Spanner Spencer said:
Breaking the Genre Contract
When a developer shapes a game into a particular genre, it's signing a contract of expectations with the player. But how do we react when the game breaks that contract?
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Mixed bag, on all accounts.
Genre can give you a tool to encapsulate the feeling of your game in an easily-communicated blurb. It can also be a label that hooks tons of baggage to it that you weren't aware of when you assigned that label. But the most problematic way in which genre is used is when it
isn't. When we allow the marketing to
imply the genre, that's when we fall into
Shyamalan Syndrome. Yep. That guy.
It started with
Signs. Marketed as a creepy, mysterious movie about an ominous (and imminent) alien invasion with hints shrouded in this crop circle code. Well, spoiler alert, you see the aliens--in all their
Black Lagoon-esque stupidity--like half an hour into the movie. The crop circle mystery? Forgotten. Certainly not as prevalent as it was in the trailers. And what do we find? This
isn't a creep-fest about invading aliens. It's a story about a former preacher dealing with the loss of his wife and his faith and finding it again.
It's a touching tale, and I'd have enjoyed it... had I not been promised creepy, mysterious alien action. Then you had
Village and
Happening that basically did the whole, "Oh, you thought it was a thriller? Well here's some social commentary instead, my bad!" thing. It's like buying a burger that, when you bite into it, tastes like chocolate cake. I like burgers. I like chocolate cake. But when you've prepared my pallet for a juicy, savory burger, and I get a sweet, spongy chocolate cake? My first reaction is to gag in revulsion.
If you don't make yourself aware of the current
popular definition of the genre, not just your individual "high concept" of the genre, you may find yourself in trouble. Your marketing folks may just pick the bits that push boxes, but
you get to take credit for the fallout. Heavily research your intended genre, make a note of your game's departures from that genre's norms, and apply the label with great care.
Going Beyond the Label
Of course, isn't anticipating the audience's reactions and expectations part of good story and game design
anyhow? How can you know if you're creating mystery, tension, drama, or even fun if you're not aware of the target audience's state of mind (and subsequently how to manipulate it most effectively)? Assigning a genre isn't just about your knowledge of game mechanics, but also your knowledge of
the audience.
Yes, a game can be said to have "RPG elements" if you have selectable upgrades in branching trees earned through gameplay... but what about the RPG
audience? What are they expecting from the game? By using those key letters, you've gotten their attention--what is it that you're trying to do with it?
Basically, an "action gamer" playing a "strategy game" is going to have a different reaction. We should expect, then, that an "action designer" is going to think differently from a "strategy designer." And if the game you're working on crosses into unfamiliar territory, you can't just rely on a few superficial mechanics to give you "genre cred." You've got to learn how that audience thinks, because it's
those expectations that will color the perception of your game.
Newbies
Too many games assume the player is not just familiar, but
intimately familiar with basics of gameplay, like UI widgets and control schemes viewed as "standard" by the core gamer. Good games provide tutorials that don't just
inform the player, but provide the opportunity to
practice these basics--you teach the player's mind, then allow the player to teach his/her body.
Lazy games don't do this. They basically tell the player, "You should have learned this stuff elsewhere." Sometimes genre does this, too. A designer is resting on the work of earlier entries in the genre to do all the groundwork of setting up expectations, familiarizing the character with the settings and puzzles and story elements commonly associated with it. The problem with these games is that they leave the audience's expectations to chance--if you're not setting them up, you're not in control. And if
too many games are using this same approach, then
no one is at the helm.
Like it or not, your game will serve as someone's "genre tutorial." You're introducing someone to this particular genre. This means you must be even
more familiar with that genres various tropes, so that you can strike an effective balance between playing to those tropes and intentionally challenging them. Tension is best created by delaying the satisfaction of a particular expectation... but if you haven't bothered to
set up that expectation, why should your audience feel a thing?
Choosing a genre isn't like moving into a pre-built house. You don't just walk in and find the plumbing and electrical work done, infrastructure laid out, and you just furnish it and call it yours. Choosing a genre is deciding what type of house you want to
build. It gives you a framework, but you're still building from scratch. You've got to lay the foundation, connect the pipes and wires, and set things in order. Otherwise, you've just got a shell that happens to have some genre-appropriate furniture, and the guests are eventually going to notice.