[le-mark]

And during that project, I realized that text stories are fractal. Unlinke in videogames (which need a steady update method), in text we don’t actually need to stick to a single level of abstraction.

Very cool, this is one of the most original things I've read about this year. The example he gives is different levels of commands and details during combat. Zelda 2 (I think) had a similar thing going from map view to side view for combat. But this is for text adventures. Mind blowing really.

[filiph]

Thanks! Author here.

I think quite a few videogames have different levels. For example, I remember an old 1990s game called Wargasm where you could both be the general and the soldier. It was a lot of fun.

Most videogames don't go there, though, because it's more straightforward to use the game at a single "level". Even if they do have multiple levels, though, I don't think they ever go with more than 2 or 3. That would be just too confusing.

In text, though, this is natural. Even in non-interactive books, you have things like "Conan wants revenge > Conan is on his way to Stygia > Conan meets cobras > Conan is being attacked by the King Cobra > King Cobra's attack goes above Conan's head > Conan thrusts sword upward".

[subwayclub]

Scope variance is actually really common in mobile games as well as RPGs and simulation. All of them share the same kind of design goal of bending time to fit a certain play session or inner/outer game loop length. More "immersive" games ignore the logistical problems of extreme detail and offer tools like time compression, but designing for accessibility bends things the other way, towards providing a spliced-up timeline where events don't have to happen in any particular order apart from one that builds up a sensible narrative.

Hence you have the existence of things like equipment screens that can be popped up mid-battle, pausing everything to let you think about how to divide up loot. And the energy model in mobile F2P, which doesn't make a lick of sense but enforces limited session length and progression. You can take this even further when you think about power up items in pretty much any game.

[phlakaton]

I think it's relatively common to the RPG genre to have multiple levels going on in a game. Minigames are a hallowed feature of most Final Fantasy installments, for example. Crafting might also be considered somewhat of a game.

_Fractal_ design, though, implies some element of self-similarity between the levels – and that definitely seems like something more rare!

[kevinmchugh]

Mode[0] or view switching in video games was common for a long time, primarily as a solution to technical or pacing problems. The overworld travel mode in Zelda 2 was useful so players could travel further, faster. Those overworld maps were pretty common, Ultimas 1-5 used them, and the sixth one finally presented a single unified interface [1]. The platformer Mario games also used overworlds to allow players to select levels from Super Mario Bros 3 until Super Mario 64. Super Mario Bros 1 had warp pipes presented without a perspective change, but by SMB3, the developers had more complicated gameplay ideas about what level selection looked like.

What the author presents here is not a change in view or mode, but a refinement of scope. Gameplay doesn't change, but the level at which the player interacts is more granular.

A video game example that comes to mind is strategy games, such as Crusader Kings 2. In that game, players will dictate their armies' movement, and, when that movement causes conflict, the game will bring the battle to the player's attention. Players can then zoom in and pick specific tactics within the battle to enhance their odds, directing the flanks.

If the game allowed players to further zoom in, down to the level of individual soldiers and their actions, that'd be an even more granular presentation.

Mode switching is less common today, since it causes a disjointed player experience and requires assets be created to represent content in different modes.

0: (in the sense Larry Tesler would mean: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Tesler)

1: http://www.filfre.net/2017/04/ultima-vi/