Just wondering. Do you think that games based on historical times are worth playing? I don''t mean games like Medal of Honor, and I don''t mean Civilization either due to such a wide scope. I mean to refer to games such as Colonization (Civilization in the 1500s-1700s) and Pirates! Gold. (If you noticed I picked two Sid Meier games, it''s because I haven''t played many other decent historical games from /any/ time period. What do you guys think? Also, though this is secondary, do they sell, as a rule?

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Original post by Anonymouse Poster
What do you guys think? Also, though this is secondary, do they sell, as a rule?

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As a rule, good games sell I know, I know it''s not what you want to hear, but it''s true.
Basically, it''s like when you are in school; one year you''ll be bored to death in a topic, and the next year it''ll become your favourite topic, just because of the way the teacher will present it.
Same with a game. A killer idea can become awfully tedious because the interface suck, because thre are so many stuff that prevent you from playing the fun stuff.

If you look at History there is tons of opportunities to make a good story, tons of characters, events, drama, suspense, love, war, etc.
One of our famous authors (I am French), Alexandre Dumas, spent a good portion of his life writing novels mostly based on historical facts, events, or characters (you might have heard of the Three Mousquetaires ? ) But his genius was in adding the cool factor (Athos Porthos and Aramis are fictional, although d''Artagnan DID exist), and making characters larger than life, he mixed humour and tragedy and suspense and tons of little things that made what could have been a boring historical novel into what his known nowadays as a fabulous adventure.

I hope you get my point

Although I guess some genres are more easy to approach than others... did you have a specific genre in mind ?

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Sancte Isidore ora pro nobis !

Actually, I''ve been drawing up plans for a turn-based game set in the same period of time as 1994''s Colonization, by Sid Meier. Me and a few friends have begun working on it.

And yes, I''ve heard of the Three Musketeers. :D

I first played Age of Empires about 3 years after it was released. It was the historical aspect of the game that really caught my attention. I think adding historical information or learning experiences to games can not only enrich the gameplay, but it is also beneficial for society.

Games have a pretty big social stigma already (consider Columbine/Quake connection, and the "EverCrack" phenomenon). Adding educational elements can help to make the perceived value of "gaming" much more valuable.

And just for the record, I loved Pirates Gold!.

[edited by - fingh on July 22, 2002 2:04:16 AM]

I am on a team that is trying to produce a faithful historical recreation of the ancient greek city states period, online (multiplayer) with both 3d realtime battlefioeld and turn based strategy elements.


http://strateia.org

Its to be a free game because we know that historical games are not that popular, but its what we want so we will do it for those who will love it.

And please stop refering to either age of empires, colonization or empire earth as historical games.
They have about about as much relation to history as my shiny white arse. Actually my shiney white arse has more history than they do

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Original post by bludhall
And please stop refering to either age of empires, colonization or empire earth as historical games.
They have about about as much relation to history as my shiny white arse. Actually my shiney white arse has more history than they do

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LOL
Unfortunately, not everybody has the chance to play board games, which tend to be much more heavy on the details (Although AoK had a few nice little historical background stuff in the manuals, I very happily surprised, I must confess).
I stopped long ago worrying about computer gamers calling Starcraft a Wargame (or even a Strategy game for that matter), or Diablo a RolePlaying game (yeah, sure)...

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Sancte Isidore ora pro nobis !