A Conversation with Will Wright
In Sims, BattleBots, Cellular Automata God and Go: A Conversation with Will Wright by Celia Pearce, Celia begins by asking Will what his "philosophy of interactive design" is, and things go from there. Wright talks about his childhood interest with models and making things, and how that led to programming and creating dynamic models on the computer, and how he later got into robotics and used computers to control his robots.
He expresses his ideas about "enabling the creativity of the player" by "giving them a pretty large solution space to solve the problem within the game" where "the game represents this problem landscape". This model/simulation problem/solution landscape/space fits well with comments elsewhere that Wright's games are actually toys. Wright says he was influenced by games such as Pinball Construction Set by Bill Budge -- "he kind of emulated what would later become the Mac interface" -- and Flight Simulator by Bruce Artwick -- "this little micro-world in the computer with its own rules" -- when he was first working on SimCity.
He also talks about playing hex-grid board games with 40-page rule books, and how arguments over interpretation of the rules with friends was "kind of half the fun of it -- both of you trying to find the legal loopholes for why your guy didn't get killed". Of note is his comment, "the [game] model was far more elaborate than you could really run in your head", which I think could be likened to the concept of Imperfect Information in Game Theory, although not exactly the same thing.
Wright says, "the types of games we do are simulation based and so there is this really elaborate simulation of some aspect of reality" (which relates to Chris Crawford's idea that "a game is a closed formal system that subjectively represents a subset of reality"). Wright creates games that are "this elaborate system with thousands of variables", and communicates this to players via an "overt metaphor" so that players can "bootstrap themselves into understanding that model", and establish their own "mental model". Although the metaphors for SimCity and The Sims are cities and people, he has other metaphors/analogies: he likens SimCity to gardening -- "you're kind of tilling the soil, and fertilizing it, and then things pop up and they surprise you, and occasionally you have to go in and weed the garden, and then you maybe think about expanding it, and so on" -- and The Sims to "juggling or balancing plates" -- "you're rushing from this to that to this, and then you're able to make these time decisions. So it feels very much like juggling and if you drop a ball, then all of a sudden, the whole pile comes crashing down". However, he adds "but other people play it differently [...] and it's not as clear to me what The Sims is".
Wright says, "with current technology, there are a lot of limitiations in terms of what we can do with character simulation [...] there are certain things we just cannot simulate on a computer, but on the other hand that people are very good at simulating in their heads. So we just take that part of the simulation and offload it from the computer into the player's head". He then goes on to talk about having "a consistent level of abstraction", and how this allows players to "fill in the blanks really well. And is something that kids do quite well" -- this is followed by a discussion about the game of Go and emergent behaviour from simple rules, and about how conflict, whether between players of a game, or between people in general, comes about from disagreement over their different mental models: "the game is in fact this process of us bringing our different mental models into agreement". Wright then cites a project called Sim Health that was a simulation of the national healthcare system: "the idea was that if people could come to a shared understanding or at least agree toward the model of the world, then they would be much more in agreement about the policy we should take" -- this idea of an agreed model, independent of vocabulary, is what I hope to achieve with my idea -- here's a brief excerpt following on from the above quote that I thought was important:
"CP: So in a way, a system like that could be used to externalize mental models and create a collective model.
WW: Yes, exactly. Which I think could have value, but at the same time I like this idea that there’s this diversity of models out there.
CP: Well, I think if you have a shared model, it’s not so much like you all have the same mental model, but that you have an externalized model that everyone agrees to abide by.
WW: Yeah, which is exactly the way science works."
Related to the idea of shared mental models is the idea of agency in The Sims, where "the pronouns change all the time". The characters are semi-autonomous, "and so at some point it's me inhabiting this little person [...] but when he starts rebelling, it's he". He makes reference to a toy called Rockenbok where players control one of several radio-controlled construction vehicles via control pads and can switch between vehicles at the press of a button. He likens the vehicles to "little avatars" and says, "it's really interesting to watch kids play with this because their identity is so fluid from truck to truck. And it's really interesting the situations they get in. They always end up pushing and fighting with these things. So, you're about to push me off the table, so I go to [truck] number 3 really quick and come up behind you, and all of a sudden, you see that I'm attacking so you turn and face me. You're very cognizant of which avatar I inhabit, even when I change. It's like The Sims in a way". I think this cognisance -- swapping of avatars, but keeping the interaction fluid -- is the players having a shared mental model.
The issue of narritive in games is raised with Pearce asking Wright what kind of god he would like to be, to which he replies, "I would try to be a God that surprised himself. I think being the all-knowing God would be, you know, hell". Pearce then mentions he's "creating a mental model of the whole [game] universe", which Wright corrects by repeating his idea about possibility space and says "I don't want to create a specific possibility that everybody's going to experience the same way. I'd much rather have a huge possibility space where every player has as unique an experience as possible". Pearce then adds, "you enjoy the unpredictable outcome. When people do things [in the game] that you didn't plan on, that seems to be something that you embrace". Wright replies, "to me, that feels like success".
