Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
FIGURE 4.11
Naruto
overlays the
architecture of a mod-
ern Japanese city, and
many other places,
with a comic book style.
OVERUSED SETTINGS
All too often, games borrow settings from one another or from common settings
found in the movies, books, or television. A huge number of games are set in sci-
ence fiction and fantasy worlds, especially the quasi-medieval, sword-and-sorcery
fantasy inspired by J. R. R. Tolkien and
Dungeons & Dragons
, popular with the
young people who used to be the primary—indeed, almost the only—market for
computer games. But a more diverse audience plays games nowadays, and they
want new worlds to play in. You should look beyond these hoary old staples of
gaming. As Chapter 3 mentioned,
Interstate '76
is inspired by 1970s TV shows. It
includes cars, clothing, music, and language from that era, all highly distinctive
and evocative of a particular culture.
Interstate '76
has great gameplay, but what
really sets it apart from its competitors is that it looks and sounds like nothing else
on the market.
Especially if you are going to do science fiction or fantasy, try to make your game's
setting distinctively different. At present, real spacecraft built by the United States
or Russia look extremely functional, just as the first cars did in the 1880s, and the
spacecraft in computer games tend to look that way also. But as cars became more
common, they began exhibiting stylistic variation to appeal to different kinds of
people, and now there is a whole school of aesthetics for automotive design. As
spacecraft become more common, and especially as we start to see personal space-
craft, we should expect them to exhibit stylistic variation as well. This is an area in
which you have tremendous freedom to innovate.
