To Walk Among Giants: Empowering a Play To Make Them Feel Strong

             I'm back from NYC and since we discussed the magic of how to make a player feel weak and helpless last time, through disempowerment, let's talk about the opposite this time.  Empowerment is pretty easy to understand on a lot of levels.  People like to feel strong, to feel capable.  Often, they aren't strong or able to feel proud of themselves due to illness or circumstance in real life, but a game can give them that feeling.  It can make them feel good about themselves.

It would feel good to be Kenshiro, punching a tank to death...games can give you that awesome feeling.

            Sadly, while it is easy to understand why empowering someone is so enchanting, it is often botched by those who attempt it.  See, there are a number of ways to empower a player and give them that feeling of strength and pride in themselves.  However many game designers fall prey to cliche or the idea that by simply making a player hard to kill or a game easy that it will have the same effect.  This is far from true, because hollow empowerment, an experience which tries to empower but which is plainly false and not convincing, is even worse than disempowerment.  It doesn't just make you realize your own situation.  It makes you feel like a sham for trying to be strong.  Real empowerment doesn't make you feel ashamed for trying or hollow or empty because it doesn't live up to the experience promised.  It gives you a real feeling of weight behind your actions and the play you make.

A shell of empowerment will only make you feel a shell of yourself...it will make you feel weak, not strong.  That must be avoided at all costs in games meant to empower.

            There are a number of very good ways to empower a player.  In fact, many games ramp up the difficulty for the sole purpose of this, as struggle and a little bit of disempowerment make an eventual victory even sweeter.  Dark Souls 1 and 2 are games that have the potential to be very frustrating, but the difficulty actually makes the victories you have very satisfying.  You start out at a decent power level.  You're not naked, unless you choose to be, and can fend for yourself.  However, the bosses and many enemies you face will be better equipped or just massive.  You will feel small and weak in comparison, but the game is built in such a way that you can win, no matter how weak you are, if you are able to recognize patterns or train yourself up.  It feels AMAZING to down a demon that can one shot you and which is 2-4 times your size.  So, while it can be disempowering to come across such challenges, building a game that is challenging, but balanced enough so that you can overcome it, makes victory feel all the more sweet.

This thing is just huge...downing it for the first time, I felt like such a bad ass.

            Personally, my favorite method of empowering a player is through sensory feedback.  Obviously, games cannot cater to all five senses, but sight, sound, and even touch can be catered to in video games and if they are sufficiently satisfied, then the player will actually feel closer to the character onscreen or more engaged in the action.  This will make their power feel all the more real, all the closer to home.  Warhammer 40K: Space Marine is a great example of sensory feedback.  The actions on screen are all beautifully animated and make the player feel strong, showing the overwhelming strength of the space marine you control compared the hordes you are fighting.  However, I would argue that sound design is where this game really shines.  You see, the standard weapons are bolters.  They are guns which have explosive shells and whenever one is fired, the sound is very satisfying.  It doesn't sound like a tiny pistol or even the insubstantial racket of a machine gun, it feels very solid and strong.  It's a nice blunt burst, followed by a tiny explosions to remind you of the power of the gun.  In fact, at once point, you get a machine gun version of the bolter called a twin combi-bolter, which doesn't sound like a machine gun at all...it sounds like something more akin to a minigun coupled with a rocket launcher.  Ironically, it's pretty weak compared to the other weapons later on.  However, I stuck with it for a while because the sound was so satisfying and it just felt good, hearing it whenever I fired it off in rapid succession.  With a rumble controller, games like Space Marine or other titles can even give you a touch sensation feedback.  It can help the game give you a real feeling of the weight of your actions.  This kind of sensory feedback can help you to feel strong and empowered because it is both satisfying, making the actions on screen resonate with the players, and it is also able to give them a feeling of importance through the sheer force of the senses.

The look, the sounds...everything in this game assaults the senses...and it feels good.

            A sense of realism is not necessarily needed when trying to empower a player.  Yes, I've talked about making the player feel more in tune with their game avatar through the senses, however that doesn't need to be grounded in reality...and indeed, most games feature physics or players wielding weapons that would be impossible to use normally.  However, there needs to be a feeling of weight behind the weapon.  Not heavy weight necessarily, but some weight.  For example, one of the satisfying things to do in Devil May Cry is to juggle an enemy with your guns.  To hold him up in the air and keep him there with gunfire.  If you took this out, the guns would have almost no weight, because they don't stagger enemies who are standing and if they couldn't hold an enemy in the air, they would have no power behind them.  They'd still do damage, but they would feel weak and would not empower the player.  Likewise, any game where you hit something?  There needs to be a feeling of weight behind each attack.  Light attacks can be somewhat weightless, since they are meant to be quick, glancing blows, but if a player throws a heavy attack it doesn't feel like it does anything, then you've done something wrong in designing the game.  One reason Dark Souls is so deep is because each weapon has weight behind it.  A different weight.  So, some attacks will be slow, laborious affairs that will shake the ground or stagger an enemy when they hit.  This gives them a feeling of weight that makes each action meaningful and allows the player to feel as if they are stronger than they are.  Sadly, Splatterhouse doesn't always do this.  I love the game, but the fists feel a bit pointless...weapons and the super form are a bit slower in their swings and do more damage/stagger the enemy and they feel satisfying because of it, however the regular fists are a bit unsatisfying.

Imagine how much less bad ass you'd feel if your guns couldn't do this...the weight of those attacks matters.

            I would even go so far to say that this does not just extend to games where you fight.  A game like Harvest Moon or Rune Factory can give meaning to your farming by making the swing of your hoe feel heavy or the flow of your fishing line light because it's only a bit of wood with twine attached to it.  These different feelings of weight add, not necessarily a sense of reality, but a sense of value to the actions.  A player who feels their actions have value is a player who feels empowered.  It makes them feel strong because what they are doing has meaning in the world of the game.

