This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Realism
Chapter 2, "Design Components and Processes," introduces the concept of realism in the context of a discussion about core mechanics. All games, no matter how realistic, require some abstraction and simplification of the real world. Even the multimillion-dollar flight simulators used for training commercial pilots are incapable of turning the cockpit completely upside down. This event is so rare (we hope) in passenger aircraft that it's not worth the extra money it would take to simulate it.
The degree of realism of any aspect of a game appears on a continuum of possibilities from highly representational at one end to highly abstract at the other. Players and game reviewers often talk about realism as a quality of an entire game, but in fact, the level of realism differs in individual components of the game. Many games have highly realistic graphics but unrealistic physics. A good many first-person shooters accurately model the performance characteristics of a variety of weapons—their rate of fire, size of ammunition clips, accuracy, and so on—but allow the player to carry about 10 of them at once with no reduction in speed or mobility. Therefore, realism is not a single dimension of a game world, but a multivariate quality that applies to all parts of the game and everything in it.
The representational/abstract dichotomy is mostly useful as a starting point when you're thinking about what kind of a game you want to create. On the one hand, if you're designing a cartoony action game such as Ratchet & Clank, you know that it's going to be mostly abstract. As you design elements of the game, you'll need to ask yourself how much realism you want to include. Can your avatar be hurt when he falls long distances? Is there a limit to how much he can carry at once? Do Newtonian physics apply to him, or can he change directions in midair?
On the other hand, if you're designing a game that people will expect to be representational—a vehicle or sports simulation, for example—then you have to think about it from the other direction. What aspects of the real world are you going to remove? Most modern fighter aircraft have literally hundreds of controls; that's why only a special group of people can be fighter pilots. To make a fighter simulation accessible to the general public, you'll have to simplify a lot of those controls. Similarly, a fighter jet's engine is so powerful that certain maneuvers can knock the pilot unconscious or even rip the plane apart. Are you going to simulate these limitations accurately, or make the game a little more abstract by not requiring the player to think about them?
Once again: Every design decision you make must serve the entertainment value of the game. In addition, every design decision must serve your goals for the game's overall degree of realism. Some genres demand more realism than others. It's up to you to establish how much realism you want and in what areas. You must also make sure that your decisions about realism don't destroy the game's harmony and balance. During the design process, you must continually monitor your decisions to see if they are meeting your goals.