Over at Gamasutra, Tynan Sylvester has written an interesting article on Decision-based Gameplay Design. I like the principles of what he’s talking about and they echo my ideas on Interaction Density.
There is, however, a tone that I found surprising and wondered if it happens a lot in this type of article. Perhaps I’m guilty of this myself and should look at my own pieces again in case this is so. What I’m talking about is a tendency to see things as exclusive. The following quote shows what I mean:
“The ace that gaming has up its sleeve is that it gives the player opportunities to make decisions and then observe the results of those choices in a consequence-free zone. This is why people play videogames instead of watching movies.”
Now as far as I’m aware, people do not play games instead of watching movies. They may spend more time playing games than watching movies, but all the game players I know watch movies too. He also generalises and implies that all people play games instead of watching movies, which we know is not the case.
Also, strangely, the three examples he uses (Counter-Strike, Starcraft and Bejewelled) are not games that appeal to me, so although I appreciate what he’s saying about decision-making, part of me now wants to find good examples in the games that I do enjoy.