Mooser-Gooser

Necessity is the mother of invention. We seldom apply this handy-dandy aphorism to our work, because necessity is seldom a concept we apply to entertainment. However, when my good friend Laura Mixon found herself working a three-month contract in San Francisco, with her family remaining in Albuquerque, her sadness at being isolated from her husband and her little girls quickly became a matter of deep concern. She phoned home every night, but conversation just wasn't enough. She wanted something more, some way to spend time with them. One evening we spoke just after she had conversed with her family, and she was feeling particularly homesick. I tried to empathize, but never having had children, I was doing a bad job of it. "Can't you make me a computer game that I could play with my kids?" Laura asked. Thus was Mooser-Gooser born.

It didn't take long to establish the basic design concepts. At one end of an Internet connection is a parent wishing to spend some time with a faraway child; at the other end is a child whose conversational skills leave much to be desired, but who loves to play games. The trick, I realized, is to build a two-player game with asymmetric skills required of the two players. My design assumption was that this game was for parents of small children; the ten-year-old probably doesn't need parents intruding into their videogame playing. But smaller children, say, six years old, are a different matter. They can't automatically outperform their parent; they'll need some help. Yet, the game could not take the form of parent guiding the child at all times; children need some sense of their own power. The child must have some power, too. This in turn implies a third player: Mooser-Gooser the dog, named after my dog Moose, a large, lovable lunkhead. The child gives orders to Mooser-Gooser. Thus, we have three players with three different sets of capabilities. The parent is larger than the child, able to reach higher, climb over taller obstructions, and to lift heavy things. The child is smaller and so can crawl through small holes that the adult can't negotiate. Mooser-Gooser, when properly instructed, can jump over gaps and retrieve objects. He can also run fast if need be.

This provides the basis for a great platform game. Parent, child, and Mooser-Gooser must negotiate a series of vertical mazes, overcoming lots of obstacles. They must pool their special capabilities to tackle each problem. Sometimes the child will crawl through a small hole and drag a ladder back through it so that the parent can climb over the obstacle. Sometimes Mooser-Gooser will jump over a gap carrying a rope so that the parent can fashion a bridge using the rope as the starting point. Sometimes the parent will lift the child over a tall wall. Sometimes they'll both be able to get past an obstacle, but Mooser-Gooser won't, and they'll have to devise a means of getting Mooser-Gooser past it.

A tough problem arises from the possibility of virtual injury. We must challenge the two players with obstacles, but we cannot permit anybody to suffer virtual injury in this game. Nobody can fall, be crushed, or otherwise hurt. Yet how can we provide an interesting set of obstacles without imposing some risk? I came up with two solutions, neither of which completely satisfies me.

The first solution makes missteps impossible. Mooser-Gooser won't jump a gap unless he can do so successfully. If ordered to jump too large a gap, he simply paces back and forth at the edge whining. This requires a somewhat different input structure. Instead of giving the players full motion freedom with a mouse, we would instead give them chunky verbs. For example, motion verbs would be handled by clicking on a destination icon, perhaps a blinking star. Thus, the child need not have ideal motor control; he simply clicks on the desired destination and his avatar moves there. We can then prevent accidents by offering only those destinations that can be safely reached.

The problem with this approach, as with all such "precluded input" systems, is that it frustrates the player who cannot see how to achieve the desired goal. It is structurally no different from the infuriating word processing program that will not permit you to carry out your desired task because "you haven't done something else yet." Of course, we could argue that, unlike a word processing program, the whole point and purpose of this game would be to solve puzzles. Nevertheless, I remain uncomfortable with this solution.

The second solution is a literal deus ex machina. Should somebody misstep, an angel appears, flies down, catches the unfortunate, and flies them back to the point of departure. If the parent doesn't like angels, this agent could be a fairy godmother, the ghost of a departed loved one, or their tax accountant. My discomfort with this approach mirrors our universal distaste for all deus ex machina solutions.

LESSON 25

There are a million great game ideas just waiting to be implemented.

Mooser-Gooser could be a great game. Surely the need is there; between traveling parents, divorced parents, and parents with limited visitation rights, there are plenty of people who could appreciate the opportunities opened up by such a gentle, warm-hearted game.