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A "Vow of Chastity" For Game Designers
Enoch Root writes: "Nowadays, it seems like the gaming industry is bogged down by an obsession for technological innovation at the price of true creativity in gaming. Ernest Adams of Gamasutra proposes game designers remedy this by pledging to a sort of designer's Vow of Chastity, in the spirit of Von Trier and Vinterberg's DOGME 95. Down with 3D acceleration, it's time for innovation!" I've seen a couple of the movies that the DOGME crowd produced -- both were really good. But the medium of movies is a little different than gaming, so I wonder how will this can carry over.
I don't know about this. I certainly do not take good programing for granted.
I mean, there is the obvious free shot at Microsft. I just heard on the TV (just as I am typing this), that Microsoft is making a move into the Cellular phone market. Now I do not know if this if part of an investment scheme, or if you will see MS cell phones Real Soon Now. Honestly, how many would be skeptical of an MS phone? (someone go look this up and submit it please)
Now there are an awful lot of good programmers out there. But the fundamentals of design are so important, that if you do not have it, you can multiply your time and have lots of late projects and missed deadlines. Like that has never happened before.
How many games have even shipped on time? How long did you wait for (insert title here)?
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
More ideas that came to me... oh, also... one of the best games I've ever played was 'TRACON', where you took the role of an air traffic controller in a regional TRACON (Terminal Radar Approach CONtrol) in LA, NY, or any of tons of other regions (available as expansion maps). You were armed with nothing more than your scope and a set of commands that you could issue to aircraft. Certainly, one of the most addictive and engaging games I've ever played... and it ran on an 286 DOS PC with a VGA card.
Some other nifty possible games...
TERROR: a multiplayer (or vs. AI) game where you create your own terrorist network, including managing cells, and Making Your Point. Individual terrorist nets being controlled by different players then battle for some purpose on a fearful and unsuspecting public. Consult with some real terrorist researchers for technical details, and make it as real as possible.
POL: You're the campaign manager for a politician attempting to sway public opinion and get elected. Deal with marital infidelity, character assassination, real assassination, and fickle public opinion.
SNIPER: You play the role of a Navy SEAL team countersniper. You're given an assignment, as a scout, an assassination, or as support for an assault. You must work with your spotter (or, have a gameplay mode where you *are* the spotter, working with the sniper) to stalk, deceive, survive, and succeed.
INFERNO: First-Person firefighting game. You start off in training, running hose, doing drills. As you get better, you're put onto real duty. Your rank in the Fire Department goes up, the buildings get tougher. Scenarios could include a chemical factory, high-rise apartment building, or Detroit on Hell Night.
It's all to easy to go "There's no originality in games these days - they're all copies of older games or specific genres. I sure do wish we had the originality we had in the 80's". For anyone who has thought that, I encourage to you have a look at the vast collection of old games (classicgaming.com is a good jumpoff point). After playing 6 or so games, you'll remember that the majority of games were ripoffs of other platform/racing/fighting games. Just remember, for every Elite, we had Wayne's World, Kid Kool, Narc and Renegade to offset that. If anything, we have *less* crap copies of games these days due to the amount of money it takes to produce a title.
Not saying this to contradict you so much as help you get a classic game cheap... ;)
Likewise in the Tomb Raider series, where LC is required to execute several jumps in succession which are physically impossible (even if one assumed LC to have superhuman strength) to reach a goal not otherwise visible to the player.
iD Software *cough cough* Quake III Arena *cough cough*
Why do you people think Unreal Tournament *vastly* outsold Quake III Arena. It's just plain fun, and in a lot of ways innovative (anyone who's ever played the Deck16 map that comes with UT instantly falls in love with it. As a deathmatch map it is a classic and has something for everyone: sniping, explosives, one on one short range battle).
Quake III was pretty -- from a technological standpoint. And I'm sure a lot of Linux-heads liked it because of the release of source code (although, I couldn't even get the *binary* to properly run). But if you want real innovation I encourage you to download the full Linux version of UT from Epic's site, along with all the great free bonus map packs and characters they gave away to the community (*cough cough* like an appropriately free version of Quake III Team Arena *cough cough*).
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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email: proprietary becomes free, org to com
you, sir, are an irrelevant waster of bandwidth
It has been well known for the last three or four years now at least that games suck for the reasons given here. Gamemakers have known it. They just can't come up with any new ideas but not for a lack of trying methinks.
If you really think you know so well what the gaming world needs, go make a million dollars.
Vidi, Vici, Veni
It's not 3d Accelerators that ruin games, it's game designers who ruin games
Argh. I have so much homework to do... nonetheless, some things are more important, like game theory. Now then...
Civilization. Awsome game. I loved it. Still love it. The best thing about it was/is the fact that the basic concept is portable. So when Civilization II came out, it was still very close to Civ I (leaving balance issues aside, I'm not getting into that).
Fast forward to 2001.
Ok. Here's what I fail to grasp. Lets say I take the origional Civ I, or Civ (value) game engine. Now I slap some really pretty 3d graphics on there with exquisitly modeled units and cities etc. I make it Civ v.Eyecandy. Now, asside from being unorigional work (we'll ignore that point for now) this version is just as good as the origional. But it's also got pretty graphics, which, if designed properly will make gameplay easier to understand and will decrease eyestrain by making the player work less to figgure out if that unit is a phallanx or a fighter.
My point -- Is the use of pretty 3d graphics necessarily a bad thing in a game? Can't a create an innovative game that sitll uses Necromancers, Wizards, Orcs, Trolls, Goblins, and whatever else I want? Is is really fair to say that use of these words and images is responcible for the so called decline of games as of late?
On the contrary. The quality of a game is the responcibility of one and only only person/thing. The design team. If they allow orcs wizards, 3d accelerators etc to hamper their ability to build a playable and fun game that is their own damn fault.
I for one have been pretty happy with most of the games I've played as of late. But then, I'm the type that holds off on the purchace until about a year after release date....
Speaking of which.... Alice sounds interesting... anyone know anything about that?
This has been another useless post from....
Killfile(TGK)
No trees were killed in the creation of this post. However, many electrons were inconvenienced.
Quake players are conditioned to expect desolate, badly designed, intellectually bankrupt worlds that don't have anything in them that isn't there for a specific purpose. If there's an oil tank, or anything else not just painted on the wall, you know it must be there for a reason, since no game designer of the Quake ilk would put a prop in the game simply for atmosphere or decoration. The Quake worlds are so barren and devoid of complexety, that whenever you see a scrap of paper on the floor, you can be sure that the game hinges on it. Quite unlike real life.
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
You know, without the "none of those canonical fantasy creatures" bit, nethack would qualify.
Hey! He's insulting my league!
Funny things have been happening in the industry too, great games like Wipeout XL are getting no PC sequels. We're lacking in popular genres. Ever take a look at what fighting games have come out in the past five years?
Whatever happened to the great innovation PCs had without 3D accelerators? Commander Keen, One Must Fall, Terminal Velocity, Jazz Jackrabbit, Day of the Tentacle, Sam and Max, Hero's Quest... We even had our own version of Contra called Duke Nukem II! Have you ever noticed that the same companies making these wonderful games only want to heavily market their FPS's, and RTS's (save LucasArts obsessed with racing games)?
Other than RPGs which reel me in with their story, the last few games I found myself addicted to are Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (PSX), Ghost in the Shell (PSX), Soul Calibur (DC), Dracula X (PCE CD), and Ridge Racer V for lack of finding equivilants on PC. But why can't my ultimate gaming machine with a 900MHz CPU and 256MB of RAM and a GeForce 2 GTS provide me with ultimate games?
Or even ultimate graphics? Lately the only game that has impressed me on PC since Unreal has been Serious Sam. I know the topic was complaining about advances in graphics, but on the PC I don't see it. I was more impressed by the stylistic and incredibly well modeled Sonic Adventure on Dreamcast than say, Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament. Despite people claiming those games have such excellent graphics, I just find them bland, and every effect is just a common staple these days.
Oh well that's the end of that!
.sig: Open Source, Open Mind
Diablo II? I played it a few times, but I got bored with it very quickly. It's supposed to be an RPG - a ROLE PLAYING GAME - but all you do is go to a demon infested place, kill'em all, pick up weapons, treasures and potions. You become more powerful, the demons get stronger, blablabla.
Much better : Dungeon Master. It had everything Diablo II has, but it also had puzzles and a really good magic system : a series of symbols that you could combine to create a spell. The spell didn't work? Maybe it wasn't a real spell after all, or maybe you just weren't experienced enough. And how did you obtain a spell? Did you just obtain that knowledge by gaining a level? No. You had to find them in the dungeon, take hints from the potions you found, or just try a combination.
You say that the video game industry is thriving now more than ever before. Their budgets may be increasing, but not their output. You should find yourself some old Commodore 64 gaming mags. The amount of games that were released in one month - wow. And with so many games released, there was a lot more competition. So they were forced to make their games fun or watch their games gather dust on the shelves.
Well, enough ranting. All I've written here will be lost to those who have been blinded by graphics. And the rest of us will just MOVE "ZIG".
Nobody believes the official spokesman, but everybody trusts an unidentified source. -- Ron Nesen
Rule 3: Most games that depend on gimmicky input devices are crummy games.
Counter-examples: Samba de Amigo, Marble Madness, Virtual On, The House of the Dead, The Typing Of The Dead.
Rule 5: The following types of games are prohibited: first-person shooters, side-scrollers, any action game with "special attacks."...It is your duty as a Dogma designer to create new genres of games
Side-scrolling is not a genre (or is Mario a rehash of Defender?) Likewise special attacks; what does Street Fighter have to do with Bangaioh? Defining genres in terms of where the camera is placed is wrong-headed IMO.
Rule 6: The secret desire of game designers to be film directors is deleterious to their games and to the industry generally. This desire must be stamped out.
Umm...which industry did the idea for this come from again?
I kind of agree with his intent but I think many of the rules are counter-productive. Stating that a game may be 3D but must run at 20fps in software creates a great deal of messy technical complications - quite the opposite effect of requiring a movie to be filmed with a single camera and light. A more appropriate rule would be that, if 3D, the game must use the Quake1 engine (which, incidentally, doesn't imply a 1st-person perspective).
I agree that the standards are being continually raised, but the point is that game design is not progressing as fast as sound and graphics. Just like I feel that software (with the exception of middle/high end 3D software) is not progressing as fast as hardware. This is not any one group's fault, things like standards and monopolies are keeping progress back. That said ...
If you've used MAME or NESTicle recently, I'm sure you realize how incredibly crappy and juvenile games like Metroid and Zelda really were
This is borderline trollish. If this were true, do you think there would be a MAME and NESTICLE. Do you think there would be the big demand for games on ebay and roms off of websites?
we've become so accustomed to 3D engines and photorealism
Skillful crafting of buzzwords, but I don't think we're quite to the point of photorealism. I don't know about you but when I look at a photograph I don't see polygonal edges and harsh lighting transitions. I think that the Dreamcast was the first console to have enough power to make 3D viable. I hate the 3D graphics of the playstation. The N64 is ok, but not great. I think that with the gamecube and the Xbox 3D will really become something that can surpass good 2D as far as making an immersive world and a more profound experience. I still think that Super Metroid for Super Nintendo is the greasted game of all time by a wide margin. (if you haven't played it from start to finish, buy a SNES, buy the cartridge and hibernate, you ow it to yourself). Whenever I try to think about what makes a game great I go back to Super Metroid. Yes I have played it recently, and I still stand by my claim more than ever. It used everything to its advantage, from control, to graphics, to using music (and the music is incredible) to set the tone and mood. I have come up with the following list of things that I think all games should follow.
1. As little repetition as possible (think zelda, not mega man, not mario brother one).
2. Use music to set the mood, not as something that needs to be filled in because you have to.
3. Pit power against power, having a weak character and a weak bad guy is boring and stupid.
4. Progression. Character gets more powerful, enemies get more powerful.
5. Balance. Everything needs to be balanced, no temporary surges of power (heavy barrel), plot is neccesary but it shouldn't get in the way of game play in the slightest. I don't think that revealing the plot as the game goes along is a good idea.
This Wiki Feeds You TV and Anime - vidwiki.org
When I read the writer's list of what "may" be included vs. knights etc. I was sickened. I wished I hadn't read it. I'm going to be a dad soon. I'd love for games to exist that are intellectually stimulating. I like the rpg genre but I hate the games that exist anymore. I don't think my opinion is in the majority, I hesitate to post. What is all this vice and occultism adding to gameplay?
I think little.
I think that you miss the point of several of the dogmas. Those particular characters are forbidden because the games that you mentioned made them into hackneyed old warhorses, so those games are basically exempt. Similarly, Wolfenstein3D (AFAIK the first true FPS) didn't violate the ban on FPS games because they wouldn't have been on the list until they were done to death. The goal is to prevent designers from returning to hackneyed genres and characters, and the ones listed are basically a provisional list of ones that are already clearly meet that criterion. If Vikings become excessively popular, or business strategy games, or any other character or genre that isn't currently exceptionally popular, they may well wind up on the list of hackneyed characters/genres.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Admittedly I'm a '80s StarFlight fan and though I'd love to see creativity make a come back, making this vow is absurd.
Doom/Quake are creative. Just because there are a ton of knock offs doesn't mean quake/doom weren't creative in the beginning. The market will filter the best to the top. Take Giants....I doubt it'll have strong appeal since there are already so much competition...but in a couple of years someone will take a risk on the creative game and be another success.
If you really want to make some changes get the gamer not the designer to make a similar vow...such as not to buy knock off games...that'll speed the market up!
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
Kind of like writing haiku instead of free verse poetry. The limitations of the form encourage creativity.
That said, I think that the challenge of balancing interactivity with the feeling of narative is more than enough challenge for any game designer. The question of "how do I tell a story when I don't know what the main character will do?" is something that we are all still trying to answer.
Also, you are still programming, which means that you need to create a finite state system in which a correct reaction results from any given action of the user. You need to keep in mind the limitation of the player to master controls, absorb information, and comprehend the events. You also need to work within the physical reality of a 2D screen connected to a computer or game console.
For all these reasons, I don't think we need to impose more limitations on ourselves, just yet.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Hooray! I just bought a new $3500 State-of-the-Art (TM) PC with a super duper 3D card, Dolby Surround Sound, and a 21 inch screen. Ready, Set, Go [to play the games] ! ...
Huh? Where did all those flashy 3d effects go ? ... /me looks at the box
Oh shit, they're all DOGME complaint now...
*PLONK*
--sn0w
run-and-jump games just rule. *evil grin*
It depends on what you -want- from a game, not 'how the game plays' - let's face it, there are only so many ways to design an interface for a game. I haven't seen a new interface in years. You've got top down, side scrolling, 3D platformer, isometric, stationary (i.e. Tetris, Dig Dug, etc.), and first person. There isn't anything else - not really. Mario 64 was the first 'new' interface I've seen in years, and it probably wasn't the first (come on, correct me).
What has changed about games is how they draw the player into their world - how you catch their interest. Zelda captured it with puzzles... not really much plot, but a lot of puzzles. It still does, to this day - the Zelda series has just gotten larger and expanded on this idea with better graphics, better interaction, and better storytelling. The fact that they reuse the basic 'catch' isn't important, as there are only so many of those 'catches' you can use.
