Redefining Information Games, based on their cleverest trick

[Sorry that the sun set while I was talking] About 5 years ago, I threw out this term for a particular kind of investigative game. As the genre's evolved, I've realised my old definition doesn't always match up to the essence of what I'm talking about, so I revisited the idea to thrash out a new way to define it, and a new way to explain why what they do is so exciting - to me, and players like me.

[@dodger3294]

You would adore The Forgotten City. The entire video I expected to hear you start talking about it at any moment. Easily one of the best games I've ever played.

[@buttonasas]

So I've only watched a Let's Play and haven't played myself but: it felt like it was just giving you quests and rewarding with answers. Making own theories was possible but... it didn't seem to lead to much? Progression was tied mostly to figuring out which character you should talk to next and give them newfound information or items - I wouldn't exactly call that a revelation. Occasionally it would let you find something hidden. The let's player made a theory about Karen (literally the first character you meet) and they were right but... that didn't lead to any progress in the game :'D The one thing I will grant the game is this: it _will_ punish you for dumbly trying every item and piece of knowledge on every character - so I suppose that does make you engage more and think about what you're actually doing. Still, I don't remember any actual "revelations" that would make Tom Francis go "could that be... oh no, wait!.. oh shit!" :D Maybe the let's player was just way too good at it and solved everything too easily :P (Keith Ballard is the channel)

[@buttonasas]

In other words, it felt a bit like Bioshock or other "plot twist" games - you can figure out whatever you want but the game doesn't really give you the tools to act on it in a way you want - you'll still get betrayed/subverted in this kind of game, no matter what.

[@zacharybarbanell1064]

Would be curious to hear your take on Tunic, definitely one of my favorite games I've played in a long time, and it has some of these elements

[@skywarka]

IMO Tunic fits the Metroidbrainia term fairly well, though it also has a lot of elements of a traditional metroidvania. There are some very powerful abilities you start with but don't understand, and there are abilities you have to earn by getting equipment from dungeons and bosses. Both unlock options in exploration and combat.

[@alastairvanmaren5243]

You may be a "weird little gremlin", Tom, but your OUR "weird little gremlin", and we love you. 😄

[@finctank]

Seems unnecessarily possessive 😅

[@Huntracony]

Another game in this genre I quite enjoyed was _The Roottrees are Dead,_ where you're tasked with filling in a family tree by searching the late 90s internet. It's also free (at least the current version is, seems like they're remaking it for Steam), so that's nice.

[@PsyannaIsaac]

Void Stranger does a lot to combine this type of game with a regular sokoban game, peeling back the layers and earning understanding in every aspect, be that story or gameplay is incredibly engaging, which is why that game has etched itself into my brain more so than any other game of similar genre.

[@Kaleil]

Chants of Sennaar is a recent one that I think has a very clever spin on this.

[@patjohbra]

For sure, thinking about that game is how I independently arrived at the old definition presented in this video

[@styxrakash4639]

I feel like the copped out with giving the player 100% true definitions even if they weren't fully correct - ensuring a proper difficulty curve for these games are going to be the biggest sap of developers as far as I can tell

[@iestynne]

This inspired me to finally fire up Curse of the Golden Idol and it's fantastic! Thanks for providing a great starting point for thinking about this blossoming new genre.

[@AaronMDubya]

You should try a game called A Door in the Woods. My favorite information horror game. I also call it a "constrained horror game", because it manages to be scary without sound, jump scares or most colors. I'm in love with it, have spoken to the dev, and hope to make a Woods-like game myself some day

[@StephenKatt]

This made me think of Myst which was one of the first PC games I ever played. That was more of a puzzle game, but it gave me that sense that I was in charge of discovering the backstory, and there were numerous instances where understanding that story was the clue that was needed to unlock something that you could have found from the very beginning. I haven't yet played any of the information games you mentioned, but now I'm interested to try.

[@ishanpm_]

Do you mind telling me a little more about how the story relates to the puzzles? I recently played through the 2021 version, and I felt like most of my progress was made through observation and experimentation. That's definitely not a bad thing, but it did leave me feeling like there were parts of the backstory I didn't quite understand, like the different colored inks from Channelwood.

