Making the player reach inside.
This chapter focuses
on ways to make a game player explore and perhaps even enhance his or her own emotional depth.
In this book, we've looked at ways to give emotional depth to an NPC (Chapter 2.1), even if the NPC has just one line of dialogue in the entire game (Chapter 2.4).
Although the ambitions of this chapter seem outrageous—to give greater depth to the player—it can be done. As with the Chapter 2.20, “First-Person Character Arc Techniques,” here we will take our cues from life itself.
What causes people to gain emotional depth in life? As you will see in the sections that follow, the answers lead us to the techniques that will work in games.
Many games offer the player a wealth of strategic choices, often on a moment-by-moment basis. These can be a fun form of gameplay, but they don't cause the player to become a deeper person.
Here we're talking about Emotionally and/or Morally Difficult Decisions. The choices should not be easy.
You could find yourself with an infinite number of tough decisions when playing a game.
For instance, do you save your best friend—or the villagers who have come to need you for protection?
Another example: The villain has captured your sister. To free her, you'll have to run a mission for the villain, a mission that may result in hurting an old man—the very man who trained you in the martial arts you now possess. What choice will you make?
Take a look at the color picture on page 4.
In this game, you play a character who is merely a guard—a guard, how ever, in a top-secret facility researching time travel.
Everyone there treats you like dirt, except one guy named Byron. He works for the Secret Service. Byron treats you well, because, as he says, he knows the only difference between you and him is the agency who issued you the gun and the badge. To him, you're both in law enforcement and, therefore, colleagues.
He's more than just respectful; he's actually a friend. When he sees you treated dismissively by one of the top scientists, he verbally defends you and berates the man.
And then, one day, there's a knock on your door. It's this desperate young woman, Dani (the one in the picture).
She tells you that she came from the future—three years in the future—and that she works on the same time-travel project that you currently help protect. By that point in the future, she tells you, the time travel project has succeeded. She knows, for she's the very first time-traveler.
Dani says she was just a secretary in the facility. On the day of the first time travel experiment with a human being, the time flyer—the man who had trained for months for the first time jump—shoved her into the device just as it was activated. The next thing she knows, she was sent back three years to your time period.
She has no idea why the time flyer shoved her into the device. Had he flipped out? Was it intentional? Is she a victim in some conspiracy?
Worse still, there's a man, right now, in this day and age, trying to kill her. She just escaped with her life from a close call.
Things get more complicated. The two of you look up Dani's younger self, in this time period—and she doesn't seem to exist. She doesn't live at the apartment that Dani claims she lived in during this time, and there are no records of Dani at any of the jobs or schools she claims to have attended.
Dani gets progressively more distraught and freaked out by these unfolding events. Someone has erased her from history.
Things get even more complex. It turns out the man trying to kill Dani is Byron, your friend. He says he can't tell you why she needs to die; it's top secret. But he says the fate of the Earth depends on her dying.
Who will you believe? Dani, who you don't know but who seems sincere, or Byron, your friend, who seems equally sincere and anxious that Dani be killed for the sake of mankind?
It's a tough choice. No matter which choice you make, it will be a First-Person Deepening experience.[1]
By the way, the preceding scenario also uses a few other Emotioneering Techniques discussed earlier in the book, providing a good example of Technique Stacking.
Because Dani is in danger, we empathize with her. That's an NPC Rooting Interest Technique (Chapter 2.10).
She's confused and afraid, and these emotions give her depth. They're NPC Deepening Techniques (Chapter 2.2).
Because you'll end up helping her (taking responsibility), you'll feel chemistry with her. That's a Player Toward NPC Chemistry Technique (Chapter 2.11).
Because you take responsibility for her, you, the player, become a deeper person. That's another First-Person Deepening Technique, and we'll get to that a little later in this chapter.
In an ideal world, everything would flow exactly as written in the game with you and Dani. However, there are four challenges that make it difficult to pull off.
It's not much of an emotional choice or even a difficult choice if saving Dani is the clearly appealing selection.
The solution is to make the choice a bit more complicated. Therefore, we've got to make Byron a very good and believable guy, and make Dani's story questionable and perhaps make her not overly likable, at least at this point of the game. In short, we'll adjust both of their Rooting Interest Dials (see Chapter 2.10) until the choice is difficult to make.