Diablo's "catch", for me at least, was character advancement. Diablo wasn't Zelda - Diablo was Rogue - or probably more accurately, Angband or NetHack.
However, as you can probably see, I'm supporting your evidence (all games have predecessors from - not late 80s or earlier 90s, but early 80s and late 70s) but I disagree with your conclusion. The problem is that you're focusing on things that change ridiculously slowly. You want a new 'genre' of video game. I'm happy with the ones we have, thank you - I just want more. An occasional new genre would be nice, but for now, I'm happy with what we have.
Basically, the 'no innovation' claim is akin to saying "There's no innovation in modern literature." Well, in some respects, that's true - new genres aren't really born overnight, they take quite a bit of time to develop. But literature isn't going downhill, nor should they stop writing books in a current genre. Please! I am perfectly happy to read another slew of books by [Insert Favorite Author Here].
Gaming is another form of artistic expression, and I eagerly await each new Final Fantasy just like I would a new novel from Orson Scott Card (one of my favorite authors). Not because I expect something massively different, but because I want another Final Fantasy. It's that simple.
The problem, currently, is that we've got tons of Harlequin romances sitting on videogame shelves - we call them first-person shooters. They're thoughtless, mindless games that take two seconds to develop and sell like crazy. However, this didn't go away for the publishing industry, and it won't go away for the gaming industry. No loss, in my book.
Funny, because from what I've seen of Black and White it looks like some half-arsed version of Tamagotchi meets Populous.
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Rare Window - free your photos
Allowed: Virtual Badminton, Sim-Fungus, 52 Card Pickup, and "Pokemon Snap".
Consider the following statement: (Remember that the entire Dogma 2001 concept is the spawn of a similar film industry movement) Am I the only person who thinks this is somewhat hypocritical, or at least ironic?
On another note, I can see iD sofware reading this, and an announcement similar to this resulting:
Part of the problem is similar to what you witness in science fiction/fantasy.
What people create is influenced by what they are exposed to. How many fantasy writers do you think read LotR and immediately start to write a novel featuring elves, dwarves, & hobbits? C'mon, admit it - If someone uses the word "fantasy" in casual conversation, what is the first thing that comes to mind? Try and tell me it doesn't involve dwarves with giant battleaxes and barbarian elvish princesses in chain mail bikinis. This, along with the fact that the publishing business is a cautious one, is the reason why bookstores are chock-full of evil-wizard-must-be-overthrown, comet-headed-for-earth, far-future-star-(wars|trek)-with-names-filed-off novels.
The same thing is happening with computer games.
People who go into the gaming industry are generally people who like to play games. The games they play influence and inspire the games they create. No surprise there. However, what unique elements they bring to their own creations depend entirely upon their creativity and the breadth of their personal knowledge and experience. If you have a CRPG designer who is highly knowledgeable about and interested in the Dreamtime of the Australian aborigines, he or she has the potential to use such in a game. If your game designer's knowledge of mythology stems from reading the D&D Monster Manual a few too many times, you can pretty much assume that the game will involve fireballs, dragons, and orcs.
The fact that producing a game is becoming more and more of an expensive proposition doesn't help matters any. In the same way that Hollywood loves to give us "more of the same", game companies find it safer and easier to avoid risky new game ideas.
I really suspect that the best game designers are interested in more than just computer games.
zeke
Why are wizards allways grumpy old men? Or dwarfs 1/2 size? Etc.
I don't mind the "tolkieneque" world, we just need to stop type casting all the character races to the "tradional" fantasy.
Bubble Bobble is the best game ever!!
Super Ultra Ultra Mecha Bubble Bobble 3D
I'm sorry, but chess has knights. Breaks the rules :(
Could you, for my edification, please tell me what part it was. I played the whole tihng through with no cheats and no hints and I'd like to see if I remember the section.
Fsck cluebie moderators. I'll say what I want, offtopic or not. And fsck having to qualify every bloody statement just
I like every rule except no 2.
And number 4, 5, 6, 7 , 8 and 10.
Good job!
Will code a sig generator for food
I find that a cut seen can be rewarding after you have just blowen away that "huge creature of ultimate nastiness" these rules would seem to develope titles with no class and story restriction rules out almsot any fantasy plot.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master"-Unknowen
As demonstrated here, there is nothing so bizarrely inexplicable in any game that it can't be explained in a reasonable fashion with enough misspent contemplation.
In all seriousness, it is good that most "representational" games are just a thin layer over an abstract game. Reality doesn't make a good game. Games where you blow up enemies and pick up the little piece of fruit they leave behind can be a lot of fun.
But I do agree in general that there should be a line drawn between special strangely hidden bonuses and strangely hidden essential parts of the game. However, look at Metroid! Everything is hidden, nothing is explained, yet it's one of the greatest classics around.
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The point they were driving at was that a "normal" person would not even think to look in an oil canister to find a med kit, where as the typical game junkie would immediately know that blowing up the oil canister is worth a try, because you get hidden goodies when you destroy objects in a game.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
{1. The design documents shall contain no reference to any object which is installed inside the outer case of the target machine. Input devices and the monitor screen itself may be mentioned in discussions of the game's user interface. Minimum acceptable machine specifications shall be determined by the programmers during development.
Justification: Self-evident. Dogma 2001 game designs are about the game, period. As a Dogma designer, you renounce technology as part of your game's design.}
Sounds good. All game chipsets do the same things today, so there's no reason to target a machine.
{2. The use of hardware 3D acceleration of any sort is forbidden. Software 3D engines are not forbidden, but the game must run at 20 frames per second or better in 640 x 480 16-bit SVGA mode or the nearest available equivalent.
Justification: By adopting a simple, well-known display standard and sticking rigorously to it, both designers and programmers are freed to concentrate on tasks of real importance.}
While I agree that today's games put too much emphasis on graphics, and while I do agree that today's games require way more hardware than their core game engine uses, if a piece of hardware is present, why not use it? Even if graphic accelerators are generally a frill, they do perform the undeniable task of freeing up the CPU for tasks that only it can do. And since all game consoles use them, and most PCs sold after 1997 come with one, to not use it is to let part of the player's purchase go unused. Imagine a 3D game where you can endlessly modify the game environment; you could pour drops of water onto dust to form mud, you could reduce each brick in a building to several bits of gravel, you could set fire to each leaf on a tree, you could mix chemicals for reqlistic reactions. These scenes would require lots of physics, but they would also require lots of polygons and textures. A hardware accelerator would let more physics occur.
I think a good requirement would be for games to have a software accelertor, and for games to let the player reduce non-gameplay code to extreme simplicity. Also, for us console users, 320x240x60 would be better than 640x480x20.
{3. Only the following input devices are allowed: on a console machine, the controller which normally ships with it. On a computer, a 2-axis joystick with two buttons, or a D-pad with two buttons; a standard 101-key PC keyboard; a 2-button mouse.
Justification: Most games that depend on gimmicky input devices are crummy games. You must not waste your time trying to design for them.}
To restrict the developer to a mouse, keyboard and D-pad conflicts with rule 9, i.e. a driver does not drive with a mouse and keyboard, a pilot does not fly with a D-pad, etc. Also, in most video games, the player encounters hundreds of different items to control. Yet, while what the players' character touches many different items, the player himself does not. This is extremely non-sequitor.
Also, do restrict a developer to conventional input devices may stifle genuine gameplay innovation. For example, there have been no games where the player can scream and cause an avalanche. There are no games where the player can communicate farther underwater than above water. There are no online games where the player can communicate to his teammates in the most natural manner: with his voice. There are no games where the player can cast spells with his voice. There are no games where the player sings. And there are no games where the player can intimidate enemies by screaming at them, or attract potential allies by coaxing them. All of these gameplay features rely upon one device: a microphone. Microphones are common and inexpensive, and they can offer far more innovation than a graphic accelerator ten times its price. Budding developers are probably itching to use microphones, I think they should be allowed them.
How about bio-sensing? A game that can detect the players' emotions could offer a world of opportunity. That too, I think should be allowed.
Finally, you should remember that today's input conventions, D-pads, joysticks and mice, were once unconventional. To forbid new ones would be to force today's conventions indefinitely far into the future, even if they are no longer relevant. I think the only kind of hardware that should be dismissed is that which does not add gameplay possibilities, and that the potential for fresh new gameplay is worth the risk of gimmicks.
{4. There shall be no knights, elves, dwarves or dragons. Nor shall there be any wizards, wenches, bards, bartenders, golems, giants, clerics, necromancers, thieves, gods, angels, demons, sorceresses, undead bodies or body parts (mummified or decaying), Nazis, Russians, spies, mercenaries, space marines, stormtroopers, star pilots, humanoid robots, evil geniuses, mad scientists, or carnivorous aliens. And no freakin' vampires.
Justification: Self-evident. If you find that doing without all of the foregoing makes it impossible to build your game, you are not creative enough to call yourself a game designer. As proof, note that it does not exclude any of the following: queens, leprechauns, Masai warriors, ghosts, succubi, Huns, mandarins, wisewomen, grizzly bears, hamsters, sea monsters, vegetarian aliens, terrorists, firefighters, generals, gangsters, detectives, magicians, spirit mediums, shamans, whores, and lacrosse players. One of the games that made it to the finals of the first Independent Games Festival was about birds called blue-footed boobies, so forget you ever heard of George Lucas and J.R.R. Tolkien and get to work.}
Agreed.
{5. The following types of games are prohibited: first-person shooters, side-scrollers, any action game with "special attacks." Also prohibited are: simulations of 20th-century or current military vehicles, simulations of sports which are routinely broadcast live on television, real-time strategy games focussing solely on warfare and weapons production, lock-and-key adventure games, numbers-heavy role-playing games, and any card game found in Hoyle's Rules of Card Games.
Justification: It is your duty as a Dogma designer to create new genres of games, not simply to make more technologically impressive games in old genres.}
Agreed.
{6. All cinematics, cut-scenes, and other non-interactive movies are forbidden. If a game requires any introductory or transitional material, it must be provided by scrolling text.
Justification: The secret desire of game designers to be film directors is deleterious to their games and to the industry generally. This desire must be stamped out.}
The best examples of each art form are those which do with their particular form that which can be done with no other. But multiple art forms can flow together with success. For example, Pokemon is a complex game that is entertaining with prior knowledge but tedious without. Many people encountered Pokemon's TV show or card games first, and then when they first played the game, they had the prior knowledge that made the game fun. Such multi-media coverage can succeed with care.
{7. Violence is strictly limited to the disappearance or immobilization of destroyed units. Units which are damaged or destroyed shall be so indicated by symbolic, not representational, means. There shall be no blood, explosions, or injury or death animations.
Justification: Although conflict is a central principle of most games, the current "arms race" towards ever-more graphic violence is harmful and distracting. Explosions and death animations are, in fact, very short non-interactive movies. If you spend time on them, you are wasting energy that could be more profitably spent on gameplay or AI.}
How about games where the corpses remain indefinitely to alert the fallen's allies, or those in which graphic violence is to be avoided, and considered a punishment to be avoided?
{8. There may be victory and defeat, and my side and their side, but there may not be Good and Evil.
Justification: Good versus Evil is the most hackneyed, overused excuse imaginable for having two sides in a fight. With the exception of a small number of homicidal maniacs, no human being regards him- or herself as evil. As a Dogma designer, you are required to create a real explanation for why two sides are opposed - or to do without one entirely, as in chess.}
Agreed.
{9. If a game is representational rather than abstract, it may contain no conceptual non sequiturs, e.g. medical kits may not be hidden inside oil tanks.
Justification: The conceptual non sequitur is not merely sloppy; it is one of the things that actively discourages non-gamers from playing games. Gamers know that you're supposed to blow up everything in sight to see if anything might be hidden there, because they've played a hundred other games which have followed this pattern - games which were designed by adolescents for whom blowing things up is an end in itself. Ordinary people use their powers of reasoning to decide what should be blown up or not. Since it would not occur to a reasonable person that a medical kit could be found inside an oil tank, a reasonable person will not needlessly blow it up, and is therefore at a disadvantage when playing the game. A Dogma designer must to do the design work necessary to reward reason rather than brute-force approaches.}
Agreed.
{10. If a game is representational rather than abstract, the color black may not be used to depict any manmade object except ink, nor any dangerous fictitious nonhuman creatures. Black may be used to depict rooms in which the lights are not switched on.
Justification: Artists who make things cool by the simple expedient of making them black should be sent back to art college with a swift kick in the butt. This is also true of chrome and gunmetal grey, but black is the worst offender.}
So all tires need polka dots and all roads need rainbow colors? Seems like Nintendo had the right idea all along! But I agree that any color in excess is bad. Balance is the key.
May I add one:
11. From the moment power is turned on to the moment gameplay commences, there may not be any more delay than 10 seconds. Further forced interruptions in play may take no more than 10 percent of total on-time.
Justification: Video games are meant to be entertainment, not a test of the players' attention span. An arcade is a good model for gameplay flow, and too often have games strayed from it (though many people seem not to mind).
{"Finally, I acknowledge that innovative gameplay is not merely a desirable attribute but a moral imperative. All other considerations are secondary.
Thus I make my solemn vow."}
Refined:
"Finally, I acknowledge that innovation is the sole purpose of game creation. There are no other considerations."
{Now I realize that, as with Hollywood and Dogme 95, nobody at EA or Sony or Blizzard is going to pay the slightest attention to Dogma 2001. This isn't a formula for commercial success, it's a challenge to think outside the box - in our case, the standardized boxes that are on the store shelves right now.}
On the contrary, innovation is often the road to profit! If you have difficulty finding innovation in life, you're not looking hard enough.
{But the rules are actually far less draconian than the Dogme 95 rules for filmmakers, and it wouldn't be that hard to follow them. I think it could do both us, and our customers, a lot of good.
If anybody takes the vow and builds a Dogma 2001 game, let me know!}
There are probably a bunch already. Make a list!
He thinks deeply and cares about the people who will be playing the game. Take the character animation of Mario, as controlled by the player. It sacrifices realism for playability, in a way that is a great call. When Mario is facing one direction, and you move the joystick in another direction, what does he do? Does he take a few seconds to execute a perfectly realistic standing turn, then start walking in the direction you want him to go after he turns around? No! He pivots instantly, and starts walking in the direction you want, right away without any delay. This is imporant because the movement of the character is directly controled by the player, who would become quite bored and frustrated if they had to wait for Mario to turn around all the time.
There are many other excellent design decisions in a game like Mario 64, but they're subtle and expertly woven together into a classic game that a wide range of people can play for many hours. The guys designing Quake were too busy thinking about their red hot sports cars and platinum blond trophey girlfriends, to care about the people who would actually be playing the game.
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
Fight Club: $63 million
Being John Malkovich: $13 million
High Fidelity: $20 million
Rounders: $12 million
Talented Mr. Ripley: $40 million
Clerks: $27,000
A similar situation happened with the C64 and the Atari 2600. The hardware is set, unchanging, and the games that come out for them get better and better as time goes by, as developers come up with ideas that, using the same hardware, are designed to be better than previous games.
You are no doubt right about perspective and all that, but come on, who can say that any sporting game can top Cyberball 2072!
