|
Velociryx
|
 |
of Candle'Bre
Apr 1999
time: 05:36
|
|
This is a really important thing to me…probably the most important thing, and not just because it’s what I know the most about, either.
I’ve been playing computer games since the days of the TI 99/4 and VIC 20 (that was back when you could buy code books for five bucks, type in the game code yourself, then spend a few days debugging and THEN have at it!), and I know what I like in a game. Not surprisingly, my own preferences have heavily influenced design decisions throughout the process, and one of the things that really gets my pumped up about playing a game is an intricate story that I can both become a part of and manipulate.
Yeah yeah, I like building up cities and optimizing kingdoms and smashing enemy armies, but those things cannot exist in a vacuum. True, to a point, I make my own story as I play, but the world existed before I came along, and will continue on without me after I’ve gone…so give me the scoop on it! Setting and background is very important. For that matter, details are very important. Details are like salt. Pretty easy thing to do without…you won’t die if you don’t get to put salt on your fries, but they sure make ‘em taste better!
One of my all time favorite computer games is SMAC/X, and atmosphere and story has a lot to do with why.
In terms of mechanics, it’s pretty standard 4x stuff with a couple of intriguing innovations (design workshop and SE table). Now, don’t get me wrong, those elements are cool, but you wanna know what REALLY makes the game memorable? I can quote you…QUOTE word for word some of the famous quotes from the game (I can’t recite the Gettysburg Address word for word, but I can tell you the exact quote from CEO Morgan that pops up after you build your first Energy Bank…Network Node too, for that matter, and Tree Farms, and…). Every tech advance has a ‘blurb’ by either one of the in-game leaders or a member of one of their factions. First time you build a particular type of city improvement, more quotes. Wonders, still more quotes. It’s a small thing, and you would think insignificant, but if it’s so insignificant, then why is it that practically everybody who’s still playing the game today can rattle off at least half a dozen of their ‘favorite quotes?’ It’s because they’re memorable, and they make the game memorable. It’s details like that that transform a good game into a great game, and Civ3 really missed the boat there. Imagine if every tech advance gave some little snippet….Discover Philosophy and get a quote from Kant. Discover writing and get a little quote from “The Illiad.” Education + Entertainment = Masterpiece.
In our case, like SMAC, since we’re dealing with a world that doesn’t exist, we can’t pull from historic examples, but I’m not letting that stop me. I’m populating this world with characters who will speak to you from tech advance screens, provincial improvement notifications, acts of fate, and pretty much every other place I can think of to squeeze more atmosphere in. In this world, your People are not mute. They have a voice. Fears and dreams and concerns, and sometimes just plain random musings, and they make them known through atmosphere texts. It’ll be a fine day indeed if I pull into the ol’ Candle’Bre forums and see a thread asking ‘What’s your Favorite CB Quote?’, cos the day I see that, I’ll know that I really got it right in that regard.
But there’s more to creating atmosphere and telling a story than just inventing a few names and ascribing some catchy phrases to them. Stories need drama, plot twists, and uncertainty. They need danger and intrigue, and in a computer game, they also need….choice. If you want all that and nothing more, you’ll read a book, but if you want to become immersed in a living, breathing world and experience it all, then there needs to be some mechanism in place to interact with all those elements….in short, you need choice.
And I’m not talking about choices where how to do things in the game are concerned. That’s basic good manners, as far as I’m concerned…to design the interface in such a way that there are lots of paths to the whateveryouwannado (example: Want to build an army? You can do that in Candle’Bre from the main overview map or down at the province detail map….whichever. You choose.
And that kind of choice is important too, but that should be built into the framework of EVERY program (and for the most part, it is!).
Story-driven and story-driving choices though, are another matter entirely.
Now most 4x games offer choice in a handful of highly similar ways. Choose what tech to research next. Choose what to build next in every city, etc.
The problem here is that the choices ultimately don’t matter a lot, and you wanna know why? Because in many 4x games (and Civ3 failed us in this regard, IMO), you’ll get around to building absolutely everything anyways, so really, all you’re doing is deciding what particular order to build stuff in, and ultimately, that’s not much of a choice.
We don’t have that here.
By it’s design, and given average game length, it’s just about impossible to research all the techs in all the trees (unless you’re just milking the game, which is entirely possible, and…your choice… ), and it is patently impossible to build every type of building in every province. There are real tradeoffs here. What do you need? What will help push your strategy? What can you live without (this time)?
Since you know going in that you CANNOT do everything, those choices are suddenly a lot more important than if you know you’ll eventually do it all anyway, and that, in my mind, makes for truly compelling game play.
In a similar vein, we’ve got choice built heavily into the Fate Engine. Some of those choices will make you salivate and wish you can pick ‘em all….some will make you cringe and agonize over how best to guide your holdings through them without having everything fly apart around you….nailbiting choices. Choices offered in such a way that they make a real, compelling, long term difference to the game you’re playing. When you’re sitting up at three in the morning after having guided your nation through a variety of trials, and watching the impacts of your decisions reverberate through the country you’re building….yeah, that’s one more turn syndrome and then some, and that’s what we’re trying to do.
We’re trying to craft…not build and design but craft such an intricate web of a world here that it will leave your head spinning, and make you click that “end turn” button just to discover what waits for you just around the bend.
A lot of 4x games lose their magic after a few times playing.
Tech beelines become crystal clear, and the whole game takes on an essentially linear feeling.
Do this, then this, then skip over to this, yadda yadda yadda and you win.
Our hope is to avoid that and again, the Fate Engine will help in that regard because it introduces an element of uncertainty.
Gone are the days when you absolutely KNOW the rules of the game going in, cos things can happen in the world that will change (sometimes radically) some of those rules, and when that happens, you gotta be ready to adapt.
The basic structure of Candle’Bre is linear, yes. Even more linear than Civ and SMAC (our tech trees don’t even have branches!). But supporting that linear structure is a convoluted web of events and possibilities, and the random nature of that web makes it unlikely in the extreme that any two games will play out the same way. One key choice made differently and the whole flavor changes. The direction of the story shifts all the way down to the bedrock level, and you’re suddenly in uncharted territory again.
Our ability to deliver that kind of gaming experience is bounded only by our imaginations, and the imaginations of the modding community that does not exist yet….
-=Vel=-
|
24-06-2004 03:49
and that would be a bad thing? 
|
|