This week
I wanted to talk about one of the types of game balance mentioned in the
lectures: detail vs. imagination. This type of balance stands out from the rest
to me, as it is vastly different and inherently hard to achieve. It also has a
pretty substantial impact in the scope of the game, but I feel like it is being
used less and less in the industry today.
I want to
talk about an older game I have mentioned on these blogs before that I think
balances detail vs. imagination well. Then I want to compare 2 games from the
same series that vastly differ in their balance between detail and imagination.
The game
I wish to talk about is Master of Orion, a turn based 4X strategy game set in
space. While it is inherently easier for strategy game to achieve a good
balance between detail and imagination, I feel like observing this balance in a
simpler environment will be easier to learn from. Everything in this game is
abstracted to the player, and is shown through symbols or images that represent
things well in the game world. One of these things, is how the player interacts
with his/her own empire. The player's avatar in the game world is that of an
emperor but the avatar is never really shown to you in game. This makes it so
that its easier to imagine yourself be in the game world. The interactions
between the avatar and the empire are done through screens that represent
different facets of the empire: scientific, military, or espionage. These are
the only things that are really relevant to gameplay
so they made sure to have some sort of personal representation that you could
interact with.
This
brings in the imagination factor into the system, where you are shown what your
people look like through one simple and brief interaction. When you go back to
the main game screen, where all you see is stars and numbers that are supposed
to represent your empire, you can imagine what is happening in the worlds
below. This goes hand in hand with your interaction with other empires, which
are done in a very similar way. The image that you are presented with, along
with text gives you just enough detail for your imagination to fill in the rest
of the details. What other species look like, their intentions, the fact that
some of your people are sent as ambassadors etc.
Compare/Contrast
This is
where I want to compare 2 games with vastly different levels of detail. I want
to compare the original Fallout game with Fallout 3, as the latter introduces
an extraordinary amount of detail to the genre.
I played Fallout 3 first, and while it won awards and was critically acclaimed,
I felt like there was just something not right with the game.
In the
original Fallout, there was minimal detail, and all of your interactions with
characters and some other game objects were done through text. The game world
was introduced with a pre-rendered cutscene, so that your mind has a reference to
go back to when not given enough details. This works really well because this
provides great context for your mind to follow. The experience created by this
effect is something like reading a book. By making you imagine some of the
details in the game, the mind is intertwined in the experience and therefore
more connected. You feel more investment in the world and characters, because
partly you are the one that helped create them in your mind.
On the
other hand, when I started playing Fallout 3, there was a very high amount of
detail on everything. It was impressive, and immense, but somehow, something
felt ... off. The character interactions weren't the things I imagined anymore,
and felt really rigid, cold and lacking of life. Even though they had full
facial animations, and expressions, the experience it created was not up to par
with the one I had imagined in the original Fallout.
This is
where detail can have adverse effects on the overall experience, and as Jesse Chell mentioned, only detail what you could do
well.
