The Gamer's Quarter

[david]

Most of the speculation about Revolution input has involved direct metaphors between the controller and other tools. It's easy enough to imagine how swinging the controller could be like swinging a sword; how it could be flipped like a frying pan, or jerked like a fishing rod, etc. (Anyone played Mazan?) But just as representationalism is not the universal goal of painting, literal references to "real world" tools is not the only, nor necessarily the most interesting, frontier of game input. So, to pose a rather broad question, what is game input's analog to non-representational painting?

Note that abstract painting can still be "about" identifiable, concrete things. Mondrian's Broadway Boogie-Woogie (above) was inspired by the music he loved and the rhythms of New York City. (I include it also because it's got that old-school aesthetic.) Mondrian did not attempt to capture every quality of the phenomena to which he was responding (which would have required the full-scale duplication of the entire world), but constructed a system which reenacted bits and pieces of what he had felt. He made decisions about what to emphasize, illuminating his subject from a particular angle – revealing all the facets accessible to light, but leaving others dark. His painting is a metaphor for a place we can all visit, and suggests a particular way of experiencing it.

With Broadway in our minds, let's think about taking a walk. Video games provide various input methods for walking. Each system is a metaphor, a different way to describe the experience of walking. At the maturation of 3D games, we saw a few primary "solutions" for walking become entrenched. Each one can be defined by its camera behavior and command vocabulary/button assignments.

One was the first-person arrangement in Doom. The primary verbs in this system are forward, backward, turn left and turn right. Sidestepping is strategically indispensible, but in the earliest keyboard arrangements (that I'm familiar with), it was configured to keys outside that primary cluster. Therefore, a stringent analysis determines it a secondary function. If I could draw the movement-potential of a Doom-player, it would be a line perpendicular to the ground, running through the player's head, extending infinitely in front and behind. This line expresses the "intention" of the forward and back keys; the turning keys assist by reorienting the line to contextually change the meaning of forward and back. The line gains more importance by virtue of the "fire" key. The act of firing forces players to think about aiming, to always be aware of what is in their direct line of vision. The first person perspective further emphasizes the line through the machanic of shooting and the habit of aiming: unlike Starfox or other third person aiming games, the first person view places the cross hairs right over the perspectival vanishing point. The line represents not only the potential for movement, but the potential for firing. Moving, looking and shooting are all overlayed and equated, creating a very focused and intense mood of purpose and aggression which is appropriate to Doom. Because the player is isolated in a dangerous environment where his emotional range centers on fear, paranoia, and aggression, the perspective and control style in Doom makes sense. The setting is threatening and fearsome; one searches instinctively for a way out. The mentality is always "me against everything"; there is a sharp division between the player (small, centered, vulnerable, rooted in a limited, subjective perspective) and the environment (sprawling, surrounding, threatening, dark). Everything the player picks up or uses he uses exclusively to his desperate advantage. Therefore his means of locomotion are similarly self-centered. He moves in terms relative to himself: "forward," "backward," "turn," etc. These terms do not depend on the environment from which he is trying to escape, and by that token, he is already to some degree removed.

Before Mario 64, there had already been third-person games in 3D, but to my knowledge, the camera had always been directly behind the main character (Tomb Raider), situated in a series of fixed "cinematic" positions (Resident Evil), or fixed overhead at some angle to the ground – perhaps the horizon was visible, perhaps not – and always pointing in the same direction, presumably north (Pac-Man, Dragon Quest, Smash TV, or... um, Bug!). The first two of these control schemes have a great deal in common with Doom, starting with the core vocabulary of forward, backward, and turn. Movement is still defined relative to the main character. In my opinion, that strategy suffered in both games because being visually removed from the main character puts one in a different state of mind in relation to the environment. In Doom, if you could see something, you could walk "forward" to it. If you couldn't see something, you'd turn until you did. But the point is that once something was identified in view, there was a button for moving towards it, directly. In Resident Evil, however, the player can identify many objects in view which he may wish to approach, but the transition from seeing to approaching to touching is interrupted by the need to "catch up" the main character with what the player is experiencing. Jill may be two feet from the herb but facing in the wrong direction, so while the player has identified the herb and wishes to move towards it, Jill still needs to be told where it is – in other words, "turn around." Tomb Raider doesn't suffer quite as much in this way because the camera always stays behind Lara, but in my opinion there is still a certain disconnect. (Granted, I am ignoring a million things, like the way turn and backward combine in Doom vs. in Tomb Raider, the general feel and fluidity of movement, etc.)

