Innovate me

I think games too often focus on implementing old systems with a new GUI shell, or slightly tweaked story. This is particularly true for many adventure or RPG style games, which depend more heavily on story than many other games. By sticking to common systems, such as the experience based levelling system and D&D dice based combat, or damage multiplier based combat system, game developers are guaranteed that on that front at least their game isn’t going to fail. Instead they focus on coming up with an original story and fancy graphics, with potentially some nice new features, to cover the fact that their game is really only a reworked shell of hundreds of older titles. The problem is, this latter part often isn’t done well: game stories are frequently lacking substance and quality that they should have (at least in the sci-fi / fantasy area) and most graphics revolutions seem to be in FPSs and racing games.

Take for instance the traditional fantasy model: just once I would like to play a fantasy based adventure or RPG game where I am not a prodigy child or hero that has been prophecised about. It only takes reading a few novels in the fantasy genre to learn a few things about this model:

1. It’s excessively overused
2. When the story does not follow this model, it is generally a much better read

These thoughts on innovative story lines have been prompted by the book I’m currently reading: The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant by Stephen R. Donaldson. This is a widely acclaimed (apparently) novel of the fantasy genre. However, I have, thus far, been utterly disappointed by how stereotypical a story it is. At approximately 200 pages in it is completely unoriginal and not even written that interestingly. Granted it took a different path in introducing the fantasy world, but once there the story represents everything that makes fantasy boring: prophesised (and reluctant) hero, land with very definitive good and evil, self-righteous people and all that jazz. As previously mentioned, books form a great source of inspiration for me. Even the bad ones, such as this, have prompted several thoughts on how story plays such a part, especially in fantasy genred games, and how important it consequently is to provide game players with something truly original.

Conflict mechanics in games are another area that could do with an innovative overhaul. Lecture 4 mentioned conflict as being an integral element of games, and explained how various different styles of coflict can be implemented in game. Although several avenues for conflict can be implemented in games, so often in a vast majority of fantasy titles do they only implement the oldest Physical style of conflict. In some more recent titles we’re starting to see examples of Verbal conflict, and situations that promote employing other means to avoid physical conflict. However, generally speaking, this form of conflict is still the dominant form in most fantasy adventure and RPG games. Granted, the genre tends to be fairly combat oriented, but this is no reason why it should lack innovation and exploration.

I would love to see RPGs that implement a revolutionary combat system that wasn’t dependent on the roll of a dice, or the damage multiplier and other relevant stats of a character. So too would I love to see a higher prevelance of focus on conflict in games that explores other avenues such as political and social conflict. Their limited existence has proven to have interesting side effects on games, and it could revolutionise the genre to bring out games that had a much higher dependency on maintaining political alliances, or staging economic coups on others.