Exploring potential control issues: And the effect on gamers/non-gamers

[tapedeck]

I began initially thinking about control whilst playing some of the first Nintendo games to become mass market. These games were Donkey Kong and Super Mario Bros.

 

As most of us know, these are (technologically) simple games that primarily challenge reaction, pattern recognition, memorisation and most importantly hand and eye co-ordination.

 

Pressing a button, moving a paddle or controlling a thumb-stick may not seem like the hardest thing to do but couple that with on-screen, real-time implications (sometimes meaning life or death/failure or success) and confusion and frustration can arise. Not what most titles aspire to achieve.

 

Miyamoto lays foundations:

 

Donkey Kong initially gives the player one way to go, “right”. A screen full of ladders simultaneously implies “up/down” commands must be used. Barrels fall and therefore a “jump” command will be used. Hardly simple. Yet contrasting with Super Mario Bros, a foundation had been laid in DK that enabled many previous players to start playing Miyamoto's next game almost immediately.

 

Looking at other Mario games shows the beginning of these games to have simple “test” areas for the player (with Mario 64’s castle grounds being a particular showcase for the learning of mechanics/commands.)

Yet before this turns into a love letter to Miyamoto’s regard to design I would point out that many games have these areas. See the HALO cryogenic sleep sequence or the fact that many games follow the Metroid/Zelda “accumulation” of skill set mantras.

 

So where am I going with this...

 

Watching another gamer play a game on Wii can be very interesting. Wii Sports is the example I will use as it’s bundled with Wii and is a very visual piece of software. As people break TV’s and pull muscles it’s obvious why Wii Sports was a pack-in. It didn’t need a mario64 castle ground. It never needed to tell you that “jump button = jump over X,Y,Z”. It had everyday, recognisable sports and motions to match.

(If you revert to the italics in the second paragraph above you will see that real-time implications can scare people off. Don’t press -> and you get eaten by the ghost. It’s similar on Wii. Don’t swing and you miss the ball. Don’t dodge and you get hit.)

But people aren’t scared to fail when playing Wii Sports. Because everyone can swing a tennis racquet. Everyone can duck and weave. No-one is scared. Buttons are scary afterall... So we’ve seen people who usually hate games start to actually enjoy themselves.

 

But, then we see this:

 

Try getting a Wii Sports addict to play 90% of the Wii library and they won’t have it. If the game doesn’t involve a motion that they are not familiar with, or isn’t explained properly or is downright unresponsive they wont give the title a look in.

 

Two games:

 

Carnival Games

Sonic and Mario: Olympics.

 

Carnival Games enables you to re-enact fairground shows. Shooting ducks, strength tests, coconut shy, etc...They all work as close as you imagine them. Execution and consistency of motion controls is, for the most part solid.

 

Sonic and Mario at the Olympics is a strange one. It probably sells on it’s premise alone. Here is a game that offers events people are familiar with and motions that people are familiar with. Execution and consistency of motion control again varies. With menu design and some events “skeet, rowing” being quite poor in keeping to real-life motions.

 

I just wanted to show that two popular Wii games are closer to real life than many games "content" wise are. This is due to their exeecution of motion controls. I feel sales actually reflect this. And the games need not be simple. Mario and Sonic is a testement to that.

 

Final word:

 

When watching a gamer play Harry Potter...

 

WII VERSION:

You shake the remote to cast a spell.

 

OTHER VERSIONS:

You press a button to cast a spell.

 

The introduction of the game offers a “Mario 64 castle situation” yet the feedback from NPC’s and general poor camera etc didn’t help the new gamer to feel like they were improving or getting the controls. They noted that they would have preferred clearer/constant feedback on how to do motions. Instead, at times; they felt hopelessly lost and close to giving up. However, upon “learning” the movement that the game expected, the user stated that the game became incredibly immersive.

 

The user played the PS2 version noting that the use of buttons was equally as frustrating as the user noted that holding a button, pressing another whilst moving an analogue controller was incredibly hard to do. After numerous tries at casting and moving Potter, they noted that the game felt drab and boring now that they had to “move to his next task”.

Far more exciting when “doing” then.

 

So I conclude that perhaps it is in the interest of developers to really hammer home an excellent introduction to your games. Surely it's there to see that the successful games, be it Halo, Grand Theft Auto have a playground-like, learning element to them.

The controls are what make Wii games stand out from the crowd. The public is obviously buying into this belief and it would be a terrible shame to think that many people were only enjoying Wii Sports. Nintendo “IP’s” may be a thorn for many 3rd party developers, yet if they took a look at how user friendly these IP’s are, maybe they too could be spending less time frustrating potential customers and instead building commercially endearing IP's all of their own.

 

 

Comments appreciated as usual

[LazyBoy]

Really good stuff Tapedeck, an insightful, well thought out article. I'd ask the staff to consider putting it up on the main page.

 

It is quite true though that as we entered the 3D era, maybe even a little before that, the industry seemed to indulge itself in more complicated and vastly more unaccessible games, satisfying the hardcore but alienating newcomers. What Nintendo have done is not necessarily revolutionised anything (as the initial name for the console would suggest) but instead brought games back to the level of design they were 20 years ago.

 

I think third parties have yet to realise this, and even when they do there will be a time when they don't quite understand simple games can also be brilliant (I shouldn't need to cite examples). But the time will come when third parties catch up, and the market will never be the same.

[tapedeck]

...there will be a time when 3rd parties understand simple games can also be brilliant (I shouldn't need to cite examples). But the time will come when third parties catch up, and the market will never be the same.

 

I wholly agree on that statement. Regarding a game as simple seems to have brought about poor connotations. When was a "simple" game seen as bad? At one time it would have been seen as good. If the journalistic industry is forever going to refer to their low-scoring Wii games as being 'simple', gamers are going to forget what made games like Tetris a treat to play and brandish all simple games as low scoring.

Even when looking at titles like Guitar Hero/Parappa/Wario Ware they could be summised as being (at their core) simple games.

 

The industry (and internet opinion) is a much larger force than it once was, and using the term simple in regards to being a "bad" game can have far-reaching implications in a similar manner that the term "kiddie" had a few years back when it seemed everything Nintendo released was far too "kiddy" for the vast majority of gamers to purchase.