Immersion

So I played Digital - A Love Story last night. Not only did I like it, but it also got me thinking about immersion.

I Believe That a Man Can Shoot Fireballs

Immersion is the ability to lose oneself in the fictional world of the medium you're consuming, to be really broad. It's the big thing you want to achieve as a game developer.

Immersion is, however, not based on making it look real. If it was, all games could just throw it out of the window, since you will always have something that's not 100% realistic, especially in terms of graphics. See my post on realism.

Immersion vs Information

I once read a blog post which kind of pissed me off. It was largely a rant on how menus, stats and figures destroyed the immersion. The example was the SNES classic Lufia, and the argument was that the numbers are not part of the world.

Eeeh, I say. Sure, the numbers and interfaces aren't part of the world, but they're part of the gameplay. They tell you how well you do, how much you get stronger and if it's really worth to buy that new shiny piece of armor. Increasing stats and levels show you that you have, indeed, gotten stronger. This is part of the game. And if your immersion is ruined by stats, then, maybe, RPGs are just not your kind of game.

Sure, there is such a thing as too much information. No one wants to fight themselves through tons and tons of stats that may or may not do something.

Perfect Immersion

I realized something: The games with the best immersion possible are the ones where you play a dude in front of a computer. Because then, you are the dude in front of the computer.

As I said, I played Digital last night. It's a game where you are, surprise, a dude in front of a (really old) computer. In the end, I was equally drenched in feels and geeking out over the references. Have I mentioned that you play a dude in front of a really old computer? With dial-up internet (modem sounds are oddly calming to me) and old school BBS. At one part, you could download a patch for your computer's OS that fixed a buffer overflow bug. It actually required you to restart.

Outside of the configuration screen, this game has not broken immersion. And you know why? Because text and stats and menus are the game, so they can't break it.

But not all games are "dude in front of a computer" games. So not all games can go all the way without losing information.

The Filter

The Filter is what makes immersion possible. I'm pretty sure you noticed it before, so I'm going to explain. When you play a game, as you get into it, you kind of see it through a filter. You become immersed in it. I'm speaking for myself here, but I tend to dismiss the UI on the screen when I look at the world. In the context of the game, it's not there, and after a while, you'll be ignoring it. Sure, it's there, and you still look at it for your stats, but somehow, you don't mind. Your brain can do that. It's awesome that way. And this is why an on-screen UI doesn't matter, unless it's so damn huge that it's impossible to ignore.

In-Game Displays

Again, this is subjective, but I have more problems with shoehorned in-game display of stats than with stats in a menu. Because as soon as something's outside the UI, it's part of the game's world. You need an explanation for how it works. You can't just say "HP are a thing now, deal with it" and go on with your business.

The problem with in-game information vs UI information: Many stats and other things are abstractions. Health can't be measured in points. How do you explain ability points? Or levels. All these things are somehow abstracted and meant to be representations and shorthands. Just like toilets are abstracted out of games. And as soon as you put them back into the actual world, you have to think about the logic behind them.

Long story short: I'd rather have a UI that has been thought through than a shoehorned-in in-game thing. Mostly because the latter kills my immersion much more, since it pulls game elements into the world.

Screw Immersion, I'm a Video Game Character

The other way to approach it is to screw immersion and go meta. You know it's a game. And so does everyone else. Expect characters finding out each others' names because they're in the text box, calling you out on your sucky play style and fading to black so that you don't watch them undress, because that would be creepy.

Warning: Meta writing is difficult. Only try it when you're absolutely sure you can do it, as it can quickly be extremely annoying. Also, meta doesn't necessarily mean "cheap fourth wall shattering jokes."

The Bottom Line

Immersion's a difficult thing to achieve. There's various ways to do so, and dropping all UI is only one very limiting way. Remember, immersion isn't (graphical/technical) realism. Immersion is what helps you suspend your disbelief.

Pokéworld Problems

So I started playing Pokémon Sapphire again. It's not... bad, but it's not awesome either. And it reminded me of a lot of things that are wrong with the series. These largely split up in technical and story issues. I'll start with the first.

Reliance on Others

Pokémon games have always been designed to work in pairs. You either needed someone else or a second Game Boy to do certain things. There were Pokémon exclusive to either edition, and certain ones only evolved when traded. Sounds nice, as long as that particular generation of Pokémon games is being played by the people around you. After that? Screw you. Even though the games are technically backwards-compatible to a certain point, things keep changing from generation to generation. At least the spatial factor has been removed since the games got an online function.

And even if the games are being played by those around you... what's the main demographic for Pokémon? Kids. And kids can be pricks, especially to each other. And if you're not a kid and playing Pokémon... good luck finding other players in your non-gamer environment.

