So, it’s been a while since I’ve made a design post, not because I’m no longer interested in design, but because I’ve been so overwhelmed with making a product, that I haven’t had much time to a) play games or b) really think about their design. But these are just excuses really, right? If there were things out there that I wanted to play, I would find the time to play them. But, as it stands, I’ve had a hard time getting attached to anything out there, instead going back and either replaying things through GameTap, or trying out new indie titles through recommendations from TIGSource (probably my favorite of all indie games blogs by the way). Even then, I tend to play those games for about 30 minutes, mostly to check them out, and then throw them away. What’s with that? I used to do all night game binges!
I think there are a few things that contribute to this I think, but let’s just start with the ones that are interesting to me from a design perspective. As it stands, I really only get seriously addicted to two or three types of games. The first type is rhythm games, and we’ve seen our fair share of these in the past few years. Harmonix is quite possibly one of my favorite game companies right now simply because they released my favorite rhythm game of all time (Amplitude) and are continuing to do some awesome things while still making the whole thing feel like a game (I’m not interested, too much, in actually needing to learn to sight read to play my games).
The second type of game has a very complex quantifier to it. I could basically make it simple and say “Adventure Games,” or make it more specific and say “Sierra-style Adventure Games,” but, unfortunately, that’s only half the story. I love adventure games of all types, but I’m particularly attracted to specific styles of adventure games, ones that offer interesting but logical puzzles, are driven by complex plots, and offer a sense of improvement and plot agency. The addition of, say, platformer elements doesn’t help or hinder things for me really, though I have been known to play a lot of the original Jak and Daxter and Ratchet and Clank.
What spoiled me to this type of game was probably my favorite game to date, Quest For Glory 4: Shadows of Darkness. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been trying to figure out what about it made that game particularly striking for me, and why I’ve gone back and played it through several times, even with more modern adventure and plot-based games on the market. For me, it mostly comes back to agency theory. Shadows of Darkness has a lot the type of agencies I enjoy: places in it where you affect the game world as part of the over-arching plot, as well as improving stats. Additionally, as the game goes on, the characters change their tone; they tend trust you more and more for doing good deeds, and there are even several “side quests” for specific characters that they will also comment on, for the rest of the game (reuniting the shop keeper and her husband come to mind, as does robbing the old man’s house). All around, lots of agency to be had here, and the affects of your actions are very noticeable.
However, there’s something else that always strikes me about Shadows of Darkness, and that is its very dark plot. Shadows of Darkness dealt with the topics of sacrifice, prejudice, friendship, and love better than any other game I’ve played, partially because it built from an ambiance of darkness and ethical ambiguity right from the start. There are points where the correct answer does not always feel right, and places where the people that are evil don’t always feel wrong. But you move through the game doing these things, not because they are the answer to the puzzle and the way to move forward, but because they are what needs to be done to set the world right again, regardless of the consequences. The sacrifice of Toby near the end of the game, Katrina’s sacrifice at the very end of the game, the dreams with Erana, and the fact that you have to work with Baba Yagga to beat the game are some of my favorite moments in gaming, partially because they are so dark and yet so necessary to actually winning over the Dark One. And, SoD is one of the only games I thought ever really achieved that feeling. In the end, I kinda wish I knew if it was intentionally designed/written that way or not.
Unfortunately, now a days, with my work computer being my only gaming quality computer, and me wanting to work when I’m sitting at it, I’ve yet to find a game that grabs me just as much as QfG4 did. Maybe soon, but we’ll see.