Where Are My Toys?

After dinner, kids asleep, I run downstairs to make some game selections. David and Lucy are over to play games with my wife, a rare social event in the Rabbit household. Scanning the closet, I grab Hey That's My Fish!, Carcassonne: The Discovery, plus a few old standbys just in case. When I emerge from the rabbit cave, David and Lucy are on the couch, the white screen of the Wii blooming in front of them. I'm not surprised, or unhappy. Lucy has a delightful habit of actually jumping up and down and laughing when she plays the Wii, a level of pure joy that's rarely seen in grownups. But they're not playing Wii Tennis or Wii Billiards or Mario Party 8.

Instead they're just making Miis, carefully manipulating facial features to create all of their friends and family, themselves, or Chairman Mao. An hour passes as they sit there, giggling, playing Mr. Potato Head. I stand behind them, savoring that rare joy that comes from being a host and knowing your guests are relaxed and enjoying themselves, without your actual involvement.

And then it snaps into place. With crystal clarity I can see the critical flaw, the gaping hole in the videogame industry: toys.

It's not that the industry doesn't try. There are a handful of commercial or quasi-commercial games that embrace their inner slinky.

Ask Bostjan Cadez about his brilliant, award winning (and only) entry into video games, Line Rider, and he will adamantly refuse to call it a game. It's a toy. Draw, watch. Draw, watch. It's a marble run. A virtual sketchpad. A cross between a comic book and pong.

Guitar Hero 3 is being criticized, before it's even launched, for one main flaw -- it's added too much game to the game. What's missing is the acknowledgment of the premise - that Guitar Hero is fundamentally not a game, it's a toy. The early buzz on the competition, Rock Band, is rife with praise for the purity of the rock experience - buy whole albums, riff on the drums with wild abandon.

My daughter's two favorite games on her Nintendo DS are Animal Crossing and Nintendogs. While both have game elements - competitions, the acquisition of wealth - her interactions with them are rarely competitive or goal oriented. Instead, she just plays with her dog, or walks around and exploring inside the boundaries of her clown-creepy beach front town. With these two cartridges in her pretty-in-pink Nintendo-branded backpack, the DS ceases to be a "handheld console" and is instead, a simple toy. But these few successful efforts are the exceptions, and impure ones at that. Guitar Hero and Nintendogs are marketed as games: accumulate money and buy more dogs; win the competition; score that, beat your friends score at Freebird.

I propose that this is a shameful missed opportunity. True toys, designed from the first thought toys that use a video game engine, are far too rare. All this takes is an act of will in parenting. The bits that we insert in our consoles and call up on our PCs are not the product of some kind of unconscious parthenogenesis -- real people make games. Real people who, one hopes, had a youth full of unstructured play, devoid of rules and board game paths and score keeping. One suspects that the minds behind Electroplankton and Flow are at least in touch with their proverbial inner children, but the products of their efforts are far too tentative, far to restrictive to actually work as toys.

For any developers reading this, allow me to gift you with the killer apps.

Microsoft Paint and GarageBand

Let me play with my eyes and ears. Why is this so hard? Let me make simple, and even not-so-simple drawings on my DS. A simple cartridge, simple tools, the chance to send my creations to e-mail addresses and other players. Let David and Lucy sit on the couch and use rubber stamps and text boxes and filters to make goofy desktops. Give them etch-a-sketch knobs. Given them virtual play dough. Let me use my 360 controller to construct ridiculous high resolution bump-mapped sculptures for no other reason than because I can.

Let me do some basic sequencing and jamming using my stylus or my Wiimote. And don't take the cowards way out, masking them, as Apple did with GarageBand, in the clothing of professional tools. I have few doubts that of the umpty-zillion hours people have spent noodling with the wonderful audio sketchpad, less than 1 percent have been "useful" or with any intent of creating anything more lasting than 3 minutes of "look ma!" beat boxing.

