[Ninja Dodo]

Another one for games in general... war.

That has to be the most overused subject in games... but it's always from the militaristic point of view. What about the human aspect? Where is our "Schindler's List" and our "Casablanca"? Why is it always only about the fighting and not about the people caught in the middle? I'd love to see a new game set in World War 2 that's not actually about the war.

[Erwin_Br]

Hmmm, there are so many cliche's that it would be nearly impossible to make a game that avoids every single one of them.

And where do you draw the line on deciding whether or not a subject is a cliche?

--Erwin

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by Erwin_Br

And where do you draw the line on deciding whether or not a subject is a cliche?

When you absolutely cannot recall any other game in the past doing it?

[Ninja Dodo]

Ernest Adams wrote an interesting article about this once:

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20010129/adams_01.htm

This is the main part if you don't want to bother registering:

Originally Posted by Gamasutra: Ernest Adams

"As a game designer I promise for the good of my game, my industry, and my own creative soul to design according to the following Dogma 2001 rules:"

1. The design documents shall contain no reference to any object which is installed inside the outer case of the target machine. Input devices and the monitor screen itself may be mentioned in discussions of the game's user interface. Minimum acceptable machine specifications shall be determined by the programmers during development.

Justification: Self-evident. Dogma 2001 game designs are about the game, period. As a Dogma designer, you renounce technology as part of your game's design.

2. The use of hardware 3D acceleration of any sort is forbidden. Software 3D engines are not forbidden, but the game must run at 20 frames per second or better in 640 x 480 16-bit SVGA mode or the nearest available equivalent.

Justification: By adopting a simple, well-known display standard and sticking rigorously to it, both designers and programmers are freed to concentrate on tasks of real importance.

3. Only the following input devices are allowed: on a console machine, the controller which normally ships with it. On a computer, a 2-axis joystick with two buttons, or a D-pad with two buttons; a standard 101-key PC keyboard; a 2-button mouse.

Justification: Most games that depend on gimmicky input devices are crummy games. You must not waste your time trying to design for them.

4. There shall be no knights, elves, dwarves or dragons. Nor shall there be any wizards, wenches, bards, bartenders, golems, giants, clerics, necromancers, thieves, gods, angels, demons, sorceresses, undead bodies or body parts (mummified or decaying), Nazis, Russians, spies, mercenaries, space marines, stormtroopers, star pilots, humanoid robots, evil geniuses, mad scientists, or carnivorous aliens. And no freakin' vampires.

Justification: Self-evident. If you find that doing without all of the foregoing makes it impossible to build your game, you are not creative enough to call yourself a game designer. As proof, note that it does not exclude any of the following: queens, leprechauns, Masai warriors, ghosts, succubi, Huns, mandarins, wisewomen, grizzly bears, hamsters, sea monsters, vegetarian aliens, terrorists, firefighters, generals, gangsters, detectives, magicians, spirit mediums, shamans, whores, and lacrosse players. One of the games that made it to the finals of the first Independent Games Festival was about birds called blue-footed boobies, so forget you ever heard of George Lucas and J.R.R. Tolkien and get to work.

5. The following types of games are prohibited: first-person shooters, side-scrollers, any action game with "special attacks." Also prohibited are: simulations of 20th-century or current military vehicles, simulations of sports which are routinely broadcast live on television, real-time strategy games focussing solely on warfare and weapons production, lock-and-key adventure games, numbers-heavy role-playing games, and any card game found in Hoyle's Rules of Card Games.

Justification: It is your duty as a Dogma designer to create new genres of games, not simply to make more technologically impressive games in old genres.

6. All cinematics, cut-scenes, and other non-interactive movies are forbidden. If a game requires any introductory or transitional material, it must be provided by scrolling text.

Justification: The secret desire of game designers to be film directors is deleterious to their games and to the industry generally. This desire must be stamped out.

