It’s All Uncanny

The uncanny valley isn’t only an artist’s problem. The term usually appears in art discussions because that field has seen many rapid advances in recent decades. But the problems that arise with near-realism equally concern the fields of artificial intelligence, physics simulation, and story.

Case in point: Bioware’s Mass Effect.

One of the game’s major selling points is the freedom it offers players during scenes of dialogue and plot revelation. Not only can the player choose the tone of his or her character’s response (sympathetic, arrogant, sarcastic, confident, etc.), but the protagonist’s deeper personality is also available for shaping. The player’s choices can define Commander Shepard’s views on topics as broad as theism/atheism and as specific as whether or not the military should release a soldier’s corpse to her husband’s care before an autopsy can reveal important information about enemy weaponry.

Such narrative control in the player’s hands is thrilling, certainly. But Mass Effect steps so close to realistic decision-making that the occasional frustration the player feels from being limited to only a handful of potential dialogue responses can be significantly greater than in past games, such as Bioware’s own Neverwinter Nights.

For example. An NPC once requested that I do something unethical to achieve a good goal. I was hoping for a dialogue option that would let me say that I approved of the goal but not the method. Instead, my only way of refusing the NPC’s request was to say the goal wasn’t worth my time.

Mass Effect enables the player to define Shepard’s personality to an unprecedented extent, but it may corner the player into acting in violation of that same personality at times. The game suffers from its own prowess.

There are no easy solutions to the uncanny valley. However, its effects can be partially mitigated if the developer is aware the problem exists in his or her game. Be watchful, and not only to visuals.

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2 Responses to “It’s All Uncanny

Keira Peney Says:
November 28th, 2007 at 10:11 am

It’s an interesting problem - most games have a somewhat linear storyline, and the more a player can personalize the main character, the more potential problems there are trying to guide a player down the right path. After all, it’s entirely possible that a player could say - “To heck with saving the world, I’m going to go and do xxx”. Of course you can’t - it’s the storyline equivalent of hitting the invisible wall at the edge of a map.

There’s already issues with side quests and timing. After all, you get sent on an “urgent missive” to “stop xxx destroying such-and-such” and instead you spend six hours farming or collecting or running errands.

Of course, a lot of these are ignored by most gamers, but it’s still something that does jar the overall sense of realism.

Good post

Game AI Roundup Week #48 2007 — AiGameDev.com Says:
December 1st, 2007 at 7:56 pm

[...] It’s All Uncanny, writethegame.com [...]

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