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Creation and Quality Assurance

Quality confirmation is a standout amongst the most vital pieces of the assembling procedure. It is the part which comes at the very end of the generation where the last item is checked for deformities and blunders before pitching it to the clients. This is essential in light of the fact that it lessens the mistakes underway, yet in addition keeps people from things which can be conceivably dangerous.

For a substantial piece of the mechanical history, assessment work was led by people, however at this point the organizations can utilize progressed innovative frameworks to improve their quality control. Enterprises which are associated with delivering final results, for example, devices, pharmaceuticals, shopper merchandise, drinks and nourishments and so forth can colossally profit by visual investigation frameworks as they offer a decrease in expense and more prominent precision and unwavering quality alongside incredible mechanical dependability.

How Do Visual Inspection Systems Work?

Visual Inspection Systems take utilization of computerized sensors which are ensured inside the cameras. These cameras utilize the optical sensors for taking pictures which are then handled by PCs so as to quantify explicit qualities for basic leadership. They utilize the utilizations of man-made consciousness for making exact and quicker examinations between the right generalizations and genuine items.

Parts of Visual Inspection Systems:

Lights: Lights help in making a component champion with the goal that it tends to be caught unmistakably by the cameras.

Focal points: Lenses present the pictures to the sensors, which are really machine vision cameras and are intended to change light into pictures in the advanced structure.

Vision Process: They chip away at specific calculations which dissect the pictures and concentrate all the conceivable data about deformities and blunders saw in the picture.

Advantages of Visual Inspection Systems

After visual review frameworks have been modified and checked out the assembling procedure, they can complete a lot of generation checking in an actually short measure of time when contrasted with human assessment.

In human investigation frameworks, there's dependably a noteworthy possibility of blunders and regardless of how experienced and centered the representatives are, these mistakes can never be conveyed down to a unimportant dimension. Human capacities have constraints which visual review frameworks haven't. Furthermore, this is the manner by which they evacuate the odds of mistake in examination, all things considered, and give a higher nature of items.

Another advantage of visual examinations is that on the off chance that creation strategy changes, these frameworks additionally modify as needs be without any difficulty.

They additionally improve the creation proficiency. They can get blunders at a quicker rate. Examination of these watched imperfections can be made rapidly and vital redresses can be made right away.

In contrast to people, these frameworks can work relentless for twenty-four hours with unparalleled tirelessness. They can likewise be worked and modified from a faraway spot.

Primary concern

By receiving the visual investigation framework in the creation procedure, organizations can expand creation and furthermore anticipate the wastage which is produced by surrendered and broken items. This will spare the organization's incomes, yet in addition guarantee total consumer loyalty.
Hypothetically, a workstation charger should stand the trial of time. In any case, as a general rule, they don't keep going that long. They may get harmed or stolen, for example. On the off chance that your charger isn't working, you won't almost certainly charge or utilize your PC. Thus, it's critical that you get another one from an adjacent office supply store or gadgets/PC shop. You can likewise get them on the web. Given underneath are a couple of tips that can enable you to decide on the correct one.

Try not to Opt for a Universal Power Charger

While the general charger is a decent decision, it may not perform agreeable to you. This kind of charger underpins a great deal of models yet their segments can't meet the particular power necessities of certain PCs. Ordinarily, the issues are identified with the fit, control tips, cost, and voltage. Thus, it's smarter to get a marked one.

Try not to Buy a Solar Charger

Sunlight based chargers are eco-accommodating and proficient. There is a distinction among these and OEM models. In spite of the fact that they can be securely utilized with most sorts of machines, we can't state without a doubt in the event that they can work with all models.

Try not to Go for a Cheap unit

Purchasing a shoddy charger is definitely not a smart thought as it won't stand the trial of time. What's more, modest models will in general overheat the PC because of the irregularity of intensity inflows. Along these lines, they can't be viewed as a decent arrangement.

Try not to settle on Another Brand

On the off chance that you pick a charger of an alternate brand, odds are that it won't fit. Because of low or high voltage, it might cause issues regardless of whether you figure out how to associate it to your gadget.

Go for The Recommended Charger

Ensure you settle on the correct sort of charger. You can get this kind of data from various better places, for example, your PC base, old charger box, and the site of the maker. In the event that you are going to purchase on the web, the thing's specs can enable you to get this data.

Do Opt for an OEM unit

In a perfect world, most specialists propose that you get an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) unit as it's intended for the sort and model of the PC you possess. It very well may be difficult to settle on the OEM unit. Along these lines, it's smarter to arrange on the web. Regularly, online stores have an immense choice of items that you can purchase at focused costs.

