Immersive Sims

[Melcar]

Man, everything is an immersive sim these days.

 

[Dave the Druid]

To be honest I'm not really clear on what "emergent gameplay" means at this point - you can use the physics system in Half-Life 2 in all kinds of "emergent" ways (stack objects to reach new areas, place objects to create cover, etc) but nobody would call it an ImSim. Similarly, Bethesda games all allow for all kinds of "emergent" stuff (Morrowind's spellmaker being an obvious one) and all allow for multiple approaches in the way you might expect from an ImSim.

I'll give it a shot. Apologies if I get any of the terminology wrong. I need to use Thief 1 and 2 as the example (although most of this also applies to System Shock 2 since it's on the same engine.) One of the things Tim Stellmach and MAHK LeBlanc mentioned as being a key system was 'our "Act/React" concept of object interaction.' What most games (still) do is hard-code object interactions which is fine up to a point but can get messy the more things you add to your game and it gets very easy to miss something or the devs don't bother with actual object interactivity and just make everything part of the damage model. What Act/React does is it instead has a generic list of Stimuli (things like elements like fire, water and earth, things like Holy and Light as well as several weapon damage types like Slash and Bash.) Here's the full list open in DromEd, plus another screenshot with the WeaponStims open:

Then every single object/entity/texture/metaproperty has a Source (actions) and a Receptron (reactions) where you can put these Stimuli. And from there you can customize their effects as different kinds of actions or reactions (so under Source you can edit its intensity, propagator and shape as an action while under Receptron you can edit how much intensity is needed to trigger a reaction and what kind of effect it'll have from a long-ass list of possible reactions)

Hopefully that isn't too technical but it's an almost entirely modular system for object interaction. You don't even need to open up the source code to fuck with this stuff, it's almost all there to play around with in the level editor. To put it really simply as a result nearly everything in Thief interacts and reacts with everything else in more-or-less the same way you'd expect it to in real life - rather than how it typically works in a video game (where it's either simple and rules based or incredibly limited.)

Quick example: you can blow up locked wooden doors in Thief. They don't explode like in Deus Ex but they do open if you damage them enough:


What's actually going on there is mines, fire arrows and so on have a FireStim attached to their Source. Here's a fire arrow open in DromEd. See Source: FireStim. Propagates on Contact:

Now what's going on with the door is interesting. Here's one of the wooden door archetypes open in DromEd. Instead of having its own Receptrons it actually has MatWood, aka the 'Wooden,' metaproperty attached to it which has a FireStim in its Receptron it with the Reaction: Damage Object. Also, MatWood inherits a bunch of other properties as it's part of the group MatSemiSoft along with MatEarth and MatTile(?) and it inherits the Receptrons from that as well so that's reactions to all the WeaponStims, hence why certain doors can be broken open if you hit it with your sword for long enough or why Rope Arrows and broad-head arrows attach themselves to both wooden and earth/soil surfaces (that's a PokeStim in both of them)

So that's why the door opens but keep in mind that this system applies to virtually everything in Thief. Even the actual Wood texture has the MatWood metaproperty attached to it. Fire damages all wooden surfaces in Thief. It doesn't do much in most cases because... it's 1998, there's no way to get an actual fire simulation in games yet but every single wooden texture takes damage from fire. But even something like lava is a FireStim, it's just got a Flow propagator, change the stimuli to WaterStim but keep the Flow propagator, BAM, you've got a body of water:

Every single object interaction in Thief is just different variations of effects of the same 18 Stimuli. And that's just one system in Thief, I haven't even mentioned the sound or AI systems which are separate systems but are directly tied into Act/React and each other. And because of the way all these systems are programmed to interact and react with each other they can create a kind of emergent behavior/scenario which the devs didn't necessarily intend. At least that's the idea anyway. It's a brilliant system now, for 1998 it's absurd.

And no, Skyrim ain't doing this shit, at all. You can't even blow up doors in Skyrim, they're fucking loading screens half the time. I really don't know why your mind went to Skyrim of all fucking things.

