So I got my Dad to play a non-conflict exploration game

I ran into a time management problem with the beginning of this semester. This month, I have been finishing my work for the initial release of Rise of the Triad, and as a result, have had very little time for MA work. However, I have done one experiment that produced interesting results.

Not having the time to create something of my own, I had my Dad, someone who plays very little video games, and what he does play is exclusively racing games, play through the first level of Silent Hill Shattered Memories.

I chose it because this first level is non-conflict and exploratory focused, with only the minor challenge of navigating through the level. The objective only has a narrative context, you are searching for the player character’s missing daughter, but exactly where she is is something the player is required to discover for themselves. This means that the player's only task is navigating around the map, which makes it easy for the player to play, and easier for me to see why certain choices are made.

I looked at the game during the first semester to analyse its indirect control techniques, where it mostly used brightness to make certain doors and objects standout against its dark environments. The contrast of brightness isn’t too obvious, because the player can use a torch which lights up the majority of the screen, so the brightness of these objects appears in the corners of the players vision.

Even without the light shining on it, the door is still slightly illuminated

My Dad had never played a game like Shattered Memories before, and I feel his thought process (which he rather helpfully gave a running commentary on) is going to become very useful in the future when finding inspiration for new techniques, granted that other people follow it.

There were a few big takeways from watching him play.

Firstly, the indirect control methods used by the game worked. Doors that were highlighted in the dark were noticed, and he successfully and smoothly managed to navigate through the level. There were a couple of instances where it was required of him to climb over a fence (by walking up to it and pressing a button), and he ended up not knowing how to progress, which was due to not knowing that the fence could be interacted with in the first place.

The second was how much affordance played a part in his decisions. There is a moment in the level where you’re in the back room of a clothes shop and you need to get past a locked door, which has a note pinned to it. The first thing he did was start looking around the room, saying “Where would I put a key?”, thinking in a grounded, realistically logical sense. He spent a few moments looking at cupboards and shelves. What he didn’t do was read the note on the door which told him that the key was in one of three jackets on display opposite the door. People not reading text is something that appears to be shared between active and non-game players, although I would like to test on more people before using that in practice. Last semester I observed that when players are confronted with different problems and stimuli, they first use their experience of other games to decide on how to approach it. What I’ve seen here could mean that people with little or no game experience could use their real world experience instead.

The third big takeaway was how he interpreted progression. Any semblance of backtracking was met with some frustration. The level starts outside in the snow, and as you continue on you go into and out of several buildings, alleys and parks. The first time he exited a building, about a ¼ through the level, he sighed and said that he had ‘already been outside’. This didn’t stop him from quickly getting back on track though. However, at one point, the player walks into a diner, meets with an NPC and is then required to walk outside again and partly backtrack through the level to progress. This didn’t go well, as he spent a good 5 minutes in the diner, wondering where to go, attempting to walk through a non-interactive door. He became confused and didn’t want to continue playing, and only walked back outside after figuratively ‘giving up’. To him, progression is strictly linear, with a constant stream of new novel places. Any resemblance to any previous places feels like going backwards. Of course I would like other people to play to see if this idea of progression is shared, because and I have a feeling that he may feel this way due to him only playing racing game regularly.

Something that surprised me was how much he explored. Upon entering an area, he would look and walk around the area thoroughly for potential exits before choosing one to go through. This exploration mindset seemed to be the main driving force of his play style, as there were a few moments where he would enter a room with the exit lit up right in front of him, but he wouldn’t notice it and instead looked around the area. He didn’t appear to be impatient, which seemed strange to me, considering how much he wanted to skip the non-interactive opening cutscenes. This could mean though that exploration gameplay is something has the potential to be enjoyed by a mainstream audience of people who’ve never played video games before.

Moving forward, what I would like to pursue is the idea of affordance, and how you could make an environment not just look but feel more real. I would need to run the test past more people, but if people do fall back onto real world experience as much as my Dad does, making something in game feel more or less dangerous than it actually is could be a key idea for indirect control for non-gamers. During my time on Rise of the Triad, I’ve learned a lot more about Unreal. My next experiment will be taking the metal and wooden bridges test from last semester, and use ‘camera anims’, which let you control the position of the player camera while they are still playing, to try make the wooden bridges fell dangerous, and see if that has an effect on player choice.