Super God Delusion 64 - A Game Concept

Super God Delusion 64 is a game by Richard Dawkins. Or at least, how I would imagine it if he designed games instead of writing books. Released fresh on the heels of The Selfish Gene for the GameBoy Colour, it is his first attempt at true 3D. This concept has been written for Blogs of the Round Table for January, and it is my first submission. With no further ado:

A Summary

SGD64 is a game of hybrid styles. If I were to compare it most directly to a specific game, that game would have to be Animal Crossing. When the game begins, you play a young, single male or female character who has just moved into a new neighbourhood. The majority of gameplay will be spent controlling your avatar in your fully customisable home environment and in the neighbourhood, performing menial tasks and having conversations with your neighbours. There is a very strong but highly subversive narrative element to the game. There is a point being made by the designer about the existence of a supernatural 'God within the game', but this is a conclusion that the player must feel they have come to themselves.

The Subversive Narrative Aspect

The first, probably the only obvious narrative element is revealed right at the beginning. When your character first arrives at their new house, they see a man mowing the yard. He introduces himself as Hitchens. "Welcome," he says, "I live next door. I was just mowing your front yard as a favour, to keep it from growing out of control". Further conversation with Hitchens reveals that this is a neighbourhood inhabited by families from all of the various faiths and religions from around the world. "It's good," he says, "that they live here in relative harmony, but I am not one of them. In fact, I have almost moved away in the past, just to get away from all of the distractions." What exactly those distractions are, he does not say, but he urges you to go inside and set up your home to your liking. He says that later he might come around for a beer.

Once inside the house and customising the decor, you will discover that the creative possibilities are endless. Before long however, a little message will pop up. You have mail! A visit to the letterbox will reveal this as a pamphlet from The Watchtower. You can read it in it's entirety - it is in fact a faithful facsimile of real life Watchtower publications about faith, religion and creationism, or you can simply hit the 'discard' button (before, or after you have read it) and send the pamphlet to your recycling bin.

At the beginning of the pamphlet you are told that during the game, God will score you in secret, and at the end of the game, he will reveal that score to you.

This is where the subversive nature of the narrative kicks in. Your recycling bin has space for twenty items, and the local council will empty it automatically on the Tuesday of every in-game week. However, you will always recieve twenty five items of 'religious propaganda' plus five brochures from local vendors every week. Anything that does not fit into your recycling bin must be put somewhere - placed around your house, buried in holes you have dug in your back and front yard, put in somebody else's mailbox etc. There is no way that you can halt the flow of religious literature, however a 'No Junk Mail' sign can be purchased that will put an end to the shop advertisements. This 'problem' is never addressed directly by the game, and there is no real solution - it is intentionally implemented to irritate the player.

As the week goes on, and you play around with all of the little mini-games available in your house (cooking a meal, vacuuming the house, sewing a nice set of new curtains, gardening), you will get a knock on the door. This always happens in the middle of a task, usually just at the climax (how will my cake turn out?) and it will not stop until the door is answered. It is somebody of a religious faith - answering the door will initiate a dialogue tree that is long and extensive compared to other games of this type. They will ask you if you believe in their particular religion, and pressure you into giving them the answers that they want. If you say "no" they will explain at length about what they feel is the 'truth'. If you say "yes" they will ask you a deep question about the religion, which if answered incorrectly, will then trigger the response for "no". The only way to handle these dialogue trees is to be rude and shut the door (they will return again within a week) or to give them an answer that they have no reply to (see Mission Structure) which ends the dialogue tree and sends them on their way. They will return, but in at least a month, usually with no recollection of the previous exchange.

There is one other way to avoid these dialogue trees, and this is the second significant way the the narrative is subversive: Do not be at home when they knock. The game world is rich and vibrant, there is a lot to do and see, and it is the game's way of encouraging you to avoid the distractions alluded to you by your neighbour, Hitchens.

Mission Structure and Player Reward

If you venture out of your house you will discover that the neighbourhood is a very busy place. You will meet lots of other characters, most of them of a religious bent. Most people that you meet will offer you tasks that can be completed for reward. These are usually mundane tasks such as 'fetch this' or 'empty that' and the rewards that are recieved are more often than not simply copies of the same literature that is found in your mailbox on a daily basis. If the player is seen to be accepting of a gifting character's religion, then they will impart slightly better gifts, such as a raffle ticket for the local church fair, or a small statuette of the Virgin Mary. These tasks are intentionally obtuse and uneventful - the game wants you to avoid these like the plague.

