The Dragon Speech, and Chris Crawford's Improbable Dream

These days Chris Crawford is probably better known as the founder of the Game Developers Conference, which (as the article notes) started in his living room, and and for being a visionary game developer, but back at the peak of his fame he was known for one thing: Balance of Power.

I remember playing Balance of Power, when it first came out, on my dad's Macintosh (the original black and white one, which these days you are more likely to run in to as a fish tank than a working computer, but back then in my kid-geek eyes it was the coolest and most sophisticated of any personal computer, at least until my true love, the Amiga, came along).

It was obvious that Balance of Power was really different from all the other games out at the time. For one, it was not about slaying dragons in dungeons or other adventures but about Real Life, featuring real life politics, and it was Serious, very Serious. I could tell that. I had fun playing it in the few times I visited my dad at work (it was his work computer.. we definitely couldn't afford to have one at home), but it was it was difficult, and had the infamous ending which featured just this single paragraph, which I still remember:

"You have ignited a nuclear war. And no, there is no animated display of a mushroom cloud with parts of bodies flying through the air. We do not reward failure."

Back then I didn't have the words for it, but Chris Crawford had almost single-handedly ushered in the dawn of simulation computer gaming. This was 1985, four years before SimCity and six years before Civilization. There were other early contenders, like M.U.L.E (from 1983), and Seven Cities of Gold (1984), but they were all either cute and whimsical and/or set in a mythical/distant/nonexistent time or place.

This was the first game I remember which was set in today's world, with real-world politics in it, and which seriously tried to simulate this world as it is. Today it looks primitive, but back then it was really innovative and it was obvious to everyone that Chris Crawford was on a different wavelength than virtually everyone else in the industry, was seeing and aiming further than just about everyone, who were mostly focusing on much smaller and less ambitious aims.

Unfortunately, it seems that he was a bit too ambitious for the technology of the day, and he kind of disappeared from the scene, working on his magnum opus which was never to see the light of day.

I've been a fan of Chris Crawford for a long time. I find his framing of games in terms of "verbs" (the things you can do in the game) and "nouns" (the things you can do them to) to be incredibly eye-opening. It feels like games are constantly getting more nouns (NPCs, cars, buildings, other players), but remain incredibly verb poor.

I think a lot of the bubbling frustration with newer AAA games may actually be an unconscious reaction to enormous, beautiful landscapes where you can't really do much beyond shoot nice looking mannequins, open doors and follow the strict roller-coaster rails down the dialog tree.

Heres to hoping he and other clever people crack the code and give us some better tools and methodologies for building interactivity.

As an art form, video games may have been a victim of their own success. It took film 50 years to develop its own language and style (first film recorded in 1888, first successful long form narrative in film 1915, citizen Kane, arguably the turning point for modern cinema in the mainstream in 1941, before that film copied stage plays in style and form), so maybe the unique properties of games will become more mainstream, instead of the brief bursts of genius we see from the indie segment are still on track. It also may be a generational thing - there’s no way I could ever convince my mom that games can be deep experiences that question agency and identity in a way passive media can’t, but someone my age may not agree but at least they buy that it’s a possibility, growing up with a medium and internalizing the language and symbols might be a prerequisite to having that kind of connection to art.

But it’s amazing to see that commitment to that future from those early days - as a yearly attendant to (non-COVID) GDC I’m amazed I haven’t heard of this talk, but it really resonates with me

I remember playing Balance of Power long after it had become abandonware, with binaries downloaded from Home of the Underdogs.

Chris Crawford wrote a book on it, published by Microsoft Press!

https://openlibrary.org/books/OL2724511M/Balance_of_power

While reading this article, I was remembering an old game that was focused around social-interaction, with the "game" element being just iterated rock-paper-scissors. Enough googling and I found, it was "Trust & Betrayal: The Legacy of Siboot" which was written by ... Chris Crawford.

On one hand, that game is super primitive. On the other, there are approximately zero games in the time since that have less primitive interactions with computer-controlled characters.

Hear the story behind the greatest lecture in GDC history, and the dream of industry legend Chris Crawford that video games would one day stand at the pinnacle of art and storytelling—a dream so big that he gave up everything to pursue it. https://twitter.com/LifeandTimesVG/status/134844043218371379...

a lot of discussion about gaming, but chris is talking in huge part about learning & especially interactivity.

I see huge parallels between the glossy veneer AAA video gaming world & the applications we eat the world with. we offer low to medium interactivity with the system, some strong guard rails, keep users on a narrow path. we engage users, but only narrowly, only as though they themselves are npcs, given a couple short scripts they can get up to functionality is predefined. the verb set offered is limited & bounded, not open.

I owe a lot more thought & consideration to these weighty claims, this is to casual an association & accusation to leave so unsupported, but I must value some efficiency over effectiveness right now or these thoughts will likely never make it out. good luck godspees & keep.openimg the mediums to more, to beyonds.