In this day and age, emergent gameplay and narrative are two of the hottest things in games. Today we’ll look in-depth at each of these two terms and explore both how a player can experience them and how a designer can create these two experiences.

Despite the fact that it has only recently become a buzzword, emergent gameplay has existed for decades. One of the earliest famous examples to be found is in Netrek, a command line-based game found on older machines running a variant of UNIX. Netrek quickly became known as a game more similar to traditional team-based sports than any other, and that reputation has lasted until today to those who still know about it. In contrast, even Wired called it the first online sport back in its heyday! In Netrek, players pilot various types of ships and attempt to take over the other teams’ planets and rule the galaxy. Dogfighting, of course, is just a fun bonus. As the game grew in popularity, especially around college campuses, players began to play around with the game’s rules. Because the game’s rules were very similar to sports, it was easy to adapt the rules to play hockey by using the ships’ pressor and tractor beams to move a ship that would represent a puck. This proved to be so popular that enterprising coders eventually spun off a special variation of the game using these rules, aptly naming it Netrek Hockey.

Of course, even the communication between the players and the coordination required by the teams of the game qualifies as emergent. There are really two ways that we can define the word emergent: “arising unexpectedly,” which is the definition given by Merriam-Webster and is shown in the above example, and the way that complex systems arise from simple components. More importantly, in Rules of Play, Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman explictly define emergent gameplay in a similar fashion: “complex possibilities are the result of a simple set of rules.” They explain that any type of interaction or rule that isn’t a defined game mechanic is a form of emergence.

So how do you design for emergent gameplay? That happens to be a difficult question. Depending on your definition, nearly every game in existence already supports emergence. (Salen and Zimmerman use Pong as an example.) But designing for the first definition, “arising unexpectedly”, is the challenge. Does it remain “unexpected” if a designer suggests it through the use of achievements? Is it unexpected if it’s explicitly mentioned in the game or elsewhere? Technically, yes — as long as these are not provided by a single game mechanic.

A Java version of Pong.

Designers seem to be heading in two directions when it comes to emergent gameplay: creating interactions that are not necessary to finish the game and designing for a multiplayer option. LittleBigPlanet introduces both of these at the same time: the former is provided through the ability to move a Sackboy’s hands around, while the four-player cooperative mode allows players to solve puzzles in unique and interesting ways through teamwork. Even more interesting is the combination of the two: while controlling a Sackboy’s hands appears to be a neat gimmick at first, many people discover the joy of slap-fights in the middle of a level or while waiting for something to happen. Media Molecule, it turns out, specifically added an interaction between a Sackboy’s hand and another Sackboy’s head.

Some of the most interesting forms of emergent gameplay come out of unexpected glitches in the game. Glitches help to enable both sequence breaking, where the player attempts to finish a linear game out of order, and speed runs, where the player attempts to finish the game as quickly as possible. These are both styles of emergent gameplay that evolve from single-player games rather than multiplayer games. Much like in multiplayer games, communities have sprung up around these alternate ways to play the game. The importance of this social factor cannot be understated.

But you can’t design for glitches. Instead, opening the world up as much as possible seems to be the key — especially if you’re looking for emergent narrative as well. If the player has the ability to perform a variety of actions, it’s much more likely that players will find new and interesting things to do. It’s worth noting, however, that you cannot force emergence on players. Instead, building a strong social community around the game will help to encourage it.

Some of these elements are important for emergent narrative as well. Emergent narrative is commonly defined as the story built up from the interaction between the player and the game’s story and mechanics, and we’ll see momentarily how this can also relate to emergent gameplay. Essentially, emergent narrative is any sort of story that a player may tell as it relates to his or her experiences with the game.

A fantastic documentation of emergent narrative entitled “Permanent Death” can be found at Specious Living, Reasoning, and Criticism. Ben Abraham documented his entire experience playing Far Cry 2 while restricting himself to permanent death. If his character was killed, he would never play that character again. Obviously, this restriction is its own form of emergent gameplay, but his narrative is fascinating to read and experience. He puts himself in his avatar, often using the first person to describe his actions in the game. It is obvious that his story exists between himself and the game’s story —especially when you consider his inability to reload and continue.

But while a single life in a game is one way to create a story, most open world games provide an opportunity for players to do the same. Take, for instance, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, a fantasy adventure set in the world of Vvardenfell. In it, a player has the opportunity to interact with characters, take quests, pick up nearly anything, and engage in combat with most living organisms. The game even allows the player to murder important plot characters without ending the game. Even if the main story is impossible to complete at this point, a player can still continue on and explore the world on his or her own.

Let’s take a hypothetical example. George is playing a character named Raiden, who is a fighter with some specialization in stealth. While on a quest, George decides that Raiden needs to visit a particular town. He decides to take some gold lying around, but a guard sees him. Terrified, he runs in the opposite direction and sees a tower. “He won’t follow me in here!” George thinks to himself as he enters. The game loads the new room, but as he walks up the stairs of the tower he sees two guards enter through the same door. “They followed me!” He sprints as fast as he can to the top past two more guards and finds the Sword of White Woe at the top of the tower. He equips it immediately, tries to fight the guards, and then realizes that he just isn’t strong enough. Once he realizes that he is stuck at the top of the tower, he takes a deep breath and throws Raiden off the top of the tower. Raiden stands back up after impact with 3hp, and George commands him to run away as quickly as possible. He rushes away toward the end of his quest and is quickly arrested. He spends three nights in prison, is forced to return all of his stolen goods, and steals them back while the guards aren’t looking. He then completes his quest. George treasures this sword in the future simply for the story that it represents to him.

Most games already represent an opportunity for emergent narrative: just listen to how any Pacman player describes his best playthrough of the game. Designers, however, can prepare for a more interesting emergent narrative. The more powerful a game’s artificial intelligence is, for instance, the more likely a player is to become immersed in the game world and feel as if he is interacting with another person. Most of these narratives represent interaction with another, and an unexpected interaction is the most interesting yet least predictable result. Allowing the player more options and opportunities is a fantastic way to prepare for these interactions; a player is more likely to feel as if he is a part of the experience and therefore that he has truly created a new narrative if he feels that he can affect the game world.

Interaction with an actual human, of course, is even more immersive and is never 100% predictable. This unpredictability and the interactions available allow for an even stronger emergent narrative, and also the potential to break the narrative out of the confines of the game and into a new area. Friendships formed via games such as World of Warcraft are a natural evolution of this process. This is one reason we see social gaming becoming ever more popular…and one reason that Facebook has become an important market for game development.

Ultimately, emergent gameplay and narrative can be used both to extend a game’s lifetime and to engage the players more deeply. Moreover, emergence helps to strengthen social community and to build a game’s reputation. These should be the final goals of the game designer if he explicitly designs for emergence. After all, designing for the player is the most important part of the game designer’s job and something all of the top AAA games do.