If each swing of the hoe has meaning and value, then the game will make you feel good.

            Another important thing to think about is challenge.  Now, I've already talked about how disempowering a player only to have them rise from the ashes stronger than before can be a great way of empowering them, however challenge as a whole is a very important aspect of game design to consider.  Many game developers think it's fine to just let players follow a linear, easy path to the end, leading them by the nose so that they can see the sights and be done with it.  However, without challenge, without a feeling of resistance by the game, then the victory feels meaningless.  It is hollow.  I don't think a game should be so brutal that players cannot win, like say Ghouls and Goblins or Silver Surfer on the NES, because those games are so unfair in their design that it feels almost pointless to try, because without hours of work, you can't even advance past the third or fourth level.  However, don't make it so easy that the players feel like they're being given a win.  They have to earn it on some level, otherwise it won't be empowering.  Tiny Barbarian DX is, in my opinion, a decent balance in this regard.  The game gives you infinite lives, so you don't get kicked back to the beginning arbitrarily, however when you die it puts you back to the start of that particular section.  You still have to win each boss battle with no more than six pieces of health and each section is still a platforming and combat based challenge.  It requires skill and work to get through, but it's not necessarily hard, because you can try as often as you want.  I think this balance is important in making a game both empowering but also accessible to players who may not be the best in terms of skill.

Tiny Barbarian DX may not be hard, but it ain't easy.  This game strikes a nice balance.

            Choice is another aspect of game design that allows for a player to be empowered.  I am NOT talking about arbitrary choice.  Not talking about a button at the end of the game which gives you either ending A or ending B.  I'm talking about meaningful choice.  Doing something that feels like it matters.  Sometimes these choices can be organic.  Demon's Crest lets players go to levels in whatever order they choose.  Some of these levels will be impossibly hard than others, because you won't have the skills you need, however the choice, where you can go and the ability to not just stick with it, but change it, is powerful.  It lets a player feel in control.  This is why sandbox games are so popular these days.  Because while you will have a story based mission, the plethora of side missions and open world interaction, organic interaction like driving a cab or an ambulance in Grand Theft Auto, allow you to play your way and gives the player the feeling that they are in control of their own destiny.  That feeling of choice and power over how they play in a game like Skyrim can be very empowering, because they are not restricted, like they might be in real life.  In real life, we need to work, sleep, go to school, do assignments, whatever.  In a game, being able to choose not to sleep, or choose to go against the beaten path or the established formula...it feels refreshing, because it gives us a feeling of freedom we don't get in normal life.  And that's why choice is so empowering.  It gives us the power to do what we cannot in normal life.

Choose your own path, be it the path of the crook or the path of the savior.

            Now, I have given several examples of ways to empower players.  The feeling of weight behind actions, choice, sensory impact, disempowerment peppered with hope for the future, challenge, etc.  But don't try and shoehorn everything into one game.  These are ways of empowering a player, not a checklist.  Every game needs to try and do it in its own way and sometimes that way may be derivative or even completely unique from these examples I'm given.  They don't all need to be included, but I'd say that at least one or two couldn't hurt.  Because, for the player to feel empowered when that is the game's intent?  That's important...not just for the designer, but for the player as well.  It can help them face the demons they're dealing with in their life by giving them an outlet where they can build confidence and be strong.  The most important thing a developer can do, is play a game and ask if they feel strong while playing it.  Not, is the story good, or is the music beautiful, or are the graphics AAA.  Ask if you feel powerful while playing it.

If you feel powerful, you'll be less afraid of the demons, real and make believe, that assail you.

            I recently bought a game called Risk of Rain for the PC and for a while, I just felt weak playing it.  However, it had many different characters with different play styles to choose from and eventually I found one I liked.  A poison beast called Acrid who had to fight up close so enemies could easily wail on him, but he could destroy great swathes of them if he poisoned them, since the poison was strong.  Now, this mixed both a feeling of challenge, choice, and something I can't quite put my finger on to make me feel tough.  I was well aware the enemies could kill me easily, and I did die, but I walked through them like a giant, laying waste to all in my path for a while, even the large bosses.  It just felt good.  And if a developer can play a game and say, I feel good...I feel strong...then they know they've got a winner on their hands.

I may be small, but my poison is fierce >:)

            Empowering a player may seem like a no brainer, but making it feel genuine is actually pretty tough.  It's something I encourage not just developers, but players to think about.  Because we all need that boost to feel powerful sometimes and nothing is more pitiable than trying to unwind and feel strong with a game, only to feel cheated, frustrated, and weak by the end.

            I enjoy games that can genuinely make me feel powerful, because many games will actually go that extra mile to not only make you feel strong while playing, but to make you feel strong even after you stop.  By making a hard choice or doing something challenging, you can feel the empowerment of your game and avatar even after you've stopped playing and it can help you through your trials.

We all need to feel powerful sometime.  Confidence will help us survive the trials ahead...so empower through gaming.

            Disempowerment has its uses, for story, to teach us about fear so we are ready when life throws challenges our way, or just because we want to feel low for a bit...but empowerment, I believe is just as if not more important, because it helps us with living our lives.

            I hope you've enjoyed this discussion on power fantasy, both disempowerment and empowerment.  Next week, I believe we'll go back to a creator spotlight, like I promised so long ago, however I have to say that alongside writing for my other blog, I'm also preparing to go to China soon.  So...my updates may be a tad sporadic.  Sorry if that's inconvenient, but it is what it is.  I have my priorities after all.  I don't intend to stop, but if I need to take time to get done what needs doing, I will.

            Thanks to everyone who continues reading this silly little blog of mine, even now.