There are, however, characters that stand out from the pack, and they always have a beautiful and intriguing visual design that the other characters do not possess. The first major character of this format is called Charles. Walking down the street, his garden will stand out to you - instead of a mowed lawn and a picket fence, his garden is large and has ponds, trees, long grass, rocks, caves and so on. In his garden you will see all manner of wonderful creatures, frogs, deer, bears and more. Charles is always on his porch, with an inquisitive look, scribbling on his notepad.

Talking to Charles will reveal that he is working on a theory of evolution which disputes the theories put forward in all of the literature presented to the character thus far. "But there is a lot more work to be done!" he says, and he imparts tasks upon the player which include going out into the surrounding wilderness to capture more animals and plant samples, or to observe creatures in the wild and return with photographs. These tasks are a joy to play and yield much, much greater reward, such as pets and plants for your home, or directions to places in the wild where you can find your own.

Another character of note would be Albert. Albert is a scientist, and performing his tasks will grant the player with better technology around the home, such as a bigger television set or a faster-cooking oven.

The most important rewards they give, however, are the answers to the questions posed by door-to-door evangelists that will send them packing almost immediately. They will present you with logical retorts that cannot be argued. As time goes on you will be rewarded with a bank of responses which almost entirely eliminate the nuisances which interrupt the enjoyable nature of your home life. They won't, however, stop the flow of paper into your mailbox.

Miracles, Endgame and The Ultimate Narrative Subversion

Over the course of time, the player will witness small miracles occur. These are things that happen outside the ordinary course of the game, and the religious characters will preach these happenings to the player. Investigation will reveal them as what they truly are, however - those frogs raining down came about because the machine that Albert gave to Charles malfunctioned and exploded. The rewards for debunking these miracles are immense - bigger upgrades to your house, maybe a car or some sort of atomic weapon for removing the cockroach problem in your kitchen. The answers are never obvious in these situations, but the player is encouraged by Hitchens, the neighbour, to question them thoroughly, and doing so will teach the player that the truth is much more beneficial.

During the time with the game, the player will be told repeatedly by the religious characters that their actions in the game will be given an invisible score by God, who sees everything you do, and upon death, that score will be evaluated by him and posted online for all to see. Did you get a high enough score to get into Heaven? The player will almost certainly be curious to see what their final score was at the end, but this is where our theoretical game designer Dawkins swings the final punch.

Once the character dies, the game stops. Your save is deleted, and the machine turns off. No high score. There is no God in the game, there never was, and the only value you get from the game is how much you enjoyed it while you were there at the time. Dawkins is uncompromising when it comes to his 'slap on the wrist' attitude towards religion, and his game is no different. SGD64 is a game that is enjoyed by those who are willing to question everything that religion presents to them.

Late to the Table, thoughts on Mirror's Edge

I absolutely loved this game. I just really wanted to throw that out there to begin with. On a personal scale it gets full marks - it totally pushed my buttons, and I just kept wanting to play more. During my short two weeks with the game (borrowed it from a friend), I hammered the hell out of it and tried to complete every possible aspect that I could. I think I managed about 900/1000 Gamerscore. It certainly wriggled it's way into my top 10 gaming experiences of 2008.

However, I'm also aware of the mixed reaction it enticed from the gaming community at large. I can understand where criticism is warranted - it is a remarkably linear game. Not only when it comes to level design as a whole (get from point A to point B) but in how it wants you to experience gameplay (go this way, go that way, and do it as fast as you can!).

Some of these criticisms just don't gel with me. The main gripe people have is that at certain points during the story missions, you'll be pinned down by a squad of SWAT troopers and you need to deal with them before you can progress. Admittedly, as a first-person shooter, this is where the game fails. Our protagonist Faith is not decked out in Mjolnir armour - nor does she have the military know-how of countless other FPS heroes.

It seems, though, that most of the people whose opinions I have read found this to be a gigantic roadblock and it tarnished their opinion of the game. Personally, I found only one spot in the entire game which couldn't be overcome through haste, precision and mastery of my surroundings, and not just running past them, but also using these gameplay attitudes to actually defeat my foes in combat.

