What is exploration?
Exploration is less about physical travel, and more about the mind. It is not only about discovery, but the emotions involved. While our natural instinct is to link a scene to exploration, Shigeru Miyamoto (Super Mario, Legend of Zelda) gives an example of exploration coming from within,
“Imagine the Spirit—the state of mind—of a kid when he enters a cave alone. Going in, he must feel the cold air around him. He must discover a branch off to one side and decide whether to explore or not. Sometimes he loses his way. If you go to the cave now, as an adult, it might be silly, trivial, a small cave. But as a child, in spite of being banned to go, you could not resist the temptation. It was not a small moment then. This feeling must be realized in the game.”
So as designers, we must reevaulate what we see, and learn to understand what brings out these raw emotions. Think of words to describe the scene. For the aforementioned cave, we could say it is forbidden, unfamiliar, cold, dangerous, dim, and isolated. What other words does the cave description bring to mind?
Tags: Design & Analysis
February 6th, 2009 at 1:30 am
[...] Back in 2005, Nintendo president, Satoru Iwata, made a comment about, “a game that’s played by sound and touching light.” It was during a time where he demanded that the industry change and try to create new types of games. I thought about this for several weeks years and formed the basis of Dancing Lights, a game designed around the concept of discovery. [...]
February 6th, 2010 at 10:13 pm
[...] Back in 2005, Nintendo president, Satoru Iwata, made a comment about, “a game that’s played by sound and touching light.” It was during a time where he demanded that the industry change and try to create new types of games. I thought about this for several weeks years and formed the basis of Dancing Lights, a game designed around the concept of discovery. [...]