They stuck me in an institution, said it was the only solution, to...protect me from the enemy, myself
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
I would gladly pay my hard-earned cash to play any of the other three games you mentioned though, if they were done well. Great ideas!
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
2) I was wrong about the spelling
3) I made a HTML mistake
4) I called OTHER people morons.
Could someone mod me down please. I want as few people as possible to see this.
************************************************ ** *
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
It's like those contests they have where you have to do a web page in 5k or I know there's a contest to do 3d in like 5k as well as size and other restrictions in the C obfuscation contest.
By putting limitations and creating rules, you remove the option to make lazy compromises or simply copy previous artistic works. Again, it's totally voluntary for the sake of experimentation and personal development. So to say "well we wouldn't have quake" is kinda missing the point.
W
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This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Just don't let it take over the entire development. If necessary, program an excellent game first, and then bring it up to standard concerning today's video cards. The store I go to doesn't sell anything less than a GeForce or Radeon or Voodoo 5, and games shouldn't support anything less. Come on, the GeForce has been around for a while now. Those NVidia tech demos weren't created just to look pretty, you can actually make great effects in games too, so use 'em!
.sig: Open Source, Open Mind
They understand and expect that noone will adhere to these guidelines. These rules are an idealistic extreme, written to nudge the general game development community a little bit to the side.
And by the way, I think a great game could be written within these rules, just as a great movie could(and has been) be made with a camcorder.
The true heart of the game is not in its technology. This is their point, and I think they make it well, barring one or two minor aspects I disagree with.
Erm, what have these movies got to do with anything? Each one breaks most of the Dogma rules and not a single one could be considered low-budget.
You're just listing a bunch of movies that you like.
Here is a very brief list of games that do and do not comply with the rules. Tell me which list you'd prefer:
Does:
Pong
Tetris
Some Pinball games
Minesweeper
Bust a Move
Does Not:
Quest for Glory (wizards)
Space Quest (carnivorous aliens)
King's Quest (wizards)
Codename: Iceman (Russians)
Half-Life (carnivorous aliens)
Unreal Tournament (first-person shooter)
Commander Keen (side scroller)
Tomb Raider (undead bodies)
Sim City (explosions)
Sim City 2000 (explosions)
The Sims (thieves)
War Craft (arms race)
Star Craft (arms race)
Civilization (arms race)
Solitaire (Hoyle)
Hearts (Hoyle)
PacMan (cinematic sequences)
Ms. PacMan (cinematic sequences)
Super Marios Bros (side-scroller)
Legend of Zelda (wizards)
Ultima (wizards)
Worms (explosions)
Asteroids (explosions)
Galaga (explosions)
Space Invadors (explosions)
Pitfall (side-scroller)
Prince of Persia (death animation)
Zork (conceptual non-sequiturs)
Myst (good and evil)
Double Dragon (special attacks)
Gauntlet (wizards)
Lemmings (explosions)
Alone in the Dark (undead creatures)
Sonic the Hedgehog (side scroller)
Diablo (wizards)
Carmageddon (car simulation)
Tony Hawks Pro Skater (non-interactive movies)
Madden 2000 Football (non-interactive movies)
7th Guest (non-interactive movies)
11th Hour (non-interactive movies)
Quake 3 (non-interactive movies)
Quake 2 (blood)
Quake (undead creatures)
If we were to follow this person's suggestion in game-making, there'd never be another good game -- ever. Would you really want to be playing Pong 2 or a souped up Minesweeper? Most Tetris spin-offs don't even comply with these rules.
Not only that, but some of his rules don't make any sense. No wizards but magicians are allowed? What the hell is that supposed to mean?
These have got to be the gayest suggestions ever made about game design that I've ever heard. I really hope no one takes this person up and creates crappy games based on his crappy rules.
No I can't fully agree with you. Let me state my points:
Yes, hardware and software capabilities have added a lot to the photorealism of any game.
Yes, games are more impressive nowadays.
No, gameplay has not been increased by the advantage of newer techniques.
First of all: why do you think people still play chess? It isn't really what you call: state of the art 3D simulation, is it? Second of all: why do you think there are still emulators for old machines? Could there still be a usergroup?
For many years I've been playing Transport Tycoon Deluxe (TTD), which is IMHO a game with a *very* good gameplay, and a *very* good concept. Even now, the graphics look very good and it is still a lot of fun to see all those trains and busses driving around.
Why do I think the gaming business didn't fetched the hardware capabilities to give their games a better gameplay? Lazyness and the fact that every big company is betting at the best horse: which are all concepts which already excist. I'm not a diehard gamer myself, but I enjoy a good *game* on a MUD more than shooting eachother off in Quake for example. A MUD is so much more detailed and flexible in comparison with a 3D shoot'em up, and that at a resolution of 80x25 and 256 different "colors".
(ps. sorry for my English, correct spelling at the fly please)
This is a replacement signature.
I love Fight Club too, but it wasn't a low budget production. Brad Pitt get $20 million a movie, it was directed by David Fincher (Alien 3, Seven, The Game) and It had a good amount of computer effects in it.
This Wiki Feeds You TV and Anime - vidwiki.org
But you're right that a game that doesn't have the "next big thing" technically won't easily succeed. But it's possible to succeed without taking the easy way. You have to be good, but it's possible.
I agree, but I think there's another problem present. Many people want prettiness in games, often wrongly. For instance, what was the single most common thing heard when Diablo II came out? "Gah! 640x480 2D! This game sucks!" That was often by people who played it for a few minutes. Personally, Diablo II is one of my favorites. The problem is, the focus right now is on making pretty graphics and such, too small a percentage of people (relative to the entire game community) appreciates a truly good game.
For the last time, PIN Number and ATM Machine are redundancies!
"Homo sum: humani nil a me alienum puto"
(I am a man: nothing human is alien to me)
My only political goal is to see to it that no political party achieves its goals.
Deus Ex?
Open ended?
Ha.
Deus Ex is not open ended. It is more open ended than any other game on the market right now, to my knowledge. But Deus Ex's "Hourglass" open endedness (some options at the beginning but they don't matter, because you end up in the pipe-plot, 75% of the game in the pipe-plot, then it forks again during the last mission.) really is embarassing to that term. More open ended? Yes, and Death Valley is more wet than the Sahara Desert.
Maybe the state's highest function is to grind out insoluble problems. (Zelazny, Hall of Mirrors)
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
This is not a "challenge to game designers". Nor does it have anything at all to do with the "game industry". There is no shortage of innovation in the game industry, where gameplay has been and always will be king.
The problem is with video game designers, and the video game industry. If the whole video game industry weren't under a collective delusion that they are the game industry, they could learn a lot from standard games.
The end of wasteland wasnt the best, but the game play getting to that point was excellent. I actually have a copy on th eInterplay 10 year anthology that I install from time to time to play. Fallout was very good, but I still like wasteland better.
1. The design documents shall contain no reference to any object which is installed inside the outer case of the target machine.
Well, I dunno. I'm not privy to the DevTeam's workings.
2. The use of hardware 3D acceleration of any sort is forbidden. Software 3D engines are not forbidden, but the game must run at 20 frames per second or better in 640 x 480 16-bit SVGA mode or the nearest available equivalent.
You can run Nethack on a Unix box with a VT100 terminal. Check.
3. Only the following input devices are allowed: on a console machine, the controller which normally ships with it. On a computer, a 2-axis joystick with two buttons, or a D-pad with two buttons; a standard 101-key PC keyboard; a 2-button mouse.
All you need is the keyboard. All you can even use is the keyboard. Check.
4. There shall be no knights, elves, dwarves or dragons. Nor shall there be any wizards, wenches, bards, bartenders, golems, giants, clerics, necromancers, thieves, gods, angels, demons, sorceresses, undead bodies or body parts (mummified or decaying), Nazis, Russians, spies, mercenaries, space marines, stormtroopers, star pilots, humanoid robots, evil geniuses, mad scientists, or carnivorous aliens. And no freakin' vampires.
Well, uh....Nethack has knights, elves, dwarves, dragons, wizards, golems, giants, clerics, necromancers, thieves, gods, angels, demons, sorceresses, undead bodies and body parts (mummified or decaying), mercenaries, space marines, stormtroopers, star pilots, humanoid robots, an evil genius, and lots of freakin' vampires.
But no wenches, bards, bartenders, Nazis, Russians, spies, space marines, stormtroopers, star pilots, humanoid robots, mad scientists, or carnivorous aliens.
5. The following types of games are prohibited: first-person shooters, side-scrollers, any action game with "special attacks." Also prohibited are: simulations of 20th-century or current military vehicles, simulations of sports which are routinely broadcast live on television, real-time strategy games focussing solely on warfare and weapons production, lock-and-key adventure games, numbers-heavy role-playing games, and any card game found in Hoyle's Rules of Card Games.
Well, lessee...Nethack has special attacks, I suppose. It could be called a lock-and-key adventure game.
6. All cinematics, cut-scenes, and other non-interactive movies are forbidden.
None of that. Just a quick note on startup.
7. Violence is strictly limited to the disappearance or immobilization of destroyed units. Units which are damaged or destroyed shall be so indicated by symbolic, not representational, means. There shall be no blood, explosions, or injury or death animations.
Kill something, and it leaves a "%" (a corpse) if anything at all, and whatever it was carrying. Check.
8. There may be victory and defeat, and my side and their side, but there may not be Good and Evil.
Well, Nethack has Good and Evil in spades.
9. If a game is representational rather than abstract, it may contain no conceptual non sequiturs, e.g. medical kits may not be hidden inside oil tanks.
Would a shop on Level 23 be a "conceptual non sequitur"?
10. If a game is representational rather than abstract, the color black may not be used to depict any manmade object except ink, nor any dangerous fictitious nonhuman creatures.
Oopsie. Nethack has black dragons. :-)
Well, Nethack misses on a few points. But it's still one of the most addictive games around.
--
Ooh, moderator points! Five more idjits go to Minus One Hell!
Delenda est Windoze
Ooh, moderator points! Five more idjits go to Minus One Hell!
Delendae sunt RIAA, MPAA et Windoze
"Homo sum: humani nil a me alienum puto"
(I am a man: nothing human is alien to me)
My only political goal is to see to it that no political party achieves its goals.
Posted by polar_bear:
I couldn't hold out until the game "vow" after reading the "vow" for directors. What a load of crap. I can't imagine what kind of films that would produce, but I picture completely unwatchable art-house tripe that would bore anyone to tears who wasn't stoned out of their skull or high on their own self-importance. If a director is not an artist, what's the point?
Sure, there are plenty of movies that would benefit enormously by toning down some of the "forbidden" elements (or by not being made at all...) but I defy anyone to name any "classic" film that doesn't contains some of these elements. Under these guidelines, "The Godfather," "It's a Wonderful Life," "Star Wars," "Pulp Fiction," "Schindler's List" and countless other films would never have been made.
Glad to see this hasn't caught on in films. Let's hope that kind of thinking doesn't catch on in games either.
The graphics actually interfere with the game if there by default, and to the point of losing the fun if they are unremoveable. I would like my Civ games to have a setting called "play cinematics once:" the first time I discover a wonder or there's a battle between a roman phalanx and an armor unit (ah, Civ) I wouldn't mind the pretty-pretty, but I want to be given enough attractively designed, cleanly laid out information to understand the game state, and no more as a rule.
I would love to see Edward Tufte design a Civ type game.
You mean you knew you had to get out of there?
Seriously I played it almost all without any cheats or hints neither, I just got stuck at the big freakin spider that would never die.
give me all your garmonbozia
Hardware acceleration, higher resolutions, and digital sounds have only brought computer gaming to a new level of detail and realism and in no way detract from the playability of a game.
Well, they *do* detract from playability. It takes so long to get your engine and content competitive with every other game out there that there's only half as much time left to do the actual game.
In the absense of anything decent to play, my entire office recently went retro en-masse; we've been playing Super-Bomberman, R-Type, Yoshi, Mariocart, Sonic&Knuckles, Gunstar Heroes, NBA Jam and so on for a few weeks now. Each one of these games held our attention for many more hours than any number of the anal-retentive and morally suspect 1st person shooters that seem to be considered 'cutting edge' in certain circles nowadays.
I don't think your tastes are more refined, quite the opposite in fact. I think you've gotter much *easier* to impress.
Anyone remember this one? Sounds like the first Dogma2001 game... cool that they made it more than 10 years early...
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
Fight Club with little or no special effects?
That movie had a whole lot of effects...hell half the extra stuff on the dvd release is explanations of how they did what. The stuff for the mid-air collision is quite neat...give it a watch. Not to mention the exploding buildings at the end...and the virtual fly-through of Jack's apartment...and the zooming-through-structures shots. Tons of really really well done CG in that movie.
Of course, the movie did still have excellent dialogue and a good story, but to say it had little or no special effects is just wrong. Good special effects are the ones that don't leap off the screen as being something that isn't really there.
"That's Tron. He fights for the Users."
If there is going to be violence, the true extent of the violence should be shown. TV, movies, and games should all have to follow the rule- if it's necessary to the story to show someone getting shot in the head, it's necessary to show just exactly how much of the back of the victims head is blown off by a .45 cal hollow point.
It's not pretty, and it should never even enter our conciousness that violence is pretty.
By far. I just recently finished playing through Deus Ex for the third time, and although the meta-storyline doesn't flex (You work for UNATCO, you do 'some stuff', you visit Hong Kong, you visit France, and then the ending forks), the sub-storyline does flex. Incredibly. This kind of flexibility really let me 'get into' the game much more than any other game that I had ever played. Although I was greatly disappointed when I found out that the meta-storyline was so rigid, actions in the game don't just go unnoticed. In fact, the only sector that I really disliked because of the lack of options was the sector after you send the signal to NSF, because they make an invincible enemy to force you along one storyline track. That sucks. But aside from that, Deus Ex is very open ended on the sub-storyline level. Of course, as it tends to do in these great games, the multiplayer sucked big time, but that's for the mod makers to figure out. (Plus, 99_endgame4.dx is a shweet map)
Nah- gamers just blow up EVERYTHING- who cares if you hide a medkit in an oil tank or in a dog.
I think the OMM guys said it best with their little "Crate Expose"
or erik's wry observation upon seeing a screenshot of KISS Psycho Circus: "Is that a big square room with crates? Nice. The thing I like about crates is that they're so mysterious. What's in the crate? Is it ammo? Is it health? It could be either!"
Dogme seems to be doing a lot of complaining about the current good games out there, and what should and should not be put out. What I'm wondering is, why is their main concerns with creativity and innovation? Isn't the entire point of gaming just to relax and have fun? I don't care how new and far apart a new game is from the old genres, if I get tired with it after less than two weeks the game is a piece of crap. The reason that so many of the seemingly same games are being put out there is that's what the gamers have been asking for. If Dogme considers Quake III and so many other games to be bad, then how come they're selling so many copies? Are they insulting the gaming community for its lack of taste? That's not what gaming is about. What I like, I like, and if Dogme thinks better games can be made then have a new company do that themselves and see if I like it. But I see absolutely no problem with the cliches and same old genres that are out there. Sequels like Quake III and Diablo II simply took what we already loved and made it better. Counterstrike is a great example, because by using another game's engine and simply a few new ideas it created what I consider a perfect game, which spread to high popularity with no help from marketing or ads. And Baldur's Gate II, despite having almost every race Dogme mentioned, lots of cinema, and being just a sequel, is now one of my favorite games because of a great storyline and good gameplay. I just hope Dogme realizes that gaming isn't some medium of art, it's to let people have fun.
