And It's Always Stars

Our society loves to make new year's resolutions, even if though only about 22% actually succeed at the goals they set.  I've been part of the other 78% for the last.... well, forever.  For the last four or five years, I've made the same resolutions, including the ever popular goal to lose weight.  I've had varying degrees of success through January, but by February, I've usually abandoned my resolutions entirely.  However, this time I'm actually making great progress.

So what's different this time around?  There's a few undeniable factors that are helping me out:  I've graduated from DigiPen, so I have the time and energy to focus on my personal goals.  I also spent most of December mentally preparing myself to stick to these resolutions.  While these are definite advantages I have this year, I know that my true secret to success is gold stars.

No, not those gold stars.

Gold Stars as Motivation
Gold star stickers were the greatest award possible in elementary school.  If you did really well on a test, you'd get a gold star.  It's easy to forget how awesome those gold stars made you feel when you were a kid.  If you got a gold star, you were a champion.  You were unstoppable.  The gold star was a clear sign of your success, so all the world could see that you were fantastic.

Gold stars looked like this when you were a kid.

Here's the thing:  Gold stars still work.  At some point in our lifetime, people stopped giving us stickers.  We gradually just assume that stickers are just for kids, and that stickers have no place in the grown up world.  Then someone gives you a sticker out of the blue, such as your creative writing professor in college.  You feel all warm and fuzzy inside because you got a sticker - you earned that sticker.  You did it.

How adults view gold stars.

There's something undeniable about the power of gold stars - even as an adult.  For the new year, I bought myself a pack of gold star stickers and a calendar.  I put the calendar on the way right next to my whiteboard at home, and every day that I do well, I get a gold star.  Because I picked up a pack of multi-color stars as well, I do have silver stars for "almost" days - days that I just miss my target for some reasonable excuse.  I can't say whether I'd advise this method (because silver stars are still encouraging to try for the gold) or not (because awarding yourself when you haven't reached your goal feels like cheating), but the gold stars are definitely working.  In fact, it seems I'm not the only one who came up with this idea, and it's working for them as well.

Gold stars in game development
When we were developing Runeshift, I decided it would be fun to buy a pack of stickers so that whenever someone completed a task there would be a little reward.  The team loved it, and it definitely helped to keep us motivated throughout the project.  It was the little reminder to have fun with the project.  It was the little reminder that we were doing good work.  It was little, but little things add up.

I'm not going to lie, I think it'd be great if my producer gave me a gold star for working late or for finishing up a big task.  A lot of my drive comes from knowing that I've done well, so it would have been great to get a gold star for coming in last week during the fire and brim-snow.  (Yes, that is a bus on fire, and no, the driver does not get a gold star.)  It would have been great to get a gold star for pulling a 14 hour day.  I think I'll talk to my producer about this tomorrow, actually...

The point is, it's good to feel appreciated as part of a team, and that's what gold stars do.  They make you feel like the work you do is worth a little bit more than just a "Thank you" or a "Good job."  It's a bit of a bonus, and it's a great reward.

Gold stars in games
Speaking of rewards, gold stars have been around in Mario games forever.  Back in Super Mario Bros., the gold star provided limited invincibility and you could destroy any enemy just by touching it.  You were unstoppable (well, except for pits).  This is the function stars served until Mario made the jump to 3D (see what I did there?).  These stars were rare, and you felt awesome whenever you got one - not just because of the effect.  You found one, and you earned it.

Before 3D, Mario made a stop in the 2.5ish dimension in Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars.  Notice that stars is in the title - however, theses stars are not gold stars.  Gold stars in this game provided an incredible power similar to their 2D brethren.  When Mario grabbed a gold star, enemies would sometimes pour into the room, and any enemy touched would be defeated instantaneously, bypassing the combat sequence yet still awarding the full experience value of the enemies.  This is about as awesome a bonus as you can give the player - especially in the package of a gold star.

Once Super Mario 64 came along, stars suddenly became the primary goal of the game.  This new role means that the player will have to work hard to achieve their gold stars - and there is a very active count of how many gold stars the player has recovered.  The player is then aware of just how well they've done, and they have the gold stars to prove it.

Of course, there's also the "gold star effect" - giving the feeling of accomplishment without actually using gold stars.  The most immediate concept that comes to mind is the Xbox 360's Achievements mechanic.  This is precisely what gold stars are great at - making you feel accomplished for doing something, even it it was something silly.  It's a nice little player reinforcement that acts just like getting a gold star for passing a math test in elementary school.  Everyone can make it through the tutorial level, and you just wouldn't feel special without getting that achievement declaring your success.

Gold stars are a favorite among elementary school teachers, but it's important to remember that the shiny little stickers never stopped making us feel good - we just stopped getting them as we grew up.  So get out there, get yourself some gold stars, and reward yourself for whatever you deem worthy - even if it's just going to the store and buying gold stars.

