videogames

Dragon Quest IX: Starry Sky

  • Reading time:2 mins read

It looks like it’s been announced for the Nintendo DS. Which is… pretty big news! I mean, this is one of the most important series in Japan — one of the things that effectively makes a console. Though to be fair, it’s also usually released for the console with the biggest (or projected so) user base. For that to be the DS, instead of a home system… hell. You want to see some paradigms shifted? Here you go.

I’m guessing that Yangus Mysterious Dungeon game was meant as a test for the system, to see if the DS could handle a game roughly on the scale of DQXIII. I’ve not played the former (I don’t think it’s even getting a release over here); I hear it’s pretty darned impressive, for what it is. I’m undecided if I think this DS game is in turn meant as a prototype for a Wii game (as Horii has hinted at in the past), or if he’s trying to say something by moving the series to a portable system. Considering how damned well earlier Dragon Quest games have worked on the Game Boy (way better than on home systems), and considering how much more free time Japanese salarymen have on the train than at home, I’m guessing this might be considered a more efficient format for “timesink” games of this sort. I know I’ve suggested as much in the past. (Hey, is the industry starting to catch up to me?)

Here’s another paradigm: it’s turning into a “communication” game (Wi-Fi enabled), and it seems it’s becoming real-time. So hell, there are a couple more abstractions out of the way — basically the last significant ones remaining in DQXIII. No more turns, and you only control one character. I wonder how this will work out in practice; if players can simply hop into and out of each other’s quests, or if it’s more restricted.

EDIT: Well, there we go. Someone’s writing about it already. And yeah, forgot to mention the Level-5 bit. It’s interesting they’re still tied to the series, considering how eager they are to break out and do their own thing!

Matsuno Ball

  • Reading time:6 mins read

Final Fantasy XII tries so hard not to be dumb — indeed, to actively address almost everything wrong with Japanese RPGs. The result of this effort (and of the general inspiration behind the package) is one of the most engrossing, sincere “big” games I’ve played in a while. I mean, I really, really enjoy this thing. Seriously! It’s a damned ballsy game, that I’d recommend to anyone. On the surface the only significant problems are thus:

  • The license board
  • That the gambit system isn’t more advanced
  • That the game still has these weird “turns” grafted in

The license board isn’t a bad idea in principle; it’s just in execution that it comes off as one more bizarre affectation. The idea is that any character can, in theory, learn to do anything so long as he or she has the training or experience to do so. Learning how to do one thing (say, to cast some simple white magic) makes it possible to learn similar skills, with just a little more investment. Learning to properly use a mace, on the other hand, won’t do much for your ability to cast Fire.

The way it’s implemented, though — urgh. Why can’t I wear a hat that I just picked off the ground, without first “purchasing” the ability to do so? If I know how to use one kind of sword, why am I wholly unable to use another unless I purchase the ability? And in typical RPG style, why am I all at once magically able to do these things, once I buy the ability? The way this should have been done is as follows:

  1. Call the damned things “proficiencies” instead of “licenses”. That makes it clearer what we’re getting into.
  2. For practical abilities (weapons, armor, use of items and accessories), allow anyone to equip and use those items to some percentage of skill. Those with no training in a bladed weapon would barely be able to do anything useful with a bastard sword, though they’d be able to swing it around and maybe, by chance, hit something for some amount of damage. Those with some training in swords would have a higher chance of using the thing well. Those with specific training in that type of sword would be able to use it perfectly. Likewise, there are some items (like a freakin’ hat) that anyone could wear to full, or almost full, ability — though maybe mastering the use would provide a subtle nuance. If there were any special bonus or benefit, maybe you’d only get that if you had the proficiency. For more intangible abilities — spells, techniques — allow anyone to at least attempt those to which your party has access, though there’s an extremely low chance of success unless they’ve mastered those categories. Anyone who has put in the effort to learn the abilities can do them flawlessly, every time.
  3. Choose the direction in which you’re going to study, rather than the licenses on which to spend your accrued points. If you want to learn how to cast “Cure”, peg it as your current goal; all points would go toward learning “cure”. Once you’ve learned the ability, an unobtrusive message pops up (much like a “level up” message) informing you of your success and reminding you to pick a new goal. (You can turn off the reminders in the option menu.)

