What are you playing? (2023 Edition)

Starker on 2/1/2024 at 22:06

Immersive sims are not called sims because they are simulations first and foremost. They are called sims because they rely heavily on systemic gameplay as opposed to scripted encounters as their fundamental design principle. But that doesn't mean the game is a slave to simulated systems. It's the other way around -- the systems have to serve the game.

Hence, simulating a day and night cycle would do nothing for Thief, which is a mission-based game where the gameplay relies on consistent light levels. It makes no sense for Thief missions to take place over the course of several days, because that's rarely how thieving works -- you don't break into a house and stay there for days. Furthermore, it makes no sense for sneaking around becoming easier just because you wait in a corner for an hour or play at a different time and it makes no sense to force the player to play around such a cycle.

Likewise you can't simply put cooking from ingredients in there. It would make sense in an RPG, where a large part of it has to do with different items giving buffs and having gameplay uses. Thief, however, is based on player skill. The character doesn't really become stronger over the course of the mission, the only difference is what tools are available to you as a player. Being able to cook your own food would dilute the emphasis on stealing and stealth, because if the resulting food doesn't have any effects, you just added a pointless system in there just for the sake of it, but if it does have an effect, then you changed what the game is about and it becomes at least in part about scavenging for ingredients in order to give you a gameplay advantage.

Thief is first and foremost a thieving simulator and all the systems used play into this. Being able to push buttons with arrows is a system worth simulating because that's something that's useful for a thief. Arrows arching in flight is a system worth simulating, because this adds to your skill as a thief. Light levels and sound are worth simulating, because that's your environment as a thief. The game is a fantasy of hiding in shadows while gauging if the guards are able to see you and listening to their footsteps while trying to not make noise yourself. Being able to jump is worth having as a gameplay mechanic because part of thieving is being able to traverse your environment and avoid obstacles such as traps.

vurt on 2/1/2024 at 23:53

I agree that it doesn't need cooking or really any simulation apart from what makes it a great stealth game. I don't agree however that Simulator or Simulation can be thrown in to call games "sims" because they're simulating the system they're trying to be good at. Mario 64 is a platform sim, Quake 3 is a shooter sim etc. It's not wrong but kind of tedious and it would take away a bit from what we historically would call a sim.

This started with games which leaned heavily into actual Simulation (and weren't super streamlined like Thief), so that's why it originally got the name. Like Underworld where many systems were simulated to make the game more immersive than norm, sim makes sense here (and also immersion, you can easily tell both are key to even making the game in the first place).

Starker on 3/1/2024 at 00:44

Immersive sims are not called sims because they belong to the sim genre. They are called sims, because they use systemised mechanics to enhance the immersion the point that it distinguishes them from other similar first person games of the time, such as Doom and Quake and Half-Life. Games like Quake and Mario 64, while you could say they simulate certain things like physics, are not trying to evoke the feeling that you are there in the world. Their systems are arcadey, not in the service of immersive simulation.

You can't argue that Thief is not an immersive sim, because it doesn't have as much simulation as some other games that explicitly focus on simulation, because that's not how immersive sims are measured. The immersion part is just as, if not more important. And by immersion I don't mean simple engagement, but that elusive feeling of "being there".

vurt on 3/1/2024 at 01:11

That's the issue, they are called something which they are not or aren't even trying to do to any greater extent, those supposed Immersive Sims are super streamlined. I agree it might have made somewhat sense for the time where they wanted them to be distinguished from other FPS games and they didn't just want to say "Immersive First Person Stealth Game" or similar.

For current day i think it just feels odd or confusing because for it to work as a genre you will have to leave out a ton of modern games that does both immersion and simulation in a just much more elaborate way, otherwise the genre will get cluttered and confusing. Like i said in the Immersive Sim thread, for me a perfect current day Immersive Sim would be a game like Stalker, because it feels a bit similar to playing a modern day Underworld to me, a game super focused on the two key words we use(d) for the genre.

