thread: 2009-09-14 : Subsystems
On 2009-09-14, Ben Lehman wrote:
So, subsystems. In your letter to a friend, you make it sound like each subsystem is a totally standalone thing. But they're not at all like that.
For instance, I had a really neat scene-setting up system in Polaris. All in all, I think it was probably one of the better possible scene-setting-up systems. It just turned out that the game didn't actually need a scene-setting-up system, at all, and that it's presence was gumming up the works of the game as a whole.
So likewise, you could have a really good physical confrontation system, and them mid-stream go "you know, this is really distracting from the rest of the game?" Chuck it.
Likewise, you could have a non-totally-awesome physical confrontation system, that makes afficianados of physical confrontation systems cringe and whine about how lame it is, but it works well with the rest of the game. In it goes!
In other words, we operate as designers in the context of the game as a whole, and all subsystems must combine in order to produce a strong experience of the game as a whole, regardless of their individual quality if you take them out and examine them separately.
You're cool with this, I imagine. But it probably needs to be said alongside this post.