[@StephenKatt]

I would honestly have to look it up to remember. But it seemed like there was something with a father and his 2 sons, and the worlds that were created in the books. Most of the puzzles could be solved just by observing, but I seem to recall that sometimes there were drips of story that would help you know what you could do next. Some of that might come from Riven.

[@MattGiuca]

I think that's more of a Riven thing. (Myst can be entirely understood as a puzzle box, no story is necessary to completing the game.) Riven is a bit more integrated but even then, you only really need to understand the story to understand the story. I think that's why modern "information games" like Outer Wilds are so exciting, because their primary innovation on the Myst formula (and Myst is explicitly listed as an inspiration for Outer Wilds) is making understanding the story the main puzzle.

[@finctank]

Thanks for another intriguing, thought-provoking talk Tom.

[@kingambrose9919]

I'm currently working on a semi-information game by myself which makes everything very slow but this was interesting to watch and learn about.

[@BoatsAndJoes]

I agree with what you say at the end, that it's very nice to not just be "allowed" to do something in an unusual way, but also feel like the game recognizes and validates what I've done. I agree it's a key ingredient that helps make Deus Ex for example feel so special to me. I think the histograms in Zachtronics games that score you on three different metrics can also feel validating, even in the worst case scenario where I built something very huge and slow and clunky, I'm far to the right on every histogram, but it works! That's my playstyle, baby!

[@buttonasas]

I always thought these games belonged in 2 separate (but closely related) bins but never realised why (and perhaps even misplaced a few in the other bin). And this will be so easy to share, thank you!

[@will_mi77]

I really want to hear about the "things you experienced as a kid" that influenced your revelations in Outer Wilds! Frankly I could probably just listen to you talk about OW for an hour. Shame you and the C&C crew never did a lock-in on it :)

[@phtown]

I bet I know what it was, but I'm having a hard time talking about it in a way that doesn't spoil anything. For the puzzle where you hear "brute force isn't always the answer," there's a piece of real-world information that could reveal the solution.

[@electra_]

I think I have an idea on what the revelation was though I can't be sure spoilers below for outer wilds, so watch out! DO NOT look if you've not played and finished the game as an extra layer of security, i an encoding my message in Rot13. You can google a site that will decrypt it for you if you're really sure you want to read it. V guvax gurl jrer gnyxvat nobhg frrvat gur Beovgny Cebor Pnaaba ynhapu bire naq bire. Ernyvmvat gung vg tbrf va n qvssrerag qverpgvba rnpu gvzr, naq riraghnyyl guvaxvat gung'f xvaq bs jrveq... fubhyqa'g vg or qrgrezvavfgvp? Zl thrff vf gur puvyqubbq rkcrevrapr jnf whfg vqx yrneavat nobhg cuvybfbcul / oryvrivat gur havirefr vf qrgrezvavfgvp (gubhtu bsp gung pbhyq or jebat) Ohg gura guvaxvat jul jbhyq vg or enaqbz... bu jnvg jung vs gung'f gur jubyr cbvag... naq ernyvmvat gur ernfba gur NGC jnf ohvyg.

[@aliengeo]

This made it click for me why I hated the stealth segments of Chants of Sennaar so badly: I was experiencing that flip! What might in another game be the core gameplay had become something disengaging me from the core gameplay loop.

[@JunkerJames]

I've been obsessed with an info game imsim called "Shadows of Doubt" recently. It's not perfect but it takes a big swing and manages to mix procedural generation and information game mechanics in a systemic world. I think that even if you don't love it (it's a tiny bit janky and doesn't land every idea) , you will really appreciate what it's attempting to do.

[@TheJevonjames]

The most fun I’ve had in a game world for decades. The immersion is unbelievable, I’ve not felt that feeling of being able to exit the bounds of what the designer intended whilst still finding content/life since I was a kid playing a game called sentient

[@iwantagoodnameplease]

I don't think I've heard Tom talk about the game, but I can't imagine he's not played it. Tom: If if you've not played Shadows of Doubt, do so **now**. It's your perfect mix of Deus Ex and Conspiracy Corkboards!

