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April 04, 2008
In Praise of Euro/German Games
In 1995 Klaus Teuber developed “Die Siedler von Catan” (“The Settlers of Catan”) and the board game industry was reborn – at least in Europe (particularly Germany, although France and England eventually joined in). Before ‘Catan, board games tended to sell only moderately well, and rarely outside of their home country. Catan however was a smash hit, selling over 10 million copies around the world.
The success of Catan signaled to many designers that it was possible to create a hit game. As a result, more time, money and energy was invested in game development in the following years, and as more games were also successful, it became clearer that there was a new style of game that the public wanted. These are often called “German Style Games” or EuroGames.
What these games tend to have in common is:
- They support a variable number of players, so regardless of how many people you have, you can play.
- They don’t require a lot of education to play (simple math, etc.), people from a variety of backgrounds can play.
- No players are eliminated in the course of play. In the better games, this goes so far as to keep it uncertain who is actually winning until the very end, so it stays interesting for everyone.
- Multiple ways to win, so the game supports different play styles at the same time.
- Carefully balanced. Some of the more successful game designers are actually professional mathematicians who carefully calculate the odds of various forms of wins to ensure that they are all equally likely.
- Unusual game mechanics. Even when there are dice and cards, they tend to be used in unusual ways.
What has developed from this is a small list of very successful game designers in Europe (actually Moon lives in the US these days; but he started out in England):
- Klaus Teuber (The Settlers of Canaan, Entdecker, Die Neuen Entdecker, Löwenherz)
- Reiner Knizia (Tigris and Euphrates, Taj Mahal, Modern Art, Amun-Re)
- Wolfgang Kramer (El Grande, Tikal, Princes of Florence, Torres)
- Alan R. Moon (Down with the King, Elfenland, Ticket to Ride)
Kramer is probably my favorite of the bunch; but I strongly recommend any of these games. The US company Rio Grande games is in the business of importing these titles into America.
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
April 03, 2008
DDO vs LotRO
Over the past couple of years I have been playing two Massively Multiplayer Online games (MMO's); both of which are developed by the same company (Turbine). This after starting to play perhaps a half-dozen other MMOs over the years, most of which failed to capture my attention for even a month. What I find particularly interesting is how different the two games are despite my common interest in them and the obvious amount of technology they share. Actually Turbine categorizes these games as "Massive Persistent Online Worlds", which makes sense given some of my observations below.
To start with there is Dungeons and Dragons Online (DDO), which has kept my attention for over two years (although I haven't actually played it much recently for reasons I will get into). Turbine's goal with this project was to reproduce online the experience of getting together with a bunch of friends to play the old pen-and-paper version of D&D. The whole experience is built around getting together a group of players and going out on one of the many quests available in the game. There is a small amount of content that you can play solo; but not enough to make any real progress.
The game is very well implemented. If you have a good PC, the graphics are wonderful (there have been many occasions when I came to the crest of some hill in an adventure and just had to stop and look because the view was so beautiful). While they have had to hack the D&D rules a bit to make them work in the context of a real-time online game; the flavor of pen-and-paper D&D is still very much there. Most of all, the hand-crafted quests are interesting, varied, and often challenging. They range from basic "bad guys are over there, go and kill anything you see" to complex puzzle adventures which might take a couple tries to get right. There are also many quest-chains where there are a series of adventure you need to go on in sequence to read the big prize at the end. And through it all you get to meet and interact with people and even make friends. The social aspects of the game are one of it strengths.
And one of its weaknesses. If you have a group of friends who play and can arrange to get together at the same time on a regular basis, the game is without peer. The next best thing is to be a part of a decent guild that meets on nights you tend to be free. The problem is that the guilds that are worth being members of tend to expect you to be involved on a regular basis. The final option is to look for "pick up groups" (PUGs) whenever you are able to play – looking around for people who also are looking for a group and putting together one on the fly. This can take a significant amount of time and the quality of players is obviously quite variable.
