Game Design: Then and Now.

I touched on this a little bit in my tutorial today, so I decided to expand on these thoughts.

Since NES only has so much space for work on an 8-Bit system; Game Developers had to work with what they had in order to make a top quality game. no fancy graphics or surround sound. The NES had a limited colour pallette and had to work with a strong level design in order to make their game appealing and fun.

You see when video games were a new media, in say the 1980's there were no real rules of game design, game developers didn't have a real way to tell people how to play the games and didn't take gamers as idiots when it came to gameplay.
An example of this would be from most sidescrollers on the NES one in particular: Megaman.
So you enter a level in Megaman, and how do you move? well you look on your controller, see buttons on it, one has arrows, and they make you move. You can't go left, so you go right to advance. Simple right?

So you're running along the level and you are put into the situation in the picture, you run along and you fall down to the bottom, so you press one of the two buttons available (A and B) you press B and Megaman shoots out his arm cannon "OK sweet I shot something, but torch face is way up there out of my line of fire!" So since pressing a button has gotten results, you press a different button and Megaman suddenly jumps "oh my glob! now to do both at the same time!" So now using these two different techniques you have simply taught yourself, you have overcome a simple challenge.

The game developers had designed the levels around these two techniques: you jump and shoot. These techniques are used in different scenarios, some that require timing and precision for both jumping and defeating enemies. Boss battles will often incorporated what you have learnt in the level and that will be used to defeat the boss; like the conveyor belts in the Metal Man stage of Megaman 2.

So now let's talk about colour. Game developers used colour to make their game more interactive; take the above pictures for example: Megaman is a bright blue, while the backgrounds are in a darker shade of red, basically the colours are on the opposite spectrum of the colour wheel. because of this contrast: Megaman pops out and is easy to notice, making it easier for players to notice the character which is important when it comes to jumps and avoiding enemies. Also the attacks of Megaman and Metal Man are very bright, making it easier to notice. The walls, floor and ceiling are also bright; this is an indication of the limits and shows where you have to go since most levels are designed like tubes, which draw you to the other side.

So with the advancement in technology with the original rules and guidelines of game design, you would think game developers would use this to make more stunning games with larger level design with the incorporation of better sound, better graphics and even including an engaging narrative? This is not exaclty the case however.

Now with no real limitations to game design; developers don't work as hard to make their product around the barriers since the barriers are being broken down. More powerful equipment to make games may leave developers as lazy: creating games with very little use of colour palettes when they have a huge range to work from, making level design just a linear amount of enemies in a line and blasting your way through to the end, no real thought, no real strategy, just line up the iron sights to the enemy and shoot
basically a brown point and click adventure.

But now that game developers are breaking down more barriers to games with motion control games and targeting the non gamer masses it seems that game developers are now treating gamers like idiots with missions like: "kill enemies to proceed" and occcasionally filling the screen with reminders like "press RT to shoot" even though you're in the fourth level and you currently shooting.

Personally, it just seems that a lot of potential is being wasted when it comes to game design. Good graphics does not entail a good game.

However all is not lost. the advancement of technology can improve games take for example Okami which was originally on the PS2 in this game you solved puzzles and fought enemies by drawing calligraphy symbols on the screen with the joystick. but with the release of the Wii, drawing the calligraphy became a lot simpler.
Gimmicks of good graphic or motion controls aren't the future. innovation and new ways to play games aren't the future. It is the combination of all these things coming from the roots of good gameplay and game design.

A tree can't flourish if you cut out its roots. That's all I'm saying.

Nicholas Boulton.