Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Rewards

My adventures in DS-land are over for now. I played Advance Wars aswell but was left without impressions.

No doubt I'll come back to the DS but I'll give it a rest for now.

Lately I have been thinking about rewards in games. Some games are generous and others aren't. The latest edition of Sid Meier's Pirates! is.

The game is so easy in a satisfying way. My favourite example of this is the Tavern, it is basically an interface with four buttons.
1. Give me free crew (the crew)
2. Tell me where to go (The bartender)
3. Buy cool item (the shady pirate)
4. Give me profitable tip (the bar maid)

As I play Pirates! and other games with lots of rewards I begin to align myself with this philosophy more and more. Games should really be about making the player feel things, positive things. The danger with this approach is depth...

Then again, this only applies for single player games, multiplayer is a hard school of formulas, fairness and anti-cheat.

Play Pirates! if you haven't.