Pick a Generic Charger in the event that you can't get an OEM one

In the event that you need to purchase a unit that isn't intended for your own model, ensure the unit you need to purchase is sheltered. Regularly, they are perfect and safe to utilize. In spite of the fact that a conventional unit may enable you to spare a great deal of cash, it might not have enough power. Hence, we recommend that you discover the power prerequisite of your charger before you get a unit.

Long story short, in the event that you are going to purchase the correct charger for your PC, we recommend that you consider the do's and don'ts referenced in this article. Expectation this helps.Tips to Help You Buy a Laptop Power Charger

By Shalini M | Submitted On January 27, 2019

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Hypothetically, a workstation charger should stand the trial of time. Be that as it may, as a general rule, they don't keep going that long. They may get harmed or stolen, for example. On the off chance that your charger isn't working, you won't most likely charge or utilize your workstation. In this way, it's vital that you get another one from a close-by office supply store or hardware/PC shop. You can likewise get them on the web. Given underneath are a couple of tips that can enable you to settle on the correct one.

Try not to Opt for a Universal Power Charger

While the widespread charger is a decent decision, it may not perform agreeable to you. This kind of charger bolsters a great deal of models yet their segments can't meet the particular power necessities of certain PCs. Normally, the issues are identified with the fit, control tips, cost, and voltage. Along these lines, it's smarter to get a marked one.

Try not to Buy a Solar Charger

Sun based chargers are eco-accommodating and proficient. There is a contrast among these and OEM models. Despite the fact that they can be securely utilized with most kinds of machines, we can't state without a doubt in the event that they can work with all models.

Try not to Go for a Cheap unit

Purchasing a modest charger is certainly not a smart thought as it won't stand the trial of time. Likewise, shabby models will in general overheat the PC because of the irregularity of intensity inflows. In this manner, they can't be viewed as a decent arrangement.

Try not to settle on Another Brand

On the off chance that you pick a charger of an alternate brand, odds are that it won't fit. Because of low or high voltage, it might cause issues regardless of whether you figure out how to associate it to your gadget.

Go for The Recommended Charger

Ensure you settle on the correct kind of charger. You can get this kind of data from various better places, for example, your PC base, old charger box, and the site of the producer. On the off chance that you are going to purchase on the web, the thing's specs can enable you to get this data.

Do Opt for an OEM unit

In a perfect world, most specialists propose that you get an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) unit as it's intended for the sort and model of the PC you possess. It tends to be difficult to decide on the OEM unit. Along these lines, it's smarter to arrange on the web. Frequently, online stores have a tremendous determination of items that you can purchase at aggressive costs.

Pick a Generic Charger on the off chance that you can't get an OEM one

On the off chance that you need to purchase a unit that isn't intended for your own model, ensure the unit you need to purchase is sheltered. Regularly, they are perfect and safe to utilize. Despite the fact that a nonexclusive unit may enable you to spare a great deal of cash, it might not have enough power. In this manner, we propose that you discover the power necessity of your charger before you get a unit.

Long story short, on the off chance that you are going to purchase the correct charger for your workstation, we propose that you consider the do's and don'ts referenced in this article. Expectation this makes a difference.
When driving the vehicle to work or to some other goal, we can depend on the utilization of an application on the vehicle's dash board or if nothing else on our cell phone to direct us through the most ideal approach to reach to our preferred spot, we can choose alternatives, for example, staying away from tolls or interstates should we chose along these lines, and afterward we should simply pursue the direction of the voice from the application. Great! Much the same as that; there are a bigger number of uses than we can depend on for an assorted variety of related administrations to help us on our every day exercises.

Presently envision pushing on your vehicle far from home to a goal far away for your next excursion. Having an application controlling your voyage and in the meantime as you drive, minding your vehicle fuel tank level and telling you for the nearest corner store with the most minimal costs of your favored octane rating for your vehicle on your way forward if necessary to, guaranteeing there is sufficient gas in the tank to reach to your goal; having a similar application checking consistently on your tire weight and general vehicle's wellbeing, and giving cautions such any of these issues requires consideration.

While driving extended periods on your trek, envision the application giving alternatives to you on nourishment and hotel dependent on your inclinations, for example, value range, bed and courtesies inclinations', or for veggie lover, Mexican or Italian eateries in the region, and furnishing you with the best everything being equal. You should simply just to stand up or address your preferred screen the choice and the application will total the booking for you as well as guide you through the new stop on you way.

How far later on?

A portion of these highlights we are getting a charge out of today, yet there are different ones which entirely before long will be accessible, it is a pattern bound to develop exponentially, it will incorporate numerous if not the majority of our believable needs once a day. These associations is the thing that it is being called Internet of Things, it positively isn't longer a thing to occur later on rather a truth of our present day, and it is growing rather quick.

For what reason is it imperative?