In all of these cases, once you have a group formed, there is a sense of commitment there. Dropping out in the middle of a quest is a serious breach of protocol. Dropping out in the middle of a quest chain is equally as bas as finding someone who needs to pick up the chain at exactly that spot is hard. Even if you are doing individual quests with a PUG, leaving the group puts the remaining folks in the position of burning another quarter hour (or more) looking for a replacement. The net effect of all this is that if you are going to sit down to play DDO, you really need to be able to set aside several hours with only relatively short interruptions. This is mitigated some if you are playing with a close group of friends and agree in advance how long you will play; but the principle is there.
In the end, these limitations make my playing DDO impractical most of the time. I still log in once in a while and join some PUG for a few quick adventures; but I can't commit to enough time on a regular schedule to really take advantage of everything the game has to offer. That I am unavailable to give time to my wife if she needs help with something while playing DDO is also an issue. (BTW – if any of my old East-Coast gaming friends ever get on to DDO, I'd be quite willing to set aside some time to play with them).
Last year, Turbine released Lord of the Rings Online (LotRO); and with this game they have taken a very different approach. While DDO is group oriented with a little solo content, LotRO is solo oriented with a little group content. Actually that is overstating it a bit. Almost everything in LotRO is designed to be done as a group or solo and there are feature of the game you can only use when part of a group; but the key is that there are only a small number of quests that are designated as "fellowship" quests (group recommended), and even those can be done solo if you are high enough level (you get less benefit from finishing them that way; but they can be done).
The result is that LotRO is a game I can play solo as I have time available. Even with a spare 30 minutes I can make some progress (in DDO you can burn 30 minutes just trying to put together a PUG). Plus, I am never far from a "safe" point, so if Anne needs my help on something I can usually oblige her with only a short delay. The result is that I am having a great time playing LotRO and it has proven to be marriage-friendly. The graphics are just as good as in DDO (climbing up the hill at Bags End and looking out over The Shire is great). I still have some issues with each of the character classes being "on rails" (allowing for very little variation); but they have begun to address that.
My only remaining issue is that the quests, while numerous, are not as varied as those in DDO. There are too many "I need 20 bear skins, go and kill 20 bears for me" type quests and too few puzzle type quests. This is mostly a reflection that LotRO is primarily built around overland adventures so far (mimicking the Fellowship of the Ring's travels). However this winter they are releasing a new expansion – adding the Mines of Moria to the map (currently it only goes as far as Rivendell). Adding adventures in a developed underground area certainly provides opportunities for more varied quests.
Again, if any of my readers play DDO or LotRO, please let me know.
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
April 01, 2008
Desert Island Media (Physical Games)
This is the continuation of my response to a suggestion for posts from Melissa. Essentially if I had to go a long period of time with access to only a small set of movies, books, TV, games, which would I choose? Previous posts in this series can be found here:
This is my short list of “board games” (well, actually, physical games whether they actually have a board or not) that I would want with me. The problem I found was that there were a lot of variables to consider. It wasn’t just a matter of wanting different games if I was alone vs. if I had someone else to play with; but it also varied greatly based on who the other people might be. I was able to pick a top three; but after that, things got very fuzzy.
1. As Janbergs already suggested, playing cards would always been a good start. People have invented so many games that can be played with cards (including many variations of solitaire), and if you get bored with those you can always invent some more. Actually I would try to bring several sets of cards (with at least two different backs) to maximize flexibility.
2. In the same vein, my second choice would be a collection of assorted dice. As with cards, there are already a variety of games that are played with dice, and the possibility to invent more if needed. I’d make sure I brought a collection of not just traditional 6 sided dice; but also 4, 8, 10, 12, and 20 sided dice (all in assorted colors).
3. Go – the classic oriental strategy game. I love playing Go and I love teaching Go and I am a very long way from getting tired of it.
