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Mechanics That Changed Gameplay Forever
grammar fascist writes "A feature at 1up.com explores the various gameplay devices that revolutionized videogaming, and you might not believe how simple they are: life bars, power-ups, bosses, and combos make the list. From the article: 'As good as these ideas may sound on paper, they don't always work in execution. Sometimes they don't even make sense. But every once in a while, a game designer comes up with a fantastic concept that engages the player -- and influences the work of other designers.'"
Do paddles count? I say they do. You shoulda seen the Pong pre-release.
I make websites and stuff. Buy one.
Where does "computer-generated breasts on cover" fall into this list? Hey, I mean, it moves packages...
I'll tell you what changed games - Saving
Lets face it, nobody would have ever finished the original Zelda if you had to start from the beginning everytime. Saving is what made games evolve from 3-6 hours of maximum gameplay to the massive sprawling indepth masterpieces we know today. Playing a game over and over and over so that you're perfectly adept at every nook and cranny is for the kids who have hours to spend on it, and is frustrating as hell (Ninja Gaiden I through III, I'm looking in your direction). The older crowd doesn't have the patience or the time for that kind of thing. Saving has made replayability an option, rather than a requirement.
The same argument also applies the natural extension of saving, which is unlimited continues.
Oh wait, they said mechanics...
I guess Mad Tiger Balls is a game dynamic that didn't take off.
No Free-cam?
No "sandbox mode" ala Simcity/Grand Theft Auto?
Sniper Shots made it but "target locking?"
This list may all be great mechanics, but many of them are far from the best.
Demented But Determined.
"Where does "computer-generated breasts on cover" fall into this list? Hey, I mean, it moves packages..."
That's the problem with double-D's. Kind of hard to have a meal at a restaurant with everything moving when you reach for it.
Seems to me that having a canine companion premiered in Nethack. ...And which, I might add, flamebaitingly, happens to be better than all those other games!
I remember being impressed with the little 3d map in Elite for the BBC micro, especially the height. Was that patented, or was there prior are or what? Anyone know?
Mario! No wait, he's a plumber, not a mechanic...
What about cheat codes?
(http://neurohack.com/transcendence/) You can save&quit, and resume later. You can purchase 'insurance' from a broker for protection against death (if your ship is destroyed you'll re-appear at the broker with full health) but the cost of insurance increases exponentially every time you make a 'claim'.
And what about RTS's?
The genre has evolved by leaps and bounds in terms of gameplay in the last 5 years (try playing the original command and conquer and you can see the evolution. Ignoring the whole genre is doing a pretty big disservice.
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The earliest I'm familiar with was Parappa the Rapper, but given the whole DDR/Guitar Hero trend, I think rhythm games are a whole genre that shouldn't be overlooked.
Adman
How long will it be until people start to patent gameplay ideas like the lifebar?
Imagine all of the royalties that would be due if the inventer of the life bar had gotten a patent on the idea.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Nethack is a good example of no save cheating(well, not built in anyways.)
You can save and quit, but you can't save without quitting. When you load you can resume your savegame or delete. Outside of these two option, you can't do anything else. This way you arn't stuck playing continuously, but you also can't replay anything before your savegame. Either you're playing and 'live', or you're saved and taking a break.
Of course as a result, the vast majority of the game never gets more than half way through it, but that just makes it worth replaying. Most games today are just stuck on rails trying to tell you a story. Theres no way to fail, only fail to do what they want you to do forcing you to try again. You are not playing the game, the game is playing you.
Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
I can't count the number times he fixed my air-ship ...
A seriously weak article. It had it spot on with a few of the entries, but come on, dog side-kicks transformed gaming???
How about:
Run and jump?
Scrolling backgrounds? (It changed shooters forever and then changed platform games forever).
Analog controls? Mario 64 introduced "push the stick a little to tip toe", "medium to walk" and "all the way to run". This feature is in 90% of character based 3D games now!
There are plenty more, but this article obviously didn't want to get too technical.
I love searching these articles for errors. There are fewer than I expected -- attributing the origin of a health total to a game by *SNK* seemed obviously false at first, but the game offered, Ozma Wars, came out shortly after Space Invaders. (That's real early.) And I respect the writers for remembering Gaplus.
Doesn't mean the article's entirely accurate though:
Power-ups: I'm reasonably sure Pac-Man wasn't the first.
Chain Reactions: Missile Command's "matchbook" explosions far predate those of Bomberman.
Time Manipulation: Ladybug has a freeze-the-enemies item, as does Q*Bert.
Spread Shot: Oh please, Contra was NOT the first game to do this.
Canine Sidekick: What? Stupid.
Co-op play: Eliminator predated Gauntlet.
