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

377

1/20/2020

0 Comments

 
We have traveled to Disney parks a few times now. On each trip I spend a percentage of it just studying the construction of, well, everything. There are so many small details in those parks that aren’t the products of chance. Each small scrape carved into the artificial stone, each crack snaking its way through a wooden pillar, each trail of rust drifting down from simulated steel rivets. All of those details have been placed there and maintained meticulously in the hope that you will never notice them. Individually these details are works of talented craftspeople worthy of respect and praise. Combined, they become invisible. Just one one small contribution the intended effect; to transport an audience of park attendees to another place and time. They will become wrapped up in the story going on around them. The real magic to Disney parks is that you are never supposed to know it’s a trick.
Game designs are, for the most part, linear. This is a feature built into the medium. The player is supposed to play through each level, area, or challenge, completing them and moving forward until they reach the end. Game designers are taught to always direct the player in subtle and overt ways. The grandest sin is to leave the player feeling directionless and lost. The design drum beat repeatedly since the arcade days that the objective must always be clear and the path too it must be obvious. There is no other way, or other ways have been tried and failed. I mean, why would anyone question the wisdom of decades of game development?
Disney theme parks have one major guiding principle. Everything is built to tell the story. Everything. After you walk through the main gate the imagineers who designed the space have no control over what you look at, where you go, or how you experience it. The story of the place, the experience, must be everywhere and built into everything. Park designers can’t control what you do, but they can try to give you some hints. Sightlines, color pallets, angles, indicators, pathways, all tools in the designers kit. The fact remains that when you are in a theme park no one will be there to tell you how to enjoy it.
For years in video game design we clung to the platitude that the designer can’t tell the player what to do. The player is a rogue element and as soon as they are let loose on a game, all bets are off. For the most part, that hasn’t been true at all. Press A to start, press start to start, move left to right, move bottom to top, jump here, shoot here, defeat all enemies to open doors, find keycard to open doors, have this adventure in this way for this amount of time. I’m not saying a directed experience isn’t valid. Some truly wonderful games have been made that are absolutely on rails. For a very long time, that was really the only practical way to make games. Technical limitations required more or less linear experiences. It is now technically feasible to create unconstrained spaces, but let's not kid ourselves, most “open world” games are rail lines with switching stations. Design wisdom would say that you can’t really do it any other way. The Imagineers would say otherwise.
Then there are the other games. Games like Skyrim, games like Breath of the Wild, games like Outer Wilds. These games are theme parks. Subtle hints and gentle nudges are all that can be detected of the designers intent. The trick of the game, the pathing of the space, the push toward a narrative conclusion is, like the Disney parks, mostly invisible. The story is told too and by the person experiencing it, at the pace they want to experience it. Story is woven into every little detail but asks nothing specific of the player. 
When you wander around a Disney park they know that you will be waiting, they know that you will back track, they know that you will see each attraction and feature from different angles and vantages. All of these eventualities have been considered and planned for. The design language for truly wonderful open world video games was being developed before the integrated circuit was even a viable technology.
~
I literally wrote all of this to say that Outer Wilds isn’t an adventure game, it’s a theme park and it’s wonderful and you should play it.

​
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