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>A growing pile of video-game histories [...] suggest that the medium has always had collective effort at its heart, from its academic beginnings to its ascent

by prvc 5y ago

>A growing pile of video-game histories [...] suggest that the medium has always had collective effort at its heart, from its academic beginnings to its ascent into everyday life. In Meier’s memoir, we discover that he was a good game-maker when he fought this essential fact, but that he became great when he learned to embrace it. >The strength of the modding community is, instead, the very reason the series survived. Oddly, the best games to bear his imprimatur, Civ II, and (by far) Alpha Centauri, were not headed by Meier. It does seem like games, of all things, would have the potential to be at their greatest under the vision of a single author, but history has shown the opposite (many times, after designers of successful games go on to head their own projects with total control, the results fall short of their predecessors). Part of this might have to do with the possibility space of game states (far too great for a single person to test, explore, or even conceive of), and also the complexity involved in programming a complete game. However, another explanation is that it is still possible to achieve greatness via that approach, and we merely have not had any genius game designers so far.

toyg 5y ago
I think that's just like the fact that John Lennon did his best work in The Beatles, or that George Lucas's best films are the ones where he was challenged by collaborators. Once art requires a certain amount of diverse techniques in order to be produced, the chances that a single individual will excel in all of them fall dramatically.
- dataduck 5y ago
  I don't even think there needs to be more than one "technique" - think of all the authors that are worse without an editor. It's about not having any pushback, and missing your blind spots or getting high on your own supply.
- TeMPOraL 5y ago
  Makes me think about Gene Roddenberry, too. The more I learn about history of Star Trek, the more it seems that Roddenberry was a bit over-the-top with his ideas. If he got his way with everything, the show would be quite cheesy (the way Andromeda is). Star Trek's golden era (TNG/DS9/VOY/ENT) is the result of other producers pushing back on Roddenberry's influence, and after his death, increasingly subverting some of his ideas. (Of course over time things strayed too far from the original vision, and the result is the post-ENT crapfest that carries the official "Star Trek" name, but is otherwise a generic action movie franchise. A strange situation, in which the only work still sticking to the deep and hopeful vision of the future is the little animated show that everyone thought will be a joke.)
  - sprafa 5y ago
    Basically it seems like having a strong inventor with a good original idea, then mixing it with other peoples influences even AGAISNT that original inventor’s intent, is a good way to get cool stuff.
  - hef19898 5y ago
    Lower Decks is good, it is done by people that really liked the old ST series. Sometimes, I am not sure if it is mocking some of the ST tropes, like the two-hand punch, space anomalies and so on. Still light years better then Discovery (which is totally not cannon in my mind).
    - TeMPOraL 5y ago
      I love Lower Decks. It's definitely mocking and lampshading plenty of Star Trek tropes, but it does that in a playful and positive way. It laughs, but doesn't trivialize - and unlike the other new shows (Discovery, Picard), it doesn't paint the future as grimdark and everyone as untrustworthy and bloodthirsty.
      - hef19898 5y ago
        Picard wasn't too bad actually, I think. Maybe a tad to gritty / realistic when compared to TNG. It did offer a plausible universe development so, incl. Picard sacrificing his career for principle.
        toyg 5y ago
        Picard was aimed at people who were teenagers or twentysomethings at the time of TNG, and 30 years later are now disillusioned adults. It had to be "all grown up and shit". I found it pretty good, if occasionally predictable.
        hef19898 5y ago
        So I am the target audiance then. Especially since I consideres TNG to be too optimistic already as a teenager.
- nickik 5y ago
  This discussion is just silly. Claiming anything about art in general is gone be wrong. Sometimes a singular vision leads to something great. Something it doesn't. Sometimes a single vision contained by bureaucracy leads to something great. Sometimes a vision helped along by others creates great things. Sometimes nobody has any vision and they somehow end up with something amazing. Sometimes you have a bad vision and others turn the core of your idea into something awesome. There are literally tons of examples for all of these. We have 10k+ years of human history of art.
Torwald 5y ago
> It does seem like games, of all things, would have the potential to be at their greatest under the vision of a single author, but history has shown the opposite I have to disagree with you here. Both Civ II and Alpha Centauri were headed by a strong single author. As were both the original Civ and Civ IV which I and many others would see as the best manifestation of the game. We can also see this outside of the Civ franchise. Think of Super Mario, Popoulous, Doom/Quacke, Sim City, Elite – just to name a few. Great games were made by great Designers, yes, single authors. Very much akin to big movies or fantasy novels.
- prvc 5y ago
  >Popoulous, Doom/Quacke These examples, at least (the others are a bit outside of my knowledge), fit the pattern outlined above of having worse successor projects headed by a former team-member.
  - Torwald 5y ago
    By your own words Civ does not fit that pattern, because you said Civ II was the best instance. Now I am unsure what your point is.
- Deestan 5y ago
  > Doom/Quake Doom was a tense collaboration between Carmack and Romero. Carmack was geniusing out the engine, while Romero was pulling hard on the game atmosphere, music, level design and details like the timer that spawned Doom's speedrunning culture. Quake, which was Romero-less, was a technical masterpiece, but not a very memorable game. There was the brown level, the other brown level, and the brown level again but different. Its modding potential plus competent network code really made it a big hit.
  - tome 5y ago
    > the timer that spawned Doom's speedrunning culture Could you elaborate on that? I'm aware of speedrunning (it's fun to watch!) but I don't know anything about "the timer".
silvester23 5y ago
I'm really no expert on game designers but from the top of my head I can think of at least one that I would describe as genius, namely Chris Sawyer who made Transport Tycoon and Rollercoaster Tycoon almost single-handedly. If that's not genius, I don't know what is.
- blindluke 5y ago
  He coded those games single-handedly AND in x86 assembly. Yep, that's a good example of a genius, right there.
  - thom 5y ago
    Braben too, for similar reasons.