I'm sure you already realized this: if you play it from your local PC (or anywhere you have read/write access to the filesystem), you can obviously make as many backup copies as you like. That allows you to create your own save & restore functionality, so you could go back and start over at any save point.
QED: You can replay from before your most recent savegame.
Finding the right balance while keeping it interesting is hard. Starcraft is a very balanced game. And its probably why it ranks as one of the best all-time games out there despite its age. Of course, Warcraft and the original C&C also had balance in the sense that they had practically identical units, but Starcraft really makes this interesting. Its almost like playing a 3-way chess with the races. Heck, this could be the chess of the future. And yeah, the best games I ever played were always about gameplay, not graphics, though that helps.
The eliptical grid (projected circle) established the plane your ship was in, and a vertical bar linked the other ship's position to it's mapping on the grid, showing distance in the plane. The bar was a different color for above the grid vs. below it. I haven't seen anything as clear since.
But best was docking at the space stations (best while listening to the Blue Danube!)
--TRick
Wait... power-ups. Nevermind, they covered that.
They said the spreadshot premiered in 1988 in "Contra" but I remember it in Rex on the speccy - that must have been before 1988, surely?
Then they said the canine sidekick premiered in 1990, but what about nethack?
They said that cooperative play premiered in gauntlet in 1987, but gauntlet was release for speccy in 85 (two years earlier).
Air control during a jump! Thanks SMB 1! That was a HUGE platform-game improvement that was carried forward all future platform games (that didn't suck).
The original "Gauntlet" was actually my roommates MIT thesis (you don't *have* to do a thesis as an undergrad, but he did). It was called Dandy, it ran on the Atari 400/800 computers, and it let up to four players play using the four joystick ports. Finished in the fall of 1982 or so, before he joined Atari.
Atari coin-op loved the game, and shamelessly ripped it. When Jack objected, he settled for a copy of the coin-op Gauntlet (which, being a roommate, I had to help schlep from apartment to apartment for a while, until he just brought it into work).
Any sufficiently advanced technology is insufficiently documented.
Pretty lackluster list. What about:
Mini-maps
Easter Eggs
Unlockables
Playing God (or Mayor, or Theme Park Owner, or whatever)
etc. etc.
Sony, Virgin
:)
Yakuza, Mafia
too easy?
yeah, i had to prove i'm a crazy mofo.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
That trick won't work on games on a console as easily.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
pretty sure dogs shouldnt be on that list, but if your gonna list dog sidekicks, megaman's robodog rush predates anything they listed, by several years..
Having a dog sidekick makes the list but for some reason interactive content doesn't?
You want to talk about mechanics that revolutionized gameplay. Here are some HUGE omissions from the list.
Pause Button
Save Feature
Online play
Mod tools
Creating dynamic content in game (like Sim Life or Spore)
Musical Gameplay
Force Feedback
Analog Controls
Alternate Endings
Unlockable Content
But having a dog sidekick beat out all those things.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Try playing Japanese style shmups like Ikaruga or the Zun games on harder difficulty.
Watch one of the Ikaruga gameplay vids (level 3 to 5 are mad).
Or look at a screeny from a game like Perfect Cherry Blossom here. The playable char is the girl on the bottom.
In both games, one hit from an enemy or a projectile means death and extra lives aren't easy to come by.
It saddens me aswell that Ninja Gaiden is an XBox exclusive, meaning I will probably never play it (and get raped).
^_^
Some are quite valid (online game, HP bars, combos, powerups), but others... why the f... should a "dog sidekick" be a revolution in game development?
Well, it's summer, there's little else to report. I'd call that a filler. On 1up, and on slashdot.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The article mentioned firepro wrestling, i'm so stoked. Great edit mode.
[20:36] wwwdot/.dotorg
Aaaaayyyyyy!!!
Professor Karmadillo Songs of Science
mouselook
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_look
The concept of co-operative play first shew up in "Space Invaders" for the Atari 2600, which featured various modes in which two players worked together. Canine sidekicks have been around since Hack, now NetHack. And "design your own character" was first seen in Citadel on the BBC and Electron. Admittedly, you only had a choice of "male" or "female"; but the clothing and hairstyle were a little bit different.
Just goes to show, whatever it is, you probably weren't the first person to think of it!
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
According to the entry on "Boss (Video Game)"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boss_(video_gam e)/, "The first video game boss was the Golden Dragon from the 1975 video game dnd, running on the PLATO System, one of the first world-wide computer networks."
Having never heard of this game, I went to the "dnd" entry.
It turns out that dnd was responsible for a lot of videogame firsts: "dnd was the first adventure or RPG to have a store where the player could buy magic items... dnd was the first computer game that placed the player within a story with a beginning, middle, climax, denouement and an end. dnd also was one of the first video games to attempt humor and irony within the game."
