Reality Factory

As unoriginal as this sentence might sound, it's also the one most game designers tend to overlook - and I'm speaking about PROFESSIONAL designers also, not only us indies . What prompted me to start this thread was a recollection of a game now forgotten, though it enjoyed cult status once - for who still remembers Mike Singleton's decent "Lords of Midnight" ? Originally written for Spectrum, "LoM" was ported to PC quite recently by Christopher Wild, and can be downloaded from http://www.icemark.com. "Lords of Midnight" is an example of a game that doesn't age, even though its graphics might not necessarily be considered top notch by today's standards. And yet it managed to steal hours of my precious time, just because the gameplay was based on the idea that still works despite some minor drawbacks.

Today most game designers focus is either on technology - like physics or eye-candy graphics - or they treat games merely as storytelling device (think: adventure game). In the process games cease to be what they have been in the beginning, and what they ought to be: games. Now, thinking of games, think of the game of chess: it has nothing more than set of figures and set of rules that remained virtually unchanged for ages, but people keep playing it - because the idea it's based on still works. Computer game, despite being powered by technology which is now in our disposal, is nothing more than descendant of chess and other games of old: it has set of rules and set of elements that interact on their basis. The problem is that - with all the possibilities we have - very few designers can come up with anything engaging. Each time I visit Gamespot I'm assaulted with new set of screenshots from some new first person shooter, and as soon as I see them I know the game has nothing more to offer than new types of enemies and new scenery we wander through as we blast them to pieces. Now, I suppose all of us here are creative people, to bigger or lesser extent, as our hobby calls for at least minimal amount of creativity. So I'm posting this thread with hope I'm addressing it to creative people. Now, thanks to RF we have the technology to make our own games. The question is: do we have the idea?

I'm writing this thread to start a brainstorm. Let's think of game we ourselves would like to play. Let's try to come up with an idea; it doesn't have to be elaborate. Let it be simple - but effective.

What do you think?

that's the indie lifeblood - we cant often compete with the "big guys" in terms of technology, so our only real hope is changing something else - that something else SHOULD be gameplay/storyline. ive been playing Metroid Prime 2: Echoes recently, and it's absolutely mind-blowing. it's graphics are excellent, but thats not the point; its gameplay is stunning, and its sadly one of the few titles i can say that about. it's actually fun. who would think a game would be fun? obviously not the big guys, which is one of the only things keeping them from crushing us in terms of commercial game sales.

with the engine cantidates we are looking into for RF2, you can have incredible graphics grafted onto the tried and true development system that is reality factory - but if i had a choice, i would improve gameplay rather than graphics. going back to metroid prime, ive never played a fps game on a gamecube before. keep that in mind. i was running around the first level, and it was giving me tips on how to do stuff (which is also something we need to do, but anyway) and i found a place i needed to jump to get onto. without thinking i pressed B. i jumped. it had not yet told me that B was the button for jump. it was simply the natural button to use. i hope we can emulate that kind of it-just-feels-good, zero-learning-curve gameplay.

I usually dont like trying to learn the controls from the manual i just start the game and try to learn as i go. fun games are hard to find these days. i see so many titles i would like to play but when i try them out in stores or over a friends house they suck. but i can always fail back to old school nes.

learning curves are okay but only if you want to master something.

whats sad is how many movie related games are made. they all have the same poorly thought out mechanics but with different characters. they usually arent fun but people still buy them because they dont know better though with the cost invloved with making new console games these may be seen less.

The main reason why i still play N64 or even older Nintendo games is because they are fun. I cannot describe why, but they make fun. They don't have the best graphics, but some ideas are really original. Who thought you would have to pick bowser on his back then throwing him around (Mario64)? A game i found very good too was Zelda: Ocarina of time.

Also Nintendo games don't focus on graphics, but on easy control and good sound. Because of the easy control you can just turn on, and play.


