sandbox design

The New Generation – Part Two: Masterminds

  • Reading time:23 mins read

by [name redacted]

Originally published by Next Generation.

Something is happening to game design. It’s been creeping up for a decade, yet only now is it striding into the mainstream, riding on the coattails of new infrastructure, emboldened by the rhetoric of the trendy. A new generation of design has begun to emerge – a generation raised on the language of videogames, eager to use that fluency to describe what previously could not be described.

First, though, it must build up its vocabulary. To build it, this generation looks to the past – to the fundamental ideas that make up the current architecture of videogames – and deconstructs it for its raw theoretical materials, such that it may be recontextualized: rebuilt better, stronger, more elegantly, more deliberately.

In the earlier part of this series, we discussed several games that exemplify this approach; we then tossed around a few more that give it a healthy nod. Some boil down and refocus a well-known design (Pac-Man CE, New Super Mario Bros.); some put a new perspective on genre (Ikaruga, Braid); some just want to break down game design itself (Rez, Dead Rising). In this chapter, we will highlight a few of the key voices guiding the change. Some are more persuasive than others. Some have been been making their point for longer. All are on the cusp of redefining what a videogame can be.

Spore: Pre-Production Through Prototyping

  • Reading time:2 mins read

by [name redacted]

Maxis Senior Development Director Eric Todd shifted foot to foot as Namco’s Keita Takahashi slowly gathered up his notes and folders, grin plastered to his face, slowed by the occasional autograph hunter. It seemed like every time Takahashi thought he was ready, he realized he had failed to retrieve something else. Eventually he cleared off the podium and exited stage left. Just as Eric Todd stepped forward, to belatedly start his lecture, Takahashi swooped by again to collect one last article before dashing to the hall doors, seeming suddenly preoccupied. Todd blinked at the audience and introduced himself.

“Prototyping”, Todd declared, “is the heart of a virtuous pre-production cycle”. He explained the premise of the lecture – that he would be discussing the value of experimental models before dedicating one’s self to any one approach to a software problem. He then explained that the following would be an “advanced” talk, that would assume you already knew what he was talking about – so he wouldn’t hold back in his explanations or references. Todd rattled off a list of books that the audience might do well reading, to better understand what he was about to say – none of which, it turned out, were altogether necessary.

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