Those are the easy ones. What follows are some other games I would consider for position 4 depending on who exactly I was with.
If I was with a large group (at least 6 other people) who were avid gamers, I would bring Diplomacy. There is nothing so varied as human interaction, and as a result, Diplomacy is a game that can be played again and again without getting boring. For those who have never played it, the game itself is very simple; but the trick is that you cannot win without both making and breaking alliances with other players. So the real game is the process of making deals with the other players and knowing when they are lying to you (while making sure they can’t tell when you are lying to them).
In a very different direction, there’s Flux, which is a great game to play with a bunch of people who are not avid gamers. Fluxx is card game that is a practical implementation of Nomic (a theoretical game about the ability to change the rules of a game while you are playing it). Flux starts out with an initial set of rules about how to draw and play cards; but the play of certain cards changes those rules. The idea is to manipulate the rules to the point that you win. It can be taught quickly; but provides a lot of variety as you play it.
Another game I would consider, especially if I was stuck alone, is Advanced Squad Leader. This is actually a bit of a cheat since the whole ASL system has 300+ pages of rules, 50+ board segments, 1000’s of game pieces and fills a large box; but it is technically one “game”. ASL is a set of war games rules designed to simulate any battle in World War II at the platoon/company level, and is one of the best war game ever developed (although certainly not one for a novice). I have spent much time playing it both solo and against other people.
Finally, there is a whole collection of games that were produced in Europe since the late 1990’s that would be contenders for my list: Settlers of Catan, The Princes of Florence, Tikal, Ticket to Ride, although if I had to pick one I would pick Die Neuen Entdecker. It provides that critical balance between easy to learn and hard to master that is so important to a game you’ll end up playing a lot. If you want to find a good list of these games, look up the Spiel des Jahres (German “Game of the Year”) nominees and winners since 1995.
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
March 07, 2008
Desert Island Media (Computer Games)
This is the continuation of my response to a suggestion for posts from Melissa. Essentially if I had to go a long period of time with access to only a small set of movies, books, TV, games, which would I choose? Previous posts in this series can be found here:
Here is my short list of Computer Games I’d like to have with me
Given the number of hours I have already wiled away playing the various versions of SimCity, there is no doubt that I could play it for many more without any loss of enjoyment
2. Minesweeper
OK, a free game that comes with Windows might seem like an odd choice; but for me playing Minesweeper is a philosophical exercise. Consider: playing this game is all about constantly asking three questions: What can I prove to be absolutely true (where do I know a mine is)? What can I prove to be absolutely false (where do I know a mine is not)? And when you have exhausted all possible answers to those questions: What has the best probability of being true (what space is least likely to contain a mine)? Put that way, minesweeper is the ultimate skeptics game. The logic needed to play it well is useful in many aspects of life.
While Anne (an avid knitter) gets to cry “let me finish the row”, I get to call “just one more turn” when I am playing any of the Civ games. They always keep you in the mode of thinking “If I could just get this done…”.
I am by the way assuming here that online games are excluded (they have a distinct advantage of providing human interaction and regular content updates – new stuff). If online games are allowed, the Dungeons and Dragons Online and Lord of the Rings Online would be my second and third choices – SimCity would remain at number one.
If I could take a few more, I would grab:
This is more in the SimCity mold – the focus is not on playing golf but creating the perfect golf course.
This is a very complex simulation of European history which I have never become proficient in. Perhaps if I had lots of time…
6. "Neverwinter Nights, Diamond Compilation
Not only was this a great game in its own right; but it is also a game editor, so when I grew tired of playing their content I could create my own. It was a tough call whether to go with the original NWN or NWN2. The editor in 2 is clearly superior; but content in the box with the original was superior.
On top of all that, “Spore” is due out later this yet, and if it lives up to the demonstrations I have seen of it, Spore may well reach my top three.
