Approching Player Imagination: Hand Holding vs. Loose Ends by Kayla Williamson

source video: "Stop sweating the details and let video games 'happen'", a lecture by Pietro Righi Riva on Gamasutra, October 19, 2012


At this year's GDC Europe, indie game developer and Studio Director of Santa Ragione, Pietro Righi Riva, presented his thoughts on how companies need to "design tools instead of structure" for gamers to ensure satisfaction."The difference between toys and games are rules," Riva said, and it's important that we as designers understand that concept. There is a thin line between following a set of prerequisites─perhapes to fulfil a quest or campaign─and obeying orders, which often destroys the enjoyment for people.

A large part of gaming is taking a story and adapting it as a personal fantasy. With too many limitations─or too much information─a player may lose interest and become frustrated. It's necessary to find balance between spoon-feeding the audience and giving them too much freedom. Although players are ultimately responsible for their own enjoyment, it's our job to create environments that allow individuals to interact with actions latent within objects.

Ravi stated that "[We are] not simulating things with games, but we are using real world experiences of players to make them understand the things you're representing." The "paddles" in Pong are not shaped as tennis or badminton rackets for a reason; If they were, then we as the player would expect them to handle differently.  Because games simulate feeling and emotion, the behaviour of the ball would not seem accurate to the audience if the graphics of the game were any different. The fact that Pong makes sense to us even though it's just a few shapes on a screen proves that "representation is freely tied to expectation."

To conclude his presentation, Riva left these words of wisdom for game developers:
"Maybe if you give players a world that is coherent, and you don't mismanage their expectations, you can give up quantifying whatever their doing and just go with it."

As a future game designer, the most critical thing that I can take away from Riva's lecture is the importance of allowing your audience to mold the game to fit their expectations; Everyone experiences games differently, and the more a designer allows a gamer to "play" around with their surroundings, the more likely they are to derive what they personally need to from a game. Some people use video games as a portal to escape, and allowing a player to delve into their own fantasy, and explore a different world may be what they will feel the most satisfaction from.


Kayla Williamson