I was listening to the band Muse today and came across the song Butterflies & Hurricanes. After looking up the lyrics, I realized that the song was using the concept of the butterfly effect to inspire people to live their life to the full, and that it could easily be extended as a tool in creating a meaningful game (even one that is small in scope).
Butterflies & Hurricanes Lyrics
I’ve always enjoyed Butterflies & Hurricanes because of its inspirational mood and appealing mix of rock and classical style. I could never fully understand the lyrics, and for some reason, I was moved to look them up today. They are excerpted below:
Change everything you are
And everything you were
Your number has been called
Fights and battles have begun
Revenge will surely come
Your hard times are ahead
Best, you’ve got to be the best
You’ve got to change the world
And use this chance to be heard
Your time is now
Don’t let yourself down
And don’t let yourself go
Your last chance has arrived
Best, you’ve got to be the best
You’ve got to change the world
And use this chance to be heard
Your time is now
I’m no musical expert, but to me Muse is creating a metaphor based on chaos theory. Among other things, the song is drawing a parallel between the ability of a butterfly to change weather patterns and the ability of a human to change the world. Let me explain.
What is Chaos Theory?
Chaos theory is a field of scientific study dedicated to studying the behavior of complex and dynamical (i.e. chaotic) systems. It’s absolutely crucial to realize that the word chaos used in this context refers to a deterministic system. In other words, given the right formulas, one could determine how the system will behave over time. However, the system is complex enough that its outputs appear to be random over time – even though it isn’t purely random – hence the term deterministic chaos, or just chaos.
The Butterfly Effect
One of three core properties of a chaotic system is that it is sensitive to initial conditions. This means, roughly speaking, that the points that are close to each other at the initial stages of a system will be greatly different in the future. This implies that small changes in the points early on will result in very large changes later. In 1952, Ray Bradbury illustrated the concept in a book about time travel, where he explained that the death of a butterfly during prehistoric times could lead to a much different reality in the future.
Edward Lorenz later reported scientific evidence of this concept while running a weather simulation. To make things easier for himself, he shortened the decimal .506127 to .506 while inputting values into the simulation, which resulted in a much different output in the weather system. After doing further study, he reported his findings in a talk Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?, choosing a butterfly as a nod to Bardbury’s book. Ever since, the butterfly effect has been used to illustrate a core component of chaotic systems.
Using the Butterfly Effect in Game Design
The basic concept behind the butterfly effect is that a very small change early on can have a large impact later. Because the changes made early on have a large impact, they are meaningful. However, because the changes made early on are small, they seem meaningless. This creates a dichotomy where the changes made to the system seem to have much less meaning than they actually do. In addition, the difference between the perceived meaning and actual meaning is not realized until later.
The game designer can use this dichotomy as a tool in several ways. If the player makes a wrong choice early on, the player could feel regret later. If play continued after that regret, the player would be more careful about his decisions the next time around. This tool is used in the game Jumpman to good effect. The avatar in Jumpman has little friction, so a small movement causes the player to slide easily. This is like creating a miniature butterfly effect every time the avatar moves. As the player progresses through the game, he learns to be very careful about his movements, because one small error could lead the avatar to instant death.
Another way the designer could use this dichotomy is as a way to create hope. If the player knew the meaning of the actions he made early on, he could gain hope that later those actions would have a large impact that would give him an advantage. Chess is a good example of this. Players must move the pawns first in order to free up the more powerful pieces. This makes the first few moves in a Chess game pretty important. In fact, expert players will be able to recognize a particular play style by watching the first several moves in a Chess game. Being able to see the pattern early will help them to understand meaningful moves that could be made later. This gives the player hope that he can overcome his opponent successfully.
A designer can also use the butterfly effect in the story of a game. The most obvious way would be force the player to make decisions at certain points in the game, branching the story into alternate versions. This was made popular by the Choose Your Own Adventure books. Lately, Daniel Benmergui and Gregory Weir have used this technique in their games I Wish I Were the Moon and (I Fell In Love With) The Majesty of Colors. Each game gives the player the freedom to explore the consequences of his actions made to the characters and the environment. Those consequences are played out in short animations as endings to the game. The final goal of the game is to experience all of the endings. Both games are pretty small in scope, so the designers have not created a lot of room for the early actions in the game to branch very far and therefore to cause much impact. The Majesty of Colors takes the concept a little further, and after playing it, one can see how this concept could be extended so that the stories become even more different over time.
I’m sure the best way to create meaning with the butterfly effect is yet to come. Until then, these directions should be explored further in games. Doing so just might change the world. . .
