sure that it doesn't help that gift-giving is one of my weakest love languages. 😅
I love how you brought coding into this Extra Credits! 😀
So glad to see this show still going strong!
From what I seen before u guys can discuss heart breaking topics really good
My nerdy programmer self enjoyed this way to much
This episode is a stealthy but brutal takedown of totalitarianism, the way it rewards and elevates the most sleazy and amoral actors, and those actors' fear of a populace educated and informed enough to think for themselves.
When I tell people math makes me cry, I'm not usually thinking like that...
I saw "Make your players cry", "Heartbreak", and "Death", and the first thing I thought of was the current state of Magic The Gathering.
Speaking of math making you feel emotions...You even used the term "Affinity". That word makes Magic fans afraid, that's for sure.
Take_Care_Of_DogName_While_Im_Gone almost made me cry in the middle of this coffee shop
I think this might be my favorite video of yours I have watched!
6:23 that is very, very good example on how games can be used for evil without the player even noticing
"we've built tragedy, with math" implying math in its self is not already a tragedy
Lol nice man
Sooo rad how this is as much about complexity of systems in life, as it is about games :)
2:49 - Don't know why, but that image of the entire World being sad was just incredible to me. Could be a great profile picture.
Personally I'd be inclined towards math that teaches the player to stop thinking in terms of "against their own interest" and starts teaching them how to identify what interests people are most invested in. Because let's be honest, "why are these people acting against their own interest" is pretty dismissive of their wants and desires. A policy game should encourage the player to think about how to satisfy different metrics and interests in the most efficient manner to achieve their own goals. Or more succinctly, how to build a coalition with negotiation, compromise, and sometimes a bit of just plain horse trading.
Fun fact: in some coding languages, instead of doing (a = a + value), you can do (a += value). Thank you for the video! Also, can you please do how games are connected to real life events?
One way to make gift giving meaningful without as harsh long term effects as that equation would be a mechanic similar to the stale moves list in Smash Bros. Keep a short list of all recent affinity events and reduce the impact of events dependent on if and where already are in the list. This way you get the idea of saturation, but only in the short term.
I love this, can you also do the Texan revolution? I think it would be a good topic!!😊
7:55 Set up for a John Wick plot.
I loved this video. I understand math _way_ more than I understand emotion.
That said, none of those flowers are roses.
The part about a long-term relationship slowly dying out kind of reminds me of the original "Emily is Away."
Granted, I think that's more narrative, choice-based game rather than being math based like this video represented.
Actually liked this episode. Not that it told me anything new but I'm glad that my conclusions after playing "Democracy 3" were correct.
Woah, this video was even better than ECGaming usually is. I'm impressed
Math, aaaaaa!
Anyway, one thing to note for designers: The coolest interaction I had with an NPC was FO4's Cait. For reference, I usually just... don't take companions, I even left Dogmeat at my "house". Cait I wanted to take with me, and while FO4 almost certainly used the flat +X/-X system, even with no gifts(?), whenever I found some beer, she got a few. Then... her story happened. I didn't look for the "optimal route", I just followed my gut and it paid off.
And it felt like I had actually been through hell with a partner, when the dust settled. I never "tried" to keep her around, she didn't always agree with my choices, but in the end it was possibly the best companion experience I had in a game. Don't underestimate your simple systems, the delivery can work wonders.
Brilliant episode! A huge help to me!
You kicked: CKIII: Technically Not Tyranny, by Door Monster, into my head. Nice wake up.
Gee having played the game with that static gift giving algorithm to death (SDV maybe?) I can see your point about a more varied approach.
SDV is instantlt what came to my mind. It's a game that literally lets you date several people at once, with no penalties.
@@doctormo I mean, if people are polyamorous that makes sense. I still really wish that games like that would take the time to discuss that in game though. Otherwise it feels jarring when I've never discussed dating other people with someone and they're still totally ok with it. Like, even if it's just one short conversation where a bit after/before you start going out with someone you chat about whether or not you're exclusive.
@@doctormo There is kind of a penalty if you try to date everyone at once. There's an event that triggers that causes all the bachelors/bachelorettes to ignore you for a week.
The last equation I wrote for a game encapsulates all the drama of hitting plate armor with a mace.
Well... armour-breaking more than heartbreaking to be honest, except for the player who tries the same with a slashing weapon. So it's a DPS-meter drama :p
Interesting episode! I don't remember this on my Nebula stream
In this kind of games, I'm always torn by one question
Do you show the maths ? People don't love their partner 719/1000. You don't get this kind of indication, why let players peek under the hood ?
But player want to make informed decisions, not guesses. It is so frustrating to create a strategy and then watch it collapse because you were fed wrongs datas
This intro the audience broke the 4th wall
I love the "The Last Door" references in this episode.
6:58 So what you're saying is, if I can skip a day entirely, I become the immortal undead...
Pokémon mystery dungeon explorers of sky is and will be the only game to make me cry.
And in many of these examples, you could go a bit further, and have the math be different for different people.
For relationships: Some folks are more, or less, open to being flirted at by a strangers, some folks would experience less dropoff over time/distance, or be differently impacted by some modifiers - likely by some player-visible tag, like "poly" or "shy". This would go a fair way to having different characters actually feel more like different people.
A degree-of-success RNG rather than pass/fail RNG could even allow for more natural feeling variability on some things.
Idk if this is actually implemented this way mechanically but, I think "I was a teenage exocolonist" has different thresholds for when someone will flirt/ask you out. Like, Nomi Nomi is heavily demiromantic coded so (and I'm guessing here) they probably require the closest relationship to begin dating. Meanwhile, some of the other characters basically flirt by default.
It does help to make the characters feel more like real people but, the fact that the main way to build a relationship (platonically or romantically) with someone is by spending time on activities together (like studying in school, working, sports, etc) which makes it feel like these are people with their own lives incidental to your own.
