Sunday, September 30, 2012

What would be my "Dream Game"?

To answer this I should make clear what I mean by the expression "Dream Game". I did not come up with it but got the idea from Richard Rouse III while reading his book "Game Design Theory and Practice, Second Edition". There he states:
"The Dream 
One could say that the goal of gameplay is to allow for different player strategies to lead to variable types of success, to reward player experimentation and exploration, and to empower players to make their own choices. All of these factors allow players to craft their own unique stories when playing your game. If in addition you want to tell a more predetermined story through your game, it is important to do everything possible to make players feel that it is their own unique story. Players should feel ownership over the actions in their game, and thereby ownership in the story that is being told."
Richard Rouse III, Game Design Theory and Practice, Second Edition 
 So what would this "Dream Game" in terms of story be for me? I think it's obvious that it is still a dream and not reality since our technology today just don't allow us to create game in which the player has every opportunity he wants to have while still creating a fascinating story. For me the game which  came close to the mentioned "Dream Game" was a soccer team management game, which is called "FIFA Manager".

FIFA Manager 12 (German Edition)
You were responsible for managing your own soccer team by handling the transfers of players, deciding how the training would look like and all these things. So basically really all regarding your team besides the actual playing the soccer game (as in the normal FIFA). Still as a player you really felt in control of the development of your team and could you use a lot of different strategies. Of course there was not that much story telling going on, but like Richard Rouse III said the player really created stories for their own by having that much influence on the success of their team which made it enjoyable for a long time.

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