Fantasy World

A new take on a classic idea, Fantasy World is roleplaying Powered by the Apocalypse for the 2020s. · By Alessandro Piroddi

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Games Master Thesis

A topic by Alessandro Piroddi created 35 days ago Views: 84 Replies: 6

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Alessandro PiroddiDeveloper35 days ago (3 edits)

This is the sequel of another conversation with Pessouza about our Master studies in the field of games 🤓

[in reply to their last post...]

I technically have a Discord, but don't really use it 😅 I'm in the process of building a forum (that doesn't suck) as a nexus for all my games... I'll share it as soon as it is ready. In the meantime, here is fine, or by email or Whatsapp/Telegramm if you want more privacy. Just mail me your contacts 👍

I am italian but live in Germany, and am in the final stages of a Master in game production at the HAW University of Hamburg.

My main project has been a solarpunk miniature sports game, that you can download a play for free here : Torque Arena

I'm also developing a companion game for it, a solarpunk solo journaling rpg focused on everything that happens AROUND the arena: the village that your team represents, the landscape around it, the problems and opportunities and discoveries and events that happen to this community, and the people living in it. This "Torque Saga" is still in development though 😉

My masters thesis will be written about these games, and in general about the value and function of Solarpunk narratives as a tool to contrast the pervasiveness of neo-liberal and hyper-capitalist world views (Capitalism Realism).

What about you? What are you working on? :D

pessouza33 days ago

I gotta give Torque Arena a try one of these days! The game has a pretty good artwork, by the way 😄

How long is a Master's program over there? Here, it is something like 2 years. After it is published, I'd love to read it. It was a really good theme, this one you've picked.

Mine is about level design, actually. So, it's more of a video game subject xD. It aims to research if level designers and players evaluate environmental guidance cues the same way, and discuss about the results. The idea is to, based on its findings, discuss how the videogame environment can be used to guide players seamlessly, improving player's immersion without the use of intrusive guidance systems (like those '?'/'!' marks you see everywhere, or those illuminated trails/arrows that lead you somewhere).

Despite it being videogame related, the theme of immersion itself is something that i love to read more about. I've stumbled into Fantasy World in my search for a more fluid TTRPG gameplay experience 😂. Something not rules-heavy, but also not rules-free, to the point of causing disorientation on where to proceed in more complex situations.

Speaking of Fantasy World, I'd also love to know more about its development process! When/how did you guys decided to create it; if you guys still play using it; what would you guys change in a 2nd edition, etc.

Alessandro PiroddiDeveloper28 days ago

Sorry for the late reply, but RL is taking a toll lately, and I was also prepping up this announcement 😉

The Torque Arena artwork is by Alexandra Shilehart.

Master duration varies, but it is usually 3-4 semesters... on paper 😅 But most of it is behind me now, and with next semester I hope to be done with the thesis too.

Uh, your topic is very interesting too! And... quite thorny and complex 😬

In my experience, "immersion" is one of those tricky words that can mean nothing and everything depending on how you look at them. Too often "immersion" and "realism" are used to mean "all the things I personally like" without really taking a hard look at 1) what we mean by that, and 2) whether is really is as valuable/positive as we assume.

What is a "better" play experience? One where I am seamlessly immersed but have no clue how to progress? Or one where a well-placed marker keeps me going? And on the flip side, what breaks the immersion more? Being frustrated and rage-quitting, or a helpful non-diegetic marker that keeps me in the flow?

All very interesting and non-obvious qustions! Especially when looked through the lense of level-design as a for of designer-to-player communication. Very cool! Pleae be sure to let me know when you publish something! 😃

About Fantasy World... if you don't mind I would love to answer to all your questions over at the UnPlayable Hub 😜

pessouza27 days ago

No doubt, it really is a thorny subject! 😅

"Immersion" can be a dangerous word, especially in the TTRPG context. I often see it invoked as an excuse to shut down conversation at the table, or to keep certain rules deliberately vague, which tends to just breed frustration.

