Getting my Act Together

Gah! I should have made this post a week ago. Anyway this post is to go over the topic of game designing. Alot of silly people use the term 'Game Design' instead of presentation and all sorts of confusing things happens as the discussion proceeds. So for those who don't understand what is meant by 'Game Design', it is a term used to describe the game environment, mechanics and functionality.

Good gameplay is the key to making a game successful. At the end of the day players will play a game that will function well. it doesn't matter if it looks nice and pretty (well unless it is completely horrendous) if it fails to work, for example glitch, lag, etc, no one will like it. Also gameplay has to be intuitive and original to stand out. As technology advances, machines are becoming capable of processing complex things. Various game mechanics are then added to core gameplay elements. Examples of game mechanics include power ups, cover systems, quick-time events.

What makes me upset about this however is that developers love copying each others ideas and thus what we would have seen as innovative game design is now generic and often over-used. Even worse some genres of games completely die out in favour for 'modern' version. Old adventure games like Grim Fandango and the Monkey Island series are now overshadowed by newer adventure games which are more action orientated and disgustingly more popular. I feel that the RPG is going down the same path, a situation I fear the most since the RPG is my favourite genre. The main issue is turn-based combat. Those who dislike turn-based RPGs tend to enjoy more action orientated experience in real-time. Games like Diablo and Fable are preferred by these action-hungry players and those game tend to be very similar to game of another genre: the hack-and-slash. What separates these games apart is viewable and adjustable stas in the RPG. However it will probably be a matter of time before people will get bored stats in favour for something with less micro-management and the RPG will never be the same again.

Hopefully I should be up to date with my blog posts now. Expect a new post soon for this week.