ID:48405
 
Keywords: design, game
About 12 years ago, the Nintendo 64 was released with one outstanding feature over its predecessor: it was highly 3D graphic capable. It reflected, in many developers' eyes, a new era of game design - now that everything was in three dimensions, clearly we were one step closer to bringing games into reality.

Now, it's 2008, and we have games like the Disgaea series, Odins Sphere, Peggle, and Puzzle Quest which make a far more profound point: 3D graphics are just one possible way to express a game, but in capable hands the 2D is capable of presenting a game that's just as good.

I would go even further than that. It seems to me that two-dimensional games have the advantage of not having all that unnecessary bloat that goes into a 3D game. We may live in a three dimensional world, but in terms of playing (let alone designing) a game it's just a lot easier to deal with two dimensions.

In other words, two-dimensional gaming is actually better, at least in terms of intrinsic gameplay quality that can be presented to the player for the same amount of effort exerted by the developer.

Perhaps BYOND is a whole lot closer to the cutting edge of game development than many people realize.

Harnessing the power of abstraction.

If 2D game design is that much more powerful than the 3D rut we've been in, then how about trying to forward the state of game design?

There's many ways one can do this. In terms of the kind of game I would like to develop, I'm thinking of tackling two major concepts that are still very much in development.

The first is emergence, the idea of a game that progresses in an unexpected manner. This involves the opposite approach one normally applies to a game: define rigid rules and forbid overpowering them. Instead, we give the players and/or the other elements of the game a lot more power and allow the world to mutate freely. The result may be a mess, but it would be a very significant feeling one.

The second is flow, the idea of presenting to the players the perfect mixture of challenge at all times. A game that is too easy will bore a player, a game that is too hard will frustrate them. The trick is to teach the game how to measure where the player is, and set the pressure to the right place.

The nice thing about these two concepts is that they do not impede each other.

Emergence exists on the outer layer of a game design. This layer is not what the player does, but rather the consequences of their action. That this layer exists is very much what excites people about online worlds.

Flow, on the other hand, exists in the inner layer of the game design. It is what the player does - it deals with the direct interaction of the player with the game. This layer is implicit to all games, and (for many) it is the appeal of gaming.

As always, the key is in the implementation. Good ideas are just the start. Bringing them into being, not just barely but instead in a manner that delights the player, is the hallmark of a game design master.

I'm not a game design master, but there's no harm in holding myself to high standards.
Great article. I agree with just about everything you said.

It's nice to get some more people into the BYOND community that can logically talk about the inner working of what makes a game great.


I've always been more of an experimental developer than a practical one. I've been making BYOND games for about 2 years now, and I've primarily tried to try that which hasn't been done before, or take existing commercial games and remake them in new directions. (And with how fast the industry is growing these days, thinking up new gameplay concepts is a hard job to do.)

I've read over your blog. Sounds like you're going to become a great member of the BYOND community. Welcome to realms BYOND the norm!
Thanks very much for saying so. Looking at your profile, I have to say you've made a very impressive collection of games.

I hope to release my first soon, and demonstrate that these high aspirations in game design of mine are more than just lip service.
Dwarf Fortress would be another excellent example of a game that wouldn't work well in 3D.
Dwarf Fortress is 3D. ;)

What's the definition of 3D here? All the recent command and conquer games have been 3D, graphically, but in terms of the engine and core gameplay, are basically just 2D.
I'd say my definition of 2D would be in terms of game mechanic, which would be why Odins Sphere and Disgaea are up there even though they do attempt to create an illusion of 3D in their graphics.

Dwarf Fortress is an interesting example in that they started 2D, but then they pulled an extra dimension with stacked 2D maps. At that point, they were more 3D than many 3D games were in that they made good use of the additional dimension.
look at zelda.... it all started a 2d game... and now its a great 3d game... zelda is one of those games that would work any way shape or form... *idea just struck me*
~why not create a zelda game for BYOND?~
i might start one when im done with my current game
After skimming your post as it loaded in my browser, I realized I'd struck gold.

Also:
look at zelda.... it all started a 2d game

Yes, a 2D game with a large number of different enemies and great challenging combat. Now it's a 3D game with very few enemies per game (discounting the puzzle bosses), horribly uninteresting and tedious combat, and Tingle. Zelda is the perfect example of what was good in 2D, what just didn't translate to 3D, and what is so disappointing about the whole 3D revolution which the gaming industry just will not give up.
3D gaming rhetoric certainly came about sooner than the Nintendo 64; raytraced 2.5D computer games have existed since the late eighties, and the first full 3D textured-and-lighted computer game -- Quake -- predated the N64 in America by several months (and Japan by one day). 3D acceleration was still blossoming at that time, and the advent of the 3D gaming console was more or less a gamble, because hardware-accelerated 3D at that point was largely in flux.

History lessons aside, I tend to find that hardcore space simulation games in particular are considerably more fun if they are constrained to a two-dimensional plane.

Worrying about six degrees of freedom -- pitch, yaw, roll, lateral, longitudinal, and dorsal momentum -- is a pain in the butt, particularly when lining yourself up for the most mundane of tasks. Docking in Frontier: First Encounters is a twenty minute learning curve by itself, and extremely unforgiving; either you do it perfectly, or your ship explodes and it's back to loading a saved game. Independence War 2: Edge of Chaos is widely considered one of the most frustrating true-Newtonian 3D sims out there, due to its hit-or-miss combat. Oolite is somewhat more forgiving than either, since it is a 4DOF simulation (pitch, yaw, roll, longitudinal), but even it is still very difficult to handle.

