Ezra Szanton

@ezraszanton

he/him
ezra-szanton.itch.io/

I make games!

Ezra Szanton @ezraszanton11/7/2022, 2:31 PM

Summary!

After some great discussions here's what we've got so far for "types of friction." If playing a game is truly "the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles" then friction is the obstacle. Of course, there are an infinite number of these, and they'll overlap in some places, but it's still worth an attempt at thinking about! If you have any ideas or corrections, I would be very happy to talk about it!

Time - waiting for something to happen.
Lost - not knowing where you are, and wanting to
Physical skill - "git gud," pixel perfect platformer jumps, physical sports and digital ones. Weird controls also apply here.
Thinking* - Puzzles, strategy, anything where you might be "stumped," or where the main obstacle is solved by sitting back in your chair and thinking one.
Indirection* - Your inputs to a system do not directly affect the thing you want, the friction here is trying to control your ultimate goal indirectly, through a fuzzy system.
Thorough - Sweeping every corner, collecting every achievement, being completely thorough in the play of a game.

* These are names I'm not happy with, got any ideas for good names?

[Original Post]

We tend to classify players based on what they enjoy (Bartles, Quantic Foundry, etc). But classical psychology has two factors: seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. There's certainly some amount of pain in many games and that's kind of the point. You can't have fiero without some kind of friction. What model would we get if we classified people based on the types of friction they liked or disliked?

My type

For instance, I love precision platformers. They really butter my bread you know? To my mind, the main type of friction in a platformer is the pain of trying again and again on the same section, slowly improving. On the other hand, I get really frustrated with games that make me wait: I'm impatient. It's one reason I can never be that good at Dorfromantik, because I can't bring myself to look at the board long enough to find the best placement, even though there is no time limit.

Going further?

What are some other types? What type are you? Do you think this is a valid line of reasoning? I'm experimenting with these half-baked blog kinda posts because I'm really interested to hear what other folks think!

#game design #gamedev #game studies

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in reply to @ezraszanton's post:

Binary @binary11/7/2022, 2:47 PM

I think it makes some kind of sense. The harder thing for me is untangling what the friction is in a game necessarily, it’s probably easier to pick out parts you do like.

Ezra Szanton @ezraszanton11/7/2022, 2:52 PM

Hmm yeah that's a good point, it's not really something we have a vocabulary for yet so that would be something we'd need to develop to use this model!

Fredison @Fredison11/7/2022, 2:53 PM

I think it's an interesting lens to look at things through! And it feels especially relevant in today's F2P game landscape, where games are specifically designed to apply exactly enough friction to tempt players into paying money, but not enough to quit playing entirely.

Ezra Szanton @ezraszanton11/7/2022, 3:02 PM

Good point! I wonder if people's friction type relates to how much they're willing to spend on a F2P game

D @vysetron11/7/2022, 3:00 PM

Much the same here. Forced waiting is death for attention, but I'm perfectly happy to do something again and again if the reason is my own ineptitude.

Sources of friction are as varied as there are game mechanisms. One I've been thinking about lately is control-based, or more specifically lack thereof. Games like Black and White or earlier Sims, where you have to do your best to steer characters that are only kinda steerable. It seems those are particularly hard to make well.

Ezra Szanton @ezraszanton11/7/2022, 3:04 PM

Woah yeah that's true! Maybe call that "second order control" friction? Honestly there's a lot of that in the process of making a game where you control the mechanics and then the dynamics all change wildly depending on the mechanics.

Not totally the same but you've also reminded my of QWOP where the friction is This control scheme will melt your brain!!

Mannie @manwad11/7/2022, 3:30 PM

There's totally a type of person who likes to minimize pain/maximize pleasure in others. Your healers/buff support/frontline commander types.

I'm personally a like... seeking pleasure via high level strategic shit. Like, I play Trundle in League, build to hard counter peeps. I love playing fighter in OSR games so that when my hairbrained scheme goes tits up I can pull out my halberd and start swinging.

and as for it being valid, hell yeah. Defining the friction [say, combat, or cave diving] and then coming up with Verbs and shit to cleverly avoid, or maximize, that friction is like, core to design.

Ezra Szanton @ezraszanton11/7/2022, 4:22 PM

Good perspective, thanks!

Serbaayuu @Serbaayuu11/7/2022, 4:20 PM

I love getting lost. Not the kind of lost where it's like "I can go anywhere I want" - that isn't lost at all. I mean the kind where I must go some particular place and I have ABSOLUTELY no idea where it is.

I adore the feeling of getting completely stuck in a game and having to run down the list of every single other place in the entire game world I've been so far to see if one of the new power-ups I just got will let me open some door I couldn't before. Knowledge-gates instead of power-gates are great too.

Unfortunately outside of strict Metroidvanias this type of game philosophy seems to be mostly degrading within the rest of the genres in the industry. You can't really find adventure or action games anymore where the player is expected to get lost.

It's too risky at this day and age in the industry; a player who gets lost is likely to just put down the game and never play it again.

Ezra Szanton @ezraszanton11/7/2022, 4:27 PM

What excellent points! Lost is definitely a kind of friction and a really evocative one at that. Loved getting lost in hollow knight (((:

Knowledge gates are a really interesting and related point as well, and one I've been thinking about for a while. A couple months back I made a broughlike where the main idea was that everything would be a knowledge gate. Basically all your spells are little dances and you learning them is the only way to progress https://ezra-szanton.itch.io/broughdancing.

I wonder if knowledge gates are the same or different from skill gates? They're definitely related and have similar properties (that the key resides in the player instead of the game), but knowing something feels different to me than having the muscle memory for it, for some reason.

Serbaayuu @Serbaayuu11/7/2022, 4:52 PM

I wouldn't liken the two. A skill gate is just something hard; where a knowledge gate is functionally impossible to pass till you know it.

I find knowledge gates are used in all the same exact ways as ability gates, but often done in such a way that the player either doesn't know it's a gate in the first place, or can't possibly predict what they'll need to solve the gate.

Compared to a door that opens via hitting a switch far away, you know you'll later get a boomerang or bow or slingshot to open the door. Knowledge gates make that less predictable (simultaneously, they also are inherently less re-usable due to the fact that knowledge is intangible).

Although tying powers to knowledge can blend the two. Your game is pretty cute, but I had a hard time killing enough enemies safely to learn how to cast anything besides teleport lol.

Ezra Szanton @ezraszanton11/7/2022, 10:45 PM

I don't think I articulated my point well. I agree that they're not the same. The similarity I was trying to highlight is that for both, the change that lets you beat it exists inside you, the player. If you loaded the game up on a friend's computer, you'd be able to get past it much faster (as opposed to a powerup in a metroidvania where you would have to go get it again).

Yeah interesting point about my game! I agree that it's too hard. One problem I had making it was that I balanced the difficulty so to a player who knows all the abilities (for instance, there's one that lets you heal). This makes it really difficult for new players, which is the opposite of how it should be! I'm sure there's some way around this if you wanted to make a fair-er feeling game with knowledge based powerups but I couldn't think of one lol

Serbaayuu @Serbaayuu11/8/2022, 12:19 PM

I understand your point now. Makes sense.

Ezra Szanton @ezraszanton11/7/2022, 4:28 PM

Oh and another kind of friction your comment reminds me of: completionist friction (for lack of a better word). Like the feeling of trying to sweep every corner of your room. Or powerwash simulator. Or collecting achievements.

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