GDC 2010: Sid Meier Keynote - "Everything You Know is Wrong"

[Applause] Thank you very much. It's great to be here. Um, the uh, the title of this talk is uh, the psychology of game design. Uh, everything you know is wrong. Um, I was going to call it, you know, um, people are funny, gamers are goofy. Uh, it's all in your head, or everything you know is uh questionable, but I thought everything you know is wrong, um, kind of get the juices flowing, maybe get a little more interaction.

Um, the uh, the premise of this talk is that um, is there any way to get the slides up in the back of the uh, back of the hall? Um, is that game play game design uh is a psychological experience? Gameplay is a psychological experience.

Um, when I design a game, a lot of my games are based on uh historical topics—the history of civilization, railroads, pirates—and the and the way I would generally approach those topics is, you know, make it realistic, make it true, make it about uh, you know, the more historical uh I can make the game, the better it would be; the more railroady the game is, the better; the more piratey it is, the better. Um, and what I found in in taking that approach was that a lot of what I thought I knew was wrong. And um, the reason was because I really hadn't uh taken into account what really happens in the player's head. And once that became an important part of kind of my design process, uh things started to become a lot clearer. So um, the premise here is that uh, by acknowledging that that the game gameplay is really a a psychological experience, we can um uh save us ourselves a lot of time in certain areas and make certain parts of the process process um easier; certain makes other parts of the process more difficult, but at the end of the day, I think we we end up with with a better game.

Um, in the process as we as we kind of uh explore this idea, we're going to kind of run into a few psychological concepts—ego mania. So one of them we'll have to explore basically: if you play Civilization, you are an egomaniac. I mean, it it says right on the box, you know, build a civilization to stand the test of time, and you're there like, oh yeah, I can do that; I can do that, no problem. So you are an egomaniac, okay? Uh, we'll also be uh looking into uh paranoia, uh delusion, and um self-destructive Behavior; this is ways that players actually kind of make the game less fun for themselves, things they do to to um to kind of detract from the fun of the game and and ways that as a designer we can uh try and minimize those, uh preempt those, and and and try and prevent that from happening. So those are some of the things we'll be looking at uh in the course of this uh talk.

So the first area where psychology really kind of plays an important role in in in game design um is something I call the the Winner Paradox. Um, in real life, you don't always win. There are um what, 28 teams in the National Football League, and only one of them gets to win the Super Bowl. Um, there are 25 teams in the NBA, uh you know, they all go to the playoffs, I guess, but um at the end of the day, there's only one team that gets to hold the golden trophy of NBA champion or whatever whatever that is. So in in the real world, um win the winner, you don't always win. Um, however, in the world of games, you pretty much always win. Um, and the psychological phenomenon is that the player doesn't really complain about that; doesn't object; that's not a problem. I don't get letters saying, you know, dear Sid, I loved your game, but I won way too much. Um, and this is actually true of other forms of of entertainment—you know, Rambo, you know, at the end of the movie, he's going to come out all right; uh Sherlock Holmes always solves the mystery by the end of the of uh of of the of the chapter. So I think this is kind of fundamental to entertainment, but it's certainly something that that we're aware of um in designing video games that the player um we're looking the player is looking for a satisfactory conclusion that might not always uh include winning, but but very often it does. Um, and this idea of kind of a satisfactory conclusion to the game, I think is is something to really keep in mind uh in in the design process.

Um, some of the tools that we have at our disposal to to create this journey for the player through the game um are reward and and punishment; in other words, you know, good things happening to the player, not so good things happening to the player. There's an interesting dichotomy in how these are are deployed in games. Um, when you reward the player, um, you know, you discovered uh this cool place on the map; here's 100 gold. Um, the player, you know, gladly accepts that; doesn't question, you know, did I did I really earn that? Is do I deserve of that? Uh players are are very much inclined to to accept anything you give them uh gladly and feel it was their own um clever play, their own uh incredible strategy that earned them that that cool reward. On the other hand, um if something bad happens to the player, your game is broken; there's something horribly wrong; the game is cheating. Uh, it's it's really important to uh to be very careful with the setbacks that the player experiences; is the is the game; it's important that the player understand why those things happened and especially how to prevent that from happening uh the next time. Uh, and anytime you can kind of plant that seed of the next time in the player's head, you're you're well on your way to this idea of replayability—that the player's going to play again; next time I'm going to try something different; maybe that might not happen. So uh a big part of the value of of these games is in their replayability, so any opportunity that you have to uh plant the seed of replayability, I think is is is important. And by really carefully handling the idea of punishment and setbacks where where you explain what why it happened and how it how it can be prevented the next time, uh that's very important.

