In his 2011 GDC presentation, The Identity Bubble – A Design Approach To Character and Story Creation, designer Matthias Worch builds on the work of Gary Fine (From his book Shared Fantasy: Role Playing Games as Social Worlds), using the conceptual model of frames to examine how players have multiple, often conflicting, internal voices. During play they are at […]
Dead Space: Extraction is a game that knows what it wants to be. Within a series that wears its horror film influences on its sleeve Extraction is the most direct translation of those influences to the video game form. As an on-rails shooter the cinematography and pacing are an obvious point of comparison sharing as they do […]
At any moment during a game players are liable to be thinking about events in multiple timeframes at once. Performing tasks that are over in seconds, in order to achieve goals that are over in minutes as a means of completing missions that may take hours. The lowest level of actions occur on the Immediate layer, these […]
Who is Gordon Freeman? That is a surprisingly difficult question to answer. The elements of his character that can be said to be fixed, are insubstantial and provide little that is definitive. In reality there are a hundred thousand Gordon Freemans, a million. Each person who plays Half-Life has a subtly different interpretation of who […]
At a low enough level all game mechanics are the same, we press a button, move a stick, and something happens. Action and Outcome. Process and Result. Context is what allows us to determine if we are moving a ship through space or a counter across a board context is provided by the narrative of the game. If a plot […]
When it comes to the creation of the common ground in which play occurs, the boundaries themselves can either be embedded or emergent. Embedded boundaries are those defined prior to, and separate from, the act of play itself. They are the rules of the game and the narrative overlaid on those rules. These elements define what […]
On several occasions I’ve recounted events that took place while I was playing a game. I’ve described in detail the actions I took and the consequences of those actions, as well as explaining my motivations and emotional reaction to such events: Jumping out I threw a Molotov at the pursuing vehicle. The Molotov hit the […]
Warning: The following contains spoilers for the later stages of Far Cry 2. It could be argued that the power of any work lies in its ability to make us question ourselves and our own beliefs. This is something games are already capable of, though maybe those responsible don’t even realise it. In a comment to […]
Sequels focused on continuing a story started in the original can be uniquely challenging. Freed of the need to introduce world and characters the focus shifts to expanding the world, and a deeper exploration of the central themes. Providing a bigger context, a broader canvas, on which to explore the escalating consequences of the actions of the […]
When Fable was released a big deal was made of the technology (that Lionhead had previously created for Black & White) that caused your protagonist to change their appearance based on your actions. “Evil” actions cause your character to develop dark skin, glowing red eyes and eventually horns. Whereas “Good” actions lead to a glowing […]