I'm going to write for a moment about what would make a dream game for me. I know that there's a little bit of irony in doing this, since I make games, but there are ideas that I have no way to bring to fruition that would be incredibly cool, and other people might have the chance to do so.

Before I begin, I want to quickly point out that what I'm thinking of is almost certainly classified as an "RPG" under current standards, though it may have some notable differences in execution compared to modern titles. I'm not going to get into the nitty-gritty of any particular game mechanic, instead going into the broader concepts that I would want to see in a game.

The Concept

I've always been intrigued by the notion of having some sort of transhuman science-fiction video game that fully embodies the question of transhumanism. A lot of "transhuman" titles fall within postcyberpunk or cyberpunk genre boundaries, and don't explore questions related to what it means to be human versus something that comes after or around that central human identity and where those boundaries can be drawn.

I think it also opens up the path to a lot of game mechanics and conventions that make a lot of sense in the setting and also are convenience features. In an advanced enough future, you can achieve things that would only make sense in game terms in some other settings; things like respawning, the ability to quickly create customized gear that isn't the quality of something scraped together in a garage, inventory management, and the like all can make a little more sense when they've got some impetus to work.

You can do a lot of these things in a fantasy setting as well, but not really in a strictly "realistic" setting.
So the concept would definitely be a sort of transhuman universe, but I'd like to see one that's otherwise conceptually clear; not cyberpunk or postcyberpunk, but a world that allows the exploration of a variety of themes and isn't predisposed toward any particular theme.

Other things to note as important things are that this game would be presented in first or third person perspectives, with alternate interfaces available as appropriate (after all, you can reflect heightened awareness or external sensors via third-person viewpoints), and it would rely on systems-driven play with the ability to do multiplayer.

Image courtesy Pixabay

I think the best way to explain the concept I have would be to say that it's like the recent Netflix hit (and less recent novel) Altered Carbon, but with a little more idealism. There are still meaningful conflicts, but they're a product of the human condition at rest, rather than a time of change that provokes vitriol and knee-jerk reactions.

Players placed into the world have a lot of freedom to decide what they want to do. Rather than facing the penalty of death as the main deterrent, they face the consequences of having their character lose influence and identity as the main source of loss, with that eventually leading to a more permanent character retirement if the player continues to do things that are dramatically bad (or if they make exceptionally risky choices).

The game generally encourages players to find their own path, but there are story frames that exist in the universe that players can drop into, essentially connecting paths between series of events that can be radically different due to the influences of emergent systems. Each story has its own themes and motifs that follow the player, and these stories take place in instanced versions of the world; the player can come and go freely, but when they're in the "story" actions they take elsewhere don't impact that particular section of the universe and vice-versa, allowing them to experiment with different courses of action in that same scenario later without messing up their larger role in the universe.

This also permits players experimenting with different modes of play; in one story they may be a rank-and-file soldier on a backwater world just trying to make it to the next sunrise, in another they could be negotiating billion-dollar deals in the core of the galaxy, digging up dirt to get an edge on competitors.

Emergent Systems-Driven Play

One of the things that I think any really solid "perfect game" has to have is a systems-driven design that is meaningful and deep.

Right now the best example of this that I can think of is Dwarf Fortress, which has probably fifteen interactive system layers simulating everything from temperature to relationships.

I don't think that these emergent systems are necessary for a good experience, but if you want to have replayability and novel experiences on a broad scale, you need deep emergence.

Having a game world that is interconnected goes a long way toward creating immersion, but it's not enough to have Skyrim or Far Cry style NPC encounters. Things like weather, time, and climate (if appropriate to the setting of the game) need to interact meaningfully with all actors in the game, and other important events need to be represented.

I find it interesting that it is often a handful of scripted elements that provide a lot of immersion in current games, like NPCs that only show up in certain places at certain times. High-performance AI with the ability to consider multiple factors for behavior and a game world that stores information on broad scales is a key to having these systems work.

Layers, Nodes, Systems, and Interactions

The idea behind this system is that objects have a lot of qualities and can interact with each other. Most of the time only a couple layers are probably relevant in a particular scenario, but since they exist universally (they would not all need to be "always on", and "resting states" could be used to reflect this), they could interact with each other.

Each of these layers has a variety of systems, interacting with each other on different conditions. For instance, there might be a layer to reflect temperature and stored energy, and another to reflect physical location and material. Within layers these interactions are important, but generally it is nodes, specific entities in the system, that change. Since they exist within multiple layers, they determine what is really important.

Image courtesy Pixabay

The other point of these layered systems is that you can have things interact. For instance, social hierarchy matters more when the dominant organization has a presence. Managing things this way opens up opportunities like having some NPCs act less lawfully when there is nobody around to police them.

All of this comes together to create a dynamic world that can respond to players' actions and change meaningfully without requiring a writer to pre-ordain what happens as a result of certain actions. If an important member of a faction dies, their influence is lost, but others can take their place. The responses people have to the replacement can determine what happens next, creating naturally rippling effects that are mechanically simple but systematically satisfying.

Quality Storytelling, On Demand

One of the issues with many games is that their storytelling is shallow, and it's not just procedurally generated stories that have this issue.

I'd like to see hand-tailored stories layered above the emergent world, with the addition of procedural generation that considers narrative flow rather than simple dynamics that you see in a lot of current games.

My go-to example for this is always the roguelike GearHead, which uses a handful of static plot elements and procedurally generates a story based on a handful of concepts (like having a nemesis, allies, and climactic threat). Although its storytelling is largely determined by random number generator gaps between scripted elements, the latter wouldn't be too hard to replace with truly procedural mechanisms given enough time and enough emergent game systems.

This is something that deviates from the current "procedural stories" in a lot of games, because they tend to be more along the lines of random quests rather than stories, with a clear objective for the player but no change in their relationship to the world or characters around them.

