Talbet Fulthorpe

"Here Be Dragons" is the continuing project of Todd Furmanski. He is using procedural generation to create an eerie greyscale world for the user to explore. What this means is that the terrain and its floating inhabitants are all generated in real time. No two users will have the same experience as they will potentially generate different environments as the explore. This also means the game world is infinite and will generate new areas as the user travels further away from the starting point.

It is easy to get excited about the technology employed in "Here be Dragons", but what I particularly enjoy is the stylistic constraint Furmanski has employed. The minimal approach to visual information in the piece is refreshing and inspiring. Perhaps as a byproduct of the technology employed the world is simplistic, but still manages to draw the viewer in and engage their sense of exploration. Not only does the viewer find themselves in an infinite play area, but the visual style does not allow accurate jugement of distance, leading to a timeless and dreamlike experience.

I am finding in my research into virtual spaces that the most interesting projects often do not accurately reproduce the real world, instead opting to embrace digital constraints and offer something unseen and new.

Two games that have caught my attention recently are "Spore" and "Little Big Planet". Both are scheduled for release in 2008, and both are set to offer a new opportunities for gamers that can potentially change the way games are played and percieved.

SPORE

Spore is being designed by Will Wright, famous for games like Simcity. His new game offers an unparalleled level of interactivity. Players must control the development of an entire race, starting as a single celled organism and evolving to an entire race with space travel capability. This goes beyond city building, asset management and war games, but combines elements of all 3 into something unique. Players can design characters with 4 arms or no arms, they not only build cities, but they will also need to design the architecture. And if Will Wright is on task, the whole process should be balanced in a way that allows in depth gameplay, with easy to learn controls that make it fun and accessible. This game is an important development as it allows players to experiment and explore in an environment that does not restrict creativity. While the game is still goal oriented, the goals set by the game are very loose (i.e. evolve) allowing players to set their own goals. The release of Spore will assist in changing perceptions of what gaming can accomplish. Games and applications which allow exploration instead of targeted problem solving present new challenges, and appeal to an expanding demographic. My work with gaming engines is solely based around exploration and removes goals (which is why I wouldn't call it a game). I am eagerly awaiting this game and the attention it will draw to alternate styles of gaming.

LITTLE BIG PLANET

Little big planet is a physics based side scrolling action game. It is vastly customizable and aims to create a game world where players create content for one another to keep the game challenging and interesting. Level editors for games are nothing new, but they are usually complicated and the average gamer will have little desire to investigate level building tools. Level editing has traditionally been a time consuming process with a steep learning curve. However, in Little Big World the controls for playing the game are linked to level creation seamlessly. As you learn how to play you also learn how to design your own levels so that anyone can generate original content. Players can download and play other peoples levels allowing for a customizable game experience that is expandable in scope. Inevitably, the user generated levels will challenge players in ways that the developers had not anticipated. This is an important direction for gaming because traditionally, goals and winning conditions in games have been both linear and static. A very large part of Little Big World will be the creation of new levels, shifting the direction of the overall game. Building new levels will also have a very tangible result. In most games the only thing to do after winning is to start again from the beginning, Little Big World will offer constant expansion and additional challenges.

I feel that both these games will offer new ways to play, and can be used as tools to enhance creativity and encourage non linear exploration rather than linear quest completion. The sense of exploration has been a ongoing development for the games industry, and will eventually assist with the promotion of virtual environments. For virtual heritage projects to succeed, they must avoid marketing themselves as games, they cannot meet the expectations of dedicated gamers yet. But as the gaming market expands and encompass titles such as spore and little big world, perceptions of what a game can encompass will also expand to assist the reception of 3D worlds that are not games, but still warrant investigation.

A colleague I was working with last week told me about a program called Quest 3d. I have been looking at some of the tech demos and it is a very impressive program. Unlike the torque engine, which is code based, Quest 3D is visual and uses a nodal structure similar to shake or maya. Using the template nodes, it appears quite easy to quickly set up a detailed virtual world.

The program is targeted at the architectural industry, but it would seem that the developers have quite a bit of experience in developing game engines. I don't think Quest 3D would work particularly well as a games development platform however, as the node structure would make it difficult to develop AI routines and path finding (unless this is already built in). However it may be perfect for what I am developing as I do not require AI or goals based completion of levels.

The only problem, and it is a fairly large problem, is that Quest 3D costs at least 5 times as much as torque with the basic package starting at 999EUR. A drop in the pond for architects, but out of my range.