Game Dynamics, Jim Croce, and Michael Bay
"And you can keep the dime."
From Jim Croce's Operator, I think this is one of the saddest lyrics in music.
Partly, it's the lyric itself. The character in the song is trying to get in touch with someone they loved, but that left them. They're talking to a phone operator, trying to get connected so that in this brief moment of strength, they can tell their lost love that they're doing just fine without them. But really they aren't.
It takes some time, the operator can't get the call to go through, and the caller gives up. He's tearing up, changing his mind. He thanks the operator for helping, and tells them they can keep the money he used to place the call. Maybe he just really wants to get off the phone, maybe he's just given up so thoroughly at this point that the money is of no consequence. Maybe it's the only little bit of human connection he's able to wring from this ordeal.
But the other reason I think this lyric hits home is because of what isn't said. Look at the structure of previous verses:
Operator
Well could you help me place this call?
See, the number on the matchbook is old and faded.
She's living in L.A.
With my best old ex-friend Ray.
A guy she said she knew well and sometimes hated.
Operator
Well could you help me place this call?
Well, I can't read the number that you just gave me.
There's something in my eyes.
You know it happens every time
I think about a love that I thought would save me.
We're getting conditioned to a structure here. Not only just the repeated phrases and rhyme scheme, but also how many syllables to expect. But then the last verse hits:
Operator
Well let's forget about this call.
There's no one there I really wanted to talk to.
Thank you for your time,
You've been so much more than kind.
And you can keep the dime.
Dead stop. When you listen to it, the lyrics just stop, but the music has like three more measures to get through, so it's just empty space. It undermines your expectation, so it stands out as aberrant. It's as if he's so upset he forgot to keep singing. You sit there in silence, hanging on that pained voice that's just ready to pull the ripcord on this whole "phone call" idea.
What's there is important, but not nearly as affecting as what's not there. The silence contrasts the lyric itself (and contrasts the expected pattern set forth in the corresponding lyrics in the previous versus) such that both stand out.
In much of boardgaming, I find that this contrast is equally needed.
My favorite examples of this done well come from RAF: The Battle of Britain 1940 and B-17: Queen of the Skies-style games.
These games are very procedural. Repetitive, even. In RAF you are assigning air defense against constant bombing raids, day after day after day. In B-17 (or B-29 or Target for Today) you are flying from zone to zone, rolling encounter after encounter to see what attacks you, and at the macro level flying flight after flight of constant attrition.
But in all these games there is always the possibility that nothing happens. I've had flights in TfT, or patrols in Hunters, where we don't see a single enemy and we head on home.
Rather than be boring, these brief moments of respite serve to contrast the constant attrition the game typically employs. You have a second to breathe. It's not true that nothing is happening; what's happening is nothing, and compared to the barrage of fire you're typically under, nothing is often what you'd rather have. It's not uncommon for the loudest cheers and most exaggerated fist pumps during a game like this to be when you've rolled "No Event." In Ambush!, the number of die rolls and chart lookups are completely forgotten in one big tension-relieving sigh when you find out that noise was just the wind.
Without these moments of quiet, the "loudness" of the rest of the game just becomes the norm. It's not "something bad happening," it's merely "just how a turn goes."
And letting the player know that it's always possible for nothing to happen adds tension to every encounter roll or card draw. A particularly nasty group Bf-109s at 6 o'clock doesn't instill quite the same dread if there hadn't been the possibility that they were just clouds.
I've played a lot of Pandemic, and though it has many admirable qualities, I don't remember anything about any games of it I've played. There were no memorable high points that I still recall fondly. And I think a big reason that's the case is because there aren't really any quiet points to contrast particularly tough turns. Pandemic stays a fairly steady, upward-trending, volume from beginning to end. Nothing's stayed with me in the same way as Croce's lyrics or some play sessions of more dynamic games.
There are a couple of fantastic videos about this effect in Michael Bay movies. From Every Frame a Painting, on the topic of Michael Bay's method of framing shots:
"Bay doesn't distinguish between when to do a shot and when not to do it. He'll use the same camera movement whether the character is saying something important or total gibberish. Every shot is designed for maximum visual impact, regardless of whether it fits.
Michael Bay seems to think a good film is 3,000 dynamic shots and no static ones."
And as Ellis points out in her video, contrast is typically more impactful:
"When there is a relatively important piece of plot information being imparted, the language of the film does not tell your brain, 'This is important, and you need to remember this,' or it doesn't sink in because every shot is given equal weight, visually."
Michael Bay makes every shot look like it's the most important shot of the movie, thus none of them are.
These ups and downs are necessary to throw your struggle into contrast. A big play from your opponent won't feel big if those happen every turn. Seeing how good and easy things could be in a co-op gives you the tool to assess how bad they are, and the reverse is equally true.
The game sessions that have had the most impact on me are those from games where design attention has been paid to the dynamism of the play experience.