Video games designed as physical interactive objects
A few thoughts on the interfaces for humans
In august this year I wrote a small self reflective piece on video games designed as physical objects, toys, Rubik’s cubes and chairs. Almost half a year later I felt that not only a revision was necessary but also that there was a bigger picture I felt interested in discussing. This text was also a observatory documentation of my own design process as I was working on a puzzle game we are soon to release (jan 2014). But lets go to the beginning…
Ever since video games, and software in general were invented and until recently there would always be a barrier between a player and a game. For example a dynamical meaning would be one thing (ex. character jumping) but the actual physical mechanic would be pushing buttons on a joystick or moving a physical manifestation of a cursor shaped as a mouse.
Recently one detail has changed — the very barrier between virtual and physical became extremely thin; it is now a thickness of a glass covering your iPad, sometimes it is even thinner. That brought us to the direct manipulation — a game’s dynamic meaning can now sometimes be synonymous to what is being done on the screen. At the same time we are being better and better understood by machines, our bodies, movements, voice and facial expressions are all being read, captured, analysed. We can start addressing human condition in interfaces. As designers we can think of a medium beyond digital, be no longer limited in the box of a web page, a game world or an interface of an app — imagine a phone running a game being passed to a young child who doesn't understand the concept of software yet… For him or her the whole object will be the manifestation of the game it runs.
On one hand that is exactly how we should try to think of the interfaces: moving something with your finger is natural to a human being, while menu with a text is not so natural. Yes — not every aspect of UI or controls can be translated into a more human layer, but many of them can be.
So what is on the other hand? Perhaps keeping in mind the fact that objects are able to tell stories, and how we would usually approach them in product design, interfaces should help us tell that same story instead of being a layer between a player / user / viewer and a content, a content that is an augmentation to player’s physical reality as he or she is just a thin glass away from the world we are creating, and in cases like Oculus Rift the player is no longer away at all.
Games with a strong dependence on verbal narrative, stories with scale or an impact to the player similar to movies and novels, those games usually face an issue of “story meaning” conflicting with “dynamic meaning”, however the “control meaning” not being aligned to any of those two remains a subject not so popular to discuss. And yet there is a room for improvement: being human we in general are very capable of making connections in our minds, bridging metaphors and notions, same way we see shapes in conscelations of starts, it is thus the “controlo meaning” has a great potential to tell the story better or make the player more immersed.
For smaller games, those where “dynamic meaning” is dominant the opportunity is even bigger. For example when designing our recent puzzle game I tried to implement the exact approach I am describing here, we thus ended up with a game with no tutorials, and with a zero written words at all, never in the game or menu would you see a word, a letter or even a digit. As for the controls we used direct translation - what your finger would do in real life to a block with various physical properties like a spring or shape flexibility, same would happen in the game play… I believe that in this kind of games we are able to let people learn how to play and feel rewarded when solving puzzles without scores or “Level Complete” messages as well as we are able to let them control the game intuitively regardless of any cultural backgrounds or languages.
That finally brings us to the aspect of accessibility - now games are able to be a medium you can understand without words, this obviously doesn't work for every kind of the game, neither it actually should, yet for some it would be a mistake not to adhere to a more innovative use of language, signs and clues. A wonderful example could be how characters in SIMS communicate in gibberish and yet remain very clear for understanding. Compare the outcome of a game you can pass to a child without explanation or let people in any part of the world enjoy, to a game that requires a notable investment in terms of reading and understanding UI as well as seeing it all the time between the game and the player.
Once again addressing the features of being human we should not forget that stories, emotions, notions and goals can be communicated to us with colors, shapes and sounds as well as with words, yet words seem like an obvious choice only on a surface.
As designers and creators we now have all the tools for bringing digital experience closer to a human nature — as 3d dimensional physical species we of course tend to rely on physicality rather than metaphors, on experience rather that words overlaying it, it is thus we are at a moment when approaching game and interactive design is also important from perspectives of product and physicality.
It is also important to keep in mind the end goal and stay true to the selected medium, for example Device 6 is a game that heavily relies on a written word, and yet it couldn't be better, one of the reasons for such achievement is the lack of layers between game-play and the player. Device 6 at the end adheres to the same rule of immersing the player in the expirience yet it uses the medium of a novel to build upon.
Same way as movie is not better than a book — not all the video games are the same, some can be interactive objects, some a new type of story telling, and some may be so closely integrated into our life that we don't even call them games, what remains however unchanged is the player, the player who always exists in the layer of reality, and it is into that reality we need to bring both the experience and the meaningful value of the game…
