OK, so I coined a term. Point is I wanted something in a third dimension from "Cause" and "Effect"...sort of the same limiting simplistic categories we find today in people being labeled "conservative" or "liberal", but I digress.

As I have gone along in the last few years, I have found myself looking more and more at the nice effects that can be had when the player has the "controls" his real life counterpart has. Now, before I get started on this, I want to define this as being different (in my mind) as previous discussions of limiting the player to the echelon his counterpart would control in real life (so if the player is the army commander, he would move corps around, not battalions). I have always disagreed that design should use this limitation as a goal. I feel that this particular limitation is too restrictive -- that a game so designed would relegate the player to trivial decisions as all of the challenging matters involved in those decisions would be abstracted away from the player's control. I feel that the player would be cheated of his gaming experience if this would be the case.

The issue of player "controls" first came up in my head when I was working on the first computerized edition of ACM. Prior to that time, that game (like all other air games I've seen) was controlled by players mixing and matching movement points, energy factors, and maneuvers (played like cards). With the advent of the computer version, I saw the chance to possibly give the player only the "controls" he would have in real life (brought down to their abstract essence of course...no need to give the player control over Manifold Pressure or an Emergency Fuel Pump!): Throttle, Stick and Rudder. Then, the player could do anything he wanted with his controls, and (if he knew what he was doing), the maneuvers would follow (or fail) as his skills allowed. Unlike the other games, if the player chose to execute a 'Split-S', there would be no "required entry speed" available for prior inspection -- rather, if the player entered the maneuver either too fast or too slow, he'll find the appropriate results only when they start to happen. The experienced player will have a good feel for what is required.

The second game I tried this theory on was a little home-brew Chariot racing game. I was introduced to Circus Maximus and thought that here was another perfect chance to apply these ideas. Here, the player can control what he does with his reins and whip, but little else. In time, and following extensive development, this game might see the light of day as a production item...small, fun, and inexpensive. No OCS to be sure, but the appropriate level of detail for what the game is dealing with. Think of it as a "concept game."

There are other games in the works which will apply these same principals to other models. Naval warfare comes to mind easily.

The next question would be how can these ideas of "controls" be applied to the more complex (and less mechanical) situations we see in games which do not involve aircraft flight, ship or chariot handling? Land warfare is amazingly complex. Even so commanders, leaders have few "controls" -- they can move their subordinate units about and assign them tasks to do when they get there, they can assign limited assets and resources to those subordinate units based on the desired priorities. A unit sent to conduct a defense might be given priority for engineer support. Another might get the majority of artillery fire support, while yet another might get to be first in line for fuel. In a general sense, this is already the case in a game like the OCS -- players assign unit modes which allocate them to some functions but not others, and distribute resources according to the priorities the player desired.

The difference between the land combat model and the others where I have applied this "Design for Control" is that the actor (player in the role of commander) has a few controls to use, but has the ability to use them over numerous discreet "controlees", his units. Whereas in the other games I've applied this technique, the actor controlled one "vehicle" (aircraft, chariot, whatever), in land warfare the player has a limited number of "controls" but has a vast number controlled "vehicles" (units).

For this reason, breaking the "factor allocation mentality" using this system works well in some venues but disappears behind the scenes in others. Can more be made of this? I'm not sure, lets look at a theoretical model and see what it might be like.

With a land model involved, units could be sent in a desired direction to attack anything in their path, sit tight (and defend), or run up a road (without the ability to attack). At any point along the way, the unit (if moving) could stop, but it could not change direction. Critical for such a design would be a linkage between the command cycle and time scale. What I mean is that the time scale would have to be short enough that in any one turn, only one OODA cycle could occur. If the player wanted units to change mode or direction, he would have to wait for the next turn.

Even in this simplistic model, I can already see issues arising because the units themselves are not machinery, but are capable of making some decisions along the way which would keep them from acting as robots.

So, even in its simplest sense, I can see that "Design for Control" has some utility in formats involving control of machinery-based units, but has less so when dealing with non-machinery units (composed of humans who seem to occasionally be capable of independent thought). The desire to improve a player's gaming experience by setting him into something like the shoes of the real commander is an old one. While these ideas do not drop nirvana into our lap, the search goes on