Exploring

See that screen there? It may be rough and unfinished, sketched out hastily, but what that represents is a small part of an entire world. I painted that screen, I named the characters, put graffiti on the wall and decided what that graffiti stands for and why it was done. I littered the ground with a newspaper, and I wrote a news story about a company in that world. I named the shop, gave it a reason to exist and a personality. This is my world. Sometimes people are allowed to visit it, and I have had plenty of help in creating it, but the fact remains that at some point I decided I wanted to create a world, and this is what I created.

For me, this is the most rewarding part of making games.

Deus Ex remains one of my favourite games to this day, and one of the reasons is because the world is very well characterised. It may be set in the real world in the future, but it is littered with news articles, emails, companies and non player characters, all with personalities and opinions. Enemies in Deus Ex aren't just there to stop you from collecting cherries - they stand for something, they've joined a side and they give the world character. You can pick up a book in the game and read it - often this will have nothing to do with the game's story at all but it builds the world, fills it up with life and detail.

Planescape: Torment is another one of my most favourite games, and this does a similar thing. When you walk around the street, talking to various civilians, you will find they stand for something, they have ideals and personality quirks and they are interesting. When you fight someone in Torment, you aren't just fighting faceless enemies. You're fighting creatures who belong to something, who play a role in the greater scheme of things.

For me, one of the greatest things about an adventure game is the ability to explore a world. I want to learn about the secrets a designer has hidden, I want to know more about the main character by hearing what they have to say when I ask them to look at things or try using two things together. For me, adventure games represent the opportunity to really discover worlds; a backdrop is no longer simply a scene to shed blood against or build a base on, it is a living, interesting location that I can walk through and experience.

This is something I've been trying to keep in mind more and more as I work on games. Build a location, breathe life into it and make it mine. I want people to feel the same excitement that I feel when I walk through a new world, taking in the sights and talking to it's inhabitants. I want to give players the chance to really explore an environment, not just build rooms simply to house a few more puzzles.

Perhaps, some day, I'll figure out how to do it well.