What makes a great game? I am not an expert in game design, but I posit the following: a great game puts power in the hands of the player. All aspects of the game serve to make the player feel they have power and can influence something in the game. This is what divides games from other media, notably film. Games are special, in that they can present a creative experience to the user that would be impossible with other media.

Engrossing games in any genre have in common that they make the user feel they are powerful within the game world. I mean this not in the sense that they give the player a lot of spells or abilities, but rather in the sense that they put the player in a role that allows them real influence over the path the game takes. Ineffective games, conversely, fail to convey the sense that the user is impacting the outcome of the game.

The greatness of a game is not discrete; it exists on a continuum. Most gamers would have a hard time disputing the greatness of certain games: the Civilization franchise, the Sim franchises, the Grand Theft Auto franchise, the Half-Life franchise, etc.; but most games fall somewhere between Half-Life and Deer Hunter 17. The more the game empowers the player, the closer it will be toward the Half-Life end of the spectrum.

All aspects of the game have to empower the player for it to be a truly great game. Even the aesthetic elements of a game, like its graphics, serve to empower the player. For example, the player will feel more empowered when making a moral decision in the game if the graphics reflect the choice. Lionhead Studios has realized this and has built three games touting this as a/the major feature. (Black and White, Black and White 2, and Fable) Take Fable for example: the fact that the world around your avatar visually changes to reflect the moral decisions of the player gives an immediate feeling of empowerment. It lends a certain weight to the player’s choices which is often missing in electronic role-playing games. Many games, especially first-person shooters are often defined by how photorealistic their graphics are, with each generation of games upping the ante. This also empowers the player, by making the world the game creates more believable, which in turn makes the results of the player’s choices more meaningful.

The most compelling way to emphasize the player’s empowerment is to allow them to use their own creativity and/or problem-solving skills in the game. Many games in many genres have done this effectively (notably strategy games), but I would like to focus on two genres in particular: so-called “sandbox” games and first-person shooters.

Sandbox games represent an entire genre based around empowering the player to create. Sandbox games usually have open-ended gameplay and feature construction as a prominent game mechanic. As such, they do not typically present objectives for the player to complete, so much as they create a sandbox for the player to play in. The Sim games (The Sims, SimCity, etc.) are the typical example of a sandbox game, but there are others; Rollercoaster Tycoon and Civilization are two good examples. In a sandbox game players are usually not trying to beat the game or progress to the next level, instead they are creating something impressive. Even The Sims encourages players to create stories using the game as a tool. This kind of creative play is what makes a great game. There have been a lot of knockoffs of these types of games, due to the overwhelming popularity of franchises like Rollercoaster Tycoon and The Sims. Unfortunately, most of these knockoffs don’t quite understand the creative aspect of the gameplay and they too often make the game objective based, where the player must work toward the next level.

The first-person shooter genre might not immediately come to mind as a genre that empowers players to think creatively, but some successful first-person shooters have done just that, with great success. Deus Ex comes to mind as one example of a shooter that rewarded players for thinking about alternative solutions to a problem. Another, more recent, example is Half-Life 2. HL2 incorporated one of the most realistic physics simulation engines ever put in a game. This enabled the designers to create levels which could only be beaten through some creative thinking on the player’s behalf. It also empowered the player to impact the world in more ways than any other shooter which came before it. In fact, simply interacting with the world proved to be so much fun that a third-party mod was produced, called Garry’s Mod, that was based on non-violent sandbox-like gameplay.

Finally, I would like to mention a much maligned game that, I think, represents a high point in video game acheivement. I am talking about the Grand Theft Auto franchise. Since the first iteration of the series, GTA has broken the mold of how a player should interact with a game. Rather than forcing a player into a channel, GTA strives to provide the player as much freedom as possible, laying out a whole world for the player to interact with. There is a linear story there, to be sure, but the player is in no way confined to the bounds of that story. By enabling the player to interact with the world when, where, and how they want to, they are empowered.

The best games in every genre empower players and enable them to make meaningful decisions within the game. By enabling players to play creatively, the game becomes much more engrossing. Many of the greatest games have been those that gave the player the most freedom to interact with the game. I hope that we will see more games along the lines of GTA, Half-Life 2, and SimCity in the years to come.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 13th, 2005 at 4:41 pm and is filed under game design, games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.