CHAPTER 22
Backstory and Free Play
The Grand Theft Auto (GTA) videogame trilogy (Liberty City, Vice City, San Andreas) is arguably the most successful commercial game franchise in history. It has also gained notoriety for its “hidden” sexual content (unlocked via a videogame “mod”) and for its nonjudgmental (or amoral) allowance for criminal behavior.
GTA also happens to define one of the most successful storygame models yet developed in the commercial realm. A brief look at some of its techniques and mechanics may inform your approach to a simulation, particularly if you’re looking at using the RT3D (real-time 3D-rendered) platform.
GTA is often known as a “sandbox” game. As the tag suggests, players have full freedom to explore the virtual urban environment, for as long as they’d like— an illustration of the pleasures of exploration and navigation. If GTA was set in an unpopulated, empty terrain, of course, these pleasures would quickly evaporate. But GTA is stuffed with characters, sets, and objects to interact with, and interactivity is nearly always available.
Unauthorized acquisition of vehicles (it is called Grand Theft Auto, after all) is at the heart of the interactivity. But one simple illustration of the richness of the world is the panoply of radio stations a player can listen to once behind the wheel of a car. The radio station music and chatter further immerses the player in the daily life of Vice City or San Andreas, and enhances the pleasure of basic navigation, so that even when there is a specific, story-driven task, the execution becomes an exercise in play.
GTA ”˜s story is doled out via a combination of cutscenes and missions or quests (combinations of hide-and-seek, solve-the-puzzle, and kill-the-enemy). Ideally, the characters and plot encourage the player to undertake the missions and “learn” the world. The player is amply rewarded (usually with virtual financial remuneration) for successful completion of the missions, and betters himself or herself in a demonstrable way (via the GTA virtual economy).
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DOI: 10.1016/B978-0-240-81343-1.00001-7
At the same time, players are not forced to complete quests in a certain order; they’re allowed enough free will within the game to determine their goals and needs. This encourages players to spend hours of time within the environment, gleaning everything they can from it.
We’re not suggesting that your simulation include automobile theft and the underbelly of urban existence, but that you think out your world with the thoroughness that GTA has. The little touches do matter. And the more you can encourage your user to explore your world, the more your pedagogical content should be imparted.
Interestingly, GTA moved from a purer simulation environment to a much more balanced storygame environment, and consequently became the best-selling game in history. Should there be some question as to the value of story content in a simulation game, the example of Grand Theft Auto speaks for itself.
SAN ANDREAS: BACKSTORY, MAIN STORY, AND FREE PLAY
In San Andreas, the player avatar, CJ Johnson, grew up in Los Santos (GTA’s fc-tional version of 1990s Los Angeles) and in his teens became a member of the Grove Street Families (GSF, GTA’s fictional version of the Bloods, a notorious Los Angeles street gang). The GSF, headed by Ryder, Big Smoke, and CJ’s older brother Sweet, were anti-heroin and anti-cocaine. A series of events lead to the death of CJ’s younger brother Carl, and because Sweet held CJ responsible for the death, CJ fed the city.
Five years later, the murder of his mother forces CJ to return to Los Santos. He finds the GSF in disarray, having splintered into several gangs and heading toward the drug trade, despite older brother Sweet’s best efforts to stay clear of it. These developments force CJ to stick around and help. He soon discovers that Ryder and Big Smoke are in league with corrupt cops and a rival gang. The rival gang ambushes Sweet, setting up Sweet’s arrest and incarceration. Corrupt officer Tenpenny kidnaps CJ, who is extorted into carrying out the crooked cop’s dirty work.
In the course of these missions, CJ gains new allies, gets involved with Asian gangs, and manages to kill Ryder, the first of the betrayers. One of CJ’s new friends is a government agent who eventually helps in freeing CJ’s brother, Sweet. Tenpenny, meanwhile, is arrested and tried for his crimes, even as CJ and Sweet are reunited. However, Tenpenny’s trial acquittal triggers massive riots in Los Santos. During the chaos, CJ confronts the traitor Smoke and kills him. Tenpenny reappears and nearly kills CJ, while escaping with all of Smoke’s cash. Sweet and CJ pursue Tenpenny through the riot-torn streets, and finally achieve a day of reckoning with their nemesis. CJ and Sweet’s entire family are reunited as the story ends.
Though the story is extremely linear, every experience of it will tend to feel fresh because of the remarkable freedom that the player has to operate within the world at all times. However, a few narrative devices such as ticking clocks, along with the player’s desire to know “what happens next,” will tend to keep most players on track in carrying out missions and prodding the story along.
