Are all the Best Game designs gone or done?

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aaatoysandmore
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Are all the Best Game designs gone or done?

Post by aaatoysandmore »

I've come to question this because I've been gaming nearly 35 years now and I have to say I think I've seen it all. I really think all the best game designs have been done or are now gone and what we have now are just repeats and remakes of the same ole same ole (at least computer versions). Looking back and around you how many "new" and fresh designs do you see now a days? One of the first rts games I ever saw was called funny enough "Combat Leader" by David Hille back in the early 80's. I bet many of you thought it was Dune 2 by Westwood.

Now, I'm talking about "game design" here not new games.....just simularities in all these new products on the shelf. Let's look at "Pandora" for example, isn't it just another glorified Alpha Centauri clone? Albeit new "graphics" but not a whole lot new to the first game idea of it in the first place. Why, did designers not repoduce more boardgame like games if they were going to copy old computer games of the past? Wouldn't you love to play a Milton Bradley "Dogfight" or "Broadsides" instead of some of this stuff we have today? Games that seem like they would have been so easy to do since they weren't more than a board with some dice rolling and moving small minature plastic pieces around never saw the light of day. We saw games like Monopoly or LIFE come around though or CLUE, but, hardly any of the great board wargames of our times. Wait, I think we did get "Battleship" lol and a "Stratego" (which was quite a lot of fun actually) But, it just seems like someone missed the boat on making the greatest boardwargames of all times into computer versions.

It would seem new designers think they know best when it comes to creating something new and yet they forget we grew up on much better tried and true older games like Squad Leader that I can't for the life of me figure out why someone can't make a clone of that for the computer. Paradox has the rights, but they are just sitting on them.

So, what do you think? What is your take on it? Iain I'd really like to hear your point of view on this? [:)]

BTW whatever happened to "LEGION EMPIRE"? The game you were supposedly going to make after Legion Arena?
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Erik Rutins
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RE: Are all the Best Game designs gone or done?

Post by Erik Rutins »

Completely disagree at least among small design/development teams, each year there are new designs that advance the state of the art, alongside games that revisit old classics. Many of the old classics don't hold up in comparison to the modern "remakes" of those same games because of game design improvements (as well as interface and graphics). In many cases, the "revisits" advance game design in one way or another.

If you enjoyed Squad Leader, you should try our recent Lock 'n Load: Heroes of Stalingrad as well.

There will always be games that feel and play like games you've already played, largely because some game concepts are worth revisiting and updating as hardware and software changes. However, those are mixed in with new concepts and brand new games, at least here in our catalog.

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- Erik
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zakblood
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RE: Are all the Best Game designs gone or done?

Post by zakblood »

for me i always like to look at the brighter side of things, yes some great games i've also played in the past but hopefully there are going to be some great ones in the not so distance future as well, i'm 47 this years so have also been there and played some of if not all the classics, i know of a couple that are in the making now but can't talk about any of these tbh, but look forward to the next few months and years with open eyes and a happy heart.
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Lukas
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RE: Are all the Best Game designs gone or done?

Post by Lukas »

Perhaps an answer is that video game developers usualy have stronger roots (and interest) in video games rather than board games?

Personally I enjoy the creativity I see in some boardgames (mostly at the Essen SPIEL expo) but I have little experience playing them. A lot of boardgames would be quite pointless as computer games IMO, a large part of the attraction is to play them with people in the same room and touch the little pawns, toy figures, etc [:)]. A PC version can never achieve that.
Games that seem like they would have been so easy to do since they weren't more than a board with some dice rolling and moving small minature plastic pieces around

I think you may also underestimate the amount of work that goes into creating video games. All an innovative boardgame design needs is some pen & paper, and perhaps some glue and a pair of scissors. To create the same ruleset in a computer program requires days/weeks/months of work. "moving around" for example may be trivial in real life but is a very complex thing in a video game [:)]
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RE: Are all the Best Game designs gone or done?

Post by zakblood »

ORIGINAL: Lukas

Perhaps an answer is that video game developers usualy have stronger roots (and interest) in video games rather than board games?

Personally I enjoy the creativity I see in some boardgames (mostly at the Essen SPIEL expo) but I have little experience playing them. A lot of boardgames would be quite pointless as computer games IMO, a large part of the attraction is to play them with people in the same room and touch the little pawns, toy figures, etc [:)]. A PC version can never achieve that.
Games that seem like they would have been so easy to do since they weren't more than a board with some dice rolling and moving small minature plastic pieces around

I think you may also underestimate the amount of work that goes into creating video games. All an innovative boardgame design needs is some pen & paper, and perhaps some glue and a pair of scissors. To create the same ruleset in a computer program requires days/weeks/months of work. "moving around" for example may be trivial in real life but is a very complex thing in a video game [:)]

i can remember the same argument with D&D many years ago, but look where that went to, on pc from strength to strength, roleplaying and wargames for me have gone the same way, i love board and pc games, each for their own merits, but never play online on my pc, so it's single player only, so always looking for good to great AI
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RE: Are all the Best Game designs gone or done?

