Affordances - How Design Teaches Us Without Words - Extra Credits

Sometimes, you just look at a thing and know how it works. That's not an accident - it's good design, called affordance, and it can be applied to video games.
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[@estiaanj8425]

That green square, silver circle thing blew my mind.

[@101jir]

+Estiaan J Another example that might not be so shocking is War Thunder. A small dot off in the distance coming towards you is probably another plane, and since allies are marked in AB and RB, an enemy one unless you are playing SB. Once it notices you, you get more information. If it turns away from you, it is probably a vulnerable bomber like the He-111. If it doesn't stray from its path, it either hasn't noticed you, or is a well protected bomber like the B-17 or Yer-2. If it turns straight towards you or an ally, it is probably a fighter or heavy fighter. Assuming that you are at equal or lower altitude. At high altitude only a few individuals wish to engage you, and usually this is suicide. And yet, all this is the behavior of a few pixels we can make out. Of course, being human they could try to troll the system, but only a few things work. A zero might pretend to be a poorly protected bomber by flying away, but it wouldn't make much sense for a weak He-111 bomber to head straight in your direction. You would be surprised, but pleasantly.

[@Roxor128]

It's not intuitive if you're not from a country with an abundance of green banknotes. If I were hinting at banknotes next to a cash register, I'd make them purple and blue, given Australian $5 and $10 notes are purple and blue, respectively.

[@estiaanj8425]

I'm Australian too, and personally I'd fine green squares more symbolic of money :)

[@Roxor128]

You handle a lot of $100 notes, huh?

[@fy8798]

This gets really interesting when you take translations into account. Many translated asian games have odd systems that seem weird, controls that are clunky, numbers that seem to make no sense, enemy groups that seem entirely random, and so on. Western gamers often assume that this is bad design, just weird and clunky, when in reality it's affordance for a different group. The issue is that affordance is made for the original audience, and is nearly always invisible for translators, who often don't even KNOW that this feature is there for that reason. It's never documented, because it's too obvious for the original designers, yet not obvious for us. Many design decisions for affordance aren't universally human, but depend on the culture. A lot. Food for thought the next time you're really confused by clunky controls or systems - is it because the controls ARE clunky, or because an affordance is at play that you can't see? Take this video. This video is a PERFECT example - spearman, footman and rider. It's obvious to an american, apparently. To an european, who lives near Switzerland, it's not obvious at all. Quite the opposite: it feels ULTRA weird and contrived, because the hard counter for spearman is ranged weapons, while spearmen are a hard counter for footmen AND cavalry.

[@danielburns3240]

An intelligent comment on KZbin!? Am I dreaming?

[@panpolypuff]

Makes me think of the first few Japanese-produced games I played on PlayStation. I had become accustomed to X being "confirm" and O being "cancel" in some American games, totally unaware that those are the opposites of those symbols' conventional meanings in Japanese culture. As a result, I found the control scheme of games like Final Fantasy 7 and Metal Gear Solid totally disorienting. I was also totally thrown off by some minigames in the very-Japanese Monster Rancher, where a blue X or red O was displayed to indicate a pass/fail result of a statistically randomized event. I thought those were indications to mash the displayed button, and so often found myself frustrated with my inability to push the X button fast enough!

[@galev3955]

I was actually wondering how footmen counters spearmen... :D (I'm European). Where does that even come from?

[@xeno2752]

Another European here. That's the first thing I thought, it makes no sense that footman beats spearman to me.

[@Schenkel101]

Well, as the footman is depicted with a shield, he might have the chance to close the distance and deny the spearman the advantage of range, at which point a sword or dagger would be better suited for the job. At least if you consider a one on one fight.

[@KennyTew2]

The horizontal push bar on some doors is a safety feature in the event of a fire. It has been found, i suspect with horrifying consequences, that as people panic in the event of a fire they can rush towards the door. this presses the people at the front up against the door. Once in this position the people pushing at the back will not know what is happening at the front and will keep pushing. If the door opens inwards instead of with the flow of escape, then everyone dies! But even with the door opening in the correct direction it may impossible for the people at the front of the squeeze to turn the handle and once more, everyone dies. BUT with a push bar and the door opening in the right direction, no crush can build and everyone lives. Just thought I'd share since you mentioned it.