I'll use a couple of examples. First it should be noted that on my first playthrough, I completed the game as per normal. But on my second playthrough, I completed the game on hard difficulty while also garnering the achievement for completing the story without shooting an enemy. In one of the earlier levels, I think it was Jackknife, there is a point where a helicopter drops off three SWAT troopers. If you are not quick enough, they quickly take up positions which allow them to cover pretty much every avenue of escape. If you are quick enough, however, you can get into the middle of that particular rooftop just before they touch down and aim their guns. I attempted this particular segement probably five times. There is one drainpipe that you need to climb up in order to escape the area - climbing up as per normal gives the enemy time to kill you. On my final attempt however, I found a tiny, thin vent poking out of the wall. On a hunch I ran up it, turned, and jumped. I automatically grabbed onto a smaller, normally out-of-reach pipe, which got me out of danger immediately. They didn't hit me with a single bullet.

The other example I wanted to highlight is in the first car storage area of the boat level, when you burst out of the truck upon some unsuspecting guards. I was beating my head in trying to run past them to safety. I finally realised that it was the machine gunner with his extra-powerful firearm that was finishing me off before I could flee onto the air vents. So I set about trying to take him out. I would disarm the first guard by grabbing him from behind, toss the weapon, then strafe around a box so that I could quickly kick the second guard in the knees. He would hunch over, another attack would knee him in the face, then two more punches and he was sprawled on the ground. I noticed the machine gunner was standing next to a truck. I ran top-speed while in cover so that he couldn't see me, then burst out next to the truck - a wall kick spun him around for a quick disarm maneuver, and throwing his weapon to the ground, I knew then that I would be able to climb to the ceiling without getting killed.

These are just two examples of how I dealt with the combat scenarios using the attitude championed by the game's design. Amazingly enough, even in speed run mode (where it's in medium mode by default) these are the sort of tactics you need to succeed. Is it that the majority of gamers have FPS combat tactics so deeply etched into their psyche that they can't approach Mirror's Edge's threats without requiring total victory to proceed? After my own experiences, I find it hard to see these situations raising such a wall in the general flow of the game.

At the end of the day, I got a great thrill from the challenge of trying to maintain momentum across rooftops, through shopping centres and around deadly threats. Matthew Gallant makes a good point at The Quixotic Engineer about how it's a puzzle game at times, and it really shouldn't be. But I'll contest that, once you've cracked the puzzle, shaving precious seconds off of your times calls in the exact type of flowing, freeform gameplay that he feels clashes with the level design in general.

Gaming for Girlfriends

E is my girlfriend and she is a non-gamer. That term has had a lot of definitions during our relationship - in the beginning, it meant she didn't have any tolerance for games whatsoever, of any form. Now it means she sort of accepts gaming as a legitimate pastime, and is willing to dabble a little bit in the different types of gaming available. These days, she will happily play poker with me at the pub, and at home whenever we have other players around for drinks. Without casting any aspersions, I'd still like to highlight the heavily social aspect of the game - she makes friends through poker, and gets a real kick when she wins money.

On the 360 she quite enjoyed creating characters on Soul Calibur 4, naming them after pornstars and charging through the single player campaign by mashing the throw command. It's by far the game I have seen her log the most time with and I'd say at least 80% of that time was spent on the customisation features. This doesn't surprise me, it seems to be a commonplace assessment of girls who play games, as recently mentioned by Tycho over at Penny Arcade. It has certainly been reinforced by the increased attention the NXE dashboard gets now that customisable avatars have been included.

I know it's kind of a stereotypical attitude, but I think it's fair to say that this type of approach to gaming is almost entirely exclusive to the fairer sex. E enjoys her video games most when there is no pressure, or at least very little of it. She doesn't respond well to heavy challenges in her games and is more than prepared to give up when they present themselves.

Tonight, she sat down in front of Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, prepared to relive some of the magic she experienced ten years ago on her older brothers' Nintendo 64. She was unfamiliar with the driving mechanic and crashed into walls a lot. Very soon after beginning the game, she said "I remember why I don't like games now. It's because I'm not very good at them." My response to this would be that it's not a matter of lack of skill, but lack of patience and persistence. For most gamers the teething process for a new game is much shorter, but we all struggle with a new mechanic when presented with it. This is no different for us than it is for inexperienced girls.

A quick Google search on this subject unearthed this little gem - a study on the gaming habits of girls, circa 2005. It's a little out-of-date, because the general gaming lifestyle landscape has changed drastically over the last three years (Wii, increased acceptance of casual gaming, World of Warcraft etc.), but it backs up some good points. Girls respond very well to a game like The Sims because it totally circumvents many traditional game conventions (violence, challenge and competition) and places the highlight on the elements of gaming that appeal most to the ladies. Without repeating their definitions, I'll outline them here - character customisation, realistic but colourful art design, and control over the narrative. They also mention player relationships but I'm going to lump that into the narrative heading.

