Why Game? 1 - TextFiles.com

so what’s the point of saving after having a
discussion anyway?
Of course, such a unique system is open
to abuse. The final section of the game - which
leads to the final guardian and the ending - will
take no longer than 45 minutes to complete as-
suming you start from that original shrine visited
earlier, and assuming, of course, that you have
all the knowledge needed to locate and defeat
said enemy. The chances of stumbling across
this accidentally are virtually zero, but there will
always be the temptation for some to skip out
on the 40+ hours of questing, visit GameFAQs
for spoilers, and then rush ahead and complete
the game in under an hour.
There are ways to avoid such things, but
the great hope is that the reason for purchasing
the game is not what you find at the end, but
rather the journey you take to get there. Plus, of
course, the final area can have a quiz designed
to test if you’d actually played that far yourself.
For example, there may be a section mid-way
that features some antics on a wrecked pirate
ship; a doppelganger of the ship may be pres-
ent at the end, and if the player doesn’t use his
foreknowledge of said area, then it’s instantly
Game Over. The trick to would be subtlety; per-
haps it’s an entirely different ship, but hopefully
the player will heed the warnings of a naviga-
tor’s ghost met previously, who clearly states
the rules for navigating all future ships. The
point is that they remember and work out what
needs doing. Knowledge is key in this game and
this key is worth more than all the Gil in Midgar.
Another element that slows sequence-
breaking is the presence of red herrings
designed to lead people astray when experi-
menting. If only key elements pertaining to the
quest exist, it may eventually become fairly
easy to stumble across solutions. If you find a
giant statue hidden in the desert, it must obvi-
ously have some importance later on - unless of
course the game is riddled with things to side-
track the player. Just for fun, why not include a
wholly superfluous city floating in the sky? When
players see it, they will be gripped by curiosity,
62 The Gamer’s Quarter Issue #3
desperate to see how it fits into the main quest.
Of course, exploring it will yield little more than
narrative explanations, but such things should
keep players guessing at to what happens next,
and encourage them to “stick to the path” that
they are given.
On the flipside, such things could encour-
age longevity. Since once the main quest is
beaten, dedicated players will be curious to find
the truth behind so many things hinted at past
the main path. In the same way that people
were fascinated by the airships and distant lands
they couldn’t reach in Shadow of the Beast and
the ghost city in GTA, so will they be interested
in the city in the sky. Some may baulk at such
ideas, arguing that there would be no replay
value to such a game, but I argue the replay
value would be greater than in any similar
game. In other RPGs, great set pieces – such as
the coastline battle in FF7 - may require a dozen
hours of play time to reach. But in Szczepaniak’s
Grand Quest, all your favourite set-piece events
are no more than 15-30 minutes away from
the start, meaning you can easily relive “the
great battle of unholy vengeance” that occurs
mid-game atop a floating battle fortress without
having to play through everything else again.
The final game would be delicate, dripping
with atmosphere, and be pure and ergonomic
with regards to controls, real-time combat and
inventory management. An ethereal atmo-
sphere such as that in Otogi, Zelda, or Shadow
of Colossus would be key, since without clear
achievements such as leveling and item acquisi-
tion, the player would need to be motivated by a
sense of exploration and the innate joy received
from piecing together clues. It would almost be
like a Sherlock Holmes mystery for the modern
day, with each clue leading onto another, even-
tually forming a whole picture. Of course, once
you have a certain clue, you can skip past all
those that came before when you next switch on
your ’Cube.
Sadly, such a game will never be made.
Can you imagine pitching it to a publisher?
“Well, it’s like an RPG, but not. And it’s