In terms of a relationship between the size of the possibility space and the quality of the experience for players, and creating a metaphor for players to establish mental models, Wright says, "we can make the possibility space huge, just by giving the player a thousand numbers. [...] That's a big space. It's just not a very high quality experience. So we start wrapping graphics, sounds, scenarios an events around those numbers, and we're increasing the quality of the experience you have. It has more meaning to you. In some sense it becomes more evocative. You can start wrapping a mental model around that, as opposed to this pile of numbers". Wright is "trying to build the maximum possibility space in your head, not on the computer". He also talks about the possibility space in terms of terrain, where challenges take the form of peaks, and so a player's experience is how they navigate through that terrain. This leads to discussion about "the plausibility and believability of the [possibility] space. If the space starts becoming totally disconnected and random [...] your mental model will start breaking down", which Wright adds is "the main reason for keeping the [space/terrain] topography somewhat consistent" (see "a consistent level of abstraction" above).
Wright then discusses time. "I think that time is an interesting component because with games you can relate to time in a totally different way than in linear media. I can always back up, load my old saved game. I can pause whenever I want to, etc. You're starting to see little bits of that popping into linear media". He mentions the film Memento and Pearce mentions Run Lola Run and Wright says "I've always wanted a game that had a smooth slider where you could go forward and backward and rebranch" -- the game Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time has since implemented this with a reload/rewind facility, when the Prince (the player's avatar) dies. However, I think Wright meant the ability to do the same thing at any moment during a game. Wright's argument is that we currently have "spatial mobility": "I can click and move the screen wherever I want really fast. I should be able to do the same thing with time", and he goes on to say, "actually, we're experimenting with scales of time and space. The plan is that the time is going to be totally based on the zoom level. So your zoom level and your time slider are the same. If you want to speed the game up, you have to zoom out, if you want to slow it down you have to zoom in" -- this is very much to do with visualisation I think.
"Time and space are related scale-wise, they correlate" (is this related to the Theory of Relativity?). He closes by pondering this scaling in combination with reversing: "I'm kind of curious behaviourally what that's going to feel like. To change time I have to change scale. You know, it might be a total screw up. It might just be a total pain in the ass. But then if there was a way to go backwards, that would be cool. [...] Reversible simulations are hard in some sense, though. I mean, this gets into a whole computer science discussion. But, you either store the data or you make it reversible. It can only be made reversible if no information is destroyed. Most simulation processes, such as system dynamics or cellular automata, destroy information. [...] Yeah, so there's a real engineering issue there. But it's not insoluble", and Pearce adds "with Moore's Law, very soon, you'll be able to have enough processing to do that" -- regardless of future possibilities, Wright's ideas about time and space are worth considering in relation to what I'm doing, in terms of dynamic (over time) visualisation.
He expresses his ideas about "enabling the creativity of the player" by "giving them a pretty large solution space to solve the problem within the game" where "the game represents this problem landscape". This model/simulation problem/solution landscape/space fits well with comments elsewhere that Wright's games are actually toys. Wright says he was influenced by games such as Pinball Construction Set by Bill Budge -- "he kind of emulated what would later become the Mac interface" -- and Flight Simulator by Bruce Artwick -- "this little micro-world in the computer with its own rules" -- when he was first working on SimCity.
He also talks about playing hex-grid board games with 40-page rule books, and how arguments over interpretation of the rules with friends was "kind of half the fun of it -- both of you trying to find the legal loopholes for why your guy didn't get killed". Of note is his comment, "the [game] model was far more elaborate than you could really run in your head", which I think could be likened to the concept of Imperfect Information in Game Theory, although not exactly the same thing.
Wright says, "the types of games we do are simulation based and so there is this really elaborate simulation of some aspect of reality" (which relates to Chris Crawford's idea that "a game is a closed formal system that subjectively represents a subset of reality"). Wright creates games that are "this elaborate system with thousands of variables", and communicates this to players via an "overt metaphor" so that players can "bootstrap themselves into understanding that model", and establish their own "mental model". Although the metaphors for SimCity and The Sims are cities and people, he has other metaphors/analogies: he likens SimCity to gardening -- "you're kind of tilling the soil, and fertilizing it, and then things pop up and they surprise you, and occasionally you have to go in and weed the garden, and then you maybe think about expanding it, and so on" -- and The Sims to "juggling or balancing plates" -- "you're rushing from this to that to this, and then you're able to make these time decisions. So it feels very much like juggling and if you drop a ball, then all of a sudden, the whole pile comes crashing down". However, he adds "but other people play it differently [...] and it's not as clear to me what The Sims is".
Wright says, "with current technology, there are a lot of limitiations in terms of what we can do with character simulation [...] there are certain things we just cannot simulate on a computer, but on the other hand that people are very good at simulating in their heads. So we just take that part of the simulation and offload it from the computer into the player's head". He then goes on to talk about having "a consistent level of abstraction", and how this allows players to "fill in the blanks really well. And is something that kids do quite well" -- this is followed by a discussion about the game of Go and emergent behaviour from simple rules, and about how conflict, whether between players of a game, or between people in general, comes about from disagreement over their different mental models: "the game is in fact this process of us bringing our different mental models into agreement". Wright then cites a project called Sim Health that was a simulation of the national healthcare system: "the idea was that if people could come to a shared understanding or at least agree toward the model of the world, then they would be much more in agreement about the policy we should take" -- this idea of an agreed model, independent of vocabulary, is what I hope to achieve with my idea -- here's a brief excerpt following on from the above quote that I thought was important:
"CP: So in a way, a system like that could be used to externalize mental models and create a collective model.
