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Education Entertainment Games

How To Play Like a Game Designer 62

Posted by Zonk from the pay-attention-you-might-learn-something dept.
jillduffy writes "The GameCareerGuide site has up an article on playing to learn. Folks who make games play them differently than you or I; they're looking at the mechanics from a first-hand perspective. James Portnow's article attempts to relay some of the essence of that experience, to allow us to play with a more critical eye: 'Playing games in order to study them is not what most people would consider "fun." This doesn't mean it isn't fun at all; it just means you have to think a different way. You have to find joy in discovering mechanics and watching their emergent properties unfold. You have to be willing to endure a certain amount of tedium in order to glean clues about the inner workings of a game. Most of all, you have to be able to enjoy playing bad games as well as good.'"
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How To Play Like a Game Designer More

How To Play Like a Game Designer

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  • Play like a designer (Score:5, Funny)

    by techpawn ( 969834 ) on Tuesday December 18, 2007 @10:43AM (#21739190) Journal
    1. Find neat mimic-able game
    2. Copy game design
    3. ???
    4. PROFIT!
  • That sounds more like reverse engineering to me. I used to write games, but I don't play games in order to go, "hmmm, how can I do this in my game?" Usually I think, "why does this game suck and how can I make games that don't suck in the ways that this game sucks?"

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by aadvancedGIR ( 959466 )
      Obviously, you are not working for one of the biggest publisher, or for for long enough. As a gamer, I would say most games suck because they all feel the same.

    • Actually, it's what Bartle called "explorers" (Score:5, Informative)

      by Moraelin ( 679338 ) on Tuesday December 18, 2007 @11:29AM (#21739766) Journal
      Actually, it seems to me like it's simply about what Bartle used to call "explorers". Just to summarize it (badly) for whoever didn't read the paper, basically he looked at what players are doing in a MUD and came up with 4 categories, by what a player's main activity and drive seems to be. (Bear in mind that all people do more than one thing, though not always to the same extent.)

      - socializers: their primary goal is to interact with people, make friends, chat, etc

      - achievers: the folks who play it for the high score and bragging rights, basically. They work dilligently at achieving the highest level, having the top tier equipment set, having the biggest castle if the game allows that, etc.

      - explorers: the folks who like to discover where everything is, and how everything works. These folks, yes, get their jollies by reverse-engineering your game.

      - killers: the folks who like to harass, annoy, and hopefully drive someone completely off your game. (I.e., perma-kill them off the game, hence the name.)

      That's, of course, just one way to split players into categories. You also have crafters vs adventurers, twitch gamers vs strategists, roleplayers vs munchkins, etc, etc, etc. The fun part is that most are orthogonal too, so it's really a very multi-dimensional universe.

      I guess, I can see how someone could end up a game designer if they're in the explorer category.

      But personally, I'd have an even bigger... well, not "advice", but "request" really, to game designers: don't assume that everyone else is a clone of yourself. E.g., if you play to reverse-engineer a game, don't assume that every single player out there is wired _exactly_ the same as you are. It may seem obvious, but smarter people have built whole theories -- or rather, hypotheses -- on the assumption that everyone else is ticking exactly the same. (Plus, it's the stuff fanboy flamewars are made of.)

      Aiming to not have your game suck is a noble goal, and you have my thanks and respect for that already. But, really, "sucking" is a very subjective thing. It just means that in that multidimensional space of player goals, aspirations, personalities, play-styles, etc, your personality falls far enough from the volume covered by the game. E.g., if the game caters mostly to achievers with twitch-reflexes, and you're an explorer/strategist type, you'll think it sucks.

      So one way to make it suck less -- or rather, suck for less people -- is to make sure that more than one type of players can pursue their own path and goals through it. It'll never be possible, nor often desirable, to make _everyone_ happy, but it's often possible to enlarge the space covered quite a bit.

      Also, please try to avoid intersections where you should be doing unions. A game where it's possible to play as, say, a diplomat _or_ a gunner, tends to cover the tastes of more people than a game where you have to be a diplomat _and_ a gunner. The first is a union of people sets, the latter is an intersection, and much smaller than either set at that. A lot of games ended up sucking for more people because they failed to understand that: when trying to cater to more than one audience, they ended up catering to the intersection instead of the union.