Let's return to the third scheme I mentioned – overhead, camera pointing north. Instead of forward, backward, and turn, we have up, down, left and right – all terms relative to the game board or screen. It doesn't matter which direction your character has just been moving in, which direction he is facing; "down" will always make him move south, and never in the direction his back is facing. Mario 64's chief innovation in terms of perspective was simply allowing the camera to reorient itself, to rotate around the main character. But this addition allowed the player's eye to roam (sometimes nauseatingly) while Mario ran in a consistent direction. This allowed many options to drift into view, to have the chance to distract the player and redirect the story. And Mario is a very distractable guy; just look at him scrambling around like some kind of attention-deficit menace. The game is about exploration, using 3D spaces to surprise the player and arouse curiosity. By allowing the camera to rotate, "up," "down," "left" and "right" are freed from the compass; no longer do they correspond to an objective, static layout. The controls are entirely subjective and contextual. Every time the camera turns, "up" means something different. Mario 64 introduced a control scheme which was player-centric (commands are always relative to the player's view), but not tied to the main character (Doom's first person view) and not tied to objective compass directions (Zelda, a zillion games), but only to what the player sees at any given moment. As I said, the controls in Doom are relative to the main character because the player's first concern is himself and his survival. In Doom, one only reaches out to escape or to destroy a threat. In Mario, however, one reaches out to explore, to discover... Mario climbs trees, skips up ramps, etc. Doom gives the player the option of going backwards, away from whatever lies in view. Mario does not walk backwards. He only walks towards. Every command for Mario to move is a command outward, into the world. And the starting place is always Mario. (Doom has no visible protagonist; there is no "outwards"; the player has no bodily home to inhabit in the game world; the player is stranded with only his perspective and the ability to move forward, etc.)

At the outset of Mario 64, the player is shown a castle. What does one instinctively do, despite years of pressing "right" to advance? One presses towards the castle. A moat enters the view. The player is curious; he presses towards the moat. There's a tree; towards the tree. Mario 64's controls are meaningless without an environment. In Doom, one can move forward even in the dark. The need to move forward, to escape to the exit, is ever-present. Mario has no forward, only towards. Towards: the castle, the door, the bridge, the star.

Now I've gone on for some time, but my point is that none of these methods of walking in any way replicate or suggest the physical behavior of moving one's legs. I started all this because I was thinking about the Revolution controller. There will obviously be some sword fighting games where you swing the controller; maybe that symphony game will turn the controller into a baton, etc. But how will walking be implemented? What mentality will be communicated by the new designs?

My original intention was just ask everyone what you all think the new Mario game will be like, and maybe that's still a good place to end up. Mario games (the "true series," or whatever, I mean not sports or party games) have to be about running and jumping – energetic movement through space. It's possible that the nunchuck attachment will make Mario run just like in the existing 3D games, and that the wand will be for something entirely new... but no way is it just going to be an elegant camera control device, nor do I expect another FLUDD-like function. Let's suppose that Mario will run with the wand... How do you suppose that might work?

Okay I'm going to post this damn thing... will probably make some changes as I read it over, too...
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[player 2]

Not to be a cock and derail what could be an interesting thread, but is Miyamoto even making the next Mario game?
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Wii #: 8749 9109 9732 3653

"It is a peaceful way of understanding life, to play"
_Marcel Duchamp

[dark steve]

What the remote does is kind of illuminate the gap between input and action. Tilt it forward to propel mario say (it's cool there are gyroscopes), and jerk it side to side to turn. Flick it to jump. It makes the separation between you and the avatar a lot more obvious. In my mind you're now commanding the character instead of controlling him. Essentially the Hand of God. No wonder Molyneux is excited.

