Vex Appeal is a weblog and collection of projects by Guy Parsons, a game designer, online community and digital strategy dude in London, England. Read more about the saucy butcher boy here.
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101 things in 1001 days
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vexy young things:
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previously on vexappeal:
Let's change the game together! Uff the coff Play And Out Come Play/Time Labs Text, drugs, and rock'n'roll Mashup Mo' traffic mo' problems Do you recall? There was woodchip on the wall project management 101 what the
Modular gaming
Thursday, October 18, 2007
So, you know how the idea of 'episodic gaming' is to break up your usual 20+ hour frag-fests into smaller, more digestible chunks? Well, I'm thinking a bit about modular gaming, which is the opposite - coalescing small chunks of game into a coherent and satisfying whole, primarily using narrative as an intra-game glue.
So, to take the recent Half-Life 2, Episode 2, (Manchester United nil) as an example, it's really a mix of different games tied together through plot:
- combat
- physics puzzles
- driving games
- throwing/accuracy challenges
- and a few more besides
Likewise, people are very excited about dem new-fangled "casual games" - you know, your Bejeweled and iSketch and that kind of thing. I wonder if you could glue these kind of casual games together, though, to become more than the sum of their parts. Some people might say that this would take the "casual" out of "casual game", but I'm not so sure - I think using this style of gameplay in the context of something like Kingdom Of Lothing (basically just a going-places-and-killing-monsters-grind, albeit an hilarious one) could be deeply awesome.
So yes, making a light-but-lengthy web/browser-based game, consisting of a variety of minigames, all tied together with plot and elements that persist for the duration? This, I think, would be worth trying - maybe we'll see Miniclip or Kongregate try it soon...
Labels: arg, casual, games, modular