Chapter 24. Guns Butter

Chapter 24. Guns & Butter

Over the course of the 1980s, a public-domain game by the name of Empire gained a loyal following. I am told it was created back in the 1970s, before there were microcomputers. After bouncing around university computer centers for years, people starting porting it to microcomputers.

Over the years, various programmers had steadily improved the game with each design iteration. By the late 80s, there were several commercial versions of Empire for the Mac and PC. Dan White had produced a version for the PC, and somebody else had done one for the Mac. But these designs had clung closely to the core concept of Empire.

During the years 1988 through 1990, the three best game designers in the world each set out to build a conquer-the-world style game based on the classic game Empire, but going well beyond its basic design. Those three designers were Sid Meier, Dan Bunten, and me, and the contrast among these three designer's approaches is illuminating. Each designer set out to create a fun game, but each of us had our own notions of fun.

Sid's was the closest to the conventional gamer. He wanted a game that offered lots of different strategic approaches, lots of variables to keep track of, and a broad strategic integration. When he looked at Empire, he saw a game with a crude economic model, a simplistic military model, no real terrain factors, and no technological factors. He resolved to create a game with more complex versions of each of these models. Note that he did not set out to create more realism; Sid's goal was more intricacy of internal relationships, and he readily bent reality to suit his design goals (as he should have). His result, which came out last, was Civilization, and it was a huge hit.

Dan emphasized social interaction. He looked at Empire and saw a boring solitaire game. He was convinced that you would never get interesting competition from a computer. For really interesting interaction, Dan believed, you simply had to have another human being. He wanted a game with two players pitted against each other, with lots of opportunities for sneaky dirty tricks, cooperative play, and socializing. He produced a two-player telecomm game (the two players connected directly with each other over the phone lines using their modems) called Modem Wars. That game was a commercial flop, although it did attract a small avid following.

My approach was, unsurprisingly, the most intellectual of the three. I looked at Empire and saw a stupid game that said nothing about how the world worked. I wanted a game that would allow the player to explore the interplay between economics and military power. I was sick and tired of games that emphasized clever generalship. Didn't gamers realize that World War II was won in the factories of Detroit, not the battlefield of Kursk? I wanted to show that economic power is the true source of military power.



Chris Crawford on Game Design
Chris Crawford on Game Design
ISBN: 0131460994
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 248

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