Outline
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
本文是猶他大學EAE專業的作業（所以是英文的（但是每段都有中文概要））。其實沒有很學術。雖然有防劇透，但是還是建議走完全流程再閱讀
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Introduction
- Comprehend the Narrative: Make time and space perpendicular to each other
- The Story of the Present: How self-driven discovery contributes to non-linearity
- The Story in the Past: How archaeology contributes to non-linearity
- Conclusion
Introduction
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
本文記錄了一種我視覺化理解星際拓荒時空機制的方法，以及為什麼這種時空機制給人帶來一種獨特的，別的開放世界遊戲所少有的非線性體驗。還介紹了一個特別有趣的點就是關於考古遊戲（Archaeogame）中“所謂既定的過去”的浮動性, 或者說認知的非線性性。
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nowadays, the degree of linearity becomes a dominant standard of games characteristic of openness. It is obvious that current technology is unable to build an entirely non-linear world, especially in terms of storytelling. Due to our own limitations, we can not make time non-linear in any story. However, Outer Wilds develops the possibility of including non-linearity in the narrative, or how to tell the story.
From a rather linear story (without multiple endings or side quests) to an extremely non-linear experience, Outer Wilds embraces a unique mechanic of the time loop. The paper offers a special visualized view to perceive the 4D space-time in Outer Wilds as well as further discussions about how the concept of discovery and archaeology relates to the nonlinearity of the narrative.
Comprehend the narrative:
Make time and space perpendicular to each other
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
通常情況下，有劇情的開放世界遊戲（open-world）的進度（progression）分別由玩家在時間軸中的位置和可探索空間決定。而（t）與（x, y, z）往往是相互黏連的平行關係，且劇情的線性性（體現為主線任務，過場動畫等）常讓玩家感受到不自由。星際拓荒中的時間循環（time loop）似乎使得時間軸垂直於可探索的3D空間，成為了4D時空中的第四個普通座標軸。過去，現在，未來變為（x, y, z, t）中的一個普通參數，而玩家腦海中構建的地圖的元素也從【某地點的某物】變為了【某地點於某時發生的某事件】。時間循環帶來的可重玩性（replayability）更是切實將時間降維成可感知，可到達，可改變的非線性元素。 此段可視化地介紹了星際拓荒的時空機制。
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are usually two components of a game that is characteristic of “Openness”: the timeline and the explorable space.
Based on this structure, these games tend to create more non-linearity by expanding the space or making the storyline longer/wider. In the majority of cases, timeline and space are parallel, not interfering with each other.
However, there is another way to create openness based on these two elements: Make them perpendicular to each other. Imagine squashing the 3D space into a 2D plane and placing the fourth axis, time, vertically on the plane. Just like how you are able to move freely in the 3D space right now, you are able to move around the 4D space-time with a location of (x, y, z, t). The linearity of time no longer exists: Anywhere at any time is accessible from your location.
Thus, the two components can be interpreted as a special time slider shown in Fig.4, with the green point representing the location in space-time. In this case, the movement of the single green point now stands for both the progression of the exploring of a 4D map.
This is exactly the core game mechanic of Outer Wilds. In 22-minute time loops, players can freely explore the entire solar system, figuring out what happens before the loop and how to quit the loop. In these loops, what players do does not change how things work. Everything repeats its pattern and is wiped at the end of the time loop. The only thing that changes is the player’s experience or the memory. The muti-playthrough experience grants “when” players explore with the same importance as “where” (Beachum). As the player’s knowledge accumulates, he/she is able to construct a 4D map in their head.
Instead of “going to the future” with a fixed past, the game process is a reconstruction of both the past, the present, and the future. In a quantum physical way, this process can be interpreted as observation (Observer Effect). The more you observe, the narrow the potential area that the story can lie in, and the more the timeline is fixed.
With a limited 22-minute loop and a relatively small solar system to explore, Outer Wilds’ real explorable space is restricted. However, the innovative perpendicular pattern adds an entire dimension to the space, generating much more openness to the gameplay. The future and the past are so clear, and controllable, that you are no longer presented in a 3D space, but rather a 4D space-time.
The story of the present:
How self-driven discovery contributes to non-linearity in the gameplay
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
發生於“現在”的故事，即玩家切實參與的遊戲循環（game loop），用“發現”的機制帶給玩家非線性的體驗。整個遊戲流程沒有任何任務或指引。在開始尋找那把鑰匙前，玩家首先需要描繪那把鑰匙的形狀。
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The nonlinearity of the present, or the gameplay process, lies in the personalized cognition process of a world with fixed patterns. With no specific goal, the player’s behavior is extremely random. The 4D space-time is not only accessible to the player physically, but they are also accessible to the player’s free will. To put it simply, players are not making choices of illusion. Unlike most of the open-world games that tend to bound player’s choices within the main quests, there is no certain goal during the entire gameplay of Outer Wilds. The “dynamic forces” of the game depend on the embedded web of POIs and Curiosities (Beachum 18), which is accomplished by populating the world with things that is not the question itself but arouse the player’s own questions (Beachum 27).
