Some thoughts…

Although we haven’t been able to work on Grey for some time now, I haven’t stopped thinking about games…

First of all, I‘m delving into The Critical Path Project. It’s a collection of interviews with some of the world’s best known game designers, and there’s a lot of interesting stuff in there… One thing that got me thinking was the emphasis on originality and new concepts… Cool as it may sound, I’ve never been much of an “innovator” in my game designs; I tend to think about things in terms of evolution and not revolution, although I think it’s great some people think about that and make the great breakthroughs that gaming needs now and again…

For example, looking at Grey, it’s not a particularly original game… It has a series of concepts that I’d call new and original (but it might just be a case of me never hearing of any games using them), like the upkeep mechanism for the creatures, or the fact that the game’s tactics are focused on the creatures we call into being, instead of the main player character (which is common enough in RTS games, but in those cases there isn’t exactly a main player character), but the game is overall “innovation-free’”… it’s an evolution of games (a mixture between a RPG and a RTS)…

The reason for this behavior in me is that I like telling stories in an interactive setting, and gameplay innovation comes second for me; I just try to find established gameplay mechanics that fit the story I want to tell…

The main point here is: is gameplay originality the ultimate end-game for a game designer? Or is it just one of the development lines he can follow?

I don’t really have a good answer for this… Part of me thinks that I should strive to make something more original from a mechanics standpoint, while the other feels the story should carry old-mechanics, albeit it makes me feel less of a game designer…

Let me know your thoughts in the comments!