Imagine explaining immersive sim to someone new to games

- what's "immersive sim"?
- it's a game that's uses systemised mechanics to enhance immersion to the point that it distinguishes itself from other similar games.
- oh, so Zelda! I really like Zelda, it's so different from all the other third person games i've played and it's super immersive! So i like Immersive Sims, cool!

etc. etc

Renault on 3/1/2024 at 01:50

You seem to be having a really hard time with this. Maybe (https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/postmortem-ion-storm-s-i-deus-ex-i-) read the article where the term was coined, and see if that makes any sense. Not being facetious here.

vurt on 3/1/2024 at 01:57

Quote Posted by Renault

I do, read my arguments and if you can you are free to argue against them. I know very well how it's coined.

It's basically just name dropping at this point. Similar to when you want to brag about how you know something isn't breakcore but actually DNB Jungle because there was this one thing that they could find that would distinguish it a little. I mean sure, but to me it's just lame and for games i think it makes even less sense to go in that route and detail. But again, feel free to quote me and tell me where i'm wrong :)

Starker on 3/1/2024 at 02:31

Quote Posted by Renault

And the idea itself is of course much older than that. Here's some snippets from Doug Church's interview at the time of System Shock was being developed that really illustrate the focus of LGS on this concept (bolding mine):

Quote:

(https://www.ttlg.com/articles/SSint2.asp)

GB: So how was System Shock conceived?

[...]

It's a first-person, smooth-motion 3-D game, similar in that respect to Underworld. But System Shock has a true 6-D viewing engine, meaning that you can look absolutely anywhere, fully up and down and sideways and all, unlike UW where that capability was very limited; and we have an amazing new physics system with all kinds of effects; and we've created tons of cool objects and structures to play with... the emphasis is on giving you a feeling of being there, in this rich, exciting, active environment you can work with.

GB: So this is not a straight shoot-em-up like Id's Doom?

DC: Hey, we made it to question two before mentioning Doom! System Shock is different in many ways, in fact almost all. It's really more an outgrowth of Ultima Underworld than anything else, without as much of the "Joe sends you to Bob" conversation-based quests, and instead pushed more towards action. But the real focus is on creating a world in which to immerse the player.

[...]

GB: So what are you proud of in System Shock? What makes it great to play?

DC: The immersive environment. Trying to set up a world which looks unique and interesting, which begs you to look around the corner, or down into the chasm, or up toward the cathedral-like ceiling. We've always felt that first person games are maximally atmospheric, and in System Shock we are pushing that in as many ways as we can.

If you want atmosphere in a game, things have to look real, and they also have to *feel* real. So in addition to the 3-D physical environment, we have a plot that goes beyond "bad things have happened, go and kill everyone." There are mystery elements, as you go through the space station and unravel what actually happened. There are log messages and email messages from the past and the present that you read during the game, and we've tried to make them more than "you must pull lever N" and instead make them feel as though they came from and are going to someone real.

[...]

So System Shock is an action-intensive 3-D game, but the real focus is on making the 3-D world really immersive and interactive, "you are there", and that's the goal which motivates these really cool things in the game.

GB: So what can you tell us about the programming in System Shock? You said it was a "6-D" viewing engine, for example -- what does that refer to?

DC: Well, generally perceived reality has three dimensions for motion, where you're located, and three for orientation, where you're looking. In all the indoor textured games that we've ever seen, the game really has just three or four total dimensions: two or three for position, and one for orientation. You can't tilt your head or look up or down in these games, you just see straight ahead in the direction you're heading -- that's the one-dimensional orientation. That does allow all sorts of coding hacks to improve the speed of the game. We try and write 6D engines, because we want the game to be as realistic as possible: the player can look up and down, or have a view that isn't totally flat, or tilt the head, or whatever, but that does make things tougher from the coding end.

[...]