[@type1ninja940]

I know I'm like 5 months late, but just for the record: I'm pretty sure that was made law during the Industrial Revolution. It happened after a fire in a cloth factory somewhere... I think it was in Chicago. The consequences *were* horrifying. :/

[@lancelindlelee7256]

I remember this being implied in the episode of an Anime. The crazy dude keeps on saying that the door opens inwards. Later, during the fight, the good guys tries to fight but is extremely overpowered and tries to escape. Nope, the door opens inward. She is trapped.

[@AdmiralTails]

This doesn't quite describe the type of door being described in the video, which are doors that generally don't have latches and are usually interior doors, where all that needs to be done is pushing or pulling, in either direction. All still true, just describes a slightly different type of door than the video does.

[@W0lff]

at my school the door was put in worng so you had to pull the vertical barr and pull the horizontal barr. there were a lot of kids who facepalmed themselves against the door.

[@TheAsvarduilProject]

The place I work right now has this problem. There's these dual-sided glass doors, but with grippable horizontal bars on both sides. However, said doors are *not* bi-directional; half the time, I lean into the horizontal bar only to leave an imprint of self on the glass. :(

[@jeppel1972]

I feel like this often makes me think: "How does the designers want me to solve this?" instead of: "How do I solve this?" in puzzle games, however I am not sure that this is always what causes it or even that this is a bad thing.

[@jeppel1972]

Like in Portal I will think: "Why did the designers put this hard light bridge here?" or "Why did the designers put these panels here?"

[@emikochan13]

that's one of the reasons i dislike most puzzle games, the solutions are often too specific, when in reality you might be able to jump that fence rather than looking for the gate key...

[@lonerChise]

JePPeL and then you listen to the designers' commentary and they specifically start saying "we put this here, so the player will first go that-a-way ... etc"

[@Carlitonsp1]

My mind got fucking blown by that Car pedal point. I never thought of it that way.

[@metalboo8491]

and meanwhile there are a few driving games out that got even that wrong. (-cough-Simpsons Road Rage-cough-)

[@SpookySkellyGurl]

That's funny, because I grew up playing games on older consoles that didn't do that, using the A button instead (like Mario Kart 64, for instance), so the first time I played Crazy Taxi on the Dreamcast I was like "hey, this is really fucking novel, why don't more games do this?" And then all the games started doing it, and I was happy.

[@ShadowFalcon]

Sun-Wukong Was thinking the same. Most driving games I played was mapped to the Cross and Square buttons on the PS controller, and I needed a bit of time to adjust when Racedriver GRID had them mapped to LT and RT.

[@Edax_Royeaux]

Lol, as a kid, I had no idea which pedal did what in a car... So that right trigger left trigger thing was wasted on me...

[@chinezeFURY]

You probably don't drive

[@mattj2389]

So, I understand your infantry, archer, cavalry metaphor, it is a good one. But, historically speaking, spearmen actually beat both cavalry and infantry. Love the videos! especially the historical ones (crusades were hilarious!)

[@worldofgaming8887]

I'm on an Extra Credits marathon currently. Boy these people feel like modern philosophers.

[@jimmyc.491]

Me too!

[@Edit-nk6nb]

I've never thought about door handles before , yet something so simple as the bar being lengthways or sideways as a design choice just blew my mind.

[@thoperSought]

there was a tower records in my home town-no idea if they all had this-with a horizontal bar on one side of a glass door, that connected through the glass to a vertical bar on the other side. it was super easy to use.

[@aurarus]

For some reason, it's not always as intuitive for me. I've been in a lot of buildings where you had to push a vertical handle thing on the door to get through. And whenever I come across those "push only" doors, my hand reaches for an invisible handle that isn't there, I get flustered, and my brain says "dummy, this is one of those push doors!... Right?"

[@thoperSought]

aurarus that sounds like the design is done wrong, most likely. a lot of doors have a vertical handle on both sides, even if the door swings only one way-that's just poor design. one of the problems with this is that it's not strictly an issue of affordances: you can still push a vertical handle. (vertical handles 'afford' pushing.) however, a flat plate can *only* be pushed. that's proper thinking about affordances. the problem is, because you can still push a vertical handle, and because they aren't used as consistently as one might hope, we *learn* to push them, or we learn that we can push them so we stop and have to think about what to do. I'm not exactly sure what the experience you describe is, but it sounds like it could be an issue of learning the wrong behavior from badly designed doors.

[@Izandaia]

For me I've always looked at the shape of the handle. If it's flat with relatively sharp edges that look uncomfortable to grab, I push, while a rounded handle tells me to pull.

