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On The Untapped Potential Of Abstract Videogames 61

Posted by simoniker from the monsieur-minter's-holiday dept.
Thanks to the IGDA for their 'Ivory Tower' column discussing why abstract graphics and gameplay are often unfairly ignored when making today's videogames. The writer notes that: "Quite a few classic board games are fairly abstract in design, including Chess, Go, Scrabble, Checkers, and so on... it's what's at the core of the game that matters." He goes on to argue that "the figuring out of a game can be made as interesting as any puzzle the appears within the game itself", and references newer titles such as Rez and Frequency as carrying on the abstract aesthetic pioneered by games like Tempest and I, Robot.
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On The Untapped Potential Of Abstract Videogames More

On The Untapped Potential Of Abstract Videogames

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  • Abstract is from venus, realism is from mars. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by eyeball ( 17206 ) on Wednesday December 24, 2003 @03:23AM (#7801398) Journal
    You know, now that I think about it, with few exceptions, all the women I've ever known have always been really into abstract games, while all the guys I've known have been into realistic games. (Case in potint: I just finished a marathon 20 hour session with the Lineage RPG, while my wife was playing all kinds of weird flash games all day.) It would be interesting to see if tapping the abstract game market also resulted in reaching the female demographic.

  • ...UniRacers popped into mind when reading the headline.

  • Tetris, and gamer personalities (Score:5, Interesting)

    by wackybrit ( 321117 ) on Wednesday December 24, 2003 @05:02AM (#7801637) Homepage Journal
    I can't think of any recent game that got as much publicity as Tetris, a game which comfortably falls into this category. There were stories saying how Tetris would make your children smarter, and how some people were playing Tetris 20 hours a day.

    I attended 'Game-On' [gameonweb.co.uk], an exhibition devoted to the history of computer games, in London (it's now in The Netherlands) about a year ago and watched some of their 'games related features' in the AV room. One of them had some professor claiming to know why people played Tetris so much, and why it was so addictive.

    Supposedly, certain people are conquerors, and others are solvers. The solvers like to solve puzzles and produce order from chaos. Their challenge is to get things running smoothly. These sorts of people like Tetris, SimCity, Black & White, and those sorts of ultra abstract games (Black & White being an extreme example of a recent abstract game).

    The conquerors prefer to create chaos, explore, or achieve goals by using power. These are your Quake 3, and RPG players.

    So, any new abstract games would need to recognise these personalities. For example, there's probably not much of a market for an abstract beat-em-up (although Grand Theft Auto was surprisingly popular for all its freeform ways). Likewise, there's probably not much of a market for an adventure driven puzzle game (Bomberman is a solid exception here).

    Anyway, I have no idea what I'm going on about now, so I'll stop there without making any conclusion at all.

    • Re:Tetris, and gamer personalities (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      So what are those of us who like to play a bit of Tetris in between frags? The "professor" you quote was talking nonsense. You can't categorise people like that; it never works.

      Read the last paragraph of your post; you try to formulate two rules, and in each case you can immediately think of a hugely successful game that goes right against the rule you just thought up. Doesn't that suggest anything to you?
      • You can't categorise people like that; it never works.

        False. Perhaps you meant, "it usually works, but there are quite a few exceptions." This happens to be the case for just about anything that "works", e.g., cars "work" for getting people from point a to point b, except when they break down or crash into things; computers (as we all know) "work" for just about anything you can imagine, except when they don't.

    • Likewise, there's probably not much of a market for an adventure driven puzzle game (Bomberman is a solid exception here).

      I remember reading those books many years ago. In many ways they were like games in that you had to get to the correct ending [if I understand correctly]. There was 1 brand of books ["Be An Interplanetary Spy" or something like that], where you would have to make choices based on puzzles [ie: what goes in square B?] as well as adventure [ie: do you turn left or right?]. I think these "Be

      • Oh yeah, those books were pretty cool, often utilizing optical illusions on what not.

        Probably cooler than "Choose Your Own Adventure" and "Twist-A-Plots".

