21–30 of 87 posts
The RDR2 environment is an amazing horseback camping simulator. Fishing, hunting, beautiful vistas... bliss
Side question, do you think there's a market for this sort of game? Outdoor simulator I suppose?
I don't know to what extent you can remove risk-reward loops without making it a product that can't pay for its own development.
The RDR2 environment is an amazing horseback camping simulator. Fishing, hunting, beautiful vistas... bliss
I first got a PlayStation (1) when I was about 9 years old, and we got Road Rash 3D with it. Looking back the graphics were pretty shocking (though cutting edge at the time). But my main memory is how liberating it felt to leave the race route and just ride around aimlessly for hours and hours, exploring the countryside and the towns and cities you'd discover. I got a lot more out of that than trying to keep up with…
One encounter that stands out in my memory was of driving along a remote road in the middle of the night and coming across a bad traffic collision where a truck had completely crushed a small car along with its driver. Something about the brutal and almost mundane nature of the encounter has stuck with me.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Side question, do you think there's a market for this sort of game? Outdoor simulator I suppose?
See Euro Truck Simulator. These kinds of simulation games have a pretty decent niche community, though I'm not sure they actually constitute a decently sized market. They're really relaxing though, in the right vein. But it's still a balance between reality and the interesting subset of it; having to manually brush your horse with a mouse would be awful, while requiring that you take your horse to a stable every nigh…
That was in Barbie Riding Club.[1]
As someone who brushes a real horse almost every day, it's not that bad with a mouse.
This kind of tiny piece by piece interaction with the world is something I desired in the late 90s, dreaming as a teen, but my rudimentary O(n) skills showed me was beyond the computers of the time. It's gorgeous & I love the potential that brims here. What if something was this complex and well built, but the storyline was removed - the player simply builds their own story, ala DF Adventurer mode.
I'm sure we'll get there eventually, its just much more difficult to write for. Even in Westworld, the interactions were semi-scripted, with packaged "quests" along the way. Some games come close though, the Witcher 3 includes choice-based gameplay with real consequences that last thoughout the game. However the developers still had to explicitly write each scenario as it unfolded.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Side question, do you think there's a market for this sort of game? Outdoor simulator I suppose?
Reminds me a bit of Jeff Vogel's blog post about the first Red Dead Redemption: "What was more surprising, though in retrospect it should not have been, was how instantly attached my eight year old daughter became to the game the moment she caught an unlucky glimpse of me playing it. Of course, it makes perfect sense. This is a game where you own a horse, ride your horse, take your horse out into the brush, find wild…
Kind of a boring dystopia we have here. People enjoying the great outdoors from their climate controlled bedrooms. Good thing they only kept the cute animals in the game and not the mosquitos or black flies.
This kind of tiny piece by piece interaction with the world is something I desired in the late 90s, dreaming as a teen, but my rudimentary O(n) skills showed me was beyond the computers of the time. It's gorgeous & I love the potential that brims here. What if something was this complex and well built, but the storyline was removed - the player simply builds their own story, ala DF Adventurer mode.
I'm sure we'll get there eventually, its just much more difficult to write for. Even in Westworld, the interactions were semi-scripted, with packaged "quests" along the way. Some games come close though, the Witcher 3 includes choice-based gameplay with real consequences that last thoughout the game. However the developers still had to explicitly write each scenario as it unfolded.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Side question, do you think there's a market for this sort of game? Outdoor simulator I suppose?
Reminds me a bit of Jeff Vogel's blog post about the first Red Dead Redemption: "What was more surprising, though in retrospect it should not have been, was how instantly attached my eight year old daughter became to the game the moment she caught an unlucky glimpse of me playing it. Of course, it makes perfect sense. This is a game where you own a horse, ride your horse, take your horse out into the brush, find wild…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
See Euro Truck Simulator. These kinds of simulation games have a pretty decent niche community, though I'm not sure they actually constitute a decently sized market. They're really relaxing though, in the right vein. But it's still a balance between reality and the interesting subset of it; having to manually brush your horse with a mouse would be awful, while requiring that you take your horse to a stable every nigh…
Having to manually brush your horse with a mouse would be awful... That was in Barbie Riding Club.[1] As someone who brushes a real horse almost every day, it's not that bad with a mouse. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjH_tKqipjM&t=186
Ofc, if the game was primarily about taking care of your horse rather than maintanence for riding your horse, it might be fine. But my tastes definitely tend towards the latter.