[@LordHengun]

@@iwantagoodnameplease He's done a video about the dev's previous game Concrete Jungle, I think they're friends.

[@iwantagoodnameplease]

@@LordHengun i think I learned about Concrete Jungle from Tom, now that you mention it. I really liked that game. Shadows of Doubt was definitely a surprise to me, I expect Coal Powered to make another puzzley game

[@iestynne]

This was so good! I appreciate Outer Wilds even more now...

[@Ginsoakedboy21]

This neatly outlines my issues with Midnight Suns. Engage me with a tactical card game I want to get stuck into and, oh no wait, now I am organising a birthday party for some reason = disengage.

[@TheBigYC]

Interesting talk, ty for it.

[@Deviant1853]

Would you call The Witness an information game? There's the puzzles but then the meta-information game that teaches you how to solve other types of puzzles...

[@AaronMDubya]

I absolutely would

[@Teodzero]

I'd say no. It's a puzzle game, and you progress by learning to solve more complicated puzzles. It's at most a knowledge-gated metroidvania, I'd say, which is still different from Information Games Tom is talking about.

[@leifmessinger]

"Information game" is probably named wrong. Like, Human Resource Machine could be an information game He's talking about story games that progress by the player understanding the story And the witness has absolutely 0 story. I beat it

[@Kaleil]

I definitely would by virtue of the fact that you, at the outset of the game, have access to a lot of puzzles that you can't solve. It's only through learning and gathering information about the puzzles that you can return and solve them, but the mechanics are all available to you. If somebody told you how the puzzles functioned without giving hints to any specific puzzle, you would skip a majority of the game, just from having acquired that information.

[@zinax3819]

@@leifmessinger Wait, how would Human Resource Machine fall under information games? As I understand it, designing the game so as to allow the player to encounter the information locks earlier so that they can eventually come back to it when they do gain the right knowledge is an almost essential aspect to this type of game.

[@J4j4yd3r]

re: at 12 minutes in, on how information games can free the player from following a certain script too closely without forcing the dev to account for all possible endings: the Hitman games, especially the most recent ones, could be argued to fit this bill. As the titular hitman, the player is dropped off inside a sprawling map, with a simple objective (usually to kill a specific npc that is present on the map). It's up for the player to figure out how to do so. All of the information present in the map (who is wandering about, where, what items are where, which areas have access restricted to which group of people, etc) is pre-determined by the devs and never changes. What changes, and makes each playthrough close to unique, is how the player goes about finding and gathering the information they need to get to the "end" - i.e. gain undisturbed access to the target's drink to poison it, finding a secluded spot to snipe the target during their afternoon yoga, etc. I specifially bring up the Hitman games compared to others that have similar if not more fleshed out simulations/worlds because the games never stray too far into being pure sandboxes: you will always have a target to dispatch on the map, and that target is often chosen by the devs ahead of time. You simply are given the most leeway possible to figure out for yourself how you will "cross the finish line".

[@mfstraight]

Given this definition, seems like there would be a better name for this than "information game." "Comprehension game?"

[@diegofloor]

I feel like the amount of degrees of freedom play an important role there as well. Pure cutscene games have zero DoF in the narrative. Games like Skyrim have a few more DoF, in dialogue trees and specific actions. Information games have so many DoFs that they need some way of mitigating that to not overwhelm the player.

[@ianmcewan8851]

I'd love to hear your thoughts on Chants of Sennaar. (I really loved it!)

[@electra_]

Chants of Sennaar was cool. Not 100% sure if it fits into this framework, you need to understand the language to understand the story, and you need to understand the language to know how to progress, but I feel like those are like minorly distinct in some ways? Idk. Personally, I was moreso motivated just through the sheer discovery of finding out what people were saying and that connected with the story in some places but in some ways it was a bit more abstract than a game like outer wilds where your discoveries are exclusively to like find out what's been happening? i dunno. Also, I was a little bit dissaopinted by the end of the game, mainly because in the final part you solve words just by doing some abstract puzzles rather than actually connecting things together yourself, so it felt like unlike the rest of the game, you were kind of just given the solutions instead of letting you make discoveries yourself which kinda sucked