On their first voyage, they may land on any place in the solar system (regarding possibility and regardless of proficiency), which arouses different questions that lead to different self-set goals, building different cognition paths during the entire gameplay.
As Larsen and Schoenau put it, “Instead of the lock-and-key puzzles of adventure games, the player is tasked with learning the shape of the key itself and use detective work to find it.” (Larsen and Schoenau-Fog 1)
Apart from the free choice on the path’s direction, players are also choosing their personalized endings. It is also worth mentioning that the final version or completeness of the stories also varies on subjective or objective factors.
The story in the past:
How archaeology contributes to non-linearity in the world narrative.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
對於發生於“過去”的故事，即玩家無法切實參與的world narrative，星際拓荒也並沒有給我們線性的感覺。與其說是還原既定的過去，不如說是重組意義浮動的“文物”，即考古。我們應注意到新唯物主義（new materialism）在本遊戲中的運用：物質的無限性使得人類對於過去的認知永遠是浮動的，考古的過程實際上並非發現既定的過去的過程，而是重塑對於過去認知的過程。而這一過程恰恰能夠使得玩家對過去產生非線性性理解。
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You can write the story of the present and the future easily through player agency, but it seems impossible to “change” the past. Some claimed that the players are left to explore a fixed world, with no historical significance in their actions (Salajka 4). However, Outer Wilds manages to build a fluctuating past through archaeology, which is not simply the process of discovering the past, but also a non-linear cognition process of the past.
Olsen et al. emphasize that the past is so complex, seeping through each historical stratum and influencing the present in unmeasurable ways, that we should not understand it in a linear, conventionally chronological way. According to the principles of New Materialism, the material world can never be fully depleted solely by human interpretation, which changes over time. This eternal uncertainty and mystery lie in endless new discoveries, resulting in human beings reframing the past endlessly.
In “Materiality, Nonlinearity, and Interpretive Openness in Contemporary Archaeogames”, Marco Caracciolo classifies Outer Wild as an archaeological game, which also embraces non-linearity and indeterminacy (Caracciolo 33) instead of historical accuracy.
During the gameplay of Outer Wilds, players are continuously reconstructing the past in a roundabout path.
Let’s imagine a player with the hypothesis or the precondition that Nomai built the time loop for some purpose. He/she may first discover that Nomai tried to trigger Supernova by Sun Station, then deduce that the ultimate goal is to destroy the solar system, and the supernova at each 22-minute loop is triggered by Nomai. However, after he/she finds information related to the Ash Twin Project, he/she would figure out that the Sun Station is designed to provide energy for the Ash Twin Project to send data from the Orbital Probe Cannon 22 minutes into the past. After landing on the Interloper, which seems to directly aim at the sun, and finding Nomai’s spaceship there, the player may infer that Nomai decided to trigger the sun by the Ghost Matter at the core, only to find that it is the ghost matter that kills all Nomai inhabited in the solar system. At this stage, the player also realizes that the Sun Station plan did not work out, which means that the Supernova at each loop’s end is not triggered by Nomai and that it is the natural death of the sun. The player may also discover these facts, or make sense of these facts when revisiting, them in a different order, which means they may have a different hypothesis about the process.
As Marco put it, this is how “the plurality of pasts extends into the present and informs the future of human societies” (Caracciolo 43).
Conclusion
Whether a game is linear or not is often bounded by the linearity of time. Outer Wilds successfully broke the boundary by creating a sense of 4D space-time with the help of "discovery" and "archeology". What the player is constructing is not a 3D map, but a 4D map with time being the fourth coordinate.
I still remember sitting in the spaceship for the last time loop. For the first time as well as the last time, I see the thickness of time. I see the settled past as well as the controllable future, like the linearity of time never existed.
Works Cited
Annapurna Interactive. Outer Wilds. Steam. June 18, 2020. https://store.steampowered.com/app/753640/Outer_Wilds/
Beachum, Alex. Outer Wilds A Game of Curiosity-Driven Space Exploration. Diss. University of Southern California, 2013.
Caracciolo, Marco. "Materiality, Nonlinearity, and Interpretive Openness in Contemporary Archaeogames." Eludamos: Journal for Computer Game Culture 13.1 (2022): 29-47.
Larsen, Bjarke Alexander, and Henrik Schoenau-Fog. "Making the Player the Detective." Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games. 2020.
Olsen, Bjørnar. Archaeology: The discipline of things. Univ of California Press, 2012.
Salajka, Sarah. Beyond the Supernova: time, space, and Utopia in Outer Wilds. The University of Alabama in Huntsville, 2022.