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
February 01, 2008
Adults playing D&D
For reasons I'll not go into here, I was asked to write an essay in defense of adults playing Dungeons and Dragons. Since I liked the result (and since I find myself using this blog as a repository of any non-fiction writing I do), I decided to post it here.
BTW – for my perspective on Christians playing D&D, see this previous post on the subject.
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First, it needs to be acknowledged that “playing Dungeons and Dragons” in not a uniform experience. Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) is a very flexible set of rules to play a game where much of the game experience comes from the players themselves. Therefore there is great variety in what “playing Dungeons and Dragons” means for different groups. This is in fact no different from the experience playing other kinds of games. Consider card games: One group might meet to play cards where the card game itself is secondary to the purely social aspects of the gathering (talking, eating, and drinking). The next day, one might even remember who won since winning was secondary to the purpose of playing. A different group might take the card game very serious where each player is entirely focused on winning. One can not therefore discern a great deal about the experience simply from an observation that “they played cards”. The same is also true of D&D: Some groups (often those involving juveniles) play the game in a rather “juvenile” way. Others use the game as an excuse of social gathering where the game itself is secondary. Many groups of adults meet to play D&D as an exercise in interactive story telling.
Interactive story telling can be difficult to explain to someone who has not participated in such a group. Each player comes to the meeting with a character whose story they want to tell. One of the players - the “game master” (or “dungeon master” when playing D&D) - comes with a setting some key plot elements that provide the context in which the character’s stories can be told. They all then cooperate with each other to try and tell a “good story” while at the same time competing with each other to make their character “the hero” (or sometimes “the villain”) of the story. To make this exercise fair for all players, some rules are needed to constrain what a player can claim their character does (you can’t just claim your character does 10 impossible things and immediately saves the day) and over the years the various version of D&D have proven to be very useful at providing those necessary boundaries for the creation of interesting stories.
This is perhaps not a surprise since Dungeons and Dragons itself was originally inspired by Tolkein’s classic “Lord of the Rings” books and the desire of the game’s developers to recreate such adventures on their table-top. Fantasy is a natural genre for such interactive story telling because of the volume of heroic fantasy literature draw on and because the existence of magic and monsters within fantasy provides more flexibility in the directions a story can go over trying to do this within a purely natural setting
In my own experience, it is this interest in interactive story telling that tends to attract adults to play D&D. They are looking for an outlet that is both creative and social, and playing D&D provides opportunities for both.
Playing D&D can be a profoundly creative experience – creating a character, considering how that character would responds to the situations presented in the game, trying to understand how a character like that would think and feel. Some groups include in this creativity actually “acting” the role of the character (speaking "in character", using accents, etc.) while other groups only have players describe their character's actions. Many players use this to explore what life might be like for someone who is different from themselves (a different gender, handicapped, from a different culture) – the process of character creation allows them to put themselves in another’s shoes for a time.
This creativity does not however end with the creation and portrayal of a character - it is also necessary to work with the other players to try and tell a “good story”. A player’s contributions must both contribute to their own character’s individual story and also to the larger story in which everyone else’s character is a part. A good interactive story teller playing D&D will make sure their character behaves in a way appropriate for their character but also that they act in a way that leaves opening for other characters to react and interact in ways that improve the overall story. This is what makes the experience different from simply sitting down to write a book (although many D&D players have gone on to become authors as well) – one must work with the other players to create an enjoyable overall experience. Those interactions provide a social context in which many long-lasting friendships have been built.
This kind of play, using the D&D rules, is not uncommon among adults who play the game. Some started playing as children and their play style matured as they matured. Others did not start playing until they were adults. The increasing numbers of adults playing D&D this way can be seen in the influence they have had on the revisions between the various versions of D&D (the current version of the rules is 3.5 with version 4.0 due out this summer). Each new version has substantially increased the flexibility in character creation and interaction while simplifying the more action-oriented aspects of the game that have traditionally appealed to younger players. The developers of the game would not have done this if there had not been a demand for it. These days, juveniles are far more likely to be interested in playing “Magic the Gathering” and similar collectable card games than playing D&D.
