Linearity vs. Spoilability: Part 2

This is a continuation of last week's linearity post.

2. Some games are much more spoilable than others

Last year, one of the recurring topics in the circle of game blogs I read is that of spoilers. Michael Abbott (who you should read, by the way) started it going with a post in which he complained that the community was being stifled by the fear of giving away plot details, even rather mundane ones, when discussing a game. Essentially, he said that this shouldn't be a big deal; indeed, most movie or book reviews assume that it's impossible to evaluate something without, well, talking about it.

A flurry of comments ensued. One of the more interesting ones was from Clint Hocking, lead designer of Far Cry 2 and a good game theorist to boot. He said that while it was possible to spoil a game's story, that's not really spoiling the game itself, which consists of a set of mechanics. Hocking questioned whether you could ever really spoil the mechanics of a game, which are generally assumed to be open knowledge.

As a designer, Hocking is interested in replaced fixed stories told through cutscenes with stories told through the player's point of view, so there's a motive behind his question. Setting all that aside though, it's not quite correct to say that game mechanics are never spoilable. I'm going to go through a few examples of this, many of which were brought up by commenters responding to Hocking.

Many games have mechanics that evolve in ways that surprise the player. The first, although probably not the best, thing that comes to mind is the grav gun in Half-Life 2. You probably won't find anyone who hadn't heard about the grav gun before playing the game, but nonetheless it is a mildly spoilable fact. Experimenting with it and finding new ways to use the grav gun is a fun experience, and if someone had listed all these ways out to me beforehand, I would've missed out on that.

One could argue that the basic mechanic of Half-Life 2 is that of a fairly conventional first-person shooter, the particular guns you use are simply variations on this mechanic, which is in itself not spoilable. But that's like saying that the story of Half-Life 2 is really just your basic tale of good vs. evil, or one man versus a vast government conspiracy, and thus it's not really spoilable either. Besides, some games really do change the fundamental mechanic. Imagine if someone had not told you that you will become a Jedi after the first couple levels of Jedi Knight 2. That would completely change your experience of that game. I think one of the reasons that Hocking doesn't consider mechanics spoilable is because it's conventional to spoil them anyway. (I'm not saying that's wrong; I take Abbott's position that there shouldn't be restrictions on the way we talk about games. But it is fair to say that knowing certain things about a game does change the way you experience it.)

Once I started thinking about this, it became clear that spoilability (by which I mean mechanic-spoilability, not story-spoilability) is already a criterion we use for games, though a bit subconsciously. Think about what defines a strategy game, for instance. One of the key characteristics of a strategy game in my mind is that it has little to no spoilability. Like chess, we know what the rules are; the game consists of applying them with skill. Similarly, certain puzzle games like Tetris are in no way spoilable. (It is important to specify the type of spoilability. For instance, one of the key rewards of playing Command and Conquer, at least for me, is watching the FMV cutscenes after each level, and I wouldn't want those spoiled. Obviously, that has nothing to do with the game mechanics.)

These types of games occupy one end of a spectrum. Slightly more spoilable are the types of games I mentioned earlier, in which the mechanics undergo small (HL2) to big (JK2) changes. How do we tell just how spoilable these games are? Pretty simple, really. Pick a game, and make up a story about what you did in this game. Not what your character did (your character is involved in the narrative), but how you as the player interacted with this game. Be as specific as you need to be to give someone a good impression of what you did; don't be abstract. Then think about whether this information would affect someone who knew nothing about the game yet.

You'll find that story-spoilability and mechanic-spoilability are usually correlated, but not always. The Xenosaga series (along with most modern RPGs) is highly story-spoilable but not very mechanic-spoilable.

What games are the most spoilable in terms of mechanics? Adventure games, almost by definition. In fact, I think the decline in adventure games has a lot less to do with linearity and a lot more to do with spoilability, and this is a connection I want to explore in Part 3.

Bite-Sized Bloggie Treats

While you await the second half of my series on linearity, here's one big collection of mini-posts; stuff that isn't important or interesting enough for a whole post, but which I've been thinking about nonetheless: some of these may receive greater-sized elaborations later.

Tales of Monkey Island

I played adventure games all through my childhood, but didn't play through the Monkey Island series until I was in college (save for the black sheep of the series Escape from Monkey Island, which my friend P. and I played and loved on the PS2 in high school). This is one of my greater embarrassments as a gamer. The series is, of course, a pinnacle of the genre.

I can, and undoubtedly will, go on at length about my perspective on adventure games. But right now, after recently finishing Tales of Monkey Island, a few comments.

Unsurprisingly, the game feels less like Monkey Island 5, and more like Sam and Max Season 2 1/2. It shares the same cartoony graphical style, many of the same voice actors (who were relatively easy to recognize), and shares the same philosophy when it comes to puzzles. Which isn't really a bad thing, because the Sam and Max seasons are my favorite adventure games of the past five years (perhaps longer). Telltale's found a formula that sells adventure games in an unfriendly market, and funny, clever ones at that.

But Tales isn't as good as Sam and Max. It's not nearly as funny, which is again not surprising. Sam and Max is probably the funniest series I've ever played; it's worth the full price of admission just for the privilege of clicking the cursor on all the random objects and hearing their responses. Tales trades out the pure inanity of SaM for a stronger narrative. This would be fine, except Monkey Island is a series with ghost pirates, talking skulls, and a protagonist who's afraid of porcelain. It's hard to get super-invested in plot points like Morgan's love for Guybrush, or the possible betrayal of the Voodoo Lady.

And Tales doesn't have what redeemed the earlier games in the series from a not-too-serious plot: strong puzzle design that's both challenging and fair. This isn't really Telltale's fault: they need to pitch to a casual-aligned market that's not looking for real stumpers. Plus the episodic format limits the size of each location, so the player usually stumbles onto the solution to each puzzle without really having to think.

All things considered, I still recommend the game: it's still pretty funny, there are still some clever puzzles, and the writing is good. But I'm more excited about SaM Season 3.

Shadow of the Colossus:

( Sidenote: I started to play through Final Fantasy Tactics, but playing two full-length RPGs at the same time proved to be a bit much, so I set it aside for the time being. Hopefully, I'll get back to it after Clare and I get through Persona 4.)

I don't usually buy games I've already played, but I had to make an exception here. Since I finished Ico for the first time a year or so ago, this game has been on my mind a lot, and I finally bought it last week.

When I first played it, I pretty much rushed through all the colossi without really exploring the landscape. This time around, I'm taking my time; the game rewards a curious mindset. There's so much about this game that's worth thinking about. Right now, I want to point you to an excellent article that explores the conception of 'place' in this game.

Persona 4:

I'll have a lot, and I mean a LOT, to say about this game and its predecessor when Clare and I get done with it. How much do we like this series? We spent 90+ hours on Persona 3 in a period of three to four months. We emerged from it absolutely exhausted. Within a month or two, we didn't think twice about starting the fourth game. It's that good.

Labyrinth:

This is not a video game, but lately I've spent more time on it recently than any actual video game. Only recommended for people who like riddles, to the point that they are willing to agonize for days over them. For me, it's more dangerous than any drug. I think I'll have more to say about this on my upcoming post on spoilability.

Be careful; it can take over your life.

Well, that's all I got for now. Till next time!