Seth Gorden

Warren Spector is my new favorite designer, as per the Gamasutra interview I just read.

When asked about the limited processing power of the Wii for his current project Epic Mickey, he said this:

“Constraints always push you to be more creative. I mean whatever the constraints are, whether it’s the constraints of a license, the constraints of a piece of hardware, I mean, no creative act is made better by being constraint free.”

And isn’t it the truth? This man gets it. A few fun facts that support this idea:

The Nintendo Entertainment System revitalized the Video Games industry in America after the Video Game Crash of 1983. It had only 56 colors and a central processor that ran at 1.66 MHz. That’s less than 2 mega-hertz, people.

The most successful game console to date, Nintendo’s Gameboy, had only four shades of gray and central processor that ran at 4.19 MHz. It sold well over 100 million units worldwide.

It turns out that a few bright colors and a couple mega-hertz were enough to revitalize an industry. A few shades of gray were enough to set sales records that top any console since created.

But why was it enough?

As Mr. Spector states, constraints push you. And this not just a lesson for game-makers. In any creative medium, in order to create a memorable experience, one must surprise the audience. And when the creative person or team behind a project takes on some constraints willingly, there are almost certainly surprises in store for the developers as well.

These don’t have to be hardware constraints, but taking on limits is good for any project. It’s a big part of why I’m into modern retro-inspired game projects and the 8bit era. For me, they provide a fun and colorful set of constraints that I personally enjoy. And for the development I do on my own time, they provide a means by which I may actually finish a project, which is always the goal.

I have had ups and downs in my opinions of Nintendo as  a company. But in the long term, they prove to be continually mindful of encouraging creative, accessible games. And the do so, in part, by confidently selecting appropriate limitations for each piece of hardware they create. Some turn out to be ill-timed experiments, but each project need not be a best-seller when you plan for the long term and remain open-minded.

Likewise, their corner stone games like Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda have stuck around because of the creatively focused design of their original titles. After their success was established on the NES, gameboy titles followed that often expanded and improved on upon the originals. They got a downgrade in visuals and an upgrade in gameplay. Players were undaunted by grayscale, because the majority of attention was given to quality interaction. Fun. Quality play makes great games happen, and great games sell a console. I think it’s no wonder the gameboy has never been surpassed.

Additionally, it’s clear that Disney Interactive will benefit from Mr. Spector’s involvement and mindset for Epic Mickey. Can’t wait to see the results of their work.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 26th, 2010 at 10:19 am and is filed under Game Design, Indie Games, Hardware, Game Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.