So while one can play D&D in a fairly "childish" manner, one can also play in ways that mostly adults would contribute and enjoy.
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
April 25, 2006
One game to rule them all: Spore
There's been a lot of buzz about the presentation Will Wright gave at this year's Game Developers Conference. If the name doesn't ring a bell, Will Wright is the inventor of SimCity and TheSims (two of the most successful computer game franchises in history). Will is not just one of the greatest game designers in ever, but he belongs in that rarefied pantheon of people who have managed to reinvent what it means to be a computer game.
Will's presentation this year was essentially a technology demo for his current project a game called "Spore". Now I have to say up front that I have been fooled by Will's technology demo's before (the final game didn't quite live up to the promise of the demo); but if he even comes close, Spore is going to be a very impressive game.
A few years back, there was a game that came out which was marketed as allowing you to control the evolution of your civilization from 4000BC through 3000AD. The idea was that this was a game which had "scope". Well, it will be hard to compete on that basis after Spore comes out. You start as a single-celled organism in a drop of water and play until you are master of the galaxy. Now that's a game with scope.
You start with your single-cell creature and earn points that allow you to evolve the creature into a more advanced one. The editor which you use to modify your creature was very flexible in the demo – much more than a mix-and-match body part system I have seen in other evolution games. Eventually you evolve legs and move out of the water onto the land where you continue to fight for survival. After you have done that for a while, you gain enough points to evolve intelligence and the game transitions to controlling a tribe of your creatures, spending points on tools as opposed to changing their bodies. You now fight for the survival of your species, building cities, empires, etc. – constantly increasing the scope at which you can look at things (without loosing the ability to zoom in) and improving the complexity of the tools they use. Eventually you develop space flight and can zoom out to look at the solar system, and the whole galaxy, purchasing technologies which allow you to modify and colonize planets.
All of this seems to be done with a relatively smooth transition between levels. As Will Wright explains in his talk, its like you start off playing Pac-Man (controlling your protozoa, eating food and avoiding things that eat you), transitioning into a first-person combat game, then into something like a real-time strategy game, then into SimCity, then into Civilization and finally into a interstellar explore/expand game. The title of this blog entry came from the sense that this one game might well replace a whole lot of other games I play.
The other cool thing (and in fact the central idea of the talk part of his presentation) is that while this is a single-player game, you play it on-line where the system is constantly downloading the new creatures and tools you develop to a central server. Then when you need new content in your game, the system picks things which other players have developed to download into your game to play. So, at the lower levels, the game tries to maintain a balanced ecology for you to play in by downloading creatures designed by other players to fill in ecological niches which you have left open. When you go to the stars, you will find whole planets which are copies of planets developed by other players. The point is that Will & Co. are focused on creating a really cool game engine; but are looking to the players to create all of the actual content for the game.
Now how much of this vision actually makes it onto the store shelf remains to be seen; but there is no doubt that in a market dominated by clones of clones of games from a decade ago, at least one person is still trying to push the edge of the envelope.
Just the demo parts of the talk can be found here
And the whole talk can be found here
Posted by Steven at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
April 19, 2006
DDO
I've been playing "Dungeons and Dragons Online" (DDO) of late. This is the 4th Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) I have played, and it is by far the best. For those not familiar with the genre, you essentially create a character which you then control in a game world populated by all the characters created by all the other players who have the game (actually, they tend to be divided between a small number of servers, but you get the idea). You log in and get to meet and interact with characters run by 1000's of other players. While details vary, the game then provides a series of challenges which you can overcome either alone or together with other players who are logged into the game at the same time. As you complete challenges, you get to make decisions about how your character improves based the experience gained in the challenge, allowing you evolve characters that specialize in certain skills and activities. While you are only able to log in as one character at a time, these games allow you to create multiple characters so you can explore different options and career paths which the game provides.
