GDCO Notes - Jeff Howard, Occult Game Design

Occult Game Design: An Initiation into Secrets and Mysteries

Speaker: Jeff Howard (Game/Narrative Professor – Dakota State University)

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'The best secrets are not yet made.'

Introduction:

                The ‘Cursed Pokemon Cartridge’ -> Punish player for hacking the ROM.

The Ultimate Easter Egg

1)      An apparently arbitrary action

2)      Done w/ a strange set of action at the right time at the right place

3)      It unlocks a secret world

a.       A world beyond the world

4)      ‘Occult game Design’ does not = magic/mystical/esoteric

a.       Occult = secret, hidden

                                                                           i.      Easter eggs deepen world building

                                                                         ii.      Ex: The book, ‘Ready Player One’

b.      Mystery = mystes = ‘one who has been initiated’

c.       Mystes = myein = ‘to close, to shut’

d.      Initiation

Cryptic Mechanics Resonate w/ Narrative Themes

1)      Hidden control systems/subsystems

2)      Obscure goals/quests

3)      Puzzling control schemes

4)      Obscure range of actions

Obscure Mechanics: Player action w/ uncertain effect(s) on variables w/ uncertain effect(s) on narrative.

1)      Mysterious lore resonates w/ obscure mechanics

2)      Recursive unlocking

a.       Chris Pruett: get a key and backtrack to unlock a door to another key and backtrack…

b.      Gameplay secret unlocks narrative secret unlocks gameplay secret unlocks narrative…

Puzzling Control Schemes to Cryptic Objectives

1)      Counter intuitive

2)      Uncertain range of actions (Adventure!)

a.       Player gets excitement from possibilities

Hidden Locations: Not broad, but ‘dense’

1)      Keep spatial relationships of locations/characters/events concurrent

2)      Ex: Wizardry 4

Hidden Events: Deepen meaning to locations normally played through

1)      These events are time and place triggered

Cult Classics -> surreal, strange, disorienting (surreal does not equal random!)

Puzzles are symbolic w/ player gaining understanding of the world.

Sometimes, apparent player attraction to ‘horror’ is a ‘desire for initiation’

1)      Horror -> put the player into darkness and leave them in the dark

2)      Initiation -> put the player into darkness and lead them to the light

Howards Law:

• Power (P) is directly proportional to Innosence (I) times Simplicity (S) with some constant value (K)
• K*P = I*S

Initiates will protect and communicate the mystery to other initiate-hopefuls.

(Questions)

What is the best practice for forming narrative things?

                Have solid world-building.
Do you feel that horror is the best genre for mystery?

                Horror gives a head start, but it crosses genre boundary.
Parting words to the audience?

                The level design mantra is ‘density’; be consistently ‘dense’!  But use downtime to make design points apparent to the player.