In his wide-ranging keynote that opened this year's IndieCade in Culver City, California on Friday, Naughty Dog's Richard Lemarchand explained why he loves independent video games and how they are reflected in his work on the Uncharted series.
Lemarchand opened by describing his upbringing in the southwest of England, establishing that his childhood -- unstructured play dressed as "characters from Doctor Who and Star Wars" in the woods near his house and ownership of ZX Spectrum -- has influenced his life as a designer.
Name-checking titles such as Jet Set Willy, Sabre Wulf and Alien 8 as part of the wave of British bedroom coders that were "independent developers in spirit," Lemarchand said he grew up as an "indie-minded kid" within the wider context of Britain in the 1980s where accessible reproduction technology such as cassette tapes and photocopiers allowed the creation of indie music and independent books and 'zines.
"I was a teenager when I first became aware of design as a discipline," he said. "It was actually my mum who introduced me to the works of William Morris, the Victorian textile designer who had a vision for design as something that could help us all in our daily life."
Quoting Morris's famous statement on interior design ("Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful,") Lemarchand argued that it could be used as an early suggestion for design by subtraction. He sees design similarly to Jon Blow (Braid), as systems, "a set of rules causing behaviour to occur over time."
Showing the audience footage of Godfrey Reggio's film Koyaanisqatsi, which uses time-lapse photography to show human and natural systems, Lemarchand said that games "hold our attention by taking advantage of the way we are grabbed by seeing systems evolve in front of our eyes."
"I'm a physicalist; I believe that human beings are purely physical, produced by the same processes and following the same rules of everything else in the universe, and it stands to reason then that we are systems too. I even wonder if our fascination with systems is governed by our own recognition that is what we are."
He continued that these game systems are most enriched by the work of independent game developers.
"Mainstream games work with commercial concerns, and indie games can take risks that they can't," he said. "I think that's very important, not just in general or for indie gaming, but for mainstream games too; we can learn from the lessons that indie games teach and make our games better for it."
Lemarchand gave his own example of this, taken from the development of Uncharted 2.
"We thought about the player's attachment to friendly characters and the game's structure really had to support that. I took control of a section that was a major risk, the chapter commonly known as the 'peaceful village.' I can't take credit for the original idea, but the concept was we'd show the village on a normal clear day, and then when the player returns to it to find it under siege, they would feel particularly bad and responsible, much more than if they had just been dropped in a village under siege level and told why they should feel that way."
"Some people at Naughty Dog didn't think that this scene would work," he revealed, "as we couldn't allow the player to run, jump or climb, perform combat moves on villagers or pull out their gun. I had just played a game however that made me feel that it was definitely going to work."
That game was Tale of Tales' The Graveyard, a title that Lemarchand said had affected him "much more than he expected" with its simple experience of leading a slowly-moving elderly lady through a graveyard.
"I thought that in the same way that The Graveyard had created a space for me where I could reflect, so could our village."
He explained however that within the context of Uncharted 2, although they had blocked players from attacking villagers, the "first thing" people did when arriving in the village was "run up to a villager and attempt to throw a punch."
"We discovered that they weren't trying to beat up the villagers, they were just testing the boundaries of the system," he said. "I think that's a very human kind of curiosity, and I worked with artists and animators who did all the really hard work to ensure that if you did try and punch a villager it would a show an animation of Drake shaking hands with them."
"This level was a big risk for us but a big success," he continued. "I think its success is a mark that some video games are really hungry for this kind of open, self-directed play. The design affordances that all this stuff hinges on are pretty simple; the psychological effect comes from the way the content is authored. You might this kind of play theatrical or impressionistic, but at Naughty Dog we talk about it as experiential."
Lemarchand continued to give more examples of titles that had inspired him on his work on Uncharted 2 and the upcoming Uncharted 3, including Passage, Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP and A Slow Year, describing them as "wonderful emotional and psychological experiences" built from content presented via the tools available to designers: "clarity, simplicity and clear language."
"The challenge is to squeeze emotion out of facts and sense impressions, and that's okay because that's how art works. It's really hard to do with 'game-like' games, with rules and win conditions, but it's possible to conjure a greater emotion through very strictly used game systems. Whenever you hear me say that if you want to be in pursuit of art in video games that you make sure your game is about something, this is what I'm talking about."
