Experimental Video Games
While developing a humble beat ‘em up game (an homage to such classics as Final Fight and Turtles in Time), I found myself in need of a way to organize various scenes. The game would start with a loading screen, transition into a short narrative, and finally cut to the title screen. Once the actual gameplay began, another scene would be needed to keep track of the entities, images, sounds, and other game-related objects for stage one. In keeping with the ethics of object-oriented programming, I decided to make the scenes themselves objects by creating a scene entity with methods for loading, activation, deactivation, and unloading.
Lately, I’ve been wondering if I haven’t developed a bit of ADHD. I have a handful of game ideas that I want to explore and the list keeps growing. The problem I’m facing is how to choose the best ideas and spend time turning them into projects. When I completed the scene entity (which took very little time), I made the decision to design a small game to test its usefulness (which took much more time). It turns out that the scene entity has very little to do with the final game, yet I am left with something much more satisfying.
It took around 12 hours of development (over the course of a month) to create a small game called beatboy. The fundamental principle of beatboy is that it is not actually a video game. I consider it more of a toy than a video game. There are no goals, no scores, no time limits, and is meant for players to customize it with their own sound samples to tailor their own experiences. I was inspired to create such a game by observing how a 4-year-old attempted to play a video game; it seemed that getting a colorful reaction to pressing buttons was more fun than trying to learn the rules. I wanted to create a game that a child could idly “play” and yet somehow still appeal to adults.
Of course, there are already game developers aiming to explore unconventional gameplay, abstract themes, and experimental styles. Using these types of games as reference points, I have tried to keep beatboy minimalist and usable. In particular, I find the works of the following game designers fascinating:
Electroplankton / Nintendo DS / 2006 / Designer: Toshio Iwai-san (岩井俊雄さん)
Noby Noby Boy / Playstation3 / 2009 / Designer: Keita Takahashi-san (高橋 慶太さん)
I Wish I Were The Moon / PC / 2008 / Designer: Daniel Benmergui
The Marriage / PC / 2007 / Designer: Rod Humble
It is a very exciting time for experimental game design. The video game industry as a whole is undeniably maturing at an incredible rate, and I feel that these games illustrate the stepping stones into a new arena of gaming.