Prosper What is emergent gameplay?

[Delterius]

Guys.


New mega thread: what is Emergent Gameplay?

Make it happen.

 

[SuicideBunny]

Make it happen.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Well, I know in economics that emerging markets are countries with a developing market that isn't quite fully developed.

Maybe Russian's are picking up new video game skills?

 

[Angthoron]

developing market game that isn't quite fully developed.

So Early Access gameplay.

 

[LESS T_T]

This presentation by Harvey Smith and Randy Smith could be a decent material:

http://www.roningamedeveloper.com/Materials.html

Spoiler

Emergence in Video Games (our definition)

A second order game Dynamic created by the interaction of first order game Mechanics.

Example 01: GTA3

• Player accidentally flips his car, which explodes, injuring nearby pedestrians who begin to attack him
  • Player takes a jump ->
  • Car flips and lands upside down ->
  • Car explodes ->
  • Nearby pedestrians are injured by explosion ->
  • Pedestrians begin to attack player
• Note that there is no explicit Mechanic describing this behavior

Example 02: Tactical Shooter

• Indirectly Connected game Mechanics
  • Gas barrels Leak poison when ruptured
  • Poison Kills enemies and players
  • Bullets Kill enemies, and Rupture gas barrels
  • Weapons Fire bullets when dropped
  • Enemies Fire bullets, and Drop weapons on death
• Player shoots guard -> guard drops gun -> gun goes off when it hits the ground -> bullets rupture barrel -> poison leaks out -> poison kills other enemies

Example 03: Thief

• In order to injure a nearby guard, player ignites an oil puddle by knocking a candle off a table
  • Player throws a box at a table ->
  • Table wobbles ->
  • Candle falls off table ->
  • Candle falls into oil puddle ->
  • Oil puddle ignites ->
  • Nearby guard is injured by the flames

[...]

Meaningful Emergence

• In accordance with aesthetic goals
• The player perceives the events
• Impact on gameplay experience, Not just some wacky outcome
  • No gameplay relevance: Prox mine wall climbing
  • Gameplay relevance: Spider bomb door unlocking
• Meaningful to the fantasy
  • Violates fantasy: Age of Empires sheep

 

[RK47]

 

[Azrael the cat]

For a serious answer, it's a term previously popularised by Warren Spector, referring to games that give the player a set of mechanics and the freedom to use those mechanics to do things that the developers didn't specifically envisage. It was the key design principle behind the original Deus Ex, and one of the design principles for System Shock 2 and Ultima Underworld.

 

[Delterius]

Beautiful.

For a serious answer, it's a term previously popularised by Warren Spector, referring to games that give the player a set of mechanics and the freedom to use those mechanics to do things that the developers didn't specifically envisage. It was the key design principle behind the original Deus Ex, and one of the design principles for System Shock 2 and Ultima Underworld.

In all seriousness I always described it as a non scripted narrative that is born out of conflicting systems.

But if we are talking the history of the term, I have heard more than once that Molyneux discredited it with his gushing about Fable.

 

[DraQ]

For a serious answer, it's a term previously popularised by Warren Spector, referring to games that give the player a set of mechanics and the freedom to use those mechanics to do things that the developers didn't specifically envisage. It was the key design principle behind the original Deus Ex, and one of the design principles for System Shock 2 and Ultima Underworld.

This.

Emergent gameplay refers to situations and solutions arising from game's mechanics that were nevertheless not something developers explicitly planned.
The term 'emergent' refers to the fact that such gameplay emerges from the interactions of game systems, rather than being result of a singular system simply working as designed or a scripted setpiece.

 

[Curious_Tongue]

Isn't this an example of sandbox rather than emergent gameplay?

 

[No Great Name]

Self-imposed limitations are a form of emergent gameplay as well.

 

[Baron Dupek]

Guys.

Kick me.

Now seriously - emergent gameplay worked decade ago, with modern games is nonexistant.
tl;dr everything is shiet

 

[DraQ]

Self-imposed limitations are a form of emergent gameplay as well.

No.

Joined:
Jan 24, 2014

Ah.

 

[Raapys]

Dwarf Fortress

 

[DefJam101]

lots of little things leading to a variety of unique big things rather than a couple of big things leading to only a couple of other big things

 

[No Great Name]

Self-imposed limitations are a form of emergent gameplay as well.

No.

Are you saying that playing a game as an Ironman-mode when it is not enforced by the game is not an example of emergent gameplay?

