Small Details make the grade
Guitar Hero was an amazing project for me. It’s the first project I’ve been on where I haven’t been intimately involved in the beginning stages of development. It was also in an entirely different space than my previous projects, with an entirely different sense of scale and scope. In this entry, I’m going to attempt to outline some of the major things about the project which have changed my thinking or challenged my assumptions. There are many other lessons to be learned, but these were the less obvious ones for me.
Alternate Controllers
I never gave much attention to alternate controllers before joining Harmonix. I wrote many of them off as gimmicks (because some are), but in doing so under estimated the power they can provide. In the last few years, I’ve developed a very controller centric view on design. I try to think interface forward a lot of times, instead of trying to map the game play back to the controller. I find that thinking this way has helped me maintain consistency and user friendliness in places where it could easily be lost, and that the controller choices often dictate what is possible to ask of a user in the game play space. (If I cannot turn around quickly, then I shouldn’t have monsters which try to get behind you; etc).
But in Guitar Hero, for the first time, there was the possibility of changing the controller. While I wasn’t personally involved in much of this, I watched the design change over many iterations. Button size and shape; the height of the buttons; the brail on the buttons letting your fingers feel where the middle fret is; the mechanism used for tilt sensing. Each of these underwent many iterations, and there was something to be learned from each of them. For the first time, it was possible to adapt the controller to the game instead of the game to the controller.
And not all of this is in the hardware. The ‘string simulation’ code greatly adds to the feeling of the controller being an instrument; without it, the controller would feel stiff and hard to play. This code allows you to hammer-on or pull-off notes (HOPOs), or hold a previous fret down while playing a higher fret (as long as it’s not a chord), much like you can with a real stringed instrument.
There is something I would consider changing with this code though. I’ve noticed an issue with the game had by many which falls somewhere under ‘perception’ or perhaps ‘expectations’. People often have trouble with HOPOs; they feel as if they are doing them correctly, but in actuality they are not. I believe this has to do with a very subtle difference between timings in the left and right hands. Basically, in normal play, you can press the fret down slightly before you strum, and the act of strumming is the main timing aspect. However, in a HOPO, you need to push or release the button in the window of time in which you would strum the note. While this is technically correct, it means that people are used to running slightly ahead of the beat with their left hand; and when it comes to a HOPO passage, they are required to have slightly tighter left hand timings. Small, microscopic details like this are what make guitar hero the game it is.
Telling Simon what to do
Guitar Hero is a game of Simon Says. It tells you what to do, and you try to do it as well as you can. It’s unrelenting in its orders; but within that framework, there is a microscopic notion of user control; and it’s amazing how satisfying it actually is. The only form of expression you have within the game’s framework is the ability to detune a note by a half step using the whammy bar. And to this day, it just amazes me how good that feels. In one tiny way, you really are the musician.
There was much head scratching about what to use the whammy bar for in the context of the game other than detuning a note; but I think the solution is good enough to tie it into the overall game structure.
Lore
I’ve always been a big believer than the lore of a game should be felt and experienced, not read. Working at Turbine, that belief was like swimming in a rip-tide with your legs tied. If anything, Guitar Hero only strengthened that belief. There were subtle choices in the design philosophy which weren’t immediately apparent to me, but in actuality have a large effect on the game. For instance, Star Power was a reward for “playing flamboyantly instead of accurately”. The idea was to avoid it seeming like a game dynamic, and instead wrap the game dynamic in something that was lore appropriate. The physical movement required to execute the move also adds to this feeling, though in this case we had to change the design to suit the controller’s response when we switched from mercury switches to ball bearings due to an import issue.
At times there were talks about intro videos or other features to enhance each characters unique story; but in the end, I think they would all have been wasted money, and potentially distracted from the game’s feel. People tend to choose the character they resonate with; as an extension of themselves in some manner. Much like in Scott McCloud’s ‘Understanding Comics’, the symbolic representation of character allows the user to see the character as an extension of themselves rather than a realistic representation which forces them to see it as other.
I’ve also always been a strong believer of humor in games, and I think Guitar Hero walks that line in a tasteful manner. It pokes fun at Rock, while embracing it at the same time. The rock posters, drummer jokes, dials going to 11, and the flush of the toilet on the high score list help to immerse you into world far more than any cut scene or text spew would.
Learning Curve
A lot has been said about the sheer smoothness of the Guitar Hero learning curve. While there is some initial gap to overcome for the non-guitar player/non-gamer, it’s relatively minor. And once you get over that hump, it’s a really smooth ride all the way up to expert. Creating this type of smooth skill progression in most games is incredibly hard; people tend to learn in quantum leaps, and they don’t tend to move at the same pace. But the changes in musical abstraction level between difficulty combined with the ordering of songs in the campaign mode makes for one of the smoothest curves I’ve ever experienced.
The Power of Experience
Some of the songs in Guitar Hero aren’t really my thing. But play them a few times, and you suddenly become intimately connected with the music in a way which simply listening to music does not provide. Guitar Hero gives you the feeling that *you* are playing the music; so while someone else may have written the music, it’s you who’s performing it. You form a special bond with the intimate details of the guitar track, and that is powerful.
I was deeply gratified to get my favorite band (The Slip) into the game, and think it’s simply wonderful that we managed to get so many lesser known bands into the product. This is a form of exposure they simply cannot get anywhere else, and using their content allowed us to expand the game at minimal cost. It’s truly a win/win situation for everyone involved, and it always feels good to be involved in those types of situations. It was also fun to watch the band members practically fighting over the controllers after a 4 hour play session.
The joy of mainstream
Last, but certainly not least, is the fact that I finally have a game my friends can play. I’ve modified a viola case to hold two guitars and a slim-line ps2 just so I can bring GH to parties with me. For years I’ve made games which were inaccessible to casual gamers; but GH is a game even non-gamers freak out over. It’s a very rewarding feeling.
posted by Jason Booth @ 7:54 PM
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