In a 1983 American magazine Scientific American issue, a seemingly irrelevant advertisement appears on one page. In the middle of the advertisement is a monochrome photograph of a group of people dressed like a rock band. They are the founding team of Electronic Arts, later developed as a big franchise in the game industry. Calling themselves software artists rather than software engineers, they raised one of the most challenging questions when the computer science and video game were rising: Can a computer make you cry? After almost 50 years of development of video games, the production and distribution of the game industry have just been newly established, in need of efforts to continue fulfilling the study, design, and principles of video games. Turning the page back to the start of the history of video games, the pioneer of this new industry, the first-generation video game, has opened up a colorful period for people who share the same doubt with Electronics Arts to explore further and carry on. Tank (1974) and Breakout (1976) are two of them that shape some basic ideas and gameplay, and later inspire other designers to build more profound games.
Tank and Breakout are released by Atari in the early stages of video games. Tank is a game that requires players to control a tank to protect the flag from hostile tanks’ assault by shooting them down. Breakout is entirely different. Within Breakout, a big square-like playing field is designed to display scores, a paddle, a ball, and eight rows of bricks. And the main objective of Breakout when players start the game is to clear all the bricks by moving a paddle to bounce the small ball back against the bricks. Both games left a valuable legacy and a commercial success for video games and Atari. The former is credited with buoying the finances of the newly merged Atari with Kee Games, the subsidiary of Atari, at a critical time for the company. And the latter helped Atari usher into an era of brilliance. Similarly, after Breakout spawned an entire game genre, Tank also expanded with its classical game design, such as Tank II, Tank III, and Tank Battalion. Inspired by the development of Pong (1971) but designed as two different topics, Tank and Breakout are exceedingly distinctive in all aspects of gameplay and representation. Then why can such different games both reach a similar achievement as first-generation video games and are welcomed by the public during that time? This essay will evaluate the success factors beyond Tank and Breakout from a game design perspective and answer the question. That is, although the level of abstraction of Tank and Breakout is different, a good feedback system as a part of game mechanics will lead to success because it can largely improve the game experience. To thoroughly examine and evaluate both games, the MDA model and the theory of the level of abstraction will be two good perspectives.
On the one hand, the MDA model focuses on the projection from the underlying rules or mechanics of video games to the players’ emotions; on the other hand, the level of abstraction pays more attention to the relation between players’ cognitive experience and game representation. Since video game design is complex due to different designing methodologies, to ensure every game developer and researcher is on the same page, the MDA model offers an approach to criticize a game from the perspective of both game developers and consumers. MDA is an abbreviation of “Mechanics, Dynamics, and Aesthetics” (Hunicke et al. 1) that stands for the frame of a game. Through doing this, every game can be decomposed into a unanimous structure, and then analyze the interdependencies and the leverage caused by small changes. Based on the idea of MDA, mechanics are the basic rules, game elements or objects, and functionalities provided by the game as a media for players to interact. The game mechanics are so vital that they will affect the players’ in-game decision-making, which is the “dynamics.” From the game developer’s view, the mechanics support the gameplay because it is everything players use to interact with the game – which is also the underpinning for discovering new game dynamics or tactics. In the meantime, “dynamics work to create aesthetic experiences” (Hunicke et al. 3). As for “aesthetics,” it is a subjective response that involves emotion and experience while playing a video game. In other words, it is a common perception or feeling to decide whether this game is “fun.” Thus, this model analyzes how video games apply force to players’ emotions. However, the theory of the level of abstraction proposes another interpretation in which players examine the game from a retrospective angle. In this theory, there is “a first and final impression of game” (Juul). As time passes, players will gradually become familiar with all the “actions that are available to the player” (Juul). Throughout this process of examining, players will experience the first look, optimization, and mastery. Usually, a video game will either represent rules or fiction to players. If those available actions involving rules are easy to adapt without any contextualization, it suggests that players will get familiar with that game quickly. In short, the closer to a simplistic rule or reality a game is, then the lower level of abstraction it would be.
From the theory of the level of abstraction, Tank has a higher level than Breakout. Imagine playing video games as solving a problem, Tank is a hard one. Although players may know what a tank is, they still need time to adapt to the game when they first start it. Players will analyze the composition of the game map, tell apart the enemies, and figure out how to win. Sometimes, they will not understand the rules until they first see “Game Over” appear on the screen. Technically, the available actions of Tank are both offensive and defensive. Players should defend their flag and shoot the hostile tanks simultaneously. The complexity of deciding whether they ought to take the initiative and shoot more tanks or stay near the flag is a big part of the game. Therefore, even if Tank is easy to associate with, this game needs more learning.