Also, Byron can tell you that if he doesn't catch Dani, he'll be killed by his own superiors. He wasn't supposed to know anything about this time travel project with Dani, and now he's considered to know too much. His superiors see him as a liability—unless he proves himself by bringing Dani in. You get evidence that supports his story, so you know it's true.
Thus, making the choice as to whom to help is complicated by the harm that will befall Byron.
If you can just save the game at the point where you need to decide whether to help Byron or Dani, then the choice doesn't matter. Your player can explore one option, and then return to the save point and explore the other.
Thus, there's nothing emotional about making the decision—and certainly nothing that would cause you to become deeper the way tough decisions cause us to become deeper in real life.
Solution #1. Give the player a save point a few minutes earlier, before the decision point. That way, there are some consequences to the decision and the player will think more seriously about it.
Of course, this requires a balancing act and some serious game testing before shipping. If the save point isn't back far enough, then it hardly makes a difference. If it's too far back, then the player will get frustrated and angry at the game.
Solution #2. This is the more interesting solution: Make neither choice completely wrong or right. For instance, if you choose to save Dani, Byron will end up getting killed. There can be other bad consequences as well.
If you don't save Dani, she'll get captured and incarcerated in a cell in a special location. But maybe, to handle this new threat, a man named Richard Hutton, who you suspect is evil, is put in charge of the time travel project, with some kind dire consequences resulting (explained a little later in this section).
But, there's still another problem.
This problem is one of the key considerations that scare game designers away from forking paths in a game (multi-path structure). “Why build assets that many players won't see?” designers rightly ask. And they readily point out that the money you spend on these potentially unseen assets could have been better used if spent on other areas of the game that all the players will encounter.
When designers use a multi-path structure, the most common approach is for the game's path to fork for just a short period, and then for the paths to rejoin into a single route through the game.
This can be a satisfactory compromise, except (as frequently occurs) when there is little or no plot consequences nor emotional consequences as to what choice you make. And the truth is that, in many games that have offered sections of multi-path structure, no matter which path you take, it doesn't really make much of a difference.
How could we build not just plot consequences, but emotional consequences into our game about Dani, even if the path branches for just a short time?
Let's say you believe Byron and don't help Dani. Dani tries to escape into the time travel chamber. She's caught, but before she's apprehended, she accidentally does something that slightly alters the time stream.
Suddenly, a second security guard at the installation, who was a friend of yours, disappears into thin air. Whatever Dani accidentally did, in this new time-line, your friend has never been born. If you sincerely liked him, this would be an emotional consequence. As a result of this mishap, the head of the time travel project is dismissed and Richard Hutton, the evil man mentioned earlier, is put in charge.
Let's say you took the other path and decided to help Dani, and not help Byron. Then, as mentioned earlier, Dani's escape will lead to Richard Hutton being put in charge of the time travel project, and he'll blame Byron, who knows too much and who, in his opinion, has screwed up big time. Byron, therefore, will be killed by Hutton. Because he's someone you liked, you'll feel his loss.
Then the two paths come together again.
No matter which path you choose, we need to arrange it so that (1) your friend, the guard, is out of the game, and (2) so is Byron. Furthermore, (3) you need to end up with Dani, and (4) Richard Hutton needs to end up in charge of the time travel project.
We've already shown how Hutton could come to power in both scenarios. But how do we make sure the other three points are accomplished in both paths?
Let's say you help Byron, and as a result, Dani gets captured. We know the guard will disappear in the time-travel mishap Dani causes in her escape attempt. But how can we get rid of Byron now and make sure you end up with Dani? In this path, you'll discover Byron is part of an evil conspiracy, secretly in league with Hutton, and that Dani is innocent. You'll need to rescue Dani, and you'll kill Byron in the process.
So, all three of our remaining conditions are met.
note
The fact that the two paths come back to gether in a fairly short period of time means that giving the player the decision as to whom he or she will side with doesn't add significantly to the cost of the game.
Even still, giving the player choices like this does add some cost, so it's likely that, if you're keeping an eye on the game's bottom line, it's probably not a technique you'll want to employ frequently.
That having been said, Ion Storm, headed by Warren Spector with project direction by Harvey Smith, is perhaps the company most dedicated to having all sorts of short- and long-term consequences linked to a multitude of decisions made by the player. At the time that this book is being completed, Deus Ex: Invisible War hasn't yet been released. But rumor has it that the designers and programmers there are trying to take the entire issue of consequences for player decisions to levels of sophisticated repercussions never before attempted in a game. I've peaked at the software they created to track player decisions, and it's daunting.
