Musings of 2012
In case you still have some people around you that make a fuss about the bad influence of "killer games" (as they are called in the German speaking world), consider this (as written in a beautiful essay on game architecture that is totally worth your time to read, but I digress):
Professional Counter-Strike players […] have been known to turn off the graphics entirely because it is “distracting,” leaving only the most minimal in-game representation of walls and floors. In their mind, the surface textures on a game level might be likened to a tennis court with a neon strobe-light floor […]. That narrative skin doesn’t matter because that’s not how the residents of de_dust understand their home.
Not exactly news to me, but it proves that I'm right: good players will see past the metaphors that are painted over the game mechanics. They see the innermost workings of the games, the little cogs and wheels that click into each other – and with that knowledge, they will beat the game.
First person shooters are, in the end, not so different from chess. A complex ballet of action and reaction, of knowing when to go and when to stop. An exercise in spatial awareness.
Those people that are still fascinated by the shiny pixels, the hyperrealistic dirt splattered over nondescript ruins are likely not very good players at all – and mostly too young to play those games anyway.
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Every gamer knows those buildings that are just standing in a level for effect, to make it seem like you are standing in a huge, buzzing city. But whenever you try to enter one of those doors, you just bump head-first into some flat texture.
The thing is – the same thing happens in the real world as well from time to time. Which is exactly why the bldgblog's post on subway air vents disguised as houses has such a gamey feel.
Makes you wonder whether you could reverse that – create levels that seemingly consists of pure facades turn into actual buildings, where stuff is hidden, where dungeons open up. Question is – how do you visualise that? Directly followed up by the question of whether the general public is ready to play games that are meta on some level.
Yes, I should still play Robert Yang's Level with Me.
No, not this one (although it is pretty cool, too). This one:
Oh, the Japanese weirdness knows no bounds.
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