Imagine a game where you inhabit a living breathing world with the freedom to go anywhere you want. Find your own unique solutions to the problems you encounter. Befriend any NPC on your way and form lasting relationships.

There is a sort of common wisdom in game development that player freedom has to be sacrificed in order to create a more emotional meaningful story experience. That is why the emotional story parts often are created with hand-written narrative and cutscenes. Rather than compromise, I believe we can have both the sandbox gameplay together with the top-quality story.

Freedom

Freedom can make the game more interesting and is a way to improve immersion. I’m going to cover freedom under the topics of mechanics, traversal and story. These correspond to the concepts of Volition, Autonomy and Agency. Most discussions about freedom in games usually refer to just one or two of these.

Mechanics

The mechanics connect you to the world. The responsiveness of the control will let you embody your avatar. The world should react to everything you do. The ability to touch the grass, move objects and leave your mark will enhance the immersion.

Volition is your ability to act according to your will. Anything that temporarily blocks your actions will diminish your volition. For example, if a door can’t be opened because of a scripted quest that requires you to do something else first. If there is an object you should be able to push but it doesn't react. Cutscenes are another example of something that takes your volition away.

The basic actions you use are often called verbs. I don’t like to use interact as a verb, since that will mean very different things depending on the context. The verb should be directly mapped to a specific movement of your avatar. That will not only enhance the embodiment, but also make the actions easier to understand. It will also remove the worst of the downside of the contextuality when you are on the edge of switching context.

It should be clear what you can do in the world and what effect you can expect from your actions. Ideally, anything seen in the world should interact with everything else according to rules you can learn to understand and use to your advantage. The combination of all the player equipment and abilities with everything in the environment should create a possibility space large enough to give players the freedom to choose their own approach according to their playstyle and preference and give them the ability to find their own uniquely clever solutions for what they want to do. This type of Systemic Environment giving you tactical freedom can be seen in many sandbox games, CRPGs and immersive sims.

Traversal

The freedom to explore anywhere you want. You should not be locked to a specific area because of a specific quest. You may be trapped in a room, but you should be able to use all the mechanics and environment to try to escape if you want. No blocked actions. No invisible walls. No indestructible doors. This will build on your volition to increase your Autonomy; the power to make your own plans.

A character that can or should be able to jump and climb should also be able to get up on objects in the world. Unclimbable rubble or invisible walls restricts your autonomy. Rubble blocking passages are all too often used in linear games to keep the player on the right path. Some linear action-adventure games have started using wide-linear levels where you have the freedom to choose a couple of different paths or at least feel like you have the choice of path, but still end up in the same place at the end of the level. The design of the level with rubble and highlighted paths are of course meant to serve the pacing of the hand-written narrative. All the resources can be focused on a limited set of locations that are needed for the story.

Even open worlds often have places with invisible borders or indestructible objects just so that they can function in specific scripted quests. That is an effect of the old way of doing quests where it becomes too hard to make the quests work if the player has the freedom to visit and affect places in the wrong order. It's often done with an object you must interact with, that only becomes available according to the quest progression. The better alternative is to use Systemic Story to adapt quests to anything the player has done.

The possibility to go everywhere will also introduce numerous ways to get stuck. The locking down of places and actions are often a way to avoid puzzles getting to an unsolvable state. Quest items can be lost or destroyed. Doors can be buried under tons of rubble. Important characters can die. Or you could find yourself in a hole with nowhere to go. Handling all this with a traditional hand-written narrative would be too much work. See my article about traversal freedom for more about what happens if the player is stuck.

Some games use procedural generation in order to populate a world with objects. Most open worlds use those algorithms during the development of the world, so they don’t have to hand-place each tree and blade of grass. With a set random seed, the world will look the same for every player, and that also allows the game to be fine-tuned with hand-crafted details that overrides the procedural parts.

For a Systemic story game, that can adopt the story based on player choice, the actual locations can be kept undetermined until the player actually gets knowledge about it. The simulation that updates the world will only simulate the parts that the player has in memory, gradually phasing out the details as the possibility-space grows. This will allow the virtual game-master to relocate story elements based on which clues the player decides to follow.

