Great blog about why game ideas aren’t really valuable. Everyone has them, but not everyone can make them http://ping.fm/kZqH2
Written by MM. Posted at 3:10 am on September 9th, 2009
2 comments.
Post a comment.
With some points I agree, some are bullshit.
A good design is worth it’s weight in gold. Thing is, the idea for a game is nowhere close to a good design. In fact, ideas that work on paper well may completely flop when implemented. And not because the coders did something wrong, but because the designer didn’t expect a specific interaction or combination of elements.
Let’s compare good design and bad design:
X-Com UFO Defense is a game that had brilliant design. Everything had a use, everything fit in place, every component, the AI, research and interception were all merged brilliantly together creating a seamless and integral game.
Evil Genius is a game that had a design that, in theory, was good. In particular it grabbed ideas from movies like james bond, where the super hero is de facto invincible. They decided to implement several stupid movie mechanics into the game, the result of which was a badly working mess. While the ideas seemed fun on paper, your minions roasting themselves in YOUR traps or outright disabling them while walking through, allowing the enemy into your base made a lot of the traps simply pointless. Same goes with the majority of the game, which became repetitive and boring.
Now what the guy described on his blog aren’t even ideas for games. Just describing the setting, where, in fact, the gameplay could be anything from tomb raider to the sims. While the story is a factor (one that is being regretfully neglected, I’m looking at you, Todd Howard you motherfucker!) the actual gameplay value is what decides about a game. One specific case where gameplay isn’t the crucial component are storyline-driven or in general emotion-driven games. Such as monkey island, which didn’t have much gameplay but created enjoyment by the value of the jokes and humor, or Fahrenheit, a very interesting game that had minimal gameplay but played like a darker and edgier version of Choose Your own Adventure.
Since it’s much harder to convey gameplay than dialogues, jokes and drama through a design bible, gameplay-heavy games require a proof of concept, or a genius designer to get them right. You can’t quite nail how much fun will a given idea be. Maybe the way you envision it the minigame to earn cash will make the player grind his teeth as he’s doing it over the 400th time, trying to save for the Dildo of Doom. Maybe your concept of micromanaging your units will be fun at the begining, when you have 10 units but will make you tear your hair out when you have 200 units. It’s really hard to tell until you simulate it, even on paper.
Story-wise, a good design document is most certainly worth it’s weight in enriched uranium with a hard-cover of platinum. Especially today, in the age where even big studios like Bethesda cut costs by hireing writers with mental disabilities and mild mental retardation.
Спасибо. было очень интересно.