Oh, I always read and reply (and this reply is also to the fellow below with the bus tickets).
Those are prices from a storefront retail game store around the corner, and include a year warrantee and instruction booklet. The games come nicely shrink wrapped, and I don't have shipping or handling tacked onto the price.
The mere fact that they are being packaged and sold in a retail storefront of a large chain (along with Super NES, Genesis, and other "retro" games) show that there is a strong demand for them. *That*, more than anything was my point... these "retro games" that the original poster said "suck when you actually play them" are still being sought after in a storefront environment.
And yes, I know I can get them cheaper, but since most are $1, the majority are a deal... that's under shipping via eBay. On top of that, I will occasionally stop by CompUSA or some such place for a network card or other piece of equipment despite the fact that I know very well that they are hideously priced. The convenience sometimes outweighs the cost savings.
Beyond that, I support places that have what I want... I don't direct order my (pen and paper) RPG suppliments, and my girlfriend dosen't get her comics from some dealer on-line; we buy from the corner comic store, paying a few bucks extra for the ability to browse. The local game store that has the NES carts also has game tourniments every Saturday, and not for promotional reasons - they often are King of Fighters or other cult classic competitions, /not/ the latest "must sell" title. I'll pay a little extra to support that in my town.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Yes, pouring all effort into technical coolness and none into gameplay will result in a bad game.
Vowing to not take advantage of technical coolness will also result in a game that is less than it could be.
You can't fix extremism by taking an opposite extremist view. I agree that games should begin with a strong gameplay premise and build from there; but, if that gameplay could be enhanced with spectaculacious(tm) graphics and sound, why would you not want to take advantage of that? I like The Sims for its gameplay, but if it looked like some 8-bit game from 1984, I'd get bored even more quickly than I did with Unreal Tournament. Perhaps that does say something about my own personal bias towards the whiz-bang; but, I still play Asteroids an average of 10 hours a month. Its gameplay was just that good.
Now, if I found a game that could capture that gameplay and couple it with 3D video and sound, I'd be all over it.
--Blob
All sweeping generalizations suck.
...while it holds true to many of the points of "Dogma2001" I believe it violates the spirit of the "no 3d acceleration" clause which is "Thou shalt not use technological gimmicks to sell thy games". The primary selling point of Ballblazer was the gimmicky new graphics technology. Luckily, Lucasgames coupled their technology to a game with phenomenal gameplay value. In fact, the same game would be both dull and difficult to play if executed in top-down 2-d, demonstrating that it is not the representation of the world that creates playability, it is the mechanics. Doom was fun not because it could run on a 286, but because it was frenetic and immersive and easy to learn. King's Quest:Mask of Eternity doesn't suck all ass because it is rendered in 3d, but because they abandoned the fun and kooky playability aspects of the Kings Quest series in favor of a hard-to-control character in a game world devoid of meaningful interaction.
All kings is mostly rapscallions. -Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Worms fits meets this challenge nicely. Check it out here.
I don't think it would be hard for them to have a vow of chastity, it isn't like they are getting laid anyways :)
Anywhooo, I would like to see some originality in the games again. I remember WarCraft II, and it still kicks ass. I run xmame, as those were some all time great games. It's the storyline- the gameplay that keeps people coming back-- not flash. Many games have gone unused by yours truly because they didn't hold my internest for longer than the 2 seconds it took me to go-- god this sucks.
They stuck me in an institution, said it was the only solution, to...protect me from the enemy, myself
Half-Life for another 2 to 4 years it was based on the quake 2 engine for goodness sakes. I payed a lot for this hardware and damnit I'm not planning on turning my machine into an 8 bit nintendo system for the sake of playing a game like Zelda again.
Look at the quake 3 engine and game play, it's amazing! But to truely realize it's power it must be played online, I think what we have here is a bunch of HPB's with slow computers trying to start a coup. Well fellas if it's alright with you I'd like to tax my athlon 1.1 for all it's worth and my video card just the same. It's not beyond developers means to make a good game using the latest technology just dont hope for the game to DO and BE everything. I'm anxiously awaiting TF2, DOOM3, and Tribes 2 and damnit they're all going to be good.
While this is an interesting concept, the way this concept is described is pointless. One of the 'rules' is not to use knights, wizards, clerics, or dragons in the game, but the designers can use massai warriors, shamans, and kangaroos. Okay, so the retelling of the King Arthur remains derivative whether you use knights, Massai warriors, or accountants. The issue here is breaking down cliches and stereotypes, rendering the expected moot. Games shouldn't be designed for the newest gadget, but the newest gadget should be designed for the games. Essentially, game designers shouldn't be thinking about hardware. Of course, if they aren't then they will be designing games no one can play. I'd much rather see game designers commit themselves to 'rational environments'. Instead of designing the game with power ups (med kits, ammo, armor, etc) in oil barrels and crates, put them in rational places or don't require them in the game in such a quantity that they need to be collected in that fashion. Imagine a game that doesn't have generic med kits instantly bringing you back up in health. Or, if the medical supplies you carried in on your mission run out, you have to divert from the main objective to find the medlabs to get more bandages, painkillers, etc. I personally hate having to blow everything up to find stuff.
This is not the way to build a lasting empire.
Oh, I just meant in the context of Slashdot comments. Sure, show the Flash video to anyone who'll enjoy it. But stuff like this - being the latest luser to jump on this troll bandwagon - that's just embarassingly lame.
>Why not say "the game may not take place in
>fantasy universe" or something like that.
Because there's plenty of fantasy you can do that doesn't involve that stuff. It just wouldn't be traditional fantasy. Although, to be fair, it does ignore transformative uses of these traditional elements (as seen in fantasy novels such as "The Iron Dragon's Daughter").
>3. my mom won't buy me new hardware.
You have no idea who this guy is, do you?
Anyway, the rules are to avoid a reliance on technology. By taking away the tools that a modern game depends on, he hopes to change the way game dev is looked at. He doesn't mean to ban 3d acceleration for all games ever, just for games that choose to take this challenge.
>7. violence is bad, congress says so. it's also >cliche in games.
He never says the first - that's your projection.
He *does* say: "If you spend time on them, you are wasting energy that could be more profitably spent on gameplay or AI."
>9. I think games should be like real life.
He says that this only applies to representational games (the Sims), not abstract games (Tetris). Also, not necessarily like RL, but predictable to one who knows RL. That is, they should *make sense*
>10.random pet peeve / cliche
It's another way to make people shake up expectations. If a guy wanders around looking like Darth Vader, what will players expect? Well, if he turns out to be a good guy, (or totally unimportant), that would be *different*, which is his goal.
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
Beyond its technical minimalism (location shooting only, no added props, no added lighting, hand-held camera only...) the Vow even limits content (no murders, weapons or "genre" films) and prohibits the director even getting credit for the work. Yet, ironically, there are some rules even they forgot to include:
11. No smoking.12. No tattoos.
13. Martinis are to be shaken, not stirred.
14. No tag lines (Arnold: I'll be back"; Keanu: "Whoa").
15. Film crew must be nude from the waist up.
16. No animal products.
17. No peanut butter anywhere except on bread.
18. No "The making of..." documentaries; the production process itself may be filmed for insurance purposes only.
19. Farts must not be edited out.
20. Only actual space aliens may appear as space aliens, but they may be costumed or made up as different races of space aliens.
We would live in a better world if these rules were applied universally to both the film and game industries, especially the one about the peanut butter.
I'm sure you realize how incredibly crappy and juvenile games like Metroid and Zelda really were.
:-)
I would much rather play Final Fantasy VIII or Diablo II any day than games that were popular in the '80's.
I could be a bit quick on the draw, but my troll detector went off when I read this post (of course, now I'm going to proceed to feed the troll, so if that was the intent, mission accomplished).
Diablo II: Is this not Legend of Zelda dressed up in some blood & guts?
D2: point your mouse and click, some magic spells
Zelda: point Link and press A, some magic items
I haven't seen any true innovation in some time. Nearly all games can be traced back in some way shape or form to the late 80's/early 90's or earlier (there are some exceptions to the rule, thank you Thief, and bring on the Black and White!) In all fairness however, if I still found as many worthwhile games now as i did 8-10 years ago, I probably wouldn't have any free time or even a job! Maybe I should thank the industry for their futility
From hell's heart I fstab at /dev/hdc
the fact that some people really, really like certain genres. Computer games aren't High Art (meaning that they would be paid for by people who have been carefully trained to like certain things), they are commercial art, and the goal is to make games that people enjoy (and pay for). Originality is a means to an end, not an end in itself.
As for a lack of imagination and creativity, face it: those are scarce resources. People don't come along and make something like Metal Gear Solid as the first CRPG ever. There are better first-person shooters than Wolfenstein. Dune 2 and Herzog Zwei were barely playable.
Creating a new genre is one of the hardest things to do, and the results are rarely particularly popular or profitable. Few people are so utterly bored with new variants of Rogue that they're willing to start over on a new genre at the "Rogue" level of development.
---
POL: You're the campaign manager for a politician attempting to sway public opinion and get elected. Deal with marital infidelity, character assassination, real assassination, and fickle public opinion.
Already in development over at Stardock Systems.. named campaigner.
Check their Drengin.net In Development page
gee, i wish i could get overwrought with emotion about a person i don't even know, and will never meet or understand. i wish i could transform a total stranger who happens to drive a car in circles into a god.
!-- wit --!
Umm....50+ years between planting and cutting down trees...this game better have time compression or it would get boring.
anyhow, the real lesson from that game would be that "tycoon" like profits can only be had in timber from cutting down old-growth. once it is all gone (now) profits are razor-thin. thats why stocks in forest product companies sux.
"Chill, Orrin!"---Trent Lott
I would love to participate in an open-source game development effort.
:-)
Unfortunately I am not encouraged by your website, where I get a pop-up suggesting that I download a Flash plug-in so I can see it! (It happens that I am currently on a system for which Flash does not make a plug-in!!!!) Given this, are you truly serious about a cross-platform effort?
Actually, I only care about "cross platform" up to but not including Windoze
Teen Angel - a Ghost Story
In terms of amount of interaction with women, game companies are probably among the closest modern equivalents of ancient monasteries. In my company of 50 people, there are 2 women. We all work long hours and don't know how to go about meeting women on the weekends. So why not just make it official?
I think the "don't make them like they used to" mindset is a load of crap. People point to all the best games from 5 - 10 years ago and compare them to the hundreds of really mediocre games on the shelves today. What they seem to forget is that 5 - 10 years ago there were also hundreds of really mediocre games for every good game. I used to play on my brothers ZX Spectrum, and while there were some really great games, and I remember quite well that there were hundreds of other games that just sucked. The technology has changed, but I don't think the situation has. There are some really good games on the shelves these days. If somebody can't seem to find any good games today, then I suspect the problem is not with the games. There are really good action games (q3, CS etc), LucasArts has consistently made really good quests (e.g. Grim Fandango, Monkey Island series etc), and I'm pretty sure in every common genre you can find a number of really good recent games. The number of new genres appearing has probably diminished (that will get harder over time) but that has nothing to do with what makes a game good. Just like it is possible to make a really good movie without doing anything new or original. If anything, game developers can be stifled by trying too hard to focus on doing something *new* rather than doing something *well* - the problem with trying to make a good game is that everything has to be done well and just "gel" (the sound, the graphics, playability, story (if applicable) - if just one of those things is not quite right, a game tends to flop. So game makers who tell themselves that because some central concept in their game is new and original then they're likely to succeed are fooling themselves. The 1%/99% inspiration/perspiration rule applies. Dogma2001 seems to imply that original==fun.
This is drivel
.... why waste ink and time on something that limits freedom?
I am personally insulted by any person or persons who want to say:
"The masses have no taste, thus we shall attempt to impose our tastes upon those that produce the media they are entertained by"
I don't like it when the PMRC does it and I truly hate it when it is done in the name of ART.
Doesn't this just equal reverse homogenization? If you can't make your game/film look great under these constraints, done make your game/movie. Lovely.
This sounds so much like, if you don't make your music without using sample loops from other artists, we'll sue. Or, "feh, this game is too much like Doom/Quake, so it must suck"
These kinds of organizations love to hide behind the statement, "If you don't like it don't watch/play (I resisted the urge to put the obligatory man here)" but wail and moan when things like Quake/Doom/Gone in 60 Seconds succeed (commercially). I have no beef with being intelligent and/or culture; I just despise those people who make it into a lifestyle choice, like being a goth.
BTW I LOVED 'Armageddon' right along with 'Seven' 'The Mighty' 'Fight Club' 'The Crow' and 'OG: Original Gangsta'
Hello Kettle,
You, my friend are as black as pitch.
With love, Pot.
Yes!
Whenever I come across yet another game (or book) set in a thinly veiled Tolikien universe I always wonder if the designers (or author) are embarassed by their obvious failure of imagination.
In a similar vein, here's a challenge to weblog designers: stop using from-the-lame-quip dept.. Even if you're using Slash or some other Slash-like code, use a little creativity! How many identical Slash-alikes does the world need?
I remember from the days of playing on my brothers ZX Spectrum, there were some really good games, but for every good game there dozens of really crappy games. The situation has not changed. People seem to forget that there were also so many crappy old games.
Why, in my day, when we wanted to play a game, we only had a joystick with ONE button! And a LOT of imagination! You needed it, to figure out that lumpy block humping across the screen was your hero out to save the galaxy!
Seriously, I wish games would stop trying to pretend they're something they aren't. I think R-Type said it best on its title screen: "BLAST OFF TO DESTROY THE EVIL BYDO EMPIRE!!" Didn't need a 30 minute long cinematic movie to tell me the same thing.
Where's the submit button??
- A good story line. This does not mean that i have to plough through 50 pages of the manual only to find that i will jsut have to keep imagining myself in that story throughout the game.
- Interactivity with characters. Doesn't matter what genre. How many times haven't we walked into the mage-guild in a city at the other side of the world to find the shop completely identical. Or how about that guard who has to help you unlock the door before you can get on with blasting aliens. Did he ever tell you he was afraid?
- Good graphics (to a certain standard)
- Sound (quite essential)
- A long gameplay. OK i can buy a game and race through 15 levels of super-spliffed grpahic enhanced dungeons, or i can walk through an environment that changes dynamically, responding to alterations not only implied by my own actions (e.g. seasons, flexible "semi-predetermined" historical events)
But making designers take a wow is never going to work. Its not the desginer who is the problem. Its the market force. People buy games because they want to, and that way they reflect the way a market will move. Sure people want to see something that pushes their graphic cards a bit (to justify to go out and spend another couple of hundred $ on a new one), but if that is the majority of products that is purchased how will a developer see any chance in developing a long lasting worked through game. Consumer power is somewhat stronger than we think.-.sig sauer-
This leads to a clear, gritty style of gaming, closer to 1940s Hollywood than MTV. I'm speaking (on another subject) at GDC, but maybe I'll make a remark about this.
