Essay #2

I’m not sure that I have much of a sense of game design at this point! I have not played many video games in the past. I remember the sense of admiration I had at first encountering an arcade version of Pong in the U of O student union, years ago. Good lord, Pong! I was dumbfounded at the thought that ‘some sort of programming’ could simulate a paddle hitting a tennis ball, and that depending on which part of the paddle it hit, and how fast you were moving the paddle by twisting the knob, you could actually influence the angle at which the ball was returned to the implacable computer opponent. And - just think of it! - this computer could replicate the ball bouncing off of a wall! Pinball machines were on their way out, sad to say. I didn’t spend much time with them, because I wasn’t very good, but I loved pinball machines. The sounds, colored lights, bumpers, and graphics tended to suck me right in. Video arcade games were the new kids on the block, and I wasn’t very happy about it. I still love the graphics on pinball machines, especially the older ones, from before the 80’s, and even further back. I played ‘Asteroids’ a few times, but I never got into Donkey Kong, or Mario Bros. In the 90’s, I did have a home version of ‘F-16: Fighting Falcon’. I was not good at that one either (and usually set the preferences to ‘unable to register damage on my plane’), but I was amazed at the amount of information that the creators programmed into it. The ‘view options’ included zooming in on, or around (360 degrees, outside), the object that your nose radar was locked onto, zooming in on, or around (360 degrees, outside), the missile flight path that you had just launched, and zooming in on, or around (360 degrees, outside), your plane. Any of these views would show the clouds and/or landscape changing, while you were rotating the view. You could also shoot down your own planes or rescue helicopters (resulting in a court-martial), shoot down civilian airliners and strafe beachfront resorts while you were supposed to be practicing inert-bomb-dropping runs in Hawaii, and raise merry havoc on the specialized mission involving a nuclear bomb, by dropping it on your own airstrip just after taking off. This, needless to say, also resulted in a court-martial. You could take off, bail out, and let your multi-million dollar jet simply tumble from the sky, to the chagrin of involuntary taxpayers back home. The inclusion of all this completely unnecessary data left me in absolute awe of the game’s programmers. I never played Myst, either, but remember being impressed with what little I had seen of the graphics, and concept.
I always wondered about the limitation of the single screen. Are there any games out there right now that work with multiple screens? I have always thought that it would be fun to have a large full-cockpit-sized flight simulator of some WWII fighter with flat cockpit windshield panel segments, in which each panel would be a separate display, which would be linked together to a decent CPU, to simulate the experience of flying a WWII fighter, with high-resolution graphics. Vibrations, noise, cockpit movement, oil smells, and very loud sounds of the engine, and .50 wing guns, would be jolly good fun. You could even include a pressure suit to simulate hard turns, as long as there would be programming parameters to not overly tax anyone’s weak heart. Realistic simulations of carrier takeoff and landing would be a very interesting experience, too.
There was another home computer game I played for a little while called ‘U-boat’. The goal was to relentlessly pursue and sink allied ships, civilian or otherwise. I could handle it, because it was relatively slow-moving, but the concept itself was admittedly a little morose. The graphics weren’t bad. I have tended to have some judgment issues with the sanguinary nature of ‘first-person shooter’ games, and yet the two games I have just mentioned were basically just that. I am guessing the reason that I played them is because there are tangible results to the players’ actions, and perhaps that is why I never played ‘Donkey Kong’ or ‘Mario Brothers. I never really ‘got’ them (though perhaps I would have if I had played them), and I was turned off by the simple graphics. Why did I like the graphics of Pinball, but not Donkey Kong? I’m not sure I can answer that. I was pretty impressed with the graphics of F-16 at the time, and not so long ago I looked up a more recent version, and the screenshots were even better. Having never played Super Mario Brothers, I can’t really relate it very well to the creator’s childhood explorations, but I applaud the fact that he was able to continue his childhood sense of creativity. I can appreciate the challenge of designing a game for the general public that will have some challenge, but not too much. There are those who will pick up on important concepts immediately, and those that will not. Sufficiently engaging the interest of both groups would not always be easy.