"It doesn't matter if your game is hardcore ludic or loose and subjective; it's very unusual to find an indie game that isn't about something real, and that's why I love indie games."
I can see why people would try to punch the villagers; up until this point in the game (which is quite a long time) the player has been taught a vocabulary of violence. They know no other way in which they can have an affect on the game world.
I'm glad it was included as it gave some much needed down-time, but I can't help but feel it's destruction would have resonated more if we had a greater bond to the village. Perhaps if it had been the start and near-end point of our journey it would have held greater significance but it felt a little too much like a random stop-off along the way.
Actually, Thomas Grip's talk at the Indie Games Summit at GDC Europe this year had a lot of interesting thoughts on this subject ('vocabulary of violence', etc), since Amnesia: The Dark Descent didn't allow any kind of in-game combat. Video here: http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014889/Evoking-Emotions-and-Achieving-Success
I respectfully disagree (with Matt). If you put the peaceful village at the beginning of the game, I think it would feel trite and cliche—it's just yet another safe zone that you know the hero will have to abandon to begin his journey. Put it in the middle of the game, however, and it feels more like an oasis in the desert: after hours of hectic action and violence, you get a little reprieve...but then just as suddenly it's taken away from you.
When I was playing Uncharted 2, I didn't really feel any emotional connection to the villagers when I got there, but it was a different story when I returned to the destroyed version. I actually felt bad for them. Actually, I felt worst for the random yak that was in the village; it was a calm, gentle giant, and you just know it was probably killed when the bad guys invaded.
“We discovered that they weren’t trying to beat up the villagers, they were just testing the boundaries of the system”
Exactly, and this is something that I wish mainstream media pundits would keep in mind when discussing video game violence. A lot of the things that players do that seem malicious or cruel are really just players trying to determine exactly what kind of simulation they're involved in and what the limits of its rules are. I actually had a discussion about this with some friends recently who were criticising the violence in Grand Theft Auto.
Was my favorite level in Uncharted 2, really. It just stands out like a sore thumb. I would have loved there to have been more down moments, with more interactivity.
Folk's have been less afraid of pacing downtime into AAA titles as of late. Even Gears 3 features a quiet moment near the midpoint of the game. I can understand the fear, as quite moments are just as expensive to produce as action packed ones, while they make use of almost none of the game's mechanics; however, they are absolutely essential to the flow of the game.
This is why Shadow of the Colossus succeeds so effortlessly. They trusted their horse animation and interesting terrain to carry 50% of gameplay! The huge troughs and valleys of this kind of pacing lend incredible punch to the appearance of a colossi.
Feels a bit like sharks... Sharks bite off to feel what's in front of them (if they dont recognize something, like lets say humans), since they have no hands they use their mouths and jaws to feel, the result may be disastrous but the intent seldom is.
The player is given only violent context actions, will of course use violent context actions to interact in a non violent context. I'm betting that if a talk button that could be used with enemies and friends alike at any situation would be the preferred choice of most players in a non violent context (and after that trying to punch the villager).
I'm glad it was included as it gave some much needed down-time, but I can't help but feel it's destruction would have resonated more if we had a greater bond to the village. Perhaps if it had been the start and near-end point of our journey it would have held greater significance but it felt a little too much like a random stop-off along the way.
When I was playing Uncharted 2, I didn't really feel any emotional connection to the villagers when I got there, but it was a different story when I returned to the destroyed version. I actually felt bad for them. Actually, I felt worst for the random yak that was in the village; it was a calm, gentle giant, and you just know it was probably killed when the bad guys invaded.
Exactly, and this is something that I wish mainstream media pundits would keep in mind when discussing video game violence. A lot of the things that players do that seem malicious or cruel are really just players trying to determine exactly what kind of simulation they're involved in and what the limits of its rules are. I actually had a discussion about this with some friends recently who were criticising the violence in Grand Theft Auto.
This is why Shadow of the Colossus succeeds so effortlessly. They trusted their horse animation and interesting terrain to carry 50% of gameplay! The huge troughs and valleys of this kind of pacing lend incredible punch to the appearance of a colossi.
The player is given only violent context actions, will of course use violent context actions to interact in a non violent context. I'm betting that if a talk button that could be used with enemies and friends alike at any situation would be the preferred choice of most players in a non violent context (and after that trying to punch the villager).