[@RoamingAdhocrat]

the cleverest trick information games ever pulled was convincing us they don't exist

[@Snorehog]

Liked this! Would be cool if you did a collaboration with GamemakersToolkit on this topic! :)

[@lucasfarted]

I wish there were more information games that were targeted towards multiplayer or multiple players. I love sharing AHA! moments with people

[@iwantagoodnameplease]

Tom Francis' Information Game, when? Is this why Tactical Breach Wizards is taking so long? ;) You're secretly making an elaborate puzzle game at the same time? I'm exactly the same as you though. I'm drawn to this concept and games like it, and I can't stand watching cutscenes. Bumming about the desks in Half-life whilst I listen to jabber is about as much as I can stand. In every other game I'm just smashing escape on the cutscenes. Things like AOE4 get a pass because it's like a crappy documentary which I can engage with aside from the game. One of the reasons I started following your output in the PCGamer days is because you like gameplay-focused games rather than the pretending-to-be-a-movie games that were becoming popular then and now dominate the charts. pps: What text editor/notes/slide thingy is this?

[@J4j4yd3r]

still only 2 minutes in, but given your new definition I would argue the Visual Novel genre has been doing "understanding the story is how you progress" for several decades. The main - and often sole - mechanic in these games is making discrete choices for your character's behavior, and the "correct" choice is often knowable by paying attention to how the writing has set up both the situation and the broader story around these choices.

[@Kenionatus]

Not really. You can easily progress without understanding the story. I would argue that looking at visual novels from a progression perspective (which his definition of information game is) is rather meaningless, since there is almost no engagement with the game needed to progress it.

[@RFC3514]

9:38 - Have you ever played Dear Esther? It's a game (basically a kind of cold crime scene investigation) where "the real revelation" happens _only_ inside your head.

[@qew_Nemo]

I've been calling these games "intellectual sandboxes".

[@Kenionatus]

I don't think "sandbox" is a good term for them, considering they have one or more explicit or implicit goal and an authored story that's central to the game.

[@nuazak]

Is phoenix wright an information game?

[@RoamingAdhocrat]

OBJECTION! The Phoenix Wright games are primarily meme 😉

[@silentobserver3433]

I feel like it's not, it's a bit too linear. You can't really progress to the next part of the story without collecting all the clues, and then you can't progress through the court case without exposing the witness in the only correct way.

[@nifboy]

Phoenix Wright is a visual novel that occasionally quizzes you on the plot to make sure you're paying attention. But it is also the first thing I thought of when I saw this new definition.

[@KrystianMajewski]

@@silentobserver3433 Non-linearity was never part of the definition here. Also, all of these are also true of The Golden Idol for example. In Golden Idol, you literally cannot solve the cases without collecting all of the necessary words. Sometimes, the words you need will be in completely unrelated places. If you want to solve a Golden Idol case and you already know the solution you still need to click on all of the hotspots and the necessary words. Also, there is only one valid solution - the game expects you to put specific words in the only correct slots. Granted, Phoenix Wright feels a lot more linear while Golden Idol seems a lot more open. I think this is mainly due to the Interactive Novel roots of Phoenix Wright getting in the way. The ratio between non-interactive dialogue and actual puzzle solving is very different, which is why I think it feels more linear overall.

[@LordHengun]

I don't think the "Go anywhere and do anything" sort of systems-driven game is going to be rewarding for storytelling - games like Rimworld have tried but even if the simulation goes crazy deep and handles all sorts of interactions, I don't think it's necessarily going to lead to interesting narratives because the real world doesn't lend itself to neat narratives. However, two things: when a system like that DOES spit out a cool story it's going to be so much more rewarding because you know that it's driven by your actions and you know that it's rare and unique. And while it won't really scratch the narrative itch for a player, it WILL scratch the agency itch. There's so much room for a role playing game in which you actually get to inhabit a role you define for yourself in that space, and poking a system just to see how it will poke you back.

[@electra_]

I think the dream of a game with an amazing story but also with freedom to do whatever is probably best resolved via RPGs with a human game-master like Dungeons and Dragons, rather than a video game.

