Entry #9: Lights! Camera! Action! and Set Design

So, where were we? Oh, that's right: Animation. This month, I'll discuss the use of in-game animated sequences to add richness to your adventure game world and—

What? Why are you looking at me like that?

Two years? TWO YEARS?!? Has it really been TWO YEARS since my last Adventure Architect installment? Yikes. Okay, I guess it has been a while.

It's not possible to make a completely solipsistic video game. A designer can't make a game that is purely personal expression; she must give the player something to do, or it's not a game at all. As a result, the tao of game design can't be described in a single sentence or a unitary idea.

The tao must partake of the eternal yin-yang of the player and the designer. Without the player, there is no game. Without the designer, there is no game.

This article is about a different genre of gaming: one that is less a problem of real-time physics and more to do with puzzle-solving and creation; less about creating an interesting general system for the player to toy with and more about specifically scripting everything the designer wants to happen. It's less about creating an interactive reflex-rewarding world, and more about telling a specific story.