        There was another, very similar series, that included building up a simple BASIC game...does anyone remember that? (Hopefully I'm not just making it up...) I think it ws a scifi themed book, and depending on what choices you made the ending game would have slightly different features.

        That's one thing that was cool about old school BASIC...you could do

        • There was another, very similar series, that included building up a simple BASIC game...does anyone remember that? (Hopefully I'm not just making it up...) I think it ws a scifi themed book, and depending on what choices you made the ending game would have slightly different features.

          That's one thing that was cool about old school BASIC...you could do stuff like that.

          I don't recall hearing about those. It'd be interesting to try to write stories like that. I'm pretty sure that you could use bash scripting.

          • I don't recall hearing about those. It'd be interesting to try to write stories like that. I'm pretty sure that you could use bash scripting. As far as I can guess, all you'd really need is a few unneeded loops & code blocks to throw readers off track, plus a generous use of echo & variables.
            Well, something that could do AT LEAST character graphics would be cool...
      • The best part about the Interplanetary Spy books was the ISBN number in the back. It was labeled, Interplanetary Spy Book Number. I always thought that was pretty clever.
        • A-a-ah, yes. I can't believe that I forgot about that. It was so cool that they required us to enter it in. It was completely useless to the plot of the story, but it really made it cool. I must confess that I never entered it in, because I hate writing in books, but I appreciate that feature.
      • While the Interplanety Spy series was good, the thing I didn't like about those books was that you usually got two options, one of which was "you die next page".

        Well, that and the story where Quallium makes everything it touches Quallium except for one other substance, which struck me as an incredibly stupid idea.

        If anyone can still find them, I'd recommend either the Time Machine series or the Super Choose Your Own Adventure. (I only have #1 of the supers; not sure if there are more.)
    • Hmmm...I'd say Grand Theft Auto's freeform mode wasn't really abstract...it was more of a "sandbox", still definately about creating chaos and otherwise having fun w/ its physics engine. You probably see stuff like that more often in "software toys" lilke SimCity, where although there's one goal, it's pretty obvious that you can make your own goals as well.

      I've heard about some that male/female division before. Pac Man and to a lesser extent asteroids have strong "making order" aspects, and have cross-gen
    • any theory that summarizes the entirety of the human race into two distinct categories (other than sex, which actually breaks down in some cases, too) is complete bullshit. case in point, i play and love both "abstract" games and shoot-em-ups. now, this guy's thoery may work in general, but i don't think that it's saying anything terribly enlightening or profound.
    • I'm not sure how you can describe Black and White and SimCity as abstract. They're both fairly straightforward; SimCity is especially concrete, though much more simplistic than real city-building would be. Tetris, on the other hand, is one of the most abstract games I can think of.

      BTW, that professor's theory is bunk.

      Rob
      • Black and White is open ended, the objective is not made clear, and the methods you use to get to the unknown objective are also not clear. This makes it abstract, IMHO.

        SimCity 4 has no goal in particular except 'build a successful city', and most of the theories behind doing this are rather obscure and you need to be an abstract thinker to work some of them out (unless you want to cheat with the strategy guide :-)). Simcity 3000/2000/et al, no, they're probably not that abstract at all.
    • DDR (that dancing game) comes to mind.

      I remember a bunch of "We finally found a way to get fat kids to exercise" articles on the local news.

      DDR is very abstract. Sort of the MTV version of "Whack-a-Mole". :)

      Click me! I'm a cool game web comic! [tooserio.us]

  • Untapped, because they don't sell. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by iainl ( 136759 ) on Wednesday December 24, 2003 @05:41AM (#7801717)
    Rez is one of the greatest things ever, in my opinion; I absolutely adore the game. However, I know that it sold pitifully small numbers, and when shown to idiots regularly gets ridiculed because the abstract presentation is seen as a step back in comparison to the latest boring quest for realism.