[@KofoedTim]

***** precisely. And as Donald Norman (the book referenced) says, if a user makes a mistake with a product, it's - always - the designer's fault, but the user usually thinks it's his fault. This goes for doors, stoves, ovens, telephones, software... everything.

[@assiqtaq]

Most of the time if the door handle on a store's door is the same on both sides, that means it generally can be pushed or pulled. On my local Starbucks the door used to open that way, then they had to add a fan over the door and it only opens one way now, but the handles didn't change and people are often confused. Also, interestingly enough most doors in your house open intuitively as well, always opening INTO the room, but OUT of a closet. This is because it is assumed if you are in a hall you'd have to move out of the way for the door and it is awkward, but closets don't have room for the door to open into your stuff. It makes sense when you think about it, but most people never consider it.

[@chiar0scur0]

I always found the level design in the Halo games to be quite impressive in this regard. The maps look open ended, yet as you move around, you're subliminally drawn down a particular path. I very rarely found myself lost in those games, because the affordances made it obvious where to go, without it being as abrupt and obnoxious as a lighted path.

[@ettinakitten5047]

Have you ever looked at the video games designed for animals to play? (eg Cat Fishing, an iPad game where a cat is supposed to paw at fish.) It seems to me that the issue of affordances is especially important for animal game designers, because animals a) usually won't understand verbal instructions, and so have to know instinctively how to play, and b) have different, and often more limited, affordances than human players. For example, very few animals have any concept of tool use, so that rules out use of any controller - hence why all the animal games I know of are played on touch screen. They also respond to different stimuli with different intuitive actions, such as pawing at moving things for a cat.

[@FaliusAren]

Ettina Kitten Yes, that's pretty obvious. So what's the point?

[@VikingSloth]

+FaliusAren Perhaps they're discussing this more to say that we can learn from people that design games for an animal other than a human being. When talking about intuition, relying entirely on instinctual play instead of patterns that have been taught over time to be intuitive to people would be a huge advantage

[@skippymcflippynipsoldchann9983]

Wow that's a thing! Is there any for dogs.

[@vornamenachname2727]

@@VikingSloth We can also learn from other mediums: In survival horror you can make the player feel very small by making the camera see them small, and make them uneasy by using crooked angles, creaking doors and of course jumpscares. Or you mark easy enemies by their small size and strong weapons by their exaggerated scale and expensive items by expensive patterns or materials (stone

[@TheSilverDragon1]

white boxes with a big red cross on = Health packs

[@Bishop38f8]

Health packs are so 20th century, pfff :)

[@xjevenx]

Bishop38f8 Yah man, its all about that auto regeneration of health. Hehe

[@laylconway6525]

Person in mostly white clothing = medic

[@JM-nothing-more]

even better yet: red barrels

[@KvaGram]

Layl Conway Or scientists, depending on location.

[@kenkoopa7903]

This whole episode got me thinking about Default Dan and how it screws with your affordances by practically reversing the simple gameplay of Mario. For example, touch a coin or powerup and you die, you defeat 'enemies' by hitting them from below (ironically, like SMB's predecessor, Mario Bros.), spike help you traverse the levels, trampolines actually hinder your jumping ability, pits aren't deadly, and so on and so forth.

[@WestlyLaFleur]

Good stuff guys, as an illustrator, this concept plays a big role in my every day life, and despite having once acknowledged it consciously, I've since internalized it. It's nice to have a reminder like this.

[@SirGalath]

as an industrial designer, it is very interesting to see how our diciplines connect in a fundamental level, we both are shaping a world through objects, objects perceived by a human mind. Nice book recommendation, you should check his book on emotional design, maybe you could get some use out of it...

[@Saylor28]

One of the best designed games I think ever made was Super Metroid. This game empowered the player by showing you how to play without holding your hand through it like most games do now. Example: Getting the Morph ball and using it. As soon as you got the morph ball (or any new item for that matter) you were given a puzzle to complete by using it. With the morph ball, the ledge was too high to grab on to so the only way to go was down between the gap that is about half your size. You hit "down" once, "hmmm, I'm kneeling now, but I'm still too big to fit, let me hit down again." *BOOM!* Mind effing blown.

[@eleonorap.8067]

I'm a psychology student, and today my laboratory professor showed this video during the lesson. Good job, I love it!

[@Volvary]

About the first example, I would love to see a shop do that to screw with people. Install the "push" handle on the "pull" side and the "pull" handle on the "push" side.

[@candibrie]

My school accidently did this with a doorway. It's fun to watch people try to walk in. A couple get really frustrated because it's obviously wrong.

