Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Reflections on books

Reading is Fundamental
As a game designer I feel it's my duty to expose myself to many different schools of through. I try to break away from "videogame culture" (sci-fi movies, fantasy books, etc.), a culture in which many people are insulated. I actively reach beyond videogame culture by reading (er, listening) to audiobooks. I read my share of fantasy books too but the majority of books I read are outside this common culture.

I have often heard the sentiment that true innovations cannot come from within the game development community because all the developers are too entrenched in their own culture. That for innovation to happen, people from outside of games must break through the wall with their new ideas. I think we all just need to make a concerted effort to break out of our comfort zone.

The idea is that I will stimulate my brain in new ways and be able to come up with new approaches to game design. This definitely works, I find myself excited with new ideas and mechanics. Unfortunately time presses on and I never get to work on any of these new ideas. However, I should at least write them down. I am going to be documenting the books I read and how the they inspire me.

The Book
My most recent book was The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. I think the topic of this book is pretty obvious by the title and author. Though I share Mr. Dawkins views, I knew very little of this work. My exposure to him was limited to talk show bits and sound clips. He is often demonized as aggressive but his tone and message in the book calmly metered and insightful. It's a fantastic book regarding the core topic but sprinkled insights that really got my wheels turning.

Rules Change by Size
One of the concepts I was grasped by was how our world view is skewed to human scale. To us water is a liquid to swim in but to a microorganism water is a gel to be burrowed through. To us gravity is the most important force but to a water spider it's surface tension.

It would be interesting to truly change the rules of a game by the scale of the creature you are playing. You could argue Spore did this, but when you are swimming around is Spore the water still behaves and impedes just like a human would expect.

Growing from small to large things that were impediments would become insignificant, things that were too large for you to comprehend would become enemies, etc.

Too Serious
I think the easiest outcome of this exercise is "serious games." I need to push beyond that and find interesting mechanics that would make a very compelling game. Something that communicates the ideas but is still fun to play. I will continue this exercise and try to recall some of the ways previous books have inspired me.

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