Um, in terms of rewards, another key thing that that we think about is the first 15 minutes. One of our rules of game design is that the first 15 minutes have to be uh really compelling, really fun, kind of almost a foreshadowing of all the cool stuff that's going to happen later in the game. And these rewards are really a way of of uh making the player feel comfortable in this world, uh letting them know that they're on the right track; they're you know, they're they're on their way; cool stuff is happening, and even cooler stuff is going to be happening later on. And these the early rewards you can almost not reward the player enough in in the very early stages of the game to kind of get them invested, get them committed, get them to be uh part of the world that you're creating.

Um, now this does negate the value of difficulty levels. I'm not advocating uh an elastic uh difficulty that kind of always uh pushes the player forward and never provides any challenges. Um, uh a number of years ago, um I gave a talk on on difficulty levels and and was very convincingly uh made the point that four difficulty levels were the perfect number of difficulty levels; there needed to be one for um introducing the player of the game where the where the player could basically always win, one for the casual player, one for the U the player who's really experienced, and then the fourth difficulty level which would be the ultimate Challenge. I was wrong about that. Um, apparently we need uh nine difficulty levels; the latest civilization 4 has uh nine difficulty levels, and it really points out how um this this idea of progress and advancement uh is is so rewarding for the player. The reason we have these difficulty levels is to give the player this feeling that there's always another challenge out there—that they've mastered this level; they're ready to move on to the to the next uh level—and that's another reward is this idea of uh of getting to the next level in the game. Um, so you want your player to feel that they are above above average; they're doing well, and they're going to do even better as they go deeper into the game. I think that um again, if you kind of follow the first 15 minutes minute rule, it's very important that um you kind of start the player off with a very positive uh experience.

The Unholy Alliance—this is a concept that I want to trademark; I think this is a really cool idea. I missed out on The Uncanny Valley, um and I never trademarked interesting decisions, but uh Unholy Alliance I think is a is a concept that um in many ways uh defines the relationship between the player and the designer. Um, the the Unholy Alliance is an agreement that the player and the designer make with each other: I'm going to pretend certain things; you're going to pretend certain things, and together we'll have a great experience. Um, so one of the things that that we present we pretend as designers is that the player is is good; you're really good; that's that's kind of a um uh a mantra from us that we want the player to feel good about the play experience and and themselves as they're playing. And one example um perhaps of where this kind of went off the tracks is in the the history of flight simulators going back a number of years. Uh early on they were um kind of easy to play, uh very accessible; you shoot down a lot of planes; you'd have a lot of fun. Um, and then we got to where every succeeding iteration of flight simulators became a little more realistic, a little more complex, a little more of a simulation, and um and pretty soon the player went from I'm good to I'm not good; I'm I'm confused; I'm I'm my plane is on fire, and I'm falling out of the sky, and and the fun kind of went out of them. And I think we have to uh be be be aware of this phenomenon that um uh it's all about the player; the player is the star of of the game; their experience is what's key; what's uh what's critical; and keeping them feeling good about themselves is is certainly an important part of the experience that we provide for them.

Um, another part of this Unholy Alliance is the player's role. The player really needs to be willing to suspend uh their disbelief; they need to inhabit that character; they need to take on that that role that you're providing them, whether it's a of a great civilization or managing a railroad or being a cool pirate. Uh, the player has to uh be willing to suspend their disbelief; that's part uh they're part of the of the of the bargain. Um, when uh when we go to a movie, my my my wife and I ask her after we've seen a movie, you know, how did you like the movie? A lot of times she'll say, well, you know, I came out of that movie twice, or I never got into that movie, or I never came out of the movie. Um, very aware of the the value of suspending your disbelief to to uh to enjoy the experience or to make it uh more compelling. So so part of our job is to help the player to to suspend their disbelief. Um, and I think in some ways um those of us that are old-time designers have a little bit of an advantage there in that we we worked in the good old days of of 16-color graphics and things like that where we really had to work hard to uh to get the player to believe that what was happening on the screen was uh the management of a great Empire or or or or building uh a railroad system or things like that. So um I think I think having that experience was helpful in really understanding uh some of the challenges of of getting the player to suspend their their disbelief.

