Thursday, February 26, 2015

Controller Articulation as the Source of Felt Kinetics in Video Games: An Introduction



Gameplay begins with the realization that there is no game. That which we might point to as 'the game' is merely programming that instructs an electron gun inside a CRT monitor to fire particular sequences, which are in turn affected by opening or closing little switches with your fingers, i.e. the buttons of the controller. Nothing more. In fact, the console doesn't even care if the television is on or not. It's perfectly content to run the game in that mysterious, deep darkness where computers dream. The game exists in your head, it is you giving meaning and direction to the things which are happening. This is a world of arbitrary symbols coupled with representations of physical rules that can be spoken to by wiggling your thumbs around. Video gameplay is not, at its core, visual, although a high degree of acuity is indeed demanded by the practice in many regards. As one reads the words of a novel, one reads the programming; and in much the same way as a musical instrument is played or a trick of stage magic performed, the video game is played masterfully through sleight of hand.

This is an attempt to establish a vocabulary for video game playing techniques, as well as a means of perceiving video games as fundamentally tactile. Ideas about in-game elements like strategy and secrets exist in a separate sphere. This is not really a how-to, nor is it an attempt to over-complicate things. If this all sounds familiar to you then good, we're all getting somewhere. These are discussions that didn't exist and I wanted them to so I made them. Stop me if you've heard this one. Go ahead and call this a series of personal essays. In this first bit, I endeavor to explain the pseudo-physical reality of video games, the perception of control objects as real, and input duration as the source of felt pseudo-kinetics. That's a wonderful foundation from which to talk about meatier things. As well, I hope to establish some definitions that will come in handy later. It's also good to keep in mind that notions about 'what the programmers intended' have no place here currently.


In what is, essentially, the frame-by-frame flip-book of the game, depth of physical experience is simulated with motion and collision of images, supplemented by audio; indeed there is no other way. We are interpreting our control image on the screen as a 'symbolic player', but it is important to remember that the program is always drawing the entire screen as a single unit with interacting meta-parts. (All symbolic players are made of the code, and thus intrinsically tied to each other no matter their perceived degree of separation.) In this same manner of interpretation, we must also realize that we are within what can be referred to as 'symbolic laws of physics'; designed only to mimic what we see in the world or, in other cases, thwart and mock it. These symbolic laws come in varying degrees of rigidity, and are mostly supported by visual illusions - i.e. walking into a solid may only give the illusion that it is truly solid. The pseudo-physical space of the game describes the entire body of theorems that can be generated via button inputs in the formal system of the code - all that is possible. The pseudo-kinetic space loosely refers to those particular theorems that are useful to gameplay, so called 'physical moves' - all that is practical. This having been established, it now becomes convenient to drop the prefix pseudo- when referring to the physical environment inside the game; it is implied.

The kinetics of player control are felt and described by the duration of button inputs, and I refer to this principal broadly as 'articulation'. Naturally, the shortest duration of input is a single frame, possibly less, and indeed a discrete number of frames could describe any input. For our purposes currently, it is not necessary to slice things up so precisely. What is important, is to think about duration in the physical act of pressing the buttonsConsider that there are, in fact, infinitely many ways to press a button.

Three main lexicons of controller articulation, listed hierarchically, are: squeeze, tap, and roll. These are simply ways of holding the controller and pressing the buttons. Proper tactile gaming begins with hand placement on the controller, but since this is different for everyone, there is actually no 'proper' way. Use this vocabulary as a jumping off point for creating your own style, not guide to copy. 'Squeeze' is the largest and most common technique; involving keeping constant contact between one's fingers and the the buttons. 'Tap' is mostly self-explanatory. 'Roll' refers to the larger ramifications of the classic 'double flap' technique, involving rolling one's fingers across a single button to tap extraordinarily fast. It is important to use the correct technique for the situation. By maintaining constant contact with the buttons, tighter control over the input duration is achieved. When jabbing at the buttons, or through sloppy hand control, inconsistencies and delays begin to occur. Practice by getting a very good sense of how far down the buttons on the controller press. Really understand how much pressure you're applying with your thumb. Squeeze a button, release without letting go, then try to squeeze it for exactly half that long; twice that long. Tap at different frequencies, with different fingers. Relax and maintain constant contact; the squeeze motions you make to depress a button reverberate throughout the entire plastic body of the controller and are felt everywhere in the hands.


The 'jump' mechanic is an easy and familiar example. The maximum height of a jump can be explored in two ways simultaneously - visually, and manually. With your eyes, you are judging relative distance on the screen. With your hands, you are establishing the particular articulation required for that jump. It is of critical importance that these relationships be felt, not merely 
perceived. Imagine the control object is real, and scan it for properties such as weight, friction, and momentum. This is a thought experiment that helps give meaning to the feeling of particular squeezes. A heavy jump will feel heavy in the way the button gets pressed. A large amount of friction can be felt in the responsiveness of the d-pad. Musical ideas such as 'beat' and 'tempo' apply to button articulation as well, because input durations exist in solid and explore-able relationships to each other. Cut the height of a jump by cutting the input duration. You will not have time to think about it, the player must be able to feel the difference naturally.

There is a particular time signature in each game that must be played with the hands and not the eyes. It is not unlike playing a musical instrument. Each note has both a pitch and duration, and rhythm is the essential structural form. The guts of mental training for video games involves being able to separate and recombine the actions of one's eyes and hands, and thereby discover and explore a deep, meditative type of zen. To move before the eyes see and see the way the hands move. The ultimate practice is to develop muscle memory nuanced enough to adapt to increasing degrees of subtlety demanded by either the game itself or the meta-game currently in effect.

But I think that's enough to chew on for tonight.

No comments:

Post a Comment