Samples of great game design and innovation
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Hey everyone. I'm organizing a indie game club here at my college. I want to give a small presentation on innovative game design. I was wondering what games and or articles epitomize the concepts of good game design. I know about flow and braid and world of goo. I'm looking for other games and articles that talk about the specifics of game design and what makes these games unique. Thanks for any input!
Innovation: GTA1/2 - created an immersive open world city filled with traffic and a police force. Then distributed content to the player in the form of missions handed out by gangs. Missions involved interacting with these dynamic elements: cars/traffic, gangs, police/army. Police had varying levels of "hate", gangs had varying level's of "hate", and cars let you listen to fake radio stations!
Portal, and other "portal + gravity" based games - Narbacular Drop, Prey.
Portal technology in games has been around for eons, but Prey was a real mind bender for creating gravity based puzzles using them. Portal used portal puzzles as its main game mechanic, which was a fantastically brave move and worked very well.
Portal technology in games has been around for eons, but Prey was a real mind bender for creating gravity based puzzles using them. Portal used portal puzzles as its main game mechanic, which was a fantastically brave move and worked very well.
I'll give my vote to the Fallout series, although I haven't played 3 yet, I like very much the way the game adapts to the way you play it. You can kill everyone out or persuade them, or sneak and steal, there are several ways to complete the game. And there is no NPC you can't shot, wich is amazing.
The ludologist in me would maybe say Tetris. So simple, so abstract, so addictive. :)
But the gamer says something like Half Life; it was the first game that gave me the feeling of a living world, even though it is actually really heavily scripted; I only see that now because I have study games so much since, kind of ruins it :|.
Fallout can definitely get this as well, I only played the second one recently in anticipation of the third, the first was just way too dated unfortuately. I am so annoyed I missed that series; note to self play more games so this doesn't happen again :p
But the gamer says something like Half Life; it was the first game that gave me the feeling of a living world, even though it is actually really heavily scripted; I only see that now because I have study games so much since, kind of ruins it :|.
Fallout can definitely get this as well, I only played the second one recently in anticipation of the third, the first was just way too dated unfortuately. I am so annoyed I missed that series; note to self play more games so this doesn't happen again :p
Deadspace - Fully ingame / in character / in world UI.
Supreme Commander - Strategic Zoom
Portal
Tetris
Myst - gameplay was 'adventure puzzle game' but it was epicly different
GoldenEye / Halo - FPS can be done on a console, and well.
WingCommander 3 - live action video + branching story
Phantasmagoria - Adventure game using live action video for many things, including the main avatar.
Supreme Commander - Strategic Zoom
Portal
Tetris
Myst - gameplay was 'adventure puzzle game' but it was epicly different
GoldenEye / Halo - FPS can be done on a console, and well.
WingCommander 3 - live action video + branching story
Phantasmagoria - Adventure game using live action video for many things, including the main avatar.
For more recent indies, check out Aquaria.
As a shining example of good game design, I offer The Secret of Monkey Island.
As a shining example of good game design, I offer The Secret of Monkey Island.
One game that comes to mind is Socom, the original for Ps2. It was the first console-based online shooter and completely changed that whole market, plus it was extremely addicting until the cheaters came in. But that also taught the game companies to worry about cheaters online even in console based games.
Other than that, Legend of Zelda: ocarina of time and those other staples of innovation that we all know and love.
Other than that, Legend of Zelda: ocarina of time and those other staples of innovation that we all know and love.
An awesome website to check out is the Valve Publications page on Valve Software's website. They publish various presentations about their games and technologies, and the one I have found to be of the most interest is the article about their "Cabal" process from '99.
Ico and Shadow of the Collosus, both from Team ICO.
Ico was very simplistic, but from a graphical perspective broke many, many grounds and arguably set the standard for games on the PS2 to come. Surprisingly for an RPG, the story was very obscure and much was left up to the player to interpret. The game struck an emotional cord, however, even with limited dialog.
SotC uses many of the same elements of Ico, but also added a very deep level of gameplay, combining epic combat with action-adventure puzzle solving and world exploration. It has received almost universal praise, and few games can match the epic scale of it's world and battles.
These games shook the market so much that nothing more than Team ICO's recent mention of another game put it on the top of the list of Tokyo Game Show 2008's most anticipated games (according to GameTrailers.com). They're probably worth mentioning.
Ico was very simplistic, but from a graphical perspective broke many, many grounds and arguably set the standard for games on the PS2 to come. Surprisingly for an RPG, the story was very obscure and much was left up to the player to interpret. The game struck an emotional cord, however, even with limited dialog.
SotC uses many of the same elements of Ico, but also added a very deep level of gameplay, combining epic combat with action-adventure puzzle solving and world exploration. It has received almost universal praise, and few games can match the epic scale of it's world and battles.
These games shook the market so much that nothing more than Team ICO's recent mention of another game put it on the top of the list of Tokyo Game Show 2008's most anticipated games (according to GameTrailers.com). They're probably worth mentioning.
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