There’s no real problem with gambits; this system is the main stroke of genius here. I just wish they were more nuanced. For instance, I’d like to be able to say “if [any enemy] is [within striking range], then [equip] [X melee weapon].” Then attack. Otherwise if they’re not in striking range, equip your range weapon and attack. Also, I don’t know why it’s not giving me the option to target enemies equal to or lower than X health; only greater than. You always want to beat the weakest enemies first, so you clear them away! Again, not a big problem; it’s just that I’m frustrated that I can’t always program my companions to act as I would act — which in theory is the point to the gambit system; to keep me from having to choose the same options over and over from a menu.

Finally, it’s a little strange that the game basically takes place in real time, yet everyone waits his turn to act. There’s no reason for this; it should instead be based on a sort of an initiative system (and retaining the ability to “pause” and issue new orders). Characters and monsters would act the moment they have the opening, and those actions would take a certain amount of time to execute. (Likewise, placement would matter a lot more; you can only hit someone if you’re rudimentarily within range.) The effect would be real-time battles to match the real-time maneuvering.

And on that note, I’d like direct control over my party leader. I want to be able to assign actions to my face buttons, and only have to call up a menu for my less common actions (or to send a command to my companions). This again can be an option — much as there is an option now to leave time running (instead of pausing) when you’ve the menu open. It would not significantly change the way the game played (at least, with the above initiative system), it would make me feel far more involved, and it would simply make more sense.

While we’re here, I wish the overworld would seamlessly stream instead of being broken into hunks of map. I realize this is due to the PS2’s famous memory limitations. Still, hey. Crystal Dynamics figured it out. Also: if it’s going to be forty-five minutes between save points, I’d like a quicksave option. That sounds reasonable to me.

I’d say that all of these alterations would be natural for any sequel to FFXII (especially now that Square is hot on sequels to individual FF games) — except Squenix (and millions of Square fans, and Penny-Arcade) seem to consider this game a failure best forgotten. Ah well. Grace wouldn’t be grace if it were self-evident.

It’s fun that the game pretty much sidelines the Nomura-chic protagonist (who I call Corey) and his “girl chum”, in favor of the more interesting supporting cast and their political drama. This might just be the first game I’ve ever admired for its spoken dialog.

Defining the Next Generation

  • Reading time:28 mins read

by [name redacted]

This article was originally intended as a conclusion to NextGen’s 2006 TGS coverage. Then it got held back for two months as an event piece. By the time it saw publication its window had sort of expired, so a significantly edited version went up under the title “What The New Consoles Really Mean”.

So we’re practically there. TGS is well over, the pre-orders have begun; Microsoft’s system has already been out for a year (and is now graced with a few excellent or important games). The generation is right on the verge of turning, and all those expensive electronics you’ve been monitoring for the last few years, half dreading out of thriftiness and secret knowledge that there won’t be anything good on them for a year anyway, will become the new status quo. Immediately the needle will jump and point at a new horizon, set around 2011, and everyone will start twiddling his thumbs again. By the time the drama and dreams resume, I’ll be in my early thirties, another American president will have served nearly a full term – and for the first time in my life I really can’t predict what videogames will be like.

Cultivating Fear

  • Reading time:12 mins read

by [name redacted]

Originally published by Next Generation, under the title “How to Make Fear“.

With Halloween at hand, surely there must be some way to warp the festive energy to our own analytical ends. Just see what happens when you invite us to a party! Don’t fret, though – though full of long words, our museum of terror takes the well-oiled form of a top ten list. We know how you like your information, and it’s in bite-sized individually wrapped treats. Please… be our guest.

Draining Away

  • Reading time:1 mins read

What was the first game to implement a life bar (compared with hit points or other measures of non-one-hit kills)?

Lifestyles of the Rich and Stupid

  • Reading time:4 mins read

I don’t consider myself a gamer. Then again, I suppose I don’t “game” so much as I… play videogames, sometimes.

If my distance sounds disingenuous… well, sometimes it is, a little. There is, however, a difference between having something in your life and building your life around that thing. Videogames fascinate me, and I spend a good deal of time thinking about them on an abstract level. I’ve thought enough about them to make some money based on those thoughts. Sometimes I play them, a little, when I’ve nothing better to do. I don’t feel it’s got much, if anything, to do with my personal identity, though. It’s just something that’s there, in my life.

