This is just something that came to mind when I woke up this morning so my organization and wording might be pretty bad. Some of it may seem painfully obvious to some of you, but it might make for an interesting discussion.
Even in a very unrealistic setting there are things games that can seem more real or less real. These things can enhance immersion or hurt it. This happens even if the game in question isn?t supposed to be realistic or presents something very far from reality.
In some cases you can even argue that a magic spell may seem more or less ?realistic? than another magic spell, or that physics in a game might seem more natural than one that technically has a better physics simulation. But how the heck does that work? What determines how realistic we feel something is if it is far from reality?
In real life we recognize that our world works by certain ?rules? or ?laws?. These can be laws of physics, laws enforced by government, tendencies in the way people behave, and so on. There are certain rules governing how things happen and based on these rules we have certain expectations of how certain situations will play out. The most important part of this is that to some extent we realize that our world is a system where the behavior of various objects is governed by a set of rules and that certain events tend to lead into other events. Our world is a system and it has cause and effect.
Anyone who spends time writing fantasy or sci-fi fiction probably already understands this to some degree, but even if a story does not take place in the real world, they tend to work better if they follow the rules of the universe they are set in. A lot of fantasy settings have rules for the way physics, magic, or technology will work, and authors try to abide by the rules they set down in order to make the universe seen consistent. If for some reason they break the rules, they usually have to provide some explanation for the exception or the audience?s immersion is going to be hurt somewhat.
The point is that even if a world might not have the same rules as our own, we still have some expectations of what a world should be like. We expect the ?system? of the world to be governed by a set of rules which results in some kind of cause and effect, even if those rules might not be the same as in our own world.
Again, any of you who writes some kind of fiction or spends a lot of time with fiction is probably already aware of this to some degree.
Immersion in gameplay can work rather similarly to this. When you create a game you are in a way creating the rules of a universe the player is experiencing, and applying these rules consistently can enhance immersion even if the rules are not consistent with real life. The player is being introduced to a new system and, consciously or not, will be trying to figure out the rules that govern the system. If the player then tries to apply the rules he/she learns to manipulate the environment and the game responds in a way that is consistent with the rules that were learned, then immersion is greatly enhanced. However, if the rules are broken without explanation then you are also breaking immersion.
When something happens, the player, whether consciously or not, will be looking for a cause. Cause and effect that is consistent with the perceived rules of the game is a big part of immersion. The rules of the fictional setting you?ve created matter as well. Whether you are simulating part the world or not, the fictional world you create can be thought of as a system and immersion is enhanced if things happen in a way consistent with the rules of that system. When the player sees cause and effect occur consistently with the perceive rules, then it helps make the game seem more real whether or not the game is similar to real life. It means to the player that there is a system, there is some kind of logic at work, and makes your world seem more like a world.
(This is why when using random number generators it often helps distance the player from the random number generator where possible, putting cause and effect between the player and the random numbers where possible. That?s a topic for another day though.)
The most direct way to create this kind of consistency is to make a simulation. In this case you simulate the rules of the fictional universe you created as much as possible, whether it be physics or behavior. A simulation isn?t always that of real life. (The space sim genre is often called that not because it is simulating real space flight but simulating space flight given the rules of a fictional universe. Mechwarrior fans often refer to their favorite games as ?mech sims? for the same reasons.) By creating a simulation that runs by the rules of your fictional environment you are obviously going to create cause and effect consistent with that environment. A flight sim is an obvious example of a game that may involve a lot of simulation, as it would probably simulate the physics and affects of various things on the performance of the plane in order to try to give the player the experience of flying the aircraft.
Of course, a simulation approach isn?t always practical. It often adds a lot of complexity to a game and can introduce a lot of uncertainty depending on the rules you are trying to simulate. Also, your game might not benefit enough from such a direct simulation of the rules of your fictional world to make such a simulation worthwhile.
In that case, you can ?simulate a simulation? or create a ?sim of a sim? as one developer elegantly put it. Instead of coding a simulation to simulate the rules of your fictional environment, you create results that are consistent with what would come out if there was a simulation of those rules.
For example, if you can?t simulate the AI of roaming bandits so that they can decide on their own attack villages in the way you want, then perhaps the next best thing you can do instead would be to decide if a village gets raided first and then send bandits to it. As long as you can suitably mask the fact that you are creating an event and attaching a cause to it afterwards, you may be able to achieve the results you want, or at least results good enough for the purpose of your game.
(You can probably argue that just about any simulation can be thought of as a simulation of a simulation in some way, but for the purpose of this discussion we?re going to call it a simulation of a simulation because you?re simulating something you could have done a more direct simulation of.)
In a lot of games you might want a story of some kind, and in that case you?ll need to intervene a bit more directly and create events that do not come from sims or sims of sims. However, even if you are not doing a simulation of some kind, wherever possible it can be beneficial to do things consistent with the rules as if there were a simulation.
For example, if a character dies in your story then it is preferable if the character dies in a manner consistent with the way characters die in game. If the character dies from poison in a game where there is no poison in gameplay then you are departing from the rules of the game to create your story, and that hurts immersion somewhat. However, if the character dies from poison in a way that the player can also poison other characters in the game then the story is consistent with the rules of the game.
In a way creating a story that feels real in a game with a fantasy setting can mean simulating a simulation by hand in that you are trying to make sure events are consistent with how they would happen if you somehow did make a simulation. While is not always possible to stay consistent with your fictional simulation of your fictional world, doing so can help the player become more immersed in the story.
Whether you?re doing a simulation, a simulation of a simulation, or creating events that are consistent with a fictional simulation, the goal is the same. You are trying to make the game act in a way that makes it appear that the game?s world one that, like our world, is governed by a set of rules and things can seem more real or less real based on those rules.
Where have you seen any examples of simulations, simulations of simulations, or stories that try to appear like the result of a simulation in a game to make it feel more "real" regardless of whether the game is realistic or not?
