Arguably the most important aspect of the game is the control scheme. In DvM the player controls Death with the mouse while Death shoots an endless stream of bullets backwards. Holding the left mouse button locks the current firing direction, allowing the player to move in any direction while firing the same way. Double-clicking will cause Death to enter “berserk mode,” which fires several rings of bullets and transforms enemy bullets into money. Holding the space bar enables “bullet time,” which slows down all enemies and their bullets. Despite its simplicity, much of the game’s depth comes from these controls.

At first glance the fact that Death always fires backwards seems like a hack, a poor attempt to duplicate the dual-analog control of Geometry Wars and Smash TV, where firing backwards is a common tactic. Using the left mouse button to fix direction or “strafe” also feels like a hack, giving the player marginally more control. However, this control scheme creates a surprisingly deep dynamic. Unlike dual-analog shooters, in DvM it is extremely difficult to change fire direction quickly. Frequently, the optimum strategy is to hold the mouse button, fixing the fire direction, in order to concentrate on the largest groups of enemies. On the downside this leaves a lot of space for enemies to attack. Gameplay-wise this results in fixing the firing direction for a few seconds, then re-positioning Death and the fire direction for a few more seconds. In essence, the player is constantly re-defining the space in the game, dividing it between attackable and un-attackable. For example, if the player situates Death in the lower-right corner while shooting towards the upper-left, Death’s bullet stream covers a large space, making it attackable and quickly destroying any Monstars in that area. On the other hand, the space behind and around Death becomes un-attackable and hence dangerous, because it will take a few moments to re-position Death to attack Monstars that appear in that space. In any twitch shooter a few moments are an eternity, so the player must always be planning to change position and attack direction.

Another element that makes Death vs Monstars unique is the upgrade system. Although countless games use the same “kill things to get better at killing things” feedback loop, in DvM money encourages the player to constantly engage in risk-reward thinking. This happens because all of the enemies drop money when killed, and the player will naturally want that money. Because the control scheme causes the player to kill enemies in one area at a time, usually there are a lot of Monstars between Death and the money, making it extremely difficult to acquire. This is where “bullet time” comes in: by slowing down the action it is much easier to fly into dangerous space, grab the money, and re-orient the firing direction before the Monstars can react. Unlike other hardcore shooters, the enemies in DvM do not fire complex bullet patterns, and Death’s hitbox is relatively large. Because of this, bullet time is rarely useful for actually dealing with bullets.

The upgrade system has another potential consequence, depending on how the player is choosing to play. The Jay is Games review notes that the shop is “abusable.” This is because it is possible to replay older levels to farm money. Also, if a player dies midway through the level they keep any money they had collected. A dedicated player could theoretically replay the first level over and over until they can purchase every upgrade. However, the short length of the game enables a different sort of strategy: if the player decides to go through the game without repeating levels, the shop becomes extremely important. Unless they die frequently, the player will be unable to afford every upgrade so they must carefully consider what to purchase. There is a constant choice between upgrading now to make the next level easier, or trying to beat the next level as-is, so as to buy an even more powerful upgrade later. Upgrades also allow the player to tune the difficulty: not purchasing them can make the game significantly harder.

How frequently players actually chose sub-optimum weapons or similar equipment, in any game, is another matter. Intuitively this seems uncommon, as evidenced by the enormous market for powerful items from MMORPGs. Using these types of feedback loops to improve an avatar or other in-game object seems to be intrinsically pleasing: an enormous amount of tower defense games and RPGs depend almost entirely on the player’s ability to maximize such loops. What makes DvM interesting is how the short length allows the player to experiment with the loop and rapidly understand it.