7. Violence is strictly limited to the disappearance or immobilization of destroyed units. Units which are damaged or destroyed shall be so indicated by symbolic, not representational, means. There shall be no blood, explosions, or injury or death animations.

Justification: Although conflict is a central principle of most games, the current "arms race" towards ever-more graphic violence is harmful and distracting. Explosions and death animations are, in fact, very short non-interactive movies. If you spend time on them, you are wasting energy that could be more profitably spent on gameplay or AI.

8. There may be victory and defeat, and my side and their side, but there may not be Good and Evil.

Justification: Good versus Evil is the most hackneyed, overused excuse imaginable for having two sides in a fight. With the exception of a small number of homicidal maniacs, no human being regards him- or herself as evil. As a Dogma designer, you are required to create a real explanation for why two sides are opposed - or to do without one entirely, as in chess.

9. If a game is representational rather than abstract, it may contain no conceptual non sequiturs, e.g. medical kits may not be hidden inside oil tanks.

Justification: The conceptual non sequitur is not merely sloppy; it is one of the things that actively discourages non-gamers from playing games. Gamers know that you're supposed to blow up everything in sight to see if anything might be hidden there, because they've played a hundred other games which have followed this pattern - games which were designed by adolescents for whom blowing things up is an end in itself. Ordinary people use their powers of reasoning to decide what should be blown up or not. Since it would not occur to a reasonable person that a medical kit could be found inside an oil tank, a reasonable person will not needlessly blow it up, and is therefore at a disadvantage when playing the game. A Dogma designer must to do the design work necessary to reward reason rather than brute-force approaches.

10. If a game is representational rather than abstract, the color black may not be used to depict any manmade object except ink, nor any dangerous fictitious nonhuman creatures. Black may be used to depict rooms in which the lights are not switched on.

Justification: Artists who make things cool by the simple expedient of making them black should be sent back to art college with a swift kick in the butt. This is also true of chrome and gunmetal grey, but black is the worst offender.

"Finally, I acknowledge that innovative gameplay is not merely a desirable attribute but a moral imperative. All other considerations are secondary.

Thus I make my solemn vow."

Now I realize that, as with Hollywood and Dogme 95, nobody at EA or Sony or Blizzard is going to pay the slightest attention to Dogma 2001. This isn't a formula for commercial success, it's a challenge to think outside the box - in our case, the standardized boxes that are on the store shelves right now. But the rules are actually far less draconian than the Dogme 95 rules for filmmakers, and it wouldn't be that hard to follow them. I think it could do both us, and our customers, a lot of good.

[davez82]

Originally Posted by Kurdt

I think the poll should moreso be "What's the most OVERUSED plot device?" I chose TV adaptations. I'm still a sucker for the rest. Maybe I'm just too desperate for adventure that I'll take it in any half-decent package around.

no actually, it should be called, the most failed plot device. And yes I chose knights of the templars.

[Wajus]

Originally Posted by Ninja Dodo

Ernest Adams wrote an interesting article about this once:

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20010129/adams_01.htm

This is the main part if you don't want to bother registering:

I like it! I like it a lot! I think we need more games made this way.

[DaveGilbert]

4. There shall be no knights, elves, dwarves or dragons. Nor shall there be any wizards, wenches, bards, bartenders, golems, giants, clerics, necromancers, thieves, gods, angels, demons, sorceresses, undead bodies or body parts (mummified or decaying), Nazis, Russians, spies, mercenaries, space marines, stormtroopers, star pilots, humanoid robots, evil geniuses, mad scientists, or carnivorous aliens. And no freakin' vampires.

Sorry, but... Russians? If you include Russian people in your game you're suddenly uncreative? Was this written during American McCarthyism?

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Heh heh, I guess someone won't be playing Syberia II when it launches.

[Jake]

Originally Posted by Bastich

Actually, I would like to play a serial killer adventure game where you actually play the killer and not the investigator. You can't get any more into the killer's mind than that. People probably couldn't handle it though, and the press would eat it up...

