Alright, here's a question for all you would-be game designers. Let's assume you became a game designer and, by a stroke of luck, managed to convince the publishers to finance your ideal game. The one you've always wanted to make, and that could open the doorway to you becoming a respected developer.
BUT you have a limited time and a limited budget. You can only create so much content before it's time to ship the game. So here's the question:
Would you rather make your game completely linear, but polish the experience as much as you can? Or would you rather give the player a lot of freedom and variety, at the cost of quality?
If you make the game linear you know exactly the path your players will go through. You can deliver fine-tuned challenges and know what to expect from the player. You also have less content to create, so you can make better-quality content. A good example of this is Half-Life 2, a wonderful game that is essentially linear.
If you make the game more free and non-linear you can give the players lots of choice, and have those choices affect the story, using the interactivity of games to deliver a unique experience. But that means making twice as much content, and with no guarantee that the players will see all of it. Not to mention the fact that, with so much to develop, quality will certainly be compromised. More bugs, less polished graphics, more wonky difficulty curve. Deus Ex or Alpha Protocol are good examples of this kind of game.
Which kind of game would you rather make?
PS yes, I know. The answer to these kind of question is, many times, "it depends". Depends on what kind of story you want to tell, depends on how many resources you have, etc... But let's put all that aside, if you had to choose one or the other on a gut instinct, which would you pick? Also reminding you that this is from the perspective of a game designer. You're putting your name on this game when it's done.
EDIT: since some people seem to be confusing "unpolished" with "unplayable" let me make it clear: an unpolished game would still be, well, decent. It would have more bugs, less handcrafted animation. The game would not be as good as the linear one. That doesn't mean it would be a terrible game.
BUT you have a limited time and a limited budget. You can only create so much content before it's time to ship the game. So here's the question:
Would you rather make your game completely linear, but polish the experience as much as you can? Or would you rather give the player a lot of freedom and variety, at the cost of quality?
If you make the game linear you know exactly the path your players will go through. You can deliver fine-tuned challenges and know what to expect from the player. You also have less content to create, so you can make better-quality content. A good example of this is Half-Life 2, a wonderful game that is essentially linear.
If you make the game more free and non-linear you can give the players lots of choice, and have those choices affect the story, using the interactivity of games to deliver a unique experience. But that means making twice as much content, and with no guarantee that the players will see all of it. Not to mention the fact that, with so much to develop, quality will certainly be compromised. More bugs, less polished graphics, more wonky difficulty curve. Deus Ex or Alpha Protocol are good examples of this kind of game.
Which kind of game would you rather make?
PS yes, I know. The answer to these kind of question is, many times, "it depends". Depends on what kind of story you want to tell, depends on how many resources you have, etc... But let's put all that aside, if you had to choose one or the other on a gut instinct, which would you pick? Also reminding you that this is from the perspective of a game designer. You're putting your name on this game when it's done.
EDIT: since some people seem to be confusing "unpolished" with "unplayable" let me make it clear: an unpolished game would still be, well, decent. It would have more bugs, less handcrafted animation. The game would not be as good as the linear one. That doesn't mean it would be a terrible game.
