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[skaldicpoet9]

We've come to a place in time where the gaming experience has an immense amount of potential. Processors now have the power to take games to the next level of immersion. Locales can be wonderfully crafted and allow the player to suspend their disbelief momentarily before they are yanked back into the real world. However, it seems that the quality of games is somewhat shallow these days. We are crafting more visually compelling works but on a gameplay level we are still using the same mechanics. People say this is the "next-gen" but what does that really mean and have we attained it?

The question is: how do we do this? How do we craft a truly unique experience?

I've played though quite a few games this gen and I find the experience somewhat underwhelming. So what is this next level? I believe that some games have bits and pieces of the formula scattered around.

Players want a certain amount of freedom but too much freedom in a somewhat barren landscape creates boredom in the player after awhile. Some sandbox games are victims of their own genre at times. One way I would think to alleviate this is to either shrink the available real estate within the game to make the game's population more dense or to craft more compelling characters (which would take a lot of resources).

Many games really fail to recognize to create not only a good story but well crafted characters as well. Too often I play through a game only to be met with cardboard cutouts that have little or no personality and contribute very little to the atmosphere of the game and overall plot. Sometimes it feels as if NPCs are just mere afterthoughts meant to make the game seem more dense then it really is. I think that developers need to not only work on a compelling story but compelling characters  with their own stories.

I think that this generation of games really utilizes graphics power as more of a crutch then an asset. There is an incredible potential for games to take radically different art directions but it seems that a lot of games decide to take the "realistic" route instead of crafting something that is unique in it's delivery. I would love to see more developers really flex their muscle because they have the capability to create a completely new look every time if they so choose to.

Modern games seem to favor the first person perspective. This is unfortunate because there are so many other ways to create a immersive experience without having to put the player in the character's shoes so to speak. Not only does a first person perspective disjoint the player somewhat from the protagonist it also limits the field of view in certain games. I am not saying that it should be done away with I am merely saying that I wish that it was not the default view for so many games. I am a firm believer that immersion is due to how well the game creates a certain atmosphere then the viewpoint of the characters themselves.

Lastly, I believe that we need new experiences. Yes, that is broad but let me elaborate. We have games about space, about the real world and those that take place in medieval times but what about everything else? What about a game were you play an Inuit hunter that stalks his prey in the cold snowdrifts of Alaska trying to get food for his family before the first big storm hits. Or what about playing as a politician embroiled in conspiracies and bribes, aspiring to the top? Where are the truly unique experiences? I love being a Elf just as much as the next nerd but what about the genuinely new experiences? Am I the only one that wants a game where you are a small, inconsequential member of an Amazon tribe that rises to be the chief and explore the vast recesses of the Amazon jungle with a group of dedicated tribesmen?

I believe that modern games have worked themselves into somewhat of a spot. They have crafted the same experience repeatedly that many have become indoctrinated into wanting the same type of games. Recently I was looking for new games and it depressed me slightly to see so many rehashes, so many sequels of the same games we have all been playing for years.

So my question to you, my fellow tigers, is this: how do we aspire to this so called "next level"? What do you believe is the ailment of games these days and what do you prescribe as the remedy?

[Core Xii]

Well, inuits, amazons and politicans are boring. I can see how people want to be an astronaut, soldier, etc. over and over again over those. As a race, we've come a long way and specialized. The simulated experience of surviving day-to-day life just doesn't cut it. That's exactly what we're trying to get away from by escaping into virtual reality.

But I do agree on all other accounts. We need better AI for NPCs - Not just combat AI, but personalization and character. One NPC is just like every other NPC, with the only possible exception of providing some different function. And they should DO things outside of your little bubble of existence... Why do they always linger in the exact same spot, perhaps pretending to be "doing something"? All they really do is wait for you to come and use them.

[Seth]

Well, inuits, amazons and politicans are boring. I can see how people want to be an astronaut, soldier, etc. over and over again over those. As a race, we've come a long way and specialized. The simulated experience of surviving day-to-day life just doesn't cut it. That's exactly what we're trying to get away from by escaping into virtual reality.

Some of us don't want to play games for escapist reasons, and it distresses me that so many people insist that's what games are about.

Personally I find that games sort of repeat themselves in the sense that they are always about rising to the top or becoming the best, become world champ or a super soldier or something.  The majority of people on earth don't rise to the top but just the same they have real problems and they confront them just the same.  It's hard to think of how to incorporate this into video games as we know them because we are so used to expecting level up after level up or goal after goal, and reward after reward. 

I would like the inuit game a lot because it wouldn't be about becoming the best and the biggest reward would be your own survival, which is taken for granted in most games.

[dither]

Why not go ahead and make the game you want to play that nobody else is making?

[skaldicpoet9]

Well, inuits, amazons and politicans are boring. I can see how people want to be an astronaut, soldier, etc. over and over again over those. As a race, we've come a long way and specialized. The simulated experience of surviving day-to-day life just doesn't cut it. That's exactly what we're trying to get away from by escaping into virtual reality.