    A lot of these people reacted really negatively to cel-shading as well, so its not just Rez - we all know what 'real' should look like, so its a lot easier to say whether someone has done well at it, rather than you just not liking the aesthetic that has been chosen.

    Mind you, this goes further than just visuals; a quick look down this week's chart shows it full of games like Medal Of Honor and Need For Speed - the fantastic seems less popular than the "realistic" in game setting as well.
    • Rez is a total rip-off of Panzer Dragoon, which was a 3D version of Afterburner, which was a sprite-scaling, forward scrolling shooter. It is not worthy of effusive praise or high sales. It is abstract only in graphics, the gameplay is pure shooter.
      • I'd disagree completely. I know that the gameplay is pure shooter, but that is definitely a Good Thing. Afterburner didn't have the flexibility of the other two games (or, indeed very much going for it at all apart from a fancy hydraulic cab) and even though Panzer is wonderful I prefer the pacing and heavier emphasis on lock-on multipliers in Rez.

        Just because its a genre you personally dislike doesn't mean it is unworthy of praise as the high-spot of its kind (even Orta is just not quite there for me).
        • When did I say I didn't like the genre? I love shooters and I own two Panzer Dragoons from the Saturn era and Rez for the PS2. It's a good game, but I wish people would stop holding it up as the picture of innovation, or in this case abstractness, er, abstracticity, whatever.
          • Aaah, I see - sorry. I've a distinct feeling I've accidentally been violently agreeing with you here...

            From a gameplay point of view Rez is just Panzer in trance trousers, you're absolutely right. Its just that I happen to really like those trance trousers, and the swirly shot linking fits my gaming style better than the rather more frantic pacing of the Panzer Dragoon games (at least, 1, Zwei and Orta; I've never had the fortune to play Saga).
      • " Rez is a total rip-off of Panzer Dragoon"

        Only if you have your speakers turned off.

        I'm not too impressed by rail shooters, but Rez is like meditation on a game disc. Sure, if you don't like the musical aspect, then the game will seem bland, but that's like playing Splinter Cell and not liking the stealth aspects.
        • No kidding. It's like saying Ico is just Super Mario Brothers with better graphics and someone annoying to tow around.

          Rez isn't innovative because of the gameplay, but because of the entire experience (which includes the significant philosophical musings behind it). While I love Panzer Dragoon in all its incarnations and with its own set of philosphical pontifications, similar gameplay does not a rip off make,

          • It's like saying Ico is just Super Mario Brothers with better graphics and someone annoying to tow around.

            Ico is beautiful, but it's not innovative. At the core it's a platformer with a heavy puzzle aspect. And before anyone says I hated it, I have it and finished it.

            Anyway, perhaps "Rip-off" is a bit strong, but these games are not defining new genres or anything. An example of innovative to me would be the Sonic and Knuckles cart that you can plug Sonic 1, 2 or 3 into the top of to play the old games

            • An example of innovative to me would be the Sonic and Knuckles cart that you can plug Sonic 1, 2 or 3 into the top of to play the old games with a new character. Or Starfire, which was the first game to let you save your initials in a high-score table.

              There are other forms of innovation besides innovation in design, which is what you are describing here. There is also innovation in expression, innovation in gameplay, innovation in story, and so forth. Both Ico and Rez are fairly innovative when looked u
            • Rez's innovation stems directly from its intelligence. There are a dearth of intelligent games out there. Frankly, any game that has more than just a casual nod towards questions and 'significance' (interpret as you will) automatically makes it innovative in my book.

              If you're looking for honest-to-goodness, never-done-before as a term for innovation, you'll never find it. Likewise, you'll easily find people tossing the term around, ie Half-Life is an innovative FPS, Doom 3 is an innovation in and of i
    • I like Rez and other abstract games, but that doesn't make cel-shading any good. Especially in Wind Waker, yuck. I can't wait for that fad to go away.

      Rob
    • Mind you, this goes further than just visuals; a quick look down this week's chart shows it full of games like Medal Of Honor and Need For Speed - the fantastic seems less popular than the "realistic" in game setting as well.

