95 - Negative Emotions in Games

[matt]

In this developer diary, I talk about the difficulties in expressing negative emotions through a medium that is supposed to be "fun".

[Zendath]

I think frustration definitely can be an intentional part of the game if it expresses itself in the right way. Say the character finds himself in an endless maze that loops on itself and the only way the player is able to escape that sequence is to hit ESC on the keyboard and try to quit the game, only for it to lead to the character waking up back in bed. If there's an intentionally frustrating part or mechanic in the game, there needs to be a purpose for it and have it pay off, not just be there to be annoying for the player.
Whether it's a 4th wall breaking moment like trying to quit the game only for it to be the right solution to a puzzle or have a monster react to the sprint mechanic, say, get slower and more tired as the player runs out of stamina, leaving them both out of breath.

Unintentional frustration, however, that lead to little to no pay off or are just bad design choices in a game more often than not lead me to quit the game only to not come back to it in the future. For examples, all of the "walk and talk" scenes in an action game like Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, they feel out of place and only slow the game down leading to frustrations about not being able to get back into the action quick enough.

[Grabthehoopka]

When I read "negative emotions", my mind immediately went to my old standby, Spec Ops: The Line. That game made me feel teeeeeeeeerrible about myself. There aren't really any mechanics that are deliberately frustrating that I could tell, but the game does go out of its way to verbally and emotionally abuse the player from start to finish. Every time the player character tries to do the right thing or make things better, it makes things worse (sometimes catastrophically so), and oftentimes he (and the player, by proxy) gets berated by the other characters afterword. Towards the end of the game, once the shit has really hit the fan, even the little info blips on the loading screen start insulting you, telling you that you're actually committing murder and you keep telling yourself it's a war story or you're just playing a game to feel less guilty about it. The game straight up tells you you're a horrible person, several times, and I felt like shit after I beat it. And so you can understand how hard it is to convince other people that it's an experience worth playing!

In terms of frustrating mechanics? I guess the combat in Condemned? It's one of my favorite games ever, but that's after 2 ragequits. The combat mechanics were so frustrating that I gave up on the game twice, and it was only on the third time picking the game up and giving it a chance that I finally "got it". The AI is incredibly devious and smart, and the enemies move and attack very believably and realistically, so it was stressful enough, but I was under the impression that combat centered around your borderline-useless block move, which is extremely hard to time correctly with their wild, unpredictable attacks. But at some point, something clicked. I realized you were supposed to keep your distance and stay out of their reach, kind of like how you would actually react if a crazy homeless person jumped out of the shadows and started wildly swinging a pipe at you. Once I understood this, I realized that you weren't putting on half-assed stage sword fights where you swipe and parry with 2x4s, but you were supposed to use common sense and approach combat exactly as you would in real life, and then everything ran along smoothly. Combat was still extremely stressful and lethal, but I think that was exactly what they were going for.
And then they made a second one, and fucked it all up, but. Anyway.

Visceral Games came up with the dismemberment mechanic when they were developing Dead Space as a result of trying to make the combat more stressful. I'm too lazy to dig up the behind-the-scenes video on youtube right now, but they basically said that getting chased by a killer is scary, but having to use precise motor skills in a stressful situation, like, say, finding the right key on the key ring and sticking it in the lock to unlock your car door, whilst being chased by a killer, is scarier. It wouldn't be enough if you could just blow away the monsters without thinking about it (sadly ironic now, considering how Dead Space 3 turned out), and they didn't want to rely on the monsters having obvious weak points to shoot, so they came up with the dismemberment mechanic. And the rest is history.

Also, the opening sequence in Resident Evil 4 sticks out in my mind. Whoever thought of sticking a difficulty spike in so soon after the player gets a feel for the game and the mechanics is a bastard and a genius.

[RightClickSaveAs]

When I think of frustration in games, the first thing that comes to mind for me is Dark Souls. It's definitely an action game, so a lot of the comparisons to horror games like Silent Hill don't apply, but I recently started playing it again for some reason, and it can be one of the most frustrating games I've ever played. However, there is something that makes you (or at least me) keep going back to it. I think a lot of it is how rewarding it is when you finally get past that difficult part. And also the game doesn't feel unnecessarily frustrating, the popularity I think is due to the elegant balancing act they've pulled off of making it REALLY hard but still not unfair.

For a horror game, I think any frustration the player feels should come mostly from helplessness, which is an important thing to recreate in a horror game. One of the disappointing things for me about Dead Space was how powerful you could become once you started getting a few weapons and upgrading them even a little bit, most of the tension is gone when you're able to kill everything that's threatening you, leaving pretty much just the atmosphere and jump scares.

