I am perfectly calm.

27 Mar 06

David had a little stomach bug today. He seems fine now. I'm still edging near panicked parent stage. I'm actually pretty calm, but that's only because I'm able to ignore the crazy worries that come into my head. They never happened before I was a parent at least not like this. If I took them seriously, I'm pretty sure I'd be running around screaming.

Anyway, I'm not in best frame of mind to be writing, so take this with a grain of salt. It seems that GDC had another rant session this year. Thanks to Wonderland for transcribing it again. I can't say I was impressed this time. It all seemed rather childish.

Yes, the industry needs to be more professional. Yes, they need to get over the childish storytelling techniques. Yes, gaming needs to be more accessible to more people to grow. I just don't see how platitudes and profanity help anything.

I shouldn't complain without offering any solutions. So here's one. Think first of telling a story. Build the game around the story. Then first ask they player how they want to play. A more passive player might want to experience more like a movie, switching between characters and controlling the camera, but not the action. While another player may want to make key decisions that affect the direction and outcome of the story, but still keep hands off the action. Others might want to control one character throughout even to the point of sacrificing part of the story. Yet another might want to control the game like a tactical game while someone else plays it like a shooter.

That all sounds impossible. But that's only true if you keep thinking of design in terms of the way games are today. If you look at the "Make Something Unreal" contest, you see that modern engines can do all these things. You won't have the depth of the gameplay experience of dedicated first person shooter, but you'll have more flexibility in how you experience the game and the story.

Now if you could do all that online with a director for more passive viewers and a game master tweaking the story to the players choices, you'd really have something. I like to rant, but I like to dream more.

Jason