The game also does a lot of great stuff with no platonic relationship cap. Unlike, stardew for example, where there's a limit on how close with someone you can be without dating them.
So, you can get very close with someone and share some pretty awesome moments without the game ever going "now kiss".
I'll use that for teaching my Game Design students!
I recently watched a video about how STEM courses in academia lack integration with the humanities, leading to all sorts of tech movements essentially spouting problematic ideas such as eugenics and supporting CEOs with cult-like personalities. I think this video serves as a good model for how humanities can be meaningfully integrated into STEM.
Been saying for ages that math = art
6:33
This is why Paradox games have ruined historical discussions since they became popular.
"Germany could've easily won WW2! All they had to do was create more submarines and naval invade Britain!"
Of course you need to balance this fascinating nuisance with both limitations and expectations of it being a game, especially if it's not supposed to be the main focus of the game. To borrow your Rose example, make rosegiven value reset if you haven't given them a Rose after a few days
It's also true that often times we put unconscious assumptions into our code and equations, if we don't think about it. Like, for example: polyamory exists, and yet those equations tell the contrary, and until you think about it you don't realize it!
The people who wrote this have surely never had romantic affairs with high school girls 😂😂😂😂
5:25
Blue tie = Good Leader
Red tie = Bad Leader
That's how you know it's fictional, since in real life, it's usually the other way around.
While I appreciate the attempt, I feel like these formulae fail to address the stated goal: while it makes it less of a "do these same actions ad infinitum to obtain goal", it only really shifts it to "do things in an even more calculated/strategic manner to obtain goal" or you've created a situation in which that is the stated goal but it is impossible. It doesn't, however, seem to show any of the requirements in breeding investment into it outside of cold mechanical thought, the essence of actually "creating emotion".
I think you're missing the point. The goal is to make the mechanics that make the player feel. Like in darkest dungeon how the game rewards you for treating new recruits as disposable money generators. It's either going to make you feel like you're struggling against the easy way out to protect your workers or, like a monster. Both of those are interesting outcomes.
That feels very different to something like duskers where losing a bot you've had for a long time is a shot to the heart because of how far it got you and it might send you on a death spiral.
Both games evoke emotion just like a good narative setup in a movie or book but, they do it through the rules you interact with instead.
now i kinda want to design a game where you slowly lose touch with your long distance love, no matter what you do.
some real heartbreaking game design ;o
As soon as any game shows me anything resembling that "Affinity" score, I stop playing it. It says there is going to be a bunch of grind to unlock pre-scripted events.
Whoa, hold on, I didn't know there'd be formulas in this video! I forgot my notebook!
Hey. How about talking about automation games, like factorio or satisfactory. It’s a pretty new genre, but it will be interesting to talk about it.
This episode was particularly well written...
That last scenario feels like a lead in to John wick
Props on that cold open
Weird thought... I feel like this is a bit like the Nemesis system in Shadow of War... now I want to give my orc Captains flowers...
I would like to invest in this long distance romance roguelike
Best heartbreak was in Prince of Persia:Sands of Time
Wow. That ending was something else.
Sometimes even the equation can be a phrase.
Man just explained John Wick as a person in numbers
PANR has tuned in.
it's funny since neither of my parents would have had college educations without subsidized educations created by religious institutions. One is a living social movement whereas the other is a philosophy of learning. Which doesn't mean inevitable conflict, but rather the potential for it depending on if institutional cultural intolerance value>tolerance for deviations from the standard norms.
>they actually think players don't like playing as a cruel, manipulative tyrant
Bruh, it's the natural direction in every single strategy
Миллион, миллион, миллион алых роз
Из окна, из окна, из окна видишь ты
Кто влюблён, кто влюблён, кто влюблён и всерьёз
Свою жизнь для тебя превратит в цветы
"A million, a million, a million scarlet blooms
All around, all around, all around, thou will see
Who's so in love, who's so in love, who's so in love most earnestly,
That turns their life to flowers all for thee."
Irl "take_care_of_dogname_when_I'm_gone" here.
It's been 1 year and 2 days since I heard of her passing. I lost my best friend and gained another.
4:20 This is too sad; go back to the relationship as prize mechanic! I don't think I need a game to tell me what I already know I can't have in real life XD
Yeah I'm very glad that the Dragon Age series actually moved away from "shower with gifts" as a romance mechanic and instead force you to talk to the character and get to know them to increase your bond with them. Though interestingly, the first game did have a diminishing returns mechanic for it's gift approval buffing system, complete with the characters sounding gradually less enthused to accept your gifts each time. The most recent game does have a few "get item X" quests as part of romance arcs, but these tend to be one-offs and part of a larger gesture, which is nice. Overall it forces you to invest in the characters more and get to know them as people instead of just showering them with their favorite food like a sparrow trying to convince a prospective mate that he can provide for their nestlings.
Persona also does more of the [spend time with person] as the main way to increase affection.
tbh. both of those games I'd touch once and never again.
mainly cause I like my escapism to... yknow... escape reality.
not just show me my news feed or my not lasting long distance relationship xD
Honkai impact 3rd says hello. Endless amount of tears from players.
"benefitsFromPolicy"'s multiplier should be proportional to the population's "educationLevel", while "propagandaScore" should be inverse proportional.
That way, a benevolent government is incentivized to invest in education, while an autocratic government is incentivized to keep its population ignorant.
Following on the science/religion dicotomy, the former would be best increasing its science, while the later would instead increase its religion.
Don't forget that there are exceptions and miracles in the real world! Math may generally rule, but it can be broken by THE MAGIC OF LOVE
Wow yeah that last example was a bit gut wrenching. Right out of John Wick