Hands-on

Upon deciding to hit the books and write this piece I (Jason) realized I had a larger task than I had probably bargained for. Like many problems, it started with a seemingly simple task coming to a screeching halt the moment the full scope reared its ugly head. In fact, the piece as it stands today was actually designed after I hit this stumbling block. Originally it was going to analyze learning curves and how fast people pick up particular concepts. Then it hit me - finding an easy to pick up yet enjoyable game is nigh impossible.

When I finally sat down and went over how many games released these days would actually be suitable for a non-game player, it really all started to fall in place. My next step would be to study the trend, but also to get the opinions of those who are most important to this argument's crux - the non-game players themselves.

So I set out to find the best games possible for a study and some proper candidates to play them. Oddly enough, finding players was the easy part, as I simply chose the audience I felt was the least catered to in the market place today. But finding simple games to pick up that could also be understood and possibly appreciated in very little time was excruciating. As gamers, we just naturally think games like The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker are simple enough. The truth is they are, but only if you've been playing games regularly for a very long while.

The final choices for games to use were incredibly hard to make. I ended up choosing ICO and Katamari Damacy (both for the PS2) for single player and Pac Man VS. and Donkey Konga for multiplayer. First, ICO is mainly an artistic experience, and was developed with "subtractive design" (more on that later on). By nature, ICO is a simple beast to tackle relative to almost every other "quest" game released. The main character can only do a handful of actions, combat is limited to one swipe attack, and simple ideas like character interaction, and finally there is no life meter to speak of. For Katamari Damacy, the game plays out like an arcade game with a simple concept that literally takes seconds to explain: roll small things up in your ball until you're bigger and can pick up bigger things. Katamari only requires using the analog sticks for input to boot - potentially doing away with any complexity problems on the part of the logical design and interface.

I'm sure you're all wondering why I didn't instead use game X, Y, or Z for the study. The answer is quite simple, really. Either the game was too difficult, just wouldn't give enough results for a shorter amount of time (say, Kirby's Air Ride) or I had not thought of the game outright. I assure you that I deliberated for a very long time about what titles to choose here. The only part that was completely undecided about until the very end was whether or not I would throw a red herring in the mix. That is, a title that is very popular in the mainstream but that would have obviously thrown them off. In the end I decided it was best to concentrate on seeing if it's even possible to have non-gamers enjoy some of the simplest examples in their respective genres. Luckily my hypothesis was right; no red herring was needed.

One final note before continuing - keep in mind that this is in no way comprehensive. This is simply a small taste of what non-gamers say about some of the games we deem to be very simple in nature.

What would you say video games are to you?

I think that they're fun for a period of time, but I think that parents use them as babysitters. Kids these days will play for far, far too long without getting outside. Then you end up in a situation where twelve year olds can't even ride a bike. So I think sometimes they get a bit out of control. But then again, they use TV in the same way. It just needs a bit of regulating. Aside from that, they are just ways to kill time - same thing as using a computer, surfing the net, watching TV, or reading a book.

Do you think video games are portrayed as a boys club?

I don't think it's much to do with the way they're portrayed. When I was seven or eight, my neighbor had Super Mario Bros. and it was just girls at our house and it was fun. We didn't think anything of it. Everybody played, and that was cool. I just think that for whatever reason there just seems to be a lot less draw for girls. It's not that I feel excluded, it just that there's nothing particularly interesting there to begin with. I think part of it is that I find it very anti-social, very isolating, and I think a lot of girls would prefer doing something group oriented. I also think that most parents would kick the kids out of the house. It's a "You're not watching TV all day! Get outside!" kind of deal. So in that way there's not even that much of a chance to play without getting booted out. Plus, we wanted to play videogames but my sisters were always fighting over it and it just wasn't worth it to me *laughs*. It just wasn't worth fighting over.

Did you enjoy the games you played today?

Oh yeah, sure.

Which one did you like the most?

If it wasn't for the stupid girl I was dragging around [referring to ICO], probably the first one. But I really found the helplessness of the only female character to be "stupid broad-ish". It was just so annoying - so stupid and helpless. It's not that I'm insulted as a girl, it's just I found the girl character incredibly annoying.

The interaction?

Yes, the interaction. She was a pain to haul around. The other one was fun just to mess around for a bit.

What are your feelings on the actual controller (Playstation 2 controller).

It's pretty good. I found the stuff was close enough together. With the bigger controllers [Editor's note: Sarah is actually referring to an N64 controller here] I can't actually reach everything and my thumb gets really sore from trying to reach all the different controls. I'm supposed to use it from the middle but if I'm reaching across then it hurts. It was just too big. This one is pretty nice and the buttons are different enough that I'm not likely going to mess them up too much. Although I don't know if this is a good idea (points to the 4 shoulder buttons) - the buttons on the back here.