WW: Yes, exactly. Which I think could have value, but at the same time I like this idea that there’s this diversity of models out there.
CP: Well, I think if you have a shared model, it’s not so much like you all have the same mental model, but that you have an externalized model that everyone agrees to abide by.
WW: Yeah, which is exactly the way science works."
Related to the idea of shared mental models is the idea of agency in The Sims, where "the pronouns change all the time". The characters are semi-autonomous, "and so at some point it's me inhabiting this little person [...] but when he starts rebelling, it's he". He makes reference to a toy called Rockenbok where players control one of several radio-controlled construction vehicles via control pads and can switch between vehicles at the press of a button. He likens the vehicles to "little avatars" and says, "it's really interesting to watch kids play with this because their identity is so fluid from truck to truck. And it's really interesting the situations they get in. They always end up pushing and fighting with these things. So, you're about to push me off the table, so I go to [truck] number 3 really quick and come up behind you, and all of a sudden, you see that I'm attacking so you turn and face me. You're very cognizant of which avatar I inhabit, even when I change. It's like The Sims in a way". I think this cognisance -- swapping of avatars, but keeping the interaction fluid -- is the players having a shared mental model.
The issue of narritive in games is raised with Pearce asking Wright what kind of god he would like to be, to which he replies, "I would try to be a God that surprised himself. I think being the all-knowing God would be, you know, hell". Pearce then mentions he's "creating a mental model of the whole [game] universe", which Wright corrects by repeating his idea about possibility space and says "I don't want to create a specific possibility that everybody's going to experience the same way. I'd much rather have a huge possibility space where every player has as unique an experience as possible". Pearce then adds, "you enjoy the unpredictable outcome. When people do things [in the game] that you didn't plan on, that seems to be something that you embrace". Wright replies, "to me, that feels like success".
In terms of a relationship between the size of the possibility space and the quality of the experience for players, and creating a metaphor for players to establish mental models, Wright says, "we can make the possibility space huge, just by giving the player a thousand numbers. [...] That's a big space. It's just not a very high quality experience. So we start wrapping graphics, sounds, scenarios an events around those numbers, and we're increasing the quality of the experience you have. It has more meaning to you. In some sense it becomes more evocative. You can start wrapping a mental model around that, as opposed to this pile of numbers". Wright is "trying to build the maximum possibility space in your head, not on the computer". He also talks about the possibility space in terms of terrain, where challenges take the form of peaks, and so a player's experience is how they navigate through that terrain. This leads to discussion about "the plausibility and believability of the [possibility] space. If the space starts becoming totally disconnected and random [...] your mental model will start breaking down", which Wright adds is "the main reason for keeping the [space/terrain] topography somewhat consistent" (see "a consistent level of abstraction" above).
Wright then discusses time. "I think that time is an interesting component because with games you can relate to time in a totally different way than in linear media. I can always back up, load my old saved game. I can pause whenever I want to, etc. You're starting to see little bits of that popping into linear media". He mentions the film Memento and Pearce mentions Run Lola Run and Wright says "I've always wanted a game that had a smooth slider where you could go forward and backward and rebranch" -- the game Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time has since implemented this with a reload/rewind facility, when the Prince (the player's avatar) dies. However, I think Wright meant the ability to do the same thing at any moment during a game. Wright's argument is that we currently have "spatial mobility": "I can click and move the screen wherever I want really fast. I should be able to do the same thing with time", and he goes on to say, "actually, we're experimenting with scales of time and space. The plan is that the time is going to be totally based on the zoom level. So your zoom level and your time slider are the same. If you want to speed the game up, you have to zoom out, if you want to slow it down you have to zoom in" -- this is very much to do with visualisation I think.
"Time and space are related scale-wise, they correlate" (is this related to the Theory of Relativity?). He closes by pondering this scaling in combination with reversing: "I'm kind of curious behaviourally what that's going to feel like. To change time I have to change scale. You know, it might be a total screw up. It might just be a total pain in the ass. But then if there was a way to go backwards, that would be cool. [...] Reversible simulations are hard in some sense, though. I mean, this gets into a whole computer science discussion. But, you either store the data or you make it reversible. It can only be made reversible if no information is destroyed. Most simulation processes, such as system dynamics or cellular automata, destroy information. [...] Yeah, so there's a real engineering issue there. But it's not insoluble", and Pearce adds "with Moore's Law, very soon, you'll be able to have enough processing to do that" -- regardless of future possibilities, Wright's ideas about time and space are worth considering in relation to what I'm doing, in terms of dynamic (over time) visualisation.
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