Ultima Ratio Regum, another roguelike, is an example of having generated hierarchies within which the player has a particular role and position. In a game with sufficiently emergent systems, there is room for players to become a hero without the use of scripted events.

Writers would probably create a core experience, both to serve as a foundation for common communication about the game world and to provide a model for players, but these deeper emergent systems allow for more emergent experiences and opportunities to unfold, meaning essentially unlimited replay potential and deeper world exploration than would be possible in a traditional game.

On an unrelated note, Kurt Vonnegut has provided some ideas for how stories follow common patterns, though there are other frameworks that do this as well in a way that a machine could be expected to follow convincingly.

Multiplayer Shared Worlds, Distinct Experiences

One of the things about most multiplayer games these days is that they have a hard time really figuring out how to tell stories with multiple protagonists. It's hard to write a story for multiple heroes, and especially hard to write one where you can have one or multiple heroes.

Of course, a lot of games get around this by having some really blatant disconnects between play and story.

The foundation of my dream game, however, are layers of emergent systems. This makes it possible for multiple players to interact seamlessly with the same world, and get results that bind them together. This would be possible by adding a layer for perceived connections in the eyes of NPCs so that if a group of players are together for long enough they begin to be drawn along the same narrative paths.

At an advanced enough level, player characters could even take on a role parallel to each other; where in other games an NPC may, as a narrative device, send another NPC off to do something, the various player characters could actually have events like that occur:

"I needed someone to clear the monsters around the well, but I already asked Tim to do it. When you get a moment, could you help me settle a dispute with my neighbors?"

By anchoring particular distinctive elements within emergent layers, players can impact their world in ways that allow meaningful storytelling and changes without requiring significant human direction.

For the sake of simplicity, each world would either be hosted on a central server and accessible to many players, or hosted by a single player. Player characters are entities reflected almost identically to NPCs, with players defining their avatars' personalities during a character creation process and by decisions made during play.

Image courtesy Pixabay

Asynchronous Multiplayer

Because of setting conceits and the emergent systems powering the game, it would be possible to have player avatars join you even when their players are not active.

In addition to having this provide a way for players to enjoy the benefits of playing with a group when others are offline (or when they have to be offline, though the data transfer would likely require a connection to a shared server or having already downloaded an avatar from another player), it gives an encouragement to meet and join other players.

Player and Character Skill Distinctions

There are a few reasons why I want to see this, but there are really three reasons I'll get into:

1. Accessibility for people with disabilities
2. Allowing multiple equally treated control interfaces
3. Removing player skill barriers to meaningful play

It's worth noting that there are other elements to this. A character may have the ability to do things that a player simply can't emulate; in a multiplayer session, you can't have one player slowing down time and giving an unfair advantage to team-mates, and it would be annoying to be stuck in slow motion at a disadvantage.

Another advantage of creating these systems is that it can allow player avatars to already have an established baseline for performance. While they would need to be "trained" by players (either through point investment or practice during play), they would be able to have the same role as an AI companion as they would in a group with the player behind the wheel.

Accessibility

One of the overlooked problems facing gaming is the difficulty that game designers and engineers have had when trying to create games that are accessible to people with motor dysfunction or other disabilities that impair the use of traditional control methods.

Because a lot of the game could be boiled down to choosing contextual actions for a character to undertake, exposing the AI avatar for players during play sessions to allow them to send commands is an option that makes it possible to engage with the world in other ways.

While there's still some complexity factor here, you would be able to create a game that's accessible to probably 80% of the players who would have difficulty with a game that didn't make concessions for accommodating them with a relatively small set of changes.

Alternate Control Interfaces

I'm a hardcore PC gamer, and I use a gaming mouse and keyboard exclusively. This means that at any given time I have roughly forty buttons that I can comfortably press, and many of these buttons can be pressed in combination or in sequence, creating an incredible amount of options for commands.

However, there are people who prefer to use controllers, and advantages to doing so (like inputs that aren't all or nothing or tied to artificial deadzones that can cause issues), and even a venerable giant of the interface world like the humble mouse and keyboard may one day fall to challengers.

However, to return to the point at hand, there are things that would be problematic for many people with certain controllers. I'm an "early adopter" for VR (meaning that I have one before they're standard-issue), and I've found that certain features like Fallout 4 VR's VATS has a great utility without taking anything away from the game.

Allowing characters to contribute where players don't want to due to the interface they're using is good no matter which interface you use.

Low Skill Barrier

One of the issues with skill barriers is that they can be a gateway to play. I'm a pretty decent gamer, but there are games I'm just not willing to put the investment into, like EVE Online.

Letting characters offload things that players don't want to do or aren't capable of doing is important if you want to have a game where players aren't limited strictly by their own skill. Since character strength is a function of time and effort invested, it gives the opportunity for these characters to do what they need to do while having the player be decent regardless.

As I said earlier, in a transhuman world many people are not going to be able to keep up with their characters, but we don't necessarily need to look beyond normal capabilities to see abstractions used to facilitate play.

For instance, we don't typically make players determine how well a character does in a sports game by seeing whether or not they can react on the drop of a pin, but a good athlete has to be able to do that.

Abstracting out things that are too difficult for an amateur doesn't mean that those systems don't exist in the game. A skilled player can still use these systems, but any player should be able to make an impact in the world.

Wrapping Up

I've had this concept in my head for a while, but it's really only due to the Archdruid Gaming contest that I cared to put it into print.

As a tabletop game creator, I have the privilege of working with games that tell a broad range of stories on a daily basis, but I also get to experience the eternal frustration of leaving that relatively infinite canvas when I enjoy a video game. If I had all the time, money, and skill in the world, this is the game that I would make.