    - colinb 5y ago
      Braben & Bell, no?
      - thom 5y ago
        For the original yeah, but Frontier seemed an even bigger achievement by Braben alone. Last game I can remember fitting on a single floppy.
        BeetleB 5y ago
        Frontier was a massive game, and I was in awe at how he packed so much in a single floppy.
  - clydethefrog 5y ago
    Has there been any interviews or analysis how he managed to do this and where he is now? He just seems to be disappeared.
    - 5y ago
Bobylonian 5y ago
Claims that Alpha Centauri or Civilization II were best games are over exaggerated - I have never understood why people had to make such controversial claims and why they have to continue to do so. IMO, they were unappealing games slapped on top of a very simple concept of first Civilization, that had unique component among all the strategy games - digital encyclopedia - long long time before wikipedia. That was one of the reasons why I started to learn English. As for Civilization II - it sucked hard and if anyone feels insulted about this claim, then they really have to sit down and shake their brain box to remember if that Windows monstrosity of Civilization II was really that great. Sure, videos of advisers was new technological advance, which very quickly became nuisance and then were turned off. Music was initially great, but after a while I had to play Civilization II without it, unlike Heroes of Might and Magic II, which had the greatest music and was proper full screen game for Windows(and DOS!!!). Not to mention, that there was great strategy game of Master of Orion 2: Battle of Antaris. And then there was a Civilization clone - Master of Magic - with had a very successful following as Age of Wonders. Anyway, I can still enjoy first Civilization(even with that nasty bug, that glitches Earth map in late game), because of Genius simplicity of a game, but can't say the same for Civilization II even if I had fun when I played it, because usage of Windows GUI in Civilization II will feel outdated and very unappealing, which only later Civilization titles fixed. As for Alpha Centauri - it was not as widely available as Civilization II and technical specifications were ahead of most of PCs, when most of them were not powered by latest Pentiums. That sucked, as I really wanted to play that game(hence the discussion about greatness is more limited, unlike about first Civilization), but by the time I was able to get a hold on it, it was already outdated(and unplayable due to Windows compatibility and color paletting issues!!!), compared to other games that were released at that time.
- billfruit 5y ago
  Civilization games to me looks be like a software representation of board games. They are not simulations, and they are very gamified. It certainly feels good to play them, but after sometime with it, one might get a feeling that these are really board games with overcomplicated rules, and really nothing ambitious about them (I am speaking of games Civ 3 and upwards, the ones before are technologically remarkable considering the era in which they were made). One other hand if you take XCOM in its various incarnations, it does have a very compelling game play loop, with very consequential decisions to be made, and the combination of tactical decision making at battle level and the long term factors in the overworld is a very interesting one. In short, we do need to reassess if Civilization games are indeed great games, considering that they are unqualfyingly praised in much of the discussion.
concordDance 5y ago
I don't think I'd agree, the best games in terms of concept and fun (as opposed to polish like Witcher 3) are those with essentially one or two people making the fundamental game. Things like Slay the Spire, factorio and Rimworld had 1 or 2 people making the game what it is, with some later folk adding some polish.
- bspammer 5y ago
  Don’t forget that the most popular game of all time, far outperforming billion-dollar studios, was written in about a year, in Java, by a single dude. There’s something very beautiful about that. If it was part of a book or movie you’d roll your eyes.
- selimthegrim 5y ago
  For a second I thought you literally meant Polish
vanderZwan 5y ago
I think it matters whether or not you look at games that are a single "work" or games that are part of a series. For example, I think Lukas Pope is a good modern example of single author creating really unique and novel games. Civ 2 and Alpha Centauri on the other hand are more like good examples of fresh ideas being injected into a series under new leadership.
- selimthegrim 5y ago
  It’s debatable whether Obra Dinn is a video novel instead, although you can argue it predicted the recent Columbo revival
  - vanderZwan 5y ago
    In my opinion Obra Dinn is an interactive radio play with graphics. Hyper-radio, if you will. However, my definition of what can be considered a game is also quite broad, and Obra Dinn clearly has an interactive game loop so I think it counts.
- gruez 5y ago
  >Civ 2 and Alpha Centauri on the other hand are more like good examples of fresh ideas being injected into a series under new leadership. I didn't play civ2, but what fresh ideas did alpha centauri bring?
  - vanderZwan 5y ago
    Well, for example the terrain-manipulation mechanics are much more fleshed out, due to it aiming to be a "hard sci-fi" game with terraforming and xeno-biology. It even has a simple terrain-based weather model where (for example) the shadow-side of mountains have less rainfall, influencing fertility. There was the ability to do unit customization (which actually could get a bit overwhelming to teenage me), which came from other 4X gamee set in space I guess. Another thing is that Civ 1/2 didn't really have very strong differences between nations gameplay wise (if you played as them, enemy AI is a different story). That really started with Alpha Centauri and its ideological factions being partially represented by their gameplay strengths and weaknesses. The way it balances an implied a grander sci-fi narrative through these ideological factions and quotes from their leaders on the one hand, and gameplay mechanics affecting how these factions evolve with the development of new technologies on the other was novel and hasn't really been equalled since imo.
kryptiskt 5y ago
I love Civilization, but I think the most singular thing Sid Meier ever did was Pirates. It's weird that there are so few attempts to modernize/rip-off that concept out there.
- samsolomon 5y ago
  Pirates! and Railroads! were both loads of fun. Railway Empire has a lot of the same mechanics as Railroads! but with much better graphics a little added complexity. I don't that many video games these days, but Railway Empire is one I find myself going back to play again and again. Would be nice to see someone do the same for Pirates!
tannhauser23 5y ago
Shout-out to Brian Reynolds, who was the lead designer on both Civ 2 and Alpha Centauri!
dgb23 5y ago
Jonathan Blow did that. Braid was a very successful, disruptive, beautiful, well designed game. The Witness was actually mind-blowing.