Here's the opportunity "Garage" game developers have to get their games out on the shelf. Here's the problem:
Why can't you have innovation AND creativity?
Lets look at some games that showed some serious creativity (expect lotsa Spector):
Thief. Sure the graphics weren't Q3, but it *was* 3D. It was a 3D shooter without the shooting.
System Shock Series. Here's a real killer to the theory presented. It took a 2D RPG and made it a FPS. It took creativity and added innovation, which made it an absolutely excellent game.
Deus Ex. Take an innovative game, with a creative plot, and make it open-ended. A success!
You see, innovative games can (and are, for that matter) creative. The problem is that the kiddies just want their Quake fix and kill their buddies. This means low profits for the creative games. Which is another reason how this theory will fail (who's going to play them?).
Sure PONG, breakout, and tetris are fun, but when you can have fun with innovation, its just more attractive...
--
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
That article with Yamauchi should be printed out and fed to most of the game developers out there right now. (Cough, Ion Storm, Cough.)
Some of my favorite movies in recent years have been low-budget productions. Like...
Fight Club
Being John Malkovich
High Fidelity
The Matt Damon flicks, esp. Rounders and The Talented Mr. Ripley.
Any number of Quentin Tarantino flicks.
In fact, I'd watch any of these over Star Wars: The Phantom Menace any day. Are there some good examples of games that put the gameplay/story ahead of the production? If not, there should be.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
Right now, computer/video games and films seem to be almost heading in opposite directions. With all the powerful new technology we have now, there can be independant filmmakers that can take a $2,000 MiniDV camcorder, a computer, some software, and a few other accessories (a couple mics, a light or two, tripod), and make a film of very high quality for far less that they ever could before. With the small size of the technology they can also shoot places they couldn't before, and do things they would have just dreamed about before. Will this result in some bad movies? Of course, but it will also probably give us some movies and filmmakers that wouldn't have had a chance before.
Computer games, however, seem to be heading in the opposite direction. With all this new technology, gone are the days when you and a friend could start a company in your garage and produce a game that was cutting edge and original and instantly shot you to the top of your field. Now you need multiple AI programmers, 3D programmers, artists, sound engineers, and so on. Adding technology has resulted in projects that now are huge risks and myself and a couple friends can't really pump out something that would compete on the open market with something like Unreal Tournament now, could we? We'd need to add a couple artists, a sound person, level designers, etc... Adding this technology has cut down on the things we can do and has probably hurt creativity.
This isn't to say that we've lost all the creativity. There are probably still some small projects that turn out great (CounterStrike), and some games that are just amazingly creative (Mario 64 is the best example so far, it's probably the best designed game I've played in the past 5 years, along with Tony Hawk), but I do miss the game designers I read about as a kid that made me want to write games, where I could take a couple friends from my college classes, write something if we had an idea, and be able to compete with everyone since it was based on talent and ideas, not on having the best art or 3D acceleration. Dogme may be a step in the right direction, but some of the same problems will still exist.
Like Rune, some units (well only Ghols) could use body parts as weapons. The gore wasn't added for shock value, it was added to make things realistic. Those silly Dogma guys fail to realize that 640x480 looks like crap and that games devoid of any realism or modern technology tend to suck.
Douglas Adams
1952-2001 :(
In those brave days, all computer games had to be innovative just to be playable on such limited machines.
The problem today is the gluttony of resources at the programmers disposal. They seem to be focusing on graphics at the expense of playability.
I think that games companies should look at the Japanese console companies attitude on this one. With games like Mario 64 and MarioCart and so on, they focused on gameplay far more than on graphics, with the result that these are truly great games.
We can see their influence on the American creators of Spyro the Dragon, a game with great gameplay and graphics.
To many games companies these days suffer from the illusion that a good game depends on good programming, when in fact it should depend on good design. In these professional days, we can take good programming for granted, more or less.
We need to make design the single most important phase of a games development. The answer is not through a stoic philosophy, but through thinking things through but still employing great graphics and sound.
--
Clarity does not require the absence of impurities,
/* And you'll never guess what the dog had */
/* in its mouth... */
--Larry Wall in stab.c from perl
Quotes from the games listed on the news page of happypeguin.org
I have to admit though, I was dissapointed when I went to the page not to find any "just like game x, only with Tux as the hero" games to make fun of, not that they don't exist in droves. Ugh, Worldforge... I was able to satisfy myself as to the status of WF as a massive circle-jerk when a recent freshmeat announcement heralded "creatures now gain and lose weight accurately as food is eaten and digested" as the stand-out improvement.
Here is my list of rules for the "Linux Games Dogma 2001":
Oooh, that came out mean. I'm just in a pissy mood today, but I'll stand by all these points. There are playable games for Linux, but there's a s**tload of bilge as well.
All kings is mostly rapscallions. -Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Civilivation was not innovative. It was based on the board game of the same name made by Avalon Hill - a game that is in Games Magazine's Hall of Fame. The game industry does pretty good at innovating. The video game industry is another story.
Well, there was in fact at least one movie proclaiming itself to be compliant with Dogme '95 which I have seen - Festen.
:)
/James.
Just keeping the record straight
Besides, even if total compliance is near-impossible, rules like this can serve as a useful guideline, or a point to aim for. They can steer you in the right direction.
So what, you can't use the floppy or CD-rom for installation? You can't put music on the CD? That's great, because you know how badly I wanted to return to MIDI music.
Does that include MMX and/or 3DNOW!? This is silly anyway; We all have 3d accelerators these days. Are these people just trying to keep the industry back?
I can dig the console requirements, though for playstation, does that mean you don't get to use dual shock? After all, the controller which originally shipped with it didn't have the nice analog sticks.
Also, a keyboard is an extremely crappy input device for games, and not all keyboards are created equal. No thanks.
No evil geniuses? So your villain has to be an idiot? And no wenches? Clearly these people haven't seen a dictionary lately. No gods, angels, or demons would seem to open up a religious debate which I don't think anyone has business in.
Most of this I can dig. Disallowing RTS games is pretty lame; What do they want me to add to an RTS to make it not focus on military might? That's the whole idea, and it has been since ogre. You just have to be creative about deployment.
Oh, and the card game thing is stupid. They're encouraging lame games like FFVIII where you have to learn a new, stupid card game in order to get some of the kickass things going on.
Further evidence of lead in drinking water. Sure, people take cinematics too far, but it would be more useful to limit, say, the duration of the clip, and the number of characters in it. Otherwise you get the "backfill syndrome" where you're forced to do dumb shit like go to the well to fetch water, as nothing more than an aside. This actually happens in Albert Odyssey for the Saturn.
Translation: "Our morality is more valid than yours.
To quote them: "With the exception of a small number of homicidal maniacs, no human being regards him- or herself as evil." Maybe they should add Danzig to that list. In any case, I'm the good guys, and they're evil. Typically. For example, this whole Persian Gulf thing...
Holy shit, we're one for ten. I actually agree with this point 100%.
What about depictions of a Playstation 2?
That's because it's a formula for making tiny little games. We have these vast PCs; We might as well fill up the box.
--
ALL YOUR KARMA ARE BELONG TO US
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
i'm an old fart? really, i'm under twenty, i don't know what commander keen is, honest. I never even played it before. what, it's a game?
!-- wit --!
Yamauchi may seem a crazy old fart, but he is making some sense.
You are not alone in that wish.
okay, I give. I've been seeing the "all your base are belong to us" for weeks now (only on slashdot) but have no clue what the hell they are talking about. Care to enlighten me. (No, I'm not trolling, I just don't read every single post of every single thread on /., so I guess I missed the first time it was posted)
I think....therefore I am
I reject your reality
I bought Final Fantasy IX and Final Fantasy I (I sold it long ago in a very poorly considered garage sale move) on the same day. I got somewhere on disk 3 of IX and haven't really bothered to finish it. I've played through I (A much more challenging game) several times. Why?
Well, to me, Final Fantasy I is just more fun. I can't really explain it, other than all of the video and effects can do only two things, either they can help tell a story, or detract from the gameplay experience. In FFIX they do both. Only the story isn't that great. Squaresoft games, as much as I love them, really fall short on the story side of things pretty often. IMHO, only FF3, FFVII, and Chrono Trigger (NOT Chrono Cross, good God!) have had storylines and characters worth caring about. So what's left is gameplay, and FFI for all its simplicity, is a purer and more rewarding game experience. Quake2 is not as much fun as Doom. Sure it looks nicer, but that's about it.
I suppose its all a matter of taste, but for me, doing the same thing over and over again with incrimental improvements in technology isn't that rewarding. For instance, the long Megaman series reached its peak of quality with Megaman 2, which was simple, but very well executed.
Also I haven't been impressed with graphics or sound in quite a long while. When I first saw really good FMV on Final Fantasy VII, that was about the last time that my jaw dropped in amazement at graphics. Its like movies. Has anyone else completely stopped being impressed by cgi graphics in film. I look at the armies in the Lord of the Rings trailer and I don't care. In fact, that odd plastic like quality of cgi has really begun to annoy me. Compare Mission to Mars (made in 2000) and 2001: A space odyssey (Made in 1968) Minus the ape suits, 2001 has BETTER special effects. Well done model effects can look better than cgi. Don't tell hollywood.
In the same vein, well done 2D sprite animation can be better than 3D. The limitations of 2D never bothered me, 2D is distanced enough from reality so that even in the 2600 days I could say "OK, those three pixels are that guy's head" but when early 3D games started hitting the shelves, I was bothered by, say, a painted cube or whatnot being someones hand. It bothers me much more when I reach the invisible "wall" at the border of a 3D world than a 2D one. As games better approxamate reality, the differences become more and more clear.
Wow that rambled.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
I just read Dogme, and I don't think its creater, director Von Trier, followed only some of its tenets when making his latest movie, Dancer in the Dark.
Let's see:
1. Shooting must be done on location. Props and sets must not be brought in (if a particular prop is necessary for the story, a location must be chosen where this prop is to be found).
Ok, he appeared to have followed this tenet well, unless he did an excellent job of fakery.
2. The sound must never be produced apart from the images or vice versa. (Music must not be used unless it occurs where the scene is being shot).
Bjork's musical involvement in this film automatically contradicts this tenet, considering all the sound effects and music produced seperately from the movie. But, I thought it was done in good taste.
3. The camera must be hand-held. Any movement or immobility attainable in the hand is permitted. (The film must not take place where the camera is standing; shooting must take place where the film takes place).
Most of the camera work is definitely hand held, but I wonder if the camera man was carried around with the camera for the scenes above the train, and other looking-down perspectives.
4. The film must be in color. Special lighting is not acceptable. (If there is too little light for exposure the scene must be cut or a single lamp be attached to the camera).
The film is in color. I don't know if special lighting is used.
5. Optical work and filters are forbidden
He definitely didn't follow this tenet. There are plenty of scenes that use some kind of filters.
6. The film must not contain superficial action. (Murders, weapons, etc. must not occur.)
There is a murder, and a weapon in this movie
7. Temporal and geographical alienation are forbidden. (That is to say that the film takes place here and now.)
The film appears to take place in America (which is not "here" for Von Trier - He is from Europe) and sometime in the mid 20th century (which is not "now"). Also, Bjork has many visions which do not correspond to local reality.
8. Genre movies are not acceptable.
I couldn't fit this movie into any genre
9. The film format must be Academy 35 mm.
I have no idea what format the movie is filmed in.
10. The director must not be credited.
I don't remember
My point with all this is that the creator of the idea isn't even following his own rules...
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
And you could think of Inferno as a follow up to pyro, or maybe combine the two, have someone starting the fires and someone trying to put them out...
-mutter- something something something...
Games are sold through awareness. People only buy the games if they have heard them (over and over and over). This is a generalisation, but typically, a game will only make it if it has a "wow" factor, i.e. it grabs media attention. A similar factor lies in content. Controvercial content like blood-and-guts enhances the game's hype. This is well understood. Take Rogue for example. A simple, complete, and quality game, but lacking any wow factor (except, when it was released / escaped).
Thus, a game creator has to produce at the leading edge, else the game fails. There is no alternative. Either it is a game which pushes the limits, or it is not a game which succeeds (easily).
This is encouraged by hardware manufacturers as well. New technologies, providing only marginal benifits are touted as "the next best thing", and games are close on the heels.
Basically, I am the sort of person who refuses to race technology, so I play classic games like Civilisation, etc. These are what I considder quality games (and I know this is not a universal opinion), but it does allow me to spend my money on things other than the cash-draining graphical revolution.
On the other hand, I wish the chastity thing would work, it is a nice (but doomed) idea.
.. if only.
Yes. It was in "Blast Pit", where you have to turn on the giant fan and then jump out into space and let the wind blow you up to the ceiling. The concept was too silly for me to believe, mostly because I couldn't imagine an AC fan that was that powerful. It also seemed to me that
I'll admit that I didn't consider throwing grenades to see if the wind blew them, or to just try it anyway (hell it would only be one death) but I considered and rejected it and tried everything else I could think of without success. I remember very distinctly reading the walkthrough and thinking, "Gee, they really did want you to do something that stupid."
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
You are missing the point about the dogma 2001 manfest. The point _isn't_ that a good game designer can't create a game that break any or all the rules. Of course, a good game designer can use any of the elements in a game.
However, a good game designer does not _need_ any of these elements in order to create a good game. So a good game designer should be able to tro create a good game that follows all these rules.
The idea with Dogme 95 wasn't that all films should follow these rules either. It is meant as a challenge, an experienced directer can use Dogme 95 to see if he still can make original films, without techincal bandaids or worn-out cliches. The latest film from Lars von Trier, the biggest name behind Dogme 95, is _Dancer in the Dark_ with the singer Bjork. It was an expensive and technically challenging film after European scale, and wasn't even close to being Dogme 95 certified.
Actually first person shooters (the ones that sell at least) take longer and more money to develop than any other genre. Electronic Arts could have produced 50 turn based historic war strategy games for what a Quake3 costs. Actually, this is a large part of the problem. Publishing companies expect the kind of percent return that they get from developing the latest whiz-bang engines with tacked on games from everything, so they are killing off less profitable genres. Flightsims, turn based strategy, and many other "classic" genres are no longer supported by the major companies.
I think the solution is a good library for amateur games. It would be cross-platform, powerful, and simple enough so that someone with only modest coding experience could get some sprites on the screen after reading a simple HOWTO. Sounds like a job for the open source community. Any takers?
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
A quick examination of this post reveals that the author has mistaken the true "I find UT more fun than Q3" for the subjective, unverifiable, and essentially meaningless "UT is more fun than Q3".
This is what the vast majority of posters in this thread are missing: fun is subjective! It's not a quantity that can be measured or calculated. Some of you obviously feel that a game must be innovative in order to be fun. Bully for you. I have no problem with a game refining a time-tested formula. You play your games, and I'll play mine.
[the absolute destiny: apocalypse]
The previous article about Oni is germane to this discussion, even if it does toot its own horn a bit too much. The part about a game teaching you how to play it is a fantastic idea. I personally think all games should have capability of evolution--Lode Runner, Unreal, Vampire all had editors.
----------------------
I'm not saying that you need to have a story to motivate you to slaughter your opponents in quake, but when you do have a story it makes it more fun to work out the challenges in the game, beacause they have to be solved not as individual challenges, but as challenges in the context of the game - the solutions come from thinking in the context of the game.
