Good Game Design

[norb]

It is very inspiring to see the success of Minecraft. Here is a game that went against the norm, bad graphics, and instead went old school with innovative game design. There is a game in there that you can play, but that's not what makes it great. It's a game that you can play how you want. It's a giant lego building game, it's a game that allows you to recreate any other game, your favorite TV shows, create any building, any event. It's an open virtual world. It creates a random virtual world for you to explore, destroy, build. Frankly it's pretty amazing and I'm very happy for it's creators. With so much focus on graphics these days, how pretty you must be in order to make it big, it's very heartening to see a team buck the norm and release their game the way they want and achieve huge success.

It's a lot like what we value here at NSD. This is a game the way we thought these games should be made. We wanted a free form camera because we want to see the huge scope of the battles. We want an AI that acts like people, to create a simulation that is a game. To set our own path rather than walk right in the footsteps of those that came here before us.

I love the indie movement created by the direct sales and download of the internet. Here anyone can create any game they want and sell directly to the public.

[con20or]

I agree 100%, games don't have to look photorealistic to be incredible. And yes, Minecraft is awesome!

[Garnier]

And Minecraft is also awesome because it was 100% mod-able from the start. As in, it's relatively easy to extend the game engine code.

[Michael Slaunwhite]

TRUE... It is one of the best games to be made. Anyone create a Civil War mod for it yet?