      Yes, definitely.

      I think this may be a result of gaming's rise into the mass market - just like Hollywood blockbusters with "helicopters, explosions, and tits" end up generating a ton of money, the most successful games are often going to be the least innovative.

      I don't have anything
      • I would also like to add that I think the liberal return policies of the major retailers in the US are definitely hurting unique games.

        It seems that "I don't like this game" is enough of a reason to allow an exchange now, so people will play one for an hour or two, decide they don't like it, and take it back. If they didn't have that option, maybe they'd play it for longer and end up liking it.

        I bought Crimson Skies a month or so ago. I played it for two hours and thought it was okay. If I were younger an
    • Rez is one of the greatest things ever, in my opinion; I absolutely adore the game. However, I know that it sold pitifully small numbers,

      Because they produced pitifully few copies of the game. I've been trying to get a copy of Rez - new or used - for over a year. The local stores received a single copy each when the game was released, which was sold in minutes, and they have never seen a used copy returned or traded.

  • i haven't read the article yet, but i sure hope it refers to Sir Jeff Mint in all his glory and splendour ...

    looking forward to his release of that game he's working on, whats it called, its too abstract for me to remember, heh heh ...

    ah well. have a llama!

  • Abstraction, Representation (Score:4, Informative)

    by whatever3003 ( 536979 ) <`AliceViaWonderland' `at' `gmail.com'> on Wednesday December 24, 2003 @06:28AM (#7801809)
    My two cents as a geek and (traditional) artist ... As soon as 'abstract' and 'art' are mentioned, everything, for most everyone, gets muddy. Abstract, in art generally, can mean: an abstracted concept/theme/meaning an abstracted representation and the formal natural of the work For that reason we generally stayed away from that (and other) ambiguous terms. It was either 'figurative', which was anything drawn from a model (a model being any object including a naked person) or 'non-figurative', which was a work with absolutley no representation of any model, the emphasis being entirely on the formal nature of the work. So there are degrees of representation, and abstraction is another thing altogether. This may help clear up that Minimalism stuff ~ Minimalism was an art movement with an emphasis on formal properties (the objective nature of a work) and simplicity.
    • In my experience art can be broadly divided into two categories...

      1. representational art. this is art with subject matter drawn from or related to the natural/physical world. This _includes_ abstract art. "To abstract" means "to select." An abstractionist examines subject matter in the real world and "selects" part of it to focus on. It's about discarding inessential information. Think of Rembrandt and Andrew Wyeth but also cubism, Milton Avery (google him), impressionism, etc.

      2. non-objective ar

  • vib-ribbon (Score:3, Interesting)

    by oskillator ( 670034 ) on Wednesday December 24, 2003 @06:28AM (#7801810)
    I don't know if it qualifies as truly abstract, because some of the imagery definitely seems to represent actual objects, but this article made me think of vib-ribbon [vibribbon.com]. It has a great look, but it's one that I'm pretty surprised made it onto shelves.
    • Seems to me that the Japanese developers arn't going for abstract vs realism as much as stylised graphics vs realistic graphics. Japanese gameplay has almost always been abstract as far as I can tell.

    • Well it never made it to US shelves; just Japan and Europe.

      Mojibu Ribbon, which I think is a sequel of sorts, was just released in Japan last month. But I've read that the new game uses text rather than music so I don't know if it's even playable without being able to read and write Japanese.

  • Good Old Games vs. Need for Novelty (Score:4, Interesting)

    by G4from128k ( 686170 ) on Wednesday December 24, 2003 @09:31AM (#7802205)
    Perhaps one issue is that classic abstract games like chess, checkers, etc. do not need to be replaced multiple times a year. Whereas a dedicated FPS game player might buy multiple games each year, a computer chess player might buy one game every few years. The fixed nature of these classics means there is less incentive for game makers to create yet another version of chess, for example. In fact, I have an older friend who has had the same electronic scrabble game for 10 years - it works fine for her, so why buy another game?