Drag n' Drop DVD Recommendations
Ever listen to grandpa complain about how they don't make 'em like they used to? The truth or falsity of that aside; the reason grandpa says that is primarily because things are *different*, and people don't like change.
:)
Similarly, people like me who grow up playing the 2600 find newer games lacking...but it's because they're not what I'm used to. If you're over 20 years old, you're a grandpa when it comes to computer games
Slashdot 's editors are dickheads
There are some who say that gameplay and content have been dwindling, to be replaced with flashy graphics and Full Motion Video, but In my experience, this is simply not true. Hardware acceleration, higher resolutions, and digital sounds have only brought computer gaming to a new level of detail and realism and in no way detract from the playability of a game.
I would much rather play Final Fantasy VIII or Diablo II any day than games that were popular in the '80's. I believe the reson for this unfounded nostalgia for vintage video games can be traced back to an issue of perspective. Let's face it, most of you were a lot easier to impress when you were 12, than you are now (apologies to any 12-year-old readers). We viewed Atari and NES games with a sense of awe and newfound respect because the technology was so new and innovative. If you've used MAME or NESTicle recently, I'm sure you realize how incredibly crappy and juvenile games like Metroid and Zelda really were. Now, we've become so accustomed to 3D engines and photorealism, that we often take for granted how amazing computer gaming has become. It's not that the games are getting worse, it's just that our tastes are more refined.
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
I don't play games that you can buy, because there are many good games online for free.
DragonSpires is a good example.
http://stuff2do.systs.net/dspire/
Although it is not as good as, say, Ultima Online or Everquest, but it is free.
1. Fair enough, I tend to agree.
:-)
2. A year ago I would have said this also. Unfortunately there is a problem with this. The game I am currently working on is 640x480x16. The problem is on newer cards the performance is extremely poor. The hardware focuses on high speed 3d and this seems to impact upon 2d performance. My game doesn't scroll and has relativly few moving objects and still takes a bit of a speed hit. On these systems I have had the best performance by drawing into a system memory back buffer then copying onto the screen at pageflip, but this still has relativly poor perfomance. My next game will probably use 3d acceleration even if the game itself is 2d.
3. Agree. Unless it's robotron
4. This reminds me of "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent." - Salvor Hardin (Asimov)
with a response from someone I forget "To the incompetent, violence _is_ the last refuge"
I don't think that this one really has an impact on the quality of the game. I agree that a poor game is likely to have these things but I think that having these things doesn't make the game necessarily poor.
5. A bit of a sticky one. Have you ever sat down and thought "I know I'll make a new genre!" It's not a very easy thing to do, especially if you want the genre to be fun.
6. Agree. _Man_ do I agree.
7. Disagree. You need some form of death animation for units. I beleive the justification is wrong when it says death animations are non-interative. The death abnimation conveys a message. "This thing is no longer here because it [blew up/got splatted/shrunk to the size of a pea]"
If game objects just disappeared then this will lead to confusion on the players part as to what actually happened. The game I am working upon at the moment actualy utilizes explosions for chain reactions and to destroy obstructions. On the other hand the old and new versions of the Raiden arcade game is a good example of making a game worse with explosions. The newer version of Raiden is much harder to play because of the visual noise introduced by explosions.
8. Tend to agree here. Take Dune 2 for example. The evil Harkonen who plan to conquer Dune.
The insidious Ordos who insidiously plan to take Dune.
The noble Atredies whose mission it is to control Dune.
[ick]
9. Agree. BTW, What would an abstract game that conained non sequiturs be like.
10. Fair enough, But what if your development team wears nothing but black, (around here thats likely). But then I'm from a country where black is the national colour (and a couple of yodeling lesbians are considered family entertainment.
Of course none of this is going to get a game developer any money to actually make the game. Perhaps it is time that the game industry starts supplying grants for experimental works. Presumably there are enough companies out there that would show an interest in pooling together to suport little projects if it would mean that publishers were more amenenable towards let them go in that direction themselves later on.
-- That which does not kill us has made its last mistake.
The prohibition on standard subjects (Rule 4) is especially absurd. There have been VERY VERY few games that did not include one of those. Some of the most innovative games of all time have! (Ultima had them, DOOM had them, Diablo had them)
These rules would force game developers to reinvent the wheel each time they start development. They would not only have to hire programmers and artists, but also a team of writers, and about a dozen designers. The idea that graphics should be representational instead of explicit has its merits (I like Ultima a lot better before Origin told me what the Avatar looked like), but has no place in todays game world.
Much like those they mention in rule #10, these fools should be kicked straight back to art school and stay there, as it is clear that they have not only never developed a great game, it seems they have never played one.
Given a reasonably level playing field, who would win a fight between a bear and a shark?
The fact that you liked "The Celebration" may invalidate my opening statement a little, but not my overall point, I hope.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
So I have been forced to come to the conclusion, that maybe good acting and a good story _can_ carry a good movie.
However, I suspect not alone. The directers behind all three movies are both technically brialliant and experienced people, so are the camera men and other support staff. I suspect it makes a huge difference whether the man holding the "souped-up camcorder" and the man directing him are experienced professionals who _know_ how a scene must look on screen to look good, or not.
Apparently, Dogme 95 has become popular outside Denmark by young directors with limited budgets, who think the rules may be a short-cut to success. And apparently, they have all been failures. So I suspect Dogme 95 only works for experienced directors, who need them to get a chance working with the basics again. Young directors should use any technical trick in the book to make their stuff work.
Maybe something similar is true for games.
1) I actually went and found the site myself. There's no link in the story.
2) I found that copy-pasting the rules from the site would be much more informative than anything I could write myself.
3) This all started in Denmark. Although it has become quite famous throughout the rest of the world, I felt I had a bit of an in-depth knowledge of the concept, considering I am Danish.
Just to clear up a few things.
Bo
Bullshit. Just because we all can see that very few people would follow this doesn't mean that it isn't targeting everyone. Nothing in it says, "This is only intended for those of you who aren't involved in making real video games." This targets EVERYONE, and explicitly declares, "...for the interactive entertainment industry." It does not say,"for the indie gaming community." And even though he admits, "Now I realize that... nobody at EA or Sony or Blizzard is going to pay the slightest attention to Dogma 2001." This doesn't mean he isn't targeting them, it just means he knows his ideas are crap that will not be picked up by the people who matter.
No I very much didn't. I was just saying that there were good games back then. The original person was saying that games like Metroid suck, and the only reason people thought they were good was because they were 8 at the time.
Beside the fact that I wasn't 8 at the time Metroid came out (I was a "wee bit" older), I still play games from that era. Pac Man (Arcade), 1942 (Arcade), Metroid (NES), Choplifter (Apple II), Wings of Fury (Apple II), Beneath the Root (Apple II), Star Wars (Arcade), Empire Strikes Back (Atari 2600)... these are all great games (that I still play) from an era that the original poster said (paraphrasing): "All games sucked, if you tried them, you'd remember".
And yes, 95% of games are crap. 95% of anything is crap. Sturgeons Law applies to every form of entertainment.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
First, let me say I found this really interesting, because it explains after the fact why I didn't play any video games for so long -- I played Doom and Street Fighter, why play them again with different graphics? I play Everquest, which at least has a believable world and gameplay.
But my question is, are there any open source game projects going on? I'd love to work on something like that.
So what they are saying is "Kids these days just don't know good games. Playin' 'round with all that 3d and crap."
Heh...
Seriously, good games were made then using the best technology available, good games are made now using the best technology available. There were bad games then, and there are bad games now, I doubt that the ratio of good to bad games has changed much (If anything it's improved), so saying games are bad because they are too technology focused is just a load of bs.
Some really good games today:
Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2
Crazy Taxi
Diablo 2
Baldurs Gate 2
Canon Spike
Chu Chu Rocket
Those games are excellent and they all have various amounts of new technology and "glitz" (as you old farts call it). So what difference does it make what kind of technology they use?
It's ironic that the people who say games are too focused on technology these days are the ones who are most focused on technology.
Sigs are awesome huh?
There are two things going on here:
1. What I like to call the "SNL sure was better in the 70's!" effect. When people collectively remember the past, they always remember the good stuff and sort of mass it all together into some sort of fantastic memory of what gaming used to be. For as long as I can remember, there have been more games that suck, than one that don't and More SNL skits that suck in one episode, than ones that dont. (sorry for the runon)
2. Second. If you take the perspective of going back in time, and looking forward, I'd bet you'd see that 90% of the great games developed over time came along with great tech developments. Think: birth of widespread home consoles: pacman, 8bit: Super Mario, 16 bit:Sonic, and on and on. It was the development of new technologes which drove developers to create better software. Of course I'm leaving out about 2000 great games.
In any case, I look forward to seeing what this project develops. Maybe they can build some backward compatable console games so we can pullout our old ataris and such.
tcd004
The guts of the Pentium 4 REVEALED!
Don't go here unless you need Stock Photography
But what about the original? It was abandoned completely; the final patch (version 226) was released on June 13, 2000, and yet there are still nagging problems of input lag and incredibly slow rendering speeds when compared to the other game it tried to dethrone (i.e., Quake 2). The level loading time problems were only exacerbated, and some of the weapons were rendered impotent by the patch. Epic Games has even gone as far to partially deny the existence of it; if they had their way, Unreal Tournament would have been released first.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
I have been playing a game called netrek for about 6 years now, and I still have yet to come across anything better.
Netrek is something like 16 years old, with roots back to Empire (which is even older), but it is still by far the best game I have ever played. You pretty much need 1024x768, but I was happily playing for several years with a 4 or 5 color client (prettier ones do exist).
It's not just a game, it's a sport. It's an art in that it takes years to master. These are two things I have not been able to say about any other game.
Description of netrek ripped from FAQ: Netrek is a 16-player two-dimensional graphical real-time battle simulation with a Star Trek theme. A game is divided into two teams of 8 players (or fewer), who dogfight each other and attempt to conquer each other's planets.
Netrek is the probably the first video game which can accurately be described as a "sport." It has more in common with basketball than with arcade games or Quake. Its vast and expanding array of tactics and strategies allows for many different play styles; the best players are the ones who think fastest, not necessarily the ones who twitch most effectively. It can be enjoyed as a twitch game, since the dogfighting system is extremely robust, but the things that really set Netrek apart from other video games are the team and strategic aspects. Team play is dynamic and varied, with roles constantly changing as the game state changes. Strategic play is explored in organized league games; after 6+ years of league play, strategies are still being invented and refined.
--
Since it's free, you can check it out at this URL: http://www.netrek.org
One reason it is such a masterpiece is that it was built and fine tuned by gamers for gamers, and not driven by the desire to soak $$$ from a mass-market (10-15 y.o. flash and trash goobers). Netrek demands a lot of intelligence, skill, and attention span - things that not just everyone has a lot of, and therefore doesn't make a lot of money.
Mawen
These guys are not the only ones sensing the industry might be heading in a wrong direction, the direction of flashy presentation without content. This article is a very interesting interview with the venerable Yamauchi, Head of Nintendo, who basically states that unless game developers start adressing this issue and begin placing fun in games as the top priority, the industry might be about to relive 1984 all over again, with people no longer being interested in games.
- Also Sprach Doktor Merkwurdigliebe
Yeah, the article seems to forget about quite a few geniunely innovative PC games, and seems to be wholly oblivious to just about anything SEGA has done in the recent past.
18 wheeler, Chu chu rocket, Crazy Taxi, Jet (Grind|Set) Radio, Samba De Amigo, Seaman, and Space Channel 5 for example. They've all come out within the past two years, and they're all *highly* creative. In many cases creating almost completely new kinds of gameplay. Almost all of the aformentioned games are highly novel at least, and completely genre-breaking at most.
Sure, most games aren't terribly innovative, but then 90% of everything is crap. There's plenty of innovation and creative energy in game development, if you know where to look for it.
Asking developers to hold off on technical innovation isn't really going to help anything. Crappy game developers will ignore it and continue to put out crap. On the other end of the spectrum, it's true that graphics doesn't trump gameplay, but in some cases, such as in Jet Set Radio, the highly novel gameplay was greatly augmented by a highly innovative graphics engine. So obviously, crappy developers are going to oblige or ignore the restrictions (probably ignore) and still design crappy games, and good game developers are going to oblige or ignore these restrictions (probably ignore) and make fantastic games.
Another damned comic
+++ NO CARRIER
A vow of chastity? It's a noble goal, but the big money in gaming is in the mass market of squels and big names like Diablo. Development houses probably won't get support from the corporates who know next to nothing about gaming and only care about the bottom line.
So how do you combine innovation and market success? You got me. It HAS been done (Quake, Jedi Knight, The Curse of Monkey Island, Age of Empires 2.) But such instances are rare. The marketers and sponsors want development houses to go with the tried & true mixtures present in Starcraft, Quake, etc.
The bottom line? If you can innovate and please the marketers, and do it under that vow-of-chastity thing, you'll be a multi-millionaire.
O'Toole's Commentary on Murphy's Law:
In hindsight that seems rather silly as well. At the time it made perfect sense to me... all the clues pointed towards that action.
I should add that I generally agree with your original post about no non-sequitors.
Fsck cluebie moderators. I'll say what I want, offtopic or not. And fsck having to qualify every bloody statement just
If you've used MAME or NESTicle recently, I'm sure you realize how incredibly crappy and juvenile games like Metroid and Zelda really were.
So you see a lot of graphical problems in games played through NESticle. The problem isn't in the games; it's in the emulator. NESticle is not one of the best NES emulators; it was written to an early draft of the NES documentation and contains several detectable flaws. One of these flaws can be exploited in merely four instructions of 6502 asm code:
NESticle also has inaccuracies with respect to Sprite 0 hit detection (causing scroll timing to be off) and mixing of VRAM writes, VRAM reads, and scroll commands. Examples of better emulators include LoopyNES, NESten, nester, RockNES, BioNES, and FCE Ultra.
rm `find / -name "nesticle.exe"`All your hallucinogen are belong to us.
Will I retire or break 10K?
...at least you're missing the point of what i got out of the article.
The point is not that "henceforth, all Carnivorous Russian Robotic Orcs-Aliens are banned from videogames!" Rather, if i have a character type, a carnivorous alien for example, then i can not rely on what the player already knows about carnivorous aliens, in fact, i have some duty to contradict them, in a subtle manner, so as to let the player know that this isn't a cookie cutter carnivorous alien-- that i have something new to tell them about this character, and it is, in fact, a whole new character. The point is to explore new ground rather than resting on stock characters.
I think that the writer might have wanted people to stay out of genres already retread a thousand times, but i think that as long as you have something genuinely new and interesting to put in, go for it. You won't hear many complaints.
-ben.c
Anyone remember playing that game throughout the night five years after it was released?
Anyone remember why it was so fun?
What about games like Warlords and Warcraft.
That's the type of innovation we need. Something that sticks with us for years afterwards.
But do we play it now? No, better games (or maybe I should say improved games) have come out and captured our attention.
I wish game developers (not all, there are some great ones out there) would take enough time to pull their heads out of their collective asses and stop all the crap they're trying to push on us.