On the other hand, the true 3-D orientation lets us do all kinds of cool things with scenes and motion. For example, when you run in real life your head naturally dips forward a bit. So in the game, when you run your view tilts a bit down, and it comes back up when you stop. And when you fire a big gun, the recoil will knock your head back about 5 to 10 degrees for a moment. You can lean forward or back, look up or down. You can crouch, jump, lean around corners or climb the walls. When you get hit in combat you get knocked around. All these kinds of things help make it real.

[...]

GB: So what's further down the road for LookingGlass?

DC: Of course it depends a lot on how well these current projects do. One thing we're sure of is that we want to do simulations. They might be flight simulations, or ground combat simulations, or whatever, but simulations have always been our forte. And now that we have this spectacular physics engine, we want to flaunt it as much as possible! Combining that physics with our high-end rendering will allow us to keep pushing the envelope in terms of immersive and interactive enviroments to role-play in -- our games will look and feel real, and be even more fun to play.

[..]

But we do want to keep doing simulations, especially these immersive roleplaying realities and amazingly accurate pure simulations. We had an in-house seminar a while ago from the head designer on Ultima Underworld II, now back in school becoming a playwright, on "what computer games are good for". He pointed out that computer games are fundamentally not suited for telling stories like a book or a movie, because your main character -- the player -- doesn't know what he's supposed to do! So if you try to make the game "tell a story", you end up with the player spending two hours clicking on different parts of the scene, trying to figure out what will make something happen, instead of advancing the plot.

His point was that computer games are best at giving the user a sense of place. "You are there" in an environment with real atmosphere. Because if you artificially limit users, you frustrate them. So instead you want to put users fully into the environment and let them do whatever they want, you immerse them, and then the you make the excitement come from how the environment responds to their actions. So computer games are fundamentally about putting the player into really exciting environments... What we're trying to do at LookingGlass is push the limits in designing great environments and fully immersing the player in them.

[...]

Starker on 3/1/2024 at 02:48

Quote Posted by vurt

Imagine explaining immersive sim to someone new to games

- what's "immersive sim"?
- it's a game that's uses systemised mechanics to enhance immersion to the point that it distinguishes itself from other similar games.
- oh, so Zelda! I really like Zelda, it's so different from all the other third person games i've played and it's super immersive! So i like Immersive Sims, cool!

etc. etc

- What's a first person shooter?
- It's a game where you use a gun in first person view to shoot at things.
- Oh, so Portal! I really like Portal -- it's so different from all the other first person games I've played and you shoot at things a lot. So I like first person shooters, cool!

Of course you can try to reduce any argument to the point of absurdity like that.

But the point stands that immersive sims are games that use systemic gameplay in service of immersion. What exactly that means has been debated over and over and over in TTLG, but suffice it to say it involves more than just simulation or immersion.

Twist on 3/1/2024 at 02:49

While you're digging up old interviews with Doug Church, maybe you can find the one where he described why Thief had no inventory screen and such a minimalist HUD. It involved many of the same principles. If I recall correctly, he saw elaborate stat screens, inventories, and HUDs as abstractions that compromised roleplay and compromised immersion. In his view -- at the time, at least -- stat screens, inventories and HUDs made you focus on the gaminess rather than focus on just being there in the moment.

I'd enjoy hearing Doug Church's impression of how they're handling the interface in Gloomwood. I could be wrong, but I suspect he might appreciate their attempt at a fully diagetic interface. For our sake, it's too bad he's famously press shy, but I also respect it.

vurt on 3/1/2024 at 03:10

Mario 64 can easily called Immersive Sim, the issue is that the description is too broad or vague and often filled with words like "preferably" or "typically".

It's very easy to argue how Portal is not an FPS, but to argue how something isn't an immersive sim would be quite complex, especially if said game is very immersive and simulation-like, because we have a ton of those games these days, back in 2000 perhaps not so much, so it made more sense then.