Making decisions with meaningful emotional and moral consequences is probably one of the things the game will be known for, and this factor will likely serve as one of the key reasons players will buy it. My guess is that the folks at Ion Storm are trying to create a game that will entice players to go through it multiple times, experimenting with different modes of playing and making different choices at the numerous decision points.
Let's say that you side with Dani from the start. We already know that Byron will get killed by Hutton. The guard can get a promotion and say goodbye. So, once again, all the conditions are met.
So, no matter which fork you take, you're soon back onto a single path, with both Byron gone and the guard gone too. Furthermore, Hutton is in charge of the time travel project, and you're on the run with Dani.
Of all the problems, this last one is by far the least important. If the other three problems are addressed, then the player will undergo the First-Person Deepening experience we're intending.
However, if we want to be even more artful, it would be good to have some long-term consequences to the choice, even if they're not particularly emotional ones, for it makes the player feel like his or her decisions matter in the game.
The key is to make any long-term consequences not cost too much time (and therefore money) in terms of programming or building assets.
Here are some samples of possible long-term consequences for our example:
If you chose to help Byron, then Dani's failed attempt to travel in time could change the time-line and suddenly half the trees in the city could disappear—and never come back.
If you choose to help Byron, and your fellow guard gets a promotion, then someone could refer to having seen that guard in his new job later in the game.
If you choose to help Byron and then end up killing him, you could later run into a friend of his who has some pretty hostile things to say to you.
None of these would cost a lot of money or time to integrate into the game.
Let's recap the key points of this example:
In a branching path, the decision as to which path to follow should be strategically and emotionally difficult, if it is to cause a First-Person Deepening Experience.
There should be both plot and emotional consequences to the decision, at least in the short run.
Ideally, the decisions should have some long-term consequences, even if they're not particularly emotional (although that would be preferable). It's important for the player to feel his or her choices matter.
Linking actions to consequences also helps connect one part of the game to another. It's a Cohesiveness Technique, as you'll see in Chapter 2.26.
note
The bottom line in our example with Dani is that it's a First-Person Deepening type of choice because it involves an Emotionally and/or Morally Difficult Decision. By contrast, most choices in games don't promote First-Person Deepening because they're simply strategic; they're not difficult to make due to emotional or moral reasons. A strategic choice would be, for example, whether to use firepower or stealth to accomplish a mission, or deciding which weapon to use.
To further illustrate the technique we've been exploring, let's take a look at another example game that involves the First-Person Deepening Technique of thrusting the player into an Emotionally and/or Morally Difficult Decision.
In this game, the plot is unimportant to our purposes.
What is important is that you have a choice in the character you play. You can select either the brother or the sister in the illustration. Furthermore, you can play either of them in their human form, or in their demonic form. Pre-game, you choose to be either the brother or the sister. Once that choice is made, during the game itself you can switch between human and demonic forms at will.
But there are tradeoffs. Obviously, each character will have different abilities when they're in their human form than when in their demonic form. But, in games, characters who look different having different abilities is nothing new; this is standard in just about every game in which you can choose to play a variety of characters.
The real tradeoff is this: If you play either character in their human form, people (NPCs) find you charismatic. They help you in numerous ways.
In your demonic form, even your friends are afraid of you. People either flee from you or try and impede you. No one helps you. In that form, however, you're much more powerful.
Which form will you assume, or will you alternate? These are tough decisions. It's a First-Person Deepening Technique.
You could argue that this is no different than a standard RPG (role-playing game) in that each character has different skills and abilities, and the decision whether to be human or demonic is simply a tactical one. Therefore, there's no emotion involved—and making the decision about which character to play wouldn't generate any kind of depth on the part of the player.
This argument could be 100% correct. The solution would involve how emotionally painful it is to have ones closest friends fear you and shun you when you take a demonic form. Only if you like these other NPCs and hate it when they turn away from you would the decision as to which form to choose be emotionally difficult and thus be a First-Person Deepening Technique.
Therefore, the game will have to have been Emotioneered in such a way that you really like your friends and feel bonded to them. This means that NPC Rooting Interest Techniques (see Chapter 2.10) and Player Toward NPC Chemistry Techniques (see Chapter 2.11) must be artfully employed.
Take a look at the color picture on page 5.
In this game, you play Terrence Sloan, a special-forces operative. As your best friend, James, dies in battle, he asks that you look after his 16-year-old daughter Corrina.