And I think that’s an important distinction. Most videogames currently cater to “gamers” — a label that suggests that they use videogames to give themselves identity on some level. And, well, that just explains everything, doesn’t it. Aversion to change, in particular.

A person doesn’t need to have that ego attachment to enjoy a videogame any more than I need to tattoo Trent Reznor’s name on my thigh to enjoy Nine Inch Nails. Or even to analyze his music on a deeper level, sometimes. Likewise, I don’t need to spend my life in the cinema to enjoy Orson Welles and appreciate the significance of his work.

That is, to an extent, what Nintendo’s going after now: trying to make videogames accessible to people who don’t necessarily want to base their lives around them — which, at present, videogames really aren’t much. The “casual game” sector, and the success of cell phone games, proves that there’s some headway to be made here. I think that whole subsection of the industry is a little misdirected (and frankly a little patronizing), though.

I’m reminded of a recent post by Matt McIrvin about the Wikipedia science community, in particular advanced physics — about how the people editing don’t know how to write at all and keep skewing articles toward the most inclusive, precise, elaborate definitions possible. McIrvin keeps trying to smooth out the language, to make more accessible analogies, and to winnow out the superfluous material so as to make the pages readable and the information comprehensible to someone with, at best, only a slight existing understanding of the material. And even then he often gets complaints from casual readers that the articles are impenetrable.

Addressing this doesn’t necessarily mean dumbing down the material; it just means stepping back and detaching yourself from it enough to understand the context and what’s actually useful. There is a place for insider science writing, and that’s in academic science journals. There is a place for “gamer games”, and the Wii completely supports them. Just as important, though, is making the information available on a certain practical level to anyone who might express an interest.

How often have you handed a controller to, say, a parent who expressed some interest in what you were doing, only for him to hand it back in frustration when he couldn’t make sense of what he was doing; couldn’t coordinate his hands, was overwhelmed with all of the buttons and their seemingly random effects? The interest is there; anyone can be interested in anything. The problem is addressing that interest and drawing it into full-fledged involvement, for the time spent with a videogame — rather than simply assuming an existing level of exposure and a certain set of preconceptions.

Though I have that exposure, I don’t really feel I go into videogames from the perspective of someone looking for a videogame to play; I’m looking for something on a more human level, to maybe contribute something to my life for the time I spend playing. That might be an abstract intellectual observation, as in the game systems of a Treasure game, or it might be emotionally-based, as in Silent Hill. I don’t play videogames simply because they’re videogames, though. I don’t at all care about videogames for their own sake; I’m only interested in what they can do for me. I mostly stick around because I see the potential bubbling away, for them to tell me something really interesting that I didn’t know before.

I think that’s pretty close to the definition of a non-gamer. And I think it’s pretty close to the stance of your housemom or random schmoe. Which is why I think, should videogames come closer to achieving that goal, they will find a much wider audience than they currently do.

Pongism, or: What’s the Point of Videogames, Anyway?

  • Reading time:10 mins read

by [name redacted]

Part ten of my ongoing culture column; originally published by Next Generation.

We play them, we critique them, sometimes we enjoy them, sometimes we make them. To what end, exactly? Outside of screwing around in search of that elusive “wheeee!”, what exactly do we mean to accomplish? Why videogames? Why do we even bother? It stands to reason that whatever keeps drawing us back to the darned things, it’s got something to do with their basic nature; something that appeals to our own.

Five That Didn’t Fall

  • Reading time:53 mins read

by [name redacted]

Part nine of my ongoing culture column for Next Generation. After the popularity of my earlier article, I pitched a companion piece about companies that had lived past their remit, yet technically were still with us. On publication we lost the framing conceit and the article was split into five pieces, each spun as a simple bottled history. In turn, some of those were picked up by BusinessWeek Online. Here’s the whole thing, in context.

A few weeks ago we published a list of five developers that made a difference, helped to shape the game industry, then, one way or another (usually at the hands of their parent companies), ceased to exist. One theme I touched on there, that I got called on by a few readers, is that although in practical terms all the listed companies were indeed defunct, several continued on in name (Atari, Sierra, and Origin), living a sort of strange afterlife as a brand detached from its body.

