No Man's Sky

Reekwind wrote: »

Finding a new species of fish is boring (the second time round at least), finding a new species of fish after your ship plunges into the ocean in a desperate bid to escape a random pirate attack is exciting.

But this is saying that in order to be interesting or engaging something has to be hyper-dramatic or action packed or conflict based, which is a very limiting approach to storytelling and indeed media of any type. Obviously its one of the more effective forms, but there's so much more potential in gaming.

All the games you mentioned, with Minecraft arguably excepted (Minecraft is actually something of an exception in gaming as a whole!), are heavily based on in-depth mechanics and elaborate combat scenarios. That kind of depth is great - dynamic, artful and indeed potentially 'emergent'. But that's only one type of game, one way of building a player-driven narrative. Animal Crossing is mentioned above - there's a game with mechanics no more in-depth or complex than pushing 'A' to chat with someone or buying and rearranging some furniture. But it's been a huge success, millions of people spending hundreds of hours in their own villages with all manner of great stories emerging in the process. Or what of the environmental storytelling of Dear Esther or Gone Home - games whose instructions boil down to 'walk, look, click'. And then there's extreme examples like the recently released Mountain - effectively no player input at all, but absolutely fascinating watching the rock just floating in space and what happens to it. Noby Noby Boy and Curiousity and the like prove that there are players out there who are fascinated by larger 'metagames' and will engage in repetitive actions until to achieve a bigger goal. The latter particularly is easy to mock (so, so easy), but these are all games that show the potential of games to express themselves in a very different way, some in a very successful way.

The mechanics and gameplay of these games are basic, taking seconds to 'master' and understand as opposed to the tens and hundreds of hours demanded by Civilisation and the like. Obviously in terms of raw design and engagement there's more going on in a complex RTS game, but then I tend to find the 'smaller' titles with simpler mechanics can be more atmospheric, emotionally immediate, accessible (not always a bad word!). There are developers out there really pushing what games express and how they do so, and it has been proven a minimalistic approach is one way of doing it. The unexpected narratives that emerge during an epic battle in Crusader Kings or Street Fighter are one type of gaming story, but there's a lot of work to be done in terms of providing a more varied landscape - having games that illustrate the same sort of diversity as the vast differences between Les Miserables, The Old Man and the Sea, 1984 and an Alice Munro collection of short stories, for example.

Put it this way: when you go exploring or traveling in real-life, what is that sticks in your mind? It's the discovery of new sights, sounds, people, places, things. Exploration on its own terms - even if you don't have to navigate through a war-torn country or dangerous environment to get there :pac: - is a wonderful thing. The simple joys of discovery can be some of the most potent 'drama' of all, what will stick in your mind for decades after the fact. When I think back to playing through, say, Assassins Creed Black Flag, the first memory that springs to mind isn't one of the elaborate assassinations I pulled off when all the game's mechanics were put to use - in fact, a lot of that just blends into noise. It's the moment when I casually emerged from a forest and was greeted by a magnificent sweeping valley and a huge waterfall that really stands out. That single beautiful image and the minutes I took soaking it in is so much more memorable than many hours of plundering and piratey shenanigans. If a game like No Man's Sky can capture that feeling on a regular basis, with only the bare minimum of mechanics, then I can see myself losing many hours to it (although I have to admit I have little time, literally, for games with massive time demands - I think there's a whole lot of value in games that can keep me fascinated even for only a couple of hours).

This is all academic of course until we actually play No Man's Sky - it could have in-depth mechanics or none at all and still be fascinating or disappointing or whatever. I look forward to finding out, that's for sure

Unpopular opinion: I actually sort of hated the 'game' part of Skyrim. The uninspiring combat, the repetitive dungeons and bland quest design to me anyway got in the way of exploring the magnificent world they'd created. That's why I'm kind of hoping No Man's Sky offers an option for purer exploration.