richard on 2009/08/15 00:25:

There is certainly a need for simple games that do something well and don't try to be more.

On the other hand I have to disagree with your choice of games that fail because they're too complex. For example, I think that Half-Life 2 is one of the best video games ever (and I'm far from alone in that belief). It's a game that I've returned to many times; I'm currently in my 5th or 6th play-through. It is also a perfect example of your argument :) As described in "Raising The Bar" the designers constantly battled with features and plot lines that could have been added but ultimately weren't necessary or even detracted from the overall experience.

Oblivion had its issues, but again I'd disagree that complexity was one of them.

Akake on 2009/08/15 12:42:

@richard:

I didn't mean to say that those games failed per se, simply that I found them disappointing.

I understand your point, though, and it's a good one. Thanks for the counterpoint. :-)

I admit that my choice in examples wasn't too great. I'll grant that Half-Life 2 wasn't overly complex, and that Oblivion's complexity wasn't it's issue. I should've thought a bit more about what I was using to demonstrate my point.

Thanks for understanding my point, though.

Thank you for the feedback.

---Akake

richard on 2009/08/16 10:53:

I recommend John Paul Gee's "Why Video Games Are Good For Your Soul".

It proposes that two elements make video games resonate well with players: learning and story. Learning in that they learn skills or tricks to master the gamee - your job as a designer is to make that process simple, progressive and rewarding. Story is not about the plot scripted by the game's designer - it's about the story told as a kind of collaboration between the player and their "character" in the game (the blocks in Tetris count as "character"). In more complex games this is influenced by the game designer, but shouldn't be done so too heavy-handedly. Even in simple games there can be a story ("oh man you should've seen the sweet combination I scored out of Tetris that one time").

And the above is why Half-Life 2 (and Portal) is an incredible game. The game teaches you about itself at a perfect pace (even replaying it doesn't feel burdensome). It rewards for learning new skills. See also Portal where by the end of the game you're doing insanely complex portalling you wouldn't have dreamt of when you started - but by then they feel like second nature. And in both cases the story is told in such a subtle way (ok, sometimes not so subtle) but you feel like you're a participant in the story rather than a spectator.

Enough of this. I'm gonna blast my way out of Ravenholm now :)

Akake on 2009/08/16 18:14:

I'll grant that I oversimplified my point quite a bit.

I should have clarified that I don't consider complexity a function of fun. I also really enjoyed Portal, and I love Nexuiz.
(For those who aren't familiar, Nexuiz is an open source FPS. It's a nice one, too, and I recommend it. If you're interested, pick it up here)

Minimalism isn't easy, no. I myself have seen the style go awry. (EG: An "artist" paints a single stripe on a canvas and calls it "art")

It can also be very tasteful. The example of Tetris is a good one, and one we seem to be using quite a bit. Pacman is another good example, and one which can also develop quite a bit of emergent complexity.

(As a side note, I'm really happy we're having this discussion! I haven't had a conversation like this in quite a while! I love philosophy ^^)

@richard

I agree whole-heartedly. I agree with the two aspects of great games (To paraphrase a bit) that you (And Paul Gee) put forth, and I think they can be generally agreed upon.

I'll definitely look into the book. I'm saving up my money to pick up some reading material anyway, so that'll probably be what I pick up. :-)

@Tee:

Your point is a good one.
Emergent complexity is tricky. I think there is certainly merit in studying it for any programmer, and I'll certainly be reading up on the idea, because it's one that fascinates me very much.

Heck, it's the idea that first drew me to minimalism in the first place! (Which makes it kind of embarrassing that I'm not more knowledgeable about the scientific side of it...)

And I'll keep the community posted on my minimalist experiments, too. ;-)

Akake on 2009/08/17 10:37:

Cosmologicon:

That was, for the most part, the point I was trying to make. Unnecessary complexity is bad.

For the most part, my statements that simplicity led to fun were simply my tastes, and I should have clarified that as well. (I probably should have waited until I was more awake before I wrote the thing, now that I think of it :-/)

But I am also annoyed by needless complexity and redundancy. It's especially bad when the designer doesn't let you ignore the unnecessary things. (Like the cutscenes in Resident Evil 4, where the things were interactive, but shouldn't have been)

But simplicity doesn't always mean fun, no. Nor does complexity make a game bad per se.

