vector poem

Do you remember this place?

This isn’t a standard “old fogey remembers classic game fondly” post though. Ultima IV’s tremendous influence and importance aside, I think for players looking back on it from today, it now exemplifies a value that is quite rare in most modern games: encouragement of the player to engage by using their imagination.

What does this mean though? What does a game that fosters “imaginative engagement” look, sound and play like in 2009?

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A coworker of mine has issued a Call to Arms of sorts on his blog, in which designers are encouraged to create designs that evoke a feeling or conflict not typically expressed in existing games. I’m strongly supportive of this sort of thing – in general violent conflict is a rut designers can fall into and we benefit greatly from spreading our wings outside of that occasionally, regardless of whether the result is marketable. So here’s my take on the conflict between Pragmatism and Romanticism: a game called Sellout.

Sellout is played with the Guitar Hero / Rock Band guitar controller – you could extend the concept to include an entire band, but I wanted to keep the focus small and personal.

Sellout puts you in the role of a busker on a populated street corner. Over the course of a session, different people will pass by who value very different qualities in the music you play. The core loop of the game is about choosing what sort of audience impulses you cater to.

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