Um, one of the other agreements that we make I think in in this Unholy alliance with the player is um the the idea of moral clarity. And let let me give you an example—uh, here's a a screenshot from uh Civilization Revolution where we're negotiating with with the great Genghis Khan. Um, and one of the comments that I got back from from my from play testers was um these leaders um you know are very kind of cranky and aggressive; you know, I'm might be winning the battle against them; they might be down to their last city, and they're still kind of up there saying, you know, hey, you know, you're you'll never take me down; I'm the greatest civilization of all time; you know, come on, attack me; I I dare you, you know, and they and they said, well, you know, that just doesn't seem seem right; they should they shouldn't have that attitude if I'm if I'm winning. And and my my question was, well, you know, what what would you like them to say? Do you want them to say, oh, you know, please don't hurt me; we have only one city left, and there's women and children there, and you know, please leave me alone? Um, to me that's like a moral dilemma, you know, I mean, I want to win; I want to capture their city; it's Genghis Khan for goodness sake. Um, but I'm faced with a moral moral dilemma. Um, I think it's more satisfying, and we and that's something we discovered; it's more satisfying to win against um bad Genghis, cranky Genghis, um than it is if if you know there was some kind of a a moral cloud over the actions that that you were taking.

MAD is a concept called uh mutually assured destruction. Um, how many of you remember the Cold War? Let's hear it for the Cold War. Okay. [Applause] Uh uh, the idea of mutually assured destruction was that you know we had all these nuclear weapons, and the Russians had all these nuclear weapons, and we could just blow each other up anytime we wanted to, but the reason we didn't because because we knew the other side had all these uh nuclear weapons. And there's an amazing parallel to that in in the relationship between um game designers and the player. Um, the player can actually destroy the experience at any time they want to; they can quit the game; they can uh you know play in a way in a different way; they can they can cheat; they can do all sorts of stuff to kind of destroy the experience. And uh as a game designer, we can we can uh mess up the game as well; we we can kind of lose the threat of the fantasy. There was a game that we were working on at MicroProse uh many years ago that kind of illustrated this to me; it was an adventure game, and and basically um you kind of started at the beginning of the road, and you had ventured your way on down till you got to the castle, and you know finally got to see the king, and and and had gone through this great adventure. And when you got to the king, all of a sudden it was revealed to you that the king who you thought was a good guy was actually a bad guy, and and everything was turned around, and you had to go back down the path you just uh come to back to the beginning to do the real thing that you're were supposed to do in the first place. So um to me that was um us messing up the game. I mean, basically, you know, I can imagine the design meetings, you know, imagine the look on the player's face when they realize that all this work they've done has to be was in vain, and the surprise and the the you know the amazing design, you know, they'll think what an amazing design to surprise me. Like I said, no, that's not what they're going to think; they're going to think I just wasted eight hours on this stupid game. And so they would at that point they would mutually assuredly destruct the game I believe. And and so there are ways I think again that that that we need to be careful that we're true to um the the the story of the game and and and and and value the players’ uh time.

Another part of this Alliance I think that we make with players is in the area of um of style—things that convey uh what what the spirit of your game is, you know, what what's if if you start the game off and it's kind of you know have kind of a light-hearted uh music atmosphere, cartoony graphics, you know, and all of a sudden people's heads start exploding, then you you you haven't uh you haven't lived up to the alliance; you you know you're you're you're not giving the player what you promised them, you know. On the other hand, if you um you know if you have dark foreboding graphics, sound and music and and ends up being a very simple game, again you you you you kind of are are fooling the player. And uh you know if if I'm if I'm playing a game that starts off light and happy and and and uh and and cartoony and all of a sudden you know terrible things start to happen, you know, that's that's when the player uh you know loses their suspension of disbelief um and turns off your game and moves on. So I think think um the the the only way to kind of uh maintain the suspension of disbelief, which is critical to keeping the player in the game, is to really um make that a priority and and and use things like humor, style, music, atmosphere, all these all these tools to uh to be consistent and and keep the player in in your world.

