Entry tags:

faq, feeling, game dev, how i would do it

Accessibility Part 3: Sometimes it can't be learned
So very recently, I picked up and started playing Street Fighter 4 like about 2 million others. If you know me, you probably know that I follow the game fairly well. I really like it, because it has a bunch of stuff that I think is really good for games: A great intuitive control scheme, low barrier to entry, and a good way for skillful players to differentiate themselves in ways that aren't (usually) cheating. This got me thinking about games, and when I think about games I tend to come up with something to blog about. This is no different. When last we talked about accesibility, it was mostly about designing content. This time it's a bit different. The discussion is still about things like how much of a game can be played by people, but content isn't quite the right word to describe it. I'll explain after the jump.



When you look at games, you must realize that there are certain limitations that may be beyond our control. For example, somebody who is 5'1" tall has a disadvantage in basketball against somebody who is 7'2" tall. The 5'1" tall person cannot magically change height to make things more fair. Somebody who weighs 300 pounds cannot help outweighing somebody who weighs 150 pounds. These are physical traits that, for the most part, cannot really be overcome without severe physical training (if at all... can't really do much about height or reach). In most games, most physical characteristics aren't required anymore... are they? Or aren't they?

Sometimes there are. At the top level, there are professional players like SlayerS_BoXeR of Starcraft fame. These players can perform many hundred actions per minute, measured by movement, mouse clicks, etc. Most people can physically perform that many actions per minute, but the difficulty comes from controlling those actions. It is much like typing - you can achieve the equivalent of over 100 words per minute by mashing the keyboard as quickly as you can. However, the difference between mashing the keyboard and being able to accurate convey meaning is very different. Similarly for Starcraft players, the actions per minute are all part of a sequence of weighted decisions the players make as they play. There are other similar limitations. Some players just have faster reflexes. Some are able to intrinsically time things better than others.

So the question becomes... what does a game designer do to deal with these limitations? Are they acceptable? The initial response would be "No, you shouldn't have such high limitations involved", but that isn't quite accurate. It then depends on the arena of acceptability. Here's a perfectly reasonable example of a game genre where physical limitations are perfectly justified in allowing players to lose:



As the game progresses, it becomes harder and harder to whack the moles. The revenue model is based on pay-per-play, and you want the player to enjoy the game but not for too long. This structure is duplicated in most arcade games. Racing games require you to race better and better, fighting game opponents become successively difficult, and even a game like Tetris eventually raises the requirement so that it's less reasonable to do so.

The difference is that you typically don't want this kind of game that you just purchase. If I purchase a game, I want to feel like I can play the entire thing. Games are expensive, players don't want to feel like they have wasted $50 or $60 because their fingers can't press the button or wave the wiimote fast enough. Players who have a vested interest of $0.25-$0.50 don't care if the game gets progressively harder to the point it is unplayable. It's only a quarter or maybe 50 cents. Players who have a vested interest of $50 or more, in addition to the console or PC to play the game on put the developers on the hook much more. If the game doesn't deliver on a good level, players will be less likely to purchase other games from the developer.

There's typically two levels of gameplay in any game. The first level is getting the character on the screen to do what you want him/her/it to do when you want him/her/it to do it. That part's the physical skill part of it. This typically involves "Push this button at this time". The second part is actually making the more interesting choices of "What should I do in this situation?". Most of the time, there's a learning curve associated with both the former and the latter. Simplistic control schemes provide short learning curves at the start, and simplistic gameplay decisions provide short learning curves for the latter.

So what does this have to do with Street Fighter?

Street Fighter actually has a pretty difficult physical learning curve. It's one of the few games that has two parts to the learning curve, and that's what makes it weird - the second part is actually much tougher to pick up than the first. Street Fighter has levels of complexity in terms of controls. I've attempted to detail them for you here:

1. Moving the joystick


2. Attacking by pushing the buttons


3. Performing "special" moves that are simple joystick motions, followed by button


4. Performing more elaborate joystick motions followed by button(s)


5. Pressing buttons in a set sequence


6. Performing button sequences that require more elaborate timing see: Link


7. Doing all of the above in a time-intensive situation

Now, while I could probably write a good number of pages to explain the combo theory behind Street Fighter to you, the important thing to realize is how far down (numerically) most players get. The first two are very easy to pick up. The #3 takes a little bit longer, and #4 shows up in certain games under certain circumstances. The #5 shows up in different types of games, and #6 and #7 are the hardest to master. Most of the time, when a player picks up a Street Fighter game, he or she can do #1-3 easily. #4 through #7 are pretty much beyond them unless they are experienced in how the game plays. Part of Street Fighter's legacy is how old and established it is - most people have tried it at some point and understand the basic joystick motions for #3. Furthermore, the series essentially created the fighting game genre, and so you see many similar control schemes have been adapted for other fighting games (king of fighters, Samurai Showdown, World Heroes, etc.). The biggest problem, though, is that the jump from #3 to #7 is so large... and it changes the game rather significantly, because of how much more the game opens up once a player goes further down the list numerically.

When the game becomes more about out-thinking the opponent rather than trying to figure out how to throw a dragon punch, it becomes a lot more interesting and strategic. People don't enjoy chess because they figure out how the knights, rooks and bishops move. The point of the game isn't to move the pieces, but to move the pieces intelligently. In a fighting game, it's important to assess risks. Somebody who will hurt you for 15% of your life bar if you make a mistake is a lot less scary than somebody who can hurt you for 50%. It provides you as a player a much larger comfort zone.

In a single-player game, performing the moves should be fun and interesting too. You should feel rewarded for being able to do more difficult things, and they should be more spectacular. There it is probably ok to have more difficult moves and such as long as they are mostly not required to experience the majority of the game's content. I didn't need to unlock every single combo and upgrade every weapon in God of War to finish the game. The option was there, and if I really wanted to I could do so. However, in a competitive game, it should feel like the choices you make directly lead to the strategy.

If you take away anything from this, take this: If you want to make it a challenge to make the game do what you want, that's single-player territory. If you want to make the challenge pitting one player against another, you want to make the game do what the players want very easily. This provides the needed accessibility to the game that lets the players get to the fun part - the interesting decisions.