[@shady4091]

+Volvary I see it quite often... Though it usually seems like a fuck up, not an intentional joke.

[@Nemoy-wq6rb]

+Olaf -none- Nah, it just has a Chicago Entrance.

[@abramthiessen8749]

In some parts of Canada that is called a mother-in-law door.

[@HayleyMacmillan]

In my university, all the doors have vertical handles on both sides, but only open one way. And, to make it just that more troublesome, the 'pull' and 'push' labels were put on the wrong side.

[@darkmage07070777]

Excellent episode! I enjoy learning about game design because it adds re-playability to games I otherwise wouldn't when I can look around at the game world and figure out the tricks the designers used to make the awesome effects work. It's like the second or third time you see a good movie: you're mostly reliving the good times and are possibly curious about how the movie was put together so well.

[@MakeKasprzak]

Dudes. Just wanted to say thank you for continuing to make the show week after week after week. It's wonderfully inspirational.

[@rossfischer]

The word "affordance" used in this way was coined by Don Norman in his The Design of Everyday Things. In recent editions, he's been more clear that what we're really talking about here are "signifiers". That is, "signifiers" are signals that let us know that we can do something, the "affordance" is the thing that allows for the action. For example, in UI design, the "signifier" is the text being blue and double underlined, and the "affordance" is the actual, clickable link.

[@halfsasquatch]

I can't help but think about one of my personal pet peaves in games, architecture, and how it tends to be immersion breaking. I think it's because I have a mental map of how certain buildings are supposed to work and if the design doesn't match how I think the building should be IRL than it snaps me out of the illusion....

[@migriv4603]

Still literally one of the most useful KZbin series for design

[@bjwaters]

As some one who recently got a Masters in Instructional Design, the word Affordances and the discussion of the Norman doors was right up my alley. Good work, guys. I always like to see how Game Design and Instructional Design overlap, and this is a great episode showing just that. Imma go share this with everyone else at USU's ITLS department!

[@neophobicnyctophile8264]

I've never been behind the wheel of a car (and never will), so it makes sense that I ALWAYS get the brake and accelerator buttons confused in every racing game I've ever played!

[@KuraIthys]

Fun thing about stuff like this is that sometimes games contain assumptions that are not universally true, and they mess some people up instead of helping them. One of the most common (though people in this group are used to it, since it applies to life in general for them) is that if you're left-handed, many things we interact with on a daily basis are highly counter-intuitive. For every object that feels correct to a right-handed person, a left-handed person will be left wondering why such things are so awkward to use... And while you might not think left-right bias would have much implications on game design, it is more pervasive than you think - The most obvious is controller schemes - which are made worse when motion controls are in use... But also the psychological disconnect of almost always seeing your avatar wielding objects in your right hand, which you know you'd never actually do given a choice. However, there's also much more subtle effects - For instance given a fork in a path where one choice is better than the other to make, more often than not, the better path would seem to be the path on the right. Conversely, when a designer tries to reward people for going against their natural inclinations, they often put special things down a path on the left... It should be reasonably clear however, that the natural inclinations of the left-handed person are probably the reverse of a right-handed one... Oh well... I just wish I could get a decent left-handed mouse. XD - At best you'll find ambidextrous designs, at worst a whole heap of right-handed designs that are way beyond awkward to hold in your left hand...

[@reNINTENDO]

As a person using a mouse that would be basically impossible to use for lefties, I feel yuh. I'm also left handed at pool for some reason.

[@KuraIthys]

***** Your point is generally correct, but where are you getting the 93% from? Estimates vary widely on the prevalance of left-handedness, from as little as 5% in Japan to as much as 20% in some parts of Europe. But regardless, the sad part is, while it might seem easy to include a left-handed control scheme, most of the time it doesn't happen at all. (And even where it does, the design of it often doesn't consider the implications of it properly. Such as Wii Sports resorts which, while including left-handed options for clearly one-handed tasks, failed to do so for two-handed ones, which led to a lot of awkward hand swapping for left handed users that right-handed users did not face - primarily due to the use of a wrist strap...) Speaking of twilight princess, while there are indeed two versions of that game, which are mirror images of one another, it contains no control options. - The left-handed version is the gamecube version with traditional controls where it shouldn't matter as much, while the right-handed version is the one that has controls where your dominant hand might matter more, but it completely ignores the existence of left-handed players... - (it's also obvious the game clearly wasn't designed with link being right-handed in mind, since when the entire world is flipped to match it, the sun rises and sets in the wrong direction.)

