Philosophy in games
I admit it: I'm a big fan of philosophy. I've studied it for years.
For most of people who don't undertand philosophy they think it's something merely academic, something very complicated and abstract just to study. Not at all.
Living is philosophy itself. Deciding what we're going to study, who will be our friends, where we live, how we eat, how we live, our code, our principles, our reasons. All of that is already philosophy. Something like choosing what to buy at the supermarket is already philosophy.
And I think that the most sophisticated game players and developers will agree that we like a game with a good background, that transmits something. And at the same time, it's something really hard to accomplish: how to tell without telling? How to tell concepts, ideas, reflections, thoughts?
Reflecting about this same topic, I've analysed and found three big problems:
1. Ideas need to go deeper. That may be the difference between "just ideas" or philosophy. Most of times developers have good but superficial ideas. They only let players see the tip of the iceberg, the visual and aesthetics of it. They don't deepen in the concepts.
2. Most of times the mix of concepts and game isn't accomplished correctly. I mean, for example, developers want to include a concept (a reflection) in their games. But instead of merging it with the game, both mechanics and story, they just "let it fall". They "drop" it perhaps in a dialog or a picture. And precisely this takes us to point three.
3. There is a big mistake that I think developers need to correct. When a game developer wants to include a concept in a game, and now let's imagine that we're making a philosophy game. That means, we're not only including one little concepts, no. We take the books from the greatest philosophers in history and we want to make a game about that. The first question that a game designer makes himself is: how do I put that in my game? How do I tell it?
Wrong! There's the error. The key is not "including" concepts, but "causing" reflections. That's the key.
That's: when game developers want to include an idea, they try to tell it directly. With a character saying it, a text, pictures, etc. And even when they tell it with the mechanics or actions, the question keep being how to tell directly that idea with mechanics or actions.
Do you get me? The problem is that, regardless the channel (the method) we use to transmit our ideas, developers / designers keep asking how to tell it directly, instead of how to cause that reflection to the player.
You may still not understand in what consists that difference. For example, you don't need that idea to be the obvious topic of your game. Even if your game is about that, even if you made a philosophy game, you don't need to turn it the center of your game.
Let's give a specific example: if you're trying to transmit how the human nature is, you don't make a game about the human nature. You can make a lot of games very different each other. You can make a game about building city, and show human's nature through the behaviour of citizens and politicians or conselors. You can make a survival game where people takes profit of each other. You can make a shooter, a strategy game, a point&click story, even a platform game. That's not the point.
Because the point isn't what the game tells, but what the game makes you think.
Nowadays the vision is that game designers must tell you the message, they must give it to you. What we need to comprehend is that it's the player who needs to create that idea, to reach that conclusion. So the game must not be seen as the concept itself, but a "case", an example to make player relfect.
Games must not tell, must cause you to think so the player tells himself the idea.
And this isn't even applicable only to "philosophy". Anything that needs to be felt over being acknowledged (like History, where we need to remember dates and names), can be taught with this technique. For example, imagine if we want to teach music, art, social behaviour, rules, the functionality of some sort of system. Many things can be taught from this perspective.
And I get that, by reading this you may have understood the idea, but still don't fully understand how to apply it. Okay, to begin, when designing a game the question must be: what situation would cause me that reflection? how do I get there? Instead of the old question: how do I tell this or put it in my game?
And perhaps you think: but that will affect my game and force me to make changes. Of course, if you want to make something with quality, that's imperative.
In games, there are two ways of doing things: first I make the game and then I add that. For example, when you make a game and at the end of it you make the sounds and music for it. Or plan and design that from the beginning and affects directly to the design of your game.
If we add things at the end of the production obviously it will be simple, superficial and not very integrated with the game. If we want some specific aspect of the game to be "superior", remarkable, it needs to be designed from the beginning and, of course, affect the game directly.
So, the question was: what makes me get to that reflection and those ideas? Then I must think situations, cases. If I have already defined the story, argument, plot of my game then I need to adjust those situation to my game, of course, but accepting to make changes as I said before.
Now that I have some situations, the abundance of these depends on how important they are in the game. If I want that message to be the central pilar of my game, I need to make it present along the game with multiple situations, but different so it doesn't seem repetitive and boring. And also like we have no imagination and we're using constantly the same resource.
These situations would have to be merged with the story or/and the mechanics. I love when a game mixes wonderfully narrative and mechanics. If then you mix narrative, mechanics and philosophy, then your game is going to be the bomb! But, when you haven't merged those components very well then you need to distribute and choose. When you answered the question: what situation takes me to that reflection? was your answer an action? an action of the player or the characters? a dialogue? a song? a picture?
Choose very wisely where to include these aspects. And finally the last step: exagerate. You may be the master philosopher: super smart, super deep, reflective and cultured. But you must think that most of players may not be. Many people is... well, I won't say dumb, but not very introspective. And they may not get the references.
If your message is just something additional, extra in your game you can let it as a clue, as a "hook" to the most sophisticated players. But if you're going to base the success of your game in that message you're trying to tell you need to assure that most of players get it.
Don't get it wrong, I'm not talking about making it easy for them. I'm talking about making it visual for them. How?
For example, with dramatics. If you had included a dramatic scene, make it worse! Sometimes even to the level of ridicule. You may think it's a bit overacted, exaggerated. But, isn't that what movies do? Isn't that what novels do? When making a representation and a show/spectacle you make it more attractive and emotional through exaggeration.
If you included humor, make it hilarious. If you included fear, make it horrifying. If you included dramatics, make players cry. These kind of things appeal to players' heart. And that's the best way to get them and make them understand.
That's another of the big mistakes: developers ask themselves how to make players understand the idea instead of how to make players feel the idea.