What I have tried to do with this review is show how games in general, and Death vs Monstars in particular, cannot be adequately described in terms of their mechanics. DvM is a great example because so many of the game’s mechanics are seen elsewhere, which initially makes the game seem derivative, but by examining the dynamics we find that it is actually quite innovative. For example, explaining the control system says nothing of its fundamental impact on strategy, and mentioning the upgrade system does not reveal its many affordances. Similarly, descriptions such as “tons of enemies and tons of power-ups” or “berserk mode and bullet time” do not tell the reader how the game actually plays. This is why the reviews quoted at the start of this article were conflicted: by focusing on the mechanics they only saw what was derivative. They recognized that the game is fun, but not that the fun is in the dynamics. Reviews that focus on dynamics can provide a more accurate description of how a game plays, giving the player a better idea of whether they will enjoy the game.

One potential answer lies with imitation. While they were not the first video games where you jump over enemies and onto platforms (an honor which may fall to Donkey Kong, the Super Mario Brothers games on the NES were hugely successful. This success spawned a wealth of imitators, leading to countless games where jumping over things was the primary means of interaction. That the Sega Genesis came with Sonic and the SNES with Super Mario World only further ingrained platforming in the gaming consciousness. While the success of these games may help explain the ubiquity of jumping today, there is the still question of how the mechanic came to be in the first place.

Because early video games were two-dimensional, they were limited in choice of perspective. For the most part they had to be a top-down view, as in Adventure:

Adventure

Or a side view, as in Pitfall:

Pitfall

Top-down games had odd perspective issues in that characters were typically drawn as seen from the side, not from above, as in Dark Chambers:

Dark Chambers

In a side view perspective game featuring a human avatar, you run into the problem of movement. In shooters like Defender the ship can simply fly in all four directions, because (in theory) that’s how spaceships move. But a person is bound by gravity, and simply walking back-and-forth along the ground is not terribly interesting. Burgertime solves this by having multiple platforms connected by ladders: if an enemy is approaching, you can spray them with your pepper, or try to out maneuver them by moving to a different platform. The pepper only sprays directly in front of you; doing nothing but would get old fast. The fun of the game comes from the multi-layered levels. On the other hand, in games like Donkey Kong and Pitfall jumping is the main method of avoiding hostile entities. In other words, jumping provides another way for a gravity-bound person to move vertically, hence making use of the limited 2D space. Of course in the real world we avoid things like rogue barrels and hostile mushrooms by simply walking around them, so jumping in a 2D game might also be thought of as an abstraction of depth.

Burgertime

Of course all of this is highly circumstantial and somewhat arbitrary. Besides, board games with jumping long predate video games and have developed all over the world. In his fascinating book The Oxford History of Board Games, author David Parlett devotes an entire chapter to games where one piece captures another by jumping over it (the following information is taken from Parlett’s book). According to Parlett, the earliest game known with this mechanic is Alquerque: the game is described in a manuscript written in 1283, and may be the game called Qirkat mentioned in Kitab-al Aghani, an Arabic book of songs and poetry probably written before the author died in 976. Alquerque is largely accepted as the predecessor of what is called Checkers in the United States, and Draughts (or a variation thereof) in Europe. However, similar games have been found all over the world. Games such as Konane (Hawaii), Siga (Egpyt), Dablot Prejjesne (Sweden), Tobi-Shogi (Japan), Kolowis Awithlaknannai (Mexico), and Koruböddo and Lorkaböd (Somalia) all feature jumping capture.

The long popularity and widespread use of jumping indicates that the mechanic itself has some sort of intrinsic appeal. People tend to have positive associations with height, a topic explored by Lakoff and Johnson in Metaphors We Live By. Lakoff and Johnson refer to such associations as “Orientational Metaphors.” For example, in Christianity Heaven is described as somehow “above” the Earth (as in the geocentric model of the universe that long dominated European thought). Our language expresses the same idea, with phrases such as “jumping up and down,” “on cloud nine,” “free as a bird” or simply “things are looking up.” The opposite is true: Hell is underneath the Earth, we feel “down in the dumps” or “under the weather.” (There are of course a few exceptions, such as “I’m down with X” or “high on Y,” though whether these are positive or negative phrases depends on who you ask.) This psychology is not limited to humans: many dog behavior experts say that when your dog jumps on you she is being dominant, trying to put you in a submissive position within the pack. In season two, episode three of The Dog Whisperer (”Buddy the Animal Killer”), Cesar Milan recommends stepping over your dog to assert your position as pack leader. In his words, “over means dominant.”