However, compared to Tank, Breakout is an easy problem. Players only need to prevent the ball from dropping out of the bottom boundary by anticipating the travel route of the ball. And the ball will clear out at least one brick before it bounces toward players. Generally, it is only an act of defense. In the meantime, it seems that Breakout does not connect much with the real world. And people may feel curious about the name of Breakout. Actually, the original arcade cabinet of Breakout is stylized as a prison escape. The player is a prisoner who controls a paddle to clear out rows of bricks, which are prison walls. That is why this game is called “Breakout!” Aside from this external contextualization, players can not only quickly know what this game is about but also master it in a minute because the game rules of Breakout are too simplistic.
Although their level of abstraction is different, they share similar characteristics of game mechanics so that they can achieve success, which is the charm of the feedback system. Within Breakout, the game subject is all about “challenge.” It is a “game as obstacle course” (Hunicke et al. 2). Usually, succeeding in clearing all the bricks within five turns might be demanding. And that would become boring to see the game result as success or failure considering such a simplistic game. In order to qualify the game results, Breakout quantifies the game process by adding a scoreboard that documents players’ scores and rounds. The score will be changed by a specific increment as long as they clear one brick. By doing this, although players might not complete the ultimate goal of Breakout, they can still see their effort turned into scores and compare it with the last. The game developer alters the original failure, which is direct negative feedback, into inspiring positive feedback, keeping the players to stay and challenge themselves for another chance. Additionally, the effect of the difficulty curve of Breakout also makes it aesthetically immersing. This is always related to the “game as obstacle course.” In the early stages of the game, the speed of the ball is slow, and clearing one brick only scores one point. However, as the game progresses, the speed of the ball will be faster and faster. In the meantime, clearing the third row of bricks will also receive two more points. Here, when the Breakout tries to put more pressure and obstacles on the player, it also increases the benefit and positive feedback. Combined with the scores, the player will become more excited if a high score comes after a high risk. This is also the core of “challenge” to arouse and maintain the player’s competitiveness and joy while playing.
What about Tank? Will the learning cost affect this game? The answer is a firm no. Tank has a better feedback system to support players’ aesthetic experience from its basic mechanics. In some way, it is the high level of abstraction that enables Tank to develop creative game mechanics. It not only has a similar feedback system of Breakout, forinstance, its difficulty curve, but also includes random upgrades. Those upgrades can promote the players’ experience, such as extra armor and upgraded protected walls around the flag. They will appear at a random position while playing as a part of Tank’s feedback system. Also, as stated in previous paragraphs, the gameplay of Tank is both offensive and defensive. If players only try to protect the flag, the game experience would be painstaking as the difficulty grows. In this case, players will turn to engage if they aim to pick up the upgrades since upgrades may often appear distant from the flag. Here, an optional objective is established in support of the main objective as positive feedback. Next, Tank will keep encouraging players to perform radical and aggressive actions to pick up upgrades by passing through enemies because they are so valuable that can dramatically increase players’ capability to protect their flag and then survive. At the same time, if players pick up upgrades continuously, the game will also stimulate players with a more immersive and nervous gaming experience. Such an incredible feedback system bridges the gap caused by the high level of abstraction. Therefore, Tank could become the most popular arcade game during that year.
Overall, different levels of abstraction do not affect the game experience to a large extent. A good feedback system that comes from the game mechanics is more important. Tank can reach the same height as Breakout by applying a better feedback system and adding more game mechanics to the game, even if it has a higher level of abstraction. Generally, good feedback systems and game mechanics will guarantee a good game experience. Just like Nintendo’s Mario, many game researchers are now studying its fascinating jumping mechanics and feedback system that bring this video game to success. Hopefully, through looking back at old games, those software artists can develop more exciting and meaningful feedback systems as part of the game mechanics, and finally answer the question in the future: Can a computer make you cry?
Bibliography
[1] “A Certain Level of Abstraction.” Jesper Juul: A Certain Level of Abstraction, https://www.jesperjuul.net/text/acertainlevel/#:~:text=Level%20of%20abstraction%3A%20A%20line%20between%20the%20purely,the%20rules%20of%20a%20game.%20Abstraction%20as%20design.
[2] Hunicke, Robin, Marc LeBlanc, and Robert Zubek. “MDA: A formal approach to game design and game research.” Proceedings of the AAAI Workshop on Challenges in Game AI. Vol. 4. No. 1. 2004.
[3] Breakout. Arcade version, Atari, 1976.
[4] Tank. Arcade version, Atari, 1974.
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