When you meet her, she's distraught over her father's death, but also alienated and unhappy in life. She's a withdrawn misfit.
She's kidnapped by the creatures of Shadowland, a world that can only be entered between twilight and night. The inhabitants there are fairies and other mythical creatures. They didn't always live in Shadowland; they fled there as the ranks of mankind swelled and forced them out of our realm.
When you come upon Corrina, she doesn't remember you, her father, or her prior existence. Though she was a gloomy misfit in her former life, here she fits right in. In fact, her mind and soul are now threaded into this world and have brought it new life. She's a sort of empress here.
Of course, because she doesn't remember anyone or anything from her past, she doesn't want to come with you back to your world.
You have a tough choice:
Will you leave her from this world where she's happy and has a purpose, but where her memory has been erased?
Or, will you bring her back to a world where grief and alienation await her…but also the chance to grow through those problems and become who she's meant to be (by normal standards, anyway)?
There may not be a right or wrong choice, but wrestling with it will make the player face some potentially deep issues.
Although giving a player Emotionally and/or Morally Difficult Decisions is just one of many First-Person Deepening Techniques, it's among the most difficult to achieve. That's because it implies a splitting of the path the player is taking, and that, in turn, means building assets that at least some of the players won't see (unless they play the game again and take the alternative path).
So while it might be easy to theoretically design and build tough decisions for the player to make, it's very difficult to build in meaningful choices like this that result in First-Person Deepening and still do it cost-effectively.
As pointed out earlier in this chapter, one solution is to have the player's choice result in meaningful short-term consequences, combined with some long-term consequences that don't cost much to implement.
The obvious question is: Is it worth it? Of course it depends on the game, but if this technique is employed in a cost-effective way, then I feel it certainly enhances the emotional depth of the game.[2]
Think of your own life. Do you now take responsibility for any things or people who weren't in your circle of responsibility when you were younger? Hasn't assuming those responsibilities—especially the ones for which you willingly volunteered for—made you a deeper person?
This isn't just an accidental phenomenon. Responsibility can promote depth because, to truly take responsibility for another, you must, to a lesser or greater degree, understand that person—who they are, their needs, their dreams. You need to expand beyond your own viewpoint and see the world they way they do. This causes depth.
Things can get even more complex. Take a parenting dilemma, for instance: You might see things from your children's point of view, but also see things from your own point of view. That means there might be aspects to the situations they face, or aspects of themselves, that you see clearly but that they don't see at all.
What can turn this broadened insight into a dilemma is when you know that the best thing to do is not intervene in a painful or tough situation they're facing and let them learn for themselves, even when your wisdom could save them misery.
So responsibility doesn't always mean solving someone else's problems. It might mean seeing that what they need is to solve their own problems, even if you love them and it kills you inside to see them suffer, when you could so easily whisk away their pain.
Responsibility makes us expand. We have to be ourselves, but on some level, be another or others as well. Thus, it makes us deeper.
When a game causes us to take responsibility for another, that also gives us depth. By “causes us,” I don't mean that a game should force us to take responsibility. In games where it's relevant, I believe it's better to provide incentives for the player to take responsibility for NPCs, for a culture, for a planet, or for something else.
The player can be incentivized to take responsibility for NPCs by using techniques covered in various chapters in this book, such as:
Empathizing with them (Chapter 2.10, “NPC Rooting Interest Techniques”)
Having chemistry with them (Chapter 2.11, “Player Toward NPC Chemistry Techniques”)
Bonding with them as a group (Chapter 2.14, “Group Bonding Techniques”)
When you play chess, you have responsibility to protect your king. But playing chess doesn't make you a deeper person. First-Person Deepening results from taking responsibility for people, organizations, species, and things that we care about. This is why, for taking responsibility to cause a player to become deeper, the technique requires some of the other Emotioneering techniques to also be used, to bring about caring.
Parts of the planet Jaan are inhabited by the peaceful Terrellen, the planet's natives, while other parts of the planet have been leased by the Terrellen to human mining colonies. You're an anthropologist, here on a cultural exchange. You report, however, to the USIDF—the United States Interplanetary Defense Force. That's because you might be an anthropologist, but you're also a colonel in the USIDF. Before becoming an anthropologist, you were an experienced tactician and commander (trained in these skills earlier in the game).
Here's a bit about the Terrellens:
They love athletic competitions, and have a refined code of sportsmanship. It is so developed that it's almost a code of life to live by.
