{"id":968,"date":"2010-12-19T13:01:48","date_gmt":"2010-12-19T13:01:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/positech.co.uk\/cliffsblog\/?p=968"},"modified":"2010-12-19T13:01:48","modified_gmt":"2010-12-19T13:01:48","slug":"sense-of-progression","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.positech.co.uk\/cliffsblog\/2010\/12\/19\/sense-of-progression\/","title":{"rendered":"Sense of progression"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Increasingly I find myself drawn to games that have a sense of progression, a feeling of permanence, or some other &#8216;value&#8217; beyond the immediate sensation of fun. I guess I&#8217;m a pretty ambitious, and long-term thinking person, so that naturally spills out into my gaming habits. I want my gaming time to be an investment.<\/p>\n<p>Generally, my games have failed in this area. The very name of GSB suggests that it is pointless, a one-off bit of fun, to be enjoyed purely for the spectacle and the giggles. There is a high score table for the survival mode, but there are no achievements. There are unlockable items, but not a huge proportion of the options are locked. The game is more like a chest full of toys, than it is a linear, scripted and proscribed ladder.<\/p>\n<p>Obviously there are gamers who prefer that. You&#8217;ve probably seen Dara O Brian lamenting the fact that he buys a game, but isn&#8217;t allowed to play it?<\/p>\n<p><object classid=\"clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000\" width=\"640\" height=\"385\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0\"><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\" \/><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/eG3aHvPG6H8?fs=1&amp;hl=en_GB&amp;rel=0\" \/><param name=\"allowfullscreen\" value=\"true\" \/><embed type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" width=\"640\" height=\"385\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/eG3aHvPG6H8?fs=1&amp;hl=en_GB&amp;rel=0\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\"><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n<p>However, although I have some sympathy with that view, I also think that the worst cases of it can be worked around. I always remember my frustration in the D-Day landings part of Medal of Honor. After 15 deaths, I thought &#8220;Why the hell doesn&#8217;t the game kick in a script where a nearby soldier drags me to safety at this point? We all know I failed metaphorically here, so let me continue with the fun.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The design of my next game is very much in flux, it&#8217;s more like GSB than any other of my other games, but it is not a straight GSB sequel or spin-off. It might be, in some ways, a bit simpler, but it will also have a lot more possibilities in others. It will have more of a feeling of progression than GSB did, and I am pretty sure it will be all the better for it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Increasingly I find myself drawn to games that have a sense of progression, a feeling of permanence, or some other &#8216;value&#8217; beyond the immediate sensation of fun. I guess I&#8217;m a pretty ambitious, and long-term thinking person, so that naturally spills out into my gaming habits. I want my gaming time to be an investment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-right\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Continue Reading&#8230; Sense of progression<\/span><a class=\"btn btn-secondary continue-reading\" href=\"https:\/\/www.positech.co.uk\/cliffsblog\/2010\/12\/19\/sense-of-progression\/\">Continue Reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-game-design"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.positech.co.uk\/cliffsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.positech.co.uk\/cliffsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.positech.co.uk\/cliffsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.positech.co.uk\/cliffsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.positech.co.uk\/cliffsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=968"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.positech.co.uk\/cliffsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":969,"href":"https:\/\/www.positech.co.uk\/cliffsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/968\/revisions\/969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.positech.co.uk\/cliffsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.positech.co.uk\/cliffsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.positech.co.uk\/cliffsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}