Has anyone ever thought about how the people live in your favorite games? You walk by a town, and it's certainly designed for your easy access. You can enter doors, traverse rooftops, and in many cases see certain people bustling about.
Obviously we have not reached the point where everyone seems to be doing anything more than walking around in a pre-determined pathway infinitely, but that doesn't stop the player from thinking about it. For example, what sorts of food might these people eat? Do they have access to water? Can they even get out of their homes without a ladder or flying machine?
These are some questions that are definitely unique to video games.
How about the indoors? Have you ever seen an especially well-designed home in a game? How about something totally ridiculous that no one could possibly live in? I obviously don't mean designs that work or don't work merely because of a lack of features. If a game's scope only lets a house have one room and a kitchen table, that's where a person lives.
I'm talking about the places that are designed to be explored by the player, and you consider the feasibility of the place's actual residents. For example, have you ever found a room that was totally cut off from the rest of a mansion or castle? Did you see a room that would make a welcome addition to your home if you were an eccentric billionaire?
Finally, there's the aesthetic aspect of it. Games have been becoming more and more intricate in terms of the HD details, and significantly less so in terms of what the player must imagine is there. So you get more detail and the expense of lore-building. On the plus side, there are often cities in games that look quite similar in terms of scope to a storied city. You look across the city and see hundreds of buildings that are surely teeming with people. There are also ruins which evoke thoughts of a long-buried civilization.
So how do you feel about this? Do game designers need to pay more attention to this, or is it a completely trivial issue? Do you notice these details in games?
Obviously we have not reached the point where everyone seems to be doing anything more than walking around in a pre-determined pathway infinitely, but that doesn't stop the player from thinking about it. For example, what sorts of food might these people eat? Do they have access to water? Can they even get out of their homes without a ladder or flying machine?
These are some questions that are definitely unique to video games.
How about the indoors? Have you ever seen an especially well-designed home in a game? How about something totally ridiculous that no one could possibly live in? I obviously don't mean designs that work or don't work merely because of a lack of features. If a game's scope only lets a house have one room and a kitchen table, that's where a person lives.
I'm talking about the places that are designed to be explored by the player, and you consider the feasibility of the place's actual residents. For example, have you ever found a room that was totally cut off from the rest of a mansion or castle? Did you see a room that would make a welcome addition to your home if you were an eccentric billionaire?
Finally, there's the aesthetic aspect of it. Games have been becoming more and more intricate in terms of the HD details, and significantly less so in terms of what the player must imagine is there. So you get more detail and the expense of lore-building. On the plus side, there are often cities in games that look quite similar in terms of scope to a storied city. You look across the city and see hundreds of buildings that are surely teeming with people. There are also ruins which evoke thoughts of a long-buried civilization.
So how do you feel about this? Do game designers need to pay more attention to this, or is it a completely trivial issue? Do you notice these details in games?
