Linearity vs. Spoilability: Part 1

In the last post, I talked a bit about why linearity and replayability are not well-correlated. Since I wrote that, I've been rethinking the whole notion of linearity in games, and concluded that it's not very useful. Much more useful in my opinion is the notion of 'spoilability', which I came up with last week.

My original intention was just to summarize my whole argument in one post, since it's fairly easy to explain. But I got a little sidetracked after getting part of it done a few days ago. So it's become a series. Here's part 1:

1. Linearity isn't a very useful concept.

This shouldn't come as a surprise, since I think the use of the word 'linear' in game reviews and criticism has dropped quite a bit over the past few years. Despite this, I think there's still a perception that nonlinearity is important, because it's the key characteristic that differentiates games as a form of storytelling from movies or books. And in an obvious sense, that's true. After all, those forms generally have a beginning, an end, and one conventional means by which to pass from the former to the latter. But what does it mean to call a game linear?

Usually, we use the term when we find a game too restrictive in one way or another. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is a good example. The main character has a wide range of fun acrobatic moves, yet in each room there's usually only one path that will not lead him to his death. This makes PoP more of a puzzle game than some players would have liked. So when we call the game 'too linear', we might be referring to this fact. Or we might be referring to the game's overarching narrative. After all, the game never gives us any choice in releasing the Sands of Time and causing all hell to break loose; I believe that takes place in a cutscene.

So we might differentiate between story-linearity and game-linearity. Still, there is no easy way to quantify these concepts, even in the most clear-cut examples. For instance, Knights of the Old Republic constantly offers you dialogue options that directly affect various character stats. Yet like many RPGs, there are only two viable paths for your character: the transcendent, inscrutable light Jedi or the greedy, asshole dark Jedi. As soon as you decide who you want to be, it's painfully obvious (except in interesting ambiguous cases which are far too rare) which lines to select in every single dialogue tree. This makes the game all too linear and even boring, which is the main reason I've never finished it.

Lots of games offer choices, but some choices aren't really choices at all. Some choices are explicit, and some, like Silent Hill 2's, aren't. There are games like Morrowind, where the main narrative can be avoided, but never really diverges once you decide to continue with it. What about free-form games like Civilization? Some would say they are completely non-linear given the range of possibilities. However, in narrative terms, Civ is really quite simple. You start with a society, it grows, and then either it dies or everyone else's does.

Again, I think a lot of game writers have figured out that 'linear' is an outdated term. But here's my idea, which DOES get at the real issue that people usually refer to when they use that word:

NEXT TIME: Spoilability!