Losing Is Fun

Let me start by saying that I believe that in all media, not just games, the audience plays an important part in their own experience of the story. In a similar way that the reader of a book might imagine characters' voices and appearances differently than the author, the player of a game will define part of their own experience by making different choices, slipping in and out of the designer's expected player flow. So as well as the written story of a game, film or book, there is a personal story that the player, viewer or reader writes in their mind as they go through the author's story. I hope the distinction is clear in the remainder of my post.

I've been occasionally replaying a game called Jagged Alliance 2 for over a decade now. It's a turn-based strategy game in which you hire a team of mercenaries (and can create your own mercenary persona) with the intent of overthrowing a corrupt dictator that is oppressing the people of Arulco, a small fictional country that has a number of small towns with vibrant characters. It's one of the earliest non-linear videogames I remember playing, allowing players to develop their own strategies for winning, ranging from different combat tactics to which towns need to be liberated first.

Image taken from Wikipedia

Your mercenary team can be made up from a number of characters, recruited from Arulco or from in-game websites accessed through the game's laptop. What's important to note here is that the player controls multiple characters, and that they can die without you losing the game. There are consequences (if your mission has cost many mercs their lives, other mercs might refuse the job) but the game goes on. You can even opt to have your mercs surrender and rescue them from captivity later.

Until a few years ago, I would abuse game saves in Jagged Alliance 2 in order to avoid losing mercs, or even taking too much damage in one turn. I used the save system like any other game mechanic and effectively gave myself infinite retries of any scenario, pursuing a 'perfect' round of combat. At some point I relaxed a bit, allowing mercs to be gravely wounded and - provided I could rescue them and give them first aid before they bled out - continued playing. Even more recently I started accepting any mercenary deaths as part of my playthrough's story. Interestingly, I started enjoying the game a lot more. Battles became more intense and strategies had to be careful, because the penalty for losing mercs in my game became more than simply playing through a few turns in a different way - I was allowing the game's risk and penalty systems to function as intended, and the game took on a new life just because of this change in my use of the save system.

I think 'the perfect playthrough' is a fairly common desire in the average player mindset, and I think it needs to change. Some games have modified their mechanics to be more accommodating of this style of play, but I think that in order for games to be more respected by non-gamers, we need to take a closer look at this issue and build our games to allow for failure to be a part of the game, as well as helping perfectionists to learn the joy of letting failures become part of their story. 

Dwarf Fortress, an indie game still in active development, is a massive sprawling game that's difficult to put into a genre. The basic idea is that you are helping a group of dwarves settle a new land, building a fort-town, ensuring that dwarves are happy and healthy and protecting them from monsters. The player gives orders, but doesn't directly interact with the world.

This is what Dwarf Fortress looks like to the average person

What's interesting about Dwarf Fortress is that the game doesn't have a win state. All forts will eventually fail. Dwarf Fortress' Wiki states:

"There is no internal end point, single goal, final Easter egg or "You Win!" announcement in Dwarf Fortress. Therefore, eventually, almost every fortress will fall. The only ones that don't tend to be very conservative and very boring—and what fun is that? Therefore, DF = losing /\ DF = fun => losing = fun, and that's okay! It's a game philosophy, so embrace it, own it, and have fun with it! 

Stories coming out of the community describe spectacular fort-wide massacres by the accidental releasing of some super-demon, managing to shed some light on the game's immense complexity. The story of Oilfurnace, illustrated by Tim Denee, is a great example.

This is what Dwarf Fortress looks like to a Dwarf Fortress player.
Panel from the story of Bronzemurder, illustrated by the same person.

I've tried twice to play Dwarf Fortress, but its learning curve and obtuse interface are difficult to overcome. What's important, though, is the playerbase's love for a game without a win state. It's a story factory, like Minecraft, that shows given the right tools a player can dig fun out of the side of a mountain and build a castle from it. Winning is not a prerequisite of enjoyment, and the avalanche of destruction caused by a catastrophic failure tends to form more interesting stories than a perfect playthrough of some linear game. Even the isolated craters of a non-fatal bungle can add depth and character to our stories.

Many players I know will load a saved game when they fail some non-critical challenge, or save all of their best potions for the final boss and finish the game without ever using them. This obsession with getting everything right or doing it all over is diminishing some of the personal flavour that comes from a player's style and skill at playing a game. Developers sometimes feed this behaviour by designing systems that encourage it, or failing to implement systems that support imperfect play. I'll expand on this topic in a later post. 

Many shooters these days have a regenerating health system that allows a player to be shot almost to death, only to spring back to peak health by hiding in cover. These games have converted health into a temporary deterrent to standing outside of cover where once it was a yardstick to measure one's performance and a source of heightened player tension when entering a battle already wounded. Another topic for another day.

I'll conclude with a plea to gamers - Much like in real life, our failures define us just as much as our successes, and add to the depth of a game's experience. While many games don't offer much yet in the way of integrating failure into stories and continued play, I ask that whenever faced with one of those rare times such as in Deus Ex: Human Revolution's high-tension conversation/interrogation scenes where failure contributes to your personal story, don't be tempted to try again. Embrace imperfection and see where this new road will take you.

After posting this article I found what is probably my favourite story from Dwarf Fortress: The Hamlet of Tyranny. It's fantastic.