The Role of Architecture in Videogames
The Role of Architecture in Videogames, says Ernest Adams, is the "short version" of a lecture he gave at the Ars Electronica festival of electronic and computerized art, and is one of his Designer's Notebook columns at Gamasutra. "They requested the topic, and although it sounded a bit odd at first, the more research I did, the more interesting it got".
Adams mentions that "The most popular PC game of all time, The Sims, was influenced and partly inspired by the work of an architect, Christopher Alexander's book A Pattern Language". He then lists some reasons why we construct buildings: "To protect people, goods, and animals from the weather. To organize human activity efficiently (factories, theaters, offices, sports arenas). To conceal and protect goods and animals from theft (warehouses, barns, shops, storage facilities). To offer personal privacy (toilets and private houses). To protect people from other people (fortifications, military installations, prisons). To impress, commemorate or simply decorate (civic monuments and religious buildings)".
He then explains that most of these reasons aren't applicable to architecture in games and says "a building provides a convenient metaphor for concealment and protection" and gives the Town Hall in Age of Empires and the Treasury in Dungeon Keeper as examples. The main idea of Adams' article is that there are 2 functions of architecture in games: "support the gameplay" and "inform and entertain".
"The primary function of architecture in games is to support the gameplay". Adams says the "architecture supports the gameplay by helping to define the challenges. There are four major ways in which this happens: constraint, concealment, obstacles or tests of skill, and exploration". He briefly explains each of these with examples. As for the secondary function, "If architecture were only about supporting the gameplay through constraint, concealment and so on, it could all be bare grey concrete. But architecture has a secondary, and still highly valuable role to play: to inform and entertain in its own right". Adams again lists several ways this is achieved: familiarity, allusion, new worlds require new architecture, surrealism, atmosphere, comedic effect, and architectural clichés. He again briefly explains each of these with examples. He had previously complained about surrealism in another article -- "I complained about pointless surrealism in my first "Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie!" column, but architectural surrealism does have a point if it's connected to the gameplay".
I'm glad I read this article, after initially thinking it might not have much to do with my ideas. It turns out it's exactly the kind of thing I want to point out about the visualisation in games: it consists of two parts, the functional and the aesthetic. Visualisation has to firstly communicate something, and because games are a form of entertainment, visualisation in a game must also have to appeal to audiences -- purpose and theme.
Adams mentions that "The most popular PC game of all time, The Sims, was influenced and partly inspired by the work of an architect, Christopher Alexander's book A Pattern Language". He then lists some reasons why we construct buildings: "To protect people, goods, and animals from the weather. To organize human activity efficiently (factories, theaters, offices, sports arenas). To conceal and protect goods and animals from theft (warehouses, barns, shops, storage facilities). To offer personal privacy (toilets and private houses). To protect people from other people (fortifications, military installations, prisons). To impress, commemorate or simply decorate (civic monuments and religious buildings)".
He then explains that most of these reasons aren't applicable to architecture in games and says "a building provides a convenient metaphor for concealment and protection" and gives the Town Hall in Age of Empires and the Treasury in Dungeon Keeper as examples. The main idea of Adams' article is that there are 2 functions of architecture in games: "support the gameplay" and "inform and entertain".
"The primary function of architecture in games is to support the gameplay". Adams says the "architecture supports the gameplay by helping to define the challenges. There are four major ways in which this happens: constraint, concealment, obstacles or tests of skill, and exploration". He briefly explains each of these with examples. As for the secondary function, "If architecture were only about supporting the gameplay through constraint, concealment and so on, it could all be bare grey concrete. But architecture has a secondary, and still highly valuable role to play: to inform and entertain in its own right". Adams again lists several ways this is achieved: familiarity, allusion, new worlds require new architecture, surrealism, atmosphere, comedic effect, and architectural clichés. He again briefly explains each of these with examples. He had previously complained about surrealism in another article -- "I complained about pointless surrealism in my first "Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie!" column, but architectural surrealism does have a point if it's connected to the gameplay".
I'm glad I read this article, after initially thinking it might not have much to do with my ideas. It turns out it's exactly the kind of thing I want to point out about the visualisation in games: it consists of two parts, the functional and the aesthetic. Visualisation has to firstly communicate something, and because games are a form of entertainment, visualisation in a game must also have to appeal to audiences -- purpose and theme.
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