It has been interesting to observe how the gameplay of Bioware’s Mass Effect continues to pop up in discussions about narrative in contemporary gaming. The 2007 Xbox 360 and Windows title seems to have entrenched itself as a benchmark for immersive storytelling. For those unfamiliar with the premise of the game, Mass Effect is a sci-fi action RPG that places the protagonist – a recently deputized intelligence agent – in the midst of an escalating intergalactic crisis. The most distinguishing feature of the game is a relatively nuanced conversation system that allows for interactions which can be steered in multiple directions. This extended dialogue scheme has potential implications for the story-arc. Noah Wardrip-Fruin has posted some thoughtful commentary on narrative in Mass Effect; rather than traverse that same territory, here are a few observations surrounding the design of the game.
The conversation interface (or conversation wheel) is a distinct example of tentative space. This interface, as shown in the screen capture above, allows the protagonist to navigate a range of possible responses when talking to a non-player character. As the player advances, they have the opportunity to develop specific characteristics that will allow them to intimidate or charm certain characters. The conversation wheel is one of the primary interfaces in Mass Effect; given the stiffness of the “action” portion of the game, it is definitely the most memorable feature. Gameplay in Mass Effect is essentially a long chain of conversations and “play” is characterized by deciding what to say next while the characters onscreen linger and cycle through their personal inventory of ambient gestures. Constraining and charming at the same time, a lull in conversation is a strange locus to find at the heart of a game.
Earlier this fall Variety announced that producer Avi Arad had optioned the movie rights for Mass Effect. This is interesting news considering that while the storyline defines the Mass Effect game, the player both designs and directs the identity of their character. The first task a player must complete in Mass Effect is “building” an avatar by defining their gender, appearance, history and disposition. In porting this franchise over to another medium, the protagonist is a blank slate for character development – even more so than is usually the case in game to film translations. One can’t help but wonder: will the development of the screenplay be nearly as interesting as the writing process that yielded the script(s) for the game?
The lobby is designed for localization and comes preconfigured with 10 languages. With minimal customization, the Scaleform Lobby can be integrated into a game’s existing network infrastructure.
The above marketing copy succinctly describes some of the selling points of the Scaleform Multiplayer Lobby. Debuted at GDC 2008, the Scaleform system is a skinable, customizable interface to coordinate matchmaking and hosting for online gamers. The Scaleform Lobby is just one of hundreds of the solutions that have been developed to facilitate networked gaming which has necessitated a range of logistics including user profiles, chat functionality, player ratings, multi-language support and social functionality. These parameters considered, game lobbies are spaces of negotiation and “collective configuration” that sit outside of gameplay but are integral to the management of it. These interstitial interfaces foster unique game-specific social contracts and communications standards which augment the construction of games by making the process collaborative. This short text is invested in scrutinizing the spatial, social and informatic quality of game lobbies and reading them as a prime examples of tentative spaces in gaming.
Multiplayer lobbies are spaces of organization where players can assemble, “party up” and organize the rules of engagement before committing to loading a map. Pre-game congregation has been a standard part of the ritual of gaming since the inception of networked and online play. In browsing the past protocols and platforms associated with communal play some worthwhile precedents to examine are The ImagiNation Network (INN), World Opponent Network (WON) and part of the functionality contained within digital distribution networks like Steam. While tracing this genealogy would undoubtedly yield fascinating results, this discussion is interested in the qualitative nature of multiplayer lobbies rather than the network architectures that underpin them. So what then is the spatial quality of game lobbies and how do players occupy them?
There are a number of interesting observations about multiplayer lobbies. As stated earlier, they are places of negotiation where participants assemble and determine the scope of play. These negotiations are usually semi-democratic (and occasionally autocratic) and often marked by lively and pointed discussion where the various players state, in no uncertain terms, what they feel the parameters of play should be. Demands are made, hosts booted and trash-talked. Despite this cacophony, an order eventually emerges, terms are agreed upon and play begins. In thinking about the “voice” that gamers adopt in these spaces a few trends emerge: first, depending on the platform, one might have to endure varying combinations of bigotry, homophobia and testosterone-fueled posturing. Noise aside, what is worth noting is the fact that players seldom, if ever, actually speak “in character” in multiplayer lobbies. Instead of acting as an extension of narrative, lobbies are a tangential forum for the discussion of game mechanics, play style and preference. If you ever want to get a sense of the idiosyncrasies and vernacular of a specific title, head straight to the appropriate multiplayer lobby.
In addition to functioning as a site of interaction, multiplayer lobbies can also be read in relation to another mediated space, one with an extensive backstory which spills across several mediums and traditions. A green room is a tertiary space in broadcast media or theatre where off-air/stage actors and participants can retire and wait. Multiplayer lobbies serve this exact function in gaming, but this contemporary iteration of the green room is more inclusive and participatory – anyone can end up in this space, they need only pick up a controller. This comparison suggests the possibility of a strange overlap between theatre architecture and interface design. As interstitial, social spaces that demarcate the divide between configuration and play, game lobbies are a unique region within game space, one that is not only passed through, but occupied.
