Why Fictional Meaning Matters in Games

Fri, 01 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Most of my previous posts have been about tech. Tech is binary — 1 is 1, 2 is 2; it works or it doesn’t, just run it and find out. Game design has plenty of widely-accepted principles, but no absolute test for “right.” It’s like writing a novel: everyone has their own way, good novels share certain qualities, but you can’t copy-paste them like code. After thinking about it for a while, I’m writing a piece on game development from the angle of meaning.

Why does anything mean anything?

To live is to chase some kind of meaning. Maslow’s hierarchy: people first satisfy survival, then reproduction, then higher psychological/spiritual needs. From an evolutionary-psychology angle, every behavior, especially instinctive ones, is engraved in our genes. The ultimate question of what life means is philosophy — too hard, I’m not the one to discuss it. Men like 18-year-olds. Women care about beauty. Kids fear being seen as dumb. Old people fear dying. People have gambling instincts, jealousy, conceit, cravings — money in particular. And so on. Human nature is too complex; I can’t catalog it here.

To be alive is to be moved by your own nature. Games exist to satisfy that nature.

What “fictional meaning” does inside a game

Fictional meaning is what lets players find meaning inside a game. Take Paradox games. Hearts of Iron satisfies the fantasy of conquering the world, ruling over masses, plus other desires that aren’t polite to spell out here. A whole horde of military and history fans love it. Stellaris is heaven for sci-fi nerds — governments and factions, ideologies, science, populations. Underneath it’s a numbers strategy game, but the layered fictional meanings let you genuinely live a second life. (I love watching you all dump a pile of “no” votes in the Galactic Community while being unable to do anything about me. Hehe.) Meaning is also tied to what the player already understands. Most survival games include eating and drinking, because that need is etched into the player’s genes — easy to get, hard to find boring.

A small aside: the traffic-magnet “small adult games” — most are mediocre, even simplistic in mechanics. (There are great ones too; not painting them all with one brush.) Some have basically just animations, no real gameplay. Same for some text-based AVGs. But even those leave a strong impression on players, and even with no marketing they pull serious traffic. No mystery — every guy understands this.

Look at other entertainment forms, especially Chinese web novels. Inside China there’s a flood of “low-IQ power-fantasy” novels. Massive readerships. No mystery — they feel good to read. Web novels and games’ fictional meaning are basically the same thing: satisfying human desire. People have even abstracted the techniques — pull-in topics, work/rest balance, pacing. Open with a flirt scene, then pick up a powerful artifact, then humiliate a villain, etc. All sorts of “feel-good beats” weaved together so the reader can’t put it down. That’s structurally identical to game-level design. Game level design is exactly about weaving elements together so the player feels different emotions across the arc. Tomb Raider is a great example — tense story, then a QTE, then transition to a beautiful environment, then a puzzle, then tense combat, then loot. Repeat with different rhythms, building toward a story climax.

Fundamentally, game level design is laying down feel-good beats so the player keeps “reading.” Of course, you also have to control difficulty, pace progression, factor in player skill, etc. In practice it’s much more complex.

Once a game has meaning, players can step inside and feel the beats.

Only meaning that hits hard makes players remember and love your game

There are too many games now. Why is the player going to click your trailer page, why are they going to play your game? Take post-apocalyptic survival. The genre has always been popular. The moment I open a trailer page I can already imagine: I’m alone (or with a team), end-of-world setting — what would I do? That experience is fantastic. Plenty of games have unclear meaning. I can’t even be bothered to click in.

Cyberpunk 2077, controversies aside, has a phenomenal worldview, drawing inspiration from things like Blade Runner. Full of conflict and what-ifs. Especially the chasm between the corporate elite and the underclass. On the surface Night City is hyper-developed, neon, dripping with high tech — but every alley is packed with the homeless, filth, chaos, against gleaming megatowers. It begs you to imagine. GTA 5: do whatever you want in an open world. So so satisfying. PUBG: 100 players fight to be the last one standing on a small island. Rimworld: stranded on an alien planet, survive and grow. And so on.

Almost every popular game has a one-sentence meaning that pulls players in. Of course, Dota, LoL, Honor of Kings, TFT, Hearthstone etc. mostly run on raw gameplay.

Game ops cares about user numbers, and if you win on meaning before they even start playing — if just seeing the game makes them think it’s interesting — you’re already getting double the bang for your buck. Personally, I’m focused on post-apocalyptic survival games. The genre has long-term player demand and lower user-acquisition cost.

Story and plot

Some say a game is a second life. A great second life is one with rises and falls. Like novels and drama. A great game’s story, retold as a novel, would also be great. Or: a game’s story is a kind of novel.

This includes: Worldview / setting Plenty of room for fan-imagination The in-game experience Highs and lows, emotional pull

My writing isn’t great, so I’ll leave it there.

Standing on giants’ shoulders, plus a flash of inspiration

Most “meanings” aren’t original. They’re absorbed from predecessors and prior works. Take bikini armor — by any sensible standard, how is barely-there clothing supposed to provide protection? But: those who get it, get it. That trope has been going strong for ages.