We aren’t addressing development issues. This is a discussion about game design theory.

“Not only that, but magic swords of +1 are detrimental… ”

In no way does the replacement of scoring with thematic rewards necessarilly make the game easier. If in one circumstance it does, that’s down to the specific implementation and could be changed.

“At the end of the day, score is feedback you get for your performance. Feedback is important in the process of self-improvement, which is the only real way to feel powerful.”

Yes, and thematic rewards can be that feedback too.

Imagine if Ocarina of Time wasn’t about saving Hyrule from Ganon, and instead you just went through dungeons one after the other trying to get a high score. The story being told in that game that made you want to continue was a thematic reward. It could have been replaced with a high score system. Which would have been incredibly lame. And Blake’s response to that is, “if removing the story from Zelda makes it worse, then that means the mechanics weren’t designed well enough and they were being supported by the theme”. I don’t think that’s the case. We loved that game because: we got to be a brave young elf fighting monsters and exploring dangerous dungeons! Not because it allowed us to master a system. The theme transports us into a new world, and the mechanics let us interact with that world. Both are necessary, but ultimately mechanics support the theme by making the theme by letting us feel like we are there.

“Go has survived because it is a deep and complex game…”
Go certainly has survived for a long time, and it certainly is a complex game. But seriously, who plays it today? How many experienced gamers sit down at their computers and decide to boot up Go? Very few.
“Dwarf fortress… ”
People DID care that it had no theme – that’s WHY they made the graphical mods. My point was that despite the complexity of the system, people simply could not enjoy the game without stronger thematic elements.

My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic is themed to appeal to young girls, yet it is enjoyed by a diverse demographic, that includes 20-something white males, due to the depth of characters and plot.

Problem officer?

Because it usually takes an artists working weeks or months to create the pretty wrapping for each significant step of the scoring system. Numbers are much more efficient at conveying the gradients.

Not only that, but magic swords of +1 are detrimental to the game itself. The better you do, the easier the game gets… do you see the problem?

At the end of the day, score is feedback you get for your performance. Feedback is important in the process of self-improvement, which is the only real way to feel powerful.

“That game was popular during an age without computers, and now that we have video games, which provide better theme, who the hell plays GO? Old chinese dudes that don’t have computers?”

Dude, calm down. I’m neither old, nor Chinese (not even Asian). I grew up playing video games my entire life. Some of my earliest memories are of Doom and Civ. And I tell you this – Go has survived because it’s a deep and complex game, deeper and more complex than any video game EVER, and it will survive long after trash like Skyrim gets abandoned and forgotten. Speaking of which, have you ever played Go yourself?

Your example with Dwarf Fortress actually disproves your point. If theme was so important, no one would bother playing it, and there wouldn’t be a community of people to dress it up nicely. DF is just so rich and complex that people DIDN’T CARE that it had no theme, they played with it anyways.

This sounds to me like you’re saying I would enjoy the other options more because they have themes that appeal more to me, which is my point. Even if you reject theme as being the more important piece, you agree that good theme can improve the experience. So why not change the score to something thematic?

“If you become immersed in a deep, rewarding, interesting system, the theme leaves your mind. The pieces, characters, levels, etc. become
abstract. You start focusing on what they mean, what they do, and how they further your goals in the system. It’s why GO has been played for
thousands of years and doesn’t need a theme at all. You can imagine a “battle” and “capturing” and “killing.” The system is immersive.”

I’m familiar with this feeling, but I don’t think you’ve proved that mechanics don’t need theme. I don’t know how to prove that they do, but I can offer up some examples that support the idea. For starters, you should never use GO as an example of mechanics trumping theme. That game was popular during an age without computers, and now that we have video games, which provide better theme, who the hell plays GO? Old chinese dudes that don’t have computers? People that have never played a video game? Kids whose parents won’t let them play violent games? Same story with Tetris. Most people playing that game today are people that are either really bored or have no experience with more appealing games. GO and Tetris were popular because there was nothing better. Unless you can point to masses of experienced gamers choosing Tetris over modern games, I don’t think it does anything for your point. I say “experienced” because someone that has never played a good modern game booting up Tetris doesn’t say anything about which they would prefer.