OK, now I'm suspicous. Somebody claims that this game was the first to attempt humour within the game? Sounds doubtful to me, but then again, what do I know? Anybody?
I find it funny that Prince of Persia -- as in the old, sprite-based version(s) -- wasn't mentioned. Surely, some of its platforming mechanics could be considered worthy of the list, like PURE, TOTAL UNFORGIVING EVIL GAMEPLAY. I swear, that game gave me some weird Stockholm Syndrome.
"Apparently so, but suppose you throw a coin enough times. Suppose one day, it lands on its edge."
Most of your complaints involve the AI. WC3 settles most of your problems.
There are 3 settings for computer AI as well as max hp percentages. The 'Insane' mode utilizes much better AI and gives a faster economy to the computer opponent (the second part is essentially cheating). I'm a decent player so I rarely play anything other than Insane 100%, with about a 75/25 win/loss ratio (small maps are a guarenteed loss due to the severe economic disadvantage). If you encounter an enemy unit, expect a swarm to soon appear. If the enemy is launching an attack you will be very lucky to "engage and destroy them" in any way that resembles "easily" - an attacking force by the AI is large, diverse and prepared. The AI is smart enough to remove damaged units from the fight and sometimes even baits you into defended positions.
The one deficiency with the AI is that it targets the closest units, not the weaker ones. Better players control the strong enemy units while eliminating the weaker ones. For example, a good tactic is to ensare a heavy melee unit while killing the puny ranged units, quickly reducing their numbers.
When a unit is instructed to attack a building and that building is destroyed, the unit will still move to the location, instead of stopping. Careful what you wish for though - this can cause other problems like splitting up your forces.
All races allow for out-of-base healing/repair, with some being automatic (Priest healing and Unholy Aura). Worker-type units all have an autorepair capability.
The enemy base may be weakly defended, but if you managed to defeat their army then the game is essentially over. The outcome of the first major skirmish in a one-on-one game will usually determine the outcome of the entire game.
One-to-one games (singleplayer or networked) average about 20 minutes.
We may experience some slight turbulence and then...explode. -Capt. Mal Reynolds
The quality of posts, and especially moderating has gone downhill. You got the most popular cheat code of all time WRONG, and got modded up to +5 for it. *hangs head in shame*
We may experience some slight turbulence and then...explode. -Capt. Mal Reynolds
The one I can't believe they skipped is "mouselook."
Seriously, a whole genere of game (FPS) depends on this mechanic. How could it have gone unremarked?
First time I saw this was SWAT from Quake1, then Actionquake2, the team from which Gooseman left to make Counterstrike. And then a billion other "realistic" games spawned a bevy of bullet-based FPS games.
The popular weaponry was rocket launchers, railguns, freaky energy weaponry and whatnot. Now many games have hit-scan bullet guns instead, and with recoil, stability, and locational damage.
So many FPSes are tossing in headshots and favoring bullet-based guns. I like the crazy fictional guns, too much same-ness in a pistol/shotgun/chaingun(in whatever form they may take).
See: Subject
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The very idea that they would have one powerful enemy at the end whose sole purpose is to defeat the one person who had ever managed to cut through all the defenses makes no sense. He should instead be outside to support the other defenses, not held in reserve as a single defensive point.
Now give me a game where whether you're able to get to the end depends on you surviving your own character's fatigue, where your character really doesn't have the time or endurance to "clear the level" (and not by having infinitely regenerating enemies). Maybe dealing with that would get game designers to stop making games where all you have to do is keep mashing the A button.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
These are for FPS games.
Lets see....
strategy based team games (Defend an destroy, Capture and hold from Tribes)
Vehicles that you could control (Tribes)
Wide, out-door expanses (Tribes)
Coordinated teams (Tribes- laser spotter and heavy armor with mortar)
Integrated command interface (Tribes... though, later version dropped it)
intelegence devices to see "more of the map" (Tribes)
Hell, look at Tribes and all the innovation IT brought to the FPS genre. BF is a modern-day rip off of most of the concepts!
Thank you. I get sick of people saying Gauntlet was the first of its kind and groundbreaking and all that. Dandy was a lot more fun too.
Smart Bombs a la Defender.
The Dual Joystick controls of Robotron.
My Heart Is A Flower
That, in a nutshell, is why consoles suck.
I remember the first space-flight sim that allowed me to use a tilt-joystick... effectively adding another dimension to the gameplay. It's a case of gameplay mechanics+physical mechanics... and actually makes a significant difference in gameplay (many of those who play BF2 as chopper pilots would likely also agree).
Not sure what the first game to come out with this, or the first joystick for that matter... but definately a bit step for control of virtual aircraft/spacecraft.