      • No, that's a different notion (Score:4, Insightful)

        by DingerX ( 847589 ) on Tuesday December 18, 2007 @01:43PM (#21741628) Journal
        It's analysis, not exploring. The goal isn't to figure out the entire map, or find every little Easter Egg, or even to do funky things at the edge of the game. Analyzing a game means looking at the final product and trying to reconstruct A. what it is trying to do, B. how effective it is at doing it, and C. how it got to the state it is at. Then you can spin off the little mechanical issues, and art design choices.

        As for making a game suck less, well the problem has always been that developers started out because they really like games. Most of them end up doing stuff they may enjoy, but it's not making the games they really wanted to make. And those who end up making the games they really wanted to make, well, they get developer conceit, where their idea is so sacred, and so cool, that they will fight for it, even when evidence mounts to show that it doesn't work.

        The most eye-opening experience can be watching how someone else uses your software. 20 years ago, we would send videotapes of testing back to the development house, and they'd be shocked by the kinds of things we did. Now, playtesting is standard practice in most places, and some houses (Valve, for one) have turned it into an art.

        • It's analysis, not exploring. The goal isn't to figure out the entire map, or find every little Easter Egg, or even to do funky things at the edge of the game. Analyzing a game means looking at the final product and trying to reconstruct A. what it is trying to do, B. how effective it is at doing it, and C. how it got to the state it is at. Then you can spin off the little mechanical issues, and art design choices.

          My Bartle score is something like explorer/socializer, and let me tell you, discovering where

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by DingerX ( 847589 )
            Yeah, you qualify as an explorer, but only if you accept the Bartle division of player types. The problem is that the quadripartite division you cited (as I understand it) assumes a static gamespace. But human agents don't experience a shared gamespace, they define it. That is, they create their systems of meaning, using the game as a common point of reference. So, "exploration" as we're discussing it here, really has two meanings: one sense of exploration is acquiring knowledge of the virtual lay of the la
            • Hmm... I see your point, and I can see how further sub-classing would make sense. So please don't take what follows as _too_ much arguing your point.

              Still, on the other hand, way I see it, both stem from the same fundamental desire to _know_ stuff. We explorers are the nerds of MMOs/MUDs. We're the guys who find it _fascinating_ how a transistor works, or how to get the +5 Sword Of Ganking, just because it's, you know, _knowing_ stuff. We're the guys that imagine that being able to spew the exact spawn poin

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by vux984 ( 928602 )
        A game where it's possible to play as, say, a diplomat _or_ a gunner, tends to cover the tastes of more people than a game where you have to be a diplomat _and_ a gunner.

        True. And to follow up: A union is an INCLUSIVE OR or not an EXCLUSIVE OR. Nothing is more annoying than games where its possible to play as X or Y, but utterly confound anyone who wants to play as X and Y.

      • Well said, those are rather good ways of describing gamers.

        I would be a strategist explorer for one. Example: Crysis - I'm one of those crazy people that walked up to a building, opened a door, and started walking backwards. I found it hilarious when I was looking through the door at a wall, took one more step, and suddenly I was looking at sky/trees/hills through the open doorway. Take one step forward and I was seeing the rendered interior again. I love digging into every last corner of a game, figuri
    • But what you're talking about only covers half of it:

      Yes, it's important to look at a game and say "why does this game suck and how can I make games that don't suck in the ways that this game sucks?". But it's equally important to say "What about this game rocks so much? Why is this so compelling/fun/engrossing? What can I learn about how to be awesome from this game?"

      This is true in any medium, not just game design. It's important to be paying attention to advances people are making, even if they're ti
      • However it is more important to make your game not a clone (unless you intend to). If you want to create a truly innovative game you need know not only what sucks and what is fun but also how to avoid making your game exactly like the game you think is so cool. So you take a concept that is cool from another game and then twist it so that players don't know that it is from the other game.
  • Fiddle with some command line parameters if need be, and then:

    activatecheat god
    console: god enabled
    activatecheat noclip
    console: clipping off

  • Hmm (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I find it a little like watching movies. I enjoy the movie, and for the most part I am immersed in the movie's story, yet at the same time there is a part of my brain that is viewing the movie itself with detachment, as an example of *craft*, and admiring the lighting and cinematography, etc.