Families are very important, and are run democratically. At nine years old, each child undergoes a ceremony that changes their status within the family. From that point on, the child is a full member of the household with an equal vote.
Their religion is attributed to Tylaan, a figure who appeared 4000 years ago, bringing wise religious precepts. They say he wasn't from this planet, but is immortal and was incarnated in a Terrellen body to bring truth. The Terrellen, upon learning about Jesus from humans, assume that Tylaan had been Jesus on Earth, and no amount of argument can convince them that the two men aren't the same.
Because they thought of Tylaan as a stranger visiting their world, they've always honored strangers. This is why they've been so kind and generous to you. They've provided you food and lodging, and have even started teaching you some minor mystical abilities that they've mastered. This generosity toward strangers is also why they've allowed humans to mine their planet.
The planet gets attention when small amounts of Mitro3 are found in the mining camp. When super-cooled, this metal emits anti-gravity waves. Thus, it's the most coveted metal in the universe, for it can power space ships.
Suddenly, the mining camps are swarmed with American military, who want to seize all the Mitro3. Then much vaster quantities of Mitro3 are discovered in the sections of the planet inhabited by the Terrellens.
The United States, involved in space skirmishes off various planets, first requests, then demands the right to mine the Mitro3 in the Terrellen section, especially because the ore has been discovered in uninhabited Terrellen regions. Those deposits are located beneath the Terrellens' most sacred grounds, however, and the Terrellens refuse to let humans mine there.
The Terrellens haven't fought a war in 4000 years. Only one person can lead them to defend themselves—and that's you, because you have military and tactical knowledge they lack. Will you take the job?
Everything's fine with the preceding scenario, except one thing:
It's hard to identify with or care about a group, unless we specifically care about one or a few individuals in that group.
So we'd need to come to know and love or admire a few specific, individual Terrellens. Then you'll care about the group and be willing to help them (take responsibility for them). If you freely elected to do so because you know them and care about them, this would be a deepening experience.
Of course, if the Americans really need that Mitro3 because they are losing a space war and Earth itself is endangered, then we add another First-Person Deepening technique into the equation: giving the player a tough choice.
First-Person Deepening also comes when a game player experiences multiple and sometimes even conflicting viewpoints of a subject, event, situation, person, group, plan, object, or aspect of life that the player cares about—or that matters to at least one NPC whom the player cares about or identifies with because of the character's Rooting Interest.
In Shakespeare's A Midsummer's Night Dream, we witness many forms of love by watching the adventures and misadventures of many matched and mismatched couples. We see:
The formal and stately love between two people from noble roots, Theseus and Hippolyta.
Love used as a weapon, as Titania, the queen of the fairies, feigns love for a young boy to make Oberan, the king of the fairies, jealous.
The arranged marriage (which never comes to be) between Hermia and Demetrius.
The passionate eloping young couple, Hermia and Lysander.
The unrequited love of Hermia for Demetrius.
The foolish crush of Titania, queen of the fairies, on Bottom, a workman who's been transformed into possessing the head of an ass.
note
This note picks up where the previous note left off. Is Shakespeare's showing us different ways people can love a form of Idea Mapping that actually moves us through multiple viewpoints and, thus, is also a First-Person Deepening Technique? Or is it merely looking at love's different facets, but it doesn't leave us deeper (and thus would be a form of Idea Mapping that creates Plot Deepening but not First-Person Deepening)?
This Shakespeare example shows it might take some reflection to distinguish these two related techniques. However, remember that First-Person Deepening results when we're forced to wrestle with the complexities of life or of a subject that matters to us—or that matters to at least one NPC whom we care about and with whom we identify because of that character's Rooting Interest. Based on this, I think it's clear that the Idea Mapping in A Midsummer's Night Dream also generates First-Person Deepening.
By contrast, let's say that, in the play, we looked only at:
The love of a mother for her child
Love between two teenagers
The love of a shepherd for his flock
Then we'd be looking at different facets of love without looking at multiple and sometimes even conflicting viewpoints of love. This example of Idea Mapping would result in Plot Deepening but not in First-Person Deepening, for we'd see different facets of love, but we wouldn't be forced to wrestle with love's complexities.
At the end of the play, we experience the seasoned love between Oberan and Titania. What it lacks in newness and raw passion, it makes up for in familiarity and comfort.
