Overall Gameplay Balance

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This time, I think about the need for a good overall balance of a computer game to ensure that the targeted audience stays motivated for the entire playthrough.

Conditions for victory and defeat are depending on a game’s gameplay and overall challenge. While computer games that are designed to be unforgiving and challenging can have very strict victory conditions, other games that challenge players to take risks often need more relaxed rules or the possibility to make up for a bad performance.

The former kind of computer games often gives players plenty of time to analyze the current situation and think about their next steps to overcome a particular challenge. In such a case, constantly facing a potential defeat contributes to the game’s overall atmosphere and increases the importance of carefully planning each individual step. As a result, players feel very rewarded when they beat a challenge without experiencing strong penalties. For instance, XCOM 2 challenges players with difficult missions but avoids restricting them with time constraints thus allowing for an in-depth analysis of the current situation.

The latter kind of computer games normally creates a fast-paced gameplay that challenges the overall reaction time and game-specific sets of skills. While playing these games, players often have to decide whether they like to play it safe or give it everything thus accepting the risk to lose a game. However, playing at the own skill level only is a valid option when the game provides enough chances to make up for a potential bad performance. For example, a racing game normally implements championships that span over multiple races thus providing the chance to make up for a very bad race.

However, when the conditions for victory and defeat are not matching the gameplay, players can easily lose interest or motivation to play the game. The reason for this is that users are then either bored or frustrated as well-thought decisions are not needed or taking risks is too dangerous.

For instance, DiRT 4 challenges players with rally and circuit racing but rarely offers championships that have enough events to make it worth to take the risk and push as hard has possible. As a result, the game’s career mode fails to motivate players to be aggressive as they rarely can make up for a bad performance.

In sum, balancing also has to take into account how the overall gameplay is structured and what interests the targeted audience has.

Window to a different world

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This time, I think about potential reasons why virtual environments not necessarily work as permanent windows to a different world.

Normally, while playing a good computer game, I am totally immersed in the gameplay. The immersion is, in the case of a virtual environment that I really enjoy, often combined with a feeling of awe as it allows me to explore beautiful places. For instance, as I played The Long Dark, I was constantly in awe due to the beautiful virtual winterly landscape which reminded me of great days I spent outdoors during the winter time.

A typical The Long Dark scene.

Therefore, I expected a similar experience when I stay for a longer time at a certain position to just enjoy the fantastic scenery and use the computer screen as a window to a different and exciting world. Surprisingly, the immersive experience most of the time came to a quick end after I leaned back to just enjoy the beautiful view I have selected.

The reason for this phenomenon could have several reasons. The probably most likely explanation would be that, by stopping to actually play the game, the flow-inducing aspects of the gameplay ended and no longer supported the overall overwhelming experience of exploring an amazing landscape. As the excitement returned after I continued to play the game, it can be assumed that the break in flow also caused a break in the overall experience.

However, there are also other aspects that could play a moderating role for the break in the overall experience. By leaning back to just watch the scenery, I changed my personal point of view thus suddenly seeing the surrounding environment which potentially distracted me from the gameplay. If this is the case, the experience might last longer when I would use a Head-Mount Display instead of a regular computer screen as this would prevent me from suddenly being distracted from the outside world.

A third reason could be that, by stopping to actually playing the game, I was no longer completely focussed on the gameplay and, as a result of this, my mind and thoughts potentially started to drift and I no longer effectively enjoyed the virtual environment.

Finally, it could also haven been the case that I reached the point of having seen all aspects of the virtual environment as it is limited by the degree of the simulation. At some point, no new elements can be discovered as the virtual world only contains a limited amount of elements. This, in contrast, is not the case in reality, as every moment is unique and will never return.

In the end, this problem shows the current limitations of simulated virtual worlds as the technical development still has not reached the state of simulating a vivid and completely believable virtual world.