A game on pc i really loved was Gothic: I liked it because you were sucked into the world from the first second, and the fun remained until the last. And also the idea of being thrown into a magical barrier was something that i liked. It had never been there before. The storyline was one of the best i had ever seen and the game never got boring because if you finished one quest there was a unexpected twist in the storyline. Also there were many 'atmosphere-elements' so as when Lee talks about what he was before he was sent to the colony. You had the feeling that this world actually 'lived'.

I think games have gotten too serious. honestly, how many people here considered Splinter Cell to be fun? anyone? not me. I played it for weeks, and it seemed so... exhausting. what is the fun in sneaking around so that no one can see you, and if somone sees you, bam... alarm... level restart. I played it through only to finish the story, and afterwards i uninstalled it and put it away, which is something i NEVER do. The gameplay was cool for about the first 2 hours, after that it got exhausting. On the other hand, I can play Halo 2 with my buddies for hours on end. we do it every week, sometimes up to 5 times a week, and we never get bored, that seems to be all we want to do, even though were in a band we will almost always pick Halo 2 over band practice.

so i think it all boils down to what Zen_Budha told me once. You can have a ton of game features, all of which are cool (like in Splinter Cell), but you have to make sure it's something that will still be fun 5 minutes from now when the 'wow' factor has worn off. To paraphrase IGN 'Tools are like toys (of a certain variety). Fun when you want to use them, good when you need to use them, bad when someone makes you use them'. and the same goes with all gameplay features, not just tools. You have to make sure that the players aren't doing something because they have to, but because they want to. You never want to leave them with one possibility. And, i'll admit, Splinter Cell was filled with possibilities, but it took itself too seriously and that made the possibilities seem less like a game and more like a simulation.

Halo 2 has a serious story, was also based on a novel, and had a lot of open possibilities in the gameplay (which include stealth). But, when it boils down to it, the levels were linear and the characters looked like plastic. But it managed to stay fun for a few reasons.

1. It never took itself seriously. I mean, any game that could have an alien say the line "You always have bad feeling, you have bad feeling 'bout morning food nipple" can't be that serious. But at the same time, the entire theme of the game is very serious and steeped in philosophy, religion, and poetry. So, they balanced things out.

2. It made you WANT to do what it wanted you to do. The music, actors, etc. made it feel like a hollywood production. The sheer variety of weapons and ways you could use them (combos/duals) gave you a lot of freedom of choice. You could litterally play the same level 20 times and not have the exact same experience. That made you feel like you were actually part of the world. It didn't feel like a simulation, it felt more like a game of checkers.

3. It felt like a movie and played like a GAME. And I'm not talking about a video game, it actually felt like a game in the very sense of the word. and that all goes back to not taking itself seriously.

4. Good Multiplayer. Some people don't think it's anything special, but, multiplayer is what a game should be. A story is fun for a while, but if you dont mainly focus on multiplayer, your game will be forgotten in two months flat. going back to checkers again, 50 years ago, if you sat at a checker board alone and someone asked what you were doing. if you replied "playing a game" the person would have walked away and probably never spoken to you again. That's because games were meant as a group activity, not something for just one person. Something isn't fun for long if you can't share it with your friends.

Those are all things that make an excellent game. If a game can do at least a two of those things, I'm more than willing to give it a look.

LONG POST, woah. Andy, I played Echoes and well as Prime 1. I used to be quite the Metroid fan actually. and i just wanna back up what you said. I advise any serious developer to take a look at those titles, especially Super Metroid on the SNES and the first Metroid Prime.

I must say, we game developers dont hear enough of this. I forgot that the reason of my current game project was to stop saying I wish this game had that, and wouldnt it be cool if it had this... I started writing a story to fit my game ideas but the story took over, none the less it was a retread of alien invasion!!!! AUUGGHH!!! I really strayed from what I wanted to begin with. So now I am re-writing my story and gameplay and everything to make it what I wanted in the first place. Thanks for the reminder of what a game truely is and what all games should be.