Minimalist design is an important heuristic for website user interfaces,
but there is some debate over how this concept should be applied to games. There
are many ways to approach minimalism in games since games are not purely
interfaces, but have many aspects of user interaction that can be minimalized
or simplified. The heads-up display can be simple or virtually non-existent.
The controls or available actions can be minimized. The graphics and sound
design of the game can be very simple and to-the-point. Finally, difficulty can
be minimized to simplify the overall game experience. Players and critics of
video games often disagree over where minimalism is appropriate and where
greater complexity is needed instead.
Simplicity was once practically a necessity in many games, since the
technology was so limited. But, for a while, as technology has grown, so has
the complexity of games. Generally, more complex games were seen as higher
quality, though there was always a limit to this, since obviously cluttered
games were never considered to be ideal. Now, many indie games are causing
gamers to shift their attitudes and appreciate simplicity again, as these games
favour minimalist design in a variety of areas. However, journalist Steven
Strom writes that minimalism has been killing games ever since Braid, which
showed indie developers that they could cheaply create games “with as little
actual substance as possible and pass [them] off as ‘artistic’” (Strom, 2011). In
this case, overly minimalist design can come across as pretentious or as an
excuse to put less time and effort into development. Using minimalism in many
areas as a device to evoke a certain feeling in a game is not bad in itself,
but Strom and many others take issue with this technique being repeated again
and again with different indie games. This raises the question: which aspects
of a game should be minimalized to make an appealing and powerful game?
Heads-Up Display
The heads-up display, or HUD, is
one aspect of a game’s design that can be minimalized for a particular effect. Many
games aim to eliminate the need for a HUD, or at least cut down elements of the
HUD significantly in order to increase player immersion. Similarly, some games
such as Dead Space use a diegetic interface as a HUD. In Dead Space, the player
character’s health bar is shown on his back in 3D game space rather than on a
2D overlay. Many game developers believe that less of a HUD (or a more diegetic
HUD) makes games more immersive and better as a whole, but this is not always
the case. A game’s HUD is most effective when giving the player access to all
information they may need at a glance, and many games have a great deal of such
information. For instance, World of Warcraft (WoW) gives the player the option
to customize the HUD to take up as much or as little of the screen space as
they would like by filling it with wanted information and icons. Interestingly
enough, more experienced players chose to make the HUD more complex and cluttered
in favour of displaying more information (Andrews, 2010), rather than going for
the minimalist approach. This shows that while minimalism of the heads-up
display may work wonders for some games, the opposite is true for other games. Games
that require the player to keep track of large amounts of information at once
may benefit from more complex HUD systems, especially if these are customizable
like in WoW, but games that have less information for players to track may
benefit from HUD minimalism.
The diegetic use of HUD in Deadspace. Electronic Arts. (2008). Deadspace [Video Game].
A complex customized HUD in World of Warcraft. Blizzard Entertainment. (2004). World of Warcraft [Video Game].
Controls
The controls or available
actions in a game can also be simplified for the purpose of minimalism, and
this can also be done either positively or negatively. The obvious downfall for
simple controls would be if the player is left with fewer options on how to
interact with the game, which would then limit their overall experience. A hard-core
gamer in particular may not feel challenged or interested by the game if the
controls and actions are kept too simple. When done right, however, simple
controls can be easy to learn and remember, allowing the player to focus on the
game rather than the control system. In addition, limited controls can give a
very specific feeling to a game. For instance, Limbo has very minimal controls,
allowing the player to only control their character’s movement, make him jump,
and push or pull objects. This lack of available actions can make the player
feel somewhat helpless, which enhances the creepiness of the game. On the other
hand, Journey also uses simple controls, where the player can only choose to
move, jump, or “talk” (which serves no real purpose besides aesthetic value),
and this simplicity makes the game feel more tranquil, allowing the player to
focus on the environment above their own actions.
Screenshot from Journey. Thatgamecompany. (2012). Journey [Video Game].
When designing control schemes,
it is important to consider aiming towards simple controls that allow for
complex choices (Debreczeni, 2012). This means that the player should be able
to learn how to play the game fairly quickly with very little time spent
adapting to controls, but while playing, the player should be able to use those
simple controls to make a number of intricate and often difficult decisions
that will impact gameplay. In this way, a new player could get the hang of the
game quickly, but would have to work hard to master it.
Aesthetics
Aesthetics such as graphics and sound can be simplified to strongly influence
the feel of a game. This can mean very different things for different games.