And don't make my killer apps into games either. I don't want a Nintendo-esque "draw the chicken faster than your partner" mini-game. Don't make me have to hit someone else's notes just right in order to unlock the flanger.

The suits who pick up the bill know that they need something. The movement towards casual games is driven in part by the recognition that a substantial group, likely the majority, of potential gamers wants a less frenetic, and less competitive experience. But too often, this devolves into puzzles, board games and pinball. Puzzles are great, I love puzzles. But a jigsaw puzzle shares very little in common with a collection of matchbox cars. A crossword puzzle is not a box of colorforms. I love board games. Heck I'm about to go spend four days playing 14 hours of board games at a stretch between runs for gin and olives and the occasional shower. But there's a world of difference between Chess and the mega-set of Legos. And while I love solitaire games like pinball, pinball is a very different experience than a roller coaster construction kit.

Yes, there are many physics games which serve as 10 minute distractions. Games like Line Rider - toys like Line Rider - are a step in the right direction. But even there, I fear that the move of Line Rider to the Wii will inevitably result in it becoming a series of "solve the puzzle" steps in order to unlock the coolest tools, the niftiest variations.

Please, just let me play with my toys. I promise I'll be good.

Comments

rabbit, tell me if I'm reading this wrong, but it reads to me like a call for more simple sandbox games. Like, SimCity 2000 could be considered more of a toy than a game because there's not really any winning or losing (except maybe if your whole town burns down or you get kicked out of office). Just, you know, play however you want.

Will Wright keeps insisting that he does not make games, but instead that he makes toys.

Very interesting, Rabbit. I've had the same experience with people just wanting to make Miis for hours. My "bachelor party" consisted of a bunch of my best friends and I sitting around, making Miis of each other. Part of the fun was deconstructing people's ideas of themselves: adding a mole to one guy's face, making another guy slightly wider ("You guys are brutal"), and turns out the Mii I made for myself didn't look snarky enough.

We moved on the Rayman Raving Rabbids, but it wasn't nearly as fun - in part because of the points you bring up here. For one thing, you have to play a ton of single-player before you can play any multi-player, which is one of my least favorite design decisions out there, and way too game-y.

Reminds me of my typical reaction to most builder games -Transport Tycoon, any of the sim builders or even Civ. I usually want to just dork around building up cities, road networks, railroads, whatever - playing with Legos basically. The AI players are a nuisance!

The trick for toy games is picking something that's awkward/impractical/expensive in the real world and that can be sim'd better in a game world. As with Roller Coaster sims but not jigsaw puzzles.

rabbit wrote:

And don't make my killer apps into games either. I don't want a Nintendo-esque "draw the chicken faster than your partner" mini-game. Don't make me have to hit someone else's notes just right in order to unlock the flanger.

Totally agree with that, don't game-ify my sand box - or at least provide me with a pure sand box mode as well.

Great article Rabbit... have you by chance ever played Sid and Al's incredible toons?

It's the basic premise that you're getting at - at least i thought so.

The Incredible Machine games (toy?) sprang immediately to mind, sure there was a solve the puzzle portion of the game but you never had to play it, not even to unlock items. the main part of that game was total "sandbox" and it was awesome.

That series should totally get a remake - better yet, with something like the source code. (i know, Garry's Mod is pretty close to that, but it still uses mainly HL skins/models and theres only so many ways you can comically pose g-man)

Thank you. I've been thinking this for the last year.

I keep trying to get my fiance to play more games, but she doesn't want to "compete" with me. She hates the idea of "losing". Big surprise, her favorite game is Sims 2. She likes to sit and basically play with her doll house for three hours. No stress. No demands. No rules.

I got her to play World of Warcraft for three hours one day. She created her toon, and started walking around. She loved it. I tried to nudge her in the right direction, get her to complete the quests, but she told me to shut up. She liked sneaking up on bunnies and knifing them in the back. Once she had leveled as far as she could that way, and had to start following quests and rules, she quit. She never wanted to play again.

