Some thoughts on video game design

[brasswatchman]

So the very day that I returned a book considering this very subject to the Tri-C library, I came across this article at the Escapist: String Theory: The Illusion of Videogame Interactivity. It poses a question about video game design that I've actually been thinking a lot about recently (and yes, I have been thinking about video game design a lot

Comments

[oogby]

I could babble here about a variety of topics, but I'll just stick to the environmental storytelling question you ask. :)

I have this big book about the making of Riven (the sequel to Myst), and in it, they make it abundantly clear that what they wanted to do was to tell a story through this fairly static environment

[brasswatchman]

I have this big book about the making of Riven (the sequel to Myst), and in it, they make it abundantly clear that what they wanted to do was to tell a story through this fairly static environment... In my opinion, they completely failed; playing the game, I had no idea that they were trying to do this.

One of the things I found interesting about that book when I took a look at it last week is they mentioned associating a different architectural style with each character; the antagonist, supposedly, tended to build very Victorian buildings, while the villagers and rebels the player would ally with had a more natural, sort of primitive style. That was interesting. But I see your point - maybe those distinctions are really too subtle for a player to pick up in the middle of gameplay.

However, I think they failed because of another, different design goal they had: they wanted the environment to be very open, so that players who could not solve the puzzles still got to enjoy this fantastic world