On Board Games And Portable Heroes
There's an excellent editorial over at HDRLying called 'Board Games and Portable Heroes: Gaming Accessibility and Ease of Entry in the Modern World' which talks about how games need to change for the modern gamer's time availability.
There's nothing that's that new here in the intro, though it's explained eloquently: "With age, comes heaping responsibility, and diminishing free time. I spend an excess of 8-10 hours at work. Many times I have no time to play games at night time after work, either because social responsibility calls, or I merely feel too drained from the day`s events to undertake a long play session."
But there is an interesting variant for commuting on public transport: "Since I moved to Japan, I began taking the train to work instead of driving, which left me with at least 45 minutes each day with little to do but admire the scenery. Then, at work, I find myself with a couple hours of rest time on my hands, yet again having little to do. Just a few short weeks after taking the job, I found myself bringing a DS to work each day, playing RPGs and long sprawling adventures with little hesitation." So... should game companies analyze commuting trends in different countries to decide what type of portable games to design?
Comments
I am reminded of the NES version of Strider (which really wasn't that good and had little to do with the arcade game).
But one good idea it had was, when the player entered a password to resume a game, the session began with a text story recap. Someone must have written them out for every major stage of the game, which seemed like overkill then, but now seems like the least a development studio could do on behalf of a player who might have to leave several weeks or months between sessions at times.
I have several save files lying around my memory cards with games in various stages of completion that I will probably never get around to finishing, because by now I don't really remember where I've been, what I've done, and what needs to go next in that game, and I keep putting it off, playing new games instead of revisiting old unfinished ones, because of it.
If I ever did go back and play them, I'd probably start over from the beginning anyway. Yet really, a quick recap text would be all that's needed to get me back into playing. Ultimately this is what the words of Navi/Tatl/King of Red Lions/Midna in the Zelda games is for, of course, and it's a good thing they're in there. (However annoying loudmouthed pseudo-hipster game pundits might be in decrying Navi's "Hey! Listen!" Honestly, people will whine about ANYTHING these days....)
Posted by: John H. | May 20, 2007 12:33 PM