The
Theory of Videoludal Cartographical and Charactery Scale
and Kinesis Relationship
a.k.a.
The
Size of a (RPG) Character Compared to Their
In-Game
Environment
a.k.a.
The
Video Game House Law:
The
size of the character in the smallest environment dictates the actual size of
the larger environments.
The Theory of Videoludal Cartographical and
Charactery Scale and Kinesis Relationship seeks to explain the visual lack
of true scale and dimension as experienced when a character in a video game,
particularly in an adventure game or Role Playing Game (RPG), moves from inside
a building to outside. It is generally guaranteed that the interior of a
structure will be of larger dimensions than the exterior, thus being discrepant
with the Laws of Physics. Many aspects of video games contain these “failures”,
a lack of considerations of these elements, such as jumping backwards when
performing a normal jump whilst upon a moving vehicle[1]. However, it is this
discrepancy that has the potential to set the gamer to judge distances between
places and the relative size of objects how they see fit, possibly absurdly. Therefore,
this theory aims to explain this discrepancy of a game’s original design by its
programmers so as to create a meaningful standard between all in-game
environments.
The typical RPG or adventure game[2] is made up of a plethora
of what is referred to as “screens”, one being a contiguous graphical area that
contains boundaries which, when crossed, allow for movement from one screen to
another. Such an example would be the movement from one “room” to another in a
dungeon, or from one section of a town to another. Screens can also contain certain
points within them that allow for movement onto a “subscreen”,
i.e., a screen inside a screen. More often than not, this is the movement from
a larger area into a smaller one: a world screen into a town or dungeon screen,
or a town screen into a building interior screen. For the sake of this theory,
this is called the “order of environments”, and contains three screen-types
often within the hierarchy of World -> Town -> Building. This may be
expanded upon within some games to become World -> Town -> Neighbourhood
-> Building[3], World -> Region
-> Town -> Building[4], etc. It is also
possible to move directly from World to Building (e.g., into a dungeon) and
skip the Town level, a trait often common to “pure” RPG’s[5]. Many action-RPG’s and adventure
games combine the World and Town levels[6]. However, all allow the
movement from larger to smaller areas.
It is this movement onto smaller and
smaller screens from the previously larger one that leads to discrepancies with
the Laws of Physics as one would experience in real life. The interior of a
building is proportional to its size. However, within a video game and when
viewed from an in-game reality perspective, it is generally expected that the
interior dimensions of the town, dungeon or house is larger than the area it is
depicted by within the next highest in the order of environments. This can be
best demonstrated in games where character movement occurs in precise “steps”
as they move into the next square of an underlying grid.
The mismatch within
the order of environments (Breath of Fire
2)
As can be seen in this example, it
takes two steps to move the length of the town on the world screen, while two
steps is a very short distance inside the town. It takes three steps to pass
the building on the town screen, while inside, three steps likewise does not
move the character far within it. Also, the character is taller than the trees
on the world screen, but not on the town screen, whilst the building’s door on
the town screen is about half the size of it on the building screen. It becomes
apparent as to why a theory is needed.
A feature that is often built in to
many RPG and adventure games is the use of a World Map that can be brought up
to show the current location, as well as towns, dungeons, (sometimes) people
and monsters, etc. This feature can be brought up on request providing the
right conditions are met (in the right environment or a map item is obtained)[7] or else the gamer is
made to navigate the map freely or between fixed locations, the map acting as
the world level of the order of environments[8]. Some platform games use
a world map to move between the traditional level elements[9].
However, a common thread remains,
particularly in games where the world map doubles as the world environment: the
fact that it is a map. Being a map,
it creates a substitution of reality – a model – which contains those elements
that the mapmaker has deemed necessary for the user to view. Whereas most maps
substitute symbols for the locations of specific places, a video game will often
scale down a location, such as in the example above. Sometimes the character is
also scaled down to let the gamer know that it is the world environment and to
also give some reflection to its size. It is done so as to give an idea as to where
things are. The scaled-down locations if the character is considered as the
current location) act just as a substituted graphic would: they are symbols
that represent where the subscreens can be found.
Therefore, if the world map exists
simply as a representation, then within those games where the world map and the
world screen are not the same, it would seem to be quite acceptable to assume
that the world screen is also a map. Thus, it is a corollary of this that the
town screen should also follow suit and also be considered a map. After all, a
video game in itself is a depiction, a model, of a reality.
If this is applied all the way down
the order of environments, then it would be quite permissible to accept the
lowest level of the order as a map. However, this level does not have any subscreens placed on it, and as it is not representing any
locations of them – if it is not a model in this regard – then it can only be
assumed to be the reality within the video game. A character within the lowest,
the smallest level of the order of environments is interacting with the in-game
environment at the “real” level proportionate to the character.
Thus the size of the character in
the smallest environment dictates the actual size of the larger environments. A
building actually takes thirty steps to pass, not three; a town takes two
thousand steps to pass, not two. This is merely an illustrative figure, but it
starts to show how a world within a video-game can be expanded upon spatially.
Sometimes, it is quite feasible to consider a town larger than it actually is,
thus creating areas within the town that act as “stages” to any events that
occur there – movement between screens leaves these areas out of play, but the character
nonetheless passes through them. These can often be determined from where “gates”
occurring on the edges of screens are inconsistent with the gates in the next
screen they move the character to.
This theory also works in reverse,
as if the world screen was to the same scale as the house screen, then the
resources needed for the world environment and the time needed to cross it
would be gigantic; hence the “Massive” in “Massive Multiplayer Online Role
Playing Games” (MMORPG). Some of these games[10] particularly fit this
reversal of the theory as everything remains to the same scale. To compensate
for this, the world environment is broken up into various areas – screens – of
their own. However, since the main proportion of RPG and adventure games are
not made in the MMORPG genre, this problem of discrepancy with the Laws of
Physics will continue to dog them.
It is important that the gamer does
not fall into the trap of taking the smallest environment too far. If a
character’s size is shown to change as it enters a microcosm[11], then it is the
larger-sized character’s environment that prevails.
The size of the character in the
smallest environment dictates the actual size of the larger environments. This
theory shows that it is possible to explain this quirk in a reasonable manner
so as to not be absurd in suggestions of distance and scale.