Links, Readings

A Matter of Great Depth

When we talk about ‘depth’ in games we usually mean combinatorial richness. The number of elements in a game that can affect each other in a non-trivial way. For instance, Sid Meier’s Civilization is a deep game because there are so many things that can affect the course of play, ensuring that no two playthroughs are the same. On opposite end of the spectrum you have games like Ron Gilbert’s The Secret of Monkey Island, where you have to move through a set sequence of events in a set order.

This is not to say that one type of game is better than the other. Guitar Hero is a great game even if it has no combinatorial depth whatsoever.

Over at the Guardian Unlimited’s games blog, Keith Stuart has written an interesting article about depth in video games, where he argues against the type of depth displayed in titles like Devil May Cry as “out-dated”. This kind of game, where mastery is a matter of quick reflexes and memorizing long strings of button combinations was more the aesthetic of the arcade scene. Now that games are a comfortable part of the average living room we need to look for different kinds of depth for the “21 century”. He suggests narrative depth (which seems like a 19th century kind of depth to me) and “structural depth”, where individuals configure their experience in a vein similar to classic western RPGs.

Is he missing the point, or is our friend from across the pond on to something?