 

[WhiteGuts]

There's a bunch of games now listing "emergent gameplay" as a feature, which is nonsensical since you can't really know if your game is going to have emergent gameplay, or if you do then it's not emergent cause you've been planning it during the developpment cycle.

 

[Siel]

 

[Delterius]

Self-imposed limitations are a form of emergent gameplay as well.

No.

Are you saying that playing a game as an Ironman-mode when it is not enforced by the game is not an example of emergent gameplay?

Yes.

 

[DraQ]

Are you saying that playing a game as an Ironman-mode when it is not enforced by the game is not an example of emergent gameplay?

Indeed.
Neither is playing with your buttocks, for that matter.

At most, those are examples of metagame, albeit not in its usual (in the RPG context) sense.

There's a bunch of games now listing "emergent gameplay" as a feature, which is nonsensical since you can't really know if your game is going to have emergent gameplay, or if you do then it's not emergent cause you've been planning it during the developpment cycle.

You *can* plan for generalized emergent gameplay.

Even if you can't foresee the individual situations and solutions, you can build mechanics and content to maximize extent and gameplay impact of emergence, and to proof the game against unwanted emergent gameplay (basically glitch and exploit abuse) and plain breakage by emergent behaviour.

 

[Delterius]

There's a bunch of games now listing "emergent gameplay" as a feature, which is nonsensical since you can't really know if your game is going to have emergent gameplay, or if you do then it's not emergent cause you've been planning it during the developpment cycle.

You *can* plan for generalized emergent gameplay.

Why, of course.

Sure, you can't plan for quirks in the programming, which are often the most endearing form of Emergent Gameplay there is, but you can look at past mechanics and see how some favour emergence. For an instance, an open world where different actors compete over resources with tons of random events to spice things up predictably lead to emergent scenarios after a while - like in CK2.

 

[dnf]

Emergent gameplay is basically Bethesda's forte, to wit: http://insomnia.ac/commentary/on_emergent_game_behavior_and_other_miracles/

To get back to the talking heads who run this little industry, Peter Molyneux (of whom it's worth mentioning, by the way, that much like Will Wright and all the other vidyageam evangelists, hasn't made a decent game in well over a decade), has been quoted as saying that "emergent gameplay is where game development is headed in the future". Translated into English, and according to Molyneux's own retarded definition of emergence, this means that "game development is in the future headed towards games which will behave in ways increasingly unintended by their designers". How will these games be created then? How can game design intentionally move in a direction of increasing unintentionality? Or will it move there unintentionally? Will game designers unintentionally design more and more games which function in ways increasingly unintended by them? What sort of being could pull off such a miraculous feat? Are these games going to be coded by somnambulists? perhaps in a state of trance while their fingers are working by an act of God? -- What this little man is trying (and miserably failing) to say is that games in the future will become increasingly more complex, which means that they will have more complex physics engines, which means that they will allow for a wider range of interactions/situations/possibilities. What Molyneux is calling "emergent" is simply the fact that, given the wide range of possibilities in such games, players will be expected to fool around and find or make their own fun in them -- this fooling around the shallow-pates have basically decided to dub as "emergent" because it makes their vapid commentary seem more profound to the feebleminded. That's all there is to it. Some dumb gamer dude came across Wikipedia's "Emergence" page one day and thought "Wow! That's Deep! I'll adopt that, like I adopt any other sightly complicated-sounding word without spending even a single moment thinking about its actual meaning!"

 

[Erzherzog]

To me, emergent gameplay is summed up by this experience I had:

I was playing Men of War, a game with contains realistically modeled tank armor and armor penetration. I have an IS-3 that I'm dueling against a King Tiger, we trade shots but at range that keeps us from penetrating each others armor. He uses a weapon that has little penetration but large concussive force near my IS-3, causing it to lift off the ground, while simultaneously firing the cannon of his King Tiger into the soft underbelly of my tank.

And that, I feel, is emergent gameplay. The developers designed the armor, designed the ballistics, designed even sheer force of explosions, but I doubt they specifically designed that explosions be used to expose a weak part in the tank.

Hats off to the clever asshole that killed my tank.

 

[dnf]

How can someone know what's on the mind of a developer? What if he die without telling what his game is about, so everything is emergent? Or maybe you are an incompetent dev ala Bethesda with a truckload of bugs he didn't know was there AKA emergent gayplay...

 

[J1M]

Guys.


New mega thread: what is Emergent Gameplay?

Make it happen.

When a game's gameplay outsmarts its designers.