[MoriartyL]

Originally Posted by RLacey

I'm curious as to what games you can name, other than old arcade games or so-called "casual" games, that actually contain a simple form. I'm not saying that they definitely don't exist, but the vast majority of games aspire to something far bigger than simply involving one game type.

"Form" = "form of art or entertainment". I've used this capitalized term in the past; sorry if it caused confusion. The Form is the abstract model for a type of game; it is this and not any particular game which I split into "simple"/"complex". Many Forms are simple, which as I defined it means that they have one, and only one, dominant element. Since, as I pointed out, "the recognition of particular design elements is subjective", there probably should never be agreement on how to interpret each Form. However, in my opinion, examples of simple Forms include the platformer (which is a sub-Form of another Form which I wish I had a name for), the shmup, the walkie (or "exploration game"), the communication game, the simulation, the strategy game, and more.

I'm also not sure that your "exploration form" does focus solely around world design; character interaction is just as big a part of exploration, surely, as is the exploration of ideas?

There are many ways to interpret any Form. I believe that the majority of a walkie's identity comes from the world design; I have no problem with you or anyone else disagreeing. What I am putting up for criticism here is not so much my personal positions as these methods for thinking about positions. If I have done my job well, then anyone, with any views on what constitutes an adventure or an exploration game or whatever, should be able to use these guidelines to examine the larger world of games from his own perspective. If I have not done my job properly, and these rules are only applicable to my own views, then I would like to know about it so that I can correct the mistake.

I'm struggling to understand what you're trying to get at here; I genuinely don't see how Ball Revamped and Rayman 2 are in any way related, and certainly how they are more related than, say, Deus Ex and Pong. Without a name and description of this "parent form" I'm just being asked to take your word for the two being part of some greater category, and that's not really suitable for a discussion.

It's not the point of the discussion, as I just said. But since you bring it up, I think Ball Revamped (and those cave games on cell phones and PDAs) and platformers are related because they both consist of movement which is fundamentally similar (moving side to side and the constant presence of gravity are in both; jumping is similar to pushing the avatar up in these games), and both have control as their dominant element. It is just a tiny step to get from Ball Revamped to a platformer. (Just add platforms you can rest on, and you're already there.) So I see a connection there. Rayman 2 is the proof of this connection because of the way it moves back and forth between platformer and that type of game by just adding and removing very small rules. If you disagree with this, then you can see the platformer as a sub-Form only to gamism itself.

I disagree entirely with this point, on the grounds that changing the primary content in a sequel would involve changing the "game's identity", as you've put it. I'd argue that if you did that the game wouldn't really be a sequel; equally, you're going to have a hard time selling a sequel to someone if the game is an entirely different beast from its predecessor. Instead, I would suggest, the primary form of the game is the only aspect of the game that under no circumstances should be changed, because if it is then the games would lose their relation.

Interesting point. It seems to me that if you keep the supportive content intact, everyone will recognize the game as a sequel. But then, some of the best sequels are games which are more or less exactly the same as their predecessors but for enhancements (Super Mario Bros. 3, for instance).

Wait, now that I think about it SMB3 actually did change primary content from SMB, by adding new types of control. (Control is the primary content of platformers, in my opinion.) So a better example would be... hm. Maybe Metroid: Zero Mission (sorry that my experience is mostly limited to Nintendo); that game actually rehashed the world design from Metroid! Come to think of it, though, Zero Mission was more about action and less about exploration than the rest of the series, using the player's familiarity with the world design to speed ahead from action scene to action scene. I don't think the world design was the primary content there, so it's not an exploration game. Okay, new example. Ummm... I can't think of anything. Could you give a specific example of a sequel which in your opinion kept the primary content of the original (based on whatever you think the dominant element of that Form is), and didn't feel uncomfortably like it was more of the same?

I'm also not entirely happy with your use of the term "form". If there is such a thing as a "complex form", how can it also be the "primary form", given that a complex form will not have a single, distinct part to it that can form the identity of the game?

I've been using the term "primary content", never "primary Form".

Finally, the term "Gamism". While I can appreciate your frustration with the commonly used terms bandied about in the games industry, invention of new terms merely clouds the issues that you're trying to deal with. If you're trying to make - potentially valid - points about the state of modern game development the last thing you want to do is alienate your potential readership by forcing them to read through a number of other articles in order to understand what the hell you're on about. Of course, I'm generally biased against the invention of these kind of terms on the grounds that I believe in actually making academic literature approachable, but I feel that my point is a valid one.

I agree. I should not be using these made-up terms, indeed I have no authority with which to invent such words in the first place. I'll continue to use them regardless because I feel that I have no other choice. Give me a widely-approved set of terminology that actually makes sense to me, and I'll abandon all my homemade words in an instant. Without these words, I feel like I am unable to express myself. This may be acceptable for the rest of the world, since I will not cloud the issues, but it is not acceptable to me. I need to think about these things; I need them to make sense to me. All this was born out of necessity, and if I had any other choice, believe me that I would not be wasting anyone's time with all this terminology.