Story

The Agency to affect significant and lasting change in the world and shape your future. That doesn’t mean that you will automatically succeed in anything you do. The world will remember the things you have done and react accordingly.

A good story usually has an arc with a promise in the beginning that gets fulfilled in the end, with emotional depth, a cohesive theme and much more. As part of the story and character development, there usually needs to be a low point that finally forces the protagonist to give up one of their prevailing faulty assumptions about life. The events in most great story games are carefully crafted to serve the theme and arc for the future resolution. They would lose their impact if the player avoided the misfortune that the story needed.

Story-based games usually set up limitations in order to keep the story on track. This is usually done by restricting where the player can traverse, what things the player can interact with, available dialogue options, or with scripted events or cutscenes. No matter what you do, your character will get themself into trouble. Great care is put into the framing to create parity between the player and what the player character must do. Agency is upheld if the game succeeds in making the player want to do the things that progresses the story.

A game with linear narrative is described as railroading. For players there the parity is not upheld, this becomes a problem. More often than not, you will smell the coming ambush and be frustrated that your avatar had no autonomy to prepare and be more careful. Even worse is when the avatar is forced to do things that the player absolutely doesn't want to do, as in making an NPC upset, saying stupid things, or even killing people when you would rather avoid them or make friends. As a pacifist, this is something that frustrates me in almost every chapter of every action-adventure game.

One of the most common critiques of games with branching narrative is that choices that felt important did not have the impact they hoped for. Why bother making the choice if it doesn’t matter in the end? Most game developers try to make the choices feel impactful, but there is a certain percentage of the players that are left unsatisfied. The limits of branching narrative is that every combination takes additional development resources. Some players see how outside events again and again push them back to the main branch.

Full version at https://blog.jonas.liljegren.org/the-promise-of-adventure/

Reopening per OP request.

@khawk Thanks for re-opening the thread.

I do things more long-term than often makes for the best engagement. This is something I started to develop 30 years ago but only recently started to write about.

The post here is about half of my article “The Promise of Adventure”. Its part of my series for creating a systemic story game, i published on my blog.

So welcome to Adventure Alpha Zero 2024.

@joej said:

Well, i'm not a game designer, but since nobody else did, i'll reply…

aigan said:
Imagine a game where you inhabit a living breathing world with the freedom to go anywhere you want. Find your own unique solutions to the problems you encounter. Befriend any NPC on your way and form lasting relationships.

Probably we already can go where we want in many games.

Agree about unique solutions, which should emerge and enable player creativity. I have not seen this yet, but i assume we could have some progress with making world simulation much richer than usual. But this also means we loose control. And we can't entertain by simply claiming ‘entertain yourself’.
So this seems very difficult to achieve. And sadly i do not see much iterative progress towards this goal either so far. Surely worth to discuss…

You are right that the type of narrative that emerges from an open sandbox is not enough to make good stories. Things have to be directed. That's different from a simulation game.

But why should i want a relationship with a NPC as a player? And as a dev, why should i attempt to drive people away from having real relationships by luring them into a effortless, virtual alternative?

Caring about the story often comes with caring about the characters. Character development and relationships are an important part of the type of game I would like to see. Think of main, companion or side characters from popular story-driven adventures and RPGs. It's often characters that will keep your interest in a way that you want to meet them again in upcoming games.

But in addition to that. I often prefer single player games, and also TV-series and “streamers” as a less boring and less frustrating alternative to companionship since I’m introverted and have a harder time making friends.

I want neither of that, so disagree on this point but rather try to minimize any need for verbous player - NPC conversation. I think we can have progress on using dynamic body language, showing more facial emotions and focus, and hinting NPC intents this way to the player. Current games really neglect those options i think. But they should work great, since there is no need to interrupt gameplay to go into some clumsy communication mode.

But i guess that's pretty personal. Some people would enjoy to talk to AI NPCs through a microphone, but i will never like this. It just goes too far for me.

One of my inspirations is how lifelike even an icon can appear when it responds to your actions in a way that conveys an internal state. For example your pet in NetHack or the prisoners in Prison Architect or your characters in Rimworld. It doesn’t have to be photo-realistic.