Post by Kuokkanen »

ORIGINAL: aaatoysandmore

I've come to question this because I've been gaming nearly 35 years now
Holy Frak! You have played for longer than I have been alive!
One of the first rts games I ever saw was called funny enough "Combat Leader" by David Hille back in the early 80's.
Hmm... Found it!
... Wait, did you say 80's?
Let's look at "Pandora" for example, isn't it just another glorified Alpha Centauri clone?
Glancing hit. Pandora has hexes, Alpha Centauri has squares. Better comparisons would have been UFO: Extraterrestrials and UFO: Enemy Unknown or Panzer Corps and Panzer General. Or SPWAW and original Steel Panthers.
But, it just seems like someone missed the boat on making the greatest boardwargames of all times into computer versions.
I don't know about the greatest, but some have been turned to computers, and some even several times. Risk comes to mind. Tactical scale scifi wargame BattleTech has two up-to-date digitalized games around: MegaMek and MechWarrior Tactics. Almost certainly there are digitalized versions of some of the analog wargames you'd like to play, but you just don't know about those.
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RE: Are all the Best Game designs gone or done?

Post by Alpha77 »

Imho we dont need completly new designs, because there are quite many already out there. What we need is refinement of those designs and weed out the flaws. Case in point would be perhaps WITP,AE this might be the best game under the sun, wouldnt it be for a weak AI and bad UI... [;)]

But after playing strategy games for ca. 15 yrs I believe the problem of AI is unsolvable. It seems we (or better myself) need to look for online play or PBM (I played ca. 100 PBMs of the Steel Panthers series and its of course another challenge compared to vs. computer). Problem here is with massive games ala TOAW or WITP you need a very open timetable and very reliable playing partners. For smaller games (as the SPWAW example shows) this works ok.
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RE: Are all the Best Game designs gone or done?

Post by aaatoysandmore »

ORIGINAL: Matti Kuokkanen
ORIGINAL: aaatoysandmore

I've come to question this because I've been gaming nearly 35 years now
Holy Frak! You have played for longer than I have been alive!
One of the first rts games I ever saw was called funny enough "Combat Leader" by David Hille back in the early 80's.
Hmm... Found it!
... Wait, did you say 80's?
Let's look at "Pandora" for example, isn't it just another glorified Alpha Centauri clone?
Glancing hit. Pandora has hexes, Alpha Centauri has squares. Better comparisons would have been UFO: Extraterrestrials and UFO: Enemy Unknown or Panzer Corps and Panzer General. Or SPWAW and original Steel Panthers.
But, it just seems like someone missed the boat on making the greatest boardwargames of all times into computer versions.
I don't know about the greatest, but some have been turned to computers, and some even several times. Risk comes to mind. Tactical scale scifi wargame BattleTech has two up-to-date digitalized games around: MegaMek and MechWarrior Tactics. Almost certainly there are digitalized versions of some of the analog wargames you'd like to play, but you just don't know about those.

Yeah that combat leader is the one Matrixgames was making and canx it after about 5 years in the making. The one I'm talking about came out in the 80's by SSI an David Hille.....look it up on Gamers Geek or something like that. It's really old.
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RE: Are all the Best Game designs gone or done?

Post by aaatoysandmore »

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Completely disagree at least among small design/development teams, each year there are new designs that advance the state of the art, alongside games that revisit old classics. Many of the old classics don't hold up in comparison to the modern "remakes" of those same games because of game design improvements (as well as interface and graphics). In many cases, the "revisits" advance game design in one way or another.

If you enjoyed Squad Leader, you should try our recent Lock 'n Load: Heroes of Stalingrad as well.

There will always be games that feel and play like games you've already played, largely because some game concepts are worth revisiting and updating as hardware and software changes. However, those are mixed in with new concepts and brand new games, at least here in our catalog.

Regards,

- Erik

But, aren't they just really designing along side older designs or on top of them? Are they really "new" designs and not just updates or polish?
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RE: Are all the Best Game designs gone or done?

Post by gradenko2k »

Gary Grigsby and Norm Koger really need to outsource their UI work to Shenandoah Studios before we can start calling it on "everything has been done to the best it will ever be"
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RE: Are all the Best Game designs gone or done?

Post by TigerTC »

I think there's a lot of room out there for new game designs.

I love the big picture and hate managing in the GG-WITE style.

I think that there is a new generation of games, like Command Ops and FPCRS, that do great things with commands and orders -- you direct, but your own forces have their own AI. This lets you direct a large number of forces without bogging down in the details.

I would love to fight WWII on the Eastern Front or Pacific at the division/corps level. The AI can track every fun/tank/trunk/soldier. I can give higher level orders and step in to manage where it's important.

Imagine playing something like WITP:AE on a manageable timeframe with more abstract orders. If I want to go to Guadalcanal, I can do so without the mind-numbing detail of the current game.
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RE: Are all the Best Game designs gone or done?