It bears some merit, though, that most of the True Classics we have in the gaming world are, arguably, very simple games. (Katamari, Megaman, Zelda)

Though there are some complex Classics, fewer, but they exist as well. (Final Fantasy (Well, maybe not all of them *cough X-2 cough*), Command and Conquer, Starcraft)

Even these, though, tend to have simple core concepts, and the simpler ones tend to be better. Compare Final Fantasy 1-7 to Final Fantasy X, for example.

My main point, was, though, that sometimes the most fun games are the simplest ones. Certainly it isn't always the case, but I find that given a simple game and a complex one, if both are fun, the simple game is the one I'll come back to time and time again.

Complexity is, however, a factor in fun.

It's less about the absolute amount of complexity than it is about how complex it is versus how complex it needs to be.

For example, most strategy games could be made vastly simpler (Only one type of unit, no structure, etc), but this would ruin them.

On the other side of it, if Samus Aran's power suit had a limited air supply that you had to manage, it would've made Metroid seem, at the very least, kind of lame.

My point is, fun isn't, no a direct function of complexity. It is, however, a function of how gracefully a game presents its complexity.

This may not just be about the amount of fun, but perhaps the kind of fun the game creates.

For example, a complex game like Civilization or Dungeons and Dragons. Both create a fun that comes from being immersed in a simulated world. (Admittedly, DnD does this using the hardware inside of the players' skulls)

Compare that to a simpler game, like Quake or Torus Trooper. These sorts of games create fun that comes from immersion, but that immersion comes from having a high pace, and demanding both skill and reflexes.

Compare further to games like Bejeweled and Snake, which don't derive much of their fun from difficulty. These games have... I can't quite put my finger on what it is that makes them fun, actually. I suppose it may be related to their simplicity, but I'm not sure.

Any resources about this, if they are to be found, are very much appreciated, especially with regard to the last pair of examples.

---Akake

Akake on 2009/08/21 12:41:

I agree.

Games of all levels of complexity have their place.

The issue is when it gets out of control. In fact, when it gets out of control in either direction.

I may be contradicting myself, but it gets kind of boring when a designer misses an opportunity to do something cool. I like it when nothing feels tacked on, but some things just work, despite not being necessary.

The flip side of the minimalist argument is the argument of games feeling simplistic, or even over-simplified.

It's kind of hard to balance that. Removing things that don't do anything interesting, but keeping in things that make the game better.

It's a design question, I think.

Does adding this make it better, or does it detract from it?

There's a parallel in programming, as well.

Is this a Good Thing, or is it just feature creep?

The key to managing this is to be conscious of how complex a game is.

For example, to reference another topic, my current game has a bit of complexity to it.

Two playable characters, four types of enemies, and what amounts to two weapons. That and a fair variety of terrain types.

The trick for me is to keep things from getting out of hand. The secondary "weapon", the super rockets, are a special powerup. The enemies all have the same abilities as the player (Save for the super rockets), and behave fairly simply.

The additional features (Super rockets, two characters) add a bit of variation in strategy. The two characters have different traits. One is faster than most enemies and can jump further, and the other has twice as much ammo and health as his counterpart.

That isn't as simple as it could be, but I like the additional elements for the strategic opportunities they add.

So I suppose the best thing is to go with a level of complexity that "feels right".

It's no use leaving out something that really works, and it's no use adding something that feels tacked on.

Like all things, it seems to be about balance. It's just a matter of what kind of balance you need.

I've learned alot from this discussion so far. It's nice to hear everyone's thoughts. :-)

---Akake

richard on 2009/08/22 23:21:

Nice find nitrofurano, thanks!

Tee on 2009/08/23 17:37:

I don't have time to read the whole book (and, unfortunately, nitrofurano's link is only a preview of the book), but now I'm curious about it, so could someone please explain here what it says about the simplicity-complexity discussion? Richard mentioned earlier about the learning and story part, which is interesting, but I think it was mostly to explain why games like Half-Life 2 are good (not much about the simplicity-complexity discussion, unless I missed the point).

richard on 2009/08/24 00:03:

Hey Tee, no the learning / story ideas apply to almost all video games, including Tetris and Half-Life 2. I'm a bit rushed for time at the moment: do you have a page reference for the simplicity-complexity discussion? I could grab the book and try to expand on it for you.

Tee on 2009/08/24 01:31:

richard: I meant the discussion of simplicity vs complexity, minimalism, etc. going on on this thread. Actually, now I'm not sure if the book has been suggested more as a general reference or if it says something specific related to this thread's discussion (I assumed the latter), but if the latter is true, I'd be interested to know a bit more about it.