This might as well be subtitled “Chris attempts to defend his mangled misappropriation of a real word.” Still, I think it’s a concept worth bringing up with the gaming community at large. It’s something all gamers are aware of – the idea of visceral combat mechanics, really tight steering controls, or really rewarding jumping mechanics – but something that isn’t discussed by designers nearly enough. Kinaesthetic sensation is truly unique to interactive media, and only in games can it be fully explored.
Campster
7 Comments
Cezar
Feb 2, 2012
Your videos are great and truly a joy to watch! I can’t wait for more!
laughingman
Feb 2, 2012
I’m not a developer, but I’ve been playing since the atari 2600 days. For myself, the system that had the most consistently rewarding kineasthetic experience was the NES. Blaster Master, where the tank had a real weight and heft to it, and felt deadly (never mind the terrible indoor sequences), Ninja Gaiden, where it’s possible to use the moveset to do things unintended by the developers, like climb walls. Super Mario Brothers, which I won’t talk about because plenty of people have already.
I could go on and on.
Thanks for giving me a theoretical framework for and a vocabulary to talk about this. I look forward to watching more of your videos.
rrgg
Mar 3, 2012
I always thought that had to do with the sense of control rather than simply the physicality. I’m always one to want more weight added to the attacks in combat games but that’s because I always more control, more control over my character and more control over the game world. If I stab a charging enemy with my spear and it doesn’t kill them (what level of lethality in games should there be is another topic) then I don’t want them to phase through the shaft with a little squirt of blood and keep charging, I want to at least check their movement, or keep them at bay, something that allows me to use my weapon’s reach to my advantage and control the engagement. Same thing with shooters, if I shoot an enemy and he doesn’t die then I don’t want him to keep shooting me with perfect accuracy, I want to suppress. . . well. . . use suppressive fire. (I should not have to say this but minecraft is an example of really good hack and slash controls and other games should copy it, on the surface the only things I would change are blocking should not affect your legs at all or slow your movement, and you should be able to cancel an attack mid swing by blocking)
If it were primarily about the look and weight of your actions though then you’d think that it’d be better to show the player bend his knees and build up for a mighty jump as opposed to the pervasive “toe flick then instantly hover up 3 feet”, or that it’d be better to take every single step into account when moving rather than acting like the player is a hovering upright cylander and flailing the animation to match. But no, the player wants to jump when he hits jump he doesn’t want a delay for his character to build up, and no, the player knows exactly how far he wants to move and has pressed the arrow just long enough to do so, he does not need his character to spaz out because the player decided to stop moving mid-stride.
On the flip side, the other part of being in control is having lots of information, and the player generally wants to be absorbing as much as he can justify. Anything from “I could hear the direction that bullet came from” to “I smell bad guys, they must be around the corner.”
In other words, kin-aesthetics as you describe them could also be described as satisfying the players inner control freak. I don’t think this means that the player needs to be overpowered by any stretch of the imagination, rather you have a bad design when he stops saying “I wish I had more control” and starts saying “I should have more control, why the heck can’t I climb over this chest high wall instead of going all the way around.”
On Kinasthetics « We May Not be Playing the Same Game
Apr 4, 2012
[...] Posted on Errant Signal [...]
I think I may eat my hat here | From Strange Worlds
Apr 4, 2012
[...] waiting for something cinematic to happen. As Chris Franklin of Errant Signal outlined in his Kinaesthetics video (a good watch, by the way), video games are primarily spatial interactions. This means that [...]
Zak
Apr 4, 2012
Well spoken!
One thing I’m missing: Do you sometimes press the mouse button or cursor key harder, if whatever that key is supposed to do isn’t happening or happening to slow? How many joysticks have you ruined (back when they were fashionable?) because you wanted to faster?
I’ve personally (in co-operation with my brother) wrecked at least for competition pros, and while summer, winter and california games have a share in their deaths*, a main contributor was certainly Test Driver, (“go leeeeeeeeeftammit!”), and my cursor keys are not happy about trackmania, I can tell you!
Having seen this video, I’m almost sure this is because, a) the keyboard/joystick is not working the way you intuitivelý expect them to work (if I push harder, it should do more), and b) the input controls and whatever I’m controlling in the game have become so much an extension of myself that I don’t even think about a) anymore. Someone must have done something right in the design of those games. Try achieving the same effect with a completely unintuitive control layout.
* for the uninitioated there were several games were you had to wiggle the joystick left-right-left-right… as fast as you can in order to win. Not good for the hardware.
Adam
Aug 8, 2012
Did you ever play the last-gen game Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction?
Aside from having the most obviously-slapdash appellation EVER, it was a phenomenal demonstration of the devs’ understanding of this sense of Kinaesthetics. Hulk has weight. His jumps have a rhythm to them that you have to exploit if you really want to get him up to speed. The difference between what he can simply run through and what he has to surge/dash to knock out of his way gives you a very strong sense of his relative mass. His movement is dynamic; when he leaps and hits the side of the building, he can grab on an slide a few feet down (Moreso if he was in freefall by the time he hit) and/or sprint up the side, the momentum of which can fling him over the top of the building. Of course they had to have it running on the PS2/Gamecube/Xbox, so the vast majority of the levels are indestructable simple polygons (no spheres/domes, no fancy-shaped rocks to climb) and anything can be effortlessly grabbed from any direction or orientation. Still a fantastic game. If you have one of those consoles, snag yourself a used copy. Not likely to cost you more than $5, and you’ll have enough fun in the tutorial+first city to justify that.
Leave a Comment