That's love seen from a lot of angles. It takes a very wise (deep) person to write such a play, and we become deeper from experiencing his own rich vision.
Seeing a subject such as love from different points of view makes us deeper. This technique can work in a game just as well.
Let's go back to our game where you're defending the Terrellens against the American military.
Earlier I had asked, what if the American military wants the Mitro3 for a very good reason: to stop an entirely different alien enemy who is heading for Earth?
So let's say you join forces first with the Terrellens, and later with the Americans, for now you're seeing more of the big picture. That is, at first you want to stop the U.S. military from destroying their sacred sites for Mitro3. And then, seeing more of the big picture and the threat to Earth, you side with the Americans to get that Mitro3. You can now see the issue equally from both sides. This is Multiple Viewpoints and it's a First-Person Deepening Technique.
Could we explore, in the game, the subjects of loyalty and betrayal the way Shakespeare explored love in A Midsummer's Night Dream?
Sure we can. We start with the dilemma mentioned earlier: Should your loyalty be to the Americans, or to the Terrellens?
Also, we could, within the game, echo those same complex issues on a smaller scale. For instance, what if Shane, one of your military friends in the game, asked you to keep a secret—that he's addicted to senn, a serious drug. He's afraid if you tell his superiors, he'll be expelled from his military unit.
But, to save Shane, you're forced to betray him and rat him out. As a result, he is expelled from the military, but his life is saved. Depending on how we want the game to play out, he might or might not mature to the point where he sees that you were helping him.
In exposing Shane's addiction, were you being a loyal friend, or were you betraying him?
note
By the way, when you have a subplot (like the question of what way you can best be loyal to Shane) that echoes the main plot (choosing your loyalties among the Terrellens and the U.S. military), this is a Plot Deepening Technique.
If, during the game, we see still more facets of loyalty and betrayal in a way that makes us wrestle with these issues then, by the end, we will have become deeper in the process.
This little section has just scratched the surface of what can be done by using Multiple Viewpoints. Another way to move a player through multiple and sometimes even conflicting viewpoints can be done by empathizing with several NPCs, all who have their own differing viewpoint of a subject, event, person, or plan.
Every First-Person Character Arc is also a First-Person Deepening Technique. The ability to grow emotionally and/or morally both gives a person depth and is evidence of their depth. At the very least, someone must have the depth to reflect upon his or her behavior and change it, sometimes bucking other impulses to refuse change and to stay the way they were.
A few Character Arcs, such as Learning to Take Responsibility for Others and Attaining Wisdom, have a bit more First-Person Deepening to them than the rest. How to accomplish a First-Person Character Arc of taking responsibility for others is detailed in the previous chapter. We'll look at Attaining Wisdom here.
One part of attaining wisdom is coming to grips with emotionally complex consequences of your actions. Consider an example.
In the game pictured on the previous page, you play the hero, the man re-entering the city. You find they've built a huge statue to you, and it, like the city itself, is in flames.
The city built a statue to you because the people there loved you. Previously in the game, they hid you and sheltered you when they found you heroically tried to liberate them from the dictator of the neighboring country, who had conquered them and oppressed them for the last 20 years.
And after you assassinated that dictator, you became their hero, and they built the statue (which you never knew about until just now).
After you killed the dictator, you didn't return to this city. Instead, the game had you do missions elsewhere in the country. What you didn't know, and what at this point in the game you're learning for the first time, is that the dictator's son took over where his father had left off. To punish this city for the aid they had earlier extended to you (at your request), the son destroyed the city and killed many of the people you knew and cared about.
Jarvis is the man who stands here waiting for you. You met him—and fought him—earlier in the game. He was the previous dictator's bodyguard. However, the ruthlessness of the dictator's son disgusts him. Inspired by your own integrity, he has switched sides and now will help you in your effort to kill the son.
Jarvis has a spotted past because, before changing sides, he had killed some innocent people at the dictator's request. But you're in an emotionally complex situation (see Chapter 2.15) in that you'll need his help if you're to be victorious.
In summary, there have been some very emotionally complex consequences to your actions. A city you liked was destroyed; people you cared about were killed; and an evil man has been motivated by you to switch sides and now will help you accomplish great good. You will be left wiser and deeper. This is how the Character Arc of Attaining Wisdom can be a First-Person Deepening Technique.
This next hypothetical game contains another example of coming to grips with emotionally complex consequences of your actions, as well as another component of the First-Person Character Arc of Attaining Wisdom.
