One Shot at Glory: (yet another discussion of) Risk and Reward.
Perhaps one of the biggest challenges of a design mindset is keeping mental agility. You can’t simply group your work into “Games,” that’s like saying steak, pancakes, radishes and faux crab are the same because they are all “Food.” Taking such a stance on a design issue is dangerous, because it can lead to a one size fits all mentality, which is demonstrably false. Let’s examine this more carefully. Here is a common situation in games; first we’ll discuss what it is, then look at all the outcomes that are based on game genre alone.
The player, harried by foes and losing the conflict, sees an advantage materialize before her. But the risk is great! A bold move could reap great reward and clinch victory in a sudden upset, or bring her certain death.
What a situation! The risk: defeat at a blow. The reward? Victory, sooner and more certainly (if she succeeds) than otherwise. Is it worth it? Well that really depends on the game, and what it means to win or lose. Sure, in most all games, losing means death. Sometimes death is trivial, a chance to take a swig of your soda and respawn. Sometimes it means a protracted sigh, followed by rapid button-pressing to skip the cutscene you’ve seen for the 20th time. In all cases, death means time lost, be it seconds, minutes, or in the extreme cases, hours! Let’s see…
The Single Player Action Adventure.
God of War, Ninja Gaiden, Devil May Cry, Metal Gear, this genre of game often has one incredible agile protagonist and a trusty blade or two against the hordes. Losing here often means rolling back to some intermediary point in the level you were in, or perhaps even the beginning. You may lose a little bit of time recovering old ground, and that blow is softened if the game lets you keep earned money or items after you die. In general, while these games are often intense and action packed, they provide the least amount of bold risk taking. When the boss shows up, there may be a myriad of ways to beat him, but almost none of those ways are going to be the kind of “one swell foop” masterstrokes that are worth risking so much for. In today’s games, you lose next to nothing on death except for some time to run it back from the waypoint, so providing a super risky move loses its charm when the player just throws himself at it again and again. Now, the games of yore, where lives could run out, continues could dry up, and games actually be over, that is a different story. You didn’t come here for a history lesson though. Now a days, you’ll hear people admonishing that you should never “punish” the player. In the far extreme, there have been examples compared to theme park rides; it is not about challenge or overcoming obstacles, but rather hanging on and enjoying the show. Losing isn’t fun, so why let the player lose? At that point, winning isn’t any fun either: if not for the bullet, who would fear the gun?
Great Mosh Pitting! Deathmatch / Team shooters.
At first glance, this seems like the least risky death. You die, you respawn– back into the action. If you take a bold risk to kill someone and it doesn’t work, no sweat. Of course, even if it does work, no sweat for the victim! They too jump back into the fray. Sure, these situations carry a little more gravity when score is on the line, especially when it is near the end of the game. Still, these are pittances, trifling risks for petty rewards. Unless, that is, you consider the team mechanic.
Games that have “single-life” team modes, such as Counterstrike, SoFII’s Infiltration mode, and Rocket Arena, have teams with finite resources. If you die, you no longer contribute, and your team is that much weaker. Now while each round may not last longer than five minutes, they can mean everything to the people playing! Certainly, dying early and not being able to play for a few minutes has a sting to it. More importantly though, you don’t want to let the team down. How did you die? Cut down in honorable combat? Happens to the best of us. Shotgun to the back by some yellow-bellied camper? Choke it down, man, you’re not alone. Taking some damned fool risk that never could have worked? How are you going to explain that one to the team?
Here I think the risk/reward dynamic is the richest. If you have a chance to kill two, or even three of the opposition in a single dangerous stroke, that is a tremendous blow! Not only will you reduce the enemy’s fighting strength numerically, but what a blow to the morale! The sheer amount of smack talking that can ensue from such a move is almost worth the price of admission. The trouble is, these moves are dangerous by design; if a game constantly let one player destroy multiple other players by surprise, it wouldn’t be very fun. More often than not, someone trying these desperate Rambo maneuvers ends up as crimson mosaic on the floor of The Shop, followed by a chorus of “lol” and “noob” from the shaken– but quite alive– enemies.
Strategy Warfare
If the risk/reward factor was most rich in team shooters, it is here on the protracted battlefield of turn based and real time strategy that it is the most brutal. These games can really take some time, and losing can be a miserable affair. Seeing an opening and going for it is often key to the successful strategies in these games, but every move you make comes with a cost in resources and time. Too many failed surges, or half-thought-out maneuvers, and you can find yourself at a severe disadvantage. A long list of clever but ineffective attacks will leave you scrambling when the enemy’s simple tank rush comes barreling through your ill-defended front door. Sometimes, though, desperate acts are all you have left. You may find yourself under the withering assault of a well-stocked attack force outside your front door, with fire bases and artillery pounding away at you while their air force blackens your skies. Can you get a few critical units out the back door? Can you sneak around to the enemy’s base, so busy attacking you he doesn’t notice your pilfering of his resources, or perhaps secretive and catastrophic surgical assault on his headquarters? Great strategies here are everything, and the price of failure is high. You know it has to happen, but nobody wants to play for hours just to lose. Big risk taking is integral to this flavor of game, and making sure that it feels bold even after your 50th game is a challenge.
Fortune Favors the Bold
It isn’t easy to sum this up, since the genres and their implications are so disparate. As a baseline, one should make sure that if they do offer risks and rewards, they are balanced in nature. Easy risks for huge rewards cheapen your game, drastic risks for a pittance make the game seem almost clumsy and hamfisted. Maybe your game won’t have these situations at all– certainly there is a call for measured challenge and constrained variables in some games. If you do throw this sort of thing in there, though, the pay off can be great. Players who take great risks and reap great rewards love to talk about it, and also embellish the story along the way. At the end of the day, who wouldn’t take some small pride in being the enabler of these great tales of virtual heroism?