Much the same as the Internet is here to associate individuals, the Internet of Things is here to interface gadgets which would now be able to cooperate with other cluster of them, it is assessed that since 2008 there are a greater number of gadgets associated with the web than individuals. It is anything but difficult to accept and see then why of the significance of the Internet of Things and for what reason should we want to think about and get use to it as an indispensable piece of our lives.

The Internet of Things is planned to encourage our every day exercises and errands by assuming control over some fundamental choices for our sake, where there is a system of gadgets associating with the web so as to detract from us dull activities or to finish assignments by gaining from our condition and inclinations. Those modern self-driving vehicles we watch on motion pictures are nearer than any time in recent memory to be a the truth, how about we get settled and watch for additional as it comes accessible.

Genuine is, the IoT has quite recently conceived, there is bounty for all gatherings to learn and create so as to influence it to develop in an organized and effective manner. For it to be completely feasible, its advancement should be thought to enable an association among gadgets to be easiable, a fitting n-play idea.


As everyone knows that the Internet is successful for a number of reasons that the life in this century is easy where internet access is available, but it is difficult to live in that place where the Internet is not available and people has to do their work without any help from the Internet. Today, people are very close to each other they can talk miles away, they can face their loved ones either they live out of station or out of a country with just a single click they can access to their relatives who live far away. It is playing an important role to keep close the people with one another. Through the internet, this world is just like a global village. You can take help in your daily life tasks, it entertains you as well and it gives progress to your businessand makes you able to get the knowledge of the rest of the world. Before the age of the internet, people didn't meet each other for a long time just because they live far away that particular person whom they wanted to meet but now a day it is quite easy just because of the internet. Besides all these things just think for a while, how can anyone survive now a day without access of the internet because in these days every kind of work has been possible just because of the internet, internet use in studies, sciences, medical, research, business and at every home. So if our life is too much dependent on the internet than what if we stuck with a network that is not providing its customers a good speed internet it makes sick the user that if the speed will slow or it creates any kind of bug during the work. To keep all these things in mind Spectrum introduced a high internet speed up to 300 Mbps. You can access it in every corner of your home. Spectrum Internet blazing speed will amaze you that you can connect it with hundreds of your devices at the same time without any bad consequences on its speed. You can surf, stream, downloadand even can play online games anytime, at even day and night. Spectrum internet isalso secured your PCfrom external viruses and hackers. It gives protection to your PC against the Virus, hackers due to its Free Security System. You can use multiple social sites without any glitch in speed; you can upload videos, use Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, and any other social site on Spectrum Internet. Spectrum provides you a Free Internet Modem. There is no contract is required before to get the connection of Spectrum. Charges of Spectrum Internet are very low as compared to others.

There are many other features of Spectrum like it provides you Spectrum Phone service, Spectrum Cable as well, so that you can enjoy too much just in one. It is providing you 200 channels plus free HD channels. You can access 10,000 movies at one time, plus you can watch Live TV too. Spectrum cable also facilities you that you can watch Live TV on your Mobile devices at home. So get the Spectrum Cable starts at only $29 per month. Spectrum Voice provides you unlimited calls without any extra charges. There is no contract is required to get the connection of Spectrum Cable, just get the connection on a single call and enjoy unlimited, endless packages of Spectrum Internet, Cable, and Phone.
Tomorrow we will be releasing SOMA for Xbox One and along with this comes Safe Mode. This is a new way of playing the game that will also be available via Steam and GOG at the same time.

Since we announced Safe Mode there have been a lot of questions about it, so we thought this would be a good time to answer some of those and to clear up a few things. Here goes:


What is Safe Mode?
It is a version of the game where you cannot die - you are safe from harm. The game’s various creatures are still there, they just won’t attack you. If you’ve heard of the SOMA Steam mod “Wuss Mode”, by steam user The Dreamer, then you should know the basic idea. The important thing to point out is that we don’t simply turn off the creature’s ability to attack and harm you. Instead, we’ve redesigned their behavior. Our goal has been for Safe Mode to not feel like a cheat, but for it to be a genuine way of experiencing the game. So we’ve considered what each creature should be doing, given their appearance, sound, and voice.

You can pick between Safe Mode and normal mode when starting up a new game.

Is the game still scary?
This obviously depends on what scares you, but the short answer is: yes, the game is still a horror game. However, since you can explore without a constant fear of failure, you will no longer have that type of tension. For people who aren’t great at handling that aspect of horror gameplay, their journey through SOMA will be a lot easier in Safe Mode. But if it is the overall atmosphere that gets to you in a horror game - and, above all, the central themes - then game will still have plenty to be scared of.