    It is the same with games. Most of myself engages fully in playing and enjoying the game, but there is this parallel track in my brain that is examining the mechanics and the decisions made by the designer. After 20

  • Tighten up those graphics! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    You need to fiddle with the controller intently, then tell your mom you're going to tighten up the graphics on level 3. [youtube.com]

    • Hilarious. Mod that guy up.
      I've listened to some commentary and that's pretty much how valve works too. You have kids playing games in their mom's basement and she comes in for a status check every hour or so.

  • How about "designing like a player"? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Tuesday December 18, 2007 @11:11AM (#21739498)
    Personally, I think this would be the right way, not the other way around. I don't care how a designer "wants" me to play a game. I'd prefer him to design a game I want to play. Maybe then we won't get the millionth sequel of a game nobody wanted to play in the first place, with fewer tedious missions that do increase play time but at the expense of everyone wanting to get it past him so he can get to more interesting ones.

    Why is it that in every damn RTS game you have this stupid mission where you have to take a bunch of your critters through a lenghty, winding corridor? Is there anyone who really enjoys those missions? Nobody I talked to does. Everyone wanted to play RTS games to harvest resources, spend them on an army and drown the enemy in a mass battle. Does anyone really like those "I have only 10 infantery men and need to bring them home safe" missions?

    Why is it that in every damn FPS game you have this mission where you need to find something hidden inside a twisted maze with corridors, all looking alike? No enemies to speak of, just running for an hour or two. Anyone here really liking that?

    It's like it was in MUD times. Every MUD I know contained at the very least one maze. Wizards just loved to make them. Players just hated to play them. Every "new wizard guide" I read contained at the very least the "do not create mazes, for people loathe them" clause. And yet, we still get them. With graphics. And blackjack and hookers. Ok, no blackjack or hookers, that would maybe make them interesting.
    • I dunno. Mazes can be fun to play. I loved Descent and Descent II, both of which are mazes. I used to play until vertigo would set-in and I would have to put my head between my knees to avoid puking (usually 3-4 hours of gameplay).

      Mazes have to be done well. In HL2 EP2, the mazes generally suck where you are just running and running. That's boring. But in HL1, there were a few maze-like structures that would fun to run through. It all depends.

      What I hate are boss levels where you have to expend all y

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mu22le ( 766735 )

      Why is it that in every damn RTS game you have this stupid mission where you have to take a bunch of your critters through a lenghty, winding corridor? Is there anyone who really enjoys those missions? Nobody I talked to does. Everyone wanted to play RTS games to harvest resources, spend them on an army and drown the enemy in a mass battle. Does anyone really like those "I have only 10 infantery men and need to bring them home safe" missions?

      sorry to contradict you, but I actually liked those mission, they add a lot to the rpg element of the game. Have you ever considered that usually variety is a _good_ thing in a game, since it makes it more likely to attract different players?
      Besides, it's just a freaking mission! If you can't be bothered to go through it just use the cheats!

      That said I have to agree with your subject. A lot of games would profit from being "designing like a player" :)

      • Why is it that in every damn RTS game you have this stupid mission where you have to take a bunch of your critters through a lenghty, winding corridor? Is there anyone who really enjoys those missions? Nobody I talked to does. Everyone wanted to play RTS games to harvest resources, spend them on an army and drown the enemy in a mass battle. Does anyone really like those "I have only 10 infantery men and need to bring them home safe" missions?

        sorry to contradict you, but I actually liked those mission, they add a lot to the rpg element of the game. Have you ever considered that usually variety is a _good_ thing in a game, since it makes it more likely to attract different players?
        Besides, it's just a freaking mission! If you can't be bothered to go through it just use the cheats!