[@coastersplus]

Motion controls should be easy to switch hands with, but for some reason, the only game I can think of that allows this is Wii Sports.

[@KuraIthys]

coastersplus Yeah, and it didn't even do it that well. Wii sports resort allows it too, but the implementation means any two-handed events require a right-handed control scheme. This might not sound like an issue, but it means every time you switch from a one-handed to a two-handed control scheme, you have to swap the hands you hold the controller in. And that's made extra complicated by the wrist strap. ***** It's hard to say how much difference it would make. It varies per person. It can also be affected negatively by having had lots of practice with a 'right-handed' control scheme. For instance, even though standard two-handed controllers are technically using a control scheme that's biased slightly towards right-handed users, if I were to switch now, after many years of using it, it'd probably only make things worse. Another example is the mouse buttons on my mouse. Because I have used a lot of borrowed computers, I got used to using a right-handed mouse configuration. Although I would move the mouse so I could use it in my left hand, I didn't change the settings. That means I typically use the left mouse button with my middle finger, while the settings in the options assume everyone tries to use the left button with their index finger. But... If I were to actually change the settings around at this point, all it would do is confuse me. Nevertheless, it could still make a noticeable difference. I've seen it many times, where if I'm doing something and swap hands, I get a lot better at it. I would estimate it's typically about a 20% improvement. I specifically remember an unreal tournament match from ages ago, where there were 14 players, on public computers. I was 13th. Now, I had never played UT before, so that didn't help, but after a while I realised I was trying to play with a mouse in my right hand, and when I realised and swapped hands, I almost immediately went from 13th to 11th, and later to 9th... Anecdotal, I know, but that does give some clues as to the kind of difference it can make in theory...

[@firnen5776]

There is alot of gaming mice for lefties. Like the Deathadder.

[@swanijam]

I don't know if anyone else here in the comments is read the book, but I actually just finished it before watching this. in "The Design of Everyday Things", the author makes an important distinction that he puts a lot of emphasis on, that affordances are only what the thing in question allows an individual to do with it. Signals, on the other hand, are the thing that make it clear what the affordances are. Your triangles and squares being next to a register is a signal that shows that the triangles and squares afford paying for things. And the brighter carpet is a signal that shows the path affords traversal or progression. In the book the author takes this distinction very seriously and notes the people frequently use it the way you do in the video. But with all that said, it's much easier and usually just as effective to combine the concepts, to say, "An affordance is any function that is made clear to the user", and that every important function should be presented as a clear affordance.

[@arcadiaexeter]

Finally another EC thats about how to design games.

[@Giraffinator]

instead of rock, paper, scissors, I'm playing broccoli, beansprouts,beluga whale.

[@shraka]

One big issue I've had with affordance design (working with the Zero-K team) is that often our intuitive understandings are wrong. Tanks don't tend to have the weaknesses ascribed to them in games, neither to aircraft, Snipers, Machine guns positions and space ships just do not work the way they do in almost any space game (play Kerbal Space program if you want to learn how they really work). Their place in the battlefield changes in games compared to reality because of this. It then makes it hard for someone making a realistic game, or someone trying to educate, to change all the familiar touchstones to be inline with reality, instead of intuition.

[@BFedie518]

O.O Ya blew my mind with the triggers matching the pedals in a car. Growing up, accelerate in racing games has always been X (PS2 NFS games, etc.), and I played quite a few shooters before playing something with vehicles in it that used the triggers to move. For me, the right trigger being accelerate has always been "This is what I use to shoot my gun, so this is what I use to 'shoot' the car forward," and the left trigger just is the opposite of what the right trigger is doing.

[@ThisIsMyFullName]

When opening a door, I just look at where the hinges are. If I can't see them, it means I have to push the door open..

[@SirGalath]

thats a nice tip, but this is not about what you should do, but what people normally do...

[@Izandaia]

For me I've always looked at the shape of the handle. If it's flat with relatively sharp edges that look uncomfortable to grab, I push, while a rounded handle tells me to pull.

[@harlkory]

Izandaia I normally push no matter what and feel like an idiot if the door doesn't move.

[@Stikasasn]

I find that it is usually push to enter a room and pull to exit a room. I bet all bedrooms are push to get in and pull to get out. Most stores that don't have sliding or double hinged doors are the same way I think. BUT emergency exits are usually push out and are only one way. That is the usual exception and I think that has to do with safety.

