Uplifting challenge

Sex sells! Been one of the selling points of even the oldest profession since time in memorial. And was a good idea when creator, Toby Gard, had her down in a pencil sketch as he went off to Eidos. However, Toby ended up none the better for his busty creation, and according to this BBC report, the fact that the curves of Lara do tantalise, they maybe a little old hat these days. I remember watching a documentary about the development of the sexy adventurer. Watching grown men fighting over the rights to model the curvaceous creature, and with every new game came a new version with more polygons and more expanded busts. All this in an attempt to make the mainly male dominated society slather over her enough to part with the £40 or so for the game. If you look below, there is a visual timeline of the heroine of many a terrifying capper.

What it all comes down to though in the games industry is not just sell-ability, but the game play itself. At the time Lara was unique, and with the added sex appeal, was a winner. What was a little wrong with it was that it was a second person 'over-the-shoulder' game. It was good, and had great puzzles and scenes and environments, and all, but what was the point to have the selling assets of Lara if all you did was see her back? This is a common situation with many games. How do you make the selling point work in the favour of good gameplay.

Many a games company has a QA department, that tests and tests a game until they are blue in the face, or at least got the highest recorded high score, ever! But the thing is, not all games testers are all games players. have you ever played a game and thought 'Wow!' wouldn't it be cool if it had that, or did this? The big issue in the early days was that the engines wee simply not strong enough to have those capabilities. Even now, with memory the tiling of environments limits the scope of how far you can go. I used to love Medal of Honour. Great game with a sense of excitement. What was off putting is that the action parts were choreographed and there was (if you went on a walkabout) an seemingly invisible force field stopping you going to 'that' building over there. Games would be good if there had this capability, but unfortunately due to time and money and processor power they don't. Even games that do have a lot of open plan environments have to load in sections.

Hence the reason to have games in dungeons, or in space stations, or in confined streets. Because you can create a restrictive barrier more easily. Something that happens with games as does with movies, is that as the years go by and the technological advancements get more, so do the expectations of the people who play and watch these media. Things have to be more faster, more dynamic and more entertaining. When Doom 3 came out, and the closely following Half Life 2, the mode was toward collision based interaction. Being able to go up to any object and interact with it (even if only for the fun of pushing an office chair down the corridor), which was great. It caused a little interest in the game play method, but ultimately didn't enhance the game to any great deal.

Now, I am from the old school of games play (pre-computer). I was excited over chess and Cluedo, and when pong first came to the screen it was a mind blast. after thirty years of seeing the development of games, and playing many of them, I can say it is rare to find a game that 'does something different'. Even with the new Spore game, which has attempted to evolve game play (literally), there is still a sense that there is a track to go along. That the enjoyment is to reach the alien spaceship stage and go off and zap people. So is that what makes it sell? The inherent need for human nature to be destructive? I do remember a game called 'Evo' some years back. I even played with it on a friends console. Was about a dolphin that was trying to save the oceans. Didn't do too well. The principle of the game was great! Have a message about ecology and put it into a computer game.

Does this work though? Do game players give a toss about the environment? Not really, by the sales of Eco. It was in the wrong place and the wrong time. Which is one step down from Lara. Wrong place at the right time. What should be done with game structure and play methods is, if this is a new path, is to define what is the right place at the right time. Is that easy? No sir!! It's not. Too many factors (like anything) have to be considered to make something work really well. However, if we took away such things as demographics, economic climate, technological capabilities, platforms, market trends, etc, etc. If all we had to worry about was game play, what would be the next big thing? What is the future of the virtual reality environment. Big breasts have been done, cliché. Aliens invading earth, cliché. Motor racing, on street or circuit, cliché. Sim this and that, cliché. War, monsters, crime, etc. all cliché. Did anyone ever play 'Pikmins'? Now, when I first saw it and saw the Japanese type influence I though "Oh, no!", but after playing it for an interface evaluation at work, I really found myself hooked. One reason, is because its weird.

In a world were most things (almost everything) is not even close to being original anymore, the best step forward is being weird. Some of the better games out there have been based on the weirdness of their game play; 'Crazy Taxi', 'Return to Castle Wolfenstein', 'Postal', 'Carmageddon', etc. So, it seems that, like the uplifting qualities of Miss Croft's selling points, there are only so many things that can be gained from  convincing people to part with their money (as that is what it's really about), in order to make a game work. After that, the psychology of the human psyche has to be looked at in order to see where our mind is going next. The future of game play is about delivering radicle experience rather than recolouring the same scenes. So, in developing a game idea, don't take a notion of a car game and say "what can we do different?", take a blank screen and try to wipe everything clean to see what you'd really would like to see there.