For the gaming public at large we're used to having these element isolated for us, but they're usually tied into one or more of the traditional aspects - creativity is based around optimising our approach to challenge, narrative control is pre-set based around how we complete those challenges and how well we did it etc. E tells me now that she enjoys customisation because it allows her to alter her own appearance vicariously through the characters. My guess is that the very same attitude extends to the actions and challenges performed by her as she plays a game. SC4 works because she makes hot, badass chicks who assert their authority over other characters quite easily because she spams the throw command and the computer can't handle it. I doubt the same theory would apply to characters created, no matter how simply or intuitively, in a game like Quake or Gears of War, because she doesn't have the dexterity or tactical mind to overcome the challenges presented. Nor does she have any control over the narrative - she wants to tell the story, not have it told to her.

A recent article in Hyper Magazine called Driving the Wedge: The Real Story of Female Gamers contains a quote from Nikki Douglas of Grrlgamer where she says "Community and collaboration are what women bring to the table? God, that is so 1950s, so retro. Well screw that, I don't want to be friends! I want to be King!"

Well, that is totally valid and okay, Nikki, but I feel you're in the minority, and that doesn't help me or my girlfriend at all. What you're saying there is that you fit square inside the demographic that is unconcerned with the "girl gamer". You're happy to play traditional games because you relish the challenge. E does not. What I would like to see are more games that straddle the line, where creativity and narrative control are paramount, but my girlfriend still gets the feeling of being 'fucking awesome' without having any of the pressure and stress that the rest of us so willingly face.

Believe it or not

Nobody reads this yet but the gaps need to be filled - I haven't had ready access to a PC for quite a while (August 2007 to be exact) but thanks to a very, very fruitful holiday season, I now have internet access, and the capability to adjust the NAT settings on my modem so the XBox Live actually functions like it should. Finally.

Here's a bit of an update on my gaming habits, for those that are interested -

• I still only play XBox 360 (I'm far from rich, you know). My collection of games has grown considerably and finally contains some of the classic games released over the past year and a half, not that I've played them yet (time is money!), but as I go through them I'll be posting my thoughts for all to see.
• I came into possession of a second 360 when I upgraded my phone plan. This good on so many levels - firstly, I have a haven to run to when E feels the need to watch generic television dramas such as Army Wives or Gossip Girl. Secondly, the multiplayer and networking possibilities that have opened up excite me in a way the no man should ever be excited by a machine.
• My XBox 360 got three red rings of death, three days before the third anniversary of it's purchase. A quick call to Support, and a visit to the post office, and five days later my antique launch-day machine was back in my lounge room working fine. Five days. I was amazed, considering all of the stories I have heard in the past.
• I mentally committed myself to playing Warhammer 40K, but financially dodged that bullet through being slack and unmotivated.
• I mentally committed myself to playing Warmachine, but dodged that financial bullet through not having anyone to play with.
• I've since flirted again with the idea of completing my 40K Ork army, but it's still a matter of funds and motivation. One day I'll get around to it I'm sure, but who am I kidding? It'll never get fully painted (not by me anyway).
• I had a coffee table custom-made at 4 feet square. Perfect for games of Mordheim. I'll let you know when I actually get around to playing some on it.
• I have been scribbling out plenty of design ideas for tabletop games, board games, and video games, but now that I have a PC and Internet access I can finally get around to actually putting together a portfolio.
  

There are a lot more stories to share which I'm sure I will do in due time. Long story short - XBox 360 provides the bulk of my gaming good times these days, and I still haven't given up on tabletop gaming even though the time, money and motivation factor still looms large.

Currently playing Fallout 3 - this game is the bomb (hahahahaha ha ha ha heh *sigh*)

Mordheim and support for old games

Recently, a friend from the Central Coast (about an hour and a half north of here) mentioned in passing to another friend that he's interested in playing Mordheim again. For those not in the know, Mordheim is a skirmish-level, campaign-based tabletop miniatures game produced by Games Workshop. I thought it was a grand idea, and promptly read up on all that I needed to know.

Soon after, I was making scenery for a new table. 4 foot by 4 foot, full to the edges with ruined buildings and so on. I've taken to it like a fire in a tissuebox, and in the space of a couple of weeks I've already improved my scenery skills twentyfold. I'm using high-density polystyrene to carve stone structures, balsa wood to make wooden embellishments...

but that's a different story, and I'm digressing from the point. When I first did my research, I found where the rulebook was kept at http://www.specialist-games.com. "Hooray!" I thought, "they still look after us!"

