The State of Church
In The State Of Church:Doug Church on the Death of PC Gaming and the Future of Defining Gameplay, by Justin Hall at Gamasutra, Doug Church talks about the PC versus the console in terms of experimentation, passive entertainment, and play. While the PC might allow for greater experimentation in gameplay, the console, being hooked up to a TV, is more geared as a passive entertainment device, and unfortunately, entertainment is taking over from play as the main selling-point for the majority of new games.
He went on to discuss the need for a game vocabulary, and mentioned that existing game genre terminology is the current "shorthand" for describing games. He sees the problem with this as new games are blending old genres, and the gameplay mechanics aren't properly described:
"Sometimes I think that genre is our shorthand to talk about play, and that's about as specific as we'd get, because when I show you imagery of a lot of games and the communication message, you know 'you're a powerful wizard', or 'you're going to defeat terrorists' or 'you're going to pilot planes', it doesn't really tell you anything about what you're going to actually do. Like: What are the verbs you have? What are the buttons you're going to use? What sort of mental action do you get? Why are you even there? Why isn't it just a movie?"
This illustrates my idea about gameplay being too tightly intertwined with visual presentation. You have a mental picture of what the general idea of the game is, but no explicit picture of exactly what the gameplay elements are in terms of the rules or environment you'll interact with.
Also, I think having a play vocabulary isn't as important as sharing the same mental model or concept of gameplay mechanics amongst game designers. Forget the vocabulary, the words, and concentrate on the actual things instead; "What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other word would smell as sweet." --From Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2).
The game Katamari Damacy was mentioned as an example of "experimental play innovation". I don't think the gameplay was necessarily innovative -- you move around and collect items of increasing size -- just that the visual representation of the gameplay was innovative. Which is what my idea is all about.
He went on to discuss the need for a game vocabulary, and mentioned that existing game genre terminology is the current "shorthand" for describing games. He sees the problem with this as new games are blending old genres, and the gameplay mechanics aren't properly described:
"Sometimes I think that genre is our shorthand to talk about play, and that's about as specific as we'd get, because when I show you imagery of a lot of games and the communication message, you know 'you're a powerful wizard', or 'you're going to defeat terrorists' or 'you're going to pilot planes', it doesn't really tell you anything about what you're going to actually do. Like: What are the verbs you have? What are the buttons you're going to use? What sort of mental action do you get? Why are you even there? Why isn't it just a movie?"
This illustrates my idea about gameplay being too tightly intertwined with visual presentation. You have a mental picture of what the general idea of the game is, but no explicit picture of exactly what the gameplay elements are in terms of the rules or environment you'll interact with.
Also, I think having a play vocabulary isn't as important as sharing the same mental model or concept of gameplay mechanics amongst game designers. Forget the vocabulary, the words, and concentrate on the actual things instead; "What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other word would smell as sweet." --From Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2).
The game Katamari Damacy was mentioned as an example of "experimental play innovation". I don't think the gameplay was necessarily innovative -- you move around and collect items of increasing size -- just that the visual representation of the gameplay was innovative. Which is what my idea is all about.
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