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Two Horrible Games
At last our discussion of complexity brings us into the realm of game design. We know that games are systems, but what would it take to make a game a complex system? Earlier, we looked at systems that weren't complex, to help identify characteristics of complex systems. We use a similar strategy next, inventing a couple of games that don't manage to achieve complexity. As games, they are pretty horrible, but like all bad games, they can teach us something. The first game is called Heads or Tails: Heads or Tails, a game for two players: One player flips a penny out of sight of the other player. The other player guesses whether or not the penny landed on heads or tails. If the guesser is correct, the guesser wins. Otherwise, the player that flipped the penny wins. This game definitely doesn't sound like much fun. Imagine playing it just one time: as the coin-flipping player, you flip the coin, wait for the answer, and then find out if you won or lost. Even if you played the game over and over, it would still be an exercise in flipping and guessing. The game seems too simple to ever become genuinely complex. The second example of a horrible game isn't nearly as simple, but it too fails to achieve complexity: The Grid, a game for two players: Play takes place on a grid of 100 squares by 100 squares. Each player has ten identical game pieces, placed randomly on the board at the beginning of the game. A piece occupies one square on a grid, although the pieces stack, so any number of pieces from either player can occupy a single grid square. Players take turns moving all 10 of their pieces once each turn. Moving a piece means moving it 1-1000 spaces in any combination of horizontal, vertical, or diagonal movements. Pieces do not affect each other in any way. This game also doesn't sound like much fun. The players would take turns, laboriously pushing their pieces around the board, but because players cannot affect each other, the game would go on forever and no one would win. Players might create patterns of pieces on the board, but ultimately those patterns would be meaningless in terms of making progress toward winning the game. Like static, the pieces would be constantly in motion, but they would never form coherent strategic patterns where the points had any meaningful relationship to each other (as Bak put it, the pieces would be "uncorrelated points"). Both Heads and Tails and The Grid lack complexity.They are also very different games. What do they have in common that keeps them from attaining complexity? To answer this question, we return to our core concept of meaningful play.
Meaningful play in a game emerges from the relationship between player action and system outcome; it is the process by which a player takes action within the designed system of a game and the system responds to the action. The meaning of an action resides in the relationship between action and outcome.
Thinking about the two games in the context of meaningful play, it is clear that neither one was forging meaningful relationships between player action and system outcome- between the decisions that the player was making and the results of those decisions in the game. In the case of Heads and Tails, the game consists of a single random event that determines the outcome of the game and over which the players have no control. The second game, The Grid, lacks meaningful play in a different way: unlike Heads and Tails, there is no randomness at all and the players make many decisions every turn as they move their pieces. But because there is no way for those decisions to have meaningful game outcomes, The Grid also ultimately lacks meaningful play. If both of these games lack complexity, and they both lack meaningful play, does that mean that meaningful play and complexity are the same thing? Not at all. Meaningful play and complexity address two different aspects of games. Meaningful play concerns the relationship between decision and outcome, and complexity concerns the way that parts relate to each other in a system. Despite this distinction, the two concepts are closely related. In games where meaningful play does exist, some aspect of the game system will be complex. The complexity might come in the form of formal strategic intricacy, complex social relationships, a rich narrative structure, the psychological complexity of betting real-world money, or in other ways, but complexity is a prerequisite of meaningful play. Without complexity, the space of possibility of a game is not large enough to support meaningful play. What would it take to turn Heads and Tails into a game that did support meaningful play? We can make a simple adjustment to the system of rules and see how it changes things: Heads and Tails: The Decision Variant. Instead of randomly flipping the penny, the flipper gets to decide which side is facing up. The other player guesses which side the flipper selected. If the guesser is correct, the guesser wins. Otherwise, the player that flipped the penny wins. In this version of Heads and Tails, the guesser is trying to determine the other player's decision instead of trying to guess the outcome of a random event. Does this bring meaningful play into the game? Does it make the game more complex? Well, it does make the game less of a random event: one player is trying to "psyche out" the other player and guess at his intentions. But despite this fact, playing the Decision Variant just one time would not push the game into the realm of complexity. Why not? The game still feels arbitrary. Even though the flipper can determine which side of the penny faces up, the overall outcome of the game feels random. Arbitrary play, in which actions seem unrelated to each other, is the opposite of meaningful play. Another important factor is that the game does not last long enough to have any kind of trajectory or larger context into which the player's decisions are integrated. Considering a single game, players would iterate the rules just once and then the game would be over, without any opportunity for their decisions to affect future outcomes in a meaningful way. Whether the flip is random or predetermined, a single game of Heads and Tails lacks complexity because it lacks meaningful play. As we pointed out, meaningful play and complexity are not the same thing: they refer to different aspects of games. But complexity is a necessary prerequisite of meaningful play. Below are a few additional variations to Heads and Tails that underscore this point. Each version of the game makes a few rules modifications that affect the integration of player action and system outcome. Although each variation only adds a few new rules, each one pushes the operation of the game system beyond the complexity barrier and into meaningful play.
The Talking Variant. In this version of the game, the flipper decides which side of the coin is up. But before the guesser guesses, the two players have ten minutes to discuss the decision the flipper made. The flipper might lie about which side is up, tell the truth, or try some complex double-psychology tactic. The guesser wins if the guess is correct and the flipper wins if the guess is incorrect. Why it is more meaningful: In the Talking Variant, the rich social interaction that ensues elevates the game into the realm of meaningful play. The flipper has to select a strategy of deception, which the guesser tries to defeat. The final guess that the guesser makes is an integrated part of the entire conversation leading up to the decision. The Repeating Guess Variant. In this variant, the flipper still decides which side of the coin is up. No discussion is allowed, but the players play the game 21 times. Each time the guesser guesses right, he or she gets a point. Each time the guesser guesses wrong, the flipper gets a point. At the end of the game, the player with the most points wins. Why it is more meaningful: The Repeating Guess is very similar to the Decision Variant. The difference is that because the game is played many times, there is a chance for patterns to emerge. As with Rock-Paper-Scissors, the two players are trying to outguess each other and detect patterns in the other's behavior. Each choice is integrated into past decisions made by both players. The Increasing Risk Variant: In this game, players alternate the roles of guesser and flipper. Each turn, the current guesser tries to guess the result of a random flip. If the guesser is correct, the guesser earns 1 point and may choose to have the coin flipped to guess again. If the guesser is correct a second time, the points earned double (from 1 to 2). As long as the guesser is correct about the flip, the guesser can continue to guess and try to double the points earned that turn, from 1 to 2 to 4 to 8, etc. But a single wrong guess eliminates all of the points earned that turn and the two players switch roles. The first player to 25 points wins. Why it is more meaningful: Even though this game still uses a random coin flip, the players make meaningful "press your luck" kinds of choices that can reward or punish risk. Every game action is integrated into the decisions of a particular turn, as well as the game as a whole. For example, if your opponent is about to win, you might be forced to take more risks. Each Heads and Tails game variant offers meaningful play by providing additional relationships between decision and outcome and integrating these moments of interactivity into a larger game structure. The original Heads and Tails was a simple exercise in probability. But it is impossible to predict how one of the variations might play out. What would the conversation be like in the Talking Variant? What patterns would arise in the Repeating Guess Variant? How much would players be willing to risk in the Increasing Risk Variant? The game experiences that would emerge from within these variations would be surprisingly complex, more so than their very simple sets of rules might lead you to believe. This phenomenon-systems generating complex and unpredictable patterns of behavior from simple rules-is called emergence.