As much I'm actually loathe to derail that wonderful post...

[player 2]

There's too much in that image to really be like Mondrian. Too much yellow, too.

Btw, I always thought that the analog stick for movement was a really, really good analogue to movement. Seriously. Couple it with a run button, and you're money.
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Wii #: 8749 9109 9732 3653

"It is a peaceful way of understanding life, to play"
_Marcel Duchamp

[Mister Toups]

Shit man, you could've like, drafted this up and sent it as a submission to the magazine.

You probably still can! Come on, do it!
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where were you when nana komatsu got a wii?

[Lackey]

[dark steve]

I still have that question too. Maybe the remote as a conducting wand is just too loaded as a metaphor to me. But. There's definitely a psychological difference between assigning one button to a command and replacing this with something more.. intuitive. The model I described, which is just the first and therefore most logical (lol) method that struck me, is a more natural method of control, but not necessarily of movement. You gesture at mario to make to him act. In terms of experience, this is distinct from pressing "A." Imagine directing someone where to place a heavy box while your mouth is full of toast. That's the most obvious model the remote lends itself to.

[kuzdu]

Great piece, man. I would definitely like to see an expanded essay in the magazine. Maybe you could also talk about the differences between the DS touch-screen and the Revolution controller. People always compare them, but it feels inaccurate to me. The brilliance of the DS is that you're actually touching something, that there's some kind of tactile feedback. The Revolution's control, while I'm not dismissing its possibilities, seems much more detached and Hand-of-God-like, as Dark Steve and Lackey were pointing out.

Anyway, I'd like to know what you think, seeing as you obviously thought a lot about this.

[david]

Hmmmmmmmmmm I will try to answer your question to the best of amy abilities.

I mean, my abilities.

First of all, if I make that post into a real essay, I need to rearrange it a ton, and probably cut that whole paragraph about Tomb Raider and that other stuff. Probably just had to go through that to get to the thoughts that came later, but it's not so relevant. Just talking about Doom and Mario 64 as very different games that illustrate a broader principle would be stronger.

About the Revolution controller versus the DS?

In both cases Nintendo did something very clever: rather than load up the input device with more and more buttons ("don't take away our buttons!" the gamers cry) they replaced that quagmire with a single, simple but very flexible and expressive means of input. Okay, so now we have the stylus. Play Kirby Canvas Curse or Nintendogs and it's obvious that you can do all kinds of things, quite intuitively, with the vocabulary implied by the stylus. I showed the dogs game to my grandmother, who can't even find her bookmarks in Internet Explorer, and she was tapping the screen to call the dog, scratching his head, and throwing a frisbee to him, with hardly any guidance. The Revolution controller will be the same, but even more sensitive and flexible.

Oh, but you wanted to hear about the differences? I don't know, what do you think? The hand-of-God association is interesting. I enjoy the intimate scale of the DS. It reminds me of sketching in my notebook.
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[kuzdu]

The physicality (not just of touching, but also of breathing) of the DS is definitely my favorite aspect. That's what worries me about the Revolution, it seems like its control is going to be less physical, and more detached from the actions on screen. This seems to me to be the opposite of what the DS is doing. I think that if games on the DS and Rev end up being similar, then neither one will really be living up to its potential, because deep down, they provide such different experiences.

[nICO]

That was great. I don't think I'd drop the Tomb Raider section, though. If you're unhappy with it maybe just try to work it in more naturally to the Mario vs. Doom comparison.

As far as how the new Mario game will control, my thoughts today are:

Joystick - run foward/backward, strafe left/right
Wand - turn left/right, jump, stomp
A - punch
D Pad - camera
Trigger 1 (main controller) - some waterpacky gimmick
Trigger 2/A - umm, call Yoshi
Trigger 3/B - recenter camera
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Brauner: Damn you, humans... You selfishly start wars and despoil the earth. Perhaps justice wasn't on my side but I will never admit that it was on yours.