What is the major difference in gameplay?
All of the puzzles, events, and so forth are still there. The big difference is that you’ll no longer have to sneak past enemies. You don’t need stealth in order to complete the game. Monsters might sound and act more threatening if they spot you, so there is still an incentive to being careful, but it’s no longer mandatory to keep hidden. This will also allow you to explore some of environments more carefully.

Why release it now?
We actually considered releasing something similar at launch, but chose not to because we felt it would make the core intent of the game too unfocused. As people started to say that they really wanted to play the game and experience the philosophical sci-fi narrative, but couldn’t because of the monsters, we started considering doing something about it. People liking the “Wuss Mode” mod was a good sign that we could solve this. However going back to a game you have already completed is not tempting so we put it off.

What eventually tipped the scales was the Xbox release where we wanted an extra feature to make the launch more interesting. Adding some sort of no-monster mode felt like the best option, and so Safe Mode was born! It also felt like it had been long enough since the original release, and the intended version of the game had been played and evaluated enough. Adding a new play mode wouldn’t be a problem.

Will it come to PS4?
Yes! We hope to have it ready about 2 months from now. Sorry for not releasing it now, but a couple of issues have kept us from doing a simultaneous launch of Safe Mode.


I hope that clears things up! Let us know in the comments if you have any other questions!


We are now looking for a "Community Manager and Event Coordinator" for our company. This will be a very broad role and we are looking for someone who is very driven and creative. The tasks will range from the simple, such as:
  • Managing our social media accounts and platform-specific communication channels (such as Steam communities and PS4 Game hub).
  • Answering various emails.
  • Coordinating and booking special internal and external events.
It will also include much more complex tasks such as:
  • Planning and coordinating PR for a new game release.
  • Making plans for improving our social media and implementing these.
  • Overseeing a revamp of all our webpages (company and game-specific).
  • Becoming the company’s catalyst for generating interesting posts and events on all of our public channels.

The basic requirements are as follows:
  • It’s crucial that you are a person who is highly able to work on your own initiative. No one will be laying out an exact schedule of things that you must do - you will need to drive your own workload. You will also need to be a creative member of the team, bringing a lot of your own ideas and suggestions to the table and then going on to implement them when possible.
  • You must live in Sweden or be prepared to move here. Note that any employment starts with a six month trial period, and there is no need to move until that is over.
  • You must have excellent writing skills in English.
  • You need good knowledge of how social media, such as Twitter and Facebook, works.
  • You should have a burning interest in video games and an understanding of the market.
It’s worth noting that we do not require any special education or experience. While these are of course good to have, what really matters is that you fit the requirements above.


In order to apply, start by doing the following assignments:
  1. Imagine that SOMA is about to be released. Write a short (at most 150 words) and playful cover letter that will be sent out with all of the review copies of the game.
  2. We really need to become much more frequent in our social media usage and communicate what we do as a company and what we are like as individuals. In 200 words or less, explain how you would try to go about increasing the number of interesting posts on our social media channels.
  3. An angry user has written an email complaining that our games have all become worse since Penumbra, as they no longer have proper puzzles and gameplay. Write a response.
  4. Being proactive and self-starting is crucial for this position. Therefore, write your own question similar to the ones above and answer it.
Compile these into a PDF that has a pleasing layout and send it, along with your CV, to apply@frictionalgames.com.

It's over two years since we released SOMA, so it's time for another update on how things have been going.

First of all, let's talk about sales. As I've said many times before, sales are not straightforward to count, and the number you come up with is reliant on many different factors. For instance, SOMA was part of the Humble Monthly Bundle, which meant that everybody subscribing to that service was able to download a copy of SOMA. These are not really "sales", so should we count them? It's also worth noting that pricing differs a lot between different sales. A single unit sold at full price means more than one sold when the game is 75% off. I think it's important to think about these things, and remember you can't directly compare the sales of two games.

With all that said, what I'm going to do here is to basically take every single download of the game as a sale. Doing so gives us a total of 650 000 units, a 200 000 units increase since the the same time last year. This is a very good result.

It's interesting to compare how sales have changed across the two years for SOMA. The normal day-to-day income, when there are no discounts or anything, is 33% of what it was the same time last year. However, when the game is at a discount (such as a Steam summer sale), the generated income is about 75% of what similar events generated last year. This means that discount events are extra important this year.

Taken as a whole, the sales that we make from all our games will cover all our expenses every month, and even make us a profit. This is quite amazing. Given that we currently have about 16 people working with us full time, we have a pretty high burn rate, and to still be able to support all that on your ongoing sales is great.

This means that we still have a good buffer from our launch sales. While it will by no means last forever, it gives us peace of mind and lets us take the time we need. While we'll continue to generate income next year too, I'm not so sure it'll be enough to cover all our costs. This is when that initial buffer comes in handy, and will let us continue working on our projects without any monetary worries. To put things in perspective, it is worth noting that most companies start using up their buffer just a few months after release, so we are in no ways in a dire situation right now - quite the opposite!