        "It's just a freaking mission" that nobody would miss if it was gone (meaning, I don't think there's anyone who wouldn't buy an RTS game because it lacked that type of mission). Yes they enhance the "rpg element" but when I want to play an RTS I want to play an RTS, if I wanted to role play I'd play an rpg. When you're playing poker with your buddies, after five hands do you stop and say, okay now we need to play a game of connect four and then we can go back to playing poker. No! They're different typ

        • That's when they're done poorly. Homeworld handled the whole "limited resources" level rather well, for the most part, by putting them all at the beginning. The only problem was that if you made large mistakes in early levels or chose your fleet composition poorly, you could make the final level impossible to win.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by amuro98 ( 461673 )
        Bleh, I HATE those type of levels. You usually have to creep along, since the level is laden with traps or "gotchas" that will whittle your forces away in nothing flat. I never finished the first Command & Conquer because of its "maze" levels.
        • I hated the one-man missions in the C&C/Red Alert series. Those caused multi-week pauses in my playing of the games, as I waited for a day when I had a few hours to kill and was in a very patient mood.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Those are the only single player RTS missions that I enjoy. The standard, gather resources, train units, crush opponent thing is only entertaining against other humans. The AI is never engaging enough to make that playstyle any fun. Besides, even if it were on a different map each time, and the mission altered in meaning by the story, it's essentially the same thing over and over again.

      The missions where you're given a set unit selection and must use only them while going from point a to b is fun because

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The thought isn't about how you should act as a game designer but what you can learn about game design from playing existing games.
    • I enjoy the 10 man type missions, and so do a lot of others. If you're unaware of it try Cannon Fodder It's an old game which revolves around that concept.

      I personally don't enjoy HUGE skirmishes where the largest side wins, I'd rather play a small scale tactical game where I have to pick my targets carefully to win.

      • Cannon Fodder (and a few games similar to it) was actually a really good game. However, Cannon fodder actually had good levels, those levels in the C&C series are painful to play, as a previous poster pointed out there are almost always booby traps and if you make a single wrong turn you'll have your forces decimated (think: ten riflemen and a commando facing off with two enemy tanks, a gatling gun and a few riflemen). Also, often those maps are designed in such a way that you pretty much need to keep m

    • Re:How about "designing like a player"? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Other Than That... ( 824148 ) on Tuesday December 18, 2007 @12:28PM (#21740504)
      Ok, I obviously realize that this is a rant, and I agree with parts of it, especially the maze complaint, but this quote:

      I'd prefer him to design a game I want to play. Maybe then we won't get the millionth sequel of a game nobody wanted to play in the first place
      while heartfelt, unfortunately comes off as elitist and ignorant of many of the realities of game creation.

      First, if you want a game created that you want to play, you'll have to try creating it. Emphasis on try. Lots of people, including professional designers, have awesome ideas that have hundreds of tiny - and a few large - "gotchas" inherent in their designs, or due to the limitations of technology/funding. Most of these don't surface until you're already well into making the game. There's a HUGE difference between describing the game you want to play and making the game you want to play.

      Second, if there's a millionth sequel, then people (not you of course) did actually want to play it in the first place, because they've bought every iteration up until this point. People whine vocally about original gameplay, but when it comes down to getting paid, highly polished versions of the-same-old-stuff are where the money usually is.

      Don't get me wrong, I look for original concepts all the time, and some of them can be highly successful as well, but to say that no-one wants to play COD4, Halo 3, or even the next Pokemon title is essentially trying to assert that you are the only target market game designers should have, instead of one of many.

    • Why is it that in every damn RTS game you have this stupid mission where you have to take a bunch of your critters through a lenghty, winding corridor? Is there anyone who really enjoys those missions? Nobody I talked to does. Everyone wanted to play RTS games to harvest resources, spend them on an army and drown the enemy in a mass battle. Does anyone really like those "I have only 10 infantery men and need to bring them home safe" missions?

      I actually enjoy those more than the resource gathering ones, categorically. But I'm more of a "real-time tactical" player anyway. I'm still hoping and waiting for a successor to Myth.

    • Why does there have to be (mazes|single-soldier missions|level-end bosses|etc.) in every game?

      It may not be the developer's fault. Not only is there very rarely just *one developer* on a commercial game, there are also hordes of others involved, not all of which actually know what makes a good game. I give you: the marketing department who wants to write (or has written!) that it one-ups everything the other guy did; the senior production manager who insists on pink turtles because his 8-year old kid said i

    • It's like it was in MUD times. Every MUD I know contained at the very least one maze. Wizards just loved to make them. Players just hated to play them. Every "new wizard guide" I read contained at the very least the "do not create mazes, for people loathe them" clause. And yet, we still get them.
      That's because everyone remembers with great fondness being in "a series of twisty little passages, all alike".

