Whew intense, is how I’d describe the last week!
Now for some more thoughts and design!
Sequels
Break out the poppers, your first game was a hit, and now you have the hankering to make another, so how about a sequel?
Nothing is written that a sequel will come out worse than the original. We have plenty of examples which prove this. As well we have many examples that show us how the abuse of our sequels can also ruin a great game.
Halo, Half-Life, Mario, Gears of War, these are just a few games that have made a hook in the market, whether its for fan boys, for nostalgia, or because its earned its right to stand proudly in the Games Hall of Fame.
What are the benefits of sequels?
An already built engine for one, and one that can be recoded to offer better graphical enhancements, better A.I., offer more poly’s on screen and a whole new campaign for one to join in upon.
What most need to know is how to appraoch such a thing. The most obvious is generally the worst; remaking the originally plot line and merely replacing enemies that are their with something else.
Sure some games have this successful ingredient happening over and over again. This is merely a lot of developers who want to play it safe and go with what had worked before.
Look at the Movie Alien and Aliens for example, in one we have Ripley who must deal with the nasty xenomorph, in part 2 they go from the lone wolf formula to adding a team of marines and explosive combat to complete the movie.
Then there is the Matrix which seems to play upon a “What If” scenario, many feel that only the first movie mattered and all the others were merely there to see cool fights and special effects.
Also bigger = better is not always true. This brings us to our second danger with sequels.
As designers, we should note that an identical rehash may appeal to the hardcore fans, but it won’t bring in new customers, especialy when those customers already have settled themselves to a different base. Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 (gasp!) players won’t all move on over to Halo Reach, just as many of the Halo fans wouldn’t go to a Modern Warfare 3 (small chance of that game now that infinityward is more or less gone).
We run into a common problem with this, generally a major part of the game will be multiplied upon exponentially, the AI must be better, the Graphics must be cleaner, the lighting must burn your eyeballs out of your head!
It looked cool on Gears of War, we’d better make Halo look brown, rugged, and dirty to satisfy those players, or lets make Mirrors Edge, run and jump from roof top to roof top to exceedingly clean utopian cities with its blinding atmosphere and sunshine.
Now I’m not calling these games bad, but as you may note, when one game comes out with a concept, expect another to expand upon it, or to go the complete opposite direction of its style.
Sequels needs its own identity. If you have to make a sequel, think about how you write it, you should treat it as though it were a very brand new game with no attachments to it. Now I’m not saying ignore all those strings that it carries along form its prequel, but write the story with lots of respect towards the characters and of course your audience.
Don’t hop into a bandwagon just cause it seemed like a good idea. Think about it and take your time before making an effort to follow behind other games, or go along and make your own.
This game must stand on its own, it must represent the old while offering something new, different and exciting.
Luckily much work has already been done for us. We merely add new textures, and a few more polys to our characters, add in new shaders, better scripts which offer smoother gameplay and challenging A.I.
If you have bullet time, merely take it and tweak it a little, don’t break what isn’t broken.
As well, as writers, we know our returning characters, and we can welcome the opportunity the sequel gives to expand upon them, add more depth to their characters, but remember that a character should follow their original personality, sudden changes should only be done if a reason is their for it to be done, we don’t want to confuse our players by showing a hardcore character become an whiny little kid.
We know what players enjoy from our first game, we know this by hitting the review boards, reading magazines. From here it is our duty to give them more, plus making sure the game is strong by itself and entertaining.
Remember, we want players to reminisce about the previous game, not play it all over again!
So till next time gamers, take care and GAME ON!