Added on Wed 31 Jan 2007
I was a Caveman
Ok so, it’s a silly title, but it’s also the final part to my little series on the future of computer gaming.
In the first 2 parts, I took a slightly critical look at computer games today and remembered which games I had really enjoyed playing over the last 20 years or so. Trying to figure out where things might or should go next, I looked at entertainment as a whole. Since, I guess that would usually be the primary goal for any computer game.
It all came down to my little list of criteria for an enjoyable game. That was all very well, but does going through that process actually help in creating an innovative game? I mean by trying to achieve all the criteria listed at once - in one game? So I thought I would give it a go to see what came of it! The title of this post was the title of the game I came up with.
Like any idea, they usually don’t come out of thin air; they are usually triggered by something else. So I’ll fess up and say, I did have that Spore game in mind, and probably Stalker & Bioshock as well. I would have liked the idea to come out of thin-air but it didn’t happen. My key targets were immersive life experience, creativity, freedom and uniqueness of game-play (no 2 games alike). I felt that those things would tick most of my boxes. My other feeling was that life experience (thinking about movies here) are more interesting when they are not ones you will otherwise be able to experience. I guess you could add ‘Fantasy’ to my list of criteria.
So what’s the game? (I thought of all this a week or two ago, now reading it, it sounds a bit dicky!)
Synopsis: Your life will span that of mankind’s. You will develop from a caveman (or cavewoman) into whatever you want. You will experience everything from the first person perspective.
Aim: To be successful at whatever pursuit you choose.
Story:
Born in a cave you start fresh. Going outside to explore you find others like yourself. Depending on how you treat the other cave people you might become friends with them or enemies.
You start to use your environment and develop tools! As with most things, if you don’t develop a certain tool or method, without a doubt others will. Whether they will share their knowledge with you is another question, are you persuasive? Have you been friendly lately?
The choices you are making will change the world around you and how it reacts to you.
Time goes on and depending on how you’ve progressed, you might have built up a small band of followers or a lot of possessions or travelled extensively… or, all the above!
The important thing to remember is that you’re not the centre of this universe. You’re not the only enterprising individual around. There are others that will been doing things and progressing in directions you haven’t. You may in fact find yourself being a follower of a great leader you meet. Being part of a group might leave you free to focus on becoming a specialist, an explorer or a fighter for example. As your characteristics develop, everything in the world will start to react to you in a personalised fashion, according to your reputation.
Missions: The game will have missions, but not clearly defined and sometimes hidden unless you seek them out, success doesn’t have to mean finishing missions.
Ending: After a very long time you will grow old and eventually die. That is if you haven’t already been killed in a fight or a war! In the case of growing old, depending on what provisions you have made your final years might be good or bad ones!
Last of all… you can remain a cave man if you so choose, of course you’ll probably be hunted down and kept in a museum or freak show if you don’t remain hidden for all time.
How it works
I’m no game developer, but I do like to imagine how the inner workings of a game like that might work. So here’s my best guess. Firstly, I gather you would have a variety of engines driving all the various forms of game-play. Since the idea is basically a morphing of a variety of game types, there would be a few almost completely different game engines running behind the scenes. Combat, tribalism, trade, economy, social interaction, development are some that come to mind right away. Then there’s the other aspects to the game.
The Environment
The entire environment is generated using random algorithms, ranging from pleasant places to rugged ones. It’s not the same everywhere and once you travel you will see a greater variety of landscapes. Naturally as people build buildings they will start to appear as well.
Objects and Items
The initial world starts with just a very basic set of objects. However, an editor is included with the game and new things can be created there…. falling into different object classes… as things are created by players, the new objects are shared over the net with other players and everybody gets access to them, so you don’t have to build one yourself if there’s already a nice one out there.
You can use tools to change the world around you, as tools improve so do the changes that can be made.
Characters and Interaction
How you act and the experience you gain is recorded into a personal character file which gets built up as you play. These character files are shared on the net between all the installed copies of the game. The files will be used to help populate the everybodies game with a variety of characters. Just to be clear, the characters will not be controlled by other people rather, the computer will control them according to the characteristics portrayed in the shared files.
That technique could go so far as to even log real reactions to various actions and questions, so how a computer controlled character reacts to you could actually be how other players reacted to someone like you when asking or doing the same thing…. on average. Or even other aspects, like for instance; is it your first time playing the game, or your 10th?!
(At this point you may well be thinking… ‘Why! this is a lot of bother to go to, why not just make it a massively multi-player thingys?’ Personally, I believe those games have a bunch of inherent drawbacks that I want to avoid. For one, those worlds keep on going while you don’t. Secondly, some people prefer not to rely on ‘real’ people when they are trying to enjoy their computer games)
To make that process a bit more interesting, you will be able to choose which segments of real life society you wish to draw the other characters from. Demographics! You can choose people like yourself, or choose people from a different background. Since every character reacts slightly different to every other, the make up of the people in your game will change what sort of game you’re going to have.
Progression
Generally the timeline will travel along as you spend time playing the game. The development of the world will be dictated by the general development of all the other player files you choose to tap into. So, regardless of what you do, things will progress. Your own progression occurs as you spend time doing various activities. The activities do not work directly towards the development of specific items or things… but work in conjunction towards gaining the experience required in order to be in a position to develop a certain thing or skill. Some pursuits require you to be well-rounded and others will have required concentrated efforts.
Unfortunately, there probably has to be some set path for the general development of mankind. In so far as the types of things that can be built at various stages of game time.
Probably getting a bit carried away with this whole thing, I think I could on and on about how this could work… it certainly is enjoyable to think up games and how they might work.
Summing up…
So would this game be revolutionary? Indeed, would it even be enjoyable? Well possibly not revolutionary, ideas like that are rare. As I said up front, this one does draw a lot from things I saw in other games currently in development, which from the start restricts it from being entirely new. But leaving that grand ambition aside, there is still the other aim which is to create a game that ticks all the entertainment boxes at once; to be simply - a very enjoyable game. Does it do that?
Creativity and freedom - well yes those objectives were upmost in my mind from the start. Players can create new objects if they want and then have the freedom not to use them and go travelling instead. 8 out of 10.
Thrilling, adrenalin-filled ride – This one will depend on how you play the game. Becoming a good fighter and say a mercenary would hopefully be exciting, combat would be part of the game. 6/10.
Mystery and Suspense – To be honest, I don’t think I succeeded with this one, not like a good movie does anyway. Although, inherently there is a certain amount of the unknown to most games these days… not many have really exploited it fully. 3/10.
Challenging / Competition – There’s a certain amount of that included, but not heaps. 6.5/10
Spectacular – this one will come down to how well the game can be put together. However, I see no reason why games like this one couldn’t look and sound fantastic! 7/10.
Achievement – This, I hope this would be a major part of the experience. 8/10.
Well that’s a mild success, you could say I ticked 5 out of 6 boxes. Room for improvement, but not bad for a start. So do you think it would be fun to play?… it’s hard to say, I know… so many little details would go into something like that. Only once they all came together would you know really if it was fun to play. I like to think it would be. In my mind the most important aspect of the whole idea is that you choose what type of world to play the game in. Mainly that happens by choosing the demographics of the people to be included. Selecting characteristics from people who also enjoy war films is going to be a different game to choosing characteristic from players who are over 50yo.
So that ends my little series. I’m going to keep trying to think of new ideas in computer games and who knows, one day I might have an original thought on the subject. Like a friend of mine said, they’re built in a sandbox with unlimited possibilities - there’s no excuse!