Fear of Failure

Last night, I was watching a documentary on public television about Bob Ross - everyone's favorite painter.  We all loved his happy little trees and their friends, the mountains, and the wonderful landscapes he'd bring us in twenty-seven minutes.  His voice was so calming, so peaceful.  He was truly an amazing person.  However, that's not what this is about.

During the documentary, someone said something that just stuck with me - it hit a core bit of my personal beliefs, partially because it's similar to the best advice I was ever given (we'll get to that later).  They said something along these lines, "Bob's greatest gift to painting was that he removed the fear of failure from the audience - it was their own world, and it could be anything they wanted it to be."

Removing the fear of failure is such an empowering thing, and this concept has taken many forms.  You may not have noticed it hiding as the prime idea behind little bits of our world.  For example, Nike has long encouraged us to "Just do it."  Just do it - let go of the fear of failure and get out there and run.  From The Last Samurai, we get the quote, "Too much mind.  No mind."  It's practically the same as Nike's slogan - do not worry or think about failure, just do it.  Even Stroke 9, famous for Little Black Backpack in yonder 90s, makes mention of this ideal in their song Poltava:

 'Cause we all fall from time to time

It's all I can do to draw the line

But don't forget

To take your chances anyway

And swim the oceans of regret

This brings me to the best advice I was ever given.  I find it entertaining that it was actually given from an artist to me about the art I had done in my first class in five years.

Don't be afraid to suck.

See, he was talking about drawing lines - I sketch my lines rather than make a single, clear line.  It makes most of my art look kind of awful.  However, this concept of letting go of the fear of failure and just drawing a line...  That's a powerful idea.

So how does this apply to games?  Since it is "just a game," this fear we have is pretty much nonexistent.  It doesn't matter if we fail, because we can just try again, right?  Well, almost.  Fear of failure in games is most assuredly something to avoid - if the player is afraid to fail, they are afraid to play.  They won't try things out of curiosity.  They won't press all the buttons to see what they do.  If they have one bullet and only one bullet, figuring out how to fire said bullet is not going to be their priority - that bullet must be important and should be saved until the very last moment possible.

Limited use items suffer from the fear of failure for many, including myself and my roommate.  We have a hard time using potions in games because we only have so many.  What if we run out and we need it later?  What if we don't get the maximum amount of health from it, and those three hit points we missed out on costs us the game later on?  This is precisely the reason why my paladin in Diablo II specialized in the Prayer aura (which didn't work by the way).

So how do we get around this?  If limited use items instead have a recharge time, it allows players nervous about wasting their resources to try it out and use it from time to time, even if we still hesitate in case we need to use that ability or item during the recharge time.  However, if the recharge time is too long (say, thirty minutes), we may still avoid using the ability/item.  That's a careful balancing act that requires much attention and playtesting.

What about when you're so close to the end of the level and you begin to fret because you've been doing so well?  If you mess up now, your great run will come crashing down and you'll have to start over from the last checkpoint.  You get jittery, anxious, and excited - you might actually make it!

This case is not so much the fear of failure as the anxiety of success.  It's an awesome feeling, especially when you do succeed.  It's an adrenaline rush, and who doesn't love that?  We get this in games like Super Mario Bro.s when we're jumping along all those tiny platforms in later levels or in Soul Calibur III when we've almost got that perfect victory.  We get it when we have that last sliver of life left and nearly have that boss defeated.

This is a good feeling.  Intensity of this level means that the player is drawn into the game, and they most certainly are not looking away.  To achieve this, we must make failure a negative thing.  If the player loses nothing upon failure, then what does it matter if they lose?  (See my post on making failure worth avoiding.)

So we've made failure something to actively avoid, so how do we instill this anxiety of success?  We can't just spring these challenges on the player - we have to give them time to rest between adrenaline rushes.  If we challenge them too much, then our challenges are the baseline - nothing special about them.  However, if we have a challenging game or we've just hit that point of difficulty in the game, what can we do?

The answer is actually very simple - collectibles.  Coins (Mario Kart 7), rings (Sonic the Hedgehog) gold (BIT.TRIP RUNNER), and souls (Dark Souls) are all temptations to the player.  Trying to grab these items placed in tricky spots not only adds difficulty, but it is an open dare to the player.  Think nya nya na-nya na, you can't get me.  Who can resist these shiny things?  How many times have you lost a life to trying to grab these pickups instead of just trying to reach your goal?

While the fear of failure is a powerful thing, overcoming it brings about a sense of invincibility.  To be fearless is empowering, but in games, we need that fear of failure to keep the player from apathy.  If they fear failure too much, they are not having fun.  However, if we can hone in on that anxiety of success, the player will almost assuredly have a blast.  In the end, it all comes down to hitting your target audience and carefully playtesting and balancing your game.  Focus on what emotion you want the player to experience, and remember that they will grow in skill to match the challenges you present - if that challenge is great, overcoming it will award that sense of invincibility, for first the player must overcome the fear of failure.

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