Establishing A Beachhead In A Crowded Genre

simoniker writes "How do you make a game that will stand apart from countless similar titles? Harmonix designer Chris Canfield (Guitar Hero II) thinks he knows, and is talking about it in a new editorial, 'Establishing A Beachhead In A Crowded Genre'. He comments that one of the key things you can do is to 'Gut key elements of the design': "Examples of this in your genre might include: sniper rifles in an FPS, powerslides in a racing game, minigames in a Wii title, healing crates, bosses, rocket jumps, or any other big or small element. Of course, the really good features shouldn't be the only ones on the chopping block. Not only will this free up time in the schedule that would otherwise be occupied by been-done features, but it creates space for genuinely new solutions and makes producers very, very happy.""

Comments

Re:No Sniper Rifles

[Daetrin]

I think the idea is you can't _just_ remove all the popular but overused stuff, that's just the first step before adding original content. Did UT2003 add anything especially creative and new to replace the sniper rifle?

For example perhaps they should have added rocket launchers that fired remote controlled rockets. After you fire one you switch to the viewpoint of the rocket which you can then steer to home in on whatever target you want, however have the rocket leave a trail of smoke that persists for a little while. Now you can "snipe" people from a couple rooms away and from around corners, however you probably ought to move after firing a couple shots before the other side traces the missiles back to their source.