[@LordHengun]

@@electra_ Absolutely. In a sense, video game RPGs are pre-GM'd to account for as many player actions as possible, like an enormous choose-your-own-adventure story, but without some sort of procedural generation a video game can never improvise. Like I said, those sorts of games will probably also be interesting to explore, but not because they produce a satisfying story.

[@electra_]

yup, fundamentally a video game is designed before the player plays it, and so you can only anticipate a finite amount of things. Of course, multiplayer dynamics change this, and I imagine in something like an MMO or some other game with a lot of player interaction, you can get similar types of "dynamic storytelling" just by players creating their own stories with each other Honestly I expect game developers to attempt to recreate the experience of a DM'd campaign that crafts its own story using AI tools only to find that these AI tools are... well pretty limited in their application

[@LordHengun]

@@electra_ I was going to mention AI but it felt too handwave-y haha, "just throw AI at the problem and it'll sort itself out in a few years" and I'm sure there will be some interesting tech around that in 10 years or so, but really I just hope that we come to realize that writing stories is actually fun and we shouldn't automate the stuff that makes us human.

[@electra_]

I agree. I think if AI must be used (which, it really doesn't, there are so many other ways to create dynamic and interesting stories in gameplay, whether this be information games as discussed here, complex systems that allow the player to interact in many ways, multiple choice systems as already exist, etc) the best way to use it will probably be as an intermediate tool in a chain which ultimately still ends with story and dialogue written by actual writers and designers. Since writers and designers are who we actually *want* to be writing stories, and who actually have intent behind their actions to think about how thieir responses will fit into a larger game, for instance, by cluing the player toward certain actions, not spoiling later story elements, etc. For instance, you could try to use an AI to interpret the player's question and select the dialogue option which seems to best match, rather than just having them pick from a multiple choice. But even here, honestly multiple choice is probably just the better option because welll... Your game can only have so many things. It is definitely frustrating to *want* to take a certain action only to have that option be missing but... as much as that lack of agency *sucks*, at least the game is signaling to you "you can't do this". If you have the appearance of doing anything, only for most of those things to just... not work... it can cause the player to go down a path that's a total red herring. And ultimately, setting the player up with a possible option that can never pay off is much worse than just not giving them the option.

[@vak2586]

Ohhhh, is THIS why you had the "too long" option after EVERY dialogue in the new beta?(~6:00)

[@utkarshgaur1942]

While not strictly falling in your new definition of Information Games, I found that Elden Ring really did the Motivation Flip for me. My first time around, I didn't pay attention to the story and got demotivated (literally bewildered) part way through the open world because there were so many directions in which I could go but none of them had context. My second time around, I took meticulous notes and suddenly I was deeply invested in playing more. While in Outer Wilds my curiosity of the unknown was the primary driver, in Elden Ring I was primarily driven by specific questions. Elden Ring forced me to be my own "ship's computer", where Outer Wilds held my hand - and it was a great joy. Like you said, it engaged a lot more of my brain. It got me thinking from architectural perspective, etymological perspective, colour theory etc. and all that stuff not only gave context to what I was doing, but it pointed its fingers (*snicker*) to where I should go for more. But that said, one can finish Elden Ring without engaging with the information, so it doesn't qualify as an information game. What it does showcase is how Interactive Information can be a core pillar of a multi-pillar game, far beyond just easter eggs and secret chests. The game just has to have the audacity to hide core player tools and vast swaths of the map behind missable information.

[@nullvoid3545]