Not exactly, anything that is not your normal day to day experience is a simulated experience. Perhaps if you were a Inuit hunter then you wouldn't find the prospect of playing a game about an Inuit hunter quite so appealing. Just as I am sure some soldiers don't like playing as soldiers in video games.

But I do agree on all other accounts. We need better AI for NPCs - Not just combat AI, but personalization and character. One NPC is just like every other NPC, with the only possible exception of providing some different function. And they should DO things outside of your little bubble of existence... Why do they always linger in the exact same spot, perhaps pretending to be "doing something"? All they really do is wait for you to come and use them.

I think this is really the biggest problem that video games have. In order to craft a believable world (even a cartoony anthropomorphic one at that) we need to create NPCs that are more personable, with distinct personalities. Interacting with mannequins is not my idea of an immersive environment.

It's hard to think of how to incorporate this into video games as we know them because we are so used to expecting level up after level up or goal after goal, and reward after reward. 

Well, I think one way to combat this seemingly endless cycle of level-up, gratification repeat is to create an experience that is more rewarding through gameplay. Instead of constantly giving the player a reward for accomplishing a goal, how about sometimes the player doesn't get anything for accomplishing every single little goal. That way when the player is finally rewarded for their efforts it is that much more gratifying. If the developer creates a more immersive experience through dynamic NPCs and well written writing I believe that just playing the game in and of itself would be a rewarding experience.

Why not go ahead and make the game you want to play that nobody else is making?

I am currently in the process of crafting some games. It's just a little slow to go due to my lack of programming experience.

[Don Andy]

I think the problem is that the only people capable of making these games lose that ability the more they get better with making games (if that made any sense).

As a kid, my idea was running wild with game ideas. They had the best features, best graphics and probably would've been a blast to play (sadly I have none of the "documents" of my childhood fantasies left over :T).

But the more I actually got into programming and game making, the more I realized how impossible my ideas were. Awesome graphics? Not without years of work and skills in both art and 3D Modeling. Best of features? Not without extensive studying of a programming language and months/years of dedicated work.

The more I learn programming, the more I learn how hard or possible things are and that limits my creativity by a huge amount. Whenever I have an idea for a game, my second thought is "Can I even do that? Is that even feasible? Do I want to dedicate 3 years of my life just trying to do that?"

It's not that I don't want to make these awesome games, it's that it is (from my knowledge, how wrong or right it may be) not possible for me.

I mean, it's something that I experience daily at work. People that have absolutely no idea about the system (in this case SAP applications with ABAP) just demand things like they want them. It's left to us programmers then to get it for them as good as possible making heaps of compromises along the way. It may be possible to do exactly what the client requested, but we can't spend months on every single request.

[skaldicpoet9]

Well I think the point is that it is possible. It just seems that most developers aren't as focused on story and gameplay as they should be. Yes, graphics in games are great but imagine what could be accomplished if some of the time that was spent making these amazing graphics went more into making amazing and new gameplay experiences.

I understand that programming is a long and arduous process at times, I am currently finding this out first hand but I believe that the extra work is completely worth it to create something new. I would just go ahead and bring my ideas to life through Game Maker which is all well and good but I want the freedom and control that is inherent in a language. If it takes me years so be it (I have already pretty much come to the conclusion that it will) I have time to spare especially when it comes to bringing what I believe to be a good idea to life.

[dither]

Yeah, the more you get into actually making games, the harder it is to avoid automatically, or subconsciously, filtering your ideas to fit your abilities.

On the other hand, I think you can still do some great things with lots of limitations. You'd be surprised at how immersive even technologically inferior graphics can be. The player can suspend disbelief, and fill in the blanks with his own imagination. And not only with graphics, I might add.

[skaldicpoet9]

Yeah, I am usually pretty adept at working around limitations in my abilities in a given environment as opposed to my ideas. When I was making Brain Drain for the B-Game compo I really had no knowledge of Game Maker up until that point and had no idea how I as going to accomplish some of the things that I wanted to in the game. With perseverance and some help from Sean Chan I was able to get the project to at least an alpha stage (I am still working toward the final build of the game).

[Melly]

This is the main reason I heavily approve of people willing to create powerful game creation tools and engines. I want to one day see people bringing those wild ideas to life without too much effort (no more than it takes nowadays to write a fairly decent game). I want tiny teams and single-man developers to stop thinking so much about if they can do it and more on how to make it awesome.

[Corpus]

Inuits, amazons and politicians are boring?

NEW TO ME AMIRITE

Seriously, that's a load of twaddle. Probably balderdash, too.


I think narrative, characterisation and greater focus on symbolism, metaphor etc. are very important. MOTHER 3 is a great example of how this can be done right. It's not even first person!

[Don Andy]

As a sidenote, on my way from work to home (I have about one hour there where my brain is basically unused) I had a really cool and original (even philosophical) idea for a game. It was one of those times where I just think about what'd be cool instead of whether I can do it or not.

But sadly, I cannot. The idea I had would require some extensive 3D-Modeling of both realistic, as well as surreal surroundings.