My goal would be something like Cyberpunk 2077, but the first step would be a text-only game with an abstract description of events and without any dialogue.

@joej said:

aigan said:
There is a sort of common wisdom in game development that player freedom has to be sacrificed in order to create a more emotional meaningful story experience.

Yes, but it is not just about story.

Imagine a game of chess, but every piece can go anywhere.
Do we still have a game?

No. And that's why we can't have total freedom if we want to make a game.
You can make a reality simulation sandbox, simulating society as well, and it might sell well. But it's not a game then. (You could add mini games to the experience, though.)

Life has limitations. Nothing has complete freedom. I’m talking about something that can be done. There are plenty of sandbox games. Many of them have some measure of simulated physics. I think they can be a lot better, but it’s at least something. There hasn’t been a game yet that does the same thing with story. That is, doing story through systemic interactions.

It’s not a simulation sandbox. Places, people and events are selected based on story rules.

And the same applies to story.
You can write a great linear story, e.g. Romeo and Juliet.
You can turn it into a branching story, e.g. enabling a happy end.
But then the interesting point - the tragedy - gets lost below introducing choice.
As you increase the number of branches and choices, there is no more story at all. All that's left is a random path through various events, properly described with text.
But there no longer is a story in the classical sense. It may work, but noone will cite your story hundreds years later as happened with Romeo and Juliet. People will forget it as fast as events pass by in an ordinary day of real life.

That's not a problem we could solve. It's not even a problem at all imo. We may think it is a problem, because dynamic story is hard to implement. But this does not turn it into a problem. Great stories are linear and static, and there is nothing we can do about it. All we can do is accepting some compromise if we need dynamic story elements.

“That’s not a problem we could solve” is exactly the belief I wanted to address.

A systemic game doesn’t have branches. It’s not 10 or 20 endings. Like the Sims, the endings are infinite, only limited by the number of interesting combinations made possible by the systems implemented and how they resonate with the player.

The story rules include themes, motifs, tone, character development, and more. The game will use everything the player has engaged with. As hinted by Watch Dogs Legion, you can talk to a person, and that person will be woven into the existing narrative.

The tone can adapt to the player. If the player behaves silly, it could use story rules from action-comedy. If the player is careful, it can take more from a thriller. If the player is flirty, it could use rules from romance stories. If the player is a murder-hobo, it will take rules from outlaw stories.

Giving the player agency doesn’t negate the theme or tone. The story can morph to a different kind based on the player's choice. They could manage to escape, or find another way. But if a theme is established, it will come up again and again in different forms until it’s resolved or combined with something else.

Let's say this is the part of a story where the player hero sacrifices themself. If they are very skillful, they should be able to survive, but then there would be something even more difficult compounding the situation. And they should be able to survive even that trial if they really tried to. For every type of story theme, there are variations that can be mapped to the player stalling, shortcutting, succeeding or failing. The sacrifice part usually is about the hero finally letting go of their faulty ideas, so the important part is the decision to do the sacrifice, regardless of the outcome. And if the player diverts, the theme will be postponed, and combined with more threads.

This will create personal stories. Something that has the potential for deeper impact than any other form of media in existence. A computer can check the constraints against thousands of variations finding a better match than any tabletop game master would.

@joej said:

aigan said:
The mechanics connect you to the world. The responsiveness of the control will let you embody your avatar. The world should react to everything you do. The ability to touch the grass, move objects and leave your mark will enhance the immersion.

Yes, but this builds on the assumption that a player - in theory - could do anything in a game.
Which sadly is not true. We can move and look in various directions, which works pretty great. We can aim and shoot, which works well. We can mash buttons for a melee fight, which already is pretty abstract and indirect. We can pick up and move objects, but placing them already feels very clumsy.
And that's it. Nobody has ever figured out to do any more with our bad game controllers.
To do more, we need high level abstractions such as multiple choice dialog boxes, inventories, skill trees, etc.
But using this already interrupts and breaks the interaction with the games simulation.
So no. I can't touch grass or anything in a game. If i try to deliver such experience, i will remind the player that he's not really in the game. Which does not happen if i don't give the option to touch grass.