[ranger_lennier]

I think there are a lot of different ways a game can be frustrating. Some games are really difficult in the sense that they demand perfection from the player to advance--think Dark Souls or Spelunky. And I've certainly felt frustrated by these games, but at the same time it is more satisfying when I finally do accomplish my goal. I'm less enthusiastic about games that, intentionally or not, use clunky controls to increase the difficulty of a situation that, in most games, wouldn't be that hard. One of my worst videogame decisions was playing Resident Evil Zero on hard. I finally got through it, but not until replaying sections many times until it felt like I finally lucked into a good outcome. While I can certainly appreciate the atmosphere of those games, I liked RE4 much better. Some people still complained about control limitations, like not being able to run and shoot, but it seems to me that that both makes sense (Who can actually shoot worth a damn while running?) and increased the difficulty in a way that players could easily understand and adapt to. And the opening scene in that game where the guy with the chainsaw comes after you is easily one of my most memorable videogame moments ever.

Other negative emotions do seem rarer. I don't really think of fear in a game as a negative emotion, since it's ultimately safe thrill-seeking. I don't imagine that RE4 closely replicated the emotional response to actually being chased by a chainsaw-wielding madman. We're seeing some indie games experiment with different emotions. Papers Please doesn't seem to be trying for fun in the traditional sense, though I haven't actually played that one. I did recently play Depression Quest. It's not a traditional game--more interactive fiction. And it is, in a way, depressing. In fact, you're frequently presented with a list of options, with the best ones crossed out because your character basically doesn't have the will to do them. That said, I did find the story engaging, and got some accomplishment out of eventually improving my character's situation. You can play it for free on-line, and it will also be on Steam soon. Thankfully it got Greenlit despite the on-line harassment of a developer for daring to be a woman making a non-traditional game.

http://www.depressionquest.com/

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/vi ... Submission

There's definitely experimentation going on with how to make a dramatic game, but it's hard to get the interactivity right. The big complaint about A Machine For Pigs is that it removed so many gameplay elements that it essentially just became walking through a haunted house. I'm definitely interested in what Telltale has been doing. The Walking Dead was a really powerful experience to play, and it felt like I was really impacting the story as I played it. Of course, I eventually realized that, in broad strokes, the story was mostly the same regardless of what I chose. I'm definitely looking forward to them completing season 2, and also The Wolf Among Us.

[matt]

I think unintentional frustration is always bad. It isn't serving its intended purpose. However, intentional frustration doesn't seem to go over well with everyone - me for example. Dark Souls is a great game - or at least so I hear, but the difficulty seems so extreme that I don't think I'd ever be able to enjoy it. Now, I'm not saying that Dark Souls should be an easy game just to cater to me because I think that would ruin what everyone else loves about it, but when trying to create an "accessible" game (and I definitely want NN to be accessible), any "frustrating" mechanics require very careful design. Anyway, it is still something I'm thinking about and experimenting with as I continue work on Neverending Nightmares.

I played Condemned on easy because I couldn't figure out the combat system when I initially played and failed miserably at the block. It's nice to know I am not the only one who had trouble with the block.

Spec Ops definitely explores negative emotions. Someday, I should play that game. Haha I do really enjoy Telltale Games, and I’ve been meaning to play Depression Quest although I’m a little scared to. I worry it may hit too close to home.

In terms of balancing emotions and gameplay, I think the best way to create a dramatic game is to create the feelings THROUGH the game mechanics. That was actually one of the original design ideas behind Neverending Nightmares - although it was with a much different game idea. (I was thinking of a twin stick shooter to explore my feelings of mental illness, but I thought it might end up too much like Solace - a shooter through the 5 stages of grief...)

I still hope to do with Neverending Nightmares – sort of a “show, don’t tell” philosophy. Rather than having the characters act frustrated, I am trying to have mechanics that border on frustrating – like the ineffective sprint. It’s probably not as effective as showing a character frustrated because I think consciously everyone understands that, but I think it could have an even better payoff. Well, at least I hope so.

[gagaplex]

Some element of frustration is very helpful for the Rogue Light kinds of games that are very common in the indie field by now. How many hours have I put into a game like The Binding of Isaac...? But it has to lure you along, give you rewards even if you fail (like new unlockables) and obviously can't be too frustrating to keep you motivated. But overcoming odds and frustration can be very addictive. But I guess that's actually making frustration a feature that's enjoyable, rather than trying to convey frustration in itself, so it's probably not quite what you meant from what I gathered.

[matt]

I'm not sure if rogue-likes necessarily have to be frustrating or if that is an intentional part of the design. It seems like a difficult road to travel to try to explicitly frustrate players. I'm toying with some things now that might be kind of frustrating (and of course the sprint mechanic is supposed to be kind of frustrating), so I'll be sure to report back if I figure anything out.