DD31: Next Gen – An Embarrassment of Polys

[I'm getting on a plane first thing in the morning, so this one get published a day early. Joy!] 

One of the things I like about developing games for handheld platforms is the scope. I cut my teeth writing small games for the Radio Shack CoCo, the Commodore Vic 20 and Amiga 500. In some ways, designing games for the handhelds reminds me of those days.

The scope of the machine is small, you can kind of fit the whole thing in your head. The graphics have very defined limits; you make the best looking game you can within those limits, and you focus on the gameplay.

Which does not bring me to tonight’s topic, by any stretch of the imagination.

The Next Gen. The scope of these machines is…more. The PS3, in addition to being able to heal the sick and travel through time (you wondered how they were going to hit their launch date, didn’t you?) is also purported to push a staggering number of polys per frame. The XBox 360 is no slouch in this regard either.

This was a fact frequently bemoaned at this year’s GDC. You see, most of the time, a human being has to sit down and make all those game objects, filled to bursting with delicious polygons. And that cost money. And sometimes you hear people asking, how much better a game am I going to get for my [$xx Million if you are a Publisher][$60-70 if you are a Consumer].

I mean yes. It is vitally important to the suspension of disbelief that that bush near the front door of the GenBioXConsortium building that you are infiltrating contain more polys than could be rendered in the entire scene in the previous gen. Nobody is arguing that. But at some point (or so the argument goes) we reach a point of diminishing returns. Adding another 20 artist for three years for better looking scenery…at some point the math doesn’t work if the consumer is getting the same old game in a shinier package.

So with tonight’s massive preamble out of the way, here’s a very simple game design idea for Next Gen that actually makes use of every single one of those polys in a game friendly manner.X-Ray Vision.

I was originally thinking about a Superman game, but I find that character boring. Nigh-invulnerable is not a great dramatic device, nor a great game mechanic.

So, focus on the X-Rays. You play a character that, through technology or some fantastic method, finds themselves capable of peering into solid matter.

You construct a city where everything is built with an external and internal structure. Set that army of artists to work. Everywhere the character looks, they can peer into the internal structure of their surroundings. And yes, this includes people. And honestly people, there’s nothing sexy about an X-Ray, so let’s move on.

It’s an FPS/Role playing game in the Deus Ex mold. The gameplay is constructed around this one piece of tech.

It works well for detective/CSI interactions, finding clues, hidden caches, booby-traps, for picking locks..

It’s also great for action games, seeing armed men behind the door ahead, seeing that the thug blocking your way is out of ammo, finding hostages and hidden rooms.

There is also a great deal of room for humor, along the lines of the cutaway shots in the Simpsons, where the camera moves through the house, and shows the skeletons in the walls, the pirate treasure, etc.

And you’ll be making a lot of artists happy and gainfully employed for years.

-game over-

Thanks for reading another action-packed installment of Design a Day. For background on the Design A Day challenge, take a peek here and here.