Diminutive Diatribes: Encyclopedia Moronica

I'm preparing something special for May and working on my novel at the moment, so free time is a bit sparse.  I will probably have another full post before April is out, until then, please enjoy another diminutive diatribe.

Diminutive Diatribes: Encyclopedia Moronica

            In-game encyclopedias.  They take many forms throughout the game industry, from a journal entry which tells players what's happened up till the present, to a bestiary in an RPG, to dozens of terms which need to be explained, which aren't properly explained in the story, which players need to understand in order to know what the hell is going on.

While sometimes a useful tool, these aren't necessary to play video games.  And they never should be.

            Encyclopedias in games aren't always a bad thing.  Bestiaries can make great tools, alchemy guides can be very useful, and references to controls that you've learned but might have forgotten are essential if you need to put a game down for a long period of time.  However, too often in this day and age, games are using encyclopedias as a crutch.  They think that there's no reason to sit down and explain what's going on or what have you because it's easier to just throw a term out there and let the players do the work themselves to try and understand it.  Or worse, they are repositories of information that is necessary to understand the story, but which the game couldn't bother to tell itself, due to budget problems, disrupting the flow of the game, or just general laziness.

Encyclopedia and tools like them are useful, but they should never be made mandatory.

            Developers, take notice.  If you drop a term like Fal cie, necrology, nethicite, etc. but don't properly explain what it is...then you're just going to confuse and annoy your players.  If this term is important, then don't shove its definition into an encyclopedia in-game.  We have wikis online if we really want to know more about it.  If it's important, explain it to us, the players.  If it's not, then that negates the entire point of including an encyclopedia, because if it's not important, why should we care?  Why should we do YOUR job in trying to figure out what a term means when we paid you for this game?  And if these terms are essential to a story and you just dump them in an encyclopedia and tell us to research on our own, then you, the developer, have failed at storytelling.  You have failed at your job of telling us a story or explaining a concept.  And last I checked, if someone fails to do their job, they get fired.

This look of horror?  Yeah, it's what gamers get when they realize their game has more required reading than their school work.

            Final Fantasy 13 is one of the most disgusting abusers of this principal.  It dumps huge blocks of terms from the game into an itemized list that takes hours to go through, slowing the game to even more of a crawl than it usually is.  Some biographies are included for characters, some with events we have seen and some which happened before the story, so if you want to understand everything then you have to read them all.  And some entries in this encyclopedia CHANGE over time, so you have to re-read them occasionally.  This is just a waste of time.  True, a number of these terms can be ignored, but some, like what a Fal Cie and a Lcie are can cripple the impact of the story if not explained.  The story tries to explain a few of the terms, but often times it leaves the player to discover who and what the gods of the world of Cocoon are and why they matter.  Who are the individual Fal Cie?  What impact do they have on the players or the world?  You'll never know unless you read!  And it is all explained in such a bland, annoying way, with a drab grey menu screen with nothing exciting about it at all.  This is the most moronic way to use an in-game encyclopedia.

Hope you enjoy grey menus and generic fonts.  Cause this datalog(encyclopedia) is going to take you hours to read.  And the reading is required.

            If you want an encyclopedia in a game, if you MUST include it, then take a lesson from Ni No Kuni.  Ni No Kuni's encyclopedia is set up like an ancient wizarding tome, with colorful illustrations, an old timey paper look to it, and above all else, no obligation to read it if you don't want to.  It has a bestiary, an alchemy recipe list, item lists, spell lists, and a world map for reference.  That is the key word.  REFERENCE.  You don't need to look at it to play the game, but perhaps you want to know what skills a monster can use or where to buy an item?  Then you have your encyclopedia.  There are stories included in the book that aren't told anywhere else, such as the source of an eye in the sky which causes a storm or why your companion Mr. Drippy has a lantern in his nose.  However none of them are required reading.  They add to the world, certainly, but you can get by fine without reading them.  These phenomena are explained in-game, while more is there if you want it.  Mr. Drippy is a fairy and has a lantern attached to his nose because...fairies, am I right?  The eye in the sky creates a storm and is controlled by the bad guy, it's ancient magic.  Simple.  Why is the eye in the sky?  Well, you don't need to know, but if you want to, there's a story for it.  That's how to use an encyclopedia in-game.  It follows the logic of older titles like Wild Arms, Ultima 7, and Final Fantasy 6.  There are stories waiting to be found all about the world, told by npcs, hidden in bookcases, or just as side events.  They help add to the world, they help build it, but they aren't required to understand and appreciate the story.  There's two weapons in Final Fantasy 6, both called Atma weapon.  Do I need to know what they are?  Not really.  Can I find out if I want to?  Certainly.  What happened to Blackthorne in the Ultima universe after Ultima 5?  Do I need to know?  Nope.  But if I want to, I can find out.  The remake of Wild Arms for the Playstation 2 even includes an entire novella with interesting characters, plot twists, and high stakes...none of it is connected to the game and you don't need to look at it at all to win the game.  But if you take an interest, it's there for you.

You want to include an encyclopedia?  Make it interesting, make it unique, and most importantly, make it unnecessary.  Ni No Kuni nails this principle.  The Wizard's Companion is gorgeous.

            If you're going to include extra details in a game, be it journal entries, audio logs, letters, or an entire encyclopedia on the world, ask yourself two questions.  1) is it necessary?  If yes, then ask yourself if it flows along with the game or just takes players out of the experience.  If it takes them out of the experience, then you have a problem.  2) Is it enjoyable/fun?  Do these entries add to the world?  Do they make the experience something more?  If not, then why include it at all?  Extra details in a game should add to it, not make it a slog.

Encyclopedia-esque references have been in gaming for decades and aren't going anywhere.  But only in the era of the PS3 and Xbox 360 did they become mandatory.  This beautiful image is from a reference in Chrono Cross for the PS1.  You never had to look at this through the whole game.  But aren't you glad you did?  It's a stunning image.

            On the whole, still not sold on the idea of encyclopedias in games, but I recognize that they can be harmless or at least offer extra details for inquisitive minds.  I prefer those details to be woven into the game world organically, like finding an old man with a legend to share or reading a random book on a book shelf to hear about an ancient and tertiary conflict, but there's no harm in adding extra bits in the form of an encyclopedia entry.  However, they should never, ever be mandatory.  Slowing a game to a crawl because you need to learn about what the hell a bio-static electro gauntlets or a gravity discharge bomb is will only annoy players.  And annoyed players are more likely to avoid or abandon the game.