It sounds like you’re saying that a game stripped of all its theme would be just as fun. That would be a step even below the original Dwarf Fortress’ graphics. But we know that people abhorred that game’s graphics so much they took it upon themselves to create graphical mods that made the game playable. So where is this example of game’s not needing theme? Does it not exist?

On the other hand, there’s evidence everywhere you look that better graphics and more immersive elements make games more enjoyable. Playing games on higher graphics settings just straight up makes them more enjoyable. And why is that? That’s an important question.

Being able to interact with a world, even in a way that is unrelated to the ostensible goal of the game, makes it funner. For example, being able to pick up and throw objects, kill NPCs for no reason, etc. A system that allows you to kill anyone in the game world may be less complex than some JRPG leveling system, but it’s clear by the popularity of the games which is more enjoyable. And that’s because it makes the theme stronger. Why don’t people prefer the complex JRPG leveling system? If what we love is understanding a system, why do we love, in Skyrim, being able to press a single button and end someone’s life, with barely a second’s thought?
I recognize that if Skyrim had no complex systems, it would be boring. If guards didn’t react to you when you killed someone, it wouldn’t be as fun. But that’s just making the theme stronger. I also am aware that to a strong degree people enjoy understanding and mastering systems. But there needs to be a strong theme to that system. I loved mastering the combat in TERA, where I was a magical archer. But I find my computer programming job for the most part boring.

I think you would say that if the system was perfectly designed, it wouldn’t need any theme a all. What would that look like, and how would it play? And do you really think it would be fun for any extended period of time?

If you’re a realist painter, what is “immersive” is different than if you’re a cubist painter. When you’re watching a film, “immersion” involves things like continuity and internally consistent rules in the universe and narrative, cohesive lighting, filming style, etc. In games, most people today use the standards of narrative or fantasy simulation to gauge “immeriveness” or “engagement.”

Games have their OWN form of “immersion.” In a game of tetris, when things are really tense, and you’re at the top of your game, playing at high speeds, you move with the pieces. your whole body is connected with the motion on the screen. Or in a game of GO you’re deeply immersed in the game state, intensely focused on as many possible outcomes as you can manage. That is “immersion” as it is relative to games.

Worrying about characters, whether a tree looks like a tree, whether it has “epic music,” back stories, etc. Those are narrative criteria, not game criteria. Again, we judge modern video games on narrative criteria because the game systems themselves lack “immersion” because they lack any kind of emergent depth.

So yes, I like good aesthetics, but it doesn’t mean that it’s a replacement for good game design, or function as life support for bad game design, which is often its role.

If Tetris was barbie themed, or minecraft was barbie themed, I would bet it would not lose very many players. The system is original, deep, holistically new and interesting(not in the same way. Minecraft is a toy, Tetris is a game, but they’re both great.)

Spectacle, graphics and theme distract a player from a boring, retreaded, derivative or otherwise mediocre system. Again, I don’t blame you for having such a strong preference for games themed to your tastes, because the games are boring.(by that I mean most single player modern videogames) If you become immersed in a deep, rewarding, interesting system, the theme leaves your mind. The pieces, characters, levels, etc. become abstract. You start focusing on what they mean, what they do, and how they further your goals in the system. It’s why GO has been played for thousands of years and doesn’t need a theme at all. You can imagine a “battle” and “capturing” and “killing.” The system is immersive.

most video games are the opposite. They take a derivative, shallow, boring system and gussy it up with spectacle and theme to extend its lifespan. It is sometimes a valuable tool in expressing what certain mechanisms “do,” like a “bomb” theme for a mechanism that “explodes,” but often times it’s spectacle as a means of distraction or life support. Nobody would give these boring systems 5 minutes without an advent calendar of chocolates. An asset tour. A trail of breadcrumbs. I suppose this is why this “school of thought” exists. To apologize for this phenomenon.

That school of thought argues that when we play a video game, we are essentially being transported to that game’s world. And if we like that world and what we can do there, we like the game and we want to keep playing.