Apologies if I got any of the terminology wrong, it's late. I'm going to bed.

 

[GrafvonMoltke]

Man, everything is an immersive sim these days.

Max Payne is an immersive sim

 

[430am]

Man, everything is an immersive sim these days.

Especially in the indie scene. All the vaporware early access developers just GOTTA have that term, it's so cool. They've barely produced a good map ever before in their life or had any worthwhile project to speak of, especially one that experiments or pioneers, but oh boy, are they CARRYING THE TORCH of Ion Storm, Looking Glass and yada yada. You would think they'd at least understand what made those games good instead of developing on a checklist.

 

[Harthwain]

Blood West seems interesting but Hunt Showdown takes the cake on western supernatural immersive sims, even with multiplayer.

Is this a recommendation? I thought it was just an FPS with multiplayer component.

 

[hayst]

Blood West seems interesting but Hunt Showdown takes the cake on western supernatural immersive sims, even with multiplayer.

Is this a recommendation? I thought it was just an FPS with multiplayer component.

Wouldn't call it an immersive sim but it's a pretty good game if you have at least one buddy you can rely one.

 

[AW8]

Your image is way off. Like, how the fuck is Deus Ex: Mankind Divided in the 'Top Notch" tier but OG Deus Ex isn't? I get putting Prey 2017 in there because it's arguably the best modern one but Mankind Divided? Really?

Mankind Divided is a top notch game, but I don't think this confusing picture is meant as a ranking.

What the fuck is this picture? Prey and Deus Ex MD are the best "immersive sims" or "RPGs" while Deus ex is much worse and Bloodlines is crap?

I think the idea is that you're supposed to start in the middle. Both Prey and MD are modern, accessible and also great immersive sims, and thus a good starting point for a player who has never played one before.

You see the lines going between games? From MD you can go to DX1, which is placed in the "Basis" category, i.e. one of the pillars of the genre. The lines probably mean "if you enjoyed game X, also try the games it connects to on this chart".
Bloodlines is in the "Not an immersive sim" category because it's (according to the image creator) not an immersive sim, but close enough to be worth playing for an immersive sim enjoyer.

This is just my theory of how you're supposed to read this confusing chart though. Dishonored being in "Basis", and the fact that there's no line between Mankind Divided and Human Revolution puts dents in my theory.

 

[Ryzer]

"Immersive sims" are the single most overrated games ever made. They all have trash combat including Prey and nu-Deus Ex.
Moving objects and throwing them left and right isn't fun but that's the trademark of said "immersive sims".
In fact they have nothing for them really, they propose nothing new.
Prey 2017 especially is extremely overrated.

 

[Lemming42]

I'll give it a shot.

This is interesting but it hasn't made the "emergent" criteria of an immersive sim any clearer to me - do any such "act/react" systems exist in Ultima Underworld, System Shock, or Deus Ex? Or Dishonored?

And no, Skyrim ain't doing this shit, at all. You can't even blow up doors in Skyrim, they're fucking loading screens half the time. I really don't know why your mind went to Skyrim of all fucking things.

I brought up Morrowind actually, because the spellmaker and spell effects struck me as an obvious avenue through which "emergent" things happen (which I suppose I'm interpreting broadly as being unexpected conseqeuneces of logically consistent, predictable systems). The ability to manipulate the environment is very low in Morrowind but you can reliably cause certain unusual physical effects on yourself and behavioural effects on the AI (you can add the Heart of Lorkhan to your party, for example).

 

[Cross]

I think the idea is that you're supposed to start in the middle. Both Prey and MD are modern, accessible and also great immersive sims, and thus a good starting point for a player who has never played one before.

Human Revolution and Mankind Divided are not immersive sims. They're disqualified for several reasons, but the biggest one is constantly taking away control from the player. This applies both to gameplay, with takedowns and several augmentations playing a brief cutscene, and story, with the narrative cutscenes making Jensen do something stupid that disadvantages the player. In Deus Ex you could mess up a takedown and the enemy could turn around and shoot you, but that's impossible in Human Revolution and Mankind Divided since the takedown cutscene ensures your success.