Beyond those rather generic details, these games tend to vary a great deal.
Before DDO I played Star Wars Galaxies (SWG), City of Heroes (CoH) and The Matrix Online (TMO). Each had certain virtues which were worthy of praise and certain limitations.
The original SWG provided a wide variety of options in how to evolve your character, including many which were non-violent in nature. I had a great time playing as a doctor/pharmacist, healing those wounded in combat and only adventuring into the wilds (and fighting off creatures) to collect plants I needed to make medicines. On the other hand, all of the challenges were essentially unstructured and randomly generated (there were a few more structured encounters at high level, but the gaming experience was dominated by random content).
CoH (where you played a comic-book style super-hero) had a mix of structured/scripted and random challenges. The scripted challenges were good, but the variety was limited. On the down side, while the manual made it look like you had a lot of character options, most were not sensible, so it didn't take long before you started seeing other heroes who were very similar to yourself.
TMO also had a mix of structured/scripted and random challenges; but to be honest, the scripted challenges were downright boring to me. It did however have the nifty feature that skills were all "downloaded" into your character's brain (if you have seem the Matrix movies, think "I know Karate"); but depending on your level of experience, there was a limit to how many skills would fit at a time. So, you could eventually buy a whole lot of skills, and then download the subset you needed to complete a specific mission. The result was that you could explore all options with just a single character.
One feature which all of these games had in common was that you were able to do pretty well playing them solo. People did form groups; but it was just as common to encounter 1000's of other people all working on their own missions alone. In CoH, the difficulty of missions did increase slightly faster than your character's abilities, so you eventually needed to start to find help; but I found that proved to be difficult because people just got used to playing alone through the lower levels. There was no "culture of teamwork" to draw on. I'm told TMO was like that too, although I didn’t play it long enough to find out. I have to admit, the whole idea of going on missions alone within a "massively multiplayer" game always struck me as odd.
Which brings me to DDO.
There are two big differences between DDO and all of the other MMORPGs I have played. The first is that all of the content is structured/scripted, and quite well written at that. It is clear that an effort has been made to create a collection of adventures which are both interesting and different from each other. Some are straightforward combat scenarios – go into the sewers and kill all of the spiders. Others are more subtle and require more finesse to complete the mission, often requiring different combinations of skills to make it all the way through.
Which brings me to the other big difference - DDO is very much a team game. After the first five "training" missions, pretty much everything requires that you form a group with other players if you are going to be successful. Missions are designed to require many different skills, and no one player can be successful doing many missions alone. There are some missions designed to allow specific skills to shine (for instance a heavily trapped the headquarters of a group of thieves which requires someone good with locks & traps), while most tend to require some kind of balance in the group.
So, a typical session playing the game is you log on and turn on the "LFG" (Looking for Group) signal to let everyone else know you are available, setting your "LFG Comment" to describe any specific missions you are interested in. You then either wait to be invited into a group or start looking at the list of other characters that are online and try to form a group of your own. Once you have 3-5 other players, you start doing missions until folks need to log off or the group breaks up for other reasons. I have generally had quite good success with these kinds of pick-up-groups, with only a few bad experiences with other players. A good team has a balance of skills, stays together, communicates with each other, and gives time for the specialists to do their thing. The few bad teams I have been a part of become obvious at the first intersection where everyone heads off in a different direction and dies quickly, complaining about how no one else helped them.
Anyway, I've started to reach the "been there, done that" point with the current DDO content. I'm going to keep my account open for a bit to see how fast they add new content (the first content update went in about a month after the initial release with 15 new missions). I'm now looking at "Auto Assault" (MMORPG set in your classic post-apocalyptic wasteland) and debating if I want to try it.
