[gameprogrammer] Re: How to save games?
- From: brianevans <brianevans@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: gameprogrammer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2005 18:13:25 -0500
If you look at any of these lists you see many that can be used in
games, and many others that just would not make a good game. And, IMHO,
you find that several game concepts are not covered by any of these plot
lines.
Bob Pendleton
(Disclaimer: I'm not entirely sure what the point was to this post. It
may just be a VERY long winded way to say "gameplay rules".)
Exactly. This suggests that the domain of games actually encompasses that
of stories. It seems obvious though, since games have an added dimension
to them that movies and books do not: they are interactive.
Stories (Non-Interactive) Games (Interactive)
Reality: Theatre Sports / People games (Red Rover,
Marco Polo)
Paper : Books Board Games / Card Games / Pen and
Paper RPG
Audio : AudioBook / Music ??Jazz (Improv)? DDR? Marco Polo?
Video : Movies Video Games
VR (?) : Non-Interactive Interactive ?
Originally I was going to make this list to argue that Video Games are the
most expressive medium we have so far, and out of the "non-real" mediums
(Paper, Video), I think this is true. Its hard to argue that video games
are more expressive than reality based games, however. But I guess that
leads us to the next plateau: virtual reality. That is, if its even
possible to simulate reality on that level, that would be the most
expressive medium that you could have. I find it interesting though that
the medium of Audio is largely a one way street. I don't really know of
any purely audio games.
Regardless, given that video games are the most expressive virtual medium
we have so far, it seems reasonable to me that there is a fairly sizable
domain outside that of stories that are purely "video game". This domain
is written in the language of math and logic: the domain of the purely
abstract. I think most people call this gameplay, or the rules of the game.
Stories, while still abstract, are much more concrete than math and
logic. Stories relate to images, sounds, objects and emotions that humans
are familiar with. It is a way of communicating with human experience. So
even if the medium is more or less abstract (since written word is much
more abstract than action movies) it eventually will follow a chain down to
some concrete experience. If it doesn't, then it would be nonsensical, or
at least we wouldn't be able to understand it. Imagine trying to explain
"green" to a blind person, for example.
But clearly there is a balance between "gameplay" and "story" in any
particular game. Pong has a very negligible amount of story to it, while
adventure games such as Space Quest and The Longest Journey are almost
entirely story driven, with hardly any "game" to them. But if you look at
the lifespan of video games, most early video games were gameplay
driven. The early story driven games were done in text. Modern games,
however, are mostly story driven.
I think what we are looking at is the effects of technology on
expressiveness. In the early days, expressiveness was extremely
limited. Games managed with poor blocky graphics and bleepy sounds. This
restriction faced game designers to be more abstract. Yeah, that rectangle
with the line sticking out of it is your tank. That triangle in the middle
of your screen is your spaceship. Etc.
But with the expansion of technology, we have seen an explosion in
expressiveness. This expressiveness that the new graphics cards, and
physics cards, and surround sound give us, is what allows us to be more
concrete in our representations of things. The more concrete something is
represented, the closer that thing is to human experience, and that pushes
the environment of that thing to also be concrete. In other words, the
more realistically we can render things, the greater the push will be to
make more realistic games. And realistic doesn't have to mean "mundane"
like the author of that article says. Realistic means simply behaving in a
similar way we would expect reality to behave. We are pushing more and
more towards "virtual reality", though we're still a long way off. In that
vein I argue that games have gotten more realistic over time, rather than
less, for better or worse.
But as soon as we hit a plateau in expressiveness, the abstract, the
gameplay, will be where the innovation will be. I think we're beginning to
see the results of hitting an expressiveness plateau, with flashier
graphics becoming less and less important to what becomes a good
game. That's not to say you can have a bad looking game. There's
definitely some minimal level for graphics and user interface to have a
functional game.
Just as people try to categorize types of plot devices, games have been
categorized into genres. I think the question that we should all be asking
is have we actually explored all of them? How much more innovation is
actually left to do in video games, and games in general? Are we really
just down to cross-pollination of genres with better and better graphics,
sound and ai? How much innovation actually has been done on the abstract
level?
The biggest flaw of that authors post is that he didn't consider enough
games, only the ones that made his point. How many RTS's are there that
allow you to play all the sides, even the bad guys? But lets face it,
games are about fantasy, fun, and escapism. How many men/women like to
fantasize about ugly men/women? The superficiality permeates our entire
society: football, movies, supermodels, and even the dating scene. I don't
think 14 year old nerds want to play a game that puts them in the shoes of
an even nerdier 14 year old protagonist. But with the rise of Harry
Potter, maybe I'm not so sure.
Anyway, I'm not sure what the point was to this post. I guess I should
write that at the top :P. It does seem to be a lot of text to simply
say, "It's all about the gameplay!!!! l0l, roflcopter!!!1111".
Oh, I think puzzle games might fit in the "people learn something"
category, though more in a metaphysical way.
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