Weekend Confirmed Episode 58

by Garnett Lee, Apr 29, 2011 11:00am PDT
Related Topics – Weekend Confirmed


Weekend Confirmed Ep. 58: 04/29/2011

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  • So during the Portal 2 talk I think it was Christian who said Portal was extremely linear but it felt open. This was despite the fact that the puzzles really only have one answer. That's great that Valve was able to do this but it got me thinking....

    Why can't a video game be completely open ended? Why does there have to be a predetermined path? Why can't we just be presented with an objective, then given a large set of tools, and then let go to complete that objective?

    I'm just going to throw a scenario out here (albeit not a very good one). Let's say your sister is kidnapped and the ransom is a rare Ferrari car. Your objective is to get the car and trade it for your sister's life. You're given a few clues at the beginning of the game, such as a few people to talk to and an address of a man who owns one of these cars. Now you can go out and talk to the man. He'll tell you you can buy the car from him for 1.3 million dollars. You can then try earning the money by several different ways (such as selling drugs, or building a business, or robbing banks, or buying and selling property). Or you can try to infiltrate his mansion to steal the car yourself. You can talk to people on the street who are rivals to the kidnappers. They'll help you fight your way into their compound, but first you'll need guns. It's your job to get the guns. You'll also meet some people who race for pink slips. You can try to race your way to owning the car by beating a racer who owns one. But first you'll have to race your way up the ranks. I think you get the idea. Simple objective lots of ways to complete it. You could even mix and match these different scenarios to suit your tastes. For instance you could work selling drugs to get enough money to buy guns to get the rivals together to infilitrate the kidnapper's hideout.

    Maybe my idea is extremely ambitous but it's always been a dream game of mine. Thoughts?

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