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Constraint is Design: Katherine Isbister and Nicole Lazzaro on Intimate Relations
GS: Speaking of which, what do you think about Façade (below)? Obviously its good that it was made, lots of people I ask about it say “well it was interesting, but I wouldn’t buy it.” What flaws are in that design and how could that be improved? I love Andrew and Michael and I think their work is great, but what’s tricky is that your typical game has crystal clear affordances and feedback loops and they’re trying to create a really flexible space. They lost clarity in the feedback and its hard to know where you are in the system, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I think we can all learn as players to tolerate some ambiguity and enjoy that process, but I think that mechanism is going to need a lot of iteration to find the right way to put that in front of the player.
GS: What about the idea that because you’re playing with social dynamics, you already have training? As in, you don’t need to know that jumping on turtle shells causes them to slide all over, you know what social situations are about because those are the rules you’ve been dealing with your whole life growing up in society. KI: Not necessarily, take Diner Dash for example. That’s an unfamiliar game mechanics and the character expressions were a way of translating that to the player so they know how to game the system. I’m a big proponent of feedback. NL: And the problem with Façade is that even though it’s a social environment, there aren’t enough constraints to really create a situation, you don’t really know going in who the characters are. You need something to hang your hat on if you want hard fun, if its just easy fun, where you’re exploring the space then you need to be able to explore those conversation trees in a way that is rewarding. Façade works for some people, they find it interesting, what the characters are going to say next. If they’re going to broaden their audience they need to have more variety in what comes out of character’s mouths that gives the player a sense that they’ve had an effect. I got the feeling that I was just slipping through that space and I’m really sure how and why and what I’m doing. The central thing is, and this is what we help clients with a lot, is there’s a real difference between a technology and a product. Façade feels to me like a very exciting feature that could be incorporated into a larger game. By doing that you would then create that driving scenario. If it’s a Baby Shower for example, [laughs] or something else, you pull in all of people’s expectations of a baby shower, and then you could have humor, where someone’s inappropriate in that context or you can provide the stereotypical dramatic shock. It does cramp down the space but it creates gameplay. KI: Constraint is design. NL: Yes, constraint is design, I like that Katherine. The only way you’re really going to get there is to bring in users and have them play and look at that experience and say “hey designer, is this what you intended?” A lot of designers, myself included, become fascinated by the systems that we create, and all the wonderful intricacies that we put into the code and artwork. But that’s not enough on its own, it all amounts to an experience inside the head of the user.
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