The gameplay systems in Human Revolution and Mankind Divided are also abstract and not at all 'immersive', like the MGS-style radar and 3rd person camera when going behind cover, the regenerating health that you have from the start of the game by default or the Pac-Man approach to stealth where sound and light/shadow play basically no role and environments are littered with chest-high boxes to hide behind.

To be honest I'm not really clear on what "emergent gameplay" means at this point - you can use the physics system in Half-Life 2 in all kinds of "emergent" ways (stack objects to reach new areas, place objects to create cover, etc) but nobody would call it an ImSim.

You can't really do anything interesting in Half-Life 2 because the game is super scripted, e.g. enemies are spawned in only when the player is seconds away from them. You aren't even allowed to use the Gravity Gun on enemies until the last few minutes of the game.

A good counterpoint to Half-Life 2 is Dark Messiah of Might and Magic. It reuses the engine and even copies the Gravity Gun, but whereas the physics systems is Half-Life 2 is just a gimmick, the entire gameplay system of Dark Messiah revolves around the physics.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

It's not a genre, it's a design philosophy

 

[Sreggin Etah I]

Proof that Skyrim has emergent gameplay thus it is an immersive sim:

 

[LarryTyphoid]

>arkaneshit and nu-dx in "top notch"
>including russian walking sims
>including rockstarshit
>including biocock
>including all that irrelevant garbage outside the circles
>excluding ultima underworld
>excluding system shock 1
This image makes me want to fucking VOMIT

 

[Melcar]

The conclusion is that immersive sim games are thrash.

 

[toro]

The conclusion is that immersive sim games are thrash.

Most people on this forum have played Deux Ex, Thief, System Shock 2, Prey and so on ... because immersive sims and rpgs do share many mechanics.

The conclusion is that the codex is filled with retarded pussies which cannot accept differences in taste. Fucking snowflakes.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

Deux Ex, Thief, System Shock 2, Prey

These 4 games barely share any mechanics among themselves.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

An immersive sim is a game where the Q and E keys make you lean.

 

[GrafvonMoltke]

Minesweeper is an immersive sim

 

[ind33d]

An immersive sim is any game with VR support.

 

[Melcar]

Subversive sims

 

[Dave the Druid]

I brought up Morrowind actually, because the spellmaker and spell effects struck me as an obvious avenue through which "emergent" things happen

You also bought up Skyrim (admittedly it was to the other guy) saying, "Skyrim offers a similar open-ended systems-based approach to Deus Ex" which it really doesn't. Although I'm going to have to use Thief as the example again rather than Deus Ex.

This is interesting but it hasn't made the "emergent" criteria of an immersive sim any clearer to me

So this isn't the best example as these two elements never appear in the same level (at least in the original game - I'm sure there's some FM that makes use of it) but Thief has an enemy called Fire Elementals: big, sentient balls of fire that float around and shoot fireballs at you. Under it's Source it's got a FireStim and under its Receptron it's got a WaterStim to extinguish it. Because it's a FireStim if one of these balls of fire floats by an extinguished torch that torch will get re-lit because Torches have a FireStim under their Receptrons with the reaction of... well, 'Send to Scripts' (which is where you can create your own custom Reactions that aren't on that long-ass list) but the point is it gets re-lit. No one at Looking Glass intended for this to be a feature (and again, it's a slightly poor example since there's no levels that feature both elements,) nor did they intentionally code that in as an object interaction. All they did was stick FireStims into different Sources and Receptrons and the game just kinda took it from there.

Morrowind/Oblivion/Skyrim don't really do that kind of thing. I mean, if you look at how Skyrim handles fire (specifically fire magic) it's more impressive than how Thief uses it and it has some nice effects where flames stick around to surfaces for a few seconds after use but it's not actually burning stuff. It's just part of the damage model, all it does is damage enemies/NPCs. Admittedly Thief doesn't actually have much of a fire simulation (because 1998) but fire does cause reactions. As I showed you before all fucking wooden textures take damage when in contact with fire. It's just that it doesn't really come up unless it's attached to a door or something else that can damage.