by prvc 5y ago

toyg 5y ago

I think that's just like the fact that John Lennon did his best work in The Beatles, or that George Lucas's best films are the ones where he was challenged by collaborators. Once art requires a certain amount of diverse techniques in order to be produced, the chances that a single individual will excel in all of them fall dramatically.

dataduck 5y ago
I don't even think there needs to be more than one "technique" - think of all the authors that are worse without an editor. It's about not having any pushback, and missing your blind spots or getting high on your own supply.
TeMPOraL 5y ago
Makes me think about Gene Roddenberry, too. The more I learn about history of Star Trek, the more it seems that Roddenberry was a bit over-the-top with his ideas. If he got his way with everything, the show would be quite cheesy (the way Andromeda is). Star Trek's golden era (TNG/DS9/VOY/ENT) is the result of other producers pushing back on Roddenberry's influence, and after his death, increasingly subverting some of his ideas. (Of course over time things strayed too far from the original vision, and the result is the post-ENT crapfest that carries the official "Star Trek" name, but is otherwise a generic action movie franchise. A strange situation, in which the only work still sticking to the deep and hopeful vision of the future is the little animated show that everyone thought will be a joke.)
- sprafa 5y ago
  Basically it seems like having a strong inventor with a good original idea, then mixing it with other peoples influences even AGAISNT that original inventor’s intent, is a good way to get cool stuff.
- hef19898 5y ago
  Lower Decks is good, it is done by people that really liked the old ST series. Sometimes, I am not sure if it is mocking some of the ST tropes, like the two-hand punch, space anomalies and so on. Still light years better then Discovery (which is totally not cannon in my mind).
  - TeMPOraL 5y ago
    I love Lower Decks. It's definitely mocking and lampshading plenty of Star Trek tropes, but it does that in a playful and positive way. It laughs, but doesn't trivialize - and unlike the other new shows (Discovery, Picard), it doesn't paint the future as grimdark and everyone as untrustworthy and bloodthirsty.
    - hef19898 5y ago
      Picard wasn't too bad actually, I think. Maybe a tad to gritty / realistic when compared to TNG. It did offer a plausible universe development so, incl. Picard sacrificing his career for principle.
      - toyg 5y ago
        Picard was aimed at people who were teenagers or twentysomethings at the time of TNG, and 30 years later are now disillusioned adults. It had to be "all grown up and shit". I found it pretty good, if occasionally predictable.
        hef19898 5y ago
        So I am the target audiance then. Especially since I consideres TNG to be too optimistic already as a teenager.
nickik 5y ago
This discussion is just silly. Claiming anything about art in general is gone be wrong. Sometimes a singular vision leads to something great. Something it doesn't. Sometimes a single vision contained by bureaucracy leads to something great. Sometimes a vision helped along by others creates great things. Sometimes nobody has any vision and they somehow end up with something amazing. Sometimes you have a bad vision and others turn the core of your idea into something awesome. There are literally tons of examples for all of these. We have 10k+ years of human history of art.