[@WrittenPrestidigitation]

I ended up shattering a 7 foot tall glass door trying to pull it open because it looked like the hinges where on my side of the door.

[@etnasantacreugrifoluoc8018]

Thanks for this video. We're now delving into the world of affordances in the degree I'm taking and I just couldn't understand what the teacher was trying to get us to understand. She linked me to your video and it's all crystal clear now, what a great resource!

[@AlexGardipe]

I've been playing through the Legacy of Kain series recently and it's pretty amazing how, in Soul Reaver, they managed to take a sprawling sandbox that still largely makes sense to navigate, to the point where you can even kind of tell when an area is an "exploration" vs "navigation" area. Awesome episode, everyone!

[@StrangerOman]

Finally. Finally I watched it all from the old channel to new one. Just want to say. Thank you for doing great job. I learn a lot and share it with my friends.

[@icarue993]

A good use of the Pokemon triangle (grass beats water, water beats fire, fire beats grass) is used in Fire Emblem Heroes. Where sword (coded red) beats axe (green) which beats lance (blue) which beats sword (red) (this also applies to magic and manakete units). They use the weapon symbol (known to fe fans) as well as the color to make it more accessible to people.

[@CSDragon]

Have you guys ever heard of "Default Dan", it's a great experiment in breaking accordance.

[@daviematcha]

I love it when EC makes these connections to other forms of design. Awesome video!

[@staryoshi]

From the first 30 seconds, I knew you were talking about the design of everyday things. That is one of my favorite books.

[@RoundPi]

Fire Emblem taught me spear men beat foot men...

[@tineriusgracchus1165]

Cathy Nguyen I learned that the mind is weak to the darkness.

[@dexis9412]

Buddhist Tigrex also bugs and ghosts XD

[@carsonscott1107]

I learned from Pokemon that fire beats grass, grass beats water, water beats fire. The rest is whatever but that's the important stuff anyway.

[@Definitely_a_Fox]

I learned to ignore types in Pokemon because Ash's Pikachu can apparently hurt rock type Pokemon. Plus the games are so easy that it doesn't really matter what you do, you will win.

[@jackferring6790]

+Mewium99 correction; its ground types are immune to Electric attacks, not Rock types. yeah Pikachu shouldn't have been able to hurt Onix because it's also ground type, but I figured I should make that clear. best excuse I can come up with is that someone forgot to tell the writer that Onix is also ground type

[@SAwyerD14]

Hey Extra Credits, if you sold these, collected, on DVD. I'd buy.

[@Roxor128]

SLDonk64 Maybe they could make longer versions of certain topics specifically for the DVD releases, too.

[@MrOnosa]

Back when I made games using RPG Maker (for PlayStation one, no less), I made a quest that played with the assumptions my players made. I had a maze in a field. The user could walk on green squares, but brown ones blocked you. At one point in the maze, the maze had a very obvious path to the goal with a black path. I thought it would be interesting to see if players tried to walk on something that wasn't a green path. Most did not! They would walk all the way around the maze before even considering a different way to traverse the maze. This video on affordances reminded me of that quest I made so many years ago... Also, read that book he suggested, the design if everyday things. It's awesome.

[@jeffsmith3880]

I think of that book every time some door's handles are on the wrong side.

[@uselessloginrequired]

Great episode, I especially liked the art this week. The small teacup sequence starting at 1:17 was especially funny.

[@EpicBob3664]

I like the art style of extra credits. Especially how games as a whole are depicted. They look cute! :)

[@weiming10]

An affordance is the relationship between an object and the user and what you can do. Many of the things you just mentioned such as doors,a path, etc are signifiers. An example is a tea cup. The handle is a signifier of "hey you should probably stick your fingers here". Without the handle, you can still "afford to" pick it up, but it'd suck cause you'd probably burn yourself if it had hot tea. Not only that, but the person can still afford to spin it, throw it, stack it, push it, pull it, bop it. This is according to the book though. From what I've heard, both ways of using the term are correct. Also great video :) keep it up.

[@moff181]

Doing an interaction design module at university, and remembered this video. Thank you; this may save my mark!

[@JustinCglass]

I don’t developed games, but I do enjoy playing them, and as with anything I enjoy, I like learning about it Thank you all for putting effort into this channel I’ve learned a lot Thank you

[@luliby2309]

The gas and brake thing in games and the green rectangle and silver circle thing completely blew my mind!