However, this also makes it very clear that we need to be able to release games at a more regular rate. We were lucky that SOMA was a hit, and that the money is easily able to sustain us for the time we need to complete our next project. Had SOMA been a flop, the situation would have been a lot worse now. That's why we are focusing on becoming a two project studio, and the goal is to be able to release a game every two years. Had we managed to set that up prior to SOMA, we would be in the process of releasing a game right now. Needless to say, it would makes us a lot more financially stable, and able to handle a less successful release. In turn this should allow us to take greater risks, which I think is a key element in being able to create great games.

This leads me to another thing that's been on my mind. A few months back someone asked me: "How do you get people to buy your game?". This is a fairly basic question, but it really made me think. When it comes to sales made during launch, the answer feels quite self-evident. We generate a lot of buzz, there are reviews, let's plays and so on. There are a number of fairly obvious ways that people learn about our game.

But what about the customers that buy our game two years after release - why do they do it? That's a much harder question. I think most of this is via word-of-mouth recommendation. When the right circumstances arise (e.g.: "I feel like playing a game tonight") and when external influence (e.g.: "your friends said they liked our game") is strong enough, that's when a sale happens. I know that Steam and other stores have some forms of discovery tools, but I don't think they play a major factor. What really matters is not a single source, but the slow build-up of good will around a game - eventually this will make a player consider buying it. Discovery tools, such as "you might also like"-adverts, surely help, but they are just part of a much larger process [1].

Because of this, and considering the sheer number of games that are currently being released, I think the best strategy is to focus on unique experiences. You want to create the type of experience that is not only hard to get elsewhere, but also leaves a mark on those who play it. This is now a core philosophy here at Frictional. I guess we sort of always had it unconsciously, but we have now made it official. Our goal is to create games that are more than forgettable escapism. We want people to come out of their experiences feeling changed. A lofty goal? You bet. While it'll be impossible to make sure every single player has this type of experience, it feels like the perfect thing to strive for.

Now I will round of this post with a brief discussion on the status of our current projects.

The first project is in full production, and about 80% of the team is currently working on it. The focus for most of this year has been on creating the first few maps of the game to create a solid vertical slice based on our experiments last year. However, we recently came up with some new avenues that we wanted to explore. The stuff that has come out of this recent detour is feeling really great and I am certain it'll make the game feel very special. All of this came out of what I just discussed: our focus on making games that leaves a mark on the player. I'm not sure we would have gone down this route if we hadn't explicitly stated that goal, which makes me confident it's a really good way of thinking. I'm afraid I can't go into any details on this, other than to say that the project will be horrific in nature. There will be no release this year, but we hope to announce something during the first six months of next year.

As for the other project, that's also going well. We've been a bit delayed due to new tech taking longer than anticipated to develop [2]. The upside of that has been that the game has had  more time in pre-production than any of our previous games. This has been incredibly valuable, as the things we aim to tackle in this game are quite difficult, and allowing it all to brew for a bit has meant many of the basic aspects are clearer for us. This game will be less about direct, visceral horror, and more about the player gaining an understanding of different concepts. This can, as we know from working on SOMA, be quite tricky to get right and requires a slightly different approach than when working on a more direct horror game. Release for this game is quite far off though, so don't expect to hear any concrete details in the near future.

That's it for this update. I'm incredibly excited about the things that we have planned, and I'm very eager to give you all more updates. I also want to thank everybody for the support over the years, and rest assured that while we might not reply to every single mail, tweet, etc. that you send us, we make sure to read every single one!


Notes:
1) For games that are heavily based around online communities, such as a Rocket League, I think things work slightly differently. There is still a word-of-mouth zeitgeist going on, but a lot of it comes from your game become a habit for your players, something that they participate in on a daily basis. This forms a feedback loop that helps drives new buyers, which I think is quite different from how our games work.

2) We are currently working on the fourth iteration of our HPL engine for this game, and due to some of the things we need to be able to do for the game, we've been required to make some major adjustments. These things take time, but luckily we have most of it done now.
There is something about unclear options which make choices a lot more interesting. This post goes into the reasons behind this, and various ways of achieving it in games.

Warning: this post will include some spoilers for Spec Ops: The Line. 

The typical example for a choice in a game is something like this:


The situation is clearly set up and you are explicitly told what your options are. While they are most common in interactive movies, these sort of choices existing in just about every genre. They are easy to setup and can easily give a sense of moral drama. However, they miss out on a really important aspect of making real-life choices: that you are almost never aware what your options are or what they lead to.