Probably where it became most clear to me that um uh player psychology has absolutely nothing to do with rational thought was um in the process of putting together the battle system in in Civilization Revolution. Um, my background is in mathematics and science and programming, and I think of myself as a logical person. Um, and what we did in Civ uh Revolution was we would show you before a battle what the O what the odds were. In this example, um our attacker here has a 1.5, and the uh the defender, The Barbarians, have a a 0.5. They they would have a one; barbarians are basically one, but since they're uncivilized, they take a 50% penalty for that, so they're only 0.5. And part of the part of the fun of being a designer is kind of throwing those little things into the game, you know, uncivilized minus 50%; take that. Uh, so in this case, as a mathematician, this would be a 3 to 1 battle—1.5 to to 2.5, you know, 3:1; the attacker should win three times; the defender should win one time out of four—very clear, very simple, you know, that's what mathematics says; that's the way it should work. Um, that's not the way our players saw it. Um, basically, at a certain point, players feel they are going to win the battle, and um they would come to me and say, Sid, you know, I had this battle; it was 3 to 1, and I lost. I was like, well, yeah, you know, 3:1; you're going to lose every once in a while. Sid, no, no, you don't understand; it was three to one; three three is big; one is small; I I had the big number; I you know shouldn't I have won? So I realized, okay, there's something going on here. Um, so we adjusted our system um by actually breaking the battle up into kind of more atomic little battles to make the the results come out more than the player expected. Um, and then I watched some more players playing, and um this time the player had had one against three; the player had one, the little tiny one, and the the AI had the big gigantic three. Um, and I watched and and lo and behold the player won the battle, and I said, doesn't that feel wrong to you that that that you with your little tiny one one against a huge three? And they said, no, doesn't feel wrong at all. Uh, I had you know clever tactics and strategy; clean living; it it all adds up to me winning. Uh, so we realized that something was going on there psychologically that that isn't exactly mathematics; I'm not sure what it is, but it's not mathematics. So we made a few adjustments, and they said, okay, now now are you happy with uh the way combat works? And we found that there is this point, and it's kind of around 3:1, 4:1, where people do expect to pretty much win every time. So so so okay, we said, okay, that's fine; we can we can live with that. Um, anything else, you know? [Music] Um, they said, well, there's just one little thing. Um, I'm okay, you know, here's a 2 to 1 battle; are you okay with you know me winning most of the time, but every now and then losing a 2 to 1? The player said, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, I 2 to 1; I'm I'm I'm I'm okay with that; 2 to 1; I should I should win most of the time, but every now and then I can lose. So okay, good. Um, so what's your problem? Well, I had this 20 to 1 battle, and I lost; it was 20 to 10. I said, yeah, 20 to 10; I had 10 more than the 10; I 20, but isn't that I said, you know, it's not 2:1; 20—no, but 20 to 10; that's a whole different whole different odds than two to one. Okay, so we um we actually adjusted, you know, okay, that I can see you have 10 more, so that's a lot; okay, cool; okay, so now you know made the just went gave the game back; now are you happy? Well, well kind of, but let me tell you what happened; I had this 2 to 1 battle, and I lost, which is okay, you know, we've had this discussion; I understand now that every now and then I'm going to lose a 2 to 1 battle, but right after that I had another 2 to 1 battle, and I lost again; how can that be? How can I lose two 2 to 1 battles? I mean, one I can understand; the computer's out to get me obviously. Um, okay, so we actually take into account the results of previous battles uh now when we do our our combat calculations, and um then the player was very happy. Um, and and we don't really do this just to make the player happy, but it's really uh um when when something happens in a battle like this that that feels wrong, we we start to lose that suspension of disbelief; the player comes out of the game and um and starts to you know uh pay attention to other things that are going on, not what's in the game. So it's all part of the process of of really trying to maintain this suspension of disbelief as the player is playing the game. And uh something really kind of uh clear and instructive about this process, I think, you know, the interaction between logic and science and math and psychology uh kind of really became clear to me in this process, and you know I think it it it it all makes sense, but it's it's very uh counterintuitive. And I think one of the things about um really including the psychological part of things in in in game thinking and design is it's going to run into a number counter counter counterintuitive things, and we'll see a little more of that later, but um there there are many times where that actually can work to your advantage; it's not always uh quite the process that we just uh went through.

So this part is called my my bad—times when I really screwed up and kind kind of came to realize that it was because my brain was too logical and scientific and I hadn't really included a lot of the psychological aspects of uh what goes on in in games. Um, the first bad bad thing I did in life was uh to make uh Civilization a real-time game. The original prototype of of Civilization was real time, uh kind of inspired by uh SimCity and that genre of games where you're kind of watching something grow. Um, you know, SimCity I think inspired a lot of designers to to branch out uh in in kind of construction-oriented games, growth games. Um, but what we found with the uh the real-time version of of Civilization was that the um the player really uh became an observer, uh was was watching what's going on; was was really um just an observer. And the kind of the the mantra that we had in mind for for Civilization was it's good to be king. Um, and we found that that when we made it a turn-based game, all of a sudden you know lights went off; uh all of a sudden the player was no longer an observer; they were the the the star of the game; they were the the key uh key ingredient, and and they made things happen. Um, kind of ironic since Civ is now the poster child for for turn-based gaming, but uh Civ uh start actually started off as a real-time game, and that was my that was my bad; sorry about that.