That's why I'm so excited about the potential of the Wii, and more importantly, Nintendo's apparent philosophy about their new generation of games. I hope they start churning out some solid titles. My Wii feels more and more neglected every day.

Lex Cayman wrote:

I got her to play World of Warcraft for three hours one day. She created her toon, and started walking around. She loved it. I tried to nudge her in the right direction, get her to complete the quests, but she told me to shut up. She liked sneaking up on bunnies and knifing them in the back. Once she had leveled as far as she could that way, and had to start following quests and rules, she quit. She never wanted to play again.

I love this story, except for the ending.

Riffing on drums?

I guess I don't see many sandbox games as having enough sandbox. Nobody needs to show you the structural methodology of a Matchbox car or a box of markers. I love the Incredible Machine and most Sims variants. In some ways the closest to what I'm talking about may be Second Life, but there are so many barriers to making that even remotely entertaining for me that it's a lost cause.

I also think the real opportunity here is in the console space. I've played many casual/student-level toys on my PC. But I don't see enough in the cue for the consoles that convinces me there's much focus here, beyond "emergent play" stuff like Crackdown car-tossing.

Hear hear. Bring on Little Big Planet.

"Toys" + "Second Life" --> Pervert Overlords

Sounds to me like Ubisoft's Jam Sessions is going to be right up your ally. It looks to be less game and more synthetic guitar playing. Each direction on the D pad is a chord and you strum with the touch screen. Check it out. And as much as Boogie may end up being a pile reading this makes me want to give it a go, the video editing portions and free form style of dancing may make it almost a toy. As for the Miis I think one of their advantages is that while you can have a ball making them they do also get inserted into games giving them a more lasting appeal.

As for the Wii feeling neglected comment, fret not Metroid comes out in mere weeks and I am currently enjoying the hell out of Mario Strikers although it looks as though Mileage will vary quite a bit on the latter title.

-OMG

Along the lines of The Incredible Machine, the freeware game Toybox by Soup Games really seems to suck people in.

This article reminded me of a definition for the word play I came across a while ago which I really liked.

Play. The deformation or subordination of reality to the wills of the self.

Wish I could remember where it's from.

Oh yeah, this reminds me of sandbox mode in Rollercoaster Tycoon 2. You perfect your ride, you color it to fit with the surroundings, then export and insert into scenario. And then you watch people puke and jump with joy. And then you find out that it's 7AM already and time to go to work. Good times.

On the other hand, I have this dream to build a real-life model of castle from Ico. Its architecture just fascinates me to no end. Elevating bridges, rotating mirrors, windmill, the works. Game becoming toy.

Favorite "Toy" video game has to go all the way back to Mario Paint.

I remember being about 10 years old and saving up my money for the game, which was more expensive than most because it came packaged with that (then) super-cool mouse.

IMAGE(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/e/ed/Mario_paint_box.gif/220px-Mario_paint_box.gif)

Create your own music, paint your own pictures, create animations, record to VHS Tape.

I've got to think it played some part in the choices that led me to my current career in media, or at the very least my attachment to it was a reflection of my interest at an early age.

Little Big Planet looks like it has a lot of potential. If it was out now, I'd rush out to buy a PS3.

As a kid, I loved creating stuff with Adventure Construction Set and Video Game Construction Kit. I would always spend a lot more time making and tuning the games than playing them. Heck, I still do.

I'd love to see Nintendo come out with more creative stuff on the Wii. They seem to just be resting on their laurels.

Mr Eko wrote:

Little Big Planet looks like it has a lot of potential. If it was out now, I'd rush out to buy a PS3.

As a kid, I loved creating stuff with Adventure Construction Set and Video Game Construction Kit. I would always spend a lot more time making and tuning the games than playing them. Heck, I still do.