Posted by Steven at 06:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
November 16, 2005
Game review: The Movies
Peter Molyneux is one of the most consistently innovative computer game designers in the industry (like Chris Crawford and Will Wright). While there are other game designers who produce consistently excellent games, Peter Molyneux always seems to try and "push the edge of the envelope", with the result that while some of his games soar skyward, frequently defining new genres of games, others simply crash and burn. My sense from interviews I have seen with him is that Molyneux is content with that track record – he'd rather try and fail than not try at all.
Which bring me to his latest game: The Movies.
I can thankfully report that this venture is in my opinion a resounding success. The Movies is actually two games in one: It is at one level a classic "sim" game – allowing you to run a movie studio – managing the lot, keeping your "talent" happy (and sober), getting movies out the door, and hopefully winning a few awards in the process. At another level, the game provides the tools for the player to write, shoot, edit, and release their own films (Molyneux's company even provides a web site where people can publish their finished films to earn points that can be used to download new props for their movies).
The sim (so far) has proven to be fairly enjoyable. While it involves the usual sort of micromanagement which is inherent in sim games, the user interface is one of the best I have seen, making the process both easy and entertaining. There are clearly different strategies you can apply to the game, and it is not clear to me at this point if any are optimal. Even the layout of the studio involves subtle factors which influence the game.
There are two complaints about the sim I have seen in other reviews on the web. First, movies, even bad ones, always seem to make money. My observation is that all movies have ticket sales, and if you stick to doing simple movies, the production costs remain low enough that you do make money. However, on my first try at producing a blockbuster, my production costs went up significantly (I had to halt production at one point to let an actor calm down). I don't rule out a "Waterworld", "Ishtar" or "Heavens Gate" type disaster is possible with this game. The other complaint I have seen is that late in the game (when actors start demanding "personal assistants", etc.) that you run out of manpower as the number of people applying for jobs at your studio is outstripped by the number of new positions to fill. I have not seen this yet; but the game documentation does say that the rate at which people apply for jobs depends on the prestige of your study. It may well be that the game has built into it a vicious cycle where a failing studio can't hire enough people to turn things around. If true (and again, I haven't seen it yet), then while it may be realistic, I would view this as a flaw in a game which is supposed to be fun.
And then there's the movie making tools. Now before people get excited, this is not a completely free-form mechanism. The game includes a finite number of sets, and a large but finite number of shots (erroneously called "scenes" in the game) with which you can build your movie. A typical "scene" might be a medium shot of someone walking in a door (which can be shot on any set that has a door). That shot can then be tweaked for mood (is the actor happy, sad, angry), camera angle, props (in the person carrying a gun or an umbrella), etc. However, you can't have the person summersault through the door – you are stuck with stringing together the existing shots to produce your movie. My observation is that while you can't do everything with this mechanism, you can certainly do enough to create entertaining films. The diversity of options is good enough that you can do what you want, even if the result may not exactly look like what you see in your mind.
The game allows you to use both of these modes independently if you want. When in sim mode, you can let the game's AI write your scripts and edit the films for you. Likewise you can start the game in "sandbox" mode where you can turn off things like actor-tantrums, shooting time, etc., allowing you to just focus on creating films. However the real fun comes when you mix the two – running the studio and writing and editing the films it produces. Actually, I think you must do this in order to become a top-ranked studio. The game's AI-writers just do not produce scripts that the game's AI-critics and AI-audiences really like. I don't think this is a flaw, I think it is an intentional part of the design that you need to do you own film making if you want to "win".
As an example of what I am talking about – the AI-critics definitely favor scenery changes in how they rate films – your reviews suffer if you keep using the same set over and over again. However, when I ask the AI-writers to develop scripts, they quite often use the same set for a whole movie, and then use the same set again for the next movie. When I relied on the AI-writers, I found that only a third of the sets I built tended to get used in their movies. By writing my own scripts, I was able to produce movies that were ranked much better by the AI-critics.
So, "two thumbs up and five stars" for this game.
Posted by Steven at 05:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