Discussions addressing the connection between architecture and gaming cycle in and out of design discourse with some regularity. And why not? The experiential qualities of surface, volume and movement in game space are compelling, immersive and, quite importantly, shared points of reference. Conversations about this relationship often address the fact that the underlying means of production in both disciplines are fundamentally connected through an assortment of shared tools and methodologies. Beyond advances in software and hardware, we could definitely point fingers at the uncanny digital materiality of James Cameron and the influential design practice of Greg Lynn for causing a conflation of architectural, animation and visual effects culture. Origins aside, it is important to note that both architecture and gaming are equally invested in the representation of space, and both have codified standards for “sound construction”. This works at the diagrammatic level of vectors and polygons and experientially when discussing the qualities of immersion in specific narrative spaces, be they inhabited or played.
There are a number of pitfalls to be avoided when reading space in gaming. One must resist the urge to completely aestheticize gaming, avoid eclipsing play with narrative and acknowledge that game space telescopes outwards from play and also encompasses various layers of control and perception which augment and inform immersion. These layers include interface, the picture planes that comprise the display, related hardware and software and even the body of the gamer. The idea of gameplay as a collaboration between player and software was outlined succinctly by Alexander Galloway in his 2006 essay Gamic Action, Four Movements. Galloway identifies gaming as an “action medium” whereby all activity can be categorized as initiated by the “operator” or “machinic” and as being either “diegetic“ (contributing to the narrative) or “non-diegetic”. These criteria provide a handy classification system for reading gaming and interpreting the nature of specific interactions and events.
What is of interest to this examination of space in gaming is generally contained within the “operator” and “non-diegetic” quadrants of the above diagram – events initiated by the player that aren’t directly connected to the narrative of the game. Galloway identifies these types of operations as “acts of configuration” that “happen on the exterior of the world of the game”. In this series of posts we will use this definition as a reference (rather than a pair of handcuffs) to read these “actions” as Tentative Spaces – temporary, informational enclosures that a gamer inhabits and modulates while immersed in play or setting the parameters for it.
Mez Breeze’s notion of synthetic presencing (previously defined and discussed here on Augmentology) is another useful precedent. Breeze identifies presencing as blurring the middle ground between the clearly defined fiction/non-fiction divide associated with firmly established narrative models and mediums (i.e. detective fiction novels, crime-drama films). Examples of presencing include fan fiction, the social infrastructure of MMOG guilds, and the rapid, permutational evolution of internet memes that riff off pop culture. How does presencing relate to this discussion of space in gaming? Since tentative spaces operate as sidebars to and overlays on game space, they exist tangentially to game narrative. While these spaces relate to the fiction of game space they are not completely contained in game space. Tentative spaces provide enclosures in which the player can act, assess, analyze and sometimes socialize while being slightly detached from the actual experience of play – augmenting gameplay, if you will. Navigating strata of interface, socializing in multiplayer game lobbies and around post-game box scores, in-game microphone communication and interface informatics are all examples of tentative spaces.
Schematizing gameplay in this manner resonates with the idea of Russian nested dolls – volumes within volumes within volumes. This series of posts is based on an optimism that in isolating these “layers” of play, interface and information will reveal a range of idiosyncratic spaces slightly outside the realm of most discussions of gaming. Tentative Spaces will catalog a variety of general phenomena across gaming as well as analyze the construction of specific gaming titles. The following represents a quick sketch of the characteristics of tentative spaces, these will be further developed in future posts:
- Transparency – Tentative Spaces often occur on top of game play and players are able to inhabit/navigate these spaces and still “see through” them while engaging in gameplay (eg. team status monitor information overlay in multiplayer gaming).
- Hybridity – Referencing Lev Manovich’s suggestion that emerging media forms are combinatory in nature, Tentative Spaces will be examined as interactive assemblages comprised of text and image, maps and diagrams (eg. game analytics).
- Interstitial – Tentative Spaces are often employed to bridge narrative sequences in gaming or to provide a green room in which players can wait during a “machinic” event (eg. network configuration/team selection lobbies in multiplayer gaming).
- Supplementary – As previously mentioned Tentative Spaces often sit at least partially outside game narrative, if not completely detached from it (eg. an easter egg or minigame).
- Sites of Interaction – Tentative Spaces have the potential to aggregate community and user labor towards building communal resources (eg. in game or web based wiki construction to inform gameplay).
To bring this introduction full circle, it is worth returning to the bridge built between architecture and gaming in the first paragraph. Since gaming plays out across space it is very much about space. Gamers have acclimatized themselves to a range of perspectives, views, GUI assemblages and camera movements that emulate a host of physiological, cinematic and cartographic conventions. As a by-product of this rapidly evolving array of representational techniques, gamers find themselves highly “interface literate” with the ability to simultaneously navigate numerous narrative, informational and social planes. As a series of posts, Tentative Spaces is invested in isolating and qualifying a variety of niches, pockets and marginalia within game culture. It is all too easy to dismiss many of these layers of gaming as instrumental when in fact their superimposition on and control over play represent a fundamental aspect of not just the experience of play, but the structure of game space.