Here is another example of a choice:


The player could avoid the incoming bullet by going down, or they could do it by going up. This is a choice very much in the same vein as the one from above. However there is no explicit prompt that asks the player what direction they want to go in. Instead the choice is implicitly stated through the use of the game's mechanics. And in contrast to the explicit choice, it is unclear just what the options are. The choice might lack the ethical implications from the previous one, but the choice itself is way more interesting. It also feels like an ingrained part of the play experience instead of something that is an obviously designed situation.

Super Mario derives this choice purely from the functioning of its basic mechanics. Simulation is another game genre that does this, but manages to add a bit more philosophical depth to the choices. For instance, in a simulation game focused on survival you might not have enough food for all your party members and have to make a decision on who lives and dies. When these things work well it can have a tremendous impact - but more often that's not the case. Letting your simulated party members starve to death very rarely give rise to the same strong feelings as a scene in a game like The Walking Dead. Let's unpack why this is so.

---

In order for a choice to be made, the player need to understand that they are making one. The cornerstone of this is the player's access to affordances. The player must have a robust mental model where they understand how the various aspects of the world work, and what abilities they can use to affect it. A choice then arises when it becomes clear to the player that there are two or more separate ways in which they can progress. Basically, the player understands that are at least two distinct plans for them to make, and they need to chose one of them. When this is crystal clear, the player has a choice on their hands.

Most games feature these sort of choices all the time. "What ammo should I use?", "What path should I take?", "Should I sneak or just attack?". As I explained in an earlier post, the selection of plans is a fundamental part of gameplay. What makes a choice carry depth is that there's something major at stake. So not only does the player need to understand that a choice is happening, but also that a major decision is happening. And in order to elicit the correct emotional response there needs to be a particular setup and framing.

A game like The Walking Dead has an easy time of it setting up all of these requirements. First of all, the game is explicitly stating that a choice is happening. It is impossible to miss. Secondly, since there is so much focus on the choice, it is quite clear that it is of major importance. Finally, The Walking Dead is heavily plotted and the designers have a great deal of control over what happens before the choice. It is relatively easy for that game to make sure the player is in the right frame of mind.

Things are much harder for a simulation game. Here the player takes part in choices all of the time and it's harder to work out which ones are crucial and which ones are minor. The player might miss entirely what their choice is about. For instance, take the choice where the player needs to choose whom from their group to let die. It might be that the player doesn't understand that they are running out of food, or thinks that they have some ways to survive. So at the crucial moment when the player decides who lives and who dies, they might be thinking about other things entirely. On top of that, even if the player grasps what the choice is about, it might be lacking proper build-up. The player might not be in the right mood, or have a suitable level of affection for the characters and so on.

It may of course be possible to improve the simulation to take things like this into account. However, this is very likely to run up against the complexity fallacy which I wrote about last week. Chances are that these additions to complexity will not be noticeable and instead just make the game harder to design and code.

---

Instead, there's a middle ground here. Instead of explicitly stating the choices, it is possible to set up a situation that is driven by established gameplay mechanics. Since the setup is not something that happens dynamically, it's possible to properly signpost the scenario. That way you can make sure that the player is in the right mood. But when the actual situation arrives there is no menu popping up that flags a choice moment. Instead the instruction to choose can come from the story mechanics (e.g. a character can speak), or, better, arise from how the situation is designed. The actual options are then chosen, not through an abstract menu, but through interacting using standard gameplay mechanics.

The best example of this sort of design is a scene from Spec Ops: The Line. Late in the game the player finds themselves surrounded by civilians. These people are not too happy that you are here and start throwing rocks at you. It is a very dangerous situation and it is clear that you need to get out of there. At this point, the player basically only has a single verb at their disposal: "shoot". So what can you do? You really don't want to shoot civilians, but you also don't want to die. The player really has two options here. One is to shoot at the civilians, killing a few of them and making the others run away. The other option is to simply shoot in the air and scare them off, killing nobody.


The thing is that, since the game doesn't tell you what your options are, shooting in the air is not obvious to a player. And that is what makes this choice so interesting and makes it feel like a real choice. Had a prompt popped asking you to choose between "fire at civilians" and "fire in the air", the situation would have been radically different and would have lost a lot of its impact. But since you select the option with a gameplay mechanic, it not only feels like a proper part of the playable narrative, it also means that you are uncertain of what your options are.

Having choices like this makes the game feel analog. Under the hood the choice is just as discrete as the ones you would make in The Walking Dead, but it doesn't feel like it. It feels like there are a spectrum of choices to be made, a continuous space of options, and not simply "this way or the other". This concept of choices feeling analog is really important and I'll talk about it more later on.