I'm only A minute in and probably wrong, but aren't these just examples of what most peeps call "adventure games"? I'm currently watching A streamer go through The legend of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time, and I'm reminded of how the very first zelda pretty cleanly fit in with these other examples. Over time the zelda games and the "adventure" genre as A whole became more story oriented as new games came out and even as early as OOT felt somewhat stale and railroady with repeating patterns. Is the narrative that has been built over 20 years of watching narrative driven adventure games neglect two of the most fundamental pillars of interesting games, meaningful environments and player agency. The thing is, A game cant give all that much agency without complicating the ability to tell A specific detailed story, so in something narratively driven its important to get the player to buy into the games narrative(Think of D&D). The way players have grown more observant over time and now can very much tell when A wall or hallway is there to guide or even force the them into the gameplay(yellow paint), means that meaningful environments that convincingly sell the games chosen story to the player participating are extremely important, because what nintendo was doing with OOT felt like A lot of agency at the time, and in its case and even in modern adventure games the ability for the player to buy into the experience the game has planned for them, contributes greatly to the "feeling" of agency even in A game that has to sacrifice gameplay agency for narrative. Anyway I think the difference between these narrative first adventure games and even 2D adventure games like old lucasarts point and click games, and these information games examples, is that these games just do A better job at showing the agency of their gameplay without damaging the ability to tell A story, often through changing the perspective the story is told from. Much like how outer wilds makes its player character an empty vessel that stays out of the way of both the player and the story being told that has nothing to do with them in any extrinsic story supplied way. Another way is to create multiple paths leading between beats of the same story, essentially recognizing how players like to choose how they play but still maintaining A rigidly authored story. I hear peeps call these "immersive sims" and while the gamers that follow the genre mostly have A very small list of games that fit the criteria, I think its the best label I could give these examples alongside the general "adventure" tag. I wonder how the rest of this video will change my initial impressions of the first minute. I'm excited to find out!

[@nullvoid3545]

Alright I'm back. I honestly think this is just separating the the well researched things that make good adventure games fun, into A genre title that is vague enough to encompass A vast amount of games in general(what about souls likes?) while not defining any of the more directly player meaningful components. This is why people don't know what to expect from adventure games anymore, because it is A vague genre that was eventually divided by players into smaller genres that better represent the way the player will be experiencing the story mechanically, now we have RPG's, souls-likes, rouge-likes, narrative choice(like mass effect), and even sandbox/immersive sim games(Hitman), each representing A different way to be conveyed an adventure. Not to say you cant make an arcade experience out of these genres, just that they are used by players to indicate more detail on the mechanical way you expected to interact with the game In Hbomberguys excellent video on Ludonarrative and the followup example that is the core of his bloodborn analysis video. He makes it clear that because gamers are always meta gaming to some extent, if the game presents A strategy for playing the game, the player will internalize that. Meaning you can teach your players to play the game wrong, leading to frustrations the designer couldn't plan around because they assumed A different approach by the player entirely. His example was that the shields in souls games make the combat into A game of waiting... then striking! then waiting... and by 50+ hours in players playing like that tend to hate their experience with the game. But there are hundreds of weapons in those games and many faster paced combat styles that make the entire experience more enjoyable. The devs noticed this and removed shields from bloodborne, instead teaching the player how to enjoy the game. Preventing this "Ludonarrative dissonance" as he calls it, is A very difficult thing that generally can only be fully solved by playtests with the kinds of players your expecting to sell to. OR by using genres to indicate what kind of playerbase your planning for. In short, there is obvious value as designers in labeling and studying the parts of games that make the narrative the character is living better synchronize with the players motivations. But I think that A lot of people are building overlapping definitions on how that should be looked at. Ludonarrative defines the story being told by the players interactions, rather than by the external story that only matters meaningfully to the character you control. Immersive sims are an applied technique for encouraging ludonarrative by allowing alternative solutions to more rigid story based obstacles, and I think balders gate shows how similar that entire concept is to role playing games by being A great contender for both. Information games, based on this video appear to be A way to refer to immersive sims in the sense that the exploration of alternate solutions to narratively driven obstacles sort of synchronizes what the game wants to show you with the players expectations. Personally I think we should call these good adventure games, because any game with A story can be improved using these techniques. Also gotta say, I feel pretty cool for guessing the main talking points of the video in 1 min, makes me think I might have actual insight forming from all my game design research. Cheers!

[@jinchoung]

as someone who likes information as a general rule... i fucking HATE those games. yes, even outer wilds. i don't get the hubbub.

[@buttonasas]

what do you mean you "like information"? Like, you're the kind to read characters' backstories?

[@Huntracony]

What makes you hate them? Just not enjoying them is one thing but it sounds like it's more than that.

[@bryand1470]

Promo`SM