When a game piece jumps over another, it is in a superior position than its Earthly (boardly?) victim. The act of jumping your piece over your opponent’s has an intrinsic satisfaction regardless of the in-game effect; this simple pleasure is extremely evident when watching beginners play Street Fighter. They jump frequently, almost constantly, relishing the motion: kicking your opponent is less satisfying than leaping into the air and then kicking him. That jumping leaves you extremely vulnerable is fairly obvious yet totally ignored. In his new book Game Feel, Steve Swink presents a picture of Super Mario Brothers tracing Mario’s movements: his jumping creates a curved, arcing line. For Swink the shape of Mario’s jumps have an intrinsic aesthetic quality: “Whether it’s the motion of the avatar itself, animation that’s layered on top of it or both, curved, arcing motions are more appealing” (306).

There is more to jumping than psychology and aesthetics, however. In many games jumping is fun because of the associated risk. In a Mario game a mistimed jump will send you into a pit or cause you to collide with the enemy you intended to stomp on. In the old Sonic games your speed increased that risk, as a single jump could carry you through several screens worth of space, leaving you unable to tell where and on what you will land. This may be the reason the new Street Fighter player jumps so insistently: they are playing to have fun, not to win. Jumping can mean power not just over an opponent but over the environment itself: would Master Chief seem so powerful if he could not jump over a small rock or fence? The ability to jump in a first-person shooter gives the player more control over the environment, which makes the game feel less linear: jumping out of a window is more satisfying than backtracking to look for stairs. Jumping was frequently used in later 2D beat-em-ups to create the illusion of 3D space. In these games the player primarily moves in four directions: left and right, towards the player and away. Jumping adds height, so the player now feels like they are playing in three dimensions, as in Battletoads. The same could be said of first-person shooters: without the ability to jump you feel stuck to the ground, as though you are a 2D entity in a 3D space.

Battletoads

That jumping has been a part of games for so long indicates that it appeals to players on a very basic level. When studying video games it can be easy to forget that games have thousands of years of history behind them, and that is a long time for a mechanic to remain fun. Jumping’s prevalence also suggests a strategy for inspiration: do other common themes in language, myth and psychology exist? And if so, can they be adapted into a game?

(Cross-posted from http://gambit.mit.edu/updates/2009/03/jumping_is_a_mechanic_so.php )

Recently I was at a gathering with some colleagues from around the lab. During the course of the evening the discussion turned to some of the more obscure game consoles that appeared in the early to mid 90’s. At one point I happened to mention owning a Nintendo Virtual Boy and all but two of the games released in the US (still need Jack Brothers and Waterworld; well, maybe “need” is too strong a word). The response was largely negative: why would anyone pay good money for bad games and bad headaches?

Certainly a valid question, but when I told the story of a time in summer 2004 when I passed on the chance to buy a Philips CD-i and a bunch of games (including the three Zelda atrocities), there was disappointment, as though the CD-i were somehow less awful than the Virtual Boy. For me, these reactions highlight a frequent conundrum. I love going to independent game shops to see what they have lying around. There is always a certain thrill associated with finding something rare, be it a Wonderswan color or a sealed 3DO. However, the fact that video games are consumer products results in a strange situation where unpopular products become rare. This happens when a system lacks good games, so few people buy it, and hence few are manufactured. In video games, “rare” items can be really good or really bad. So there is this ongoing question of whether an uncommon, albeit crappy, find is worth the money. After all the same money could just as well go towards something I know to be quality. But at the same time there is an almost ethical concern as well.