However, we'll also look at another technique: Seeing Situations That Aren't Black and White, and therefore require deep thought if you're to help those you care about. You'll see that the technique of Seeing Situations That Aren't Black or White is closely related to the previous discussion of Multiple Viewpoints.
When you move a player, one way or another, through Multiple Viewpoints on an emotionally charged subject, this can be done in a way so that the player gradually comes to see that things are more complex than they first appeared—they aren't black or white. This is one of the fundamentals of wisdom: seeing the big picture.
Let's take a look how this could be used.
The game starts out with the player (you) in a situation that immediately looks clear cut. With no doubts that you are doing the right thing, you charge into the missions with a gung-ho Rambo-type of attitude about your rightness. To be a bit cliché, let's say you save a princess who has been kidnapped.
But then, as the game continues, it slowly becomes clear to you that you actually made the wrong assumptions to begin with. You discover that the princess is not all sweetness and light, and that the kidnappers were actually trying to put an end to her tyrannical reign.
And then, as the game goes on, further revelations change your view once again. You discover that the princess was forced into the position of ruling harshly because the kingdom she commanded needed to be delivered through a state of turmoil and unrest, which would have resulted in a full-out civil war if she hadn't ruled with an iron fist.
In fact, once you free the princess, civil war does erupt as parties that didn't want her ruling now rebel.
You would think, then, that by your returning the princess to her throne, all would be set right. But it isn't. The civil unrest is out of control—and the princess over-reacts with violence, further fanning the flames.
It is now up to you to fix this mess. You need to take down several warlords who ignited the turmoil and are perpetuating it—even though they have some legitimate issues and aren't merely evil. Finally, you need to dethrone the princess herself and defeat her elite guard unit.
In short, after a series of what I call Reveals, you will see that:
The simplistic view of the situation that you used as a basis of your early decisions actually created a much worse situation than what was there to begin with.
All sides of the conflict have legitimate issues, and there's no one easy answer to the problems the kingdom faces.
In an effort to do the right thing, you brought about more harm than good, and thus created a situation that now you must fix.[3]
You, the player, will have grown wiser about the world as a result of the game. You will have learned that many issues in this game aren't black or white.
In this chapter, we looked at a number of ways to create First-Person Deepening:
Emotionally and/or Morally Difficult Decisions.
Responsibility. Responsibility could be something the player grows into, as part of a First-Person Character Arc, or something the player has from the start of the game (such as your responsibility for the young girl in Ico).
Multiple and sometimes even conflicting viewpoints of a subject, event, situation, person, group, plan, object, or aspect of life that you (the player) care about or that matters to at least one NPC whom you care about or identify with because of that character's Rooting Interest.
Certain First-Person Character Arcs—specifically, Learning to Take Responsibility for others (mentioned earlier) and Attaining Wisdom. One common component of Attaining Wisdom is coming to grips with emotionally complex consequences of your actions.
Learning that some situations aren't black and white, and therefore require deep thought if you're to help those you care about.
So, are games entertainment, or are they art? Obviously, like film, they're both. First-Person Deepening Techniques can help move games from being simply entertainment to also being art.
Let's define art as communication that operates on many levels and that brings us insight, complex emotional experiences, and potentially introduces us to new ways of seeing.
The Lord of the Rings films are entertaining because they're artful—they do all of the above. This, along with the thrills the films offer, is why audiences go to see them in droves.
When games become artful, they'll be more emotionally compelling and thus more entertaining. When applied artfully, First-Person Character Deepening Techniques can move a person emotionally with a power equivalent to a great film, but through experiences totally unique to games.
[1] This kind of choice brings up the problem of the potentially high cost of building assets to support a branching story-line. Some solutions are offered in just a few pages.
[2] The painting on the cover of this book depicts a hypothetical game in which the player also faces a First-Person Deepening type of choice, because it is emotionally and/or morally difficult to make. That choice is for the player to either (1) try to rescue the young woman while simultaneously fighting off the alien creatures, or (2) drop her so as to have both hands free to fire weapons and better save himself. How to offer the player this choice in a way that doesn't require the building of many new assets, and which is therefore cost-effective—while still having consequences within the game—is examined in Chapter 5.3, “Gatherings.”
[3] It should be mentioned that none of this story will have any emotional impact unless there is one or more people in the game who the player comes to really care about, and who are adversely affected by the degenerating condition in the kingdom brought about by the player's initial action in freeing the princess.