Torwald 5y ago

> It does seem like games, of all things, would have the potential to be at their greatest under the vision of a single author, but history has shown the opposite I have to disagree with you here. Both Civ II and Alpha Centauri were headed by a strong single author. As were both the original Civ and Civ IV which I and many others would see as the best manifestation of the game. We can also see this outside of the Civ franchise. Think of Super Mario, Popoulous, Doom/Quacke, Sim City, Elite – just to name a few. Great games were made by great Designers, yes, single authors. Very much akin to big movies or fantasy novels.

prvc 5y ago
>Popoulous, Doom/Quacke These examples, at least (the others are a bit outside of my knowledge), fit the pattern outlined above of having worse successor projects headed by a former team-member.
- Torwald 5y ago
  By your own words Civ does not fit that pattern, because you said Civ II was the best instance. Now I am unsure what your point is.
Deestan 5y ago
> Doom/Quake Doom was a tense collaboration between Carmack and Romero. Carmack was geniusing out the engine, while Romero was pulling hard on the game atmosphere, music, level design and details like the timer that spawned Doom's speedrunning culture. Quake, which was Romero-less, was a technical masterpiece, but not a very memorable game. There was the brown level, the other brown level, and the brown level again but different. Its modding potential plus competent network code really made it a big hit.
- tome 5y ago
  > the timer that spawned Doom's speedrunning culture Could you elaborate on that? I'm aware of speedrunning (it's fun to watch!) but I don't know anything about "the timer".

silvester23 5y ago

I'm really no expert on game designers but from the top of my head I can think of at least one that I would describe as genius, namely Chris Sawyer who made Transport Tycoon and Rollercoaster Tycoon almost single-handedly. If that's not genius, I don't know what is.

blindluke 5y ago
He coded those games single-handedly AND in x86 assembly. Yep, that's a good example of a genius, right there.
- thom 5y ago
  Braben too, for similar reasons.
  - colinb 5y ago
    Braben & Bell, no?
    - thom 5y ago
      For the original yeah, but Frontier seemed an even bigger achievement by Braben alone. Last game I can remember fitting on a single floppy.
      - BeetleB 5y ago
        Frontier was a massive game, and I was in awe at how he packed so much in a single floppy.
- clydethefrog 5y ago
  Has there been any interviews or analysis how he managed to do this and where he is now? He just seems to be disappeared.
  - 5y ago

Bobylonian 5y ago

Claims that Alpha Centauri or Civilization II were best games are over exaggerated - I have never understood why people had to make such controversial claims and why they have to continue to do so. IMO, they were unappealing games slapped on top of a very simple concept of first Civilization, that had unique component among all the strategy games - digital encyclopedia - long long time before wikipedia. That was one of the reasons why I started to learn English. As for Civilization II - it sucked hard and if anyone feels insulted about this claim, then they really have to sit down and shake their brain box to remember if that Windows monstrosity of Civilization II was really that great. Sure, videos of advisers was new technological advance, which very quickly became nuisance and then were turned off. Music was initially great, but after a while I had to play Civilization II without it, unlike Heroes of Might and Magic II, which had the greatest music and was proper full screen game for Windows(and DOS!!!). Not to mention, that there was great strategy game of Master of Orion 2: Battle of Antaris. And then there was a Civilization clone - Master of Magic - with had a very successful following as Age of Wonders. Anyway, I can still enjoy first Civilization(even with that nasty bug, that glitches Earth map in late game), because of Genius simplicity of a game, but can't say the same for Civilization II even if I had fun when I played it, because usage of Windows GUI in Civilization II will feel outdated and very unappealing, which only later Civilization titles fixed. As for Alpha Centauri - it was not as widely available as Civilization II and technical specifications were ahead of most of PCs, when most of them were not powered by latest Pentiums. That sucked, as I really wanted to play that game(hence the discussion about greatness is more limited, unlike about first Civilization), but by the time I was able to get a hold on it, it was already outdated(and unplayable due to Windows compatibility and color paletting issues!!!), compared to other games that were released at that time.