The problem with video games, especially console games, is their ephemeral nature. Games only become obsolete, but hardware wears out with use, rendering associated games unplayable. Finding uncommon hardware for sale thus carries a sense of gravity: I was fortunate to find this item, and while it may not be fun to play it needs to be preserved (using eBay here is no fun). In a sense, this is part of my heritage, and should go to someone who will appreciate it. Of course, the idea of preserving game history is a paradox: games are meant to be played, but that Jaguar will only last so long before something fails, and does it not also deserve preservation?

If games are your sole concern there is always emulation. Of course emulators are a hot-button topic, and there is a lot to be said. First and foremost I appreciate Nintendo’s efforts with the Wii’s Virtual Console. This is an excellent way to preserve gaming history, and while there are many titles lacking they are moving in the right direction. Also notable is Classic99, which emulates the TI 99/4a home computer and is apparently distributed under license from Texas Instruments. It even comes with a few games to get you started. While I wish this was something more companies would do as a service to the community, Nintendo has shown that there can still be a market for these games, and any reluctance to release “official” emulators on their part is completely understandable.

For the purist, however, emulation is hardly an option, and not just because emulators are rarely completely accurate. While the success of a given platform has at least something to do with the quality of games available, part of the overall experience comes from the hardware itself. Sure the Dreamcast had plenty of great games, but I will always associate those games with the nagging sense that no human being designed the controller. Similarly, the unreliability of the old NES makes for lots of good stories. A good friend of mine is a big fan of Marble Madness, but his NES can barely function long enough for him to finish the game before the hardware crashes. Thus it is both a test of his skill and a race against the console itself. Towards the end the sprites transform into random characters, signaling the imminent crash. It really improves the game.

There is something to be said for playing games on the hardware they were meant for, to have the experience as originally intended. To do otherwise is like watching a cell phone bootleg of a movie: you know what generally happened, but the experience is nothing like being in the theater on opening night. Ultimately I regret not purchasing the CD-i, even though that money went to much better games. A few weeks later I went back to the store but the system was gone, and prices for one now are prohibitively expensive. If you can find one.

The game we were making had to feature a short-term sacrifice for long-term benefits. One idea I had involved moving a playing piece along a track. Players would have the option to skip moving on their turn in order to get a better move at a later turn. That mechanic did not make it into the final game, so I turned it into a rough little race game. The mechanic works well because there is a definite benefit to skipping turns, but while you are doing so your opponent is edging ever closer to the finish line.

How the game works:

Each player is trying to get to the finish first. Pieces move along independent tracks and do not interact. On your turn you may either roll a D3 (a six-sided die divided by 2, rounding up) and move that many spaces, or skip your turn to add a bonus token to their stockpile (three tokens maximum). Before rolling you may cash in as many bonus tokens as you like. Each earns you two spaces of movement. So if you cash in one token, and roll a 5, you would move five spaces in total; two for the token and three for die roll (5 divided by 2, rounded up is 3).

The ultimate effect of the bonus tokens is reducing the randomness of future moves. For example, if I roll the die two turns in a row, I will move between 2 and 6 spaces in total. If you skip a turn, and then next turn cash in your earned token and roll, your move will be between 3 and 5 spaces in total.

While I was not thinking of it at the time, I later recalled that this is one way Diablo II handles elemental damage. In that game fire damage covers a narrow range, while lightning damage covers a very large range.

Be sure to check it out, and email any comments to jsb -at- jasonbegy -dot- info.

The event will feature a Q&A, plenty of footage and photographs, and a chance to meet Joel and Trace.

We tried very hard to maintain the spirit of the original work and keep with the intended aesthetics. The text of the poems was transcribed verbatim, even maintaining potential spelling errors (such as “popies” in Skipwith Cannell’s Nocturnes).

Overall I am quite happy with how it turned out.

And on that note, I present my blog.