    Therefore, classic abstract games have lower sales (but may have higher total install base) because there is less turn-over.
    • Well, I think gaming geeks do come out with plenty of variants of chess (and not just the 'chessboxing' variety) but they never catch on...the classics are just too established.

      And Tetris has a similar stickiness, since its simple concept can fairly readily be replicated on all computer systems.
  • I used to play an old arcade game called Qix when I was a kid and remember thinking how different it was at the time. Or perhaps I never quite understood it. I would still say that it was both a conceptually and aesthetically abstract title.

    More recently, I would agree about Rez. Though the gameplay is rather formulaic, in this case, it's how the different pieces work together; the interactivity of the music both visually, aurally and physically adds a whole different dimension to the game.

    Also, I

    • Re: Speaking of Qix (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I wonder how come no one's taken this concept to the next level, where you can draw in 360' directions rather than just 4 directions (up,down,right,left).

      How about Qix in 3D?
      • Not a bad idea, though I don't know how you'd control it, or represent it either...

        I bet it's been tried, been unsuccessful, and relegated to the bitbucket.
        • ...can produce strange results: Some abstract games (like checkers) just don't make sense in 3D; others (like chess) can be translated easily to 3D, but have radical shifts in their internal dynamics as a result; and some (like Go) can make the transition virtually intact, but can be problematic to represent.

          Wasn't Qix a game where you tried to fence off areas of the board with orthogonal lines?

          In that case, it might be difficult to define what is meant by "fencing off" a volume of space. This is one of t

  • nethack (Score:5, Insightful)

    by scrytch ( 9198 ) <chuck@myrealbox.com> on Wednesday December 24, 2003 @11:48AM (#7802794)
    It's hard to get any less representational than nethack ... in some ways it's not all that abstract though, given all the distinct objects with clear and obvious effects, unlike the more nebulous forms of board control in Chess or Go. Abstract would be the D&D combat system. Really abstract would be ProgressQuest [progressquest.com].

    I really wish I could still get excited about roguelikes though. I had this idea a while back to make a roguelike game using unicode characters to expand the tile repitoire without having to be an artist, but I just can't imagine anyone besides myself playing it. It's not for some idea of popularity or glory, it's that I'd really like to entertain and interest people. I guess unless I come up with something that totally breaks the mold instead of advancing the art, it's just never going to fly without 10K+ man-hours in 3D art at least..

  • another 'tranquility' plug (Score:5, Interesting)

    by presearch ( 214913 ) on Wednesday December 24, 2003 @11:53AM (#7802815)
    You want abstract video game fun?
    I've got your abstract video right here, pal.

    Download tranquility from www.tqworld.com [tqworld.com] and give it a try.

    As an experiment, I've made a single, free, slashdot communal account so you can see what the
    game does beyond the demo levels.

    login: slashdot
    pass: tryit

    With several people hitting the same account, the server might gripe about some things,
    but let's give it a try and see what happens.
    • I'll second the recommendation.

      Tranquility is heavily reminiscent of the hoops game that everyone on the Enterprise gets addicted to in that ST:TNG episode. The mechanics are unrelated, but the "Ah, I made it" feeling is perhaps the same.

      That said, I couldn't spend that much time playing it. But it's *very* worth checking out.
    • i played it, that was awesome. takes a little frustration to get used to the controls, but lots of fun once you do. very well done.

  • abstract shmups (Score:2, Interesting)

    by emilng ( 641557 )
    If you like shmups(vertical scrolling shoot'em ups with millions of bullets on the screen) you should check out:

    ABA games [asahi-net.or.jp]

    The graphics are abstract, but the gameplay is pure shmup. You can download the sourcecode and also modify the bullet patterns which he defines using an XML-like markup language called, bulletML.

  • Rez has a vibrator for the girls, too... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by evan1l38 ( 73680 ) on Thursday December 25, 2003 @03:32PM (#7808994)
    Check this interesting article out... Sex in Games [gamegirladvance.com]

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