In my previous article raising questions I wondered if games can be more mature, in a sense that they deliver a more mature experience, rather then displaying ‘mature’ content. I believe that maturity has a lot to do with responsibility, as we grow up we become more responsible for ourselves and for others.
What I discovered is that games tend to take a lot of responsibility away from the player. The goals of the player tell the player what to do and the rewards and punishments tell the player if he is doing a good job. There is almost no responsibility left for the player to create the experience and therefore the experience doesn’t feel very mature. For some reason game players seem to enjoy this and games have become better and better in providing these childish mechanics. I too, contribute to these childish ways of doing, and I do not think there is anything wrong with providing this way of entertainment, but I am curious if it can be different.
So my previous article ended with the question if mature games have to get rid of these mechanics that supposedly are so connected to good games.
Now in this article I will be looking at the biggest offenders. What elements of a game take away the most responsibility of the player? And, if we think or apply them differently, are we then getting closer to a more mature game? Or maybe we can’t call it a game any more?
One of the many goals I would like to achieve as a game designer is to create a game that feels like a mature game, a game that speaks to its players in a mature manner. I think it is important to investigate this subject matter as I believe our audience is maturing as well. Kids growing up with video games are grown up and may demand their entertainment to grow with them. Children stories are replaced by novels and cartoons are replaced by movies and series. Games mostly do not seem to have this distinction yet, or at least not that obvious.
There are some examples of more mature games and for me the most notable are Fumito Ueda’s games Ico and Shadow of the Colossus.
While thinking about the subject of maturing and what it is about I came to the conclusion that maturing is about responsibility, for ourselves and ultimately for others as well. And it seems that games tend to take more and more responsibility away from the player. Games guide the player through their interactive maze telling the player what to do and how to do it. This is the world, these are the rules and that is your goal, enjoy! Continue reading ‘Raising questions’
How do you come up with innovative ideas? How do you find new solution and be creative? How can you force originality when an assignment asks for it? The answer lies in something that may feel counter intuitive for lots of people. It is about accepting and acknowledging limits in the creative process and creating more, instead of opening up your mind and adding ideas upon ideas.
To explain how this works I’m going to use the term ‘thinking outside the box’ as a metaphor for how our creative process works. So when we’re talking about thinking outside the box, what does the box actually mean?
For me the box can be compared to our mind. It has 2 distinct features namely the border and the content. The content refers to all our ideas, thoughts and concepts that we may think of while the border keeps this all together. It is really hard, if not impossible, to think beyond these borders. Without borders, there would be no box and no limit to our thoughts. Without the box our thoughts would be infinite. So, where do our borders come from?
in-lusio.com features thoughts on play and games. It tries to open up a discussion about games, to discover what they are, what they mean and why we enjoy playing them.
in-lusio.com will also be a place where I share my ideas about the creation process of games; theoretical and hopefully also practical. I welcome any comment by people who share the same fascination of our exciting medium.