And no, my idea couldn't be done with low-poly 3D or 2D. The entire experience depends on it being pretty high-resolution 3D.

It was basically a first-person exploration game about questioning both your reality and your own existence.

And aside from the modeling/texturing, I wouldn't even know where to start with programming, as my experience with programming 3D is absolutely zilch.

I'm definitely going to write the whole thing down somewhere. Maybe one day.

[skaldicpoet9]

This is the main reason I heavily approve of people willing to create powerful game creation tools and engines. I want to one day see people bringing those wild ideas to life without too much effort (no more than it takes nowadays to write a fairly decent game). I want tiny teams and single-man developers to stop thinking so much about if they can do it and more on how to make it awesome.

I agree. That is one of the reasons why I love Game Maker. Or rather the idea of Game Maker. It isn't the most powerful tool but I am sure I could mess with it enough to get something pretty awesome out of it. I think that this should be part of the "next level" in games. Players should be allowed to create their own games in a relatively simple to use environment. Games like Spore, Little Big Planet and the Sims have already given the player the tools to create custom content in games at a  relatively low level of entry. If we could get to the point where anyone could take a tool and make something that is top notch I think that we would really see a lot of cool (and obviously, utter crap as well) stuff come out of it.

[Melly]

As long as the creator of the tool creates a proper system to make sure the good rise above the bad, the endless droves of crap are okay. It means the tool is popular and easy to use.

[dither]

When I was a kid, I dreamed of making games, and wrote down my ideas, and even plotted out the graphics on graph paper. I never imagined making 3D games as we know them today, or even that such games would someday exist. (This was in the days of the Atari 2600, and Apple II computers. Anything "3D" was very crude.)

Of course, all of the ideas I had back then could be implemented with something like Multimedia Fusion or Game Maker. In fact, those tools are overpowered compared with the games I played, and imagined creating, as a child.

My point is that there will probably always be something "cutting edge" that you can't do without programming, or a large team, or a huge budget. If Game Maker 15 lets you make something like Half Life 2, that still won't be enough if you want to compete with whatever the big boys are putting out.

You can still do great things, of course. You just have to do them differently. Good games from ten years ago are still good, regardless of the subsequent advancements in technology. If people could make good games on the Apple IIe with all its limitations (and they did), then we can make good games today.

[Titch]

I'm going to disagree with everyone that middle ware and new engines are helping craft a more unique experience. I do think they help lower the entry point for designers starting out and make it easier to prototype combination of certain mechanics. They don't help create new mechanics though. If anything they are counter intuitive to making games more individual.

The more the entry point is lowered, the more needs to be prefabricated for the player. When I started out with Games Factory I would have never really gotten off the ground without the existing movement modes, even though they eventually came to thwart me at every turn. RPGMaker made RPG creation seem easy because it HAD so much pre-fab stuff. Clear out the database of all the stats,tilesets and monsters and suddenly making a game in it becomes an incredibly intimidating prospect. Editing Unreal...don't even get me started, you had to fight three years of FPS code with two rocks and a blunt exacto knife and even once you made it more like something that wasn't a team deathmatch things still looked pretty ugly.

Truly unique games mostly start with features created at an engine level and then the game builds up on them. The original Sonic titles where based on speed; so the engine was crafted to support that. You can't take Flash, MMF or GameMaker and re-create it. You can make an imitation of it or borrow some of it's concepts and make something similar but it never feels quite the same and usually you hit some horrific technical ceiling before you even start to get close to having a game.

I'm not saying that Middleware isn't good. I've played a ton of awesome and some fairly original games that weren't coded in C++ or Assembler. However most of their freshness came from an unusual combination of known mechanics, rather than the creation of new ones.

You would be surprised how many awesome ideas on paper turn out to be a game that already exists when you cut all the fluff off. If anything I feel like my limited resources helps me focus more on creating interesting things that accidentally making Counter Strike with Puppies because it got lost somewhere in the 'original' concept of a dog herding game.

[skaldicpoet9]

I'm going to disagree with everyone that middle ware and new engines are helping craft a more unique experience.

I don't think that anyone said that you could create a unique experience using these tools but you can create something that is fun and perhaps slightly different from whatever it is emulating. The game I created for the B-Game compo was essentially a shmup with different gameplay mechanics. Instead of controlling a single ship blasting enemies you were a big motherbrain that could use a tentacle to harvest more brains from your enemies to build your fire power. This in and of itself isn't an incredible departure from the usual shmup fare but it is somewhat new when it comes to how a shmup is played. I have many other ideas for the game as well that I think are perfectly within the scope of the Game Maker environment. Now no one is going to do something that hasn't already been done in some way but I think that  the basic tools are available that enable someone to refine something that has already been created.

[Chris Whitman]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and just recommend keeping it real.

[skaldicpoet9]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and just recommend keeping it real.

?

[Seth]

It's always mechanics mechanics mechanics!  I've had it up to my head with new mechanics! 

MOTHER 3 was a truly unique experience and the only new mechanic it had was the music beat timing, which wasn't even necessary for the game.