Electric Turnip
  • Blog
  • Stories
    • Story 000
    • Story 001
    • Story 002
    • Story 004
    • Story 007 - Unfinished
    • Story 008
    • Story 010 - BattleWagon
    • Story 012
  • Images
    • Adventure Caddie concept gallery
    • Page Design Gallery
    • Older Work
  • 5FEAT Video
  • Videos
  • Game Experiments
    • Climb
    • Super Shapetoy
    • TurboGarbageTruck
    • 031 - Best Games - Enchanter
    • 033 - Shader Test
  • Contact

160

11/23/2015

0 Comments

 
I nearly fell into a classic game development blunder. At least I assume that it’s a classic, I haven’t really made enough games to know the full spectrum of blunders. I figure if I drunkenly stomp my way into a few of them every week or so I’ll eventually get to all of the classics.
This particular blunder was trying to shoehorn gameplay into a theme.
Most games will hang some sort of story, even very loosely, around the mechanics of the game. Chess names the pieces as if they were mock kingdoms at war. Chess needs no story. It could exist entirely in the abstract. The pieces could be ranked by size, or numbered, or have their movement options etched into them. Any of these options could actually serve the game better, by making it more user accessible. Rather than having to teach a new player that the horse is actually a knight, maybe, and its movements are completely different than any other piece on the board. At one point during the evolution of chess from a much older Indian game, Chaturanga, the horse made good sense. Now it is just a weird relic achieved by having a game adhere to a battlefield theme.
Of course there are several games that are completely abstract, like Reversi (which had theme applied to it when it was later marketed as Othello), Go (which may or may not have arisen from siege tactics), Backgammon, and Tetris. In the case of videogames, a game without a theme is rare. It might have something to do with how we experience them. Fast action on a screen is the domain of drama. We are accustomed to seeing and hearing stories delivered through screens, so adding story, theme, and characters to videogames might be a natural extension of that familiarity.
Whatever the reason, videogames are historically linked to theme, and I made the mistake of prioritizing theme over mechanics. The truth is, games are a do, don’t show, medium. Mechanics always trumps theme. Or always should. Even the mechanic of a Choose Your Own Adventure story is more important than the theme, since the story devolves into nonsense as soon as you diverge from the mechanic of making choices and turning to the appropriate page. The theme is interchangeable with other themes, but the mechanic is not. It is the mechanic of choices in a branching narrative that makes a Choose Your Own Adventure book what it is, not the story.
I had, or maybe have, a theme based around chemistry, or at least a comedic outlook on chemistry. I had done a fair bit of research into actual, real world chemical reactions, and began applying what I learned to the mechanics of my game. I am certain that a game could be built around atomic interactions as we understand them, but I was finding that it was becoming more and more difficult to make the game fun. Or at the very least, not needlessly complex.
I really enjoy the theme I was working with. I even liked some of the jokes I had written based around that theme, but I had lost sight of what makes a game, a game. What is it they always tell you when dealing with creative works? You have to be ready to kill your darlings. If the theme isn’t working for the game, then the theme has to go, not the game mechanics. The very moment this sunk through my head, I came up with (and began implementing) several ways to make the game fun. They will have to be tested as abstract game mechanics to see if they work, and they can’t rely on theme to prop them up if they don’t. Maybe, eventually, I’ll be able to draw the original theme back into the game. If so, then great, but if the game mechanics and the theme are at odds, it is the theme that has to be cut loose every single time.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    June 2012
    October 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    November 2010
    October 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010
    April 2010

    Categories

    All
    Adventure Caddie
    Best Games

    RSS Feed

Owen McManus
  • Blog
  • Stories
    • Story 000
    • Story 001
    • Story 002
    • Story 004
    • Story 007 - Unfinished
    • Story 008
    • Story 010 - BattleWagon
    • Story 012
  • Images
    • Adventure Caddie concept gallery
    • Page Design Gallery
    • Older Work
  • 5FEAT Video
  • Videos
  • Game Experiments
    • Climb
    • Super Shapetoy
    • TurboGarbageTruck
    • 031 - Best Games - Enchanter
    • 033 - Shader Test
  • Contact