Rohrer article: Testing the Limits of Single-Player
(Visited 4864 times) Game talk
Aug 082008
Testing the Limits of Single-Player is a cool article by Jason Rohrer which messes around specifically with the game grammatical notion of the “opponent” — basically, questioning the boundaries of single-player games, and how deep they can be, compared to multiplayer games. It’s interesting because it not only explores it from a design theory point of view, but then goes on to offer up a game prototype exploring the issues. Very cool.
4 Responses to “Rohrer article: Testing the Limits of Single-Player”
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A great read, but one part made me scratch my head a bit. In talking about art games, the article says…
Then tosses in this line…
What immediately came to mind is, “But there are millions of artistic ‘single player’ creations – music, books, paintings and so many other manifestations of art!”
Why not consider games (single player games) as yet another medium for art and as just an important and equal element to single player games like Go? Are “art games” in the authors view not really games? I can see the thrust of the article – about how do you create these compelling single player games, but to basically ignore art in games as a potential factor?
Tim, good question. Is a puzzle board a game? Put it in a computer simulation, does it match Jason’s criteria?
I’d have to say that it does not match Go’s depth, but neither does the game Jason came up with. In both cases, it’s only because they are single player. I don’t think any single player game, all other things being equal, can match a multiplayer game for the single reason that matching wits offers challenges outside of the single player experience. And I’m considering computer opponents to have a “wit”.
By the way, wouldn’t Pong fit Jason’s criteria? That assumes there are no random changes in the AI’s paddle movement, and I’m not sure about that.
I have to give it to Jason here. This article is thought provoking, even for someone basically uninterested in such things as myself. It’s sort of like a game in itself, in a way. A puzzle.
Yup. But that’s because he forgets that important detail in Go which he points out in the first paragraph: a simple ruleset capable of blossoming into complex gameplay. Pong is incapable of complex gameplay, due to the enforced simplicity of its setup.
On the other hand, billiards has the same essence as the Pong ruleset, but due to a couple tweaks, it does have the emergence described. And I’m assuming we take it online to remove the randomness of fuzz, incline, and even physical control.
I think a worthwhile distinction might be to distinguish “philosophy” from “art”. I read Go as a philosophy game, whereas something like Passage is an art game. What’s the difference, to me? Art is something you appreciate, while philosophy is something you participate in.
Disclaimer: these definitions are pretty specific to me, at the moment, and I haven’t given it much thought.
I think as useful way to make the distinction is this:
Assuming it makes you think, does it make you think in order to play, or as a result of play?
Art tends to be the latter; you don’t have to think in order to read or watch a film or see a sculpture: you think because you already scanned the page, sat in the theater, looked at the sculpture. Philosophy, on the other hand, is too abstract and intangible to be touched by physical senses: it’s entirely conceptual. It must be understood, and in order to understand it, you have to think about it.
You can play Shadow of the Colossus and get absolutely nothing out of it, especially if you go make a sandwich during the cutscenes. The artistry isn’t in the mechanics; it’s in the presentation. You can still win the game. Go, on the other hand, demands that you learn warfare strategy of position and threat: the only other way to play it is to place stones randomly and lose most of the time.
Think your right.. great post
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