Drop that all down to three degrees of Newtonian freedom -- yaw, lateral, and longitudinal -- and everything becomes simple and entertaining. Games like Escape Velocity: Nova, Flatspace II, Wazzal, and their ilk are often a blast to play because though they aren't 3D, battles are simple and are a game of strategic manoeuvre moreso than spending ten minutes trying to line yourself up for an optimal shot that may never actually be possible before you're shot down by a missile!
No need to bring too much history into this. We can probably one-up the birth of 3D computer applications all the way back to WW-II basement artillery calculation mainframes - some of the first computers in existence. Then we can move off of computer applications, into artistic use of perspective, and probably even dig up something in ancient Greecian math.

I'd probably stop somewhere at the point of suggesting ape brains must have evolved the means to use crude tools in three dimensions. Then the anti-evolutionists would be invited to offer an alternative view and there goes the neighborhood. ;)

So lets not go there. Instead, the whole reason I mentioned the Nintendo 64 was I was saying there was a point where 3D became accessible to a wide range of developers, and computers were finally powerful enough to produce 3D rendering in ways that excited them.

It was around that time that the jump from primarily 2D games to 3D games became the overriding theme in commercial software.

The bold suggestion I was making is that this emphasis on 3D may have been a gimmick. Much like movie-including games was popular with the widespread introduction of the CD-ROM. (Although Wing Commander III and IV were fairly awesome.)

Now, I think 3D is wearing thin enough that 2D games are making a comeback. Yet, I'd probably stab somebody who took away my video card and thereby prevented me from playing Fallout 3 when it was released.

I guess what I'm really saying here is that 3D is just one means of expression. Some artists may paint in oil on canvas, while others might sculpt first and then paint. Sculpture can be harder to do, but both types of art generate the same kind of enjoyment.

Not that you're disagreeing here. Your point that many 2D space sims seem to be more entertaining than the 3D ones is (in my opinion) absolutely right.

I can see you're a fellow fan of the space sim. I've played every one of those except Oolite and Wazzal. I've often thought that there was a lot more that could be done with Flatspace or Escape Velocity. Since I've been on a bit of a game development vigilantism kick lately, maybe that'll be my second or third BYOND game.

(You should try out DarkStar One if you haven't yet, that's the last good 3D sim I've seen and it can currently be had for a song.)
im sorry but you are mistaken, evolution is a lie.

and yes, tingle is retarded. ocarana of time is one of the greatest games ever made. i didnt even finish the twilight princess.
There's precious little difference between lie and theory, but woe to the one who cannot see it.
IainPeregrine wrote:
Yes, a 2D game with a large number of different enemies and great challenging combat. Now it's a 3D game with very few enemies per game (discounting the puzzle bosses), horribly uninteresting and tedious combat, and Tingle. Zelda is the perfect example of what was good in 2D, what just didn't translate to 3D, and what is so disappointing about the whole 3D revolution which the gaming industry just will not give up.

I have no particular preference for 2D or 3D (the only preference I have as far as games go is good and fun). But if you ask me, all the early Zelda games sucked, actually most Zelda games just sucked, but that is besides the point. I think Wind Waker (a 3D Zelda!) was my favourite.
I forget it's name (maybe Links awakening?) but it was a Zelda game on the Gameboy where you had to collect instruments. Oh god. It was without a doubt the worst Zelda game I have played, the story hardly existed, music and graphics were not noticable at all (at least I didn't remember them), and worst of all, it's gameplay was horribly dull.
Zelda hasn't done much with 3D at all, really. There's the occasional puzzle which makes use of the Z-plane, and camera control is employed as an additional hurdle for the player to overcome, but aside from that Zelda is still fundamentally a 2D game in a 3D space.
Geldonyetich wrote:
There's precious little difference between lie and theory, but woe to the one who cannot see it.

Not in the scientific sense.

Plus, evolution is a fact and a theory. ;)
Expert Novice wrote:
im sorry but you are mistaken, evolution is a lie.

Oh, the naive make the rest of us giggle. =)
On topic: I finished Portal recently. That is, I think, a game that just wouldn't work in two dimensions - even more than FPSes, it's just not as fun without three degrees of freedom.

Definitely a matter of what's suitable for a given game, though, which is what you seem to be saying - 3D isn't 'better' than 2D.
Don't mess with Darwin, my grandpa was a fish.

i told some girl i know that people evolved from jellyfishes and she FLIPPED. it was hilarious!
Why did you bring this topic back? It's been dead for months.

Also, your ignorance of how evolution works is hilarious.
I oft wonder how it is that obscure old posts of mine are sometimes found and dug up. Perhaps they're viewing the news in reverse chronological order. More likely it was a search result.

I don't think that he really believes human evolution worked off of jellyfishes so much as he was getting a rise out of someone by suggesting it did.

My suggestion of there being a thin line between theory and lie was mostly intended to jog a skeptic's mind in a positive direction. When you can see that theories are mere theories but nonetheless conductive to climb to build a better understanding of the universe, you're at the point where you can understand the right or wrong of evolution is largely a moot point.

Science is ultimately all about finding the truth through theories, not to forward theories as truth. To find theory to be absolute fact is to refuse to accept any alternate theories, and is inherently self-limiting in pursuit of the truth. Alternately, to simply call evolution a lie is to completely disregard merit in the existence of theories at all. Though a theory may progress to the point where one may act as though it were fact (e.g. "Scientific Fact") the best of scientists understand that adherence to any absolute is ultimately self-limiting.

So, I don't really approve of turning this comment thread into a debate about whether evolution is theory or fact because there's little point to it. I don't want to see anyone being put down here. It's both, alright? The only way to be wrong about this is to be such an extremist to refuse to adapt to either possibility.

In any case, that the topic shifted so easily to evolution off of an offhand comment about how far back you can take 3D mechanics just goes to show that butting heads over cultural hot buttons can easily overshadow abstract intellectual pursuits such as betterment of game design.