Elements of “Twitch” Skill

7 Elements of “Twitch” Skill

In the previous chapter, we explored one type of skill in games, the skill of deliberate, con- sidered decision making (colloquially referred to as “strategy”). There is another kind of skill that sees frequent use in video games, and even the occasional non-digital game. This second kind of skill requires fast thinking, dexterity, and reaction speed. These fast decisions are often referred to as “twitch mechanics,” and the games that use them at their core are called “twitch games.” Many early arcade games were almost entirely tests of this kind of skill. Some modern games, particularly shooting games, also fall into this category.

CHALLENGING THE PLAYER

Players play games because they present challenges. Gradually, by responding to a challenge again and again, players become better, ultimately achieving mastery. If a game presents too many twitch challenges too quickly, the player can be overwhelmed and frustrated. At the other extreme, if the challenges are too easy to overcome, the player quickly becomes bored. Finding the balance between them, when the player feels challenged at the peak of his ability, called “tuning,” is one of the game designer’s most important jobs. To keep the game interesting, designers also have to allow for the game to become progressively more difficult. Guitar Hero is an excellent example of this. At first, some players struggle through the song “I Love Rock and Roll.” Within an hour, they’re blowing through it. Strategic games also have to deal difficulty progression, but in those games the question is one of depth of decision making, because players typically have all the time they need to consider their options. In twitch games, the problem of overwhelming (or underwhelming) the player with challenge is much more obvious.

TUNING

One difficulty of twitch challenges is that they must be crafted to challenge the player at an optimal level of difficulty. This would be easy except that every player’s ability level is different, so any level of challenge is going to be too hard for some players and too easy for oth- ers. Luckily, game designers have learned a few ways around this.

99 100 Challenges for Game Designers

DIFFICULTY LEVELS You can scale the game to be easier or harder, and then allow players to choose his own level of challenge. Most forms of twitch skill can scale easily: the requirements of how fast a player must react in a pure speed challenge can be modified; the window of opportunity for a timing challenge can be widened or narrowed; a precision challenge can be made more forgiving or can be assisted by some form of automatic aiming; the number of things to avoid in an avoidance challenge can be modified; and a strict time limit for a timed challenge can be changed to ease or increase the time pressure.

DYNAMIC DIFFICULTY ADJUSTMENT Some games not only have multiple difficulty levels but also can change them on the fly. If the player is doing too well, the difficulty can increase until the player is sufficiently challenged. If the player is losing frequently, the game can ease up a bit so that the player is not frustrated.

DIFFICULTY CURVES Some games, particularly video games that have a sequence of levels, simply start off easy and become progressively more difficult as time goes on. This continues until the player is finally overwhelmed. Many classic arcade games like Pac-Man and Space Invaders do this, as do puzzle games like Tetris.

PLAYTESTING When tuning a game, a steady stream of playtesters is indispensable. Designers understand their own games too well to discern the new player experience on their own. Testers who have experience with a game are great for finding bugs, but their skill level has likely in- creased to the point where they can no longer objectively test for difficulty. Throughout de- velopment, find new playtesters on a continual basis and constantly monitor their first reactions to the difficulty of the game.

TWITCH DECISION MAKING

The decisions a player makes in a twitch environment are of a different nature than those in a slower, more strategic game. The player is still making decisions, but those decisions are being made on a far more rapid basis (many times per second, as opposed to one decision every few seconds or minutes in a pure strategy game). Most twitch decisions have an obvious correct action that the player should take. The challenge comes from executing that action quickly and accurately. In an FPS, for example, the decisions a player makes involve which way to turn and fire. The information is there on the screen, and the challenge is not just to make the right decision, but to make the decision faster than the enemy. It is not the thinking part of the player’s brain that is engaged, as much as the instinctive, reactive part of the brain. Chapter 7 Elements of “Twitch” Skill 101

There is a lesson here. Obvious decisions (see Chapter 6, “Elements of ‘Strategic’ Skill”) are not very compelling in a strategic environment, but they can be made more interesting if the player has limited time to make those decisions. A perfect illustration of this is the ShockWave game No Brainer 1, where the player is asked a series of extremely easy and obvious trivia questions under extreme time pressure. Before long, most players will find themselves saying that broccoli is made of metal or that limestone rock has a brain, simply because their minds cannot keep pace with the game.