Another uh bad thing that I did um in the original Civilization design was to uh include this idea of Rise and Fall. Um, you know, wouldn't it be cool if you built this uh cool civilization and then you know you had this kind of setback and it started to crumble, you know, and just before it disappeared, you rescued it, and you came back to win even more strong and powerfully than you did before; you know, wouldn't that be an awesome experience? Um, no, it uh not really. What we found was that that just at the at the the cusp of the crumble, most players would reload a save game, and they would never experience the the glorious rise that we had uh in mind for them. So uh Civilization is basically um a game about progress; it's a game about rise, rise, and more rise, uh um and not so much the fall.

Another Badness that I perpetrated um was in the original Civilization Tech Tree. Um, the idea that I had in mind was that technology would be this um interesting path of kind of discovery through the darkness, and you would kind of never know where the different paths of technology would lead. You know, it seemed to me totally wacky that um you would be thinking, you know, back in 3000 BC, okay, if I discover iron working, you know, someday I'm going to have gunpowder and nuclear weapons, you know. Um, so we randomized the tech tree; we did a lot of things to make that process uh kind of mysterious. Uh, but once players realized, you know, generally the second time they played that there was gunpowder out there, their only goal was, you know, how do I get to gunpowder most quickly? You know, give me give me the the road; you know, don't randomize; don't don't mysterize this thing; I know there's gunpowder out there; you can't fool me. Um, and we we understood that players want to be in control; they really want to know what's going on. And um the kind of broader lesson from this for me was that uh any any kind of randomness really needs to be treated with a lot of care.

We also had the idea in the original Civilization of these kind of great natural disasters, you know, wouldn't it be cool to have like volcano croca blowing up or the uh the plague and all these kind of famous world events happening in the game, um you kind of randomly um—no, it wouldn't. Um, again, whenever anything random happens to the player, um paranoia strikes; paranoia was one of our early um psychological feelings. Uh, the player feels that the computer did that roll, that random number just to make their life more difficult, or they were just about to win. Um, so random events have to be treated very very carefully uh because if they're significant, um basically the player will find the worst and and and and most paranoid explanation for what just happened in the game. Randomness at a at a low level certainly um helps a lot to variety, replayability, things like that, but really need to be careful with randomness um at a at a really significant uh level.

Um, I'm going to skip the cover action rule; that's kind of boring. Um, the the dinos game was another mistake that I made um while back. I I I gave a talk called uh you know Dinosaurs, the three glorious failures. Um, basically that was a game that I thought would be very cool; tried to create uh did three different versions: one was an RTS type game; one was more of a strategy game; one was actually a card game. Um, and none of them really kind of jelled together and and and I was disappointed; I I thought dinosaurs are very cool and got to maybe be able to make a cool game about this, but it it never really uh came together for reasons I I'm not quite sure of yet, but um what's what's interesting to me though is that after Civilization, that's almost the best-known game; when I talk to people, when I run into people, you know, besides Civilization, the other question is where's the dino game, you know? So this game that I never made is like the second most interesting game for for for gamers. So um that was my bad, but I'll um uh life is not over yet.

Um, and Civilization Network—this is a new game that we're working on—uh Civilization for the Facebook platform. Um, a lot of kind of fun game concepts that that we get to play with here—you know, uh people playing on kind of an interesting schedule, you know, maybe a little bit of time a day, a little more time a day, uh kind of making the game interesting if you're playing at the same time as other players or if you're playing at different times as other players; uh the idea that you're playing with friends, so that you w that we can really focus a lot on cooperative gameplay; also include competitive gameplay, individual gameplay, all different kinds of gameplay mixed together. So this is really kind of a fun uh fun world to take Civilization into. And one of the ideas that we that we played with here was uh the idea of being able to give gold to other players; players, you know, it was like wouldn't it be neat? Wouldn't this kind of lead to all sorts of interesting uh possibilities if we if we put into the game the the ability to give gold to other players? You could say, you know, I'll give you this much gold if you do this for me, or you know, I feel sorry for you; uh you know, I'm going to give you 300 gold. Um, or you know, hey, please give me some gold, you know, whatever. Um, there'd be this fascinating uh kind of diplomatic negotiating dynamic that would that would arise in the game. Um, what we found, however, was that nobody ever gave gold to anybody else; no, just the thought did not cross their mind to give gold to other people. Um, I don't know what this says about the human condition or the future of mankind, but it's kind of a sad sad commentary, I think.