And another thing I would like to see stopped is the early release of games. I hate having to wait for a patch to be able to play the damn thing like it was intended. Bugs I can accept. But we should start to punish them for releasing crappy code.
If you want every gaming high to be like the "first time" can you do without the mediocre highs of scoring the same smack over and over?
A steaming cup of soykaf would be real wiz right now.
First of all, all DOGME95 movies suck.
Have you seen them all? Have you ever seen Festen (The Celebration)?. It was one of the best '98 movies. Because there was no camera virtuosity or special effects between the spectator and the characters.
Of course, it wouldn't work for every movie style. But it works very well to let emotions pass to the spectator.
And this is exactly what is missing from video games: emotions. Video game making will become an art when the players will feel real emotions. Just like looking at a painting. Or listening to a moving piece of music.
Fabrice.
I've seen a couple of the movies that the DOGME crowd produced -- both were really good.
Sure. But that might well be because the dogme crowd consisted of some very talented directors - their non-dogme films have been good too. The way I heard it, the Dogme manifesto was more a way to get back to the fun part of filmmaking, because its authors were bored with all the technology that is assumed to be required.
Why are there no good space borne RPGs? Star Control II was THE best game ever (not to mention pretty much the first game with GUS support). What ever happened to games like that? That game had the most diverse and innovated cast of alien races, fun gameplay (action packed space battles and RPG type stuff), a cool soundtrack (for its day), humor, drama, mystery, and the best storyline of any game ever made in the history of the universe.
... "Give me a woman who loves beer and I will conquer the w
I agree with most of your points but hate all absolute statements. Obviously you've never seen Dogme 1 - Festen (in English The Celebration). Its one of the best movies I've ever seen, the focus is on making a great movie simply. I think these rules could be the inspiration for games of the same caliber. Go rent it and show it and impress your SO with your taste in foreign films.
...I'd buy a PS2
If I wanted a server, I'd run BSD.
Linux is for my desktop. It is faster, more reliable, and easier to set up than Windows. More to the point, it is Free Software. As much as your ilk may protest to the contrary, people do whatever the hell they want with software, and a whole fscking lot of us are happily running Linux as a desktop OS. Cool, playable Free Software games will not "pollute" or cheapen Linux, they will provide new users, new challenges, and new developers to meet those needs.
From my point of view, suggesting that people who enjoy games deserve to be forced to sell their souls to Microsoft and AOL/TW reveals just how mean-spirited and out of touch with humanity you must personally be.
All kings is mostly rapscallions. -Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Yes and No
Some games (the Quakeabes) will always strive for ultra-virtual-photo-realistic rendering. The less is more approach, by definition, will fail.
Other games, would lose very little from not having nano-second 3D rendering. Even some of the more popular online fare (Ultima Online?) could be pulled off without any real 3D hardware/programming. And these games would benefit by losing lag issues when the processor is no longer chugging away at rendering blades of grass/strands of hair and can communicate more often about the troll that is attacking you.
---"What did I say that sounded like 'Tell me about your day?'"---
forgot to mention i love that sig ("Information wants to be anthropomorphized.")
Well, I saw Mifune last semester at film society, and it was Dogma-compliant; it even had a certificate in the beginning proclaiming it to be so. However, it didn't make too huge of a difference: it was just a mildly interesting romantic comedy.
-brian
A vow of chastity, a dogma of usefulness and junklessness for website. No banner-ads, no crappy script code, no <font> tag (whose only purpose is to multiply the file size by 10 and make the fonts so tiny I need to scratch my nose on my screen to read them), no to make identations, no...
I've never seen a page from a professional site that validate as HTML 4.01 transitionnal. Because professional site always use WYGIWYG (no typos: what you get is what you get) editors who systematically bloat the page with bullshit.
A dogma of standard-compliance, code optimization and user's preferences respect (no crappy <font> tags that override them) will be really needed.
I know, it's harder to write Perl/PHP/Java/Whatever code that output correct valid code than crappy silly code, but it's possible andworth the trouble.
sigmentation fault
Yes, real women make us game developers nervous. We like our women like we like our coffee - highly polygonated and unobtainable.
A long time ago, I remember a BBC microcomputer (6502 based) doing a nice 3d space station/spaceship docking thing. It was all wire fraes but it had hidden-line removal. At the time I was working on a then high-end graphics system which couldn't manage it. I also remember examining the source code to the moon-lander for the PDP-11 - lots of nice tricks to push the hardware to the limit.
I used the lesson later professionally developing some investment modling stuff that was developed on a 486 when most people had a Pentium. The result was something that was lightning fast when we moved to the latest/greatest.
Does every game need a Geoforce-2 graphics card and a 1GHz processor? Probably not.Do we really want to make everyone rush out and grab the latest computer. Even in the trading room we didn't plan for obselesence every year (actually 2 years).
The is a place for games that push the hardware to the limit but there is a much larger market for the stuff that uses what poeople have now in their computers at home.
See my journal, I write things there
Some of the dogma 2001 rules are just lists of pet peeves: for example the list of banned characters, which allows queens but not elves. The list is too inelegant to be compelling.
I dunno, but Diablo II didn't really seem like a major technological innovation. I think they're trying to make a big deal about a problem that doesn't exist.
But oh, the traditional aspects of games - that's where it's at. Take Mario, spice him up a bit, change the character, throw in some innovative effects, some creative plotlines (but not too zany), and suddenly you've got Metroid. Or rewrite the engine, add some new enemies, take some away, use the same boring plot with a few interesting twists, and we've got the new and improved Mario 64 (which I hated actually - I prefer the Mario side-scrollers of old).
There are too many factors that go into making good games, and they cannot all be considered here, or not all by myself, anyway. Great games are going to be released, as are the not-so-great games. All I can do is wait for them!
Sounds like a vow to make a piece of shit movie or game.
I think technology is very important to games, but I agree that there is a trend towards selling games by looks. I've purchased too many games that looked good on the wrapper - and they put lots of work into graphics. But had very poor game play.
--
Twivel
I think it was Alan Kay who defined technology as that stuff that wasn't invented when you were born. Good games can and should be made with 1980s technology like Adams advocates but they should be made with 2000s technology as well as 1900s (think board games). Consider the analogy with visual arts. Some use oil paints, some use charcoal, some user cameras, and some use computers. Within each there is plenty of room to be creative and inventive. Let good games flourish and use or avoid whatever technology the designer chooses. -ken kahn (www.toontalk.com)
Corporate game companies have one ultimate goal for each game: You master/beat the game, get bored and go buy another one. Then the cycle repeats
So, there's currently 2 types of games out now: 1) Those you can beat right away (and thus forcing you to buy a new one) and 2) Those in which people play together, therefore guaranteeing that it will be different everytime and you will keep paying your monthly fee.
Why should game designers create something so innovative that you keep going back to the same game and playing over and over? Then there's no turnaround for them. But wait! Then they can sell you a cheat book to make your gameplay even better. Chalk up another $15 for them
The online gaming model is the best way to introduce innovation, because there IS NO TURNAROUND. There's the potential to keep playing and playing and playing.
If there's no turnaround time and no inevitable point when SumGuy will shelve the game for good, then you can work on innovation. Why work to innovate a game that is only worth $60 retail, when you can work on something that's $20 every month?
So now we just need a non-StarWars/Tolkien/Cyberpunk/Vampire adventure/action/strategy game and we'll be set for life.
DaveCheck out www.happypenguin.org. There are more open source game projects than you can shake a stick at. From the Worldforge project, which is an attempt at a massively multiuser role playing game platform to Nethack (Which isn't big on graphics but is damn playable) you can find lots and lots of open source projects, many of them quite impressive.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
2. The sound must never be produced apart from the images or vice versa. (Music must not be used unless it occurs where the scene is being shot).
3. The camera must be hand-held. Any movement or immobility attainable in the hand is permitted. (The film must not take place where the camera is standing; shooting must take place where the film takes place).
etc...
Thanks, but if I wanted to go watch real life, I'd walk outside my front door. I go to the movies to escape reality. If I wanted a documentary, I'd watch the Discovery Channel, The History Channel, TLC, hell even Road Rules. But as long as I consider movies to be fantasy, I'll take the Hollywood bull over everything else. Now that's entertainment.
And what's the deal with not allowing a musical score on a movie? Music is a vital part of storytelling. There are so many moments where the music behind a film is much more moving than the visual scene itself.
Whatever.
--
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
There is a set of games I play faithfully, the Exile trilogy (which is being ported to Linux). It has very poor graphics, not even any animation until the 3rd game, and I love it... because it has a phenominal story line.
I think the most important thing for the game industry to focus on is story line. Quake was a groundbreaker in graphics and AI, but it also had a decent story line... Q2 not so much, and from what I've heard of Q3, it doesn't even exist anymore. Thief was amazing because it combined story line and graphics to make it, IMHO, a visually stunning mastrpiece of an RPG.
IMHO every game design team should have some writers on the team instead of just artists and developers, get someone to write a plausable (and if you're lucky, good) story, and then write the game around it.
Well, just my two cents.
The chains are broken
Loki is free
Ragnarok is at hand...
Here you go...
/.
http://www.planetstarsiege.com/allyourbase/
(this link was posted to mame.net, so its not just
This would be a great idea to set up as a competition, actually, with a critic's choice and player's choice award at the end. I'm sure that you could get one of the game companies to sponsor it (particularly as it would get that company the chance to potentially snare a new developer or two).
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Is this really what the Dogma proponents had in mind?!!
But the game was sweet, one of the very few I actually felt compelled to play through :-]
-
-
Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
The film vow was to give up gimmicks that are now substituting for plots. They were not required to give up genres: drama, comedy, science fiction, fantasy, fiction, or nonfiction.
Check item 8 of theDogme 95 vow of chastity -- "Genre movies are not acceptable".
I'd love to see a new genre, but I currently don't have the creative energy to create one. It's a monumental task to give up all genres and create a new one.
But that's exactly the reason Dogme 95 exists (for films) -- it's worthwhile *because* it's hard. It's a challenge for those who *do* have that creative energy, something designed to help them channel that energy to create something new and exciting.
Remember, nobody is saying all films, or all games, should comply with the Dogme vow of chastity: Lars Von Trier (sp? In conformance with Dogme rules, his name doesn't appear on the website) went on to direct the very non-Dogme "Dancer in the Dark" after Dogme's "The Idiots" -- it's just an interesting set of rules to work within, and it's good to see what comes out the other end. Constraints often produce good art. Some of my better amateur poster design as a schoolkid came from being restricted to what the school office's photocopier was capable of reproducing...
--
After all that's the whole point here, right? Myself, I just got back into computer games after not playing (really, almost avioding them) for 10+ years, because 'most everything I saw looked derivative and sucked, and I didn't have the newest, fastest computer needed to run 'em anyway.
Last year a friend introduced my girlfriend and I to Starcraft - which has actual strategy, actual interaction (speaking solely of multiplayer), and actually meets most (but not all) of Dogma's criteria. It plays like a good automated board game, and I got hooked, much to my amazement. I've also been intrigued more recently by the Dreamcast game "Jet Grind Radio" which actually *would* score a perfect 10 on Dogma2001.
The point is that these games actually, just like you said, didn't depend on the latest graphics cards or 3D rendered textures. Quake-n is a fine game, but that's the point - it's already made. Different is good....
Likewise, sometimes a good game is just a good game.
Keep on hoping for that EVOLUTIONARY LEAP forward that will likely never happen and panning everything that doesn't represent it. (although having just picked up shenmue this weekend, i might have found it?) I mean, if you're into flogging yourself because a game isn't forcing you to learn a completely new mythology and new icons and new new new, go ahead. Meanwhile, there are millions of us out there who are content to (you can interpret it as "willing to settle for" if it'll make you feel better about yourself) play games that are as pretty to look at as they are fun to play. Derivative? Yeah, and?
Picasso said "good artists borrow, great artists steal".
Easy does it!
This comment has been submitted already, 276865 hours , 59 minutes ago. No need to try again.
Think the game would pass?
It tends to be a little good vs evil but with a twist (Kor-Ah and Ur-Quan dukeing it out while your in the middle)
There's even an alien that IS a vegitable!
Happy *campers*, be shure to enjoy the *sauce* -Orz
my associative arrays can kick your hash - TCL
I do, however, mean that if everyone followed these, we would have no new games like these.
Yup, still missing the point. Nobody is saying everyone should follow these rules. The idea of Dogme95 for films is that a filmmaker might *choose* to follow these rules for an individual project, to test themselves, see what they come up with. For games it would be the same.
Lars Von Trier directed the Dogme 95 film "The Idiots", then went on to direct "Dancer In the Dark", a film which very much breaks the Dogme 95 rules.
--
One of my favorites, and IMO deserving of a place higher on the list was this one:
Games would be far, far better if they just adhered to this simple rule. I've seen far too many games that are difficult or impossible without a cheat guide simply because the require an illogical action on the player's part to go on to the next stage. I remember particularly clearly one step of Half Life that I couldn't get through without the cheat guide simply because I considered the action required and then rejected it as so ridiculous that the author couldn't possibly require you to do something that stupid. Any game designer who does something like that deserves to be flogged.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Edge Magazine had a nice little article on this phenomenom. And here you can enough addictiveness to last you through the week.
--
Being well balanced is overrated. -- John Carmack
This was posted to MUD-Dev a while back.
Frank Crowell wrote:
> The other interesting one has to do with "no man-made black" except
> for ink. So I looked around my house with the intention of "poofing"
> everything that is man-made and black. Black cat survived, but I lost
> some computer and stereo equipment. Fortunately my car is blue but I
> will use this technique to get a parking space. For a few things I
> had to look very closely -- I mean is black only "000000"?
I replied:
heh. I think this is probably his best rule, despite its
inapplicability in RL. It is hard to draw, shade, and light black
things. Note that you can still use black for shadows (as long as
they are safe or non-fictional shadows). Except for possibly this one
rule, The Sims is a Dogma 2001 game.
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
-----------------------------
They missed the entire point. Though the stated point of the dogme '95 rules were to get the junk out of movies, the rules themselves are generic, sweeping. "handheld only." period. not "There shall be no knights, elves, dwarves or dragons. Nor shall there be any wizards, wenches, bards, bartenders, golems, giants, clerics, necromancers, thieves, gods, angels, demons, sorceresses, undead bodies or body parts (mummified or decaying), Nazis, Russians, spies, mercenaries, space marines, stormtroopers, star pilots, humanoid robots, evil geniuses, mad scientists, or carnivorous aliens. And no freakin' vampires." Why not say "the game may not take place in a fantasy universe" or something like that.
t in uum.zip
This is of course avoiding the problem with every one of these rules. The dogma rules were trying to regain some mythical past when men were men, and movies were pure. (which is bullshit, but that's another rant). The rules for "dogma 2001" can be summed up thusly:
1. expensive hardware break my piggy bank.
2. hardware isn't getting cheaper
3. my mom won't buy me new hardware.
4. cliches are cheap and stupid
5. cliches suck.
6. superfluous stuff is superfluous
7. violence is bad, congress says so. it's also cliche in games.
8. cliches are still stupid
9. I think games should be like real life.
10.random pet peeve / cliche
A true set of "pure" rules would be much simpler:
1. The game should not require the user to buy new hardware to play it. an X year-old machine should be adequet.
2. Cliches and genres are to be avoided. They are cheap and overwrought. Innovative uses and twists on cliches that confound the player's expectation are permissable.