Is it just too much for you would you say? Or is it just the right amount?

Well, I didn't have to use too many of them. So it was okay. If I was actually required to use all of themthere's no way. I was either walking or using these [analog sticks].

Okay, so just a little bit of a deviation here. Talking about ICO specifically here for a moment - if we assume that you're playing this game with a healthy amount of allotted time, would you say it was an immersive experience? If so, would you say that it was a pleasant feeling of immersion? As in, let's assume you're not spending your entire day playing the game.

Well I don't think there's anything wrong with playing when you don't have homework and spending some time with it. There's nothing wrong with that. I'm not going to complain. I don't want to make it seem like I think of it in that way. I could see it being pretty easy to get caught up in. It was a balance of frustration and playing with it. It was pretty dark. It was kind of odd because there was no feedback, so it was very hard to continue and at some point I might have just tossed it because having not played videogames I don't know if I'm getting anywhere. You know what I mean? I'm just hauling this stupid girl around going here and there and there isn't any indication that I'm going to the right places. I assume you can pretty much only go the right way.

*Laughs* Yeah, that's pretty much it.

Like it seemed to me that you could only go up. So you had to go up. But if you were playing a videogame where you could go down but you were supposed to go up.it would have been horrible for me.

Too many branches and that sort of thing

Right, and no goal to boot. The problem here was also: you don't have a goal. I don't know why I have to go downstairs to get out of here or whatever. It's just in this castle with those "things" everywhere.

The actual game design for the two gamesThe logical game design - how did you find it? For instance, the puzzles for ICO or just the way Katamari played out.

It was good. I found with Katamari that it was easy as it was well explained and other than that one time I got stuck there I was fine. But I mean, once you learn that you could potentially get stuck you just watch out for that next time. Yeah, so that was fine. It was well laid out. You grab little things so you can finally get bigger things and you can't get over the shelf until you're largerthat sort of thing. And it was pretty obvious too. In terms of someone who needs a goal and direction - I can't get outside yet because I can see I'm too small to go over that ledge. You know it's easy to see where you're going and what you can't do. It's very simple that way. For ICO, I just wish they had puzzles that were actual puzzles. To me, having to run up and down a hallway to find a door is not considered a puzzle. I'm horrible with the directions. I can't tell this hallway from that hallway. I mean, I can get lost in office buildings in real life. *laugh* Same thing in the game, but the game's a hundred times worse, so I don't enjoy looking for a handle. I'm just getting lost. To me there's no skill in finding the handle. It's just dumb luck. And once I've opened a door, I don't really feel like I've done anything. Conker's [Bad Fur Day] was better, since I felt like I achieved little things at a time.

Little goals achieved every so often?

Yeah. And my sisters played Nancy Drew, where you had to solve things. And that had actual things to solve. Logical puzzles, really.

Any general comments you'd like to make?

You know, to be fair, I think I might have enjoyed this kind of game [ICO] better had I already played games before. I think the instruction stuff would have gone a lot faster. And I'm assuming it gets a little bit more interesting later on. At the beginning it was sort of just stairs, stairs, stairs, and more stairs and then turn around. I would have liked if they had given you more explanation about what was going on. Just show more of the scenario. Because it was a cool intro but it didn't situate you very well. I'm guessing the goal of the game is to find out why he's being sacrificed for the good of the village?

I'll tell you after *laughs*. Okay, so the multiplayer games that you played, which one did you like more? The Pac Man game or the bongo drum game? Or neither!

They were both fun. The bongos were fun. I think they might have to work on the design a little bit, as it picks up too much of the other clapping and, heh, our hands were swollen by the end of the night.

Ah, so talking about from a mechanical perspective.

From being in engineering, yes, *laughs*. But we laughed pretty hard and I really enjoyed that and I really liked Pac Man as well. I thought it was pretty cool.

Did you like the multiplayer games better than the single player games?

I think so, for the most part. I enjoyed it because everybody was here having fun, which is pretty much the point of it all. I like playing games like Tetris or whatever by myself when I want something to do, but I would definitely say games are more fun when you play with other people.

What would you change about those two games if you could?

That guy in Katamari talked too much. *laughs*. You couldn't bypass enough of it to just get in the game. ICO - Obviously you're supposed to rescue the girl, but I felt there wasn't enough instruction and too much wandering. Maybe you're supposed to read the manual and be more situated in the game first. With that said, I don't think I would play a game that I had to read a manual first. It's just not going to happen. I don't play board games that require me to read a big manual, so I'm not going to be doing that here either. Part of me needs that immediate gratification. You know what I mean? Just instantly have fun.