Another another bad idea that that that I had—okay, one of the things that I I kind of uh promised in the uh the blurb to this presentation was to explain how to uh make uh save millions of dollars in in in game design. And so if you're interested in that part of the presentation, this would be the time to pay attention. Um, one of the techniques I think that's very very uh important in making AAA games on a on a shoestring is to really use the player's imagination as as a very key tool. Um, no matter how good your graphics are, no matter how cool your technology is, what's happening in the player's mind, the player can always visualize something uh more compelling, more dynamic. So so the goal of everything we do is to make something happen in the player's imagination that is uh that is really cool, and and often we don't have to literally show everything in the game to make that happen. If if the player can imagine what's going on, you know, imagine what Napoleon is doing when he's not actually on the screen; imagine what's going on behind the scenes, then uh we save uh a lot of money by not having to create all those assets and do all those things. And one example again from uh Civilization Revolution is uh is this screen here. Um, it says, foreign rulers seek your favor; the Sultan of Zanzibar sends you a caravan of exotic gifts, including seven dancing bears. The the principle here is something I call go with the flow; in other words, um if it's something the player is already inclined to believe, if it's something the player that wants to believe, it's very easy to make that happen in the in the player's imagination. The player looks at this and says, oh, oh yeah, foreign foreign leaders should be seeking my favor. Um, and uh you know exotic gifts; cool; they should be sending me, and seven you know dancing bears; that's that's very cool. So it's it's happening up you know in your mind; the bears are dancing; it's all happening up there uh because you know I'm in I'm inclined to agree with this sentiment right here. And um we actually don't have any dancing bears; there's no real there's no Sultan of Zanzibar; there's no caravan, but by going with the flow, we've saved ourselves millions of dollars in not having to create all these models and textures and assets and all this kind of stuff uh because the player is going to is going to wants to believe this. And um all we have done is basically put up uh a text box. Now that allows us to save our our our resources, our time, our energy for the things that are that are kind of harder to sell, the things that the player might not be so inclined to believe or or kind of want to see uh brought to to to to life with all sorts of cool graphical stuff.

Another technique for saving millions and millions of dollars in designing games is to to use uh take advantage of what the player already knows. Um, players bring lots of their own information to games, and they don't have to uh a lot of that doesn't have to be reinforced literally; P you know, pirates, for example, a game where uh people bring a lot of um of their own knowledge to the game. So if you know they see a a swordsman with a black curly mustache, you know, they probably know that it's going to be the evil uh meta-villain that they're going to have to sword fight, and and and we don't need a whole lot of backstory to explain you know how we got that way and what his childhood was like etc etc; black curly mustache, you know, okay, bad guy; time for a sword fight. Um, millions of dollars saved in backstory. Um, so these are just a couple of techniques by which um you can kind of focus I think your energy and your resources on uh what's going to be really impressive, what's going to be new, and what's going to be hard to sell in the game and and and take advantage of of of things that the players kind of going to almost automatically provide uh through their own uh imagination.

Let's talk about artificial intelligence uh for a moment. Um, AI is often a place where psychology really comes strongly into into play because um the AI kind of represents your opponent, the enemy, and whenever you're in a in a kind of conflict situation, um your psychological juices are are are are flowing even more more strongly; you know, you're really uh committed and invested in that in that conflict. And so um a lot of uh players project a lot onto the onto the AI because they feel this this competitive situation. And there's there's a number of different philosophies about AI, um and and if my point of view is not necessarily the only point of view; there may be other other points of view, but I look at um AI as one element in creating an integrated uh overall experience for the player. Um, in in a in a single-player game, um like most of the games we're talking about, the again the key, the star of the game, the key experience is the experience that the player is is is is having. Um, and so AI is kind of a tool to to craft that experience, to customize it, to make it uh seem even more uh real to the player.

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You, as you go on, you you you get this real sense of progress. There's this improvement metric that the the AI is kind of predictable, kind of solid and steady, and and you're the one doing the brilliant things and the clever things, and and and getting better and better versus the the AI.

Another thing that AI can do is give you uh feedback. Uh, when you're talking to the the leaders in in civilization, they often comment uh upon what you're doing and how, you know, whether it's good or bad, or whether they like it or don't like it. Um, when we're playing a s a single-player game, uh kind of feedback um validation is really important because you're kind of the only person there, and and these AI characters are kind of your only friends at that point in time. So having them acknowledge what you're doing, be aware of it, is really validating for the player and is uh something we found in Civilization Revolution was really important; that that the more the more that the other leaders in the game kind of reflected on what you were doing and and reacted, the more that the more the player felt that uh somebody understood them, you know, kind of oh you you know what I'm going through, and and the the U they weren't just kind of playing in a vacuum; they were playing in an interesting uh World. Okay.