This was an deliberate choice; although Infogrames has been going around lately with a nametag saying “HELLO my name is Atari” – and hey, why not; it’s a good name – that doesn’t make Infogrames the historical Atari any more than the creep in the purple spandex with the bowling ball is the historical Jesus. (Not that I’m relating Infogrames to a fictional sex offender – though he is a pretty cool character.) The question arises, though – what about those companies which live on in both name and body, yet which we don’t really recognize anymore? You know who I’m talking about; the cool rebels you used to know in high school, who you see ten years later working a desk job, or in charge of a bank. You try to joke with them, and they don’t get a word you’re saying. You leave, feeling a mix of fear and relief that (as far as you know) you managed to come out of society with your personality intact.

The same thing happens in the videogame world – hey, videogames are people; all our sins are handed down. This article is a document of five great companies – that started off so well, ready to change the world – that… somehow we’ve lost, even as they trundle on through the successful afterlife of our corporate culture. And somehow that just makes us miss them all the more.

The Nose Before Your Face

  • Reading time:12 mins read

by [name redacted]

Part eight of my ongoing culture column; originally published by Next Generation, under the title “The Value of Simplicity”.

So lately we’ve been swinging back toward thinking about games as a medium of expression. It’s not a new concept; way back in the early ’80s, companies like Activision and EA put all their energy behind publicizing game designers like rock stars – or better yet, like book authors – and their games as unique works by your favorite authors. This all happened just after figures like Ed Logg and Toshihiro Nishikado started to extrapolate Pong and SpaceWar!, incorporating more overt narrative frameworks and exploring more elaborate ways of interacting with the gameworld. From this initial explosion of creativity came Steve Wozniak and the Apple II, providing an easy platform for all of the early Richard Garriotts and Roberta Williamses and Dan Buntens to come.

Then stuff happened, particularly though not specifically the crash; the industry changed in focus. On the one hand we had ultra-secretive Japanese companies that – like Atari before them – usually didn’t credit their staff for fear of sniping and for the benefit of greater brand identity; on the other, what US companies remained tended to inflate beyond the point where small, expressive, intimate games were economically feasible. And then there’s just the issue that, as technology grew more complex, design teams grew larger and larger, making it harder for any one voice to stand out, leading to more of a committee-driven approach.

Boundary Scout

  • Reading time:5 mins read

My brother has been hounding me about how to recreate that crazy mysterious glitchy feeling from old NES games, and this whole time I’ve been telling him that I figure it’s impossible. But uh, I guess not!

Apparently the trick is to actually focus on making it seem mysterious and glitchy!

Well, the focus here is on the glitchiness — mostly because I think that would be a cool-n-subversive way of doing things. I think the real point is in the kind of thoughts and emotions and behavior that those glitches trigger in people who are prone to pick at them. I think all of those qualities are very close to the ideal purpose and potential of videogames in general.

It’s that feeling of breaking through the boundaries of an established system — of the suggestion of unknown yet possibly grand potential hidden somewhere beyond the mundane, that you — as a free agent and very clever person — are specially qualified to unlock.

The way a person might break through the boundaries could be mechanical or emotional or intellectual. Some of the best touches in some of the best games borrow from this principle. See the scanning in Metroid Prime, how it comes directly out of the themes at hand, then ties everything together, hinting at a sort of order and coherence and reality to the entire Metroid series and everything in it that you never really suspected before. Yet it never shoves the stuff down your throat; it’s just there for you to put together on your own — much like all of the abstract stuff in the original Zelda and Metroid and whatnot, except deliberate and intellectual rather than incidental and material.

And then there’s Riven.

I think my point with the overt fake-bugginess was to exaggerate and glorify the whole pointless search process that we go through — poking the edges of the scenery, seeing what’s possible within the world, experimenting, and only rarely being rewarded with anything for our effort. And when we are rewarded it feels cloying and false, like those dumb treasure chests that have to be at the end of every single cul de sac in every single dungeon, to overtly reward you for going down and simultaneously make you feel obligated to go down every one.

It’s working on the suggestion that maybe this behavior has a real purpose behind it after all, that sometimes — just sometimes — there’s something magical and special and completely unprecedented to find. And the point to that is to bring into light that whole behavior, that whole mindset — which, again, I think is implicitly what videogames are made to suggest, yet which I don’t feel is often really addressed for all (or even much) of its potential.

