Raban- I don't understand how that's not basically a movie that you just happen to move an avatar around in. Games should offer some sort of challenge, whether it be of the reflexes or the mind. Something that doesn't shouldn't be called a "game" in my opinion, and the people who make and enjoy them should be drummed out of the hobby.
Hmm. We have different definitions for what a game is. For certain, my favorite kind of games are the ones that offer cognitive challenge, because I feel like I gain something for the time I spent mastering it. But in my opinion, games are simply about interaction. The kind of interaction involved is up to the developer, and I think it's to the benefit of the whole of game design that we explore all kinds of interaction before settling on just one.
The problem is your taking your personal opinion and then sort of grafting it onto the public which doesn't really work without some data to back it up. What you described might work for you but I have a feeling it would not work for the masses.
Can you point specifically to where I did this? I don't actually care about what is marketable or saleable to the masses, though I'd be very interested to see how a game like Call of Duty would be received if the only player action available was movement.
There are cinematic games that lower the gameplay quotient to achieve a better story element. Heavy Rain whatever somebody thinks about it I believe does a good job of this. I could add games like the Walking Dead or Journey and some others to the list. But there is no current evidence to suggest that the people who play Call of Duty, Gears of War, Halo, Uncharted, etc are looking for this. They like the action mixed with setpieces and linearity. Because forum types may not like it doesn't mean the masses don't.
These two games are ones that I feel could be better with less mechanics. Simply because the mechanics that are there aren't deep, or engaging in even the slightest bit (to me). Every single one of your interactions in those games REQUIRES the context of the story to be meaningful or significant. I feel like that's straight-up bad game design, when a game needs to tell you why what you did was good or bad. As a player with an understanding of that specific game's mechanics, you should know already.
Every action I make as the player should be important and take precedence over anything else going on. I'll give an example of how Heavy Rain failed to do this, for me. In the intro of the game, I spent a lot of time interacting with the environment, opening shelves, playing with the children, and I found it genuinely interesting how much detail is there. However, at the crux of the introduction, during the mall scene where you are looking for Jason and find him outside across a street, the game robs you of your control. With how realistic the game had been leading up to this part, I feel like it was inconsistent that I couldn't just walk into the street and flag the car down, rather than watch helplessly as the story took over.
Speaking to my friends who finished it, they've told me that later on the game puts you in charge of rather significant events in the narrative, but that part frustrated me enough to lose all interest in playing. This is a premiere example of how Heavy Rain, and many other games, rob the player of their importance in a game to service the telling of a story, while simultaneously sacrificing consistent game design. Another much simpler example would be to look at a game like Call of Duty, where you can shoot many people, but shooting your teammates does nothing. That is
inconsistent game design. Without the story being present (this specific assembly of polygons and texture map is your FRIEND), it wouldn't make very much sense.
I also wouldn't necessarily use that thread made by Ruzbeh to denote anything other than nostalgia and an inability to accept that the world changes and things aren't always going to be what you want them to be.
my mistake
In full disclosure never played Esther although I've heard it described enough from the types who love game as art.
You have played it. You mentioned Journey earlier. The two games share the same exact design. The main difference being that you are rewarded with audio cues in Dear Esther, and visual ones in Journey. The only mechanics in both games is movement, though Journey has the addition of a jump, I'd classify that as movement.
I apologize for the wall of text, I tried to be concise.
EDIT: I just thought of another way to explain what I'm trying to say. In the games I've mentioned, Heavy Rain etc., the reward for completing a gameplay scenario is a non-interactive cutscene. In actually good games, the reward for completing a gameplay scenario is
becoming better at the game.