Um, talked a little bit earlier about self-destructive behavior, um ways that the player actually can can damage their their gameplay experience, um and one of the the responsibilities that we think we I think we have as designers is to protect the player uh from themselves. And there are a couple ways where places where this really becomes an issue. Um, one is how do you handle the idea of load and and save? Um, I've watched people play Civilization where before every battle they save the game; if they don't win, they reload that save game, play the battle again, save it until they win the game. To me, that's not really playing the game that I designed; that's not the experience uh that that that I think is most interesting. It really doesn't require to have a flexible strategy; it doesn't kind of require to think uh think ahead if you know you're going to win every battle. The game, I think, is a lot less fun. Um, so in Civilization Revolution we actually save the random number um with the save file, so if you read load the save file you get the same result in your battle. You know, hahaha, that'll you know that'll teach you. I guess people did find a way to get around that, but um by providing the player perhaps too easy access to loading and saving, you you may actually be diminishing the experience for the player, and that is something to think about in game design. Um, in in Pirates we actually only allow you to load and save the game when you're in a port. Um, as you as you Voyage around, um you need to live with the consequences of that of that Voyage, um and and by and kind of by building it into the fantasy of the game, I think it's a little less obvious that we are trying to uh kind of control your load save behavior, but that's something to think about is finding ways to to build your load save restrictions kind of into the the fantasy, the story uh of of the game.

Another um area where I think we can we can damage the the gameplay experience for the player is in providing them too many options, settings, uh things that they can kind of customize in the middle of the game. Uh, there's all sorts of good things that the player should be able to customize, see, you know, whether you think the joystick works this way, whether you're left-handed or right-handed; you all those things are are key. But there's been a a tendency that I think has kind of gone away more recently, but to kind of open up all sorts of gameplay decisions to the player, and to me, you know, that that's kind of that's kind of wrong. We're we're as designers we're here to make the game and and not to kind of hand it over to the player and say, you know, I'm not sure how this game should work, you know, you you figure it out. So kind of being careful with the types of things that you open up to player uh is is um it's one thing to think about.

Um, another is is cheat codes. Again, it's I think it's a way that players can um can actually uh damage the gameplay experience for themselves. Um, I remember when we were working on Civilization 2, uh I looked at uh Brian, he'd brought the the game, and I looked at it, and there on the main menu was cheat, you know, it was like play a quick game, play a random map, uh play a game, cheat. And I said, you know, Brian, cheat, you know, on the main menu? He said, yeah, it's cool, you know, you can bring in tanks in the Middle Ages and run over people, and you know, people; it's cool. And and I don't disagree that it's cool; in fact, I watched my my son when he was playing, you know, have a wonderful time bringing in all these tanks and running rough shot over the the Pikeman in the Middle Ages, but I like, but Brian, you know, do the main menu, can't we just bury it one or two levels deeper, cuz you know I kind of want the players to play the real game first before they start experimenting with the cheats and the egg the Easter eggs and things like that. So um um The Good the good news is that this this cheating idea actually led directly to the idea of modding, uh which is very powerful, uh certainly uh with Civilization 2 was was was a breakthrough for for Civilization and and added incredible amount of variety and energy to the Civilization Series. This is a a picture from the Fall from Heaven, uh and so there's there's a happy ending to the story of of of cheats, um and and modding has been a very cool cool addition, kind of allowing players to exercise their uh they're inner designer and and become part of the the community process. So um cheating, I'm not so sure, but modding is definitely a cool thing.

So another kind of psychological skill I think that we need to develop as designers is um listening to the to the player. Um, I'm kind of assuming at this point that you've bought into the idea that uh game design is an iterative process, you know, starting with a prototype and kind of building on that, uh getting a lot of play, getting a lot of feedback, um building a game over time. And if you do that, you're going to spend a lot of time talking to the players, the people that are playing your game, getting their feedback and and taking advantage of that to make your game better. Um, but what I found in that process is that it's it's it's really not that useful to kind of take literally what your players are saying to you. Um, there are um different different kind of ways that play players will react to to the game. Um, one is to kind of provide you with Solutions, you know, uh I think you should take this out, I think you should change this, um I think you know this should work this way. Uh, some occasionally that's useful, but a lot of times that really doesn't take into account um other parts of the game that that would break etc etc, and it's tempting to kind of discard that, you know, that that's not going to work, I know that's not going to work; you might have even tried that. Um, but I think it's important as a as a designer to get get some real value out of that, to drill down to what is motivating that solution, what is what is wrong, what is what is the kind of thing that the player is feeling or doing that is unsatisfying that leads them to to kind of suggest the solution. And a lot of times you can find something that uh is consistent with with your game design and your game ideas that will solve that problem for them; it might not be the exact solution that they proposed, but but it will solve the problem, and everybody everybody's happy.