Minecraft has very little music and uses simple graphics by creating a world
out of cubes, which allows the player to mould their world block-by-block, and
also makes the game feel like even more of a virtual sandbox. The player understands
that the graphics appear simple for a purpose, and the entire world is
consistently boxy, so this is not a problem. In contrast, Limbo is a 2D game
with simple colourless graphics where the character and objects in the game
world are made to look like dark silhouettes. This all makes the game feel
eerie, like the player is only seeing shadows rather than the full picture. The
music of Limbo is also minimalist, as the “lack of dramatic, mood driving music
makes the game more intense than other titles that employ a full orchestra” (Achievos,
2010). Silence makes the game creepier, similar to the effect of the minimalist
graphics.
Screenshot from Minecraft showing the simple block style of graphics. Mojang. (2011). Minecraft [Video Game].
Screenshot from Limbo showing the eerie colourless visual style. Playdead. (2010). Limbo [Video Game].
On the plus side, minimalist graphics and sound can still be artistic
and beautiful in a simplistic way, and can give the game a very defined
feeling. Simple aesthetics also typically distract the player less from the
actual gameplay, as long as there are enough audio-visual cues to guide the
player. The problem with this approach is that there is less of a ‘wow’ factor
for players who want to see more complex graphics. In addition, simple graphics
and sound make it much more difficult to make a game world feel like a living,
breathing world that players could lose themselves in. However, all that this
means is that the game developers cannot simply give a game simple graphics and
sound without much thought, but they must carefully plan how to make the game
world just as rich with simple aesthetics as it could have been with more
complexity.
Difficulty
One aspect of minimalism that is
often forgotten about, but which causes a great deal of grief in games, is
difficulty level. Simply making games less difficult makes them accessible to a
wider audience, but can also bore or frustrate hard-core gamers looking for a
challenge. Many developers are choose to ignore this problem, and continue to
churn out easy games in hopes of making more sales. The game that most notably
rejects the ‘easy’ route is Demon Souls, which is notorious for its extreme and
punishing difficulty level. Demon Souls proved that there is an audience for
incredibly difficult games, and yet easier games have an even larger demand. So
how can this problem be resolved?
According to Hidetaka Miyazaki,
director of Demon Souls and Dark Souls, “gamers do not particularly prefer easy
games. What they want is interesting and worthwhile games to play, so… it is
natural that hindrance or stress that does not attribute to such interesting
and worthwhile elements will be removed in the end” (Gamespot, 2012). So,
developers should spend more time making the game into a meaningful experience,
and worry about difficulty level afterwards. Even so, unreasonable difficulty (or
lack thereof) can hold players back from fully appreciating that experience.
One solution could be to implement a dynamic difficulty setting, where the game
would adjust certain aspects of gameplay to be more or less difficult
dynamically so that the player does not know it is doing so (Gamespot, 2012).
For instance, if a player breezes through puzzles in the game but struggles
with shooting mechanics, the game may adjust puzzle difficulty to be harder and
shooting to be easier over time. This concept of dynamic difficulty adjustment
is the opposite of minimalist to the developer, since this would likely be very
complex, but if done correctly, the player would not even notice its existence.
This would eliminate the need for the player to manually choose a difficulty
setting, which would make the difficulty level system appear to be simplified,
when it is actually more complicated.
Gamespot. (Producer). (2012). Are modern games being dumbed down?. [Web Video]. Retrieved March 4, 2013, from http://www.gamespot.com/super-meat-boy/videos/are-modern-games-being-dumbed-down-6398401/
Conclusion
Minimalist design can be used in many different ways in video games.
Minimalism is not a problem or solution for all games, but can be used
positively or negatively to enhance or destroy a game experience. The key is to
understand where minimalism will be effective and where it will take away from
the game experience.
References
Achievos.
(2010, July 24). Limbo is Full of Minimalist Fun. Achievos. Retrieved
March 4, 2013, from
http://achievos.blogspot.ca/2010/07/limbo-is-full-of-minimalist-fun.html
Andrews, M.
(2010, February 23). Game UI discoveries: What players want. Gamasutra.
Retrieved March 4, 2013, from
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/132674/game_ui_discoveries_what_players_.php
Blizzard Entertainment. (2004). World of Warcraft [Video Game].
Debreczeni,
A. (2012, September 28). Complex game experience, simple controls. ios Game
Designer. Retrieved March 4, 2013, from www.iosgamedesigner.com/?p=65
Electronic Arts. (2008). Deadspace [Video Game].
Gamespot.
(Producer). (2012). Are modern games being dumbed down?. [Web Video].
Retrieved March 4, 2013, from http://www.gamespot.com/super-meat-boy/videos/are-modern-games-being-dumbed-down-6398401/
Mojang. (2011). Minecraft [Video Game].
Playdead. (2010). Limbo [Video Game].
Strom, S.
(2011, April 7). Why minimalism is killing video games. Examiner.com.
Retrieved March 4, 2013, from http://www.examiner.com/article/why-minimalism-is-killing-video-games
Thatgamecompany. (2012). Journey [Video Game].
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