I think this mode can be addressed in less gimmicky ways, even if the gimmick is maybe one of the clearest ways to illustrate it. The problem is that a videogame has to work on a couple of levels at once. It needs to have a completely workable status quo, that feels solid, that the player is convinced is meant to be solid, for the player’s subversion of that status quo to mean anything. There’s a lot of psychology here; the player shouldn’t know immediately whether he’s supposed to be able to do what he’s doing, and that it has been accounted for; just that, for whatever reason, he’s able to.

Beyond the psychology and the multiple layers to keep track of, the game of course has to be designed and programmed as well as possible, to avoid unintentional exploits. So there’s a certain level of virtuosity required here.

…

Maybe I’m overstepping the line a bit, in defining the importance of these characteristics. The basic nature of a videogame lies in the causal relationship between the player and the gameworld; the basic potential lies in the narrative ability of that causal relationship (what it means for the player to act, given the established boundaries of the gameworld). The natural mode of player action is to explore those rules and challenge them. I suppose it doesn’t follow that the player need subvert a status quo as-such; it’s just, this is a good way to illustrate that mode of player interaction and its narrative and emotional potential.

The player should feel free; that he is at all times in control over his immedate decisionmaking, and that through his decisions he is just perhaps blazing into unknown territory, doing something nobody else has done, having a unique and visceral personal experience that’s entirely generated by his own free will. Half-Life 2 is great at making the player feel clever and subversive for doing exactly what the game is expecting.

I think it’s a misdiagnosis of this quality that has led to this sandbox nonsense (most recently reined in and made less inane by Dead Rising), and sense that players want “freedom” in their games.

…

I’ll get back to this. Will post what I’ve got now.

A completely unsaleable idea

  • Reading time:3 mins read

A vague concept came to me a couple of hours ago:

Take a game that, ostensibly is… this one thing; it’s of a particular genre, with certain goals — and it’s entertaining enough, if mired in its genre and a little buggy. If you’re so prone, you can poke away at the seams all over the place, and get effects that probably aren’t intended. The first model that came to me was something like a…

Side note: Wi-Fi DS or Wii Pictionary could be interesting. Not for this, necessarily; just had the thought.

Anyway. Something like a video board game; an adaptation of a very famous Game of Life clone that you’ve never heard of, or a Mario Kart or Mario Party clone. Something vapid and small in imagination and ambition, though diverting. The kind of trash that builds up on the store shelves and you never think about, though maybe with a little more personality and irony about itself.

Then if the player happens to be bored enough — happens to keep picking away at the discrepancies, at the bugs and exploits, happens to keep veering out of bounds, he’ll wind up… out-of-bounds. And then the real game will begin. If not, the dippy little game, with its goals and rules, is all you’ll ever see.

As for what’s out there, I don’t know. It could start off just seeming like an error — the Metroid Secret World sort of effect. Random garbage that it’s interesting to screw with. Then keep picking through the garbage, and eventually there’s something grander beneath that. Like you’ve just emerged from a dungeon into the blinding sunshine. And it just keeps getting more and more mysterious. There’s no explanation for any of this; you have to piece it together on your own, through exploring and continually picking away at the edges of what’s possible and observing and filing things away in your head.

What would be even better is if the initial part of the game had some kind of license — say, a videogame version of Jeopardy! or some other known quantity — to further cover up what’s really going on.

And then put the game out and say nothing. And see how long before someone finds the secret, and word begins to spread. Then see the noise grow and grow, and paranoia develop about the glitches in every other game under the sun, as people wonder if they lead to anything secret and special — the way we used to, twenty years ago when we didn’t know any better.

…

I don’t know. I think it would be kind of neat. If impractical. It would require a Kenji Eno or some other funster, to take charge then sit in the background and not be credited.

The Web of Change

  • Reading time:2 mins read

Yeah, still working on the column. I know it’s late. Sorry! It’s… complicated. Almost done, though.

Anyway. You know what I’d like to see? A utility that will allow a person to track… game evolution pathways, I suppose. It will accept data from a few input fields, and store it in a database. This could easily be online. The primary input would be a game’s title, the second set of inputs would be other games that were inspirations for that game; the third set would be games that the primary game helped to inspire. So on a linear path (which this wouldn’t necessarily trace), you’d get something like Pong -> Breakout -> Space Invaders -> Etcetera.