Surely that would be too violent (and obviously, by extension, brainless) for the average adventure gamer? In other news, have you heard of the recently released Manhunt?

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by Jake

...have you heard of the recently released Manhunt?

LOL!! This game looks so fooking campy! Way over the top! I really hope they push the envelope on it, I can see a few stores in certain states (Florida?) getting slapped with stiff fines for forgetting to card underaged kiddies trying to buy it.

[Bastich]

Originally Posted by Jake

Surely that would be too violent (and obviously, by extension, brainless) for the average adventure gamer? In other news, have you heard of the recently released Manhunt?

Why is violence, by extension brainless? It is all in how it is handled.

As far as Manhunt, I don't own a console, so unless it comes to PCs, I will never know if it is good. It looks like an action game though. I'm too lazy to really research it right now...

[Bastich]

I have to say I am pretty impressed that over 50 people answered this poll. I didn't think that many would...

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by Bastich

Actually, I would like to play a serial killer adventure game where you actually play the killer and not the investigator. You can't get any more into the killer's mind than that. People probably couldn't handle it though, and the press would eat it up...

This actually sounds more like an adventure/tactical/strategy hybrid to me. With a solid story, mercilessly twisting plot, deviant level/chapter design, situational and environmental puzzles, advanced A.I., and top notch voice characterizations, it would be magnificent! And that's before the multiplayer part, when you go online and pit your wits as a killer against 2 or 3 other players who play as FBI agents. Cover your tracks while closing in on theirs.

[Ninja Dodo]

The thing about the article though, is that it's not supposed to be a blueprint for games... just "a challenge to think outside the box".

With the Russians he was probably thinking in more general entertainment terms because they always used to be the bad guys in films.

This one I quite like:

"There may be victory and defeat, and my side and their side, but there may not be Good and Evil."

I always resent the patronizing stupidity of good guys and bad guys... we are right and they are wrong. There is no such thing.

[Erwin_Br]

Originally Posted by Ninja Dodo

The thing about the article though, is that it's not supposed to be a blueprint for games... just "a challenge to think outside the box".

With the Russians he was probably thinking in more general entertainment terms because they always used to be the bad guys in films.

This one I quite like:

"There may be victory and defeat, and my side and their side, but there may not be Good and Evil."

I always resent the patronizing stupidity of good guys and bad guys... we are right and they are wrong. There is no such thing.

Serial killers are wrong. And we're right for putting these criminals away.

--Erwin

[Bastich]

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

This actually sounds more like an adventure/tactical/strategy hybrid to me. With a solid story, mercilessly twisting plot, deviant level/chapter design, situational and environmental puzzles, advanced A.I., and top notch voice characterizations, it would be magnificent! And that's before the multiplayer part, when you go online and pit your wits as a killer against 2 or 3 other players who play as FBI agents. Cover your tracks while closing in on theirs.

That would definitely make an awesome game IMO. It would be especially cool if you create your own MO... Hmm... Do I carve a pentagram on their chest or eat their liver??? And what should I take as a souvenir????

[BacardiJim]

I thought this poll/thread was started as a joke? It made me laugh.

Originally.

It seems to have become yet another excuse for the same old parties (and a couple of new ones) to take up the same old arguments in the same old battles over the same old issues.

[Bastich]

Well, looking at the results, and if any developers are reading them, there will be a lot of cursed serial killer games coming out, preferably cursed serial killers from some literary work or set in that work if possible...

And BacardiJim, I at least managed to stay out of it in my own thread. That is a good accomplishment for a curmudgeon like me. I'm like Samuel Jackson in Pulp Fiction. I am the tyranny of evil men, but I am trying REAL hard to be the shepherd...

[BacardiJim]

Hey, that makes two of us, AGP-bro. I resisted as long as I could, despite all the buttons being pushed. We both managed to avoid temptation.


Let's go get a drink.

[Jake]

I think Gerbil should win the prize for best post in this thread.