Post by Sarge »

ORIGINAL: aaatoysandmore
Are all the Best Game designs gone or done?
Just a heads up , those classics that broke the mold actually are as Erik stated ……advances in a game design around 600AD called Chaturanga/Chess
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RE: Are all the Best Game designs gone or done?

Post by Rosseau »

Yes, Combat Leader was the cat's meow in those days - tanks like little ants crawling across the screen. A more playable WITP:AE would be great. Although a WIP, CMANO really seemed to raise the bar. Hard to imagine greater realism than that, but it will happen.
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RE: Are all the Best Game designs gone or done?

Post by Agathosdaimon »

even if all the best design has been done (which like music and art is never really a complete thing and often, tried and tested formulas never get old)
however my issue is that - alot of great stuff has been done, but was done back in 80's-late 90's and those games just are not generally accessible

I still hold to this day that Wargamer: Napoleon 1813 - had the best game design concept for an detail yet easy to navigate operational campaign of the massive 1813 period - like taking a page from Nafziger's Napoleon at Dresden that game was - but it was never finished and so released broken

that game design has not been done since and many today do not know about what Wargamer 1813 could have delivered

the tactical battles were enormous really good for top down 2d graphics and the campaign map was beautiful and was very detailed with all its roads and towns and cities and bridges and depots

so, like Wargamer 1813 - some of the great designs have been already, but need to be redone. games like that prob though would take alot of effort to do, but perhaps a new system could do it just as well -like what that new game 'War the Game' will be seeking to achieve
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RE: Are all the Best Game designs gone or done?

Post by zakblood »

quote "and those games just are not generally accessible" end quote

why not?

i use windows 8.1 pro 64 bit and still use a dosbox program called DOSbox game launcher, it will load any old game and lets you configure them for your pc of today, so there not to fast, sounds work and vga screens look fine on a modern card, doesn't make them look any better mind you, but lets you play and save....

so for me everything if you can find it, or own it is accessible :)

as most are freely available online as freeware or abandoned ware etc, so it's not wrong to get them either if you already don't have them.

i horde stuff so have them boxed anyway in the loft and have them all on my hard drive, and still play a few even saying once a month for the odd one :)
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RE: Are all the Best Game designs gone or done?

Post by wodin »

No where near..what I would say though is all risk and experimentation has gone..
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RE: Are all the Best Game designs gone or done?

Post by Kuokkanen »

ORIGINAL: wodin

No where near..what I would say though is all risk and experimentation has gone..
Do you know why? Becouse when something in successful and long standing game serie is changed, fans complain the change. If you care look at discussions about Civilization, Settlers, and Age of Wonders game series, you will see griping and complaining (even in this forum) about new changes and experiments that have been done to the newest games of the series. When game developers are discouraged like that, why should they try anything new and different?
If it ain't broken, don't fix it.
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RE: Are all the Best Game designs gone or done?

Post by aaatoysandmore »

ORIGINAL: Matti Kuokkanen
ORIGINAL: wodin

No where near..what I would say though is all risk and experimentation has gone..
Do you know why? Becouse when something in successful and long standing game serie is changed, fans complain the change. If you care look at discussions about Civilization, Settlers, and Age of Wonders game series, you will see griping and complaining (even in this forum) about new changes and experiments that have been done to the newest games of the series. When game developers are discouraged like that, why should they try anything new and different?
If it ain't broken, don't fix it.

The problem there is they are taking an "old" game design we liked and changing that. That's not the same as experimenting and branching out with something completely new and different from anything we've seen before. That's what's gone is the "New innovations" anyone can take an old game an update it or polish it that has any computer knowledge at all. Modders already do that. We don't need developers working on mods we need "new designs".
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RE: Are all the Best Game designs gone or done?

Post by Kuokkanen »

ORIGINAL: aaatoysandmore

We don't need developers working on mods we need "new designs".
That was easy when video games were new. Walter Bright got inspiration from a movie and made Empire, one of the first digital wargames ever. David Braben and his friend made Elite and rest is history. But those and much more have already been made and done. Discovering "new designs" has become much more difficult and it won't get any easier.
You know what they say, don't you? About how us MechWarriors are the modern knights, how warfare has become civilized now that we have to abide by conventions and rules of war. Don't believe it.

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RE: Are all the Best Game designs gone or done?

Post by gradenko2k »

ORIGINAL: aaatoysandmore
ORIGINAL: Matti Kuokkanen
ORIGINAL: wodin
No where near..what I would say though is all risk and experimentation has gone..
Do you know why? Becouse when something in successful and long standing game serie is changed, fans complain the change. If you care look at discussions about Civilization, Settlers, and Age of Wonders game series, you will see griping and complaining (even in this forum) about new changes and experiments that have been done to the newest games of the series. When game developers are discouraged like that, why should they try anything new and different?
If it ain't broken, don't fix it.
The problem there is they are taking an "old" game design we liked and changing that. That's not the same as experimenting and branching out with something completely new and different from anything we've seen before. That's what's gone is the "New innovations" anyone can take an old game an update it or polish it that has any computer knowledge at all. Modders already do that. We don't need developers working on mods we need "new designs".

The indie scene is still pretty good at this
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