  • Playing games in order to study them is not what most people would consider "fun." This doesn't mean it isn't fun at all; it just means you have to think a different way.

    I hate to break this to the submitter, but if you don't consider what you're doing to be fun then that does mean it isn't fun. That's pretty much the definition of "isn't fun". ;)

    • You fail at reading! (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The submitter is talking about what most other people consider not fun. He's saying it might still be fun for you, but only if you approach it with an open mind. If it's not for you, then that's fine. Not everybody can or should be a game designer. Designing games that are actually fun to play is like directing movies that are actually fun to watch---a lot harder than most armchair directors (or armchair designers) realize.
  • So you can discover the mechanics... Well congrats to you. Likely you'll find that from game to game in the same genre, like from MMO to MMO or FPS to FPS, the mechanics are generally THE SAME ACROSS THE GENRE. In FPS games you get armor, you get damage, you get running, jumping, crouching, rolling, you get modifiers to the damage or mitigation you have. You get modifiers to your aim through calming down your natural sway from breathing. Great, now you know the 'inner workings'. Congratufuckinglations.
    • Actually, TFA isn't just advising you to look at (and copy) the mechanics of games. Like TFA's title says, it's about "Playing to Learn."

      In addition to the mechanics of the game, TFA advises paying attention to:

      --Start Screen and Options. Do they help you get a feel for the game before you even start playing? Are they creatively and consistently done?
      --The opening scene. How does it establish the world of the game? How does it segue into the gameplay?
      --Basic movement.
      --Camera control.
      --Pacing and

      • Re:It's not just about mechanics (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Fex303 ( 557896 ) on Tuesday December 18, 2007 @11:54AM (#21740098)

        --"Math." This is a bit confusing, but I think the author is talking about thing like AI decision paths.
        There's a bit more to this. Almost all games use math at some level as an abstraction. Sometimes it's obvious - the number of hitpoints your RPG character has, sometimes it's not - the amount of life left on your lifebar in Tekken, and sometimes it's completely hidden - the force required to trigger a crash rather than just a bump in Burnout.

        Some players don't care about this stuff too much. They get a feel for the actions and just go with it. Others spend quite a bit of time reverse engineering these mechanics and working out the best way to manipulate these. I'm often one of the later.

        I spent a couple of hours building spreadsheets that let me compare various bits of WoW gear and graphing the optimal moment to switch from +Int to mana/5 seconds to +Spirit gear. Why? Because a) I'm a massive fucking nerd, and b) because learning and using the math behind it was fun. A large part of the fun of WoW for me was working out the best systems to exploit the mathematics behind the game. Once I'd hit endgame and I'd unraveled the game systems, it held a lot less appeal, and I quit while my guild was still making good progress through MC.

        I think this is part of the reason that Nethack remains so much fun for so many people. The math and systems behind the game are phenomenally complex and, while obfuscated, there is little else in the game to distract from them. Each game plays out in a slightly different way depending on how the various systems interact. (Although, for me that slightly different way seems to be Nethack finding a new way to have me kill myself.)

        • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

          by Anonymous Coward

          I'm a massive fucking nerd

          This does not compute.
        • I did the same thing in Eve. Massive spreadsheets. I think MMO's lead to this behavior because their methematical basis is pretty obvious.

          I always thought it would be neat to take the typical fantasy MMO idea, and completely mask the numbers from the player. Make all the progression notifiers indirect via roleplay elements. I think it would be cool, but I'm sure most MMO players would hate it, and prefer using a spreadsheet and DB to min/max their characters.
        • I think this is part of the reason that Nethack remains so much fun for so many people. The math and systems behind the game are phenomenally complex and, while obfuscated, there is little else in the game to distract from them.

          Nethack is not challenging because of phenomenally complex mathematical systems. For me it's challenging because it's 2000 fucking in-jokes and puns cobbled together on top of rogue.
    • It probably won't work in pure FPS, but I'd like GTA or Oblivion style games to better handle things like threatening, surrending, suspecting or gauging opponents. For instance, everyone stupidly rushing in to get killed whenever someone sees you do something wrong totally ruins the immersion (and then for GTA, totally forgeting you as soon as you entered your OWN house).
      More realism doesn't only mean localized/gore wounds.