Theme (the world) is extremely important, because if we don’t like the theme we won’t like the game. If you took Halo’s mechanics but put them in a Barbie Horse Adventure theme, I would not like it. Because when I play Halo, I am a cyborg supersoldier killing aliens, which is cool. The mechanics support the theme and allow me to interact with that world in an excellent fashion. But allowing me to interact with Barbie’s horse ranch in the same way would be boring because riding Barbie’s horse is not exciting to me. So theme is very important, and you need to improve the theme, make the world more interesting, everywhere you can.

So, if I’m playing inside Auro’s world, it will be a lot more exciting for me if I am working to obtain a magic sword than if I am to improve my own performance.

When you say that a sword is exactly the same as points, but re-skinned, I have to disagree. I like magic swords because I can hack and slash things with them and look like a badass, on top of the feeling of excellence I get from having a good performance. Whereas points are completely meaningless by themselves. They do not make the world more interesting in any way. In fact, they withdraw me from the world because I’m comparing them to other player’s scores, which exist outside the game.

Obviously most “competitive” games do this, and are successful. But the most competitive players of those games, the players who have taken scoring to its extreme, aren’t playing to have fun anymore. They don’t enjoy the world. They are playing just to win, just to beat other players. They find the game boring and have to grasp for ways to keep it exciting. They force themselves to play with training regimens (like LoL teams). And that is ultimately what scoring leads to.

Or you could get rid of the score and give me a magic sword, make me fall even more in love with your game, and draw me deeper into your world.

In Auro, the scoring system will actually reflect your performance in a dynamic way, and a way which is comprehensible to the player. If a basketball player scores 30 points in a quarter in an NBA game on his own, that “number” is suddenly exciting because we all know exactly what that means. We understand the stakes, rules, and difficulty of the game to such a degree that that number reflects an exciting and exceptional performance.

Auro strives for the same thing. If the system is well-built enough, the difference of even 5 points will illicit exciting. “how did he squeeze out those last five points?”

In games like geometry wars, which are spammy and don’t have a whole lot of depth, or gradius, which is a memorization puzzle, it’s no wonder you think “increasing a number is boring.”

that’s not what we’re talking about. Try and appreciate that numeric score is simply a reflection of performance. A metaphor, if you will. If the system is boring, or a simple puzzle, or the score is superfluous like in Super Mario Brothers, the score will be boring. If the system is interesting and the score system is smartly designed, the number will be just as exciting as that shiny sword.

That is not what Herp is saying.

He is saying that there are more exciting goals to pursue than increasing a number at the bottom of your screen. For instance: which is funner, killing a boss because you know its going to make your score go up, or beating a boss because you want the magic, glowing sword he is wielding? The latter, obviously. There is ALWAYS something much, much cooler than a score increase that you could be rewarding your player with. All those intrinsic motivators you listed, like cutscenes and endings, are examples.

Herp’s argument comes from Alex Kierkegaard’s essay “Why Scoring Sucks and Those Who Defend it Are Aspies” (lol): http://imgur.com/a/q6BUr#0

To be fair, the score becomes meaningful when you compare it to someone else’s. It’s fun to beat someone else’s score. But here we have the same problem: it’s even FUNNER to have a shinier sword, or a bigger gun, etc etc than someone else. So even when you’re looking at it competitively, there’s just no reason to use score for your metric.

I’ll admit that score does a good job of accounting for minute differences between performances. You can beat the other guy by 1 point because you did just slightly better. But it’s still going to be more enjoyable for both players if you can represent that slightly better performance in a more interesting way. Fighting games do a good job of this because they allow for that razor-thin margin of victory, but you get to KO the other dude instead of just get a slightly higher number. And that’s the point: fighting games could play exactly the same if each hit just incremented a score, but its COOLER to see people fighting and killing each other!

I agree with Keith that scoring in video games sucks, and he has found some ways to improve it. But scoring is inherently flawed because 1) it is boring compared to many other rewards and 2) (and for this point you should read the essay) it only has meaning OUTSIDE the game, when it is compared with other people’s score. So by focusing on your score you are drawn out of the game world.

Icycalm, if you read this, I hope I have done you justice. Praise be your name.