billfruit 5y ago
Civilization games to me looks be like a software representation of board games. They are not simulations, and they are very gamified. It certainly feels good to play them, but after sometime with it, one might get a feeling that these are really board games with overcomplicated rules, and really nothing ambitious about them (I am speaking of games Civ 3 and upwards, the ones before are technologically remarkable considering the era in which they were made). One other hand if you take XCOM in its various incarnations, it does have a very compelling game play loop, with very consequential decisions to be made, and the combination of tactical decision making at battle level and the long term factors in the overworld is a very interesting one. In short, we do need to reassess if Civilization games are indeed great games, considering that they are unqualfyingly praised in much of the discussion.

concordDance 5y ago

I don't think I'd agree, the best games in terms of concept and fun (as opposed to polish like Witcher 3) are those with essentially one or two people making the fundamental game. Things like Slay the Spire, factorio and Rimworld had 1 or 2 people making the game what it is, with some later folk adding some polish.

bspammer 5y ago
Don’t forget that the most popular game of all time, far outperforming billion-dollar studios, was written in about a year, in Java, by a single dude. There’s something very beautiful about that. If it was part of a book or movie you’d roll your eyes.
selimthegrim 5y ago
For a second I thought you literally meant Polish

vanderZwan 5y ago

I think it matters whether or not you look at games that are a single "work" or games that are part of a series. For example, I think Lukas Pope is a good modern example of single author creating really unique and novel games. Civ 2 and Alpha Centauri on the other hand are more like good examples of fresh ideas being injected into a series under new leadership.

selimthegrim 5y ago
It’s debatable whether Obra Dinn is a video novel instead, although you can argue it predicted the recent Columbo revival
- vanderZwan 5y ago
  In my opinion Obra Dinn is an interactive radio play with graphics. Hyper-radio, if you will. However, my definition of what can be considered a game is also quite broad, and Obra Dinn clearly has an interactive game loop so I think it counts.
gruez 5y ago
>Civ 2 and Alpha Centauri on the other hand are more like good examples of fresh ideas being injected into a series under new leadership. I didn't play civ2, but what fresh ideas did alpha centauri bring?
- vanderZwan 5y ago
  Well, for example the terrain-manipulation mechanics are much more fleshed out, due to it aiming to be a "hard sci-fi" game with terraforming and xeno-biology. It even has a simple terrain-based weather model where (for example) the shadow-side of mountains have less rainfall, influencing fertility. There was the ability to do unit customization (which actually could get a bit overwhelming to teenage me), which came from other 4X gamee set in space I guess. Another thing is that Civ 1/2 didn't really have very strong differences between nations gameplay wise (if you played as them, enemy AI is a different story). That really started with Alpha Centauri and its ideological factions being partially represented by their gameplay strengths and weaknesses. The way it balances an implied a grander sci-fi narrative through these ideological factions and quotes from their leaders on the one hand, and gameplay mechanics affecting how these factions evolve with the development of new technologies on the other was novel and hasn't really been equalled since imo.

kryptiskt 5y ago

I love Civilization, but I think the most singular thing Sid Meier ever did was Pirates. It's weird that there are so few attempts to modernize/rip-off that concept out there.

samsolomon 5y ago
Pirates! and Railroads! were both loads of fun. Railway Empire has a lot of the same mechanics as Railroads! but with much better graphics a little added complexity. I don't that many video games these days, but Railway Empire is one I find myself going back to play again and again. Would be nice to see someone do the same for Pirates!

tannhauser23 5y ago

Shout-out to Brian Reynolds, who was the lead designer on both Civ 2 and Alpha Centauri!

dgb23 5y ago

Jonathan Blow did that. Braid was a very successful, disruptive, beautiful, well designed game. The Witness was actually mind-blowing.