    • So you can discover the mechanics... Well congrats to you. Likely you'll find that from game to game in the same genre, like from MMO to MMO or FPS to FPS, the mechanics are generally THE SAME ACROSS THE GENRE. In FPS games you get armor, you get damage, you get running, jumping, crouching, rolling, you get modifiers to the damage or mitigation you have. You get modifiers to your aim through calming down your natural sway from breathing. Great, now you know the 'inner workings'. Congratufuckinglations.

      If you really think every game in a genre is the same, you aren't paying close enough attention. That's what the article is about.
      Not every FPS or RTS is going to be completely different from the others, but that doesn't mean there aren't at least a couple of good ideas you could gleam from each one. It might even be simple, like "wow, a good UI with a clashing color scheme really kills it." It's guaranteed, you can at least find a few things NOT to do in every game you play.
      There are even many things o

  • Open the floodgates (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Avatar8 ( 748465 ) on Tuesday December 18, 2007 @01:06PM (#21741050)
    As if we don't already have enough people that think they are experts at how a game should be done. Might as well hand everyone with an opinion a certificate of "Game Developer 101" completion.


    Just because I've played computer games since they were words on a green CRT doesn't mean any game designer or company wants my opinion of how a game should be designed or executed. I voice my opinion by purchasing and playing what they do well, and beta-testing and ignoring what they do poorly.

    Besides I'm not an all-around gamer, so I have a limited scope. I'm sure many fit into this category as well. I only have a limited amount of time for gaming, so I pick and choose carefully how I spend that time playing. No time/money/interest in consoles, no interest in FPS and no desire for any game that involves head-to-head against a person (PvP).

    If they want my opinion on the evolution (and saturation) of the fantasy RPG since 1980, I'll gladly share it.

  • Honestly, I would think it's just like learning film theory, or seriously studying literature. You have to think about the construction of the content, not the narrative being presented.

    When you study film, you're constantly being asked not, "why did this character do this," but, "why did the director, cinematographer, and editor choose to construct this scene in this way?" Approaching gaming in much the same way can be very revealing. And in terms of learning to think that waylll once again, Portal pr
    • ...and in having learned that, you've ruined the experience for yourself. It's a skill to *not* fucking regard (whatever it is you do) through the eyes of a craftsman.

      I for one used to be a CCU operator and off-line editor, and it's been detrimental to my telly-watching-experience. Even before that, I never 'got' horror films because I was amazed (or appalled, as the case may be) at the effects used to make them horrible, as it were.
      • ...and in having learned that, you've ruined the experience for yourself.

        It goes both ways. *shrug* My boyfriend works in television and can barely stand to watch more than two hours a week of visual media. My father used to work in (music) radio and still doesn't listen to much but sports in his own car, over a decade later. But I studied music seriously for a number of years and don't find my enjoyment either of listening or of performing lessened at all by having a deeper understanding of the way
  • That you'd have to play the game like I watched other game designers and myself do it in 1999 and 2000... Basically we called the boring grind finished the moment we could "buff" our avatars through each level of the game and really didn't even "test" or play the first 25-30 days of play time in the game. We just went straight to the finish of the game and played in God Mode for two years. - True Story
  • The thing that bugs me about games is the same thing that bugs me about software in general. 99% of the time they reinvent the wheel. Which means we, as gamers, get to explore their quirky rendition of what really is by and large a standard thing.

    I play FPS myself. After years of playing them I still marvel at the idiocy that is clipping. I mean in real life I'm pretty sure if I hit my foot on a 1/4 inch raised piece of tile I won't stop dead in my tracks. If I brush against a frame I don't become immobil
  • I think valve is ahead of this one, given that their commentary bubbles are essentially that in action. However this gamer/designer distinction is becoming way too polarizing. Sure it's a hard industry to get into that involves skills that aren't developed solely by playing games, but the idea that gamers are somehow innately not designers or have some alternate mindset that must be completely reengineered in order to become effective designers is patronizing. I think a better way to get at this playing

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