Cat Mario - interesting game that plays with player expectations

Tuism

Came across this one, it's hilarious to watch, but what's super interesting to me is that it plays with expectations SO WELL and SO MUCH. Everyone knows Mario, and so much expectations are inlaid in that "old familiar knowledge", that when this happens...



It's hilarious and it's an instant classic "Rage Game" :)

What other games plays with expectations?
How far can you go with breaking expectations before players feel betrayed enough to quit?
How do you break expectations without breaking players? (familiarity vs non-familiarity?)

EvanGreenwood

I did a talk on Cat Mario (and other funny games) at the Cape Town meetup a while back. Though I was talking about humour as the goal, rather than frustration.

I think subverting player expectations in QWOP are what makes that game funny. The surprises are more subtle than in Cat Mario, but they're still there.

Have you played "You Probably Won't Make It"? http://www.venbrux.com/games/ypwmi.zip (It's quite short, but rather difficult)

Tuism

Yeah i agree that humor was the ultimate goal of Cat Mario, frustration is just the path it took to get to it... But more than humour and frustration I find the playing with expectations part the most interesting!

In QWOP's case, do you mean the subversion of players expecting competency - but receiving none to be the subversion? I didn't think of it that way, but it fits too!

The only other game/s I can think of that does this as well was Stanley Parable, which played off expectations of narrative and structure in video game and other tropes, though not in nearly as obvious form as Cat Mario.

Oh and of course Frog Fractions, right? That was a pretty huge play on expectations that I won't spoil for anyone who hasn't played it.

Have to switch to Windows to play YPWMI XD

Any other successful (relatively, or at least you enjoyed it) expectation-bending games out there anyone can remember?

Oh right Not Tetris 2! It was really mostly a joke as you couldn't really play it for longer than when the joke wears off, but it was good while that joke lasted :)

I hope this mechanic/idea/archetype isn't just restricted to parodies and jokes XD

EvanGreenwood

The intro text in QWOP states that you are the sole representative from your country at the Olympics :) (So yeah, it sets the expectation with the visuals and narrative that the player should be competent).

Frog Fractions is a lovely example I think :)

If we're broadly talking about playing with expectations, then any game with twists or surprises fits.

But I think you're being more specific in choosing Cat Mario. In that it looks like a game with rules other than the rules that it actually has.

Would Surgeon Simulator, or Viscera Cleanup fit? What about Hatoful Boyfriend?

I guess we could be more specific about Cat Mario. It doesn't just play with expectations, but follows certain game design conventions closely in order to surprise the player when it breaks the conventions.

What about Braid's playing with the conventions of Mario games to set expectations, and making the subversion of those expectations the message?

Tuism

Ah! I never really bothered with any of QWOP's intro :P Though of course it's built into the juice - your outfit, there's a crowd, looks like the olympics, sure.

Yeah I thought about Braid too, but then I thought it wasn't the same as the surprise was more in a mechanic that breaks convention rather than a game that uses the breaking of conventions... I'm probably not expressing myself very well here :/

I was wondering if first person pacman fits, am not sure...

Surgeon Simulator, Viecera subverts the games that they come from, but to me they're not "playing with expectations" in the way I'm seeing it... Specifically game design wise, people expect behaviour x, they go for x because they really expect it, then they get y,z and are surprised.

I do see how those can be grouped the same, but doesn't feel the same to me. Maybe my definition of it in my head is too narrow? I'm not entirely sure! I think I'm looking for mechanical and game design expectations rather than emotional and narrative expectations that gets played with.


So for example... A game looks like space invader - players will press left and right and shoot. Pew pew. But then the invaders that get shot affect you negatively, or they dodge. Eventually you must go and hit them and talk to them to negotiate peace... Hahaha

Make an entire game like that...

But yeah I am still wondering, does this only work for parodies and jokes or are there bigger conventions that can be played with (a la Stanley Parable, I guess!)

EvanGreenwood

I think you mean subverting gameplay conventions, rather than player expectations :)

(At least that's how I'd phrase it. Obviously both cover it, though player expectations are affected by all kinds of things)

What about the pirated version of Game Dev Tycoon? Where piracy starts to take over your game sales and eventually bankrupts you (and thus is a fitting narrative for the players who download the game off of Pirate Bay). The piracy mechanic in the game ends up dooming your virtual studio no matter what.

Though the piracy mechanic doesn't come across as surprising that the way that traps in Cat Mario are. And the continued subversion in Cat Mario ends up evoking a strong sense of wonder (as in, "what's going to happen next"). And that sense of wonder seems to be a thing that you find important here.

(Frog Fractions certainly achieves that sense of wonder)

It might not really fit, but what about Fable 3? The game starts off as a standard RPG about saving the kingdom, then towards the end it flips that on its head and gives you a taste of what actually ruling a Kingdom once you've saved it might be like (and it turned out that being the saviour of a kingdom might actually suck).

Tuism

Ah I guess that's true, in convention it implies players are familiar and will expect it... Both sounds correct to me :)

retroFuture

(Extremely) annoying voice-over aside, this is a pretty funny concept. Whilst it only really works as a concept game (doubt a fully developed commercial title could get away with this), the humor arises from the frustration of trying to decipher how this this trollish, unfair system works. It's nice to see an idea that uses gameplay mechanics as means of dispensing humour. Usually, when thinking of comedic gaming titles, people often mention titles like the Monkey Island series, although it's sense of humour is delivered primarily through its writing. I think games like Just Cause 2 can be more successful at being funny through its bizarre and emergent gameplay affordances.
Yahtzee's praise of JC2 provides the salient point: "Any criticism I might have given it is drowned out by the terrified scream of an enemy soldier with one leg tied to a Harrier jet."

Tuism

I think there's no denying that games like Goat Simulator and Octodad are big on the emergent madness humour factor :)

But I actually want more than humour out of this playing with player-expected conventions. I want to see if "pushing the envelope" can be an actual thing, not for laughs, but for... Expanding possibilities? As a challenge and not necessarily a joke, if you will.


*oh hello @blackshipsfillthesky ninja edits :)

Does it make sense that I'm drawing a distinction between subversion of mechanics and subversion of narrative? I feel like a narrative subversion is "rationalising something to sound subversive" while subverting mechanics is actually changing how an interaction behaves versus expected outcomes?

For example the stuff you mentioned now - Fable 3 and Game Dev Tycoon Pirate Version, the game still pretty much runs the same way, it just changes the description draped over the mechanics. The mechanics remain the same... Right?

Or is that distinction too flimsy and immaterial?