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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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
I'm sorry, but chess has knights. Breaks the rules :(
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.
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.
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Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
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...
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Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
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.
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
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)
Check 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?
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.
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
So wizz-bang effects is not the only way to sell a game... just the easiest way. (... oh yea, and the only way to sell a crappy game.)
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
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.
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!
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.
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