[@domlittler8656]

I was literally going to write in this week to request more visual language based episodes, its a fantastic link between game artist and game designer, and low and behold we have one. good job mind reading guys! Coincidentally you also just game me the perfect quote for the conclusion of my essay on Visual Language and Semiotics!

[@jesternario]

I must now make a building that has the push and pull bars on the OPPOSITE side of the doors they're supposed to be just to mess with people.

[@drizzt7dourden7]

and then make it a slide door ^^

[@jesternario]

ha ha! :)

[@Sientir]

I was thinking that this episode reminded me of "The Design of Everyday Things". Then you called it out. That book is fantastic.

[@Dalpima]

Loved how you guys explained affordances. :) Keep up the great work as always!

[@Zearonith]

This was the very first topic we covered in my Advanced User Interface class.

[@lazaruslongnl9046]

Yes, book suggestions. Please include these in every episode. Thank you and great video guys!

[@drakengarfinkel3133]

Navigational accordance...so like at the beginning of Skyrim you head to Riverwood because it's in the immediate direction that doesn't have mountains surrounding it.

[@thelizardofodd]

A really good example of this would be to play through L4D1 with the developer commentary. All of their developer commentary bits are great, but in L4D1 they do a fantastic piece on lighting design and how that's used to help show players where to go. They all give some terrific insight into areas of game development people do not usually think about.

[@idonthave1111]

2:50 That is actually incredibly intuitive. You need cheese bait to catch a mousefish to catch a catfish.

[@barnesm23]

Thanks for that, never realised that was happening but once you pointed it out I see it everywhere.

[@FeamT]

Green named characters and Red named characters. Gray, green, yellow, and red quest titles. Skull icons for danger in every way possible. There's so much more to this topic, and yet it is generally an unspoken truth in video games... It's amazing how natural and taken-for-granted great design can look at times!

[@BartvG88]

"Huge Boon" illustrated with a picture of ed boon. Brilliant.

[@KingN641994]

I love in the game Default Dan it completely flips on people's common Affordances in video games.

[@Singular8ty]

Worst form of navigational affordance: giant, obnoxious item on your HUD that says "GO HERE!" or whatever. I'm looking at pretty much every AAA publisher out there, because they've all done this at some point.... Make it obvious by the level design, not with an arbitrary thing that says "look here, because you're too stupid to figure it out yourself" (that's how it feels at least).

[@labrynianrebel]

The problem with adventure games was the absence of MULTIPLE SOLUTIONS. It's okay to have "out of the box" solutions, but that makes the player think that way. So why can't I use a stool to get an apple I can't reach? Without multiple solutions the player is stuck until they think the SPECIFIC and NARROW idea that the developer did.

[@Yolwoocle]

Kind of off topic but you're right

[@whatthehalberdvlogsstuff883]

Woohoo another episode! and it was epic like all the rest. good luck on the next video.

[@XeansIcemane]

1:14 "This is my hand's hole, it calls to my hand!"

[@lastburning]

I love Junji Ito :)

[@justdontask3]

who did the art for this one? it was drawn more.... fantastically. more alive, more creative, and just funnier. or maybe its been too long since ive seen an EC episode >.> however, now im gonna be looking for things like this in all my games. "this carpet is different! the devs are making me want to go there! **** YOU DEVS im goin this way!"

[@wanaan]

I hope the show would one day cover the topic of "modern non-fiction" games--games about current events, etc, and why they are so....challenging to make one and not be controversial.

[@lionevil1976]

I love starting the day with one of your videos. Thank you!

[@Zeratul1005]

This video was awesome! I'd never really thought about intuitive design in games before

[@PonyusTheWolfdude]

Hell, there's a lot of affordance in the artstyle of extra credits, and I find that enjoyable!

[@Hakudohshi]

Tight and informative episode, good job guys!

[@csernobillahun]

The intro music somehow always makes me feel good :)

[@AdamHede]

This extends to more advanced decision making too. See "Nudge" by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein for a full rundown of how to do choice architecture. Especially things like defaults are super important for how players go through games.

[@dalsio]

I'd love to see a part 2 about affordance, since it is such an important concept, and there are so many things you can do with it. For instance, some affordance comes simply from the prevalence of certain rules. Take using WASD for controlling movement using a keyboard, for instance: sure it's in a good spot to control movement, but using it isn't intuitive on it's own. Experienced players instinctively use WASD for movement on a keyboard simply because nearly every other game does it. These affordances can be used to control the learning curve, one way or another. Games like "I Wanna Be The Guy", "The Stanley Parable" and, "Default Dan" all play on players' affordances by doing the exact opposite. In fact, some games can establish their own affordances, and suddenly change the rules mid-game just to screw with the player even more.