Spec Ops: The Line features half a dozen or choices of this kind. For instance, there is one where you are to chose which of two prisoners lives or dies by shooting one of them. But what the game doesn't tell you is that there is a third options, which is to target the men that are holding the prisoners captive. Another scenario has you deciding whether or not to kill a war criminal. And again, it's unclear just what your options are. The game simply puts you in a situation where it is possible to kill him. That there is a choice to be made is something you have to make up your own mind about.

Another interesting aspect of Spec Ops: The Line is how it handles the consequences of its choices. The solution is that it simply doesn't. It just sets up the situations in such a way that either choice makes sense for what happens later in the story. While I don't think it is possible to always shy away from showing consequences, it can be very helpful in maintaining the analog feeling. Because the moment you show a consequence, it makes it clearer that there is a discrete aspect to your choice. But if you keep consequences hidden, the possibility space is larger and the player is free to fantasize more just about what took place.

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It's worthwhile digging a bit deeper into this. What is it that makes the choices in Spec Ops: The Line different from a game where the options are explicitly stated? The key difference is that in the former, the player is in a position of uncertainty. There's no clear-cut information to go by and the player is forced to fill out informational gaps using their imagination. When the options are explicit there is no need for this. The brain always wants to optimize, so any concrete piece of information will remove any mental guesstimation. This leads to Spec Ops: The Line having a much more vivid mental model of the scene. Remember, we play the game based on what is in our heads - not what is in the actual systems - so that means the game itself becomes a more interesting experience.

This is what the "feeling of analog" is all about. By having situations where not everything is clearly cut and where the player is free to imagine a wide range of freedoms. The goal is for it to seem like there are a continuous space of possibilities. This makes the situation feel real and organic. It lessens the feeling of there being a designer guiding your every step, despite the experience being just as guided as in the more explicit case.

It's worth noting that there can be drawbacks to this approach. Just like in the pure simulation case, the player might misunderstand what the choice and its implications are all about. An explicit approach with a prompt laying out all the options will always be better at this. But it will also never feel analog. So there may very well be situations where an explicit choice is the right way to go. As always in design, one shouldn't get hung up on the manner of implementation, but to focus on what the end results are.

In SOMA we tried to make all of the choices feel analog, and used a similar approach the one in Spec Ops: The Line. We presented a situation and then used common game verbs to let the player make their choice. The idea was to make the choices feel embedded in the game experience, and judging from feedback we have gotten, it feels like it worked out very well.

The only choice in SOMA that didn't work properly was when you decided the fate of Wau. Here we failed create a proper emotional setup, and didn't spend enough time on implementing consequences. A lot of this was due to this choice coming quite late in design, and it feels like it shows. It is a good reminder that you can't just casually throw in these sort of choice-moments. One needs to make sure that the player is in the right mental state when they occur, and that you follow up on them in an appropriate matter. Just because something is supposed to feel analog doesn't mean it doesn't require a strict, and guided, implementation for it all to work out.

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It is not only moral choices that can take advantage of becoming more analog. There are a wide range of other types of gameplay where it is worth considering if it can be made more analog. A good example of this is in interactive fiction (ie, good old text adventures). Normally these are controlled by simply typing commands into a parser. The type of commands are things like "pick up lamp", "look under the carpet", "remove dust from the table", and so forth.


So, normally, there is no explicit prompt saying what sort of commands are possible. You have to infer the space of possibilities by reading the descriptions you get as you explore the current environment you are in. You are building up a mental model of the place at hand, and the character you are playing as, and using that to build a sense of what is possible to you. When this all works out, it feels great. It really feels like there is a living, breathing world for you to interact with. It feels analog.

This system comes with issues though and the most common one is the "guess the verb" problem. The player might know exactly what to do, but can't figure out the right commands that allow them to do it. This is really frustrating and it breaks down the sense of immersion. A way to fix this is to make it clear exactly what the various verbs at your disposal are. This solves the problem, but it adds a new one: the game loses its sense of being analog. 

I think it's worthwhile to give this a test yourself. First try a normal interactive fiction game. I would recommend something like Lost Pig as it allows a lot of commands and, especially in the beginning, shows just how engaging it is to play something that lets you type whatever you want at a blank prompt. After you have done so, try out Walker and Silhouette and only use the highlighted words to play. The two experiences are very different. Sure, the latter makes it a lot easier to progress and removes some frustration. But on the other hand, it removes a lot of what makes the medium interesting in the first place.

I think this is a really good example of just how important the feeling of analog is. Implementation-wise, these two interactive fiction games are really similar, to the point of basically being the same. But the way that they chose to do their user interface radically changes the experience. By forcing the player to build an internal mental model of the game's world, the experience becomes so much richer.