I'd love to see Nintendo come out with more creative stuff on the Wii. They seem to just be resting on their laurels.

The boys and girls at Nintendo are too busy counting all that money they're making off the console itself. You think they have time to actually create games?

Truth wrote:

Favorite "Toy" video game has to go all the way back to Mario Paint.

Yes yes yes yes yes!

That Toybox "game" is pretty darn cool!

My daughter's two favorite games on her Nintendo DS are Animal Crossing and Nintendogs. While both have game elements - competitions, the acquisition of wealth - her interactions with them are rarely competitive or goal oriented. Instead, she just plays with her dog, or walks around and exploring inside the boundaries of her clown-creepy beach front town. With these two cartridges in her pretty-in-pink Nintendo-branded backpack, the DS ceases to be a "handheld console" and is instead, a simple toy.

Interesting that you suppose "games - goals = toys." That nails it for me.

I think Guitar Hero takes us in an important new direction in games - the first glimmering of a "productive" activity using standard gaming conventions to push the player forward through learning barriers they might not make breach on their own. I can easily see how a drum game or especially a keyboard game could take a musical n00b and make a musician out of him or her. Our gaming future is very bright!

You know, as a fairly new Xbox 360 owner, this does seem to an area where Microsoft is falling short. In particular, I think they're missing out on opportunities to get their hooks into a younger generation. I'm talking about kids, around the kindergarten age. My 5 year old daughter loves to play two games on the xbox. One is Viva Pinata, as you might guess - but she doesn't really grasp enough of that game to "play" it as the developers seem to have intended. She just likes to spin around her garden, bash things with the shovel, plant grass . . . and so on. The only pinata she actually seems to want in her garden is the pony, and of course I have no idea how to lure one - but thats another story. The second game she likes, oddly enough, is Geometry wars. Thats kind of become a team effort - I'll do the steering, while she just blows everything up. Works much better that way.
Anyway, my point is I agree with the original premise - where are the "toys" for the young kids on these consoles? I'd love to have more games that my daughter could sit down by herself and just play - no goals or objectives to be met, no competition - just stuff she can fiddle around with and have fun. Where are those games for the 360? If they're out there, and I'm just missing them, someone please inform me!

just stuff she can fiddle around with and have fun. Where are those games for the 360? If they're out there, and I'm just missing them, someone please inform me!

Grand Theft Auto? In all seriousness, while not for kids, this is a huge part of the games appeal.

I'm reminded of how the first things my kids played was something called a keyboard pounder. While I winced as they slapped the keyboard to make fish or flowers appear on the screen with musical tones, they loved it.

My 4.5-year-old daughter will play Flow, but the conflict in it where you're bitten by other creatures with somewhat menacing sound effects gets her upset.

I recently bought a second controller so I could play Flow with her, but my wife is still very upset that I played games with her at all so hasn't allowed us to play together.

I'm excited to try LittleBigPlanet. If they can simplify the 3d-ness of it enough, or I can have the option of doing so in the settings, it could be the bridge to all kinds of play and gaming for her. Plus I might even get my wife to build levels with me for the kids to play later.

A guy can dream.

fangblackbone wrote:

Grand Theft Auto? In all seriousness, while not for kids, this is a huge part of the games appeal.

That is a great point - a lot of the fun of GTA is just "playing".

Yes, I get the "emergent gameplay" thing, but nearly by definition, that means it's a side effect, not a prime mover. I think Truth has it here. Mario Paint.

Grand Theft Auto? In all seriousness, while not for kids, this is a huge part of the games appeal.[/quote]

Hmmm . . . well, at least then she might be able to "acquire" her own car when she turns 16. Save me a few bucks . . .:)

"Emergent gameplay" still sounds like a euphamism to me.

Emergent foreplay?

Rabbit wrote:

Where are my toys?

/agree

Many of the games at Experimental Gameplay are like what you describe - just interesting and fun to play with... the game aspect is sort of secondary.