So yeah… another dilemma we can't do much about, i'm afraid.

Have you experienced the DualSense controller? You can actually feel the grass under your hands in Horizon Forbidden West.

But what I’m referring to about responsiveness is all the things the game locks you out of doing. For example, when you can’t move because you just triggered a cut scene or a long animation. When you can’t sneak around an enemy because of an invisible wall. When NPCs don't react to you jumping around or trying to kill them. It’s more about consistency. Either make everything climbable or mark all climbables up with the yellow paint. If you need an NPC alive, you can have the player still be able to move the gun but never point it directly at the NPC.

Making a mark on the world can be things like footprints in the sand. In the Last of Us, the player will knock over objects in the environment, even if they can't be picked up.

I wrote an article about a control scheme for embodied manipulation. The difference between real life and a traditional game, when it comes to precision is handled by a combination of reticules, and visualizations of trajectories and targets with a smidge of aim assist and ability to continuously adjust. For example the ability to adjust the landing (slightly) even in mid air.

@joej said:

aigan said:
For example, if a door can’t be opened because of a scripted quest that requires you to do something else first. If there is an object you should be able to push but it doesn't react. Cutscenes are another example of something that takes your volition away.

But there is a big difference: Cutscene interrupts and breaks immersion, a closed door does not.
And a closed door is just needed to define a problem the player may want to solve. It's essential. We can't make games without defining problems plus their intended solutions.

I have seen a lot of quests or arena designs where you can’t exit the scene, not because the door is locked but because you were supposed to talk to a person or take an object or kill an enemy first. Nothing about the door or exit changed. It’s just a type of invisible wall around the arena that stays there until the game has progressed. I probably see more of this since I usually try to avoid fights. Many game designers may not have even considered that the player would try to run back the way they came at the first sign of trouble.

But i agree there should be multiple ways to open the door, at least sometimes.
I always try to break doors using heavy objects or using long objects as a lever to pry them open.
And then i'm disappointed it never works. For some doors, it should work. The others could be just made more massive, so i see there is no hope to force it open with external force i could apply.

This is exactly the type of thing I’m referring to. There are so many times then the avatar could clearly just walk right through the giant hole in the wall, but aren't allowed to. Or climbed over the tiny heap of rubble.

aigan said:
The verb should be directly mapped to a specific movement of your avatar.

Which, due to the extreme restrictions of controlling a 20 bones avatar with just 4 buttons, would rule out a lot of options to the player. So i would not rule out verbs completely.
It's subjective. To me, Sierra Gfx Adventures were too heavy on text input. I did not like to type, and it felt like a guessing game to come up with the right sentence the program understands.
Lucasfilm Point and Click Adventures solved both problems by using a GUI over verbs and inventory items. I loved this, and it gave me the impression i could do anything in the game.
Later, verbs were removed and everything was streamlined to avoid the complexity of building sentences.
Not much was lost actually. It worked and was convenient to use.
But nowadays, looking back, first thing i remember is the verbs when i think about Adventures.
I don't want to bring this back, but i want some simple interface to control complex options. For stuff that is too complex a player could execute the action manually himself. But whatever it is, i think the only way to get there is to sacrifice the immersive first person experience, which kinda sucks.

Can you give me any example that couldn’t be handled by the physical movement of my embodied manipulation control mapping? The thing I want to get away from is the “use” verb, just because it can lead to surprising results when the player has another idea of how to use an item, or when it differs because of the exact cursor position changed directly before the activation. For example when you use X both for talking and jumping.

@joej said:

aigan said:
It should be clear what you can do in the world and what effect you can expect from your actions. Ideally, anything seen in the world should interact with everything else according to rules you can learn to understand and use to your advantage. …

Agreed, but to get there, we need to solve all of the above.
It's a dream, a vision, a goal. And it's obvious.
But we don't know how. :D

That was a description of NetHack. It was done in the 80s. And I guess the same holds true for Minecraft and several other systemic games. Just not for any story games. Yet.