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There are lots of other instances where the feeling of analog can be useful. Another good example are puzzles. I recently played through 999 which has "escape the room"-like puzzles. While these can be quite fun to play, the way they are set up it is incredibly obvious that the game wants you to reproduce a specific number of steps. You are basically trying to read the designer's mind to find a very specific chain of actions that lead to a success state. This doesn't feel very analog.


A big reason this is so is because the game will only respond to very specific commands. Most of these commands are not part of a generic verb-set either. For instance, you only ever use a screwdriver in a specific place and so forth. So you never really build a mental model of how the world functions, because such a model would basically be worthless. It is much better to think of each object as a specific case of "what does the designer want me to do with this?".  As such the world becomes stale and never gets a rich mental model. This is a very common problem with puzzles.

However, there are puzzle games that manages to work around this. One of the best examples is Portal. In this game is rarely feels like you are following a set path. Instead it feels like you are discovering a solution. It feels analog. And this is despite the solution being no less designer-directed than your average escape-the-room game. A core reason why Portal is different is that it always uses a foundational set of mechanics for solving the puzzles. You have your portal gun, the ability to pick up certain objects and to move around. That is it. Nothing else is used in order to progress. On top of that, there is a coherent design to all of this encouraging you to build a mental model around it.


There might only be one specific sequence of events to solve a puzzle. But when playing Portal you are not as aware of this. Much of the time it's not even clear after you have completed a section. Because the puzzles are based on foundational verbs, it is much less clear whether there were other possible solutions available. There is often the sense that you could have completed it in another way.

This consistency in actions also means that you can mentally simulate a number of possibilities. You know up front the type of interactions that are possible and can use that to work out the sort of things that you can do in order to progress. And that without needing to interact with the world at all. What this means is that you are able to make plans. You can think about what steps to take in advance and be fairly confident all of these are possible to execute. As discussed earlier, making plans is a core part of what makes gameplay engaging. This is another reason why making choices feel analog is good - it also makes it feel more like proper gameplay.

The consistency in actions is not the only thing that makes Portal feel analog. The level design itself also plays a big role.  By just giving the right number of hints, the player never feels pushed along a certain path, nor are they completely bewildered about what they are supposed to be doing. By not pushing the player too much, the game makes sure that the player comes up with ideas on their own. This gives a much greater sense of picking one solution out of many, instead of going along an intended route. And by making sure the solutions never feel too obscure, players refrain from trying to brute force a puzzle. Brute forcing can be quite damaging to the feeling of an analog world as this forces the player breaks down the world to its basic components, revealing the non-analog nature of it all.

Getting the level of handholding right is not an easy task and how to achieve it varies a lot from game to game. The basic idea is the same, though: you want to make the player understand what to do without revealing what your preferred route is. There needs to be enough uncertainty for the player to start building a vivid mental world around a situation. But there can't be too much uncertainty as that means there is nothing to build a world on.

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Another example of crafting analog worlds is the closet-hiding in Amnesia. We chose to simulate this using a physics-based interaction system. We also tried to make the behavior an implicit part of the gameplay, and never directly state how it is supposed to work. Despite this, a great number of players still entered closets to hide and opened the door slightly to see if the coast was clear. We could have just had an explicit prompt and some specific controls when you are hiding behind doors, but it doesn't feel like that would have been the same kind of experience. This way, the world has a much great sense of being an analog one.

There are bound to be tons of game mechanics that could make good use of becoming a bit more analog. One obvious example is dialog response, where I think there would have been a lot more to gain if the options could be chosen by using core mechanics instead from an explicit menu.

How could you go about making a scene more analog? I think there are two main aspects that you need to implement:

  • The choice selection must be made by using a set of core mechanics. The number of ways in which these mechanics can be used must also be so large that the player can't easily grasp the options available. For instance, if the player can only punch red objects, and you enter a room with a single red object, the situation doesn't feel very analog.
  • The hints on how to complete the scene can't be too direct. There needs to be a certain level of vagueness so the player feels that they have come up with the solution themselves. It's also important to teach the player (through play if possible) how the core mechanics functions. The idea is that when they encounter a choice moment (be that a puzzle, moral choice, etc.) they have an intuitive understanding of they ways they can approach it.
It's also important to not just focus on the interactions at hand, but to think of it as a multi-scene setup. In order for the player to be in the right state, and to have the right mental model, there's a lot of setup required. It is really important to think holistically about these things.


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I think there's a lot to be gained by thinking in terms of making a world more analog. I also think that it's something that hasn't really been explored enough. It is quite common to just take something that works through explicit means and stick with it. Crafting scenes in an analog way is a lot more work, but I also think it can be really rewarding. It's also a very good concept to have in mind when trying to merge more standard narrative approach with proper gameplay. Analog worlds are a core part of evolving Interactive Storytelling.