Are (most) games simply about getting getting from point A to point B? + racing analogy. (A bit of a vague post, but I hope the point comes across. This post is talking about action adventure games, and first person shooters etc. rather than strategy games, although some of the considerations may well apply! And I also know that many modern first-person perspective games have objectives that you need to complete before getting to point B ) Think of games like Duke Nukem 3D and many (old-school) first person shooters, these games boiled down (for the most part) to getting your "character" from the start of a level, to the end of that level. Success came from getting to the end of the level by any means necessary. Is that all there is to it? Surely there is more potential for "meaningful interaction TM" (okay games such as Thief, Deus Ex etc.. make progress in this direction as they have objectives that you have to complete). Consider a racing game, most racing games are about getting from point A to point B, but they measure how well you have done.. ie. if you finish first you get more points than if you finish fourth. They reward the way that you get from A to B. How far can we differentiate between two players getting from point A to point B?

Think about that for a second. Just about everything goes from point A to point B. You wanted to make a post, IE started at point A. Along the way, you thought of what you were going to write, typed it in, and then culmination of all of this was you arriving at point B, clicking the post button and finalizing your message. It''s all part of the goal construct, and what you''re saying is that you want games to have no goal at all. It''d be like spending $40 expecting to get a game and coming home only to be told you had to "make your own damn fun!" Sure you can have different point B''s, (C D, E, and F) and branches along the way (Ca, Cb, Cc) but it''s still the same basic concept: You start somewhere and attempt to obtain a goal. Without goals, games aren''t really games. Even the Sims has a set of goals for you to obtain, and that''s a game about living!

-Bajiroshi

Films used to go point A to point B. Many of the top grossing films now go point A to point C (in otherwords the aim of the main charcater changes part way through the film). It is generally accepted that this makes for a more interesting plot and this kind of thinking could certainly be applied to games.

Dan Marchant
Obscure Productions
Game Development & Design consultant

Bajiroshi I think he''s being far more literal than that. He''s not talking about abstract goals, he''s talking about physically getting from one place to another.

Ketchaval I agree the vast majority of FPS and action/adventure games boil down to exactly that. As one alternative to Point A to Point B gameplay, how about just Point A? For example, an FPS level where you''re defending a fort against thousands of marauding bugs, Starship Troopers style, trying to survive long enough to catch the rescue shuttle.

That''s just an example off the top of my head, anyone got any others?

Oh boy, my mistake. Talk about things flying right over one''s head -.-; Sometimes I wonder how I even manage to speak english.

Well in regards to what he actually meant, I must say that any way you look at it, you pretty much have to move in games to generate any sort of interest. If you were to eliminate forward direction, what else would you put in it''s place? If you destroy that second location, as in what Dobbs mentioned with the Space Invaders type gameplay, where''s the fun? Killing aliens would bring little or no sense of accomplishment, because as soon as you''re done with one wave there''s the next one to deal with. Eventually you''d get the airship, but what''s after that? More aliens and another ship? Some people get kicks out of highscores (I do too) but that sort of gameplay just isn''t going to make an interesting game for very long. There are really only two areas for this, you''re either moving or you''re not and not moving tends to lead to boring repetitive gameplay that leaves no value except maybe replay, trying to break a high score.

-Bajiroshi

MMORPG''s are a type of game that don''t follow that as much... Basically you just do as you please, set up a shop, go exploring, train a skill or 2, have meetings, etc.. the goal is basically to become well known or really whatever you want your goal to be..

In general if you give the players options on how they want to beat something then the game will feel less like a point A to point B journey... because A and B become fuzzy because of all the A''s and B''s in between

Please visit Turt99 Productions

It comes down to objectives, games like Duke Nukem 3d / Wolfenstein / Doom have the objective get to point B, and point B takes you to the next level. The objective itself is quite simple, the fun comes from overcoming the obstacles (ie. the enemies, or physical barriers like broken lifts) on the way to point B. How you overcome the obstacles is usually up to you.

In these games, you "win" if you get to the end of the level. You lose if your character gets killed.

Other games like Space Invaders (as Dobbs and Bajiroshi mention) and Robotron only let you win when you complete the objective of killing all the enemies. Instead of the objective being get to point B, it becomes survive until you have killed all the enemies.

These types of game objective do not allow the player to fail them, and continue further into the game. The player cannot progress further into the game unless he / she has reached point B, or killed all the enemies.

I used the example of the racing game, because it relies on one objective get to point B. But, the way that you do this matters (ie. how fast you do so). In most of Wolfenstein-type games all that matters is that you get to the end of the level. I''m trying to suggest that even such a simple goal as get to point B could be made more interesting by making how you get to point B matter.
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Very few games don''t use this bases of progression. The idea of a lot of games is to get from point A to point B. The only ones I can think of that don''t use it is Grand Theft Auto 3/Vice City, and various MMORPGs.
It''s depending though, how do you look on getting from A to B? Is it the fact you need to work your way through a level to that point, or that you need to get to that point in a game (not nessarly the level). But if you look at a story board of most games, then they will need to look at it from going to A to B, or even going to C, D, E etc.

Wolf [ Neil Sweeney ]
:: some comment here?

Life == Journey A to B

Hmmmmm...........

Tetris, Breakout, Pong, Asteroids.........


Note I haven''t read any of the posts.