I looked through some of the optional extra warbands available to play in the "rulebook" section of the site, and settled on the Shadow Warriors - a group of exiled Elven warriors who excel at sneaking around, hiding, and shooting without being seen. I rushed out and bought the miniatures required, and after a few haphazard games while we refreshed ourselves with the rules, I totally owned one of my mates.

So he did a bit of research of his own, and discovered my warband is effectively "illegal" because they're too good. This disappointed me. I'd spent $40 dollars on these models. I didn't want it to be a waste! What disappointed me most, though, was that it actually took all of this extra research to find out that I was cheating my friends. I couldn't take the rulebook on face value!

This game is easily one of the best skirmish-based games available. The range of miniatures in plastic (one day I'll write a post about the virtues of plastics) means you can make your warband totally unique. The rulebook itself is purported to be "living" (e.g. monitored and updated as necessary) and free, so you can be up-to-speed at any time you need. Yet still, I managed to make a fairly big faux-pas.

I'm still going to play, don't get me wrong, I've decided to play an Averlander warband after I finished reading Honour of the Grave by Robin D. Laws. It's a novel set in the Warhammer world, and these novels get me excited and inspired to play (as I'm sure they are intended to do). The thing is, I'm going to have to buy the models slowly now, as I have to be selective and plan my purchases ahead these days.

Games Workshop is reporting a loss for the last financial year. They seem to think that they can rest the hopes of an international retail chain on the back of three franchises - Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, and Lord of the Rings. Gone are the days where you could walk into a GW and find heaps of different games being played. As a result, getting into the hobby is a massive investment of a consumer's time and money.

Give us more ways to use your miniatures, GW! We can't afford to play your games anymore. Bring back Mordheim, keep the rules free (and balanced) and give the casual gamer something fun and quick to do. Bring back Blood Bowl, and release a conversion sprue so we can turn your existing range into football players. Re-release Gorkamorka, and watch your Ork sales rise. Allow Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay into your stores and extoll the virtues of the tabletop combat system. Make Warhammer Quest a reality again - allow characters to fight against any monster from any army book!

There are so many ways to experience the hobby that aren't being explored. Instead, we're told we need a few hundred dollars worth of gear, hours and hours of involvement, and a mate who's done the same before we can truly enjoy the hobby.

Brains vs. Brawn

One day, a few months ago, I was on the way to work and I caught the train. I was playing my DS. At a very busy stop, a guy sat down and pulled out his PSP. He looked over at my DS, and raised an eyebrow in disdain.

Then the guy next to him pulled out his DS and asked if I had Mario Kart.

Video games make for terrible television

We don't get a whole lot of gaming television here in Australia. They show a terrible program called Game on ESPN, where the reviewers basically yell their thoughts at you in broken sentences, and the hostess is clearly trying too hard to look excited. We also get a marginally better program called X-Play, which does a better job of reviewing and has a pair of more relatable hosts, but is so out of date they're still anticipating the Wii.

I'm not sure it's much better in the states though.

In Korea, they get a great deal of Starcraft available on the box. This is a scary prospect. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't be able to watch Starcraft for more than maybe five minutes straight. It just isn't exciting, the animations are all the same and never change, and it takes a while for things to get into full swing.

Halo, on the other hand, gets me excited. During my time with Halo 2 I always dreamt of being able to sit down with my mates and a couple of beers, flick on XBox Live and tune in to top-ranked players duke it out in team skirmish. The beauty of Halo is that it could totally become a spectator sport. I can't tell you how many times I've declared "sweet kill!", "nice save!", or "I can't believe you pulled that off." They're definitely making steps toward this with the video playback options available in Halo 3, but that's only available if somebody opts to save the recording, then you'll have to look it up and download it.

Gamers are generally adverse to advertising in videogames, but I think this would be an area where it would be welcomed and beneficial. Would you really mind being told to quench your thirst if it was in between bouts of top-tier Street Fighter? Especially considering that Sprite commercial made the broadcast free for you to access. "Fragzor's 80-kill streak was brought to you by AT&T". The idea is certainly sound.

To be honest, I'm surprised ESPN hasn't already made an attempt to capitalise. It would certainly beat watching American children mutilate the Queen's English in the national spelling bee.