The Most Exciting Game of 2006
Big trends were at work in 2006. Console hardware followed console software into the realm of gamer niches. Steam continued to push digital distribution for the hard core gamer, with games like Defcon and Half Life: Episode 1. Meanwhile, digital distribution was the primary (and often only) way to get into the fast-growing casual games market, whose leaders dominated with a mix of incremental puzzle game evolution and innovative titles that pushed the definition of casual. Every single person on the planet decided to launch a YouTube for games.
The trend I’m most excited about, however, is the programmer-free game. Small communities of adventure gamers have been creating amateur adventure games for years, using a variety of tools designed to minimize the learning curve and effort required to make a game. These tools have seen active use, and I’ve considered them a fun training ground for aspiring or hobbyist developers.
2006 saw a striking change, in the form of Aveyond. Aveyond breaks the casual game mold: it’s an RPG, reminiscent of old-school Final Fantasy titles. Aveyond is commercially successful, demonstrating a depth to the casual market previously unrealized by many of the larger shops. Finally– here’s the kicker– Aveyond was created entirely by artist-designer Amanda Fitch, using RPG Maker XP.
If you’d asked me, before Aveyond, if someone could make a commercially successful game without a strong programming background, I’d have said probably not. If you’d then asked hey, maybe if they used RPG Maker– then certainly not. I doubt I’m the only programmer who’s turned his nose up at “Game Creation Systems”, not realizing how far they’ve progressed over the years. Beyond specialized tools such as RPG Maker, there are more flexible options like GameMaker, Blitz, and Torque Game Builder. An intelligent and dedicated game developer– regardless of programming background– could create a game using even the more scripting-intensive of these offerings.
What we’re seeing is a dramatically expanding pool of potential game developers. Making and publishing your own game is now easier than getting a band together and recording an album. The outcome for games may bring them closer to music, with its massive, diverse group of creators from every viewpoint, and an audience to match. We’ll not only see better and more diverse games, we’ll also see an acceleration of games as art, and the public struggle with the appropriate role for games among our many mediums. Super Columbine Massacre RPG continues to stir up controversy since its ejection from an early attempt at a Sundance for indie games.
So, what does Aveyond represent? The rise of the artist-designer? The democratization of game development? A new and much larger role for Game Creation Systems? In a year full of questions for gaming (What is next-gen? Will retail disappear? Who’s a gamer, anyway?), Aveyond remains a puzzle as well. Is Amanda Fitch a pioneer for others like her? Or is she a solo star, in a game development arena that will remain cordoned off from its gamer audience? Read these interviews with Aveyond’s creator, and see if you can glimpse the shape of things to come.
January 8th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
Hott.
It’s hard to tell what RPG Maker’s limitations are, but it certainly seems like a steal at $60. I’d like to see something like this serve as an accelerator for serious games.
January 9th, 2007 at 2:47 am
Interesting. What do you see as the areas where serious games need to be “accelerated”? I think of them as military or large corp training things, which have big budgets. I’m totally out of the loop, though.
January 9th, 2007 at 3:00 am
Super Columbine Massacre RPG - wow, I did not know such a thing existed.
I spent a lot of time this weekend playing Bully… not that there’s a direct comparison, but it was kind of a let-down to see how little mayhem you can get into. The worst you can do is be a hooligan (giving wedgies, breaking windows, getting into fistfights), and the most risque thing you can do is kiss the girls (or apparently guys at some point - not there yet). That’s about it. I think they got gunshy over the press and the Hot Coffee scandal.
January 9th, 2007 at 3:46 am
Yeah, I’m thinking more of the small stuff — Ian Bogost’s work at Persuasive Games, for example. Games that function as social commentary, satire, and generally just deal with subject matter that the commercial arena doesn’t cover.
Maybe there’s a better term for those, though.
January 11th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
Bogost is cool– he was one of the first people to speak out strongly against Super Columbine’s ejection from the competition. It sounds like he’s one of very few people seriously thinking about “games as art”, or whatever we’re going to call them.
Game creation systems will help enable more of those. I think early on we’ll see a lot of games that are more interesting for their existence than their execution (like SCMRPG). Once this very early and primitive field finally gets some exploration, the quality will probably improve quickly.