These White Lights Will Bend To Make Blue

The richness of gaming as a medium has been restricted by the focus on realism. Sure there have been some strange games released this year, such a Space Giraffe, but in general games are confined to a pseudo-realistic world. From Halo to Supreme Commander, we see fictional worlds created that closely mirror our own, just with more aliens and crazy big lasers. While I agree that games need to make sense to the player, and understanding approximate models of the real world should be easy for us all, I think there is huge untapped potential here.

Digital imagery removes normal physical restrictions from the process of creation. In Maya we do not have to worry about gravity or strength of materials like film makers did before the advent of computer graphics. Most films have to deal with physical actors who must be placed within the digital scenes, limited what can effectively be done with the technology. Generally filming a whole movie on a green screen set results in poor acting and a lot of labor to match everything up (See Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow). Look for this to become less of an issue over the next decade. The thing is, gaming doesn’t have these pesky physical actors to deal with, all of our characters are already 3d models. This, to me, means there should be no restrictions on the kind of worlds we create for games.

With the ability to represent almost anything on the screen, I am constantly let down when I find myself pushing crates around and breaking down wooden doors. I am not saying we should abandon all trappings of reality and create abstract art worlds, but to me it feels like we are spending all this time creating a virtual version of something we already experience every day. I want to see worlds and play mechanics which challenge our perceptions of what is possible and make us look on in awe. Rez and Shadow of the Colossus should have just been the beginning. We have a medium only limited by the imaginations of our designers and we choose to make endless parking garages and underground research facilities. We have gotten good at creating sensations of fear, power, and excitement in players; I think adding wonder to the mix would be a good next step.

Some links for the day:

The Arty Party – An article over on Gamasutra about why we shouldn’t worry if games are really art.

Night of the Raving Dead – The new Sam & Max episode is up on Gametap today, buy it from Telltale tomorrow.