Christian Nutt has an interesting article on how Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII has taken a small step forwards in meshing together gameplay and story. The innovative way Crisis Core tells its story with vignettes during battle through the Digital Mind Wave (DMW) system is definitely something to praise, and Christian does a good job of that.

But, I hate to say, it misses the mark on really getting passed the current gameplay/story divide. First, I’ll let Christian do all the work in describing how the DMW system works:

Most of the writing I saw (in reviews) was confined to confusion about the randomness of the DMW — it’s essentially a slot machine. When you hit onto the right combination of numbers you get stat boosts, powerful attacks, or even more impressive monster summons.

It also governs the leveling of your character, his special attacks, and spells. This is the bit people didn’t like: though it wasn’t actually random (since it masks a more-or-less standard experience point system) it appeared random, and that galls players.

[...]

As you fight battles, the DMW continuously spins, without your input, in the top left corner of the screen. When it gets close to making a beneficial match, the spinning reels zoom in to take over the entire screen.

Instead of fruit or other typical slot machine items, important characters from the game’s story populate the DMW; when you first encounter those characters in-game, they’re added to your DMW roster.

[...]

The DMW is affected by protagonist Zack Fair’s emotional state (hence the quote above.) The more intense his emotion, the higher likelihood there is of a match. When a match is made, that might be it — you just get a bonus.

But sometimes, a (very short) cutscene might play. This cutscene is always a memory Zack has of an important character of the game, and it’s always from Zack’s perspective.

[...]

When Zack remembers a particularly strong memory, he’s filled with strength to fight even harder. This is rewarding both from a story perspective and from a gameplay perspective.

I agree with Christian in that this game mechanic is definitely an interesting way for the game to present you with plot. This is a nice step forward. A method of telling story through game mechanics, as opposed to being slapped on top of them or jarringly stuck between the cracks, is always appreciated. But beyond this, what’s really interesting is that this game mechanic procedurally generates a plot in which the main character’s emotions conjure up vignettes of his past experiences which then influence the events of the present.

However, the reason this innovative step forward fails is because the game mechanics themselves are essentially built around a slot-machine-like system. Not only is this bad from a game design perspective, since rules should always be discernible in such a way as to not seem too arbitrary and frustrate the player, but it also implies (unintentionally) that emotions conjure up, like a slot-machine (??), past experiences to influence our daily lives. It’s the randomness and incongruity of the slot-machine mechanic that seems out of place. It grates against our gameplay and story expectations.

The reason Crisis Core doesn’t get past the gameplay/story divide is because, although it has an interesting system that innovatively introduces vignettes through a gameplay mechanic, the DMW system is inherently incoherent with the story being told. Emotions conjuring up the past and influencing the present suggests purpose, order, cause and effect. Randomness unhinges this feeling and makes the mechanic grating and annoying.

Over at Gamasutra they have a detailed and well researched piece on crafting compelling characters in video games. But I think something’s missing. It’s not that what Tychsen is saying is wrong, technically he’s just reporting his observations as he sees them. His honest goal is give people the knowledge they need to design better characters in games, that you can see. Unfortunately, the way he approaches what a character is dooms him to repeat the same mistakes that have lead game after game to implement flat, boring characters.

From a systems’ point of view, a character is just a unit within the game, with attributes, relations, statistics, and behaviours. This is Tychsen’s viewpoint, and it’s fine when creating a game for gameplay’s sake. But as soon as you introduce story, you need to look at characters in a different way.

[…]if the character is not interesting to play, the gaming experience will not be of a sufficient quality to motivate the player to continue player.

Fascinating characters can make a game and create lasting relationships with the player that keep them coming back for more – as is evidenced in the game series featuring characters such as Lara Croft, April Ryan, Max Payne, Crash Bandicoot and Sonic the Hedgehog.

First off, you could have the most interesting character in the world and it won’t save you from plain old bad gameplay. Consider the wildly popular and completely unsuccessful Sonic the Hedgehog franchise. I love that little guy, and I have fond memories playing Sonic games on my Sega Genesis, but I really haven’t enjoyed the 3D versions that have been coming out over the years. Sonic the Hedgehog is a character, yes, but moreso, he’s the embodiment of a specific kind of gameplay that I really enjoy. Take away the gameplay, and I don’t enjoy Sonic anymore.

And this leads me to my point: If experiencing gameplay is to experience a game’s procedural plot, and Sonic is the embodiment of that gameplay, then Sonic isn’t just a character but an actantial component of the plot.

Actants aren’t units in a story; they don’t exist and affect the fiction as agents, “causing” things to happen. Instead, actants only exist because you want a certain action in your plot to occur. It’s a subtle change of perspective that has you constantly acknowledging the fictionality of the plot, the fact that the story is a construction. Uncle Ben doesn’t die at the hands of some burglar because one rolled lawful good and the other chaotic evil, or because the burglar had a higher agility score, or because the burglar had a bad day, really needed the money and got careless. The reason Uncle Ben dies at the hands of some burglar is to provide the realistic motivation needed by the plot to fulfill Peter Parker’s transformation into the friendly neighbourhood Spiderman we all know. As far as Spiderman’s origin story goes, that’s the only reason why the actants of Ben and the burglar exist in the plot.

That’s interesting, you might think, but what does that have to do with game design? Well, like I said, Tychsen’s systematic approach isn’t wrong, it’s just lacking the depth needed to implement characters that are well rounded and feel like they belong in the game’s procedural plot. For that, you need to consider what that character’s actantial role in the plot will be. And this is where the two meet: once you know exactly what an actant’s purpose is in the plot, then you can start thinking about what game mechanics, attributes, statistics and behaviours best serve to coherently fulfill that purpose. The end result is a character that’s both structurally and actantially sound, the kind of character that really emphasizes the plot and brings your game to life.