Another thing that bothers me is that there's more and more things that require another player. Since Sapphire's the last game I played, I can't talk much about the games after that, but my god, so much stuff. Sure, some of that stuff is purely for funsies, but that there's more and more things that actually give you advantages. No internet on your handheld console? No extra features for you!

Not to mention all these events where they handed out exclusive things. Pokémon has always been a sell-out franchise, but I feel like it has gotten worse.

It's a Secret to Everybody

Pokémon has tons of features, even if you never come into contact with any other instance of the game. Many have been introduced in Gold and Silver, as well a Ruby and Sapphire. Too bad that the game doesn't tell you. For an RPG (which it is), it's very secretive about the inner workings of stats, for example. There's tons of values that influence which stats are rising and which don't, like Effort Values and Internal Values. You'd never even find out about these if it wasn't for the internet. (My R/B/Y never said anything about that, so screw that.) I get keeping the exact inner workings of random events from the player, but stats? Stats are kind of important.
Aside from that whole EV/IV thing, there's just a metric f-ton of features introduced in Gold/Silver. Like shiny Pokémon. Which is explained to you, and you even get to see your story shinies. And then there's stuff like the Pokérus. Your Pokémon can randomly catch that and it doubles the EV they get. That's never mentioned, unless you catch it. Not even a throwaway line. And even if you catch that, the only thing you get is "when Pokémon have it, they grow faster." I'd accept the fourth wall as an excuse to not mention EV at that point, except that EXP (Experience Points) are mentioned everywhere. No, no, EV should stay a secret, even though everyone with internet can look them up. This is silly.

The World Is Dead

This is my main non-technical issue with the games. The world isn't really alive. The only time I've seen a world that static was in the game I kept using as an example in my other posts. But let's start with the beginning.

Worldbuilding
Generation 1: Okay, It'd be unfair to harp on the first two games, since they had enough problems fitting the thing onto one cartridge. But still... the majority of non-trainer NPCs is uninteresting. They talk about the gym, or the cave/forest/thingy that lies ahead... and occasionally, they give you stuff. Trainers just spout bad puns in relation to what kind of trainer they are. The only place where things get more specific is Lavender Town. And maybe the lab on Cinnabar Island, but for such a big story, that was really underplayed.
Generation 2: Gold and Silver got a bit better with their worldbuilding. I remember the town where Team Rocket tried to steal Slowpoke tails. Ew. Still, all that information came from a few key NPCs. The rest was still busy saying inane things and give me the occasional item. Since there were more features, they had more NPCs to explain these features, but other than that... eh.
Generation 3: The graphics got spiffier, and with that the text boxes. The dialogues got bigger, but I still can't get myself to talk to people.

Everything's a Feature
Let's have look... we've got instant healing sprays. We've got software to implant knowledge into sentient beings. We can transfer living creatures into energy/data and back without problems. We can clone creatures from either fresh or ancient material. We can build teleporters. And I'm pretty damn sure that there's at least one Pokémon out there whose natural abilities can be used to make faster than light travel possible.
But none of these things are really looked into. They're just there and contribute barely anything to the world. Sure, the TV series does more with them, but the games? Nope. All these things just casually exist. I mean, the evil teams of the respective games wouldn't even need their own gimmicky things to pursue. Tinkering with existing technologies would make a fine plot already. Instead, we get stuff like people making a ruckus over... Team Aqua turning off a volcano next to a village. It's a volcano that's active enough to be filled to the brim with lava. You should cheer for these people and throw Team Magma off the damn mountain.

The World Is a Stage

Similarly to my favorite example of doing it wrong, the world in Pokémon has always been a stage for all these features and sell-out things. Hence the point before. Adding more features won't change that if the worldbuilding itself isn't improved. I know that the games can't have the same story depth as you have in the non-interactive media, but you can, at least, try.

Breadth Growth

I like to think of games in terms of breadth and height, where breadth is the quantity and diversity of things, while height is the actual value these things add to the experience. Every generation of Pokémon games added things to the game, but to me, that's mostly breadth growth. More Pokémon in a battle (2-on-2 in Ruby/Sapphire, 3-on-3 in Black/White), more stats (friendship, natures...), more things happening in the game (contests, berries, a day/night cycle...)

Still, most of that feels like "yet another feature" to me. New stats mean more complexity in terms of balancing, but they don't really show to the casual player. As for added gameplay mechanics, contests were a good idea, but they still feel too much like battles, and yet you'd need a completely different set of Pokémon, considering that the best battle moves aren't always the best contest moves. And again, contests are just yet another feature.

Long Story Short

I'm okay with Pokémon. It's not bad, and it can be fun, but it lacks the depth other games have. I doubt that will change, since the games still sell, but hey, one can wish.