Ben Gonshaw: Digital Media Theorist & Game Design Consultant
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REALITY

17th January 2005

Games are pushing towards realism. Rarely has a term been so abused or misunderstood. It is true that games are striving towards a level of graphical or even physics-driven realism. However, game developers that desire realism in wider terms will find it very hard going indeed.

Games are the natural counter to realism. Realism does not readily lend itself to 'fun', nor does it fit to game mechanics. In trying to reach realism you can find yourself generating masses of mechanics to cover conflicts between simple systems in basic situations.

For many games, realism is a choice about how to portray your game, rather than an integral part of it. This extends even to simulation games. Take a flight sim for example. There is a level of basic aerodynamics that the aircraft must obey. In the weakest sense take the sprite-scaler Afterburner, this has the most basic representation of a real world aircraft. From there it is a question of presentation and who you are aiming your product at for the level of detail to drill down to. Even then, replicate everything exactly and you have to be a trained pilot in order to get the thing off the ground and stay up. In which case, who will find it fun apart from pilots?

Implementing that level of realism is relatively straightforward, if you are modelling one type of object and you base the entire game around it. However, if you are attempting to breathe realism into a world of objects and to have them support your game mechanics then you are in for a very rough ride.

This is because the realism in one aspect will begin to conflict with the realism of other aspects when forced into the constraints of the game. For example, in a small settlement 1000 people must wake up and travel to work, by foot, car and metro, travelling at a 'normal' speed. However, our game mechanics require a 20 minute day night cycle, giving a 10 minute day, at least 7 of which should be spent at work. However, most agents live beyond 5 minutes of travel distance from their place of employment. Not only that, 40 live in each apartment. With the walking speed of agents, 40 cannot leave the same door within the required 30 second window without creating massive lines. The ensuing conga snakes mean that a commute actually takes in excess of 12 minutes in one direction. Not only that, snakes of people crowding the streets looks terrible. If people moved at a speed relative to the realtime day then they would just be blurs, and that too would look ridiculous.

However, such realism is not necessary. This is one small example where realism must be sacrificed to make the game mechanics work. Cheat. Cheating is not a bad thing. It is an important part of compromise, as long as you cheat consistently . In GTA they ignored the 'commute problem'. They used a sphere of reality around the player, whose contents changed based on where in the city you were. To you the world was populous. Zoom out far enough and you’ll see that there is a little hive of activity within a radius of the player, and the rest of the world is entirely empty. This worked to fool you that there was a living breathing world, when there was not. The player will believe the game's version of realism.

The key to any scenario, no matter the realism level, is that you cut the same corners on everything in the same way, following a logical set of rules. This level of world consistency can make the player believe that it is real, or at least, accept the world as a valid creation. The same is true of game mechanics, mistakes in consistency here can be just as glaring as graphical continuity errors, and be more frustrating. If one crate smashes all crates should smash, or they should look different if they cannot be broken. If one tracked vehicle of a certain weight can traverse hex 21a then all tracked vehicles of that weight should too, regardless of the capabilities of their real world counterparts. Only a die hard tank enthusiast would spot that you are wrong, but everyone else will benefit from a standard, easily remembered rule.

So which method is preferable: to strive for realism and base the mechanics on that, or to create a functioning game system and then build a world of a consistent realism level that supports it? I would begin with the mechanics, and let marketing and script-writers co-evolve the positioning. As long as everyone communicates properly, there should be no conflict, and the people who are best at doing each aspect can use their talents properly.

(based on a discussion in this thread)

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