The utilty would have a few other facets; one would graphically illustrate a web of all games and links stored in the database. Simple illustration — just spheres with text connected by green and blue arrows, say. Another would trace the most popular “hubs” — your Pac-Men, your Ultimas. Maybe the latter would be somewhat incorporated into the former, showing more popular hubs larger or in a different color. Perhaps there could be a spectrum of hot to cold.

I’m sure this wouldn’t take more than twenty-five minutes for someone who knew a bit of the proper scripting. I, however, don’t, offhand!

A Cosmetic Conundrum

  • Reading time:13 mins read

by [name redacted]

Part seven of my ongoing culture column; originally published by Next Generation, under a different title; something like “The Problem With Game Consoles”. People seemed to take this article more seriously than I intended.

In May I finally saw a PlayStation 3 up-close – and dear lord. Whereas the Xbox 360 at least puts on a pretense of tenability, sucking in its gut like a real man, Sony’s system sets a new standard for girth. Maybe it was the rotating display, walled behind likely-bulletproof Plexiglass – yet I swear it must be the most outrageously massive game console that’s ever been designed. And that’s on top of looking like a space ship based on the template of a waffle iron. Whereas the Sega Genesis looked like you could top-load a CD into it, the PS3 looks like you could top-load a side of bacon.

No More E3: Now that’s what I call a duck!

  • Reading time:2 mins read

Wow, yes. This is a good thing! Both Tim and I have been arguing for a while that this circus should have been behind us years ago. That it still existed was a symbol of sorts of the whole inward-tuned wankathon that has been the game industry for a number of years. Sort of an embarassment, really. And it’s not the booth babes that were the problem, either.

It seemed clear that the changes this past year were a sign of desperation: either clean things up and change, or the expo will become completely irrelevent. The industry has actually started to move again, the last couple of years, and E3 really didn’t seem necessary anymore in its current form. The basic conclusion, from the people I’ve talked to, is that E3 really wasn’t any different this year. Maybe a little less annoying — and yet without the most ridiculous excess to distract a person, it became clear just how tedious and ill-conceived the whole thing was. It seemed clear that E3 was on its way down.

That they should have pulled out so abruptly is a surprise, though. Not an unwelcome one, mind! I just expected a more gradual, kicking, screaming, choking death until nobody cared anymore. I’m impressed, frankly. This is one of the more heartening things I’ve heard in a while, in regards to the industry in general — not just the “death” of E3; the boldness in simply pulling the plug like this, rather than clinging. The whole change in attitude that this suggests — well. It’s good! I like it!

The Crying Game

  • Reading time:14 mins read

by [name redacted]

Part six of my ongoing culture column; originally published by Next Generation under the title “Can Videogames Make You Cry?”.

A few weeks ago, Bowen Research published the results of a survey, on the role of emotion in videogames. Hugh Bowen polled 535 gamers on their own views and history, with the end goal to rough some kind of an objective analysis out of their subjective experiences, and thereby maybe to shed some light on what emotional effect videogames have had in the past. The paper is well, and humbly, written; its conclusions, though, are less than revelatory: the only genre that tends to elicit reasonably complex emotion is RPGs (presumably Japanese ones), while other genres all inspire at least some basic kind of motivational urge in the player – be it rage or fear or what have you. Meanwhile, the paper is full of comments about Aeris, and the profound affect of her death on people who had never played Phantasy Star II.

The problem, I suppose, is in the question being asked: “Can videogames make you cry?”. It’s a binary question about a complex issue, much like asking whether Americans are happy and then concluding “sometimes!” And indeed, Bowen’s answer seems to be “well, yes… probably. In theory.” A second issue is the way Bowen approached the issue as a matter of statistics – and then based his analysis on the subjective responses of a skewed sample. “Gamers”, as with any obsessives, have by nature a peculiar perspective of their medium – a medium which, furthermore, is not yet refined as an expressive platform.

The question should not be whether videogames are capable of eliciting complex emotion – as, given the complex analog weave of our brains, anything can result in an emotional response of any depth and sophistication. Rather, what Bowen might have asked is how innately bound any emotion is to the current fabric of videogames (that is, whether it has anything to do with what the medium is trying to accomplish), how much emotional potential videogames might ideally hold, and – assuming some degree of innate potential – how best to insinuate emotion into the framework or theory of a videogame. Or rather perhaps, how best to cull emotion from that same framework.