Some quick takeaways from Dragon Age:

• Bioware’s best content is so amazing, that people will put up with a whole lot of intestine-crawling* and monster-boxing** to see it.
• While all game genres have to fight to keep up with the technology march, RPGs have it the worst.  There’s obvious strain between technology development, tool development, and designer learning curve.  There should be at least one more Dragon Age this generation.  DA2 : DA :: BG2 : BG?  I certainly hope so.
• “Character” offers a riper field for productive innovation than “plot”.  While The Plot is on rails, everyone’s game experience is unique as a result of their morality intersecting with the NPC’s.  Expect to see more fruitful exploration of character development in future games, as Dragon Age influences developers everywhere.

* intestine-crawling: walking through a hallway that’s been looped back and forth many times in a tight space (usually square) so as to maximize walk distance.  This gives the dungeon more time to digest the adventurer.

** monster-boxing: stuffing monsters into a series of boxes, usually with doors.  Frequently, the monsters have no reason to be in the box, yet do not attempt to leave the box until they spot a curious adventurer.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010 at 10:32 pm and is filed under Game Discussion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.