3. There should be no superfluous content. The game should contain no more than is necessary to play.
that's it. I don't believe violence is to be avoided, mostly because it's damn exciting and makes for a fun game. It is, however, overused and thus falls in to the cliche category.
Keep in mind I think the original dogma rules were totally off the mark. Cinema is an artificial construction no matter how wobbly the camera is. Games definately need a shot in the arm, and hopefully they'll get it.
ps, Continuum is still the best Dogma Ywwg game ever made... it has been posted to freenet if you want to check it out.
freenet:KSK@/software/abandonware/dos/games/Con
I've been working on an online multiplayer game on and off for the past year. It's not playable yet, and it's not flashy, but I think it could be interesting. Email me if you want :)
Thus the computer games market grow and more great game appears in the early 90's. It marks the age of VGA as graphic start to take form and the lowering price of computer bring it closer to the hands of consumer. Famouse name such as Sid Meir and John Romeo become praise as gods in the eyes of gamers. So enters the all famous, Turn-base Strategies and First-person shooter. This is quickly follow by Westwood's Dune 2, where the Real-time strategies took the gaming market by storm.
As the shape of gaming markets starts to mold into place, more and more companies are formed, but less and less innovation and creativities are put in. As we see in the last 5 years or so, the Real-time strategies and First-person shooter dominated the gaming market. So many company just simply follow the same old rules of older games, as its more guarantee to sell.
Lets look at some what I consider very innovative and creative games. Dark Reign a Real-time strategies that appears in mid 97, this game was largely ignore because Total Annhilation's brilliant 3D graphics took the world by storm. However, I did have the chance to play both game, and I must say Dark Reign have the best option avaliable at the time of release. It includes things such as: Damage tolerance where units will aviod combat if they are been damage to certain level and seeks healing. Pursuit Radius where the units will pursuit and engage in enemy in his defensive radius and withdraw if they are out of that particular radius. Other features such as cloaking and morph have also been interesting. Although the interface is not the best, it's certainly fun to toy with.
The similar situation occurs for many of the Bullfrog's game, which have always been on the innovative and creatives side, games such Dungeon Keeper and Syndicate War are great fun and brings different perpective to gaming, but it seems, that it doesn't sell as well as some of the more conformed title of Real-time and First-person shooter.
There is an old saying that "if it ain't breaken why fix it". Thats what many company sees the gaming industries right now. It's seems to sell games innovation and creativities are not as important as graphics and huge publicity by advertisment. This attitude in gaming industry make many company afraid to try new things.
*mod up as funny*
quake isn't the greatest game ever, nor is it really the best FPS, but it sure is one heck of a game. it's one of those games that anyone can appreciate, even people who don't play games seriously. that's the charm of quake.
!-- wit --!
didn't you play snookie on commodore64? that game rocked! it was just a little penguin running around, jumping over holes, avoiding mysterious bowling balls and falling stalactites. what excitement!
now tha's a run and jump game (only surpassed by commander keen).
!-- wit --!
"All your base are belong to us" humor is now declared officially dead. Everyone remotely plugged into geek humor got their laughs out of it months ago.
Not that being plugged into geek humor is anything to brag about either, but being a wannabe is doubly embarassing.
this phenomenon of womanlessness goes to the very heart of gaming culture in general. one of my favourite things to do is to go to one of the local gaming stores and just walk in. the entire crowd of adolescent and awkward adult males parts like the red sea before me. the same thing happens whether i'm going into a video gaming store, or a good old dice-rolling, manual-toting role playing store.
it's funny the first few times, but after 5 or 6 years, it becomes disheartening. no one ever takes me seriously at any video game store. they always think i'm seeking a present for my brother. (i don't even HAVE a brother!)
!-- wit --!
In the micro-computing [commodore64, MSX, etc], and early personal-computing [Intel 8086/88,286] it was a lot easier for creative people to bring their idea to life in the form of a computer game. You didn't have to spend 1 million dollars just to produce a game. Some spare time over a couple of months did magic. You didn't need to have as much knowledge as today. But nowadays, you need 5+ people to create a GOOD game.
Also, with console gaming, people with good ideas and the how-to to implement, could not create their idea into a game. Because only licensed games could be produced for cartridge based games.
Today it's simply impossible for one person (as in the old days) to write a good game. In the early days a lot of people where programming in their spare time for micro-computers, and personal computers meaning a lot of games appeared, all with a very different touch and alot
of creativity (everyone could write their own game).
But this is today simple not possible anymore.
The games industry has grown, and with budgets reaching over a million dollars the companies cannot take big risks of bringing out *different* mainstream games.
But still there a lot of innovative games:
Black & White, Dungeon Keeper, Everquest, Ultima Online, Jet Set Radio (DC), Metal Gear Solid, Pappa the Rappa (dancing game, DC), Halflife Counterstrike etc...
--sn0w
Of course taken in its entirety the manifesto *is* a recepie for disaster in commercial terms (it could work very well for free stuff though).
;-)
I came across the manifesto a while ago and thougt it was basically wishful thinking, but *good* wishful thinking. The more I thought about it the more practical it looked. But not now.
My business is computer graphics, photorealistic non interactive stuff, but accelerators are moving in on the high quality end of the market pretty fast. It has been shown that with a few extensions you can mimic any renderman shader with multi pass OpenGL. Software scanline algorithms may well be obsolete in 10 years, raytracing hardware may obsolete hardware in under 20 (you may dream but I will be screwed:).
Anyway the purpose of the manifesto is to focus on depth rather than graphics. It is my belief that high quality, fast gfx will become commoditised, making depth the only selling point. The intention of the manifesto is spot on - focus on what makes a game, not what it looks like. The implementation is flawed (only free games need apply). The good news is that in the next decade it will happen anyway.
Maybe I am too optimistic, but I *really* hope that I am right. I also hope that there is room for a physics graduate with graphics experience once it happens, because if there isn't I am f*cked
Ah well, the best games I played last year are gimmicky, genre ridden and too violent. Oh and the limitations placed on games are far more restrictive than those placed on films thanks to 4,5, 7 and 8.
I don't know... gamasutra praying for "chastity vows"...
They'll go out of business...
If this guy had his way:
:)
We wouldn't have Q3. For that matter, we wouldn't have Doom. All you FPS junkies would be making do with Wolfenstein3d.
We wouldn't have Everquest or Diablo II. I'm not certain, but I think that means all my friends would be hooked on smack, instead.
We wouldn't have ANY Mario game after the first. (Well, maybe Mario 2, but who'd miss it?) Although I will agree that the whole Mario thing has been pushed waaaaay beyond reason, I can't imagine never having played SMB3. My NES wouldn't have been the same.
We wouldn't have any Castlevania games. I'm playing Symphony of the Dark right now (again). One of the best games ever, IMHO.
Basically, what I'm getting at here is, this guy has made up a bunch of rules to try to get rid of all the crap games, without thinking about the impact on the good games. (But I'll grant that that is in line with what the original Dogme did.) A better approach would be "Don't buy crappy games." I'll take that vow right now. Let the designers make whatever they want. If it sucks, it'll come back to them, and (hopefully) they'll learn.
Why? Because the art of film is not the drama. Take away the auteurist director, the interesting camera work, and the other "trappings" they are hoping to avoid, and you are left with a stage play, shot on location with a souped-up camcorder. No thanks!
Likewise with gaming... The best 3D games are the ones that are emersive. I can lose myself in a low-G Quake deathmatch, and imagine myself drifting through the air in a wide, parabolic art, emptying my shotgun at my enemy. It's magical and dreamlike. Take away the "death animation" and replace it with something less real-looking, and your diminish the experience.
That said, I applaud this guys effort to urge more creative genre choiced.
The most fun solo FPS I ever played was Outlaws by LucasArts. Nobody makes westerns into computer games, but they did it, and did a great job at it. I felt just like John Wayne when I walked through the middle of town with a rifle in my hands, just like Clint Eastwood when I lit dynamite sticks with my cigar, just like Buster Keaton as I was leaping from one train car to the next, and just like Robert Redford every time I ducked behind the corner of some saloon to reload my revolver.
While I don't know if anybody should bother to follow these guidelines too cloesely, every game designer should read this manefesto just for the ideas it might give you. Here's a few that came to mind for me:
CHARIOTEER: horse racing in the Roman Colleseum.
MED-EVAC: play an unarmed medic who must enter battlefilds to reach wounded soldiers to bandage their wounds and get them on a vehicle to the MASH unit.
TIMBER TYCOON: Buy and manage forest land to produce wood for lumber yards and paper mills. Clear-cut enough to make a profit, but don't attract attention from the environmentalists, or they will spike trees and pull other stunts that could injure your logging crew and/or slow down production.
MARS MISSION: You have the required propulsion and life-support technology for a manned mission to Mars. Using actual orbit maps, plan a mission for the next available launch window and fly it. (A later expansion pack could involve building a sim space station.)
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
First, the thespian's conclusion that all movies are special effects and little else, is wrong. For every one big Hollywood blockbuster there are many small films. Some of the most popular movies in the 90's have not been all about flash.
Then this rediculous game developer's vow. He claims to force people to think out of the box. How: by stuffing it in a box.
StarCraft comes as close as anything to meeting the criteria, yet he takes a stab at Blizzard.
The first video game I ever tried was pong. Since then, every year I look forward to what's new. The last five years have blown me away.
Don't stop surprising me.
What that Article Suggests just wouldnt work, some of the best games ever break most of those rules.
For Example, movie cut scenes, can you say WING COMMANDER any louder, that movie/game was just that, it was like an interactive movie, i LOVED IT.
As for graphics, gore and ya, once again, cut scenes, has anyone played Soldier of Fortune, that game is AMAZING, the graphics are UNREAL, the whole game has a great story line, just an AMAZING game.
Next we have Fancy New Hardware. Has ANYONE HERE ever played 'Need for Speed' with a force feedback steering wheel, Pedals, and good sound? its realllly coool, its like your really driving the car, and where your only 15 and cant yet drive, its ALOT of fun, using a keyboard just doesnt cut it, same goes for flight sim's when you are playing any of those Microsoft Flight games, they are just that SIMULATIONS, they are made to simulate real life, and using a flight stick with a throttle is about as close as you can get, once again, Great games.
So, maybe that little creed to make 80's games is 'revolutionary' or whatever,
Im gonna stick to the new games,
the ones that make Me Go WOW!
*grin*
~Wire
Black is allowed for abstract games, according to rule #10. That would mean games like chess and Go.
The main reason I buy 3D games is to get my fix of better-than-the-last-game graphics!
Sure game-play is important - but I buy different games for different reasons - some just for the graphics and some for game play.
I really hope 3D game designers don't make a vow-of-chastity!
/..sig file not found - permission denied.
Really now, don't people have better things to do with their time than sit on the sidelines and try to make professional game developers sign "chastity agreements?" Technology sells, kids, and these people are trying to feed their kids the occasional steak instead of the daily beenie-weenies w/ ketchup
That's like insisting open source developers agree to only write satellite-tracking software because it's "true" programming, whereas the unwashed masses keep asking for ignorant things like word processors and expense tracking software. This person really needs to get out from behind the computer screen for a while and realize game developers can write whatever they want.
If you want to read a developer's manifesto, play his games. That will tell you what he thinks is important -- getting games into people's hands that they will enjoy. If that means specular lighting, bump mapping, and 3DNow! support, so be it.
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I understand that the point of Dogma2001 is to focus on the creativity and break corporate paradigms, but I dont believe that putting bounds on what you can do will necessarily guarentee creative success. Stale games are stale games. And avoiding stale aspects is always a challenge to a game maker.
Suppose Dogma2001 caught on and a game came out in the order of magnitude as the original Lemmings. It's always a wonderful thing when someone pulls off a creatively successful game, but soon that too will be stale because of endless clones. Now what? I think the real Dogma2001 should be to have a personal goal for creative success no matter what it may be.
This can relate to just about anything you want to succeed at.
FUNK!
Even Lars von Trier doesn't make his movies according to the rules he set. In fact I think I never heard of a movie that would comply to the Dogma rules. And I'm sure if I did the movie would suck bad.
I think the closest one would be Blair Witch Project. It wasn't so bad, but I wonder if that's what Mr. von Trier had in mind.
-jfedor
Just as with movies, television, board games, books, or any other form of entertainment, any attempt on the part of the "creatives" (writers, artists, programmers, et. al.) to define some sort of spectrum of acceptability is doomed to failure.
One, the creatives don't hold the purse strings, and the marketing people and various VPs of this and that are really the ones in control.
Two, even if the creatives did have control and could stipulate exactly how their games are developed and what hardware/software they're targeted for, the artificiality of a set of deterministic rules for the act of creating entertainment is doomed to fail.
I could see these rules being applied, but in a different way. If the VPs actually grokked the concept, some bold company might actually decide to go after a broader slice of the market by deliberately aiming their games at a stable platform that wouldn't require constant hardware and OS upgrades.
The bottom line is always money, and the folks who hold the pursestrings will only agree to change their habits when it offers them the promise of increased profits.
Don't get disheartened, though. Creativity has a way of seeping past constraints. For example, if you haven't seen it yet, check out A-Sharp's King of Dragon Pass, which is an excellent example of innovation in gaming.
The best way to encourage innovation in gaming is to vote with your pocketbooks, because that's what the game companies will understand.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
a mars mission game was done a for the apple II quite a while ago. i still have it. it started with training in space school, all the way to extended missions in research settlments on mars. all along the way you learned interesting things about mars and space travel in general.
It'd be the equivalent to taking some really good actors and a great storyline, and then filming on an old Super8 home movie camera with sets put together from "Plan 9 From Outer Space", and then complaining that no one wants to sit through it and give it a chance.
yes
The film vow was to give up gimmicks that are now substituting for plots. They were not required to give up genres: drama, comedy, science fiction, fantasy, fiction, or nonfiction. Yet the article suggests we give up genres. I'd love to see a new genre, but I currently don't have the creative energy to create one. It's a monumental task to give up all genres and create a new one. I'd settle for retiring hackneyed genres, like 3-D shooters, for awhile.
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The most disturbing aspect of Dogma 2001 is the absence of the word "fun" from every single rule. Ernest Adams seems to be carving out a Jonathan Katz-like niche over on GamaSutra, where he occasionally spews out ill-conceived nonsense like Dogma 2001, which inspires a heated flamewar between his sycophants and his detractors.
It is our destiny to bring forth a Jonathan Katz column on GamaSutra in order to close the circle.
So, 99% of games released now are crap. 99% of games released for Atari were crap. 99% of everything is crap! Ignore that 99%, you're not going to get rid of it.
There are still some absolutely terrific games coming out all the time. Including plenty of new 2D games.
No set of rules is going to make lousy game developers make great games, and it's damned hard to keep truly original game developers from somehow releasing their innovations.
Also, people rarely get things right the first time. Derivative works tend to be better than completely original ones. There's been a more-or-less smooth progression from Rogue to the newest unbelieveably cool RPGs, each borrowing heavily from the last generation.
Just as accepting the limited technology of a platform gives you freedom within it, accepting the limits and cliches of a genre gives you a base on which to build your own contribution.
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