In videogames, though, what people usually mean by "immersion" is the sense of being present in a world and/or an event. Plenty of factors feed into it, but it stays deeply subjective, and that's probably why it ends up feeling like a synonym for "everything I happen to like." For me, less reliance on extradiegetic cues and less visible designer interference is enough to feel immersed. For you, it might take some other factor entirely, or none of the ones I just listed. For someone else, it could be something completely different. That's the magic of it. Even so, the more recent literature has been making a real effort to pin down the factors these experiences have in common.

There's already an ongoing discussion around an "ideal level of guidance." Too much, and players get bored because everything is obvious; too little, and they get frustrated because they're lost. Personally, I think the sweet spot is a balanced use of diegetic and non-diegetic guidance. But narrowing the research focus, for now, to diegetic means lets us look at something useful in both scenarios: games that want to rely on diegesis alone to orient the player, and games that lean on markers, minimaps, and the like. In that second group, the two actually can reinforce each other.

To me, immersion sits right alongside "realism" and "living, breathing world" as terms that get thrown around pretty loosely. I often catch people conflating immersion with flow, for instance. But, nonetheless, it still is a very interesting subject to delve into!

Alessandro PiroddiDeveloper26 days ago

Very interesting :)

I personally have a... very critical approach to this 😅 Which is surely rooted in my personal taste in games and game experiences.
Depending on how we define them I tend to value "immersion" and "realism" very little compared to other elements. They are "nice to have" but don't make or break the game (which instead is was many people firmly believe 😬).

I think we would need to discuss specific examples and practical ideas. The concept of "level of guidance" is very interesting, for example. I saw a very cool analysis of how landscape design is used in the last two Zelda to invisibly guide players towards an almost linear progression, without ever placing a hard block in their way.

But yeah, the fact that the whole thing can be extremely subjective makes it a difficult topic to pin down.

Like... I can't play games like Undertale and Hollow Knight.
I just can't.
I love everything about them, but the friction caused by their respective combat systems makes me just throw the controller (a metaphorical one, I am a mouse+keyboard player through and through) at the screen and rage quit after the Nth attempt.
Does this count as "breaking immersion" or is it something else?
Would I be more "immersed" if I could benefit from some blatantly extra-diegetic help but stay in the flow of the game?
Is flow (an allegedly mental state where your mind is kinda switched off while also hyper-focused on a mechanical task) a form of immersion... or is it its antithesis because it kills the illusion of "being really there" to focus on a hand-eye twitch-based reactivity?

Or...what about the UI design of Disco Elysium? It is 100% extra-diegetic, but due to its perfect match with the game's overall stylised art-style and metaphysical-inspired ideas, I would argue that it actually contributes to make the game more "immersive" as you are never taken out of the experience graphic language... while still clearly engaging with lists, points, literal dice rolls, etc.

Very cool topic indeed :D

For example... at least in TTRPGs... I stand by the idea that it is far more "immersive" to have mechanics that foster, support and deliver emotionally impactful content, rather than trying to present an arbitrary model of imagined physics (aka - it is less important to know that falling from a balcony causes 3d6 crushing damage, than it is to establish that your own brother pushed you down because of some misguided reason that you [the player] actually care about).

Immersion through personal engagement? Maybe? Or (again) is this not "immersion" but something else entirely?

pessouza27 days ago

I'd love to hear more about your thesis, actually! Will it involve any empirical experiments? Or is it going to be a more theoretical discussion, where you bring together various authors to work toward some kind of answer?

Alessandro PiroddiDeveloper26 days ago

At the moment, the idea is to write a theoretical thesis about the value and impact of Solarpunk narratives.

I will mostly research literary and media sources to formulate my argument, and connect it all to my Torque Saga prototype as an example of practical application.

For context, Torque Saga is a solo-journaling ttrpg I'm designing to work a a form of "narrative campaign" for the Torque Arena miniatures game. At face value, the point is to explore the world of Torque and the stories that happen AROUND the tactical arena events. Behind the curtains the goal is to provide an experience that, while engaging and fun in its own merits, can be able to "teach" solarpunk ideas and concepts without any sort of tedious info-dump or classic frontal communication.

I guess the seed question is "how do we fight Capitalism Realism?" and my personal answer is "with Solarpunk narratives" (among other things).
So a better formulated academic question would be "Can Solarpunk help fight Capitalism Realism?" and the paper will be the argument in favor of this.

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Fantasy World

Games Master Thesis