Slashdot Mirror
Jarvis On Robotron, Defender, Acolytes
Koworld writes "The videogaming webzine, Way of the Rodent, has a new interview with videogame legend Eugene Jarvis, whose forthcoming arcade comeback was recently covered on Slashdot Games. He talks at length about his gaming philosophy, arguing: 'All the best videogames are about survival - it's our strongest instinct, stronger than food, sex, lust for money... You have to create a survival story - to tap into the raw energy and adrenaline and get people naturally excited. Sounds obvious, but that's why you need a LOT of very nasty bad guys trying to kill you.' The site also features other Eugene Jarvis articles, including an in-depth tribute to Jarvis by cult programmer Jeff Minter, and Stuart Campbell discussing Cruis'n USA's impact."
A lot of designers seem to believe that, when you try to turn right in a driving game, you shouldn't actually turn right, you should go into a skid and blow up and flip over, otherwise it's not 'realistic'. I believe that if the player tries to turn right, then you should let 'em - rather than messing around trying to make the game some ridiculous simulation that's not very much fun.
Amen. There are too many games out there that try too hard to be simulations, and end up sacrificing 'fun' for 'realistic'. If you want to make a sim, make a sim; if you want to make a game, make a game.
Now, this isn't to say that reality isn't important; the more realistic a game seems, the more fun it'll be. The trick is bridging the gap between what seems real and what would actually be realistic behavior. The Cruis'n series does a good job of this: any truly critical examination of the game's physics reveals it to be utterly unrealistic, and yet part of what makes the game so fun is that when you're playing the game, the controls feel and seem real.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Sure, the idea of it being exclusively about the survival instinct had its appeal in an arcade game. But I think there's more to it than that: in The Sims, for example, the only way you can be in mortal danger is by your own (possibly intentional) negligence.
The other aspect, which started with MUDs and continues now with MMORPGs and related genres, is immersing yourself in another virtual world. This is a different instinct, the instinct to explore and discover if you want to call it that. In [insert MMORPG here], you enter a virtual world with different rules than your own, and part of the fun is exploring that world and its rules. And yes, you do get in fights with packs of vicious cave trolls who can beat you to a pulp in 3 seconds flat, and that's another aspect of it, but to say that it's all about survival (or indeed that it ever was) is only half the story.
This is my sig. There are many others like it, but this one is mine.
I realized, as I was reading this article, that his defintion of fun is sort of against the RPG elements. I really love Gran Turismo (the best car RPG ever), and it's precisely for the reasons he didn't like about them : i.e. the realism and the challenge of driving things properly. I mean, hey, one can only drive so much in multiplayer Crusin' ____ before you find yourself yell, "that's total bull@#$%!"
I do think that the fun and gameplay are obvously important to games and are somewhat lacking in recent games... but if we have the processing power to make 'Gran Tursimo n' and give its cars the most accurate physics models and graphical detail while driving around real life courses without actually having to pay the huge amounts of money that real touring racing would take, then I'm all for it.
If you want to fun, twitchy, yet completely unrealistic racer, why don't you just make the car invulerable to wall hits, and increase your speed. Hell, just play Fzero or all those Tube-Racer-type futuristc car genre games.
0- Eamonman Proud member of DNRC