Another type of um comment that you might get back is is kind of the opposite of that; it's it's an emotion, you know, it doesn't feel right, it I'm frustrated, I'm confused, I you know, again, no very little information, and again it's kind of our job as designers to figure out what is it what is it that's causing that emotion, you know, what what can I change um to to make that emotion go away if it's a bad emotion, or or to strengthen that if it is a um if it's a positive emotion. Um, the another important oops, don't look at that slide. Um, the last thing I think is important about talking to your players is is knowing their individual personalities. Um, a lot of times that's very helpful in in in deciphering, decoding what they're saying, because a certain player, you know, might not like that type of game and is never going to be happy. Uh, there are there are certain players we call uh Mr. Anecdotal, who will be convinced something has happened that you know is impossible, but we you know we'll just kind of harp on that one thing, that that there are people that are very generous, you know, kind of afraid to say anything bad about the game; you almost have to force them, I know you hated something about it, come tell me, tell me what it is. Um, so kind of knowing the personalities of uh your players is is important, important in again in deciphering um what they're really trying to tell you and uh kind of really tapping into this resources, which is really invaluable, uh the gameplay experience of of your testers as you're playing the game.

So what is the point of all this, you might be asking? Um, kind of like to wrap it up with this idea of the epic journey. I think this is what we're trying to create for the player is an epic journey. I think I should trademark this one too, epic journey; keep that in. Um, you know, it there's so many genres, so many styles of game, so many different ways of gaming, but I think in a way they they can kind of all be encapsulated in this idea of an an epic journey. And how do we use psychology to make our journey more epic and our epic more journey-like, you might be asking? Um, here are a couple of tools um that we have to make that happen. Um, I come back again and again to the idea of interesting decisions. Um, that's really the core, the the the basic fundamental pieces of your game are these decisions that you're giving the player, and um the process, the journey is the process of exploring all these decisions and seeing how they relate to each other and and and playing through them. So um think about the decisions that you're giving your player; um are they ones that that that encourage them to project, to think into the future, you know, if I do this, what is going to happen? Do they have interesting um kind of not taken paths? And the most the coolest decisions are the ones where the player chooses path A, but they're kind of saying, well, next time, you know, that path B looks kind of interesting too, so I'm going to play I'm going to play next time and try that other path. Those are the really powerful decisions; if you can if you can build them into your game, you you're you're uh well on your way to creating the epic journey.

Learning in progress. Um, this is fundamental to the journey, the idea that you are constantly progressing, you're constantly um at a better place than you were before, you're smarter than you were before, you're more powerful. Um, it's kind of fundamental, but it's easy to lose track of this. I think the you cannot uh reward and acknowledge and and and reflect this progress too much in a game; it's very important for the player to know uh how they're doing, what progress, you know, what value has this last half hour, this last hour been to me in terms of of of of playing. Um, you I think World of Warcraft does a great job of this, you know, the the level system, you makes it very clear uh the kind of progress you made, and and their their ways of building this idea, which is very powerful, uh into into your game.

One more turn. This is another way of of making the journey epic. Um, it's a concept that that we relate back to Civilization, but it applies to almost every game, the idea that the player is constantly kind of leaning forward; they're anticipating things that are going to happen later; they' they they're looking forward to their plans coming together; they're wondering what's around the next corner. Uh, you can foreshadow; you can you can kind of uh just let people know that cool stuff is going to going to happen soon; it draws them very much into this um one more turn phenomenon, and it it kind of all comes back to this idea of of replayability, that if you if you create a a a fantastic journey, um and the player comes to end of that journey, they suddenly realize that that this is only one segment of this epic journey; this this journey is much more epic than they even thought because it's only this has only been a part; the epic was a part; it's like epic squared or epic cubed or or multi- this journey is multi-epic. Um, and replayability kind of plants that seed and and and makes that happen for your game. So these are some tools, some psychological tools that uh that that make your game the coolest epic journey of all time. So now you know everything. Thank you.