The story compels players to master the pedagogical content (the intent and execution of each mission), while feeling they are part of a very real world with meaning and emotion. Players don’t feel burdened by the pedagogy; instead, they feel liberated by the amount of control they have in this world.
VICE CITY: BACKSTORY, MAIN STORY, AND FREE PLAY
In Vice City (GTA’s fictional version of 1980s Miami), the player avatar, Tommy Vercetti, has recently been released from prison, due to his previous work for the Forelli organized crime family. Attempting to reestablish himself with the family, Tommy is sent to Vice City by Sonny Forelli to oversee an important drug deal.
In the inciting incident of the story, masked gunmen steal the drugs and money and kill almost everyone involved in the deal. Tommy barely escapes with his life. Now, Tommy has one overriding mission: get back the drugs and money and exact vengeance for the ripoff. If he fails, he’s just as likely to have Sonny coming after him.
To discover the truth behind the ripoff, Tommy must rise up through the criminal ranks, accumulating wealth and real estate, eventually becoming the city’s crime kingpin. Once again, Tommy has the freedom to roam the story space and pursue his own agendas, independent of the story’s throughline. However, the desire to know “what happens next” generally propels most users to return to the storyline, but at their own pace, rather than a predetermined story pace.
The story space has self-correcting mechanisms to keep players close to the storyline. For example, too much random stealing of vehicles will trigger intense interest from the local police, and eventually the FBI and the National Guard. At a certain point, the user who has “goofed off” too much will certainly die. The odds for user success increases the more the user works toward mastering the game’s pedagogy—the motivation for that is contained in the storyline’s addictiveness.
THE SIMS: NOTHING BUT SANDBOX
The Sims videogame franchise (which has gone through several iterations and numerous add-ons over the years) has been referred to by its creator, Will Wright, as a digital dollhouse. The game is completely open-ended, with no goals, objectives, or finish line for the user. This approach may seem like anathema for a pedagogical simulation where specific objectives and endgames are desirable. But since this game may arguably be the best-selling videogame of all time, there are lessons—both illuminating and cautionary—worth noting in its DNA.
The Sims amply illustrates that interactive environments need not be fantastic, noir-ish or scifi-ish to achieve long-term immersive play. Ordinary settings and objects can be immensely absorbing and worth interacting with, when users have nearly total freedom to do so. Although The Sims has no built-in narrative, users are almost instantly compelled to begin creating their own storylines out of the sandbox, through their selection and customization of characters and their behavioral interaction with these characters.
Free play is further directed by the “ticking clock” of Sims character lives; as the characters will advance from young adult to adult to elder life stages, the user is under some obligation to help the Sim satisfy his wants and needs.
The Sims uses some of the most advanced character AI yet seen in a commercial videogame environment. Characters have a high degree of autonomy, and may even ignore specific instructions the user gives them, when the instructions clash with current character agendas. Additionally, users can only control their own customized Sims: “visiting” Sims (nonplayer characters) will be fully autonomous, and may interact with the user’s own Sims either positively or negatively.
The Sims itself can, potentially, be used as a simulation environment through the deployment of user mods (modifications), which may either disable or expand various game behaviors. The right combination of mods can create a highly customized and specialized world that could focus on very specific workplace or educational endeavors.
One specific drawback, of course, is The Sims nonlingual environment. Sims speak “Simlish,” a fictional language that is based more on intonation than sophisticated sentence dynamics and construction. Any sort of natural language interface or real-life immersion is, in essence, out of the question. Interaction is purely behaviorally based, rather than drawn from textual or logical pedagogical material. Whether this can deliver sufficient pedagogical content and advancement is highly debatable.
In addition, The Sims Online is instructive in terms of massively multiple user behavior in a free play, nondirected environment (some may point to it as a case study of “mob” psychographics). There has been general agreement that the community has degenerated into anti-social behavior (prostitution, extortion, etc.). While a single user will usually carve out a satisfying Sims experience, the presence of numerous, simultaneous users in a completely non-directed environment seems to encourage more extreme selections and interactions. The failure of The Sims Online demonstrates that a strong, moderating presence, the man in the loop, becomes more necessary as multi-user autonomy increases.
SUMMARY
A look at some of the most successful videogames in history is useful for seeing ways that backstory and free play are integrated into games. Grand Theft Auto’s unique combination of these elements has made it a favorite environment for millions of game players, and creates a particularly rich environment. The extreme in nondirected environments, The Sims, offers both positive and negative lessons in how users interact within the virtual world.