[@Gruegirl]

I took a game design course at CMU att one point. The teacher mentioned this concept by mentioning that theydid a study on all the doors in the university... and pointed out 4 doors on campus that were repeatedly used wrong. He even did it while a certain far side cartoon was projected.

[@km_studios]

I remember reading somewhere that, when Sega was making Sonic and Knuckles--which features one level where gravity can be reversed and you'll fall toward the ceiling--they actually took a poll to decide if the up/down controls should also be reversed (i.e. should you have to press UP to crouch when you're upside down?) in order to get a feel for which design would be the most intuitive (they ended up keeping down as the crouch button, even with reversed gravity)

[@Catching360]

Wow I actually read that book in-sync with my game design book. Everything started making so much more sense!

[@perceivingacting]

Nice description of affordances. There's not much out there on YT and what there is misses the point or uses the term as a buzz-word. It's far more than that - it's the basis of all perception and action.

[@awsomedude9111]

Love your videos, please keep making more!

[@weofparadigm]

This episode is amazing. MIND BLOWN

[@RickAltair]

I love learning things from you guys...

[@perfidiousprophet]

this entire channel is just galaxy brain

[@docterfantazmo]

Having just watched Steam Train play Default Dan made this ep quite relevant.

[@MrMest0pheles]

If it weren't for these fantastic videos, I'd have to bankrupt myself going to DigiPen.. I learn more from these than i do in classes I'm taking right now

[@TheKEOGEN]

That was actually really cool and interesting! Good job

[@brandoncarbaugh7994]

There's a great part in Jessie Schell's "Book of Lenses" where he talks about coloring the carpet red to suggest a path to fly along, in an Aladdin game he once worked on.

[@cadewatkin7086]

I know this is an old video, but Breath of the Wild does this beautifully with their korok seeds. Little easter eggs and rewards that you get by noticing and executing affordances.

[@crimson-foxtwitch2581]

2:32 Unless you're playing a PS2 game, where accelerate is x and brake is square.

[@mitchell2719]

We've been talking about this in my design class lately. It's weird to think that there's so much thought that went into something as simple as, say, a garbage can.

[@Genrevideos]

Another interesting thing is how old school side-scrollers used affordance in intro stages in games. A perfect example of this would be Mega Man X. In Mega Man X the game doesn't hold your hand. It was on the first games I ever played and one thing i can say that showed affordance is how you start the game. A perfect example of this is how X will start the stage looking to the player's right. This gives the idea that a player would be playing a game as if he was reading a book. Because normally people read books from left-to-right. And another weird philosophy is how movement in a game is accosted with the left hand. It possibly has something to do with riding a horse where you hold the reigns in the left hand. And so a player will notice this directional looking pad on the controller and will be all like, "Hey, this might my what causes me to move, I think I'm going to go ri- OH MY GOD! This directional looking button thingy allows me to move!"

[@OSuKaRuTV1]

"Spearman, horseman, footman"? I undestand it better with the classic "Rock, paper, scissors" :D

[@WarLarkGamer]

4:37 is pretty much exactly how I feel every time after I watch an extra credits video.

[@Jumpinsnakes]

Now I have a new topic of discussion with my game friends at work!

[@note4note804]

I think it would be interesting to do a side topic on this discussing the setbacks of controller affordance due to genre constraints. For example, how difficult it can be to make a shooter with significantly unique gameplay when everyone expects there to be a jump/aim/melee/etc. button, or how fighters tend to have such a time sink involved because every single one drastically changes what each button actually means despite prior experience. This could maybe tie into the idea of tutorials where some games seem to almost assume that you know how it works because it so closely imitates other games within it's genre(i.e. a shooter perhaps neglecting to tell you how to sprint or how to aim down a sniper scope because it's almost always the same button).

[@Colouroutofspace4]

Expedition to the Barrier Peaks did a great job of toying with Affordances and making us realize what we take for granite.

[@SinerAthin]

"Granite?" I dunno, sounds a little bit too hard for most people, hehe xD

[@d-landjs]

Informative episode, good job guys!

[@mallenwho]

Would have loved a mention of mirror's edge. What an excellent piece of affordance in game navigation design

[@Stikasasn]

Should have mentioned games that uses affordance against the player. Trolling games like Default Dan that uses things like coin, which are usually something the player seeks out, as a deadly obstacle.