I'd argue that something like a Far Cry (Far Cry 2 especially but most of the rest of the series probably applies too) or Zelda: Breath of the Wild (specifically its Chemistry Engine which is basically the same thing as the Act/React system) are where what-is-or-isn't-an-immersive-sim? gets a bit fuzzy. Since they're not immersive sims in the sense that they're like the old Looking Glass games/Deus Ex/et al. and certain design decisions in both are completely the opposite of what Looking Glass would've done. But going by the actual definition (real-time 3D, systems-driven emergent gameplay, inspired by RPGs but don't necessarily need to have RPG mechanics like stats and shit) they do kinda meet the criteria. And fuck, they've got fire that actually spreads like fire does. Something like an Elder Scrolls: Morroblivyrm or a Half Life 2 really don't meet the criteria. Even though both games likely wouldn't exist without Looking Glass (Ultima Underworld for the former, Trespasser for the latter, which was primarily made by ex-LGS devs.)

do any such "act/react" systems exist in Ultima Underworld, System Shock, or Deus Ex? Or Dishonored?

As far as Ultima Underworld or System Shock 1 goes? No. It was invented for Thief by MAHK LeBlanc. Deus Ex apparently uses something broadly similar although it's mostly limited to damage types/the damage system (ask RoSoDude about it idk.) I'm not 100% sure about Dishonored but I know for a fact that Prey 2017 uses a similar system called Signals. And (with apologies to RoSoDude since I completely stole this from his twitter) here they are:

Prey 2017's Signals system

Again, ask RoSoDude for more info on how Prey uses it because I don't have the foggiest apart from what's on that image. Since it's an Arkane game I'd assume Dishonored would probably use something similar but I don't actually know and I don't want to talk out of my arse. Still it makes this mildly funny:

Deux Ex, Thief, System Shock 2, Prey

These 4 games barely share any mechanics among themselves.

Well, that's at least one mechanic that they share among themselves, Larry.

 

[Shinji]

This is just mental masturbation.

Any game that is built around some simulation has all those same characteristics.

Even Minecraft can be considered an "immersive sim" at this point. It's a loose definition that gets us nowhere.

 

[Tweed]

Whoever made that chart needs to get stabbed.

 

[ds]

This is just mental masturbation.

Any game that is built around some simulation has all those same characteristics.

Even Minecraft can be considered an "immersive sim" at this point. It's a loose definition that gets us nowhere.

Most genres only have loose definitions, genre borders are fuzzy like that. After all, what is an RPG?

A checklist approach won't get you anywhere - you have to look at what the game's focus is and to what extend it includes other mechanics.

 

[Theodora]

I don't agree 100% with the picture below but I think it's a pretty good description of the genre.

Interesting to think of Dying Light, Anomaly, Far Cry 2 etc. as 'imsim-adjacent' or whatever. Dying Light and RDR2 definitely do a lot to give you a sense of being with the player character, so it makes some sense. Though more broadly that image illustrates my main complaint regarding the genre: that there's barely any of them out there to begin with.

(And Prey 2017 is based, and would evoke far fewer complaints if Bethesda hadn't garnered so much bad will through forcing Arkane to adopt the name of a beloved game that has nothing to do with their game.)

edit:

This is just mental masturbation.

Any game that is built around some simulation has all those same characteristics.

Even Minecraft can be considered an "immersive sim" at this point. It's a loose definition that gets us nowhere.

Imsims are a good illustration of how genres are often named in arbitrary ways. Games tend to have a kind of lineage, and genres tend to stem from that. (One of the most nascent ones I can think of is 'extraction shooters', which for its name essentially boils down to the games in some substantial way inspired by Hunt: Showdown and Escape from Tarkov.)