On Gaming Heuristics

A human psychological post? In mah gaming blog? But of course!

The idea of 'challenging' gaming is essentially a simplified version of human learning; a process that is based on the concept of heuristics (we'll define that properly in a bit). Indeed, the smart gamer could try and read up on a video game through, say, a strategy guide, or an online FAQ or walkthrough. The more daring of us, though, will want to boot up the game and drive (EDIT: Yes, you literally drive right into a stone wall with complicated racing games. Never mind that the right word for this idiom is "dive") right in. Video gamers who prefer to do so expose themselves to the fun, and dangers, of heuristically-based thinking.

Before we continue, let's define what the word "heuristic" means. This definition is from the Merriam Webster dictionary:

Main Entry: ¹heu·ris·tic

Pronunciation: \hyu̇-ˈris-tik\

Function: adjective

Etymology: German heuristisch, from New Latin heuristicus, from Greek heuriskein to discover; akin to Old Irish fo-fúair he found

Date: 1821

: involving or serving as an aid to learning, discovery, or problem-solving by experimental and especially trial-and-error methods ; also : of or relating to exploratory problem-solving techniques that utilize self-educating techniques (as the evaluation of feedback) to improve performance.

And, of course, the Wikipedia link for even greater detail into the subject.


As you can see, the short version is that heuristics is all about learning how to do something through doing it and most definitely continuously failing and retrying. Think of your favorite PC or console platformer / adventure game. Now think of all the times you ran through a section of the game, got hit by some unknown trap or a vicious monster who attacks from an angle-not-initially-seen or died from failing to jump across a perilous gap at the right time. What would do in this situation? Why, you'd simply reload the game from the closest autosave point and try it again, learning from your mistake (hopefully) and completing the challenge successfully before being hit by the next killer move.

Now, let's expand this idea to the entire spectrum of the genre of video games. There are a few FPS games where you've no doubt died from turning a corner into a bunch of angry enemies, or maybe you launched your rocket launcher in an area that turned out to be not as expansive as before. Or maybe there's a scripted event which results in a truck falling on your head unless you strafe out of the way from the get-go of the autosave point.

Strategy games? Tower Defense games are ripe with this sort of heuristically-based thinking (the fantastic Defense Grid: The Awakening's auto-load from a point midway through a particular mission is a prime example), while single-player campaigns in certain RTSs or turn-based games may encourage a continuous save/load experience (the Commandos series is notorious for this, especially when the Commandos 3 series reminds you on multiple occasions to save your game regularly!). Of course, any form of multiplayer gaming is fairly difficult to correct from the get-go, though practice does make perfect!

Ran out of resources? Aliens got through with a core? Got the wrong tower up for a particular wave? No worries! Just hit the Backspace key and try again! Defense Grid: The Awakening is the prime example of heuristic gaming; a very fun example, though!

Now think of the first time you tried to show a non-gamer a particular new video game (say, you were looking for a few more buddies to add to your L4D team). He doesn't care about reading lengthy manuals or learning the ins-and-outs of a video game such as being able to melee and reload at the same time in the L4D series. He doesn't care about learning all the different keys he has to press. All he wants to do is be able to extract a good amount of fun by making the game progress sufficiently for his own tastes.

My own brother, for example, does not like RPGs whatsoever; too much detail and nitpicking over something extremely short. Not even Mass Effect 2, a very streamlined approach to the RPG genre that presents a fantastic story ever really appealed to him. He's much more the FPSer (whenever he gets a chance to play, that is) and you'd more likely see him shooting up other players in Halo 3 then pondering through a game of L4D. Honestly though, I haven't tried as well as I should have...

Let me know what YOU think about heuristic thinking. I'll write up my next blog post on the dangers of continuously applying heuristic thinking to real life (it's somewhat of a form of laziness, when you think about it...).