Words: 1027 Approximate Reading Time: 6-10 minutes
I’ve talked a lot in recent essays about the importance of language. Usually when I do so, I am talking about a kind of subtle language. The placement of enemies, the way a ledge looks, where a chest is placed. The kinds of things that are meant to tell you something without using words.
But sometimes it’s useful to look at literal words.
I want to talk about a very specific example to illustrate an issue.
I recently decided to pick up BPM: Bullets Per Minute. It’s a game that combines roguelike randomness, fast-paced first-person shooter gameplay, and rhythm mechanics. You run around and perform various actions to a beat accompanied by metal music, where you need to shoot, reload, jump, and dodge to that beat. The rhythm mechanics are actually a lot more lax than that makes it sound, since you can also perform most of these actions on half-beats.
My experience with this game began with immense frustration, followed by a brief period of understanding and joy as I started to figure things out, followed then by a return of frustration.
But my point is not to recommend for or against the game, but to draw attention to a specific concept:
Permanence.
What is conjured up when you think of that word? When you’re told something is going to be permanent, what does that make you think of?
We can take the context even further.
A roguelike game is built around starting from a new state over and over again. You gain upgrades and weapons and powers, and then lose them when you reach the end or die.
What, in that light, would “permanence” mean?
I ask this because that word came up a lot, both when playing BPM and perusing its Wiki (which felt necessary after a time, because so many of the descriptions felt far too vague).
I had been continually intrigued by a particular room. In the third level of the game you have a chance to run into a special room which offers you something that sounds pretty good: by offering thirty coins (which you collect as you play), you can make the effects of the equipment you are currently wearing “permanent.”
What, then, does that make you think?
Presumably you are thinking that it means you get to keep those effects forever. You have some good equipment and 30 coins? Then activate that bonus and take those powerups into future runs, perhaps letting you get an edge where you lacked one.
What does it actually mean?
It just means that you get to keep the effects of the equipment you have on right now, and then also grab new equipment on top of that. So where you originally were locked to four bonuses, you can now have eight…for the run you are currently in. Once you die or win, you go back to nothing.
I found myself ruminating on this for a lot of reasons. It sounded really cool when I first encountered it. It felt so special – I would always struggle to hold on to 30 coins when I would get to that room, and when I would have the coins the room might simply not show up. And of course even if I did have the money and the opportunity…would I have gear worth saving? It invited this possibility of constantly replaying to try and get just the right combination.
But once it was revealed that it only effects the run you’re in, that specialness wore off. Honestly the game quickly started to feel pretty simple, as it was fairly easy to become incredibly powerful. At which point, who cares about getting an extra set of equipment? If I’m already so powerful that I can crush everything until I win, why would I care about being able to win even harder?
It’s a single word, but that single word can have an important effect. It communicates something to the audience, but that communication is incorrect. It sets an expectation that the game does not intend to meet.
I’m certainly not alone in this presumption, either. You can find any number of forum posts where people ask questions about the system and are similarly disappointed to find out it is not, in fact, a “permanent” effect.
The point here is that the language we use has a profound effect. One word and the meaning it carries can define a whole host of strategies and goals and desires that can be wiped out or rearranged. Care needs to be taken to make sure that what we want people to take away from our work matches what we are actually saying.
I could point out all sorts of similar issues within this and other roguelikes. BPM has a number of items that are similarly vague to the point of having genuinely unhelpful descriptions, demanding visiting a Wiki. You can see a similar approach to item descriptions in Binding of Isaac, though at least with Isaac you usually can more clearly see the impact of items once you pick them up. The lack of clarity makes the decisions you need to make hazy – this item sounds good, but if its effect doesn’t actually match the description, then is it actually worth it?
Language is one of those complex things where we often get stuck in our own heads. A word means something to us, and so we presume that it means that same thing to everyone else. We know what we’re talking about, and so everyone else will, as well. But being able to step back and ask “could my words be understood in a different way” is an invaluable skill in all sorts of endeavors. And game design is one of them, because you must be able to effectively communicate with the player in many ways – through tutorials, through descriptions, through dialogue. Even a minor slip can result in players coming away with radically different conclusions than you intend. Sometimes those differences are tiny. Sometimes it’s just a simple misunderstanding that is cleared up quickly. But sometimes those differences set expectations that can completely kill an player’s interest in the game.
Abstracting Games 