TWITCH MECHANICS

While twitch mechanics are often lumped into a single category, there are actually several types, each of which has a different effect on play.

PURE SPEED Some games ask players to perform a routine task in a minimum amount of time (such as a car racing game), or perform a repetitive task as many times as possible within a set time limit (often referred to as “button mashing,” exemplified by the classic arcade game Track and Field, which essentially rewarded the player for hitting a button rapidly). Foot races in real life are an example of this as well. In non-digital games, this mechanic shows up in places the average person might not ex- pect—causal and children’s games. The game Slapjack tasks players with being the first to slap a jack card when it is flipped face up onto a pile of cards. Winner takes all. Likewise, some trivia games (especially game shows like Jeopardy!) award the player with the first right answer.

TIMING A common mechanic in video games is to require the player to press the right button at the right time. Dance Dance Revolution and Rock Band not only require rapid movement, but also precise timing. The objective is not merely to hit buttons rapidly, but to step on the right arrows or hit the right input device at the correct time.

PRECISION Sometimes the challenge is not simply to do something fast or to perform an action at a par- ticular moment, but to do something accurately. First-person shooters generally require the player to aim at a target, and players must move the crosshairs quickly but also toward the correct facing (and often a moving target). Non-digital games that require precision are often referred to as “dexterity games,” as they require careful manual dexterity rather than pure speed. Examples include the stack- ing game Jenga, where players must remove blocks from a tower without causing it to fall, the electronic game Operation, which requires players to pick up small plastic pieces with a set of tweezers, and the party game Twister, where players must place their hands and feet in awkward positions without falling down. The most obvious type of precision occurs in sports games where the player needs to hit the ball at the right time and in the right place, among other things. 102 Challenges for Game Designers

AVOIDANCE A favorite of side-scrolling games, staying away from harmful enemies or projectile works dif- ferently depending on the game. Some games (mostly in 2D) show all of the surrounding area, making this mostly a challenge of keeping threats in view and heading for safer areas. In games where field of vision is limited (as with first-person 3D games), there is an additional challenge of identifying where the threats are. Sometimes, players are provided with an over- head view mini map; other times, they are expected to just look in different directions a lot. In some cases, particularly when projectiles or enemies are very fast, locating areas of cover is important in avoiding threats. In other games, everything moves slower, and the concept of “cover” is nonexistent. In non-digital form, this type of skill is most often found in sports and other physical games such as Tag or Dodgeball.

TIME PRESSURE Any task becomes more difficult when a time limit is added. This can be an explicit time limit (such as solving a puzzle within three minutes) or implicit (find and shoot your opponent faster than they can do the same to you). Time limits can be added to all types of skill (both strategic and twitch), changing the dynamics of the game in often drastic ways. Consider the difference between Chess, where players are given as long as they want to make a move and Speed Chess, where players have a total of five minutes to make all of their moves for the whole game. The rules of both games are identical, but they have an entirely different feel.

CHALLENGES

What are you doing reading this? Hurry up and pick a challenge before time runs out!

CHALLENGE 1—ADDING TWITCH TO STRATEGY The purpose of this challenge is to gain an understanding of how play dynamics change when a strategic element of a game has a twitch mechanic added to it. Choose any game that is a pure strategy game, with no luck and no twitch mechanics. Examples are Chess, Go, and Othello. Modify the rules to allow some kind